Cloud Security For Dummies

... after reporting. An Update on Security and Anti-cheat. ​ Balance Changes​ ARC... to 5/s. Augment​ The Cloud of Renewal effect on the ... to an AoE effect. The Cloud of Renewal healing has been ... to 45. The cooldown on Cloud of Renewal has been increased ... not deal damage to training dummies on Practice Range. Pause on ... ARC Turbine. An Update on Security & Anti-cheat​ As mentioned recently ...

...table saying only one thing; "Security is on you. Security is MEANT to be difficult,... gas and offload the security problem to somebody else. We ... you described around PC Security. I'm using Linux, having several ... local password into the cloud to storage it. Using VPN ... control besides Software Switches (dummies) are just Trust me Bro ... he destroyed his own PC Security with installing this Tool, where ...

... to know his anger wouldn't cloud his judgement, so far it..., "did you take him off security!?" "Yes, had him go back... bayonet and skewer the target dummies, yelling their hearts out as...

... Mega Steelix appeared through a cloud of dust and regarded the... hollowed-out room filled with training dummies and wide pits of sand... eternal life and be promised security, we must remember our origins...

..., had a variety of training dummies, many humanoid in appearance and... weighted at the base, the dummies were accompanied by a variety ... side, had a couple of dummies, specifically, ones Sam recognized as ...Wing Chun practice dummies, that stood quite proud and ... pelt the man with a cloud of rocks, both to hide ... the chauffeur, to the twin security, to the last fourth occupant. ...

.... Focus on core services and security. Avoid SaaS and the cloud. Audit your use of... mugs be the crash test dummies for this.

.... Focus on core services and security. Avoid SaaS and the cloud. Audit your use of... mugs be the crash test dummies for this.

... harder to establish. CGNAT for Dummies Imagine that the internet is ... is controlled by a security guard (the NAT): • The security guard remembers who comes through... different servers (very common with cloud infrastructure and load balancing). If ...

If it’s truly for security, put very visible cameras, even dummies, outside so potential thief’s knows they’ll be on video. Then put a couple Wyze or nest cams around in the house and get a cloud subscription for offsite storage of video. What you’re asking for sounds like you’re trying to creep on visitors though, not intruders.

Raiders! It seems the rumors are true. After long avoiding traveling below ground, the Nomadic Envoys have arrived in Speranza. On the hunt for valuable gear and weaponry, these mysterious members of the nomadic tribe are offering deals you can't find anywhere else. What's New? New Trader - Nomadic Envoy One of a group of Nomadic Envoys, Ermal, has made camp in Speranza, bringing with him a range of tempting Topside trades. Raiders who have reached Level 25 can barter high-value ARC materials and any stockpiled rare weapons in exchange for lucrative offerings: Expanded Stash space (resets post-expedition) Expedition Vault access - Enabling Raiders to safely store up to 5 of their most prized items for retrieval post-Expedition Ermal also offers a variety of weekly rotating trades: Cosmetics Blueprints Raider Tokens Gameplay and progression items, including items for current Raider projects Ermal will return weekly with new offerings as he liaises with his fellow Nomads. Catch his latest deals before he departs! Dev Note: Ermal’s prices will be set higher during his first week, we plan to adjust them based on data and your feedback. For the first week, a single Stash expansion and 5 expedition vault spaces will be available to gather initial feedback and give us a chance to adjust prices before adding more space. Offers will rotate in and out, if you missed one of the offers this week, they may appear in a future stock rotation. New Grenade Launcher - The Rascal Tian Wen has been tinkering in her workshop again… Meet the Rascal, the latest addition to your arsenal for tackling armored ARC threats. Lightweight, compact, and easy to carry, this unconventional launcher packs a punch despite its… quirks. While it’s slower to reload, and a bit unpredictable on the aim, the Rascal shines as a reliable side-arm for those who want anti-ARC firepower without the risk of lugging around a Hullcracker. And: Mod Improvement: Extended Barrel End of Round Changes The Sandveil Set Facial Hair Style - Sideburns The Sheath Set will be available on June 2nd Patch Highlights Fixed an issue where players would be teleported when standing on destroyed ARC parts. Reduced the power cost of Photoelectric Cloak from 10/s to 5/s. Weapon durability adjustments. Queen and Matriarch will now more often step over things than through them, reducing the amount of times players suffer unfair knockback. Added an option to block players after reporting. An Update on Security and Anti-cheat. Balance Changes ARC Increased the granularity of ARC vision through bushes and smokes, rewarding strategic positioning. Raiders near the edge of cover are now easier to spot, while those deeper in foliage or behind smoke are harder to detect. Improved how ARC perceives sound in open outdoor spaces, while reducing their sensitivity to sounds in indoor environments and those passing through geometry. Firefly Improved how the Firefly applies fire. The effect now matches the visuals more closely, and briefly grazing the flame no longer feels as punishing, reducing the sensation of being hit around corners. Rocketeer When the Rocketeer shoots several missiles at once, they are now consistently spread out over a larger area to prevent unfair situations where multiple missiles hit the same location. Gameplay Reduced the power cost of Photoelectric Cloak from 10/s to 5/s. Augment The Cloud of Renewal effect on the Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing) Augment has been changed to an AoE effect. The Cloud of Renewal healing has been increased from 20 to 45. The cooldown on Cloud of Renewal has been increased from 30s to 45s. Changed the shield capacity on Combat Mk.3 (Flanking) Augment to accept Medium Shields. Dev note: As mentioned in the patch notes for Patch 1.26, we continue to focus our sights on underperforming Augments. In this update, we are making the Tactical Mk.3 (Healing) Augment offer more utility in line with its place as a support-focused Augment. Now you can also heal your allies (and your enemies, if you’re not careful) after being revived. We also increased the survivability potential of the Combat Mk.3 (Flanking) to make it more viable as a flanking combat Augment. Weapons Bettina Base Fire Rate has been increased from 235 to 250. Weapon Durability Adjustments It's been clear that the durability changes in the last patch were felt too much on some weapons. For this update we're targeting the worst offenders that seem to break too quickly, increasing their lifetime to bring them in line with other weapons. We will continue to listen to your feedback and monitor for any pain points that come up around durability in the coming weeks, and continue to adjust accordingly. Weapon Mods Weapon mods can now affect aim-down-sights transition speed for scoped weapons. Extended Barrel: Bullet Velocity Bonus has been increased from 25 to 30%. Increased the damage fall off distance by 15%. Renamed to Extended Barrel III. Added new mesh. Added 2 lower tier variants: Extended Barrel I Extended Barrel II Content and Bug Fixes ARC General Fixed an issue where flying ARC could get stuck. Queen and Matriarch will now more often step over things than through them, reducing the amount of times players suffer unfair knockback. When Raiders first spawn into a session, ARC will be less perceptive of them and less likely to engage. Fixed some instances of ARC spawning in unexpected locations. ARC Turbine Fixed ARC Turbine legs becoming invisible in odd angles. Improved ARC Turbine probability of finding good angles for the legs when landing. Improved ARC Turbine landing positioning to mitigate visual clipping issues. Increased the odds of Raiders getting burned by the ARC Turbine when inside of it. Animation Updated cloth physics on character outfits for more natural movement. Fixed an issue causing some ARC weapon rotations to snap and appear laggy. Fixed an issue where items would clip into Field Crates when picked up while holding a gadget. Fixed the inspect animation for the Metal Detector. Audio Reduced how much sounds are lowered while taking damage. Added a distinct sound when Bastion and Bombardier switch targets. Added comb filtering to footsteps and movement sounds to achieve clearer perception of distance, elevation and movement direction. Improved binaural audio to make it easier to distinguish the height and elevation of sounds. Cosmetics Ongoing work to unify character texture settings for better performance and more visual consistency. Gameplay Players are now immune to stuns while entering a Raider Hatch, preventing interruptions when returning to Speranza. Fixed an issue where downed players could move out of bounds. Fixed an issue where pressing fire during certain actions like dodgeroll or climbing wouldn't buffer fire. General Fixed an issue where players would be teleported when standing on destroyed ARC parts. Fixed an issue where characters could float when disconnecting in mid-air. Fixed an issue where the Expedition timer was not showing the correct duration. Items Agave Juice now Quick Moves into available Quick Use slots instead of the Backpack, and will not be unloaded from Backpack when emptying it. Free loadout Augment sell price: 100 -> 660. Maps General Fixed low-res textures, odd spray paint decals, and a misaligned wall in tunnel and highway areas. Fixed overly dark shading on vent materials to improve visibility. Riven Tides Fixed a balcony structure clipping into a hotel doorway that could block passage. Fixed floating objects and improved rope visuals and physics. Fixed a misaligned balcony in the hotel lobby and missing wall collision at Room 207. Stella Montis Polished environment textures and fixed collision issues. Social Added an option to block players after reporting. Fixed an issue where voice chat could fail when opening the console UI on PS5/Xbox. End of Round Changes Raiders will now be able to see all squad members at the end of the round whether they extracted successfully or not. Interacting with the squad member's name plate will display a range of social actions that can be taken, which include reporting, muting or blocking the player. Players will also be able to immediately leave the squad in the tunnel sequence. Stability & Performance General performance and stability improvements. Fixed an issue that could cause the loading screen to remain stuck. UI Added information to the Crash Mat tooltip to showcase the additional safe fall height gain. Deployable previews now show occluded portions with a striped overlay, making placement easier. Fixed an issue where pinging an ARC Turbine as it entered the map could cause the ping marker to behave erratically. Utility Removed unintended delay after cancelling a Trigger 'Nade throw during which the grenade could not be thrown or triggered. Fixed an issue where throwing grenades could not be cancelled. Cancelling deployment of Pulse Mine or Gas Mine no longer consumes the item. Fixed an issue where the 'Use Zipline' prompt was missing, preventing interaction at close range. Fixed an issue where vaulting could trigger while moving upward or while standing on the ground with the Powered Descender active. Fixed an issue where the Surge Coil would not damage teammates of the player who placed it. KNOWN ISSUES Opening the console menu on PS5/Xbox while matchmaking causes the matchmaking to be cancelled. The Sandveil outfit scarf may appear stretched with long hairstyles clipping through. Players can fall from the map by walking near the wall of the Pilgrim Peak's building. Successful Extraction music plays in the background when the new Trader Introduction video is shown to the player after they return to the main menu. Characters in Squad Walk screen may fail to appear under certain circumstances. Dolabra does not deal damage to training dummies on Practice Range. Pause on an Augment's Regen Effect fails to apply after Player's revival. The throw animation may sometimes fail to play if the player attempts to detonate a Trigger ‘Nade immediately after throwing it. Some localization issues across the UI, including missing text in the settings menu and loading screen quotes. In rare cases purchases might not work in the customization screen, reopen the customization screen to fix it. The Firefly may sometimes disappear after going idle and drop an incendiary grenade. Shredders float to the ceiling in some rooms of the Hidden Bunker. Player animations may appear broken when interrupting a search of the Baron Husk. The Leaper can jump through the ARC Turbine. An Update on Security & Anti-cheat As mentioned recently in our Ensuring Fair Play article, we want to continue improving our anti-cheat solutions and more accurately detect foul play across the Rust Belt. Following a positive rollout in THE FINALS, Denuvo Anti-Cheat will also come to ARC Raiders starting May 19th, initially to a limited player pool, with plans to expand after close monitoring. We will not be using Denuvo's Digital Rights Management (DRM) service, and are working to ensure minimal impact on performance. With Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Anybrain, we are working to strengthen ARC Raiders' systems even further. Keep sending us reports of any information that you believe might help us do so, it's highly appreciated. See you topside Raiders, //Ossen submitted by /u/WoWAltoholic to r/ArcRaiders [link] [comments]

Raiders! It seems the rumors are true. After long avoiding traveling below ground, the Nomadic Envoys have arrived in Speranza. On the hunt for valuable gear and weaponry, these mysterious members of the nomadic tribe are offering deals you can't find anywhere else. What's New? New Trader - Nomadic Envoy One of a group of Nomadic Envoys, Ermal, has made camp in Speranza, bringing with him a range of tempting Topside trades. Raiders who have reached Level 25 can barter high-value ARC materials and any stockpiled rare weapons in exchange for lucrative offerings: Expanded Stash space (resets post-expedition) Expedition Vault access - Enabling Raiders to safely store up to 5 of their most prized items for retrieval post-Expedition Ermal also offers a variety of weekly rotating trades: Cosmetics Blueprints Raider Tokens Gameplay and progression items, including items for current Raider projects Ermal will return weekly with new offerings as he liaises with his fellow Nomads. Catch his latest deals before he departs! Dev Note: Ermal’s prices will be set higher during his first week, we plan to adjust them based on data and your feedback. For the first week, a single Stash expansion and 5 expedition vault spaces will be available to gather initial feedback and give us a chance to adjust prices before adding more space. Offers will rotate in and out, if you missed one of the offers this week, they may appear in a future stock rotation. New Grenade Launcher - The Rascal Tian Wen has been tinkering in her workshop again… Meet the Rascal, the latest addition to your arsenal for tackling armored ARC threats. Lightweight, compact, and easy to carry, this unconventional launcher packs a punch despite its… quirks. While it’s slower to reload, and a bit unpredictable on the aim, the Rascal shines as a reliable side-arm for those who want anti-ARC firepower without the risk of lugging around a Hullcracker. And: Mod Improvement: Extended Barrel End of Round Changes The Sandveil Set Facial Hair Style - Sideburns The Sheath Set will be available on June 2nd Patch Highlights Fixed an issue where players would be teleported when standing on destroyed ARC parts. Reduced the power cost of Photoelectric Cloak from 10/s to 5/s. Weapon durability adjustments. Queen and Matriarch will now more often step over things than through them, reducing the amount of times players suffer unfair knockback. Added an option to block players after reporting. An Update on Security and Anti-cheat. Balance Changes ARC Increased the granularity of ARC vision through bushes and smokes, rewarding strategic positioning. Raiders near the edge of cover are now easier to spot, while those deeper in foliage or behind smoke are harder to detect. Improved how ARC perceives sound in open outdoor spaces, while reducing their sensitivity to sounds in indoor environments and those passing through geometry. Firefly Improved how the Firefly applies fire. The effect now matches the visuals more closely, and briefly grazing the flame no longer feels as punishing, reducing the sensation of being hit around corners. Rocketeer When the Rocketeer shoots several missiles at once, they are now consistently spread out over a larger area to prevent unfair situations where multiple missiles hit the same location. Gameplay Reduced the power cost of Photoelectric Cloak from 10/s to 5/s. Augment The Cloud of Renewal effect on the Tactical Mk. 3 (Healing) Augment has been changed to an AoE effect. The Cloud of Renewal healing has been increased from 20 to 45. The cooldown on Cloud of Renewal has been increased from 30s to 45s. Changed the shield capacity on Combat Mk.3 (Flanking) Augment to accept Medium Shields. Dev note: As mentioned in the patch notes for Patch 1.26, we continue to focus our sights on underperforming Augments. In this update, we are making the Tactical Mk.3 (Healing) Augment offer more utility in line with its place as a support-focused Augment. Now you can also heal your allies (and your enemies, if you’re not careful) after being revived. We also increased the survivability potential of the Combat Mk.3 (Flanking) to make it more viable as a flanking combat Augment. Weapons Bettina Base Fire Rate has been increased from 235 to 250. Weapon Durability Adjustments It's been clear that the durability changes in the last patch were felt too much on some weapons. For this update we're targeting the worst offenders that seem to break too quickly, increasing their lifetime to bring them in line with other weapons. We will continue to listen to your feedback and monitor for any pain points that come up around durability in the coming weeks, and continue to adjust accordingly. Weapon Mods Weapon mods can now affect aim-down-sights transition speed for scoped weapons. Extended Barrel: Bullet Velocity Bonus has been increased from 25 to 30%. Increased the damage fall off distance by 15%. Renamed to Extended Barrel III. Added new mesh. Added 2 lower tier variants: Extended Barrel I Extended Barrel II Content and Bug Fixes ARC General Fixed an issue where flying ARC could get stuck. Queen and Matriarch will now more often step over things than through them, reducing the amount of times players suffer unfair knockback. When Raiders first spawn into a session, ARC will be less perceptive of them and less likely to engage. Fixed some instances of ARC spawning in unexpected locations. ARC Turbine Fixed ARC Turbine legs becoming invisible in odd angles. Improved ARC Turbine probability of finding good angles for the legs when landing. Improved ARC Turbine landing positioning to mitigate visual clipping issues. Increased the odds of Raiders getting burned by the ARC Turbine when inside of it. Animation Updated cloth physics on character outfits for more natural movement. Fixed an issue causing some ARC weapon rotations to snap and appear laggy. Fixed an issue where items would clip into Field Crates when picked up while holding a gadget. Fixed the inspect animation for the Metal Detector. Audio Reduced how much sounds are lowered while taking damage. Added a distinct sound when Bastion and Bombardier switch targets. Added comb filtering to footsteps and movement sounds to achieve clearer perception of distance, elevation and movement direction. Improved binaural audio to make it easier to distinguish the height and elevation of sounds. Cosmetics Ongoing work to unify character texture settings for better performance and more visual consistency. Gameplay Players are now immune to stuns while entering a Raider Hatch, preventing interruptions when returning to Speranza. Fixed an issue where downed players could move out of bounds. Fixed an issue where pressing fire during certain actions like dodgeroll or climbing wouldn't buffer fire. General Fixed an issue where players would be teleported when standing on destroyed ARC parts. Fixed an issue where characters could float when disconnecting in mid-air. Fixed an issue where the Expedition timer was not showing the correct duration. Items Agave Juice now Quick Moves into available Quick Use slots instead of the Backpack, and will not be unloaded from Backpack when emptying it. Free loadout Augment sell price: 100 -> 660. Maps General Fixed low-res textures, odd spray paint decals, and a misaligned wall in tunnel and highway areas. Fixed overly dark shading on vent materials to improve visibility. Riven Tides Fixed a balcony structure clipping into a hotel doorway that could block passage. Fixed floating objects and improved rope visuals and physics. Fixed a misaligned balcony in the hotel lobby and missing wall collision at Room 207. Stella Montis Polished environment textures and fixed collision issues. Social Added an option to block players after reporting. Fixed an issue where voice chat could fail when opening the console UI on PS5/Xbox. End of Round Changes Raiders will now be able to see all squad members at the end of the round whether they extracted successfully or not. Interacting with the squad member's name plate will display a range of social actions that can be taken, which include reporting, muting or blocking the player. Players will also be able to immediately leave the squad in the tunnel sequence. Stability & Performance General performance and stability improvements. Fixed an issue that could cause the loading screen to remain stuck. UI Added information to the Crash Mat tooltip to showcase the additional safe fall height gain. Deployable previews now show occluded portions with a striped overlay, making placement easier. Fixed an issue where pinging an ARC Turbine as it entered the map could cause the ping marker to behave erratically. Utility Removed unintended delay after cancelling a Trigger 'Nade throw during which the grenade could not be thrown or triggered. Fixed an issue where throwing grenades could not be cancelled. Cancelling deployment of Pulse Mine or Gas Mine no longer consumes the item. Fixed an issue where the 'Use Zipline' prompt was missing, preventing interaction at close range. Fixed an issue where vaulting could trigger while moving upward or while standing on the ground with the Powered Descender active. Fixed an issue where the Surge Coil would not damage teammates of the player who placed it. KNOWN ISSUES Opening the console menu on PS5/Xbox while matchmaking causes the matchmaking to be cancelled. The Sandveil outfit scarf may appear stretched with long hairstyles clipping through. Players can fall from the map by walking near the wall of the Pilgrim Peak's building. Successful Extraction music plays in the background when the new Trader Introduction video is shown to the player after they return to the main menu. Characters in Squad Walk screen may fail to appear under certain circumstances. Dolabra does not deal damage to training dummies on Practice Range. Pause on an Augment's Regen Effect fails to apply after Player's revival. The throw animation may sometimes fail to play if the player attempts to detonate a Trigger ‘Nade immediately after throwing it. Some localization issues across the UI, including missing text in the settings menu and loading screen quotes. In rare cases purchases might not work in the customization screen, reopen the customization screen to fix it. The Firefly may sometimes disappear after going idle and drop an incendiary grenade. Shredders float to the ceiling in some rooms of the Hidden Bunker. Player animations may appear broken when interrupting a search of the Baron Husk. The Leaper can jump through the ARC Turbine. An Update on Security & Anti-cheat As mentioned recently in our Ensuring Fair Play article, we want to continue improving our anti-cheat solutions and more accurately detect foul play across the Rust Belt. Following a positive rollout in THE FINALS, Denuvo Anti-Cheat will also come to ARC Raiders starting May 19th, initially to a limited player pool, with plans to expand after close monitoring. We will not be using Denuvo's Digital Rights Management (DRM) service, and are working to ensure minimal impact on performance. With Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Anybrain, we are working to strengthen ARC Raiders' systems even further. Keep sending us reports of any information that you believe might help us do so, it's highly appreciated. See you topside Raiders, //Ossen submitted by /u/WoWAltoholic to r/ARC_Raiders [link] [comments]

Context: Venera Century diverges from OTL circa 2gya, as lithopanspermic phytoplankton from Earth stabilised the carbonate-silicate cycle and halted runaway greenhouse In OTL, runaway greenhouse also formed a thick super-rotating atmosphere that, over the aeons, spun Venus down through atmospheric tides and, in the process, diminished its magnetosphere. In Venera Century however, Venus retains a 36-hour rotation and an active magnetosphere. Beneath a thick cloud deck, Venus is an ocean world like Earth, with a breathable atmosphere, a mean temperature of 25°C and 3atm of pressure Extensive volcanism has produced a persistent stratospheric inversion layer of sulfur/graphite-soot haze above a cooler troposphere, which makes research into Venus via flyby and spectroscopy alone rather challenging. The troposphere is populated with aerodiazotrophs, a family of chemolithotrophs that fix N₂ into NH₃ that neutralises sulfate, forming (NH₄)₂SO₄ that precipitates via rainfall as natural fertiliser. Still, trace ammonia and sulfur lent Venus a rather pungent odor by Earthlings’ standards By 1967, Venera and Mariner missions had confirmed a 36-hour rotation, an active magnetosphere, and a hot stratosphere, though much of what’s beneath the cloud deck remained a mystery. The consensus at the time favoured the runaway greenhouse model, though a competing stratospheric inversion model remained viable. Thus the stage is set for the Venera Century as Venera 4 attempted the first landing Chapter 0 - The Venera Curtain (1967-1976) Within 24 hours of Venera 4 splashing down a tropical ocean on 18/10/1967, the Kremlin classified all related data as Osobaya Papka (Special Folder) and orchestrated a clandestine disinformation & sabotage campaign of unprecedented scale, codenamed Venera Zanaves, or the Venera Curtain, to gaslight the West into abandoning Venus while the USSR accelerated its Venera program The alleged reasons for the Curtain were twofold: were they to reveal Venera 4’s finding, the propaganda value, when pitched against the risk of competing with the full industrial might of the Apollo-era United States, wasn’t worth it. The US, meanwhile, was already laser-focused on the Moon and paid little attention to Venus. The Curtain was thus conceived as a way to buy 10+ years of monopoly on Venus Conducted by the VZ Commission, an interagency structure under the VPK (Military-Industrial Commission), the Venera Curtain’s operation consists of at least four interconnected domains Domain Task Executing Body Disinformation Infiltration into academic/political/intelligence circle to control the narrative KGB First Chief Directorate Technical sabotage & SIGINT Interference with Western space tracking capability & masking of Venera signals GRU Second and Fifth Directorate Domestic security Security of the initiated VZ apparatus and the uninformed Soviet scientific community KGB Second Chief Directorate Maskirovka Operation of front programs GRU Fifth Chief Directorate/Glavkosmos Post-mortem investigations suggested the Curtain's operation might also involve technological espionage and diplomatic manipulation, especially détente. Most damning is the coincidence of the Apollo-Soyuz with the June 1975 Venus-Earth transfer window, and indeed Venera 26 through 28 were launched then, albeit mislabelled as Zima-7, Devana 3/Venera 9 and Devana 4/Venera 10, respectively Additionally, while not contributing to the longevity of the Curtain itself, Room 21 of the Agitprop, directly under Suslov, was also part of the VZ commission, such that the Agitprop could effectively capitalise on the propaganda windfall however the Curtain falls Most historians agree that while NASA and the wider scientific community could have challenged the Venera data and indeed did on multiple occasions, the laser focus on Apollo and the severe budget cut post-Apollo left NASA rather prone to the “hellish Venus” narrative. Meanwhile, the CIA’s tunnel-vision into Earth’s affair blinded them to Soviet activities on Venus Disinformation The disinformation apparatus, executed by the KGB First Chief Directorate, exploited the fact Mariner 2 and 5 were flyby missions and couldn’t pierce through the global inversion layer, which left the Soviet Union with a data monopoly to credibly fabricate surface condition and “confirm” the runaway greenhouse model, complete with inferno temperature, crushing pressure, and acid rain The Curtain also embedded moles within NASA, contractors, the CIA and congressional science committees, as well as scientists, political activists and think tanks, in order to steer the scientific narrative, sabotage Venus projects and space-tracking capability, starve NASA’s budget and ultimately distract the US from Venus Post-mortem investigations additionally confirmed KGB cultivating UFOs conspiracy circles (see Operation ZODIAC) to distract public interest and thus funding from Venus and into other avenues, as well as to drown out any credible sightings. Most infamous among these conspiracy theories was the Vasin-Shcherbakov ‘Hollow Moon’ theory Technical Sabotage & SIGINT To conceal Venera’s telemetry, all communications were encrypted and routed to lunar satellites to be transmitted to the final destination as part of the satellites’ own telemetry or commands. The GRU's Second and Fifth Directorates also conducted active interference with Western space-tracking capability, including selective jamming under false pretexts and on-site sabotage. This also extended to any Venus-bound mission, namely Mariner 10, which was infamously subjected to a strict budget limit, later found to be influenced by the Curtain Domestic Security The Venera program operated under extreme compartmentalisation, with only ~2000 out of 400k personnel aware of Venus’ habitability, and even fewer, estimated at ~50, knew of the Curtain, among whom were Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Dimitry Ustinov, Andrei Grechko, Pyotr Ivashutin, Kerim Kerimov and Mikhail Suslov The KGB Second Chief Directorate thus not only handled the domestic security & counterintelligence of the VZ apparatus, but also monitoring the wider Soviet scientific community, with sceptics of Venera’s data either recruited if deemed useful, discredited otherwise, or allegedly even "handled” in some cases This also included the oversight and concealment of the massive but largely under-the-table finances of the program and the Curtain, not only from Western intelligence but also from domestic observers. Though never confirmed, this could account for the Soviets’ rather underwhelming warhead count in this period, especially given the context of détente Maskirovka The Venera Curtain employed a suite of front programs in orbit (see Molniya/Salyut), the Moon (see Project Devana), Mars (see Project Aelita) and the outer planets (see Project Zima), to divert Western attention from Venus and, more importantly, to hide Venus-bound Venera While early Venera launched by Molniya and Proton-K could still fit under the cover of Molniya and Salyut (1969-1970), the switch to the much larger N2 necessitated Project Devana (1970-1976), a faux moonshot program, and Project Zima (1972-1976), a fictitious ship constructed in orbit to explore the outer planets The public narrative of these front programs, shaped heavily by the Curtain, emphasised not ambition or technical detail but inefficiency, strategic overreach, and political vanity in the wake of Apollo, such that the US wouldn’t feel the need for a response. To forestall Western anxiety about a militarised Zima, a functional centrifugal arm was also added to lend credibility to Zima’s civilian & scientific cover Project Devana Initially employed for Venera 19 (mislabelled as Devana 1/Venera 7), Project Devana provided cover for those publicly acknowledged Venera missions. As a Venera flew by the Moon en route to Venus, a light inflatable dummy detached and performed a lunar orbital insertion before inflating to mimic a space station, while the Venus-bound stack was officially reported as only a small hitchhiker probe Project Zima Starting with Venera 20, non-official Venera missions employed the cover of Zima, a faux ship constructed in orbit to explore the outer planets. Zima occupied an elliptical ecliptic orbit to hinder Western scrutiny, while Venera launches occurred months before the actual transfer window to diffuse suspicion Venera stacks would first rendezvous with Zima to deliver the inflatable dummies and some genuine modules (including spent Block V, reused as a wet workshop) to add to the faux ship, while the stack itself performed multiple stealth burns inside Earth’s umbra to gradually raise the apogee and eventually transfer to Venus when the transfer window arrived Institutional Dynamics The Venera Curtain was plagued by intense interagency conflicts, as the Agitprop’s Room 21 constantly demanded more dramatic missions for narrative purpose and the VPK and GRU expected Venera as a testbed for a future Soviet space force, which clashed with Glavkosmos’ missions parameter and the KGB’s preference of absolute secrecy. Despite which, the Curtain nevertheless held for 9 years Chapter 0.1 – Venera Program Supercharged Glavkosmos Recognising the need to unify the disparate design bureaus (OKB) for Venus, circa late 1967, the Soviet space program was secretly consolidated into Glavkosmos, chaired by Kerim Kerimov, under the VPK, with IKI and GEOKHI as the scientific apparatus. In the 9 years behind the Curtain, 24 more Venera missions were launched, though only 6 were public With Venus now a clear priority, the N1 program, now with Valentin Glushko onboard, was massively accelerated, culminating in the N2 variant, successfully tested in mid-1970 with an initial trans-Venus capacity of 34 tons. Simultaneously, IKI and OKBs developed many revolutionary stealth & masking measures for future Venera stack, reportedly at the behest of Ustinov who envisioned the Venera program to double as a testbed for a future Soviet space force With a developed yet overcapacitated titanium industry, the Venera Program made heavy use of titanium alloy across many components. This naturally raised some eyebrows within Western intelligences, though not enough to jeopardize the Curtain as this was simply attributed to more Alfa submarines Missions Transfer window Arrival Missions Cover Note June 1967 Oct 1967 Venera 4 - Discovered Venus’ habitability Jan 1969 May 1969 Venera 5 through 8 Kosmos Venera 9 through 11 Molniya Aug 1970 Dec 1970 Venera 12 through 18 Salyut Venera 19 Devana-1/Venera 7 First to switch to N2 rocket March 1972 July 1972 Venera 20 & 22 Zima-1 & Zima-2 Venera 21 Devana-2/Venera 8 Landed the first humans on Venus Nov 1973 March 1974 Venera 23 through 25 Zima-3 through 5 Venera 21 (Venus-to-Earth) - First to return to Earth after 15 months on Venus June 1975 Oct 1975 Venera 26 Devana-3/Venera 9 Venera 25 (Venus-to-Earth) - Second to return to Earth June 1975 July 1976 (free-return) Venera 27 & 28 Devana-4/Venera 10 & Zima-6 Surveying phase (Jan 1969 & Aug 1970 window) Jan 1969 saw the launches of Venera 5 through 11, landing 3 Lunokhod-class robotic rovers (retrofitted for Venus) and 3 Veles-class ROUVs, as well as one Venera orbiter, to survey Venus’ conditions and to scout for a future colony site. Eventually, the Rusalka Bay of northern Lada Terra, with easy access to ocean, diverse local ecosystems, and deposit-rich submarine volcanic fields, as well as its proximity to the equator for future launches, was chosen to host the future Novomir For the Aug 1970 window, Venera 19 marked the historic switch from Proton-K to N2 as it landed the first Novomir modules, including notably an ISRU methalox plant, while Venera 12 through 18 continued exploring Venus’ surface The N2 & Payload Instead of the 5 stages of the N1, the N2 comprises only 4 stages: Blocks A, B and V propel the stack into Zima’s orbit, while the 4th stage (Block G/Block U) performs the trans-Venus injection. As Venus allows for aerobraking, the payload would also include the 4th stage, as either a wet workshop or as an ascent rocket hull As most missions were landing, OKB-1 designed the VL69 lander capable of landing 34 tons of cargo (24 in the case of Venera 19 and 20), alongside a 2-stage VL72 variant specifically for Venera 27 and 28, in which the lander module detaches from the command module for landing, while the latter rides the free-return trajectory back home For return, OKB-52 and OKB-144 developed Block U (UR-210) as both an N2's 4th stage and a 2-stage ascent rockoon. With a dry mass of 14 tons (including a 7-tons CM), a UR-210 can store 120 tons of in-situ methalox before being lifted to an altitude of 40km to launch the CM into low Venus orbit. By Venera 25, the first stage was even made reusable, with plan to make the second stage by the Jan 1977 window The success of Block U convinced Glavkosmos to retrofit Block G as well as Block V (third stage) to also run on methalox, in the process improving the rocket’s trans-Venus capacity to a formidable 44 tons by Venera 21. Meanwhile, Vesna SM still used hypergolic for its stability and low upkeep across 19 months This, along with a 30-tons service module (SM) that remains on standby in low Venus orbit for 15 months before docking with the CM for a trans-Earth injection, constitute the Vesna spacecraft. To return stealthily, Vesna CSMs performed skip-entry and employed novel plasma-quenching techniques, while landing sites were dispersed across the Southern Ocean to take advantage of the satellite & SOSUS gap Novomir March 1972 saw the launches of Venera 20 through 22, in which Venera 21, tipped with the first Vesna, landed the first humans on another planet, Valentina Morozova and Viktor Belinsky, on 18/7/1972, with Venera 22 landing another six a week later In Nov 1973, using the UR-210, Morozova and Belinsky successfully arrived at low Venus orbit to dock with the SM and returned home. To return stealthily, Vesna CSMs performed skip-entry and employed novel plasma-quenching techniques. Landing sites were dispersed across the Southern Ocean to take advantage of the satellite gap For expeditions, Antonov built the Zorya, a 100m-long, tri-lobe, semi-rigid, helium-lifted hybrid airship. In Venus’ dense troposphere, a Zorya, with a fixed mass of 20 tons, can lift a formidable 70 tons, while solar panels allow for a virtually unlimited range in the day. First delivered in parts during the Nov 1973 window, the Zorya-I soon proved invaluable to Novomir operations By June 1976, Novomir featured ~20 cosmonauts in Rusalka and outposts across Lada Terra. The main Rusalka complex featured a foundational ISRU industrial base, powered by a mix of geothermal plants and wind farms. Also present were a Zorya airship, a ISRU methalox plant and 2 UR-210 rockoons; while in orbit, 5 satellites, along with Venera 26’s SM, made up the Venera Sphere In addition, the returns of Venera 21 and 25 in March 1974 and Oct 1975, respectively, had brought back a total of 1.2 tons of scientific curiosities, primarily living specimens, which were studied extensively by IKI and GEOKHI and found to have great application potential submitted by /u/k_hl_2895 to r/AlternateHistory [link] [comments]

Introduction: I wanted to come up with a new bioshock game that takes all the best things about the first 3 games and combines them all into one, making a game that feels familiar and classic, but also completely fresh and unique. So I had an absolutely crazy idea. It sounded dumb at first, even to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it made complete sense. My idea for a new setting for a bioshock game is this: Libertalia: The Hidden Pirate Republic. Libertalia is a real life historical legend, it’s a 17th-century anarchist colony off the coast of Africa, reputedly founded by Captain Misson as an egalitarian utopia free from slavery, with shared wealth and democratic governance. The colony was led by French pirate Misson and a defrocked Italian priest, aiming for a society without tyranny, according to Captain Charles Johnson. It is mentioned in a 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates, but is considered to be mostly fictional by historians. I first had the idea after playing Uncharted 4, which involves finding this lost city. When you finally find it and arrive there, there are skeletons everywhere that tell a story of a city where things went completely wrong. A utopian city hidden away from the rest of society where everything goes to hell reminded me a lot of Bioshock. I think this setting would be perfect because it would bring back the spooky nautical aesthetic/sea horror aspect of the first two Bioshock games that I really love, while also having the more sunny feel and colonial architecture of Infinite. Both types of atmospheres could be utilized. It would involve a hidden utopian city, an enigmatic and visionary founder for the city, a unique vision for the city’s society, and corruption of nature that causes everything to collapse. This game would serve as a prequel of sorts to the first bioshock. It feels both totally different yet familiar and true to the first game. Synopsis: in the 1740s, near the end of the golden age of piracy, You play as an explorer, named Thomas Braithwaite, who has spent his whole life building a crew and sailing around the world to find the legendary pirate utopia, Libertalia. But when you get there, your ship is attacked by a sea monster, and you awake on the shore, barely conscious. What you find is that the city is mostly abandoned, at least at first, until you witness hordes of mutant pirates and sailors who appear as if they have been cursed by dark voodoo magic. You meet a band of rebel pirates who are trying to survive and take the island back, you join up with them to fight your way to the elusive founder’s private island, so that you can get answers and set things right. Backstory: Libertalia was founded by one of the most successful pirates of his time, Captain Elias Blackburn, who wanted to make a haven for pirates and a utopia where everyone was free from tyranny and restrictive laws, where everyone’s basic needs were met by a communal style of living and shared wealth, and where individual success came from your own merit, and not the class you were born into. A blending of arnarchy, communism, and libertarianism into one society. Captain Blackburn was obsessed with finding what he called a “Sea Monster” which he dubbed “The Leviathan” he spent most of his life tracking it after his first encounter with it took his right arm. He finally tracked it down to an Archipelago off the coast of Latin America, where he believed was its lair deep underneath. This sea monster is actually a sea slug (from the first Bioshock) which is ancient and has grown to an enormous size, the Sea Slugs we see in the first two Bioshock games are actually larval versions of this creature, but it takes millions of years for them to reach this size. When Captain Blackburn first landed on the island, he met a voodoo witch who already lived there. She told him about the monster’s life cycle, that it uses the area to lay eggs, and tells him that its blood gives magical powers to those who drink it. She tells him that whoever slays the Leviathan and drinks its blood would become so powerful that they’d be like a God, but it’s too powerful for one man alone to defeat. Blackburn gets the idea to unite all pirates together, he feels that they should be working together against the governments that want to destroy them, so he invites all the world’s best pirates, uses his stash of wealth to buy the services of the world’s best craftsmen and architects and artisans, and invites many of those in servitude and slavery in the Caribbean to come build and live in his pirate haven, with the hopes that they will all be prepared to destroy the Leviathan when it awakens from its slumber next cycle. The sea slug larvae and eggs are harvested, their blood is used as the main ingredient in voodoo potions and tonics that give the workers and citizens enhanced abilities. At first, this works great and allows them to build a great city, but over time, they start to mutate, their genes mixed and spliced with the genes of the animal parts they mix into the tonics as ingredients, they go mad, transform into fish-like and animal-like mutants, and pure anarchy takes over. Captain Blackburn disappears, hiding away from his failed city in his private island that is locked away from the rest of the archipelago. His former pirate rival, Captain Harper, which became his right hand man during the founding of Libertalia, attempts to take over the island for himself, and aims to kill the Voodoo witch that Blackburn allied himself with. A small group of resistance fighters and survivors who aren’t allied with either Blackburn or Harper live on the outskirts of the islands, waiting for their chance to rid the island of its evil. How the game works: The game will not be open-world, but will have interconnected levels with large explorable areas, think of the dark souls franchise. The game takes place on an archipelago of 7 islands, which each island being unique and mostly open to explore. There will be beaches, towns, jungles, underwater caverns and grottos, dock-towns, large mansions, a ship graveyard, underwater segments, pirate ships, caves, and more to explore. Wildlife: This will be the first Bioshock to include wildlife, which will be essential for crafting, and will add to the sandbox element and the use of the environment which is a staple of Bioshock’s gameplay formula. On land, there will be Jaguars, Ocelots, Howler Monkeys, Parrots and other birds, crabs, crocodiles, spiders, turtles, frogs, etc. In the sea, there will be various species of sharks, crabs, eels, dolphins, whales, jellyfish, pufferfish, sea urchins, squid, octopus, anglerfish, etc. Some of these animals can attack you and other enemies, and they can be killed and looted for tonic crafting ingredients. Some tonics allow you to make animals fight for you. Some animals will be mutated and more powerful because of the presence of the sea slugs on the island. For example, a gigantic spider boss, or a huge shark boss. Parrot gameplay mechanic: You have a parrot companion that sits on your shoulder out of sight and can be used in various ways. You can direct him to distract enemies by flying at them, whistle to alert them to a different location, and you can send the parrot out to look for crafting ingredients, ammo, health, or gold, similar to the scavenger robot in Dead Space 3. You can also directly control the parrot to scout ahead or use for puzzles. ADAM/EVE: In this game, ADAM comes from the sea slugs like they do in the first two Bioshocks, but since this takes place beforehand, its called “Black Brine” or just “Brine” instead. Eve is found in alcoholic drinks, and since this is a pirate game, the primary way of getting EVE is by drinking the various bottles of rum and beer found throughout levels. EVE will be called “Aldehyde” in this game. Plasmids/Vigors: Instead of Plasmids and Vigors, they are simply called “Tonics” There are active tonics and passive tonics. Active ones are like plasmids, you equip them like weapons. Passive tonics are like the gene tonics in the first two Bioshocks which work like perks. Crafting Tonics/Voodoo/Alchemy: Most Tonic abilities are not found in the world or bought from stores, instead they are crafted using voodoo and alchemy. The main ingredient is always ADAM (Brine) and alcohol, then other ingredients found from animals or plants. For example, something like Electric Eel organs, seaweed, brine and alcohol makes a tonic that gives you the ability to shoot electricity out of your hands. Craft more of it to upgrade the tonic to the next levels. The genes of the animals used in the ingredients is spliced with your own when you drink it due to the ADAM reworking your genes, giving you abilities similar to that animal. All the plasmid/vigor abilities from previous games will return, but rebranded to fit with the pirate theme. There will be new abilities as well, such as a Jaguar themed tonic that gives you cat-like reflexes, allows you to run at incredible speeds and jump higher, and melee in quick succession with cat claws on your hands. And “Blowfish Blast” which turns your skin into blowfish spikes which shoot out and poison enemies. Tonics will also have two modes, a primary function and a secondary/ alt fire. For example, coral calamity can turn people into pillars of coral, or you can fire it at the ground to make patches or walls of coral that you can use as cover or for climbing. Enemy types: The “splicers” in this game are pirates that have over-used tonics and are mutated, literally being chimeras of fish and animal and human parts, similar to the crew of the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of The Caribbean. Here are a few examples: Siren Splicers: “Mermaids” who have fish fins for legs and sharp teeth. (Underwater enemy) Blowfish Buccaneers: pirates whose torsos expand and shoot out pufferfish spikes if you get too close. Octo-splicers: pirates with tentacles for arms, can wield multiple weapons at a time, and grapple you with their tentacles. Squid-Splicers: (replaces Houdini splicers) pirates who can blast a cloud of ink and dash away quickly, can also camouflage to the environment and hide and wait before jumping out and attacking with melee weapons or hook hands. Spider Splicers: (replaces spider splicers from the first game) pirates that have their lower body transformed into spider legs, can walk on ceilings and walls and shoot you with spider silk that traps you to the floor. Bullshark Marauder: a tanky enemy that has their head and upper torso like that of a shark, has a strong bite, can carry large weapons like a portable cannon. Some variants carry a large warhammer, are called hammer heads. Crab goon: pirate whose skin is hardened crab chitin, can withstand most damage, except headshots and elemental damage, hands are crab claws that do significant melee damage. This enemy walks sideways like a crab, making it harder to hit their head. There will also be regular type pirates who have swords and muskets and use fire tonics and electro tonics and such Big Daddy/Little Sister: There will be a big daddy type enemy, called Abyss Guardians. They were created by infusing them with many tonics that make them adapted to survive on the ocean floor. They are barely human, having been loaded with tonics that give them gills to breathe underwater and changes that allow them to survive the immense pressure of the sea floor. Their heads look like angler fish, and they often carry a large anchor which they can swing around and use as a weapon. They make groans that sound like low whale vocalizations, because they literally are part whale. They also make a distinctive sound when they walk due to their chains and anchor dragging across the ground and their heavy footsteps. They were created to protect the Brine Gatherers, called the Keelhauled, which replace the little sisters. They are a bunch of near-skeleton like zombies in a single gibbet cage, similar to the cage spider enemies from dark souls 3. They use their arms and legs that hang out of the cage to crawl around the sea floor, and use their many arms to harvest ADAM/Brine from sea slugs and egg clusters. They will softly sing sea shanties in a ghostly voice, like “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for meeee” The lore is that they and the abyss guardians were criminals who stole from other pirates, so this is their punishment. The player has the ability to put the keelhauled out of their misery, or harvest all their ADAM/Brine. This has different outcomes later on in the game. Voodoo enemies: Some enemies exist due to voodoo powers, like spectral pirate phantoms which can only be hurt with silver swords or silver bullets, and skeleton pirate enemies which almost come back alive unless you use tonic abilities to burn them to ash or trap them/incapacitate them. U-invent: U-invent will be replaced with alchemy and black smithing. Alchemy crafting will be similar to fallout 4 chem stations or Skyrim alchemy, but with a voodoo theme. And black smithing will allow you to melt down weapons and materials to create new weapons and make upgrades, useful for creating silver weapons and bullets to fight ghosts, also to repair or replace broken weapons. Weapon degradation: iron weapons will rust in water over time, powder charged guns will become rusted or too salty and sandy, and eventually these weapons will break. Blacksmithing is required to repair or replace broken weapons. Weapons in the game will include: Portable cannons, Spear gun, Flintlock pistols, muskets, musketoons, pepper box pistols, blunderbuss, cutlass swords, axes, swivel guns, knives/daggers, flails, blow darts, and various other swords. In the world of Libertalia, pirate inventors have invented a way to shoot limited number of multiple powder changes and musket balls consecutively without needing to reload each time (so the player doesn’t spend a full minute reloading after each shot) Dual wielding: you are able to dual equip tonics and weapons, in any combination. For example, dual flintlock pistols, or, duo electric eel tonic for extra damage. Also able to mix and match tonics, for example use tidal wave in one hand to get enemies wet then use electric eel in the other hand to shock them. Puzzles: The game will be slightly more puzzle focused in certain areas, it will be somewhat metroidvania inspired in this way. Certain areas are locked until you complete a puzzle or figure out how to navigate the environment. There will be Mayan/aztec temples in the world that will require the player to solve puzzles and avoid booby traps, they will work similarly to the “trial shrines” from Zelda: Breath of the Wild or the challenge tombs from Tomb Raider. Most of them are optional but give ADAM or a special tonic as a reward. There is no “one way” to solve problems in puzzles, it’s up to the player’s creative use of tonic abilities. For example, say you have a door that requires a counterweight to open. You can either use the sponge tonic to absorb water and release it onto the the counterweight, or you can use the magnetism tonic to place heavy cannonballs into the counterweight, or use coral calamity to fill the counterweight with coral, or use the spectral tonic to turn into a ghost and phase through the door. However the player figures it out, there is no single solution. Some tonics that aid in puzzle solving and environment navigation: Tidal wave: shoot a stream water out of your hands, or hold it down to make a tidal wave. Damage Sponge: absorb water when standing in it then release the water Magnetism: move metal objects around, attract metal objects from a distance and launch them Orb Weaver: connect objects together with spider webs Spectral Summoning: phase through walls as a ghostly projection Undertow: use tentacles on grapple points, or to reach far away objects Feline Ferocity: sprint at incredible speeds and jump higher, useful for timed puzzles and platforming. Coral Calamity: make pillars of coral that you can climb on, useful for platforming. Inferno: burn away most wooden objects Merchants: some shops, taverns and traveling merchants and voodoo merchants exist that can sell you unique tonics, limited crafting supplies and materials, ammo and health (and alcoholic drinks of course.) Tidal wave: first tonic of the game. Sort of replaces and combines sonic boom and cyclone trap. Hold the trigger down to create a large wave that knocks enemies down and stuns larger enemies. Secondary ability: Shoot a stream of water out of your hands, useful for environmental puzzles and for getting enemies wet (which enhances other tonics, like electric eel) Level 2: hold down trigger for longer to create a whirl pool that pulls enemies into it for a period of time and throws them out. Smaller enemies are ragdoll’d, larger enemies are slowed or stunned. Level 3: larger whirlpool that lasts longer and attracts more enemies and damages them over time. Electric Eel: Replaces Electro-bolt/Shock Jockey and Electrical Storm. Ingredients: electric eel organs+alcohol+ADAM Gives the ability to shoot electric bolts at enemies Secondary ability: the eel can bite nearby enemies. Level 2: the electricity can chain between enemies Level 3: getting melee’d causes a burst of electricity to emit from the player, damaging the attacking enemies. Enemies who are wet, underwater, or standing in water take double damage. (Using Tidal Wave in one hand and Electric Eel in the other hand is highly effective) Magnetism: Replaces Telekinesis and Return to Sender. Ingredients: iron ore+alcohol+ADAM Gives the ability to pick up cannonballs (and any other metallic objects, like swords, nails, etc) from a distance and launch them at enemies. Secondary ability: create a magnetic shield that catches enemies’ musket balls/bullets/cannon balls in mid-air and fires them back at them Level 2: pick up multiple objects and launch them in a scatter shot pattern, the longer you hold down the trigger the more objects accumulate in your grasp Level 3: steal guns and swords right out of enemies’ hands. Coral Calamity: Replaces Winterblast. Ingredients: various species of Coral+alcohol+ADAM Coral grows from whereever you aim it, shooting enemies causes them to slow down. Sustained targeting makes enemy turn into a pillar of coral which can be knocked into pieces. Larger enemies can be temporarily immobilized, but not shattered. Secondary ability: create a wall or patches of coral, can be useful to use as cover, also can use for environmental puzzles and navigation (the coral can be climbed on) Level 2: larger radius, turn multiple enemies into coral at a time, chained enemies turn into a coral reef Level 3: instantaneously turn enemies into a pillar of coral Blowfish Blast: Ingredients: Pufferfish toxin+Sea Urchin Spines+Alcohol+ADAM Makes the player’s skin grow spikes that look like sea urchin spines and pufferfish spikes, when you melee an enemy it poisons them and damages them over time, poison wears off eventually. Secondary ability: instantly blow up and send spikes outwards in all directions, hitting any targets near you and around you. Level 2: poison does more damage over time, lasts longer. Level 3: striking the same enemy consecutively causes poison damage to increase exponentially with each hit, combo hits can quickly kill enemies with poison. Very risk/reward for big daddy fights. Crab shell: replaces Armored shell and wrench jockey. Ingredients: crab claws+conch shell+alcohol+ADAM When activated, turns the player’s skin into hardened crab chitin, doubles the player’s health meter temporarily. Secondary ability: the player’s arm turns into a crab claw, enhances melee damage and can grapple enemies to use as human shields or throw them. Level 2: claw pincher attack can decapitate regular enemies. Level 3: become impervious to all damage for 10 seconds, but walk slower. Pairs well with the Damage Sponge Tonic. Damage Sponge: Ingredients: Sea Sponge+Alcohol+ADAM Turns player’s skin into porous, sponge-like material, gives ability to withstand more damage from incoming attacks, absorbs bullets and elemental attacks. Any bullets/musket balls absorbed by the player is added to the player’s ammo inventory. Any elemental damage absorbed is added to the player’s EVE meter. Secondary ability: when standing in water or underwater, hold trigger to absorb water, release trigger to shoot water out in all directions, knocking down nearby enemies. (Also useful for certain puzzles which involve removing water or adding water to a specific place) Orb Weaver: replaces insect swarm/Murder of Crows. Ingredients: spider silk+spider eggs+alcohol+ADAM Cast a web filled with spiders which bite enemies and poison them, continuously casting it on a target causes them to get stuck in spider silk and slows down their movement. Secondary ability: stick objects or enemies together with web ropes. (Fire once to attach one end of the silk rope, then fire again to attach the other end, useful for anchoring enemies to a specific spot or attaching objects together for certain puzzles) Level 2: Continuously cast onto the target to wrap them completely in spider silk and temporarily immobilize them and make them unable to attack. Causes larger enemies to be stuck to floor temporarily, but can still attack. Level 3: cast onto the target for longer and they become completely cocooned in spider silk, permanently incapacitated. Can still be looted. Temporarily make larger enemies stuck and unable to attack. Undertow: Ingredients: Octopus eye+alcohol+ADAM Arms turn into tentacles which can reach out and grab targets to either throw them, pull them towards you for easy melee strikes, or slam them down. (Once enemy is grappled, the Control stick direction determines which attack is used) Secondary Ability: repeatedly tap the melee button to strike enemies from a distance with the tentacles, which performs a combo which ends in a leg sweep that knocks enemies down. Can also use this ability to grab onto ledges or pull yourself up to grapple points for environmental navigation. (With no Eve cost) Level 2: when locked onto a target, a button prompt will display, giving you the option to take their weapon with your tentacles. Level 3: hold the trigger to squeeze enemies to death, or rip them in half when dual wielding this ability. Siren Song: replaces Hypnotize Big Daddy and Enrage and Possession. Ingredients: Mermaid vocal cords+alcohol+ADAM. Cast sound waves of siren’s singing that hypnotize and pacify enemies, causing them to enter a trance and not attack for a temporary amount of time. Secondary ability: cast an alternate song that causes enemies to defend you from anyone attacking you. Both abilities affect big daddies, but for a shorter time. Level 2: larger target area, can affect multiple enemies at once. Level 3: the effect is permanent (until they die) for regular enemies, lasts longer than before on big daddies. Spectral Summoning: replaces Target Dummy and Scout. Ingredients: Ectoplasm+ bioluminescent plankton+Alcohol+ADAM Summon a ghostly pirate phantom that distracts enemies or makes them run away in fear. Secondary Ability: take control of the phantom to scout ahead or phase through walls (useful for certain puzzles) Level 2: the phantom actually does damage against enemies that it attacks, rather than just distracting them. Level 3: cast multiple phantoms simultaneously. Inferno: replaces Incinerate/Devil’s kiss/Geyser Trap and Fire Storm. Ingredients: cooled magma rocks+gun powder+alcohol+ADAM Shoot a stream of molten lava out of your hands to light enemies on fire, can be shot to the ground to make lines of lava that hurt enemies that walk across it. Sustained casting can turn enemies into a pile of ash. Secondary Ability: flick a handful of gunpowder to cause several scattered mini explosions that lightly damage, stun, and disorient enemies. Level 2: lava burns for longer period of time and causes more damage. Secondary ability instantly lights enemies on fire. Level 3: holding down the secondary ability causes a miniature volcanic eruption that hurls enemies in its blast radius into the air. Release a burst of flames when struck by melee attacks. Howler Screech: sort of replaces Sonic Boom and Security Bullseye and Enrage and Possession. Ingredients: Howler Monkey Paw+Frog Legs+Alcohol+ADAM Howl like a howler monkey which stuns and disorients enemies and temporarily scares away wildlife. Hold the trigger to perform a louder screech which sends foes flying. Secondary Ability: Yell an alternative call which makes nearby wildlife fight on your side. (Pairs well with Feline Ferocity) Feline Ferocity: (replaces sportsboost) Ingredients: Ocelot paw+Jaguar fang+alcohol+ADAM Become part-feline, body becomes more furry with jaguar spots, with sharp claws on hands, gives you the ability to move incredibly fast, jump farther and higher, and melee at rapid speed, with extra damage from the claws. Sprinting causes player to run on all four’s at extreme speed. This entire ability immediately stops when you touch water. Secondary Ability: Cat Call: attract a hostile jaguar to your location (useful because it will attack other enemies when paired with howler screech) Feeding Frenzy: Ingredients: Jellyfish Jelly+Baracuda scales+shark teeth+Alcohol+ADAM Summons and launches predatory fish at the enemy which latch onto and bite the enemy, causing a bleeding effect. If in the ocean, bleeding attracts sharks which attack the enemy Secondary ability: summons and launches jellyfish at the enemy, slows the enemy down and poisons them, can also be shot at the ground as a trap, or create a long net of jellyfish stingers as a trap if underwater. Level 2: hold the trigger down to summon a floating school of fish in front of you that you control with the control stick, enemies inside the school get devoured into a skeleton after a few seconds. Level 3: sharks are sometimes summoned and do much more damage. Dead Man’s Tale: sort of replaces possession. Late game Tonic. Ingredients: Bone Dust+Voodoo Doll+alcohol+ADAM Resurrect skeletons and corpses in the environment and the corpses of enemies you have killed to fight for you, effect is temporary, works on corpses of larger enemies including big daddies, can resurrect multiple corpses at a time. Secondary Ability: create a portal to Davy Jones Locker on the ground beneath where the enemy is standing, chains and skeleton arms reach up and grab the enemy, temporarily incapacitating them. Level 2: resurrected corpses fight for you permanently (until they are defeated) Level 3: Enemies hit with the secondary ability are pulled down into Davy Jones Locker and vanish. Abyss Walker: Last Tonic in the game, acquired after defeating the Leviathan. Replaces teleportation from Houdini Ingredients: Sea Serpent Heart (The Leviathan) Upon activation, Instantly enter into Davy Jones Locker, which makes you invisible to the enemy while you’re there, exit that dimension to appear in a different place, effectively teleporting. Useful to disappear and appear behind the enemy, or to avoid fights altogether. Useful for certain puzzles and environmental navigation as well. (Primary ability is to enter the otherworld dimension, secondary ability causes you to exit and come back to the real world) No upgraded levels to this tonic. So there it is, I’ve included many examples of concept art I’ve found online that I think match the vibe of what I’m imagining. submitted by /u/Benjamin5431 to r/Bioshock [link] [comments]

Hello all — looking for suggestions regarding this digital product concept: What is the problem: Most cloud breaches and ransomware incidents stem from preventable misconfigurations. Teams moving to cloud often lack easy to follow preventive controls or the budget for expensive consulting, leaving critical risks unmitigated. Foundational, auditable controls and repeatable governance would eliminate large number of cloud cybersecurity incidents. Product Concept: Cloud Cyber Resilience Accelerator Toolkit — a pre-paid self‑serve package for Dev, IT, and Security teams at regulated companies that need practical, low-cost cloud security enablement. Why toolkit: Cloud posture tools (CSPM/CNAPP, etc) find issues mostly after worlkoad deployment and produce many false-findings. This toolkit provides preventive, repeatable controls engineers can implement and auditors can review, reducing noise and speeding up remediation. What's included: Governance Playbook — eBook with roles, policies, and governance tasks. Secure‑by‑Design Guardrails — reusable IaC policy snippets and scripts, and a checklist for secure architecture decisions. Regulatory Compliance Mapping — Excel file for specific industry framework. Why me: Toolkit encodes decades of experience delivering cloud security solutions for regulated organizations and validated with many paying customers. Question for this community: which pain points resonate — noisy CSPM findings, lack of preventive guardrails, audit evidence gaps, or slow remediation workflows? Something else? submitted by /u/Ambitious_Cloud_4621 to r/CloudSecurityPros [link] [comments]

Changelog for Patch #5 v.0.7.4.1 Why did I leave the post as Untitled? Who even knows. Games are hard. Version number: 606779 Highlights Added fixes for a few different crashes reported by the community. Wells now have water again when discovered. When wells are freshly placed in the player base, they still need a few minutes to fill up. Wells now show a UI element indicating that they are currently refilling. Fixed several NPC and animal path-finding issues, for example finding and using beds has been made more reliable and pathfinding issues when going up and down stairs have been improved. Added new bathroom furniture pieces to the Albaneve Summits furniture set. Added more visual variations to the Fell melee soldiers in earlier areas of Embervale. Rainy weather now occurs less often in some regions. But when it rains, it will rain a little bit longer than before. Rain is now stopped by roofs more reliably. Drying off after spending time in the rain is now faster when the player is sheltered. Fixed a few issues with quests not unlocking their next steps correctly. Reduced the frequency of rainy weather. Even for November, this was too much. Quests that required the retrieval of villager souls could previously be blocked by player bases at the quest location. Now the quest is automatically solved in such cases. The quest for taming goats can now also be completed by taming Frizzy Goats. Fixed an issue with recipes not showing the unlocked event even though they unlocked correctly. Changelog Improvements to Villagers and Animals Increased the range in which animals look for a bed and food. NPCs were taught to properly sit on chairs and toilets, to minimize accidents. There is now a small randomization for when NPCs decide to go to bed. Before, when fast traveling to the player base it could be observed that everyone was heading to bed at exactly the same time. This should make bedtime feel a bit more natural. Likewise, when returning to the base, not every NPC will jump out of bed immediately at the same time. Fences and walls now better contain animals. Farm animals are no longer attacked by bees. Cats are no longer alarmed by nearby rats while being tamed. It’s a fine balance between believable cat behavior and good gameplay… Cats and dogs can no longer be hit by players with Lightning Channel attacks. Lowered the height of the yak feeder prop so that both parents and calves can get to their food easily. Improved the placement sound and VFX for animals and pets. Lowered the unnatural high speed of resource production from animals. At the same time increased the maximum stack sizes of produced resources. As a side effect, this should lower the maintenance requirements for animals. Bait stack sizes are now larger. This should also help against accidentally punching wildlife while trying to throw the next bait during the taming process. Animals now realize more reliably when beds are placed in their vicinity. The rate at which animals can have babies has been unified for all animals. In the future, we will rebalance this again and better explain the reproduction rate, especially in case they will vary between different animals. When the taming has been completed, the UI now shows the success in a more comprehensible way. Picking up bait while animals are eating it now correctly interferes with the taming process. Like enemies, animals now have less keen senses when it is raining. This makes it easier to hunt or tame them under bad weather conditions. After being tamed, animals now also roam around when the player hasn't picked them up and dropped them off at their base, yet. Fixed the Beastmaster player skill. Befriended beasts can now be ordered to follow the player again. The first mouse click after tabbing out and back into the game will no longer trigger an in-game action. Previously, trying to regain focus of the game window could too easily lead to accidental weapon attacks or building actions. Fixed an issue where the game failed to gather the information about available happy villagers when the player tried to level up the flame in a player base that is not the one where the villagers are living. Crafting assistants can now offer the full range of recipes even if the crafting tools are placed in a different base. Fixed an issue that villagers would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night only to get back to bed right afterward again. Just because it’s happening to us it shouldn’t also happen to them… Villagers without beds are sleeping on the floor now as they should. Villagers no longer have trouble going to bed when they approach from the foot of the bed. Villagers no longer physically block doors or narrow stairs. The tutorial about needing happy villagers to level up the Flame no longer shows up every time the Flame menu is opened. Fixed that villagers can have multiple beds assigned in some cases. Fixed some situations in which villagers or animals would interact with props through walls. One example was that they teleported through a wall to sit on a chair. Fixes for new biome content and gameplay Reduced the sturdiness of silver and obsidian ore. While the yield per node is the same, it now takes less time to gather it. The UI for coldness and protection against it has been reworked after player feedback. The coldness meter now shows the encroaching freezing of the player. While exposed to extreme coldness, this meter can only ever go up. Underneath the coldmeter, the level of coldness protection is displayed and the currently remaining time before hypothermia sets in. The time can change rapidly depending on food, consumables, equipment, torches, nearby campfires and other factors. Added more information about the frost protection from the Flame at level 8 to the Flame upgrade screen and to the quest journal. Fixed an issue with the display of the “Hypothermia” warning that prevented it from showing up at the center of the screen initially. Increased the time before Hypothermia sets in for players without any kind of cold protection from 10 seconds to 20 seconds. Fixed that ice-sliding VFX could appear at the character's feet, even when they weren't touching the ground. Sliding down slopes now prevents using ranged weapons. Added the previously missing area of effect damage for the spell Ice Bolt II. Improved visibility of snowflakes when using DLSS. Fixed additional issues with the dynamic ambience sounds detection system leading to playing incorrect sounds or missing sounds for individual biomes. Fixed an issue with the quest to unlock 2 of the new songs. The songs can now be correctly unlocked. Fixed several small level-design issues such as floating props. Added a few more enemies to some empty areas in the Albaneve Summits. Fixed a collision issue with one of the tree models which would lead to chopped wood to float out of the tree instead of dropping normally. Switched the visuals of the two granite roof blocks so that both fit better to the name and icon of the items. Updated the visuals of the balefire braziers. Destroying the props in the Cyclops caves now triggers the correct VFX and sounds. Fixed discoloration on some fur parts on player armors. Increased the size of the big spider. It’s meant to be a chonk. Fixed several smaller glitches for the Cyclops enemies. Increased the damage to the stun bar of the boss when hitting it by parrying its own projectiles. Fixed an issue that could cause a spell or arrow to affect the boss stun bar twice. Removed the loot from the defeated vultures during the boss fight. Improved several animations and behavior glitches for the boss. Added a subtle self-glow to the windows that look like they are made of glass. It’s not perfect yet but better than being completely black during the day. Exchanged an incorrect perk on the Horn Daggers. They now have correctly increased cut damage when upgraded. Improved the illuminated pumpkins for a prettier glow. Fixed an issue where the milk dropped from certain enemies as loot was mistakenly cooked already. It’s not that kind of cozy game. Fixed comfort category setting for tapestries and the granite throne. Improved the UI overlay when the boss is unlocked. Miscellaneous Fixes Updated the burning status VFX on the player to be more noticeable. Fixed one of the Shroud roots which didn’t clear the Shroud in the vicinity after being destroyed. Updated some old terrain textures to better fit the overall level of detail. Improved the level of detail for some mycelium-covered props. Fixed incorrect movement in armor pieces during an evasion roll. Removed several small glitches in enemy- and animal animations. Fixed incorrect visuals and timings of several enemy attack VFXs. Fixed several small audio issues on enemies including the boss, cyclops, crocodiles and scavengers. Added keyboard support to the split-stack sub-menu. Fixed incorrect sorting of several props in the recipe overview menus. Fixed an issue that could lead to the game freezing when tabbing out of the game window. Fixed one reason for a performance dip directly after teleporting longer distances. Slightly increased performance of rendering clouds. Switched back to the previous display of time for durations in the UI. At the same time further unified the display of durations. Sorry for the feet and inches, US players. Made the building shape preview tint more visible in direct sunlight. Brightness doesn’t reset during changes to the graphical quality settings. Fixed the saving of the time of day when quitting the game. Creating and playing a new world with a character that has the quest progression mode set to “missed quests” no longer blocks the first door in the Cinder Vault start cave. Fixed that the background sound ambience no longer resets when going to bed. Fixed an issue with the recipe selection button in the workstation menus. Fixed a visual glitch when starting to fly with a glider. Exchanged a 1-handed melee bonus from two armor pieces for the mage class Spellbinder Glove and Wizard Chest. Drastically increased the health for practice targets and dummies. Player tombstones were tweaked to minimize the risk that they can’t be looted properly depending on doors or other large props nearby. Selected quests are now deselected in the quest journal when they have been completed. Added a security measurement to make sure that grapple hook anchors are correctly interactive when the new grappling hook combat skills are unlocked and many enemies have gathered around the player. Fixed an issue with scrolling with a controller in the equipment menu. Made sure the ammunition display in the HUD remains visible even when the combat target is near the screen border. Fixed an issue where animations could sometimes not be played correctly when using ranged weapons. Fixed a few instances where loot dropped in regions it was not supposed to drop. Fixed an issue with the fade-to-black when fast traveling while having the HUD disabled. Fixed several issues with item icons. Fixed several cases where clicking on a quest map marker wouldn’t open the corresponding journal entry correctly. Fixed an issue that could lead to footsteps sounds not playing correctly. Improved performance for player bases with many villagers and large roaming distance set. The amount of data exchanged between servers and clients has been reduced. This should help in situations, where low bandwidth caused multiplayer issues previously. A lot of these fixes wouldn't have happened without your reports, so as always, thanks for helping us make the game better! Source: https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791473574969/announcements/detail/4472732402493423721 If anyone is experiencing any bugs or crashes AFTER updating you can report them by pressing F1 in game then clicking “report bug”, alternatively you can click here And to provide feedback, suggest and vote for features, please see here: https://enshrouded.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/16183409811741-Feedback-Suggestions submitted by /u/SirSoggybottom to r/Enshrouded [link] [comments]

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations on October 25th 2024 🤖 OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December 💻 Anthropic’s AI can now run and write code 💰 Apple offers $1M bounty for hacking its private AI cloud 📷 Google Photos will now label AI-edited images 📰 Meta signs its first big AI deal for news 🎨 Midjourney launches new image edit 😵 OpenAI disbands AGI Readiness team 🇺🇸 Biden orders AI push with new security safeguards Listen at https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/daily-ai-chronicle-openai-plans-to-release-its-next/id1684415169?i=1000674504502 🤖 OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December OpenAI plans to unveil its next significant AI model, Orion, by December, prioritizing initial access to partner companies instead of a broad release through ChatGPT. Internally viewed as the successor to GPT-4, Orion may be hosted on Azure by November, but its naming and release details remain uncertain and subject to change. This release coincides with OpenAI's transition into a for-profit entity, highlighted by a $6.6 billion funding round and notable changes in its executive team. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278999/openai-plans-orion-ai-model-release-december 💻 Anthropic’s AI can now run and write code Anthropic has introduced a JavaScript code sandbox to its Claude AI, allowing users to conduct complex data analysis within the chat interface. This new feature lets teams across various departments analyze data, including marketing teams gaining insights, sales teams evaluating metrics, and developers creating financial dashboards. The Claude 3.5 Sonnet model, which supports these capabilities, has enhanced programming performance, outperforming other models in benchmarks like SWE-Bench and TAU-Bench scores. Source: https://the-decoder.com/anthropics-claude-ai-can-now-crunch-numbers-and-visualize-data-with-built-in-code-editor/ 💰 Apple offers $1M bounty for hacking its private AI cloud Apple is encouraging security analysts to examine the Private Cloud Compute system that handles complex Apple Intelligence requests as part of its efforts to ensure system privacy. The tech giant's bug bounty program now includes rewards up to $1,000,000 for detecting vulnerabilities in PCC, underpinning its commitment to handling data privacy seriously. Initial Apple Intelligence features are launching soon with iOS 18.1, while future enhancements like Genmoji and ChatGPT integration appeared in the iOS 18.2 developer beta. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278881/apple-intelligence-bug-bounty-security-researchers-private-cloud-compute 📷 Google Photos will now label AI-edited images Google Photos is adding a new disclosure for images edited with its AI features, like Magic Editor, visible in the "Details" section of the app starting next week. Despite Google's aim for transparency, the AI-edited photos will not have visual watermarks, making it difficult to immediately recognize them as altered unless users check the metadata. These changes follow criticism Google faced for incorporating AI editing tools without overt visual indicators, and similar metadata tagging will be used for non-AI features like Best Take. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/24/google-adds-new-disclosures-for-ai-photos-but-its-still-not-obvious-at-first-glance/ 📰 Meta signs its first big AI deal for news Meta has signed a multi-year agreement with Reuters to incorporate Reuters reporting into its AI chatbot for responding to news-related questions, marking a first for the company in licensing news content. The use of Reuters content in the AI chatbot, which is available on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, will include summaries and links to Reuters articles, with US users seeing links starting Friday. This development follows a trend of news organizations partnering with AI firms, though Meta simultaneously challenges laws requiring payment to news publishers for their content on social media platforms. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279259/meta-reuters-ai-chatbot-deal-news-licensing-media 😵 OpenAI disbands AGI Readiness team https://preview.redd.it/0r1mu0kgozwd1.png?width=1292&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ce32004784a6106b7907c16e8bb0001b5ca35e0 OpenAI is reportedly dissolving its AGI Readiness team, marking the latest in a series of major division changes as senior advisor Miles Brundage departs the company and voices concerns about the industry’s safety direction. Brundage announced his departure alongside a lengthy blog post about his role, future, and the industry at large. He said that both OpenAI, other labs, and the world in general are not ready to handle increasingly powerful AI systems. Brundage noted that part of the AGI Readiness team will be moving under new Chief Economist Ronnie Chatterji, with the rest distributed across other teams. The move follows May's disbanding of the Superalignment team focused on AI control systems, coinciding with prominent safety researchers' exit. For a company that claims to emphasize AI safety, the continued tension, disbanding, and departure of its safety-focused teams certainly sends very mixed signals. But if Brundage’s post is any indication, it's not just OpenAI that is unprepared for what is to come — it’s the entire world. Improve your website's SEO with Gemini https://preview.redd.it/unfvztakozwd1.png?width=1292&format=png&auto=webp&s=80765902e1fb73d0e49298f55ab5d139bce76435 Google Gemini’s video input feature lets you use AI to analyze video recordings of your website and generate powerful SEO improvements. Access Google AI Studio and select the "Gemini 1.5 Pro 002" model. Record 5-10 minutes of video showing your website’s navigation, page load times, content structure, and key features. Use this prompt: "Analyze these website videos. Provide SEO recommendations for meta elements, content, speed, UX, and keywords." Follow up by asking it to give you insights on technical SEO and to suggest content strategy improvements based on the videos. Include both desktop and mobile footage for more comprehensive SEO insights. Additionally, we have written detailed prompts that you can copy and paste here 🇺🇸 Biden orders AI push with new security safeguards The White House just issued a new national security memorandum directing federal agencies to accelerate AI adoption – while establishing clear boundaries for its use in sensitive government areas like defense and intelligence. The memo outlined the government’s strategy for leveraging technology across national security departments while managing its risks. The directive prohibits AI from tasks like making autonomous nuclear weapons decisions, targeting systems without human oversight, and privacy violations. Biden highlighted the need for improvements to the U.S. AI chip infrastructure, also directing agencies to assist AI labs in defending against foreign espionage. OpenAI published a blog alongside the memo explaining its stance on national security and the company’s partnerships and government initiatives. AI safety and development are national security issues, and the US is finally acting on its most comprehensive attempt to craft guardrails to prepare for the evolution to come. The memo’s emphasis on protecting private sector innovations also signals a major shift in treating commercial AI as crucial national security assets. 🎨 Midjourney launches new image edit Midjourney just debuted a new AI-powered web editor that allows users to easily modify, retexture, expand, and stylize both generated and uploaded images using text prompts. The anticipated update enables features like expand, crop, repaint, and modify for both Midjourney-created and uploaded images using natural prompting. The new editor also works with Midjourney’s previous features like personalization, style references, and more. A new re-texturing tool allows users to change aspects like lighting, texture, materials, and more while maintaining the original shape of the image. Access is initially limited to yearly subscribers, 12-month members, and users with 10,000+ generations for testing before a broader roll-out. If you were already concerned about discerning between AI and ‘real’ photos, things are about to get a lot more difficult. This new editor brings massive capabilities and use cases for creatives – but also unlocks a powerful deepfake and manipulation tool that makes nearly every image need to be questioned going forward. What Else is happening in AI on October 25th 2024! AI chipmaker TSMC’S Phoenix plant reported superior chip yields compared to its Taiwan operations, boosting confidence in America's domestic semiconductor strategy. Anthropic unveiled Claude's new built-in analysis tool, enabling its models to write and execute code directly in chat interactions. Apple launched a $1M bug bounty ahead of its major AI cloud release next week, offering rewards to security researchers who can successfully hack and find vulnerabilities in its private AI infrastructure. ElevenLabs added ‘Voice Design,’ a new feature enabling users to create AI-generated voices from natural text prompts. OpenAI scientist Noam Brown revealed at TED AI that giving AI models 20 seconds to "think" can match the performance boost of scaling up training data 100,000x. Chinese robotics startup EngineAI just introduced SE01, a life-size humanoid robot that has a much more human-like gait to its walk. Redditors Are Trying to Poison Google’s AI to Keep Tourists Out of the Good Restaurants. Source: https://gizmodo.com/redditors-are-trying-to-poison-googles-ai-to-keep-tourists-out-of-the-good-restaurants-2000516156 Google’s DeepMind is building an AI to keep us from hating each other. 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Explore neural networks, gradient descent, more through hands-on experiments AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01): Conquer the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam with our AI and Machine Learning For Dummies test prep. Master fundamental AI concepts, AWS AI services, and ethical considerations. Azure AI Fundamentals: Ace the Azure AI Fundamentals exam with our comprehensive test prep. Learn the basics of AI, Azure AI services, and their applications. Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer: Nail the Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer exam with our expert-designed test prep. Deepen your understanding of ML algorithms, models, and deployment strategies. AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty: Dominate the AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty exam with our targeted test prep. Master advanced ML techniques, AWS ML services, and practical applications. Download it now at https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/master-ai-machine-learning-pro/id1610947211 and become knowledgeable about the ins and outs of AI and Machine Learning. submitted by /u/enoumen to u/enoumen [link] [comments]

I have been down the rabbit hole of reading all the posts about the "best FOSS alternatives for system apps," I realized many options are outdated or just not user-friendly. So, I’m sharing my straightforward approach to de-Googling my phone and swapping out system apps for FOSS alternatives. 🚨 Heads Up: You’ll need your PC and a phone cable to uninstall system apps. 👉 Important: Please read this entire post before you start applying stuff. Also, my approach can easily be personalized to fit your needs. My Approach Step 1: Install Droid-ify ❤️ First, grab Droid-ify ❤️ ✅. This will serve as your app hub to replace the default options. Recommended FOSS Apps to have at the ready: Keyboard: FlorisBoard / HeliBoard File Manager: Material Files Browser: Privacy Browser Play Store FOSS Alternative: Aurora Store F-Droid / GitLab releases Step 2: Remove Bloatware Now, let’s tackle the bloatware using ADB. Check out this step-by-step guide to get started. Use App Manager to find package names of apps you want to uninstall. Download App Manager. There’s an app with the same name "App Manager ❤️" that simplifies this process: you can use Aurora Store to obtain it. After installing the app, follow these steps: Open the app. Long press the first app in the list. At the top, you’ll see a number indicating installed apps (like "1/200"). Click on that. Select "Select All Apps." Tap the Share button. Under "What to share?", choose Package names. Select an app to share the list with. Now that you have the app list, you can determine what to keep, disable, or uninstall. Exercise caution when uninstalling apps, some are critical for system functionality. Here are resources detailing safe apps to remove: Reddit: Ultimate Samsung OneUI Debloat & Privacy Hackerztrickz: List of Samsung Bloatware Safe to Remove MiniTool: List of Samsung Bloatware Safe to Remove For a GUI Approach (for those who prefer a more visual method): If you’re comfortable with using a graphical interface and prefer a more intuitive approach, try Universal Android Debloater Next Generation. This cross-platform tool uses ADB to debloat non-rooted Android devices. Link to Universal Android Debloater Next Generation Step 3: Install FOSS Alternatives Once you've removed bloatware, here are my top FOSS app replacements: Play Store Alternative: ⬇️ F-Droid that has many repository of free and open-source Android apps. It allows you to browse, install, and update apps with a focus on privacy. ⬇️ Droid-ify ❤️ An F-Droid client with great design, offered repos to chose from, and just smart. ⬇️ Aurora Store ❤️ An unofficial FOSS client to Google Play with a sleek design that prioritizes user privacy. ⬇️ Obtainium ❤️ An app for managing and updating other Android apps directly from their source. 💡 Check out the wiki for advanced options on using the app. 💡 If you prefer F-Droid, and you want to get the full experience, add these repositories: IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository (large collection of FOSS apps) Guardian Project Official App Repository (to get TOR browser and other apps) Kali Nethunter (optional, has a collection of penetration testing apps) FUTO Repo (has Grayjay a YouTube alternative) 💡 How to Add or Download an App on Obtainium? There are two simple methods to add and download apps using Obtainium: Method 1: Using a Release Link Open Obtainium and click Add App (you’ll find this option at the bottom the screen). In the App Source URL field, paste the "Releases" link of the app you want to install. Click Add and wait for confirmation. Once confirmed, click Install to complete the process. Example "Releases" link of LastPipeBender: https://github.com/MaintainTeam/LastPipeBender/releases Method 2: Using GitHub Starred Repos Sign up or log in to your GitHub account, then star the repository of the app(s) you want. Open Obtainium and go to Import/Export (located at the bottom of the screen). Select Import GitHub Starred Repos, and enter your GitHub username (any public username works). Obtainium will load all your starred repos by default. You can choose the specific ones you want to import. Click Select and wait for confirmation. Finally, go to Apps (bottom of the screen), choose your desired app, and click Install. Optional: Install ⬇️ OctoDroid ❤️ A GitHub client for Android that simplifies browsing repos and checking releases. Streaming Alternatives ⬇️ CloudStream ❤️ (it requires a repo link) A media streaming app that provides access to various sources for TV shows and movies. ⬇️ Dantotsu ❤️ (it requires a repo link) Anilist client based on Saikou. ⬇️ Aniyomi (it requires a repo link) A feature-rich app for streaming and downloading anime, offering an extensive catalog. ⬇️ Mirarr FOSS Movies/Shows App. Privacy-Focused Browsers ⬇️ Privacy Browser A web browser that respects your privacy. ⬇️ Download Privacy Browser ⬇️ Mull A secure browser based on Firefox that emphasizes privacy and offers extensive customization options. Unfortunately, Mull has been discontinued, but there are some excellent forks that maintain its privacy-first philosophy. Here are two popular alternatives: Iceraven Iceraven is a highly regarded fork of Firefox, created to continue Mull's privacy enhancements while being actively maintained. It offers many of the same features as Mull and is an excellent option for users who want a reliable, privacy-centric browser. * ⬇️ Download Iceraven Ironfox Ironfox is another fork of Mull, built on Firefox v133.0.3 and featuring the same privacy patches from Mull. While Ironfox is still in beta, it offers the same security and privacy features as Mull, with only rebranding changes (no features have been removed or altered). It’s a great option for those looking for a Mull-like experience, even though it’s still in the testing phase. Ironfox GitLab Repository Ironfox Discord Community You can download the test builds for Ironfox for different architectures: - ⬇️ arm64-v8a: Download Ironfox v133.0.3-arm64 APK - ⬇️ armeabi-v7a: Download Ironfox v133.0.3-arm APK Note: While Ironfox is still in beta, Iceraven is a more stable alternative at the moment. ⬇️ Tor Browser An anonymizing browser that allows you to browse the web privately by routing your connection through the Tor network. Brave ❤️ A secure web browser with a built-in ad blocker that prevents tracking, and optimized for mobile data and battery life savings. ⬇️ Rethink: DNS + Firewall ❤️ An open-source DNS-based firewall to help protect your privacy online. 💡 For settings, use my go-to config file and remember to exclude Aurora Store from DNS rules. Security Tools ⬇️ KeePassDX ❤️ A secure, open-source password manager that stores your passwords in an encrypted database. ⬇️ Bitwarden / F-Droid A password manager for securely storing, managing, and sharing sensitive online data such as passwords, passkeys, and credit cards. ⬇️ Privacy Indicator ❤️ Notifies you whenever a third-party app accesses your camera or microphone, enhancing your privacy. ⬇️ URLCheck ❤️ A simple tool for checking the safety of URLs before you click on them. Music and Media ⬇️ xManager An app that modifies the Spotify app to remove ads, plus it supports lyrics, and allow background play. ⬇️ Metro - Music Player A beautiful music player with a Material Design interface and easy navigation. ⬇️ Symphony ❤️ A lightweight, elegant music player for Android 9+. ⬇️ VLC A versatile media player that supports a wide range of audio and video formats. ⬇️ Pocket Cast A powerful podcast platform that provides next-level listening, search and discovery tools. (Supports user account, RSS URL, offline downloads, and OPML import/export) Google App Alternatives ⬇️ Thunderbird (fka K-9 Mail) ❤️ An open-source email client that supports multiple accounts and is customizable. 💡 Personal Recommendation: If, like me, you prefer the classic folder drawer, I recommend release 8.0b3 ❤️, which is the latest release with the old layout. For a better idea of which UI suits you best, check out this comparison: Old Folder Drawer UI New Folder Drawer UI ⬇️ ente A fully open-source, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos for secure photo storage. ⬇️ OsmAnd A map and navigation application with access to the free, worldwide, and high-quality OpenStreetMap (OSM) database. ⬇️ Organic Maps An open-source map application that provides offline maps and navigation. ⬇️ GMaps WV A simple wrapper for Google Maps that allows you to use the web version without the app. ⬇️ Grayjay ❤️ A media app that lets you follow creators, not platforms. Supports YouTube, Kick, and Twitch for a focused, creator-centric experience. 💡: Download it via F-Droid through the FUTO Repo ⬇️ LastPipeBender A libre lightweight streaming front-end for Android | Fork of NewPipe & Tubular System App Alternatives ⬇️ FlorisBoard ❤️ A customizable keyboard app focusing on user privacy and a great typing experience. 💡 Use my settings here as a starting point. ⬇️ HeliBoard Customizable and privacy-conscious open-source keyboard. ⬇️ Dialer A simple and efficient phone dialer with a clean interface and basic call features. ⬇️ Contacts An open-source contacts app that focuses on privacy and simplicity. ⬇️ Quik A lightweight messaging app for sending SMS and MMS messages without the bloat. ⬇️ Fossify Gallery / ⬇️ F-Droid A straightforward gallery app that organizes your photos and videos with ease. ⬇️ Camera A privacy-oriented camera app that supports QR and barcode scanning. ⬇️ Material Files An open-source file manager with a modern Material Design interface. ⬇️ LocalSend A free, open-source app that allows you to securely share files and messages with nearby devices over your local network without needing an internet connection. ⬇️ KOReader An eBook reader that supports various formats like PDF, EPUB, and more. ⬇️ Binary Eye A QR code scanner that allows you to scan and generate QR codes. ⬇️ Download Navi A download manager that helps you manage and track downloads effectively. ⬇️ SD Maid 2/SE A comprehensive cleaning tool that helps you remove unnecessary files and optimize your device. ⬇️ Breezy Weather A Material Design weather application that provides accurate forecasts. ⬇️ WeatherMaster A Weather app inspired by the Google Pixel weather app. ⬇️ Notesnook A fully open-source note-taking app with end-to-end encryption for secure storage. Launchers ⬇️ Lawnchair ❤️ A free, open-source home app for Android. ⬇️ Neo-Launcher A free, open-source launcher. ⬇️ OLauncher Minimal AF for Android. (AF stands for Ad-Free :D) ⬇️ Kvaesitso A search focused, free and open source launcher for Android. Social Media Alternatives ⬇️ Aliucord A modification for the Discord Android app that enhances its functionality and features. ⬇️ Xtra A Twitch player and browser that lets you watch and interact with Twitch streams. ⬇️ RedReader A clean and efficient Reddit client that respects your privacy. ⬇️ Ayugram ❤️ A privacy-focused fork of Telegram, offering a similar messaging experience with enhanced features aimed at improving privacy and user control. 💡 (Available in the Ayugram Group on Telegram, under the topic named "Android | .apk") I know I’ve probably missed some other awesome FOSS apps out there; like Revanced (Download guide), Molly, F-Droid clients, Nextcloud, and many more. So, if you have any favorites or recommendations that deserve a mention, I’d love to hear them! Feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments. Let’s keep building this list together! If you're looking to discover even more amazing FOSS apps to maximize your freedom and privacy, I highly recommend checking out these curated lists: AAA: Curated List of THE BEST FOSS Android Apps by Psyhackological Android FOSS Apps by Offa Edit: I’ve made several updates and changes: Added new apps: Kvaesitso Pocket Cast Bitwarden WeatherMaster Grayjay OsmAnd LocalSend Symphony HeliBoard Dantotsu Iceraven Ironfox Removed Mull Browser as it's no longer maintained Replaced Simple Gallery with Fossify Gallery.💡 Simple Mobile Tools was acquired by ZipoApps, an Israeli publisher notorious for releasing ad-riddled apps. As a result, all the Simple Mobile Tools apps are now marked as including ads. Fortunately, Fossify, a fork by one of the original maintainers, continues the spirit of the SMT suite while staying open-source and ad-free. Added streaming app repositories: Aniyomi & Dantotsu Repo CloudStream Repo Removed: AnExplorer – A versatile open-source file manager with extensive file operations and cloud storage support. Reason: Too feature-rich for daily use. submitted by /u/bee077 to r/fossdroid [link] [comments]

Hello folks! I've recently finally pulled the trigger an converted an old Lenovo laptop into a home server running Debian. I don't have any formal computer science background, but I grew up around PCs and cut my teeth on MS-DOS and WinNT since my pops worked at IBM and HP when I was a kid. I've dipped my toes into the microcontroller world working on a project to build permanent RGB Christmas lights so my in-laws wouldn't need to climb ladders every season. Seeing some videos of CasaOS finally made me think "Oh, I can totally do that!", and so far the experience has been great. I've always ground my teeth a bit at the privacy concerns of third-party cloud services, so this has been a great experience so far. My family has been pleased with the performance and usability of Jellyfin and HomeAssistant. I have learned that simply port-forwarding to my server insecure, and that I should be using a reverse proxy if I want to access my home server remotely. So far, things have been pretty intuitive or easily tutorialized, but I feel like I've reached the edges of my competence when it comes to setting up my own reverse proxy using NginX with CasaOS. I am hesitant to blindly follow step-by-step instructions to for the DNS and SSL shenanigans. It may get me through the intial setup, but I feel robbed of a learning experience and I would be SOL if it needed troubleshooting. Other video tutorials I have found seem to target an audience that has more background knowledge than I do. Tinkering with things inside my own local network is fine. Exposing things to the public web introduces safety concerns that I would like to treat with the proper respect, even if that means learning things from scratch. I'm not currently looking for a career in IT, but I would like to be empowered enough to make competent decisions. I am smart enough to know when I am out of my depth, and I would really appreciate any resources the community can share so I can learn about securing my home server properly. Do you know of any good books, youtube series, or online courses? I send my sincerest gratitude all of you beautiful folks! edit: I'll be looking into Wireguard and Tailscale, as they seem to be more end-user friendly solutions with automated updates. Thanks for the helpful advice! :D submitted by /u/StatusKuo-tv to r/HomeServer [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/ethereor to r/deals_de [link] [comments]

There's been a lot of argument on this sub recently over Hogwarts Legacy. But let's ignore that! It's time to talk about a groundbreaking British female author who redefined a genre, and sold millions of books. Her works have become more closely analyzed in recent years, and a heated debate has arisen over whether she's really a feminist or not, as some racist and anti-semitic aspects are discovered. That's right, it's Agatha Christie time! On the morning of December fourth, mystery novelist Agatha Christie was gone. Her car was crashed into a hedge. Her money and clothes were left in the car. The only thing not in the car was her body. All of that happened just after she argued with her husband about him having an affair. As police and volunteers scoured the country for her, theories began to fly. Did her husband kill her? Or maybe his mistress? Had her own publishing agency bumped her off? Or was it a tragic suicide? Unlike most mysteries, when Christie was finally found, it only produced more speculation. In fact, this may be Christie's greatest mystery, one that remains unsolved to this day. Who is Agatha Christie? Christie is the world's most successful mystery novelist of all time. Screw that, she's the most successful novelist. In terms of book sales, she's third, falling behind only the Bible and Shakespeare. And she's catching up to Shakespeare. Christie wrote eighty five books, and several plays, while have sold billions of copies worldwide. She has had immense financial success, and practically defined the "Whodunnit" genre as we know it (no, Sherlock Holmes did not do this, and I'll die on that hill). But Agatha wasn't always quite so successful. This story takes place when her career was still beginning, in 1926. The Disappearance This is literally just the plot of a murder mystery In 1926, Christie's star was on the rise. She had kicked off her mystery career in 1921 with The Mysterious Affair At Styles, and had steadily seen more and more success. She was relatively popular, but not yet a literary powerhouse (think Percy Jackson, not Harry Potter). But her life wasn't just business. She had married her husband Archie just before he went off to serve in World War One, and they had a daughter together after he returned. It's hard to find specific sources on their marriage, but Agatha genuinely seemed to love Archie. Their marriage became more and more strained, especially by the death of Christie's mother. Christie had an extremely strong relationship with her mother, and was absolutely devastated by her death. Archie, lovely man that he was, refused to come to the funeral or help his wife grieve. She had to take some time off in a rural cottage as a result of an emotional breakdown. A few months later, as Agatha was finally recovering back at home, Archie popped his head in, told her "Hey, I've been fucking my secretary and I want a divorce, OK, byeeeeeeee". They fought back and forth for months, which eventually came to a head in December. Archie wanted to go out with his friends for the weekend, and didn't get why that was such a big deal. Agatha pointed out that the last time he did that, he came home with a mistress in her twenties. Archie stormed out, causing Christie to go pack up her things and go for a drive. She kissed her daughter good night, told the nanny to look after her, and went out. She didn't come back. The next morning, her car was found crashed into some bushes outside Surrey. The headlights were on, her suitcase and coat were still there... but Agatha wasn't. ​ Manhunt England exploded at this news. A missing mystery writer? That'd be sensationalist enough, but this situation looked like a murder had occurred. Reporters rushed to their presses, and soon the country was flooded with intrigue, turning Christie into a household name overnight. Police began frantically searching the area for her, alongside hundreds of volunteers. It became one of the biggest manhunts in recent history. The countryside was scoured for days on end, with no luck. Major British political figures began urging the police on, well aware of how such a prominent failure would look. Detectives brought one of Christie's pets to the scene of the crash, to try and catch her scent, but it just "whined pitifully". (Gee, I wonder why so many serial killers got away with shit in the 1900s.) After several days, the search shifted. The police were no longer looking for a missing person. Instead, they theorized that Christie had committed suicide. They dredged the Silent Pool, near where she had crashed, to see if she had drowned there, but found no body. Reports at the time suggested extravagant police spending, with multiple airplanes scouring the countryside, and hundreds of officers spending days on the search. However, police documents from the time suggest that the numbers were greatly exaggerated by tabloids, and that the official search was relatively standard, with many of the search party being volunteers, including those in the planes. Apparently, the number of volunteers was close to 15,000, and also included dozens of dogs. Some were trained bloodhounds, others were just... dogs. ​ Extra extra, read all about it! This dramatic saga gripped the country, fueling newspaper after newspaper, tabloid after tabloid. Do you remember balloon boy? Imagine that, but it lasted for eleven days. Within a week, the intrigue had spread internationally, with Christie making the front page of the New York Times. At the time, some theorized that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt. I mean, really, mystery writer goes missing just before her new book comes out? Her secretary vehemently denied this claims, although her publishers didn't help by running a giant ad for "The missing novelist Agatha Christie". As the press dug into it, they became more and more suspicious. Christie had just written her most popular book yet, and had another one coming out soon. Why would she kill herself? Either she hadn't done so, or she had some personal motivation that had driven her to suicide. They dug into the mystery, and discovered Archie's affair. It's unclear if they truly knew about it, if they guessed it, or if it was just made up drama which happened to coincide with the truth. All of a sudden, suspicion fell on Archie. He made matters worse by vehemently denying that he'd had a fight with his wife before she left (which was proven to be a lie), and by repeatedly insisting that he was a good husband. It is absolutely untrue to suggest that there was anything in the nature of a row or a tiff between my wife and myself on Friday morning … I strongly depreciate introducing any tittle-tattle into this matter Tittle-tattle my good sir? Harrumph! Say those words in front of a lady again and I'll have to codswollop your organ-blaster you cotton headed ninnymuggins. Ironically, he made those statements before many people suspected him, but he was so emphatic and worried about it that people started to question it. ​ The plot thickens even more. It's dummy thicc now. A few days into the search, police received a letter from Christie's brother in law saying that she wasn't missing, she was just at a Yorkshire health spa. He claimed that she had left him a letter before she departed. However, he burned the original letter, and only had his word to back it up. Christie's secretary and husband were also left letters. Her secretary's didn't reveal anything new -- just that she "had to get away", and some details on cancelling apointments. Her husband Archie refused to tell the police what his letter said, citing it as a "personal matter", and burning it. As you can imagine, that only fueled more suspicion and rumors. ​ Desperate times call for elementary measures People knew that time was running out. They frantically rushed to the one man who could crack the case: Sherlock Holmes. Except Sherlock Holmes is fictional. Bugger. But you know who's not fictional? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of Sherlock Holmes! Sure, Doyle had absolutely zero real world detective experience, but as everyone knows, authors can do anything their character can do. That's why JK Rowling is often seen swooping around Scotland, cackling and killing babies. Despite the very obvious flaws with this plan, people were confident. Doyle, like Sherlock, only required a single clue that everyone else had missed: Christie's glove. With that in hand, he took off into London, following a path only he knew. Finally, he tracked down the man he was looking for: a psychic. He then handed over the glove, and asked the man to tell him where Christie was. Believe it or not, this didn't work. Fellow mystery writer Dorothy Sayers also decided to try her hand at some crime solving. She visited the actual scene of Christie's disappearance to investigate (you wouldn't think that'd be an impressive decision, but after Doyle, the bar is several feet underground). She then proceeded to look around, go "Yup, that's a crashed car alright. Good luck lads." As it turns out, writers are not actually great detectives. Back to square one. But wait! Sure, those writers had failed. But what about the writer who knew Christie best -- herself. Her brother in law sent the police a copy of her new manuscript The Blue Train, and the police were certain that it held the key to her disappearance. After all, she'd jam-packed it with all kinds of clues and obscure references. Police sergeants stood a 24/7 watch over Newlands Corner, secure in their interpretation that this was the location that Christie had been leading them to. I probably don't even have to tell you that they didn't find her there. Also, the book they were reading wasn't even The Blue Train at all. Even after that was revealed, the police doggedly insisted on staying there. ​ The trail goes cold As the search dragged on, and was closing in on the two week mark, enthusiasm began to flag. Christie's body was nowhere to be found, and the police had tried everything (maybe not everything smart, but everything they could think of). Perhaps this mystery would just go unsolved. The Discovery Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your face Eventually, days later, a banjo player went to the police. He played at an exclusive spa resort in Harrogate (in Yorkshire, where her brother in law had said she'd be), and had seen someone matching Christie's depiction there. She was checked in under the name "Theresa Neele". Neele, as in the last name of Archie's mistress. Ohhhhh shit. Archie arrived at the hotel and sat down in the restaurant there. Shortly, Agatha Christie came downstairs. She sat down at a table, and pulled out a newspaper with her own face plastered across it and began to read. When Archie approached her, she showed no sign of recognition, and asked who he was. He eventually managed to convince her that he was her husband, and got her to come home with him -- although she made him wait, so that she could go upstairs and change into an elegant gown. Later reports would reveal that Christie had walked from her crash to the train station, taken the train to Harrogate, and stayed there under her fake name. She was friendly and outgoing, and spent much of her time socializing with other guests and dancing in the ballroom (although reports vary on how good she was). Some other residents suspected that she was the missing novelist, but they brushed it off as impossible. You also gotta wonder how shitty the police were at their jobs, when the one thing Christie did to avoid detection was just... think of a fake name. ​ An amnesia subplot? What anime is this? Archie announced that Christie had suffered "the most complete loss of memory", resulting from a blow to the head in her crash. When asked about why she chose the name "Neele", or where she got all the money for the resort from, he had no response. Christie recovered in private for some time after that, and both she and her husband stuck to the amnesia explanation. However, Christie did not like talking about the incident, and pointedly left it out of her autobiography. Throughout the rest of her life, she gave little to no mention of it -- although several of her books feature amnesia. Surprising no one, about a year after all this, Christie sued Archie for divorce, taking full custody of their daughter. Archie remarried a week later. Christie waited a bit longer, but after two years, she found someone she genuinely fell in love with, whom she spent the rest of her life with. The Solution Ever since this happened, speculation has swirled as to the real reason Christie disappeared. People have written essays, articles, even full books defending a certain point of view. After all, what good is a mystery if you can't solve it? Hercule Poirot, Christie's most popular detective famously said There are two possible solutions of the crime In this case, I found three possible solutions. Eat it you Belgian has-been. (There would be a fourth solution, but the idea that it was all a publicity stunt has been pretty well debunked by this point) ​ Solution One: The concussion This is the solution that can be mostly deemed "official". Archie took her to see two separate doctors, both of whom agreed she was concussed. She had gone out driving, in anger, in the dark, and crashed. When she crashed, her head flew forward and hit the car, concussing her. This was what caused her apparent lapse in memory, and was the reason she went into hiding. However, this solution is... lacking, to say the least. While people at the time were certainly aware of concussions, their ability to diagnose them correctly was lacking. Additionally, if Christie genuinely suffered a head trauma serious enough to leave her as a dazed amnesiac for weeks, "seeing the face of her husband" wasn't going to magically snap her out of it. At the very least, such a major brain injury would have left Christie with serious issues for the rest of her life, but we see no evidence of that. Many have suggested since that the concussion was Christie's coverup story. England in the 1920s (and even now) had a "firm upper lip, show the public nothing" attitude towards mental health and personal issues. But what would she have to cover up? That's where the other two solutions come in. ​ Solution Two: A mental health crisis, or suicide attempt Many have suggested that Christie was in a genuine crisis. Her beloved mother had died recently, her husband gave her no support with that grief, and now she found out that he was cheating on her. She had already had one breakdown earlier in the year, and it certainly wouldn't be shocking for her to have another. One of her biographers, Andrew Norman suggested that she had fallen into a "fugue state", a rare condition brought on by deep trauma and depression. It can bring on psychogenic amnesia, causing the brain to instinctively shut down to prevent itself from harm, while still maintaining some basic functions. That's why she was able to appear perfectly fine on the surface, and could chat with other spa guests, but couldn't recall why she was there or recognize her face in newspapers. When she read about Agatha Christie's disappearance, "Theresa Neele" thought that Christie was being "very stupid". Another biographer, Lucy Worsley, searched for what few quotes Christie did have about this period. She suggests that Christie was feeling suicidal, and had been shocked into a fugue state by her failed attempt. Apparently, Christie later recalled some of her repressed memories later, with the help of a therapist. She vaguely remembered arriving at Waterloo train station, and taking on the persona of Theresa Neele from South Africa. Neele, the woman who had kept Archie's love, and South Africa, where she and Archie had last been happy. She went to the spa, and spent close to two weeks there in anonymous happiness. This solution mostly fits the story, but still has some holes. How did she get to the train station, and how was no one get suspicious of a woman caked in mud who had walked for miles? She spent money lavishly while at the spa, where did all of that come from? And most of all, how could she have told her brother in law where she'd be if she didn't even remember who he was? ​ Solution Three: An elaborate ruse The third solution is that Christie faked the entire thing to get revenge on Archie. She was a mystery writer, who had studied real police procedure. She knew damn well that if a wife were to go missing after having an argument with her husband about his affair and divorce, it would look really fucking suspicious. Especially given that Christie was worth quite a bit of money, and her will left it all to Archie. Christie was a woman in 1920s England, whose husband had cheated on her. England had passed a law allowing women to divorce due to adultery in 1923, and Archie was clearly willing, but it was still a major social blow. Christie would likely be judged or blamed for the marriage's failure, while her husband would be completely fine. But if his marital indiscretions were publicly dragged out in every newspaper... well, that might change things. Proponents of this solution point to the fact that Christie checked into the spa under the last name of her husband's mistress, and then told Archie to his face that she didn't recognize him, as she read a newspaper about her own disappearance. Not to mention that she somehow managed to get quite a bit of cash, despite Archie not knowing how. Additionally, the letter to her brother in law suggests that she knew what she was doing. They argue that her amnesia was all an act, a way to humiliate Archie without destroying her reputation. Witnesses either saw her faking it, or had their memory clouded by bias (a fact Christie wrote about quite often). This one is sometimes combined with the second solution. People speculate that Christie legitimately did try to kill herself, or at least considered it. She then either changed her mind, or survived the attempt, and decided to get payback on Archie instead. I'll admit, this solution is tempting. More than that, it's fun. A mystery writer faking her own death would be dramatic enough, but when you add in the 1920s woman taking the only opportunity she had to get revenge on a cheating spouse? That's telenovela level shit. However, I'm also way about attempts to "girlbossify" history. Yes, Christie had her reasons to lie about this, but dismissing her statements about an emotional mental breakdown out of hand... it doesn't feel great. This solution also turns her into a bit of an ass, who worried countless people as part of a power play. --- ​ The Impact It would be easy to just look at this case, and see it as an episode of Christie's own life. But it went far, far beyond that. First, this is a large part of what catapulted Christie to fame, especially outside of Britain. As I mentioned before, she had been moderately successful, but this turned her into a household name. Combined with the launch of her new book, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Christie was launched to even greater heights of success. Although her career was already on the rise, this allowed her to vastly accelerate her fame. On a personal level, you can see the impact that this incident had on many of Christie's books. She was very vocal about the fact that she took inspiration from her real life and the people she met. One of her biographers noted I think she just observed and absorbed pretty much everything that came her way. Then she let it inform her books. So readers get her essence, even if she didn’t intend them to. As mentioned previously, Christie worked amnesia or a loss of oneself into several of her books as a plot point. But if you look at them carefully, you'll also see other hints of this event. After the disappearance, Christie took a hard 180 from previous whodunnits, and focused more on crimes of passion, especially women reacting to affairs. In particular, Unfinished Portrait is widely viewed as autobiographical: a novel about a woman whose mother dies, and whose husband cheats on her, causing her to contemplate suicide. Christie's impact as a mystery novelist cannot be understated. She was more than just successful, she was genre defining. So when she had such a massive shift in her writing, others followed. Now, it'd still be a ridiculous stretch to say that she invented the idea of a crime of passion. But she popularized it, and more importantly, she humanized it. The reason Christie was so much more impactful than any previous mystery writer is that her characters all felt like real people. And that'd be impossible to pull off without her own personal tragedy. But perhaps one of the biggest impacts of this is often overlooked. As mentioned previously, Christie took some time out of the spotlight after she went missing. She needed to recover and relax, so she hopped on a train. Specifically, she hopped on the Orient Express. While she recovered there, she began to think about a mystery occurring in such a dramatic location. That lead to Murder on the Orient Express, widely regarded as one of her best books, and certainly one of the most famous. Even outside the impact on mystery novels, Christie's disappearance has become a topic of speculation and research, and has been an enduring question for her fans. The mystery has clearly inspired a number of them. Her disappearance has been the subject of a Doctor Who episode, three separate mystery novels (The Christie Affair, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, and A Talent For Murder), and a movie, along with countless other nonfiction novels. We may never know what really happened to Agatha Christie. Maybe it was a genius ruse, or a cry for help. Or maybe it was a different thing entirely. Unlike her novels, real life mysteries often have details that don't add up or fit together neatly. No matter the solution, Christie can rest easy knowing that she left behind one mystery that no one would ever be able to solve. The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances. submitted by /u/EquivalentInflation to r/HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

The sail was classified as top secret. Whatever we were doing out there, they didn’t want anybody to know– not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the public and certainly not the crew. We’d been kept in the dark. Fed the lie that we were heading out on a routine patrol. Up and down the coast, they said. Back in no time. That was before the storm. Before the sea turned into a maelstrom and the night swallowed the sun. It was before the captain slit his throat and before the crew tossed themselves overboard, desperate to escape the nightmare we’d fished out of the sea. My name is Walter Mills. I suppose I should probably use an alias, something to prevent the people above from finding me, but the truth is I don’t care. I’ve spent my entire life caring. My entire life running from the shadows that sit above our government, from the puppet masters that pull the strings of the world. But I’m out of time, and I mean that literally. I’ve got one foot in the grave. Doc says it’s terminal. That means I don’t have to worry about the wrong people finding me or the consequences of what I’m about to say. I can let you know. And then I can go. The sail began like any other. Our warship was tied up alongside, the crew formed up in lines running from the jetty to the lower decks, storing it full of food and supplies. It began uniform. Ordinary. Then they arrived. The Secret Ones. Nobody seemed to know who they were, but when they came they wore masks of crimson. Like balaclavas without holes for the eyes or mouth. They shoved past our line on the brow and told the quartermaster they needed to speak with the captain. And speak they did. I watched them from the edge of my vision, all six of them surrounding the captain, mumbling in words too quiet to properly make out. The conversation lasted twenty minutes, and by the end the captain was frowning. He made a call ashore, presumably to the commodore. He seemed nervous. Afraid. When the call finished, he said something dismissively to the Secret Ones and vanished below decks. We all wondered what was going on. For those of you that have served, you know that there’s two things that keep a crew entertained: pirated movies and rumors. And after that exchange, the rumors flew. Some said the Secret Ones were special forces, so clandestine that nobody was permitted to see their faces. Others said they were intelligence operators. People with access to such sensitive intel that knowing their faces could prove a national security risk. Briggs, a stoker in the engine room, joked that they were Illuminati. Lizards from mars. I didn’t know what they were. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to get the sail over with so I could get home to see my wife, Abby and our newborn, Alice. For me, this was just a job. A stepping stone to a better life. And when we set sail, I still believed that. Then the ship dropped anchor, and the crew was mustered into the hangar. The captain stood at the front with three of the Secret Ones on either side of him. They stood silent, gazing out at us behind their crimson masks. The captain cleared his throat and said this was difficult for him to do, but prior to our departure he received word that our mission had changed– that it was no longer routine, no longer what we expected. He passed a bottle of pills around. Each of us was instructed to take a pill from the bottle. To keep it safe. To keep it on our person at all times in case of emergency, but never to eat it otherwise. “What is it, sir?” Briggs asked in the back. “Cyanide,” the captain replied. Laughter rippled across the crew. “Seriously,” somebody else called. “This for malaria? Are we deploying?" The captain sighed, looking sidelong at the Secret Ones who remained silent, impassive. “It’s cyanide, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make sure you don’t lose it.” With that, he stormed off, Secret Ones in tow. That night, Briggs died. He tried the capsule. Swore up and down that the whole thing was a dumb joke. That there was no fucking way they’d give us cyanide capsules when they didn’t even trust us to clean toilets unsupervised. His last words? “It probably tastes like Smarties.” Briggs died quick. He died quick in a seizing, sputtering mess of shit and piss, but once his organs gave out it only took a matter of seconds. Carrying his corpse through the ship took minutes. Minutes that felt like hours. Once we’d made it to the med bay the doc tried resuscitating him, tried pumping his stomach, but he knew as well as we all did that it was a waste of time. He was gone. Long gone. After that we all assumed we’d turn straight around and head home. That we’d drop off Briggs’ body, pay our respects, and take a couple days to grieve before resuming the mission. But the captain informed us the show would go on. We wouldn’t be turning around. We wouldn’t be dropping off Brigg’s corpse because this mission was classified as a No Fail. And not only that, but the ship would be going into lockdown. Shutting off all communications. River City. That meant no way to call home. No way for home to call us. We were isolated and alone, and then the captain had the nerve to tell us that things were going to get worse. That Briggs’ death, tragic as it might have been, was likely to be the tip of our iceberg. The crew was furious. Confused. Most of all though, we were heartbroken. Many of us threw our cyanide capsules out, hating the memory they represented. Three days passed after Briggs' death. Three days of mourning, of the ship steaming through the Pacific while its crew slowly came undone, whispering theories about what we were doing out there. About what the captain meant by things getting worse. It’s China, I overheard in the flats. They’ve got a secret weapon and we’re going to dismantle it. I saw a YouTube video on this. If they catch us though they’re gonna torture the fuck outta us, so that’s why they gave us the cyanide. Fuck that. You sound totally nuts. It’s Russia, dummy. Gotta be. They’re going nuclear and we got word so now we're out to sink their subs. What do you mean why? Then they can’t second strike us after we glass 'em– it ain’t genocide if we got no choice. I didn’t know what to think. I’d never experienced anything like this, and so I just woke up, did my watches, and went back to bed. Rinse. Repeat. I tried not to talk about what was going on because every time I did, Briggs inevitably came up and the memory hurt like a knife to the gut. He and I had gone through basic together. Sailed up and down the Pacific Northwest and made a game of finding old coins in every port. So I just kept my head down. Did my work. I was doing that work when the captain’s warning came true. When things got worse. It was a night watch and I’d been steering the ship on the bridge. One moment we were sailing through smooth waters in a bright, cloudless night, and the next moment it all disappeared. Darkness stole the evening like a lightswitch set to off. I recall the watch officer moving onto the bridge wings and staring up at the sky, trying to determine if the moon had slipped behind a cloud. When he came back, he looked confused. Shaken. It was odd to me because we had radars so it wasn’t like we were navigating blind. He called the captain and reported that the moon was missing. Gone. “Stay the course,” the captain commanded. “But sir–” Click. The line went dead. The next morning the sun never rose. The sky remained as black and haunting as the night before. Around this time the Secret Ones began acting more bizarre. Whereas before they more or less stayed put in their cabins, they now wandered the ship aimlessly. They’d mumble nonsense under their breaths as you passed them in the flats. Run their hands over surfaces everywhere they went. Every so often you’d catch a couple of them heading to the upper decks with a small ham radio and a portable antenna. They’d set it up and sit there for hours. Mostly they didn’t speak into the microphone, they’d just listen to the static buzz of the speaker. Every so often though, you’d hear them screech into the mic. Once I saw one crying into it. Just weeping quietly, hands clutching the sides of their head. The crew’s discussions became more erratic. Talk of Russian or Chinese super weapons mostly vanished, and now the going theory was that we were making contact with aliens. That we’d located a downed spacecraft and were attempting to communicate with it. That’s why the sky’s gone all fucky. It’s alien cloaking technology designed to keep their craft hidden. If we get it first then we’ll be able to travel to different planets and shit. The guy’s in red work for Elon Musk. Space X. Whaddya mean how do I know? I asked one. No way. I told you the Russians were gonna nuke us and now they did. Why do you think it’s so fucking dark, man? Nuclear winter. All the ash and soot blotted out the sun. Dummy. Neither theory was close to the truth. Nobody onboard had any idea just how bad things were, or how bad they were going to get. If we had, then we’d have staged a mutiny right then and there and turned the ship around, gone back the way we came. But we didn’t. We sailed into the night. The following week passed in confusion and despair. The crew became more irritable. People who were usually chipper were suddenly snapping at one another, fighting over the littlest things. Errant comments became verbal meltdowns in the space of seconds. Cold coffee led to fist fights. Missing toilet paper left a sailor with a black eye and a bloody nose. But those were manageable problems. Not so far out of the ordinary that we weren’t equipped to understand them, to deal with them. What happened in the gym between Myers and Yendel though… that was something none of us were equipped to deal with. Yendel was spotting Myers on the bench press. I don’t know what was said. I wasn’t there. All of my information is second hand but according to witnesses, an argument started when Yendel accused Myers of sabotaging their marriage. Words flew. Myers went to rack his bar, but Yendel kicked the bar down. Two hundred pounds. It nearly decapitated him– it’d been better if it had. Myers was still alive when the doc arrived. His neck had been severed badly, hanging by strips of flesh, but his eyes were still moving. His throat was still choking. Yendel sat bawling in the corner, screaming that she didn’t mean to, that she never wanted to hurt him but couldn’t stop herself. She screamed as they dragged her away. As they locked her up. Myers didn’t live much longer. The doc put him out of his misery the fastest way he could think of– by finishing the job. The rest of the crew got to work cleaning up the blood. As for Yendel? She died an hour later. Turns out she never threw out her cyanide capsule, and she finally got her chance to use it. At the time, I felt awful for them– awful for Myers’ to suffer the way he did, and awful for Yendel because I knew exactly what she meant. That she never meant to hurt anybody. That some dark miasma had infected the ship, had seeped into our hearts and minds and it had made us angry. Desperate. That night I thought of her. Of what she must have looked like after she’d swallowed her cyanide capsule– of how easy it could have been to escape this nightmare if I’d never flushed mine. Then my thoughts turned to my wife. My daughter. Guilt filled my stomach like a pit of vipers, snapping at me for even thinking of leaving them behind. I drifted off. My dreams were messy things. Hopeless. Twisted. I dreamt of Briggs’ spirit wandering the ship, unable to find peace so far from home, trapped in a steel cage like a rat. When I awoke, my mind felt like mush. I stumbled through the flats like a zombie, each step more plodding and heavy than the last. My ears rang. My vision blurred. I half-wondered whether I’d been drugged or if there was a carbon monoxide leak in the mess, but then something caught my eye. The Secret Ones cabin. Their door was cracked open, barely. It was never open. I peeked in, spotting one of them sitting at a desk with their back to me. The lights were out. A low sound played in the room. Something resembling music, but decidedly off-tune and agonizing, like a violin’s strings being stripped and sanded. I used it to cover my footsteps as I slipped inside, eying the Secret One as it sat rigid in its seat. It wasn’t wearing its mask. At least, not properly. It had lifted it up to its eyes– except it had none. No eyes, no nose, and only a tiny round hole that passed for a mouth. Heart pounding, I gazed at this thing in the thin light from the flats, suddenly understanding why they were running their hands over everything on the ship. They were navigating. Scouting. It lifted a finger to its face, tracing along a series of scattered wounds, some still bleeding. With a whimper, its nail plunged into its cheek. A pool of blood formed around it. The Secret One moaned. Slowly, it peeled off a small strip of flesh. Then another. It placed them down on the desk, humming in tune with the distorted music, and the flesh began to writhe. It began to twist and reshape. The Secret One felt it with its hands. Nodded to itself. Then it pulled a file dossier from the desk, opened it up and felt for a form before scribbling something onto it and replacing it in the drawer. The cabin door creaked open. Another Secret One stood in the doorway, gazing at me through its crimson mask. It cocked its head. Took a step forward. My body rippled with goosebumps, wondering if this one still had its features. Its eyes. It mumbled something incoherent, and the first turned in its seat. My skull pounded. Whatever headache I’d woken up with had worsened, and now the pain was almost blinding. I stifled a groan as the first Secret One rose from its chair. It approached me and I took a quiet step backward as it reached into the locker I’d been standing in front of, removing a ham radio and a machete. My heart hit my rib cage once. Twice. I wanted to faint. Then both of them left the cabin, leaving me alone. Alone with the dossier. I gave it thirty seconds before I took another breath. Then I moved to the desk drawer, took the documents from the folder, and thumbed through them. They were written like a fever dream. Symbols. Numbers. Nothing about them seemed to make much sense, and it occurred to me that they were probably encrypted by some kind of code. Cursing, I stuffed them into my pocket for later analysis. I hurried to the bridge, already late for my shift. My thoughts raced as I relieved the helmsman, hastily giving my turnover report to Sandhu, the watch officer. I sat down in the chair, took the wheel and pondered what I’d just seen. Were the Secret Ones some kind of cultists? Was Briggs right? Were we sailing with the goddamn Illuminati? I never got an opportunity to think it through. At that moment the captain stumbled onto the bridge looking like death itself. I’d heard rumors he looked unwell, but this was the first time I’d seen him out of his cabin in weeks. His face was emaciated. His cheeks were so sunken that the bones looked liable to pierce his skin, and I idly wondered if he’d eaten a full meal since we’d set sail. "Evening sir," Sandhu said. The captain mumbled something unintelligible, brushing past her and sitting down in his chair. He buckled his seat belt. “Everything alright?” Sandu asked. The captain looked at her, but he didn’t seem to see her. His fingers gripped both sides of his armrests and his lips began to move. “Goodbye,” he said. "I'm sorry?” Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. The captain sat in his chair, repeating the word over and over again as tears leaked from his eyes. “Better get the doc…” Sandhu muttered. She picked up the phone, but before she could get the number dialed an orange glow appeared beneath the bridge windows. Something flickering. “Ma’am!” Ramirez reported from lookout. “Those Secret types just lit a bonfire on the fuckin’ gun deck!” “What?” Sandhu rushed to the window, looking down in shock and rage. Then she moved to the bridge wing, calling down to the Secret Ones to put the fire out. A moment later, she screamed. Ramirez, looking out the bridge windows, suddenly turned and vomited onto the deck. “What’s going on?” I asked, shooting up from my seat. “It’s Yendel…” Ramirez said, wiping his mouth. “It’s Yendel and Briggs. They’re chopping up their damn corpses.” Sandhu stormed back inside, shouting at the captain. “Sir, permission to mobilize an ERT and put those assholes in confinement?” Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Sandhu cursed. She picked up the phone and dialed the Executive Officer, informing them that the captain had lost it and that the Secret Ones were cutting up corpses. Burning bodies. They needed to get people out there to shut it down now– people with weapons because the Secret Ones had machetes. The XO said they were on it, but it was too little too late. Somehow I already knew the Secret’s had already finished what they came to do. From deep in the night, the wind howled. Screamed. A wave struck us broadside— a big one. It twisted the warship like a rubber duck in the bath, knocking Ramirez sideways and tumbling Sandu across the deck. I managed to steady myself against the helm console. "Jesus Christ," Sandhu breathed. "Everybody alright?" I buckled my seatbelt. "What the hell was that?” “Rogue wave,” Sandhu spat. “Been three weeks of perfect weather and then that comes out of nowhere. This sail is cursed.” She grabbed the phone and began a ship-wide announcement for a rapid survey, but she never finished the pipe. Another wave struck us. Then another. Sandhu’s head slammed against the center console with a sickening crack and she fell to the deck motionless. I braced against the helm, my seatbelt squeezing painfully into my waist. Nearby, I heard Ramirez shrieking. Praying. The captain continued to utter his refrain. Goodbye. Goodbye. Lightning flashed. For the first time in weeks, I glimpsed the sky. Dark clouds spun around us as though caught up in a whirlwind, and in them swam faces. Shadows. They gazed down at us, anguished. I saw Yendel. Briggs. I heard them scream and howl as though calling for somebody in a language that could only be described as blasphemous. Ramirez's body arched and twisted, he hollered as though something were picking him apart from the inside out. I wanted to jump up and help him, but I needed to keep control of the ship. Abandoning the helm in a storm like this would mean certain death. “Not like this…” Ramirez moaned. Tears streamed from his eyes as he gazed up at the haunting faces of the dead swirling in the sky above. “I… can’t….” His hands gripped the guardrails running along the bridge and he pulled himself slowly against the violently rocking ship. Inch by inch. I gazed on helplessly as I saw him reach the hatch leading to the outside bridgewings, and I knew exactly what he intended on doing. After all, Ramirez and I had flushed our cyanide capsules together. “Don’t…” I called, but I couldn’t think of anything else to add. Why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t I join him? He paused, looked at me. Then he pulled open the hatch, filled the bridge with the deafening bass of the storm, and threw himself into the sea. I sat there, dying in slow motion. The waves, already vicious, worsened. The swells now threatened to swallow the ship, reaching the height of skyscrapers as their walls of water crashed around us. The vessel’s frame groaned. Shrieked. It sounded as though the whole thing was moments away from splitting apart. And then another wave hit us. A goliath. My neck snapped sideways as my seatbelt tore into my waist. Suddenly down was up and up was down. We tumbled in the rage of the sea, frigid water shattering the bridge windows, smothering the captain and I in wet darkness. In retrospect, I don't know why I held my breath. After all that had happened, drowning would have been easy. Preferable. But I did. I think I held it for Abby and Alice, gurgling as I desperately attempted to get my bearings. Until the water began to drain. All the water in the bridge poured out of the shattered windows, along with Sandhu’s lifeless body. I hung upside down from my seat, gasping for breath. Ahead of me, the captain did the same, appearing to have finally been shocked into lucidity once more. He was no longer muttering goodbye. Now he was gazing straight ahead. And something was gazing back at him. Something titanic. It stared at him through the broken window, its eyes like three orbs of swirling obsidian. The captain reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. It was meant to cut lines. To cut ropes. I wondered if he meant to fight that thing, to stage one final defense for him and his crew, but instead he pressed it to his throat. He jammed it into one side, and with a gurgling groan, ripped it across with both hands. His neck exploded in a shower of blood. The creature, seemingly satisfied, looked to me then. It looked to me, and I looked back, deep into those eyes of swirling darkness– and in them I saw the abyss. I saw the void. It was as if something had bottled all the pain of humanity into a single point, compressed it down into something resembling a collapsing star, and then let it ignite. A new big bang. An entire universe built of our despair. I writhed and twisted in my seat. It felt like somebody had poured napalm into my skull, and I realized that thing was inside of me. That it was tasting my thoughts. My memories. I clenched my fists and set my jaw and I screamed my throat raw but nothing lessened the agony. The cyanide. Why the fuck had I thrown out the cyanide? It would’ve been so easy. So easy. Abby, that was why. Abby, and my little Alice, who would grow up without her father. I couldn’t punch my ticket. Not if it meant leaving them behind. My thoughts rebounded against the monster, the love I had for my wife and daughter struggling against all of its emptiness. Struggling, but winning. The napalm in my skull dissipated. The screams echoing from my mouth faded to gasping breaths. A voice reached me, from somewhere distant and endless, and it told me to never return. To hold dear to what I have. Then, from beyond the shattered window, the monster’s eyes closed. And so did mine. _______________________________ I awoke floating on a piece of debris, somewhere off the coast of Guam. The waves gently sloshed against my feet. There was no sign of my ship, my crew, or the monster we’d discovered in the middle of the sea. It was quiet. Peaceful. Gulls squawked overhead and a bell drew my attention. Some distance away was a small fishing vessel. It looked to have diverted course and was sailing in my direction, its crew members tiny dots shouting on the deck. They saved my life. But so did the monster in the sea. The monster I came to know as Eden. The documents I’d taken from the Secret Ones were badly damaged and waterlogged, but they weren’t unreadable. Translating them took time, but I managed. I had help from several individuals who I won't mention here for obvious reasons, but what we discovered was haunting. Terrifying. We learned that the theory of evolution is missing components, that it’s not telling the full story. It tells us life originated from the primordial soup. It says that we began as basic organisms crawling out of the sea, but what it doesn’t tell us is that those organisms weren’t miracles. They were births. A billion years ago, something came to our planet from the distant cosmos. A creature of unfathomable power. It settled deep in the ocean and began to create all manner of lifeforms, learning as it went. Eventually, these iterations led to the creation of humanity. In an effort to assuage its own loneliness, it did something it had never before attempted: shared fragments of its own mind, its own consciousness with the human race in an effort to accelerate our evolution. It backfired. That link to its mind proved unbreakable. Even as it attempted to instill virtues within humanity– to inspire us toward love, compassion and peace, we rebelled. Our baser instincts won out. We fell again and again into cycles of violence and war, rape and murder. We poisoned Eden with our own corruption, but it persisted. It knew that to break its link to us would mean the end of humanity as we know it– that whatever empathy we have would vanish. Like a mother, it couldn’t let go. It believed we could be better, if not now, then eventually. But it’s been too long. The wound has festered, it’s gone untreated and Eden is paying the price. She’s dying. Withering away. All our hatred and greed, our thirst for destruction has reached a critical mass inside of her and it’s beginning to collapse, filling her with madness. The mother that birthed us is gone. A monster has taken its place. The Secret Ones know all of this. According to their documents, they believe that she intends to finally cauterize her wound, to put an end to humanity before we can put an end to her. The intention of the sail was to strike first. The terrifying thing is, they didn’t seem to know what would happen when she died. Would she merely sink to the bottom of the ocean, rotting away across decades? Would all that madness leak out of her, infecting the world in a miasma of insanity? There were plenty of variables they seemed unable to account for, but there was one certainty that they were absolutely sure of: that we would lose our connection to her. We would lose our love, our empathy, our souls. And to them, survival was worth that. I don’t think so. I don’t think so because my empathy is the only reason I’m writing this today. My love for my daughter saved me that night. When Eden looked into my eyes, even so filled with human corruption as she was, part of her saw my need to see my family again. To care for them. I believe that’s why she let me go. She saw that though much of humanity had fallen to selfishness and greed, there were still those among us who carried her torch. There were still those with love in our hearts.And it’s because of that, I believe there was still love in hers. But that was many years ago now and times have changed. Humanity has grown more twisted, more corrupt than ever. All around me I see love drying up, empathy smoldering in the embers of selfishness and unrest and I cannot help but wonder if the Secret Ones succeeded in their mission. I can’t help but wonder if Eden is finally dead. submitted by /u/Born-Beach to r/nosleep [link] [comments]

TL;DR – I’m going to, again, debunk a “critical margin line” idea and dig back into why these guys are missing the much bigger point behind the price trending downwards. Then I’m going to cover logarithmic v linear for those confused on the topic and from there transition into how viewing TtR in log fits the data better and why that’s important. Finally, I’m going to dig back into Cellar Boxing, because I think that’s what this downward motion is actually about (not Marge). Last bit, yes I’m going to be showing lines on a chart. This isn’t TA as some predictive idea, it’s a historical look at what has occurred, but more importantly its DD on WHY it’s occurring. 1) The Self-Defeating Theory 2) Log v Linear for Dummies Apes 3) Taste the Rainbow is fitting better in log….. 4) ….Since 2018 5) Cellar Box is the Goal, Avoiding Marge Might be a Bonus 1) The Self-Defeating Theory I feel like Dr. Frankenstein having to fight his own monster. In my last major TtR update “Cloudy with a Chance of Margeballs” I went through multiple “critical margin line” posts and explained why their theories were not holding water. I thought MAYBE that was enough to convince people that the theory was flawed. But then out of the ashes a new set of DD popped up by u/deeproot3d that attempted to prove the “critical margin line” theory again. Welp, \extinguishes cigar in palm** time to dance. First, we need to cover the purpose of a price ratio chart. The simplest way to explain it is that if I have 2 assets a price ratio chart will tell me how they have performed against each other. Even if both assets went up in $ value or down in $ value, the chart is telling you how they performed against each other. To make one of these, you go into your charting app and search for (Asset A / Asset B). All you are telling the app to do is divide the price of A by the price of B. If the candles are trending upward, Asset A is performing better. If the candles are trending downward, Asset B is performing better. The purpose of using a chart like this is that you might not care about $ value at all, you only care about which of the two assets is doing better. So let’s do a quick test to see if you read that paragraph correctly…. If I show you a price ratio chart of Apple/Gamestop and the candles are trending upwards, which asset is holding value better? Answer (Apple, if you said Gamestop please re-read that paragraph) Well let’s go right to the DD and see what u/deeproot3d showed everyone. While not showing ALL of Citadel’s long assets, we can see a lot of them and all of the charts are set up the same way. (Citadel Long Asset / Gamestop). So using what we learned above, what do we see? OP points out that since the sneeze, Jan 2021, the candles trend upwards (blue line). So if the candles are trending upwards on all of these ratio charts since Jan 2021 the chart is literally telling you that Citadel’s long assets have held up BETTER in value than Gamestop. And before you scream at me that I am fudding, this is the data. You might not like that their assets went up in value against GME, but they did. That might make you feel mad, so be it, it occurred. If you wanted me to say that these guys have been collapsing since the sneeze, the chart says otherwise. “Critical Margin Theory” says that since the sneeze, Marge has been slowly descending on the hedgies and we keep on bumping into her as she descends. But the price ratio charts show that Citadel assets went up in value against GME, so why on earth would Marge be descending? If anything, after Jan 2021 Marge should have been heading upwards since the value of their collateral is going up against their short. One thing I will point out. Roughly around Jan 2022, we do see on all of these charts that there might be a change in direction back downwards. And that is what you would want to see, that their collateral is going down against GME (woohoo). But that turn downwards can very well be temporary. This would mean then that Marge (if it even was a line we could see) would look more like this…. Marge would be that curved white line. And that is nothing like what the “Critical Margin Theory” crowd describes. Citadel collateral rose against GME from Jan 2021 to Jan 2022 and has since gone down in value against GME. And that’s ignoring the SPY puts that Citadel owns which gain value as SPY goes down. What really frustrates me is just like when I went and debunked Critical Margin ideas in the last post, I truly can not tell if the OP’s are purposefully misrepresenting the data or if they are mistaken. But on u/deeproot3d ‘s more recent update I tried to explain the point about the trend upwards meaning that Citadel collateral held up better than GME from Jan 2021 to Jan 2022. u/deeproot3d never responded. But u/ultrasharpie, whom inspired OP’s post, responded like this. https://preview.redd.it/byrwczyfxvd91.png?width=657&format=png&auto=webp&s=b732983191c64d0f948099a0dea1c497e54014c4 Very simply put, GME has in NO FUCKING WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM held up better than SPY. Maybe I'm sitting on my head, which way is UP again? The charts they present show this is not true. So now I am left wondering if these guys are purposefully or accidentally spreading misinformation, but it should be clear as day that GME has not held up against an index. This is why I consider “Critical Margin Theory” to be self-defeating. Because every time someone posts a DD on the topic of it, they either misinterpret the chart (which debunks them) or they fudge the math (which when fixed debunks them). And I hate myself everyday for speaking that blue haired milf’s name back on my first Taste the Rainbow post because everything I’ve worked on since has continued to show me how wrong I was. And I get it. Marge descending is a nice narrative for apes to like because it projects out some type of end date for this bullshit. I liked it for a long time too, she’s a great milf to think about. But when I’m proved wrong, I adjust my thinking and become smarter. If you want to scream that I am fudding because I’m taking away a security blanket that helped you stay positive, I’m sorry but I’m going to keep debunking this shit. There’s plenty of things to stay hyped about but being hyped over a theory that keeps failing to hold water isn’t what this place is intended for. I mean shit, I keep revising my own work all the time. It’s ok to do so when a better idea comes along. It’s fucking goofy to not adapt as new information becomes present. I’m still pretty insistent that Marge’s cloud idea is valid. It’s somewhere above us but there’s no reason for it to be a line and there’s no telling exactly where it is at any given moment. At least until the next time this pops up 2) Logarithmic v Linear for Dummies Apes Ok, time for another short lesson to set up the next section and the core idea is how we graph data, specifically on our Y axis. The Y axis is the vertical one. In linear scale, every step up on the Y axis is the same amount. In logarithmic, every step up on the Y axis is an increasing amount. So here’s an example of data represented in both linear and log. Lets pretend the y axis is the number of bananas you own and the x axis is the year Both of these graphs are telling us the same thing but they look different. In linear, we hardly see any movement until about 2005 because of how big those Y axis blocks are but at that point whatever we are tracking starts to rocket upwards. However, in log we can see that there has always been movement upwards. Linear is great when you are using data where the range in your Y axis is small, it’s easy to visualize because you are focused on a narrow area. Logarithmic is better when you are using data where the Y axis is very wide, it’s easy to visualize because same % size moves will look the same size visually. On the log chart y axis, 1 to 10 is a movement of 10x and it looks the same as the movement from 10 to 100 which is another 10x. The part to be careful about is that even though % may look the same, the actual value (we think in $) is different. So to summarize…. Linear – Two movements of the same $ amount will look the same. Logarithmic – Two movements of the same % amount will look the same. Test – If I ask you to graph for me the entire history of the S&P so that we can compare the Great Depression to Today, what type of scale should we graph in? Answer (Logarithmic, the Y axis is going to be huge and we’re interested in % change.) Here’s a few visual examples of the above but using GME https://preview.redd.it/1rv9op2nyvd91.png?width=887&format=png&auto=webp&s=434dbf761cf656aca52fe97fc91fe4c88380fb44 This highlights two different movements of 152% in linear scale. The $ move in May/June 2021 is bigger in dollar value than the one in March 2022 so the May/June move looks larger. https://preview.redd.it/3rl7zlvpyvd91.png?width=1156&format=png&auto=webp&s=85868355f8787452d9d64619649b4089a630ef53 This again highlights two different 152% moves but this time in log scale. There’s about a 20x difference in the $ amount of the moves, BUT visually they are the same height because they are the same % change. 3) Taste the Rainbow is fitting better in Log I need to first shout out u/BadassTrader for being loud about the GME saga being best viewed on Logarithmic scale. If I had paid attention to that a few months ago I’d be further ahead than I am now. I covered moving TtR to Log scale a few days ago in a post I flaired as TA and have made adjustments since to keep improving it. I still place my 0.000 line in its same location, but now there is a repeating set of fib retracement levels below it. I dropped using extensions. Now constructing this is a bit difficult, and if you are interested in the coordinates and How-To, just DM me. But I know most people are not, so here is what the end result looks like… Rainbows on Rainbows. Daily candles in Logarithmic scale This is the chunk of the GME saga we most frequently look at, from the sneeze forward. The lines are places where the price makes a decision. Either continue on or go back where it came from. Sometimes those decisions take a few days, but they happen on lines. Lines are uniquely spaced apart so it’s a bit like a key. Every key has teeth but they aren’t all the same. As I revised TtR models, its just me making the key fit the lock better (get the model to fit the data). Not to predict what’s coming next so I can trade, but to understand what folks on the short end of this are doing. As it happens, the TtR model is fitting the chart better in Logarithmic scale than it ever did in Linear scale. The view above is daily candles and there’s 374 candles between the sneeze and today. You can go through on your own and count the number of times that candles bounced on lines (the answer is a lot). But to show off just how well it fits now, I want to zoom in on more recent times. https://preview.redd.it/513qp2gczvd91.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e392c5a8902baf57d5f4086c85aa3de49df38b1 This is roughly our last 2 weeks in 1 minute candles. In the first pic of this section it’s the little triangle we made between the white and blue line at the very end. And you’ll look at this section and say “hey, the price bounced at a lot of places in between these lines.” It did, and guess where it did. https://preview.redd.it/jzuyny6gzvd91.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=787a2eff2130e506f17e74e7b6ff5878551bea0b We add a fib retracement in between these two lines and tada, all the places where we saw the price change directions. And then you’ll say, “well hang on, what about July 18th? It looks like there was something happening in there between those red and green lines.” Yep, and guess what happens if we add a fib retracement between those? https://preview.redd.it/mwjly06lzvd91.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=673eb05a828e89fe1743c758a4fd76f37f5c2e05 So we have this enormous TtR structure (first pic) and within that we can add in subdivisions that should be areas of expected support or resistance (pics 2-4). And if you look back to that first pic, you’ll notice that the structure repeats itself, however it is doing so on a logarithmic scale. Each sequence of lines moving upwards (White, Red, 3 Green, Blue, White) is BIGGER in $ value than the previous section (but the same % change). Pics are ok, but the real way to look at this is on a chart you can manipulate. So if you are reading from a computer, here is a version of the chart you can zoom in however you like. This version is 1hr candles and set to extended hours so you can see even outside of normal market hours the price is still observing the TtR structure. And remember, we can take ANY section of the chart and add a retracement between lines to help explain why a price bounced a particular spot. So can I trade using this info? No, not really. There’s no pattern I’ve noticed that suggests any line means down or up is coming next. Whatever market forces are pushing the price in a direction, this isn’t telling you that. There’s no timer saying “Wen Moon”. This is better described as what the ladder the price climbs up and down looks like. AND the ladder itself is continuous, you can just keep adding levels to it to find the next expected areas of support and resistance. And because this structure has been consistent for so long (more on that in the next section) it SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE that apes are what causes this happen. In case anyone is ultra-smooth and not understanding, I’m telling you this is the fuckery. But what about Marge? Ok, fine, lets consider a picture. Can't believe there was a stock image of this I said in this post and my previous DD on the topic that the best way to understand marge is that she’s somewhere in a cloud. It’s not some static line you climb to, its fluctuating just like everything else in the market. So you have no idea how high the price has to climb to reach Marge. HOWEVER, the ladder is built with predictable steps on it. The price doesn’t always just go up, but it will always reach for a step. At some point you make contact, but there's really no way of determining where that is. But there’s a Dorito! Yes, I’m not refuting that wedges exist. But when that completes and the price breaks out and it is not moass, You’ll see me here adding another fib retracement and repeating that the price just changed location on the ladder. If TtR has taught me anything, it’s that believing you can connect 5 dots to understand the limits of trillions of dollars worth of bullshit requires a lot of hubris. If this sequence of support/resistance lines has been repeating for years, what about this current one makes you think it's the final one when its acted like the others? The TtR model does well at explaining levels of support/resistance that occurred AFTER the sneeze, but what about before? 4)….Since 2018! I started the last section by showing you the view of the GME saga we are used to looking at, but now its time to live up to the subtitle of this post and look further into the past. Yep, just keeps repeating. This is where shit starts getting crazy, because we start seeing that this channel of lines we are in right now isn’t some new thing that popped up post sneeze. This structure has existed for YEARS. and as you move along another stack of lines is added and we reliably use them as support/resistance. The key thing to remember about logarithmic scale is that while all the channels (from white to white) appear the same width, the truth is that they only represent the same % distance. If I start at one white line and measure vertically upwards to the next one the $ change will be different each time but it is always a 116% increase. Let’s zoom into 2018 and see if we were bouncing on lines then. Ye Olde 2018, best not warn them about the impending Rona. Here is our L1 structure (big view) that we saw above but zoomed in on only 2018. We see some places where the price bounced on these lines and some places where the price couldn’t decide which way it would go. Let’s see if adding in retracements between lines explains some of the movement. Go fucking figure Whether we are looking 4 years ago or the last 2 weeks, we are still moving around in this same exact giant structure. And this is why if you do chart on your own I recommend you get the instructions on how to build this from me because you’ll be fucking amazed at how far back this goes. 2018 is just the sample I gave, I’ve worked backwards as far as 2013! This is another reason why I think the “Critical Margin Theory” crowd is misguided in believing that there is just one more line to cross. These channels have just been stacking up for about a decade, there’s no reason to think another one couldn’t stack on top of the one we are in now. But more than that, this means that we are still in the same structure that existed WAY before even DFV looked at GME. Short players weren’t worried about marge in 2019 or earlier. They were having a ball and thinking this would be another slam dunk. So if this structure isn’t about marge, well wtf is it about? Because this does suggest that EVERYTHING is pointed downwards. Before the finale, let’s look at what the TtR structure does In logarithmic scale, we are seeing TtR as a series of parallel lines. But if you remember in the second section, a line in log looks like a curve in linear. What I want to do quickly is show what happens as the price of GME increases and how TtR effects that. So here is how we are going to do this. I’m going to start at the sneeze and I’m going to plot 2 variables. The daily price at each TtR line and how much the price decreased by the next day. https://preview.redd.it/0l9twl1m1wd91.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=f8602cf2174679f191854c00e9477e7e653769b0 excuse my shit tier graphing skills in Excel What we are seeing in this second graph is how the higher up you are in price (right column), the faster TtR lines are decreasing. At $127 dollars, a TtR line drops 40 cents a day. As you go down, this curves and you eventually settle at the TtR lines decreasing a cent or less each day when the stock is around $5 in price. This works the other direction to, the further the stock gets away from $0, TtR lines decrease in $ value faster. But there is a very important point with a graph like this, the price will never ACTUALLY hit zero. The way this curve is, it will only ever approach $0. Thanks to u/Mupfather for giving me the idea to include this part in the DD. We’ve regularly communicated about TtR price decreases and when I moved to logarithmic it changed from the line to a curve. To smooth this out a bit, we have a bunch of parallel lines and the effect they have is that as the stock price bounces between them there is a tendency to head downwards with the lines. TtR lines decrease by $ amount faster when the stock price is higher. Even if the price climbs, a set % force is angling it back downwards. The caveat to this downwards force is that by design it can never actually get the stock price to $0. Now what has this sub learned about in the past year or so in regards to shorts wanting to get a price NEAR zero….. 5) Cellar Box is the Goal, Avoiding Marge Might be a Bonus I believe what my Taste the Rainbow research has found is what a stock goes through as shorts are trying to get it to the point where it can be cellar boxed. If you haven’t read u/Thabat ‘s DD on cellar boxing, it’s right here. What the shorts DO NOT want to do is get the stock price to $0. They don’t want their short position to ever close because as long as it is open it is tax free. They want all the time in the world to hammer the price slowly because all it does it make money for them. They want the price to get low enough that it gets delisted from normal exchanges. At that point, the stock can be completely manipulated by shorts without any risk. That’s what they wanted from the start and the fact that we still see and experience the effects of the TtR structure that’s been in place for years suggests to me that they believe they can still complete this goal. Sure, keeping the price moving downwards has the benefit of staying away from marge but they are doing so in the same way that they were when marge wasn’t a concern for them. Avoiding marge isn’t the goal, its just motivation to keep running. Getting the stock delisted/cellar boxing would be their only avenue of escape. However, dem shorts are big fukt. Here are the ways they fucked that didn’t exist at the time of the sneeze, this is the type of shit to get you hyped. 1) GME share offerings last year put a ton of money in the war chest. If shorts are really committed to this grudge match and believe their only possible survival is to outlast apes then they STILL need to contend with GME having the cash to eventually be able to buy back their float. 2) Price decreasing (not the split, I mean actually decreasing) means apes can buy more shares and apes have been DRSing. Taking away the shorts ability to borrow takes away their ability to push downwards. So even if we still see TtR lines as predictable support/resistance, we spend less time moving downwards with them and more time moving upward against them. 3) GME keeps charging ahead with company improvements. As they edge closer to profitability, it means the war chest keeps growing AND the msm loses their ability to spin the company off as “just a meme” which in turn stops pushing away possible new investors. Final Thoughts I can't recommend enough either charting this on your own or using the version I shared to look through the model. There's no amount of pictures I can post to really demonstrate how this is just nonstop in action. And the incredible part is because it is so consistent, I can just copy/paste a new channel on top of our current one and if the price really does continue to use this set of lines as support/resistance......then wtf. Is this some type of optimized path an algo has decided on? Like the computer only knows "If price equals X, apply X% force downwards"? submitted by /u/TiberiusWoodwind to r/Superstonk [link] [comments]

Previous Zirak Joseph treated us to shops, and to culinary delights, including a concerningly frozen delicacy called ice cream. Warlord Xhikaat grew sluggish when she ate hers too quickly, and we had to wait for Joseph and her suit to warm her back up. As we were waiting, my eyes were drawn to a screen playing videos. Hmm. This must be human entertainment. Fascinating. A human youth wearing short leg coverings fell and injured their knee. An adult female hurried over, and said, "Johnny! Oh! You skinned your knee! I just wish bandages could stay put, but you're so active, they keep coming off!" A male in what appeared to be a fine suit of clothes stepped closer from off screen. He held up a small, bright blue bottle with a spray handle. "Have you tried Napalm™ brand polymer bandages?" The female asked, "Napalm™ brand? But bandages just won't stay on Johnny. He's too active." The male said, "No child is too active for Napalm™ brand polymer bandages! They're the flexible bandage that keeps dirt out, and won't come off." The female said, "Even with water?" The male laughed, "Even with water! Just watch!" He knelt down, and sprayed the scraped knee with some fluid, "It goes on wet, to fit every crevice and seal the wound, then it becomes a flexible polymer seal! Apply water for a faster seal!" He poured some water over the knee from a bottle. The youth said, "Wow! Thanks, mister!" The male said, "Don't thank me, thank Napalm™ brand polymer bandages! The finest in care for all the scrapes and scratches that active children get!" An enlarged image of the product appeared on the screen as female voices sang. 🎵"Naaapaaalm™! Nothin' heals better! Napalm sticks to kids!"🎵 An advertisement? And these polymer bandages sounded interesting. Perhaps something like that could be used to seal cracked scales. I pulled out my personal device and made a note to ask about that later. Joseph saw me watching the screen. "Zirak. You like our advertisements?" I turned to him. "Yes. Those polymer bandages sound fascinating. It's not an avenue of medicine the K'tari have explored." Joseph said, "Oh! Napalm commercials! I remember those!" His voice changed a bit.""Napalm brand polymer bandages are for your active life! Even jumping in a river won't wash Napalm away!" It really works, too. You can go swimming with those, and they don't leak or crack or anything." I said, "If it's not too much to ask, may we purchase some for testing?" Joseph said, "Sure! In fact, humanity has a long history of using chemical sealants on wounds." Xhikaat soon got her body temperature back up, and we went back to work. We stopped by a medical supply store, and Joseph bought some polymer bandages. I looked around, and found a package of something called bone film. I beckoned a shopkeeper over. "What is this bone film for?" "Oh! It's wonderful. A small incision is made in the skin beside the break. The bone is held in place as laparoscopic arms enter the wound and wrap the break in the bone film. The break heals in half the normal time, due to the growth hormones the film releases. It's new technology, only available in the last fifty years, and you still need a dedicated machine for it. If you need one, we can order you a bonewrapper." I paused. "That's fascinating! How much would that device cost?" "Just a moment." The shopkeeper tapped into his personal device, and said, "Ah, here we are. The most basic models start at two billion thetans." I paused. Billion? "That sounds very expensive." "It is, yes. We can't produce them locally. Each one will have to be ordered from Terra, but really, unless you have a state of the art ship, you might stick with an auto splint." I said, "Excuse me a moment." I went to Joseph. "Joseph, what is your spending limit?" "Hm? Ah. My account has about thirty million, why?" "I just learned about something called a bonewrapper." "Oh. No. There's no way I could afford anything like that. That's like a hundred times more expensive than my ship was, including all the repairs I paid for that didn't actually get done." I said, "I suspected as much. Your ship was very small, and appeared quite old and well worn." Joseph nodded. "Yeah. The guy who sold it to me is actually here on the station. He did warn me the ship needed work, and sold it as it was. I put a lot of work into making that ship livable. Anyway, that might be out of my pay grade, but I imagine you could offer your own technology to trade for it. You do have technology to trade aboard." "Thank you. I will bring that up with Warlord Xhikaat." A short time later, we were at a shop selling many kinds of brightly colored sweets. Joseph bought the most expensive ones, and asked for them to be gift wrapped. The female behind the counter nodded, and wrapped the box in a curly, glittering ribbon. Joseph handed the box to me. He paid a courier to deliver our things back to the ship, and pulled myself and Xhikaat close. He quietly whispered, "I have an idea. I hope it goes well. This is a gift for Mina. We'll get something extra for her, as well. You two present these gifts to her. You couldn't ask for a better friend on this station than her." Xhikaat said, "Ah! To show that we are friendly!" "Exactly." He took us straight to another shop with thousands of fluids in ornate bottles. The scent of... Something... Lingered in the air. No. The scent of many things. It was many things. The scent was on the shopkeeper. Oh! I tugged on Joseph's sleeve. "Joseph! Do you decorate yourselves with scents the way you decorate yourselves with piercings and ink?" Joseph grinned. "Hey! You figured that out quickly!" He turned back to the shopkeeper, who offered him a bottle that was faceted like a jewel. He spritzed a pad, and offered it to me. "Your nose is better than mine. What do you think?" I carefully inhaled. The heady jumble of scents exoded into my mind. Flowers, similar to some we had passed. Some kind of oil. An alcohol. A citrus fruit. And something soothing I couldn't identify. "It's beautiful. Like poetry." Joseph grinned. "I'll take it. Can you gift wrap it?" To my shock, it cost him a full three hundred thousand thetans! "Joseph! Isn't that far too expensive?" He chuckled. "No. Xhikaat spared no expense to ensure our diplomatic efforts wouldn't go badly. I need to do whatever I can to help. This is imported from Terra. Pretty expensive out here." He handed the wrapped perfume box to Xhikaat, and brought us to a restaurant. The two of us walked in front, and entered. At Joseph's subtle guidance, we approached a female human. Xhikaat asked, "Are you Mina?" She looked ready to run away. "Y-yes, I am." Her voice was quiet, and I could hear the fear in it. We had the full attention of the busy restaurant. Several were recording us. Xhikaat said, "I am Warlord Xhikaat of the K'tari Empire. This is design and repair specialist engineer Zirak. I heard about your encounter with the jik soldiers, and I have come to ensure that you don't think badly of us. I know we appear frightening, but we are a peaceful people. These gifts are on behalf of our people." She held out the wrapped box, and Mina took it. After unwrapping it, Mina's jaw dropped. Oh. Humans do that, too. "Oh! Oh wow! Thank you!" I offered my box, and she smiled. "I love these! Thank you both so much!" She turned and said, "Mom! Hey, Mom! You need to come meet! Hey!" She turned back to us. "Just a moment. I'll go get my mom." Mina started to run in that slow human way, when she slipped on a small wet patch, and started to fall. Xhikaat was there in a flash, and tried to catch her. Unfortunately, Xhikaat could not hold her up, and only succeeded in easing Mina down a bit slower, and on top of her. Mina quickly rolled off of Xhikaat, who asked, "Are you unharmed?" Mina set her gifts aside and gently reached out to help Xhikaat to her feet. "I'm fine, thanks to you. How did you do that?" Xhikaat churred. "We K'tari are quite quick on our feet. I saw the puddle a moment before you stepped on it, and I remember hearing about the terrible injury our human crewman suffered from a simple fall. Unfortunately, we are not as physically powerful as you, so I was not able to catch you." Mina took a step toward Xhikaat, and embraced her. "Thank you. That's really nice. Let me get mom. She'll want to meet you." Mina walked into the kitchen, and a few seconds later, an older female, with a marked resemblance to Mina, emerged from the back. "Hello. My daughter says you came to introduce yourselves, and you brought her gifts." Xhikaat said, "Yes. The behavior you experienced from the jik is not representative of most aliens. We are the K'tari. I know we probably look dangerous to you, but we don't like fighting. And we've seen a human fight. Absolutely terrifying." The woman laughed. "Oh, have you, now? So what brings you out here?" "We are a diplomatic envoy here to conduct peace talks. We learned about you from a friend we picked up a while ago." Xhikaat motioned to Joseph, and Mina looked to him. "Joseph! I didn't know you were back here!" He waved. "Hey Mina. Just got here yesterday." "You sign up with an alien ship?" Joseph said, "Yeah. Xhikaat looks scary, but she's a sweetheart. Actually, I haven't met any K'tari yet that aren't scaly teddy bears. Turns out they really like humans." "Cool. Come on in! Have a seat. Uhh, is there anything we need to be careful of with your orders?" "Ah! Yeah. Easy on the pepper, and they can't chew tough veggies the way we can, so maybe soften the veggies a bit, heavy on the meat." "You got it!" We all sat and ordered, and Xhikaat and I witnessed the human custom of food sharing. We were given bits of Joseph's oceanic fauna dish, and bits of Xin's glider eel. The small, curled fauna were good, but Xhikaat and I agreed the best were the small round white things, called scallops. The humans tried each other's dishes, and Xhikaat and I offered them bits of our own. We were still being recorded by other humans. Not surprising, we were certainly the first K'tari any of the had ever seen. As we left, Joseph left us to speak to Mina quietly. She seemed surprised by whatever he told her, and immediately went to Xhikaat. "Excuse me, Miss Xhikaat, do your people really like humans?" Xhikaat said, "Yes! Joseph has been very kind, and it has surprised me just how much one human can improve morale and efficiency on the ship." "Isn't it dangerous in space?" Xhikaat churred, and said, "Joseph has been injured three times in the course of his duties. The first time, he protected our ship from an insectoid called scabers. His armor got burned, so he had to spend a little time in the soothing chamber until we were ready to treat his burns. The second time, he fell and broke his snout, which is apparently a minor injury for humans, though Doctor Kissil was unfamiliar with the treatment. The third time, as I understand it, an experimental weapon performed poorly, and he scratched his ankle. Joseph, however, is an outlier. Such injuries are rare. Kaleel frowns on him, it seems." Mina frowned. "Kaleel?" "Ah. Our god of luck and chance. Joseph is just unlucky." "Oh. If I joined your ship, could I come back to visit from time to time? I love the station and all, but I hear lots of spacers talk, and it all sounds exciting!" Xhikaat churred. "Well, you might be disappointed. I command a warship. Not a massive fleet carrier, or a small scout ship. We were mostly patrolling the home systems. That's how we found Joseph. He's the one who recommended we make contact with your people. Since I am apparently the only K'tari with firsthand experience with humans and a starship, I was chosen to engage in diplomatic talks." "How did Joseph join your crew?" Xhikaat picked her words carefully. "Due to a faulty map, Joseph was in K'tari space without registering with us first. This would have been a normal fine levied, and a portion of his mining product confiscated, if his ship wasn't irreparably damaged. And if he'd had... Anything in his hold. Have a second mechanic inspect ships before you buy them. As such, we took him aboard our ship, and he was sentenced to four years of service, of which, his contributions, astoundingly, have been valued far in excess. He managed to earn his freedom in about three weeks, due to acts of valor far beyond his lowly station. He joined us after that." Mina clasped her hands together. "Woah! That's so cool! Just like in a movie!" Xhikaat said, "We are blessed to have him as part of our crew. If you want to join, you might be a little disappointed in our cuisine. And Joseph has commented on our seating. Perhaps we should get him a chair while we are here." Mina said, "That's okay!" Xhikaat said, "And we will have to wait until the conclusion of our diplomatic talks. It would be terrible for everyone if we promised to take you with us, and then had to go back on our word. You don't look as strong as Joseph, but I'm sure you have talents you haven't explored yet. It is our way for each of our people to be tested in many ways, and to test ourselves. To find a role we have a talent for, that we love. Joseph clearly has a talent for exploration and security, and it's likely he might be assigned to an expeditionary ship, or possible become a security expert. Talent like that is valuable. Do you know where your talents lie?" Mina said, "I, uh... I like to talk to people. And I like to listen." Xhikaat said, "Talking is something a lot of people do, but listening is a rare skill. Perhaps, if we open an embassy here, would you apply to work there? If you're not already serving with us in some other capacity." Mina said, "Yes! That sounds awesome!" Mina suddenly embraced Xhikaat, and Xhikaat returned the gesture. After we had gone, we returned to the ship to rest. Joseph said something about making sure the good will wasn't missed, and he left. Joseph Lots of people were watching today, including the most valuable witnesses, cameras! It wasn't too hard to find videos on the station net of Xhikaat's meeting with Mina. I spent the evening cutting it down, then posted the cut down meetings on the net, and paid under the table for the content to be pushed as a popular video. My bank account was completely drained, but that should be just enough to give Xhikaat some much needed good press. Xhikaat I was shocked to learn how fast word had spread within just a couple days! By the time we were ready for the diplomatic meeting, Joseph told me that I was a very popular subject of art and discussion. I had asked him to show me, but he refused, stating that the thirty fourth rule was keeping him from allowing me to use his personal device to look myself up on the station net. He refused to elaborate further. Some customs, I'll never understand, I suppose. Joseph, Khaarn, Zirak, and I all went into the conference room. Seating compatible with our biology had been generously provided. Across from us, two males and two females in grey outfits entered. One male stepped forward, and I did the same. I put out my right hand. "On behalf of the K'tari Star Empire, I am Warlord Xhikaat. It is an honor to meet you, and I look forward to a wonderful friendship between our two peoples." The male reached out and took my hand. No hesitation or fear. Wonderful. "I am Captain Raul Girard Thatcher, commanding officer of the TSS Harm Binger. The honor is all mine. I hope that we will come to mutual benefit and happiness. I see you've already met a human. May I ask the circumstances?" As I explained the laws and regulations Joseph had broken, and then the sentencing, Captain Raul asked, "Excuse me. Slave? He was a slave?" Joseph said, "If I may speak out of turn?" Raul said, "Yes, boy. What do you have to say about this?" Joseph said, "I think there's an error in the translator regarding the word. I was given work to do to pay off a debt. Do we even have a single word for work release programs? I think the algorithm chose the closest approximation, because I was clearly not a slave. If I was a slave, I never, never would have been allowed a weapon. I wasn't free to leave, but I received better treatment aboard that ship than I ever have in my life. My punishment was much kinder than a penal station equivalent would have been. Not to mention, it was absolutely a temporary punishment. Perhaps you could revisit that later, after some linguists or sociologists have talked it over, and developed a better translation. We're working off a translation from a busted mining ship's codex here. Obscure terms aren't going to be perfect." Raul sighed. "Your name is Joseph, isn't it?" "Yeah." "What's your real opinion of these aliens? If you're being held against your will, we can and will help you." Joseph said, "I am not being held against my will. Xhikaat saved my ass when I should have died. I didn't fight back because I'd just given up. Pretty much anything is better than sitting in a dead ship, and wondering if dehydration or suffocation would kill you first. I'd been in that dead ship for almost a week, and I was reduced to squeezing rations for something to drink. Nobody had to save me. Nobody had to feed me, or give me any form of kindness. She did, and what's more, she barely asked anything in return. If you want to forcibly take me away from the best job I've ever had, I have a spool of wire, extensive knowledge of this station's secret interiors, and expertise far beyond my actual training. You'll have to blow the whole station up to catch me. Didn't go so well for the last man who tried, though." Raul paused. "Last man? Who else tried to catch you?" Joseph laughed and grinned in that frightening, predatory way I recognized. "Oh, no. I mean the last time a guy tried to blow up the station. The records are sealed, since I wasn't serving in a strictly legal capacity, but since you can't hold a minor accountable for being kidnapped and forced to join the military, they preferred to bury it. Ask Lieutenant Hayes about it. He was at the inquisition." Raul was silent for several seconds, and Joseph leaned forward. "Hey, you (UNTRANSLATABLE) didn't recognize my talents. The K'tari want me to kill bug and haul (UNTRANSLATABLE) around the ship. They'll pay me to find security flaws in their ships and stations, and I'm damn good at that. When we get back, I'll be set for life." Raul said, "I see. Well, then. I think we want the same thing. Our territories are fairly distant, but I think we'll get along nicely. Should we begin to get into the details?" Joseph Well, my blustering seems to have done the trick. Raul seemed less suspicious of Xhikaat. Four hours discussing terms I didn't fully understand, immigration and trade policies, and political things that seemed insignificant. Who gives a crap whether the transport tax is point four or point six percent!? Finally, the tedium ended, and we retired for the night. The next day went much the same, except we were there for a full twelve hours with an hour break every four hours. Finally, after four days of this, the treaty was complete. With that finished, Xhikaat began negotiating for some immediate trades. Raul looked at the list of things we brought with us. "Cleaning solution?" I finally spoke up. "It's great stuff. It cleans damn near anything, and when you dilute it, it's a fantastic body wash and shampoo." "Interesting. And what's this, glow rings?" I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Those are cool. Very nice compact repulsion or antigrav fashion accessories. I like them. There are also floating sunglasses. If converted to our anatomy, they could become a big commodity here." Raul smiled. "That sounds fascinating. We'll gladly trade for all you have. Kiklat?" I pulled a pack of the rations from my pocket and slid it across the table. Raul opened it, and cautiously sampled it. "Woah! This is good!" I nodded. "Yeah. We have ten tonnes of the stuff." He looked back to the pad. "What's this other item? Weapon schematics?" I nodded. "Zirak and I worked on several weapon systems for fighting scabers specifically. We have a good variety of weapons to deal with them. Primarily melee weapons, since I'm not a gun expert." Raul grinned. "Really? The list of weapons, and... Anti scaber armor? You have this?" I nodded. "Works like a charm. I also have a pair of cannons I personally designed, if you'd like to come planetside to see a demonstration. Good against armored opponents, and it's starship safe." Raul grinned. "With alien influence, I presume?" I grinned. "It allows for variable sizes of ammo." "Nice. Sounds good. Warlord Xhikaat, what do you say? Would you like to have Joseph demonstrate this weapon?" Xhikaat said, "Yes, we haven't had a chance to see these cannons in action. I look forward to seeing what Joseph built." After convening, I grabbed my cannons, strapped them down in a box, and the eight of us took a shuttle down to Ventura. Raul, having never been on Ventura, was quickly given a crab staff, as were each of the people present, except Zirak, who held her handcrafted crab staff with pride. I pointed to a stump about twenty meters away, halfway between the landing and the treeline. The delegates turned to look. Xhikaat asked, "is that a box crab?" "Yeah. That stump wasn't there last time. Looks like a big one, too. We'll keep our distance, though. We don't want it following and setting up any closer." We were driven to a shooting range, and I equipped everything. The harness that held the power core, plus the ammo reserve on my back probably weighed, altogether, forty kilos. The guns were four kilos each. I kind of wished I had chosen smaller ammunition. Oh well. I pressed the buttons, and powered up the repulsors and rails. The eyepiece let me fire from the hip, and I let rip. The quarter inch thick aluminum target, rather than receiving a small hole, visibly dented in with the first shot, and bent across the middle with the second shot. I fired until the target could no longer stand upright, so bent and warped from the barrage that the steel stand holding it up was the only thing standing. I then aimed at the human shaped test dummy. I fired from both guns at the same time. The display showed massive skull fractures, and a fractured pelvis. I aimed both cannons at the chest and fired. The results screen showed massive vital organ trauma and horribly broken ribs. I targeted the ballistic gel head on a table, and unleashed both cannons in a dual shot. The gel head flew back several meters and bounced off the backstop. I took my thumbs off the power buttons, and activated the safeties, physically blocking any further rounds from entering. Turning back, I saw Xhikaat standing, shocked. I said, "Odd. I thought the kick would be harder. I think I can turn that up a little bit." Raul asked, "What is that weapon design?" "This? It's a makedo repulsor rail cannon." "And... Can it fire other projectiles?" I laughed. "Sure! I use spheres because they're easy to load, and I don't have to worry about things like tip alignment. This cannon can fire pretty much any spherical projectile, up to thirty millimeters. That's what I was using here. Smaller ammo will be launched faster, but will also penetrate deeper. The thirty mil balls are for maximum energy delivery. The very latest in I.D.L.Y.F. technology." "I.D.L.Y.F.?" "I don't like your face." Raul burst out laughing. "Hah! Been a while since I've been around an amateur engineer. You're nuts, but good nuts. Ready to go back up?" I nodded, and packed up the cannon. As we walked the block back to the parking, I noticed something. "Everybody stop!" Everyone obeyed, and Xhikaat asked, "What is it?" I pointed to an aluminum collections bin on the sidewalk. "That bin was across the street when we came this way." I unspooled some of my wire and made a slip noose. Approaching slowly, I gently prodded the bin enough to tip it a little bit. It was heavier than it should have been. A small, barbed appendage shot out from beneath, and quickly retreated. I leaned forward, and lowered the cutting noose down, then tipped it again. Timing it carefully, I cut off the barbed appendage, then shoved the bin on its side to reveal the brown legs flailing about. I stepped on the bin to immobilize it, and as soon as it realized it couldn't right itself, the fight began in earnest. It detached itself and reached out with those sharp pincers. Fortunately, box crabs are slow, so I was able to break its arms, and sever them with my wire. With that accomplished, I hefted the box crab. Ohh! Fifteen kilos! That's a good sized crab! I hefted my prize as I turned to the others. "Hey! Look what I-" The sharp, sudden pain in my ankle surprised me. Xhikaat We all saw the small metal can tip up up a moment before it stung him. Moments later, he collapsed, and the tiny box crab began tearing at his pant leg. I raced forward and struck the small box crab away with my staff. Joseph slurred as he said, "Frrshishh voksh crsssh." Raul grabbed the larger box crab, and the others picked up Joseph, and we made our way to the car, then rushed to the hospital. Joseph was hooked up to a respirator to breathe for him, and I asked, "He saved my life. Will he be alright?" The doctor laughed. "He'll be fine. Box crab venom paralyzes voluntary motor functions, and we don't want him to suffocate. Other than a temporary loss of motion, he'll be fine. He's awake, and he can hear you, but he can't respond. Joseph GOD DAMN IT! It's like being back in that damned tank, except now I couldn't move at all. I heard Raul say, "We caught your box crab. It'll be waiting when you wake up." Good. No point in letting it go to waste. At least something good would come of this. I'm also glad I have a proper cuirass ventilator instead of that mask that pumped air into my lungs when I was stung as a child. I felt claws and a cool, scaled hand on mine. Zirak's gentle voice said, "Joseph. You don't need to worry. We aren't going anywhere without you. We'll keep the ship here until you recover. Doctor, can he be moved?" "Not unless you want to shell out the cash for a mobile ventilator." Raul said, "We have a few of them on the Harm Binger. Let me call my ship and have one delivered." Xhikaat asked, "What do you require in exchange for this ventilator?" Raul said, "Nothing. It's just neighborly to loan you something when you have need of it." "Thank you." Well. Looks like they're getting along. I don't like being laid out like this, but I guess it's not so bad as long as I'm not screwing over the mission. Raul Poor kid. This must be a hell of a planet to grow up on. Xhikaat took my hand, and gently motioned for me to follow her out. I did, and once we were a good distance away, she asked me. "Captain Raul, would you say Joseph is a typical human?" I said, "I can't say I know him well enough, but somehow, I doubt it. He seems... Restless. And disinterested in the minutia of our treaty." "He's always been very active, physically and mentally. He can't be given information fast enough. He may not retain it all, but he's constantly curious and if he's not reading, he's studying things." I laughed. "That? That's not so unusual for humans, but humans are extremely diverse in personalities, interests, and talents, so there really isn't much that's "normal" outside of some deeply ingrained instincts." "So it's normal for humans to like to explore, too?" "Oh, absolutely. Curiosity is a very common trait." Raul The K'tari were much more gentle than we had expected, given their appearance. Warlord Xhikaat proposed an exchange of literature and culture, which I gladly jumped at. The academics back on Terra are going to love this stuff. I kept a copy of the music to listen to myself later. With Joseph unable to mediate or speak on her behalf, I had expected Xhikaat to ask for a recess in talks. Instead, she had happily continued, and even allowed us to keep Joseph in the station hospital until he recovered. I asked, "So what, ideally, are you looking for among our weaponry? We have hundreds of years of weapons designs to call on." Zirak said, "Something using air compression or magnetic propulsion, I think. Something light and rapid firing, capable of putting out a lot of projectiles quickly. Also, it needs to have low recoil. As you can see, we are much smaller than you, not just in height, but in body mass." I pondered. "Let's see. Compressed air weapons have low recoil. Just a moment." I touched the table, and to Xhikaat's surprise, it lit up. I entered my military credentials, and began a searth for compressed air military arms. "Mmm, starting around twenty one hundred, zero point chips were cheap enough and small enough to be used for weapons. Lots of air compression weapons from then. Kinetic infusion weapons are nice, but they're hard to mass produce reliably, and each one has to be tuned carefully, or the kinetic infuser could be too weak or too strong. Probably more expensive than you want. Oh! Here! Look at this series!" An image appeared of a small weapon shaped like a T, connected to a box on the soldier's belly by an armored tube. It had three small barrels sticking out the front. "This is the Binford 3100 Premiere, a light infantry machine pistol. This is a very nice, reliable subby that fires five millimeter rounds with an intense twelve hundred rounds per minute. The barrels each have their own action, resulting in an absolutely blistering ability to spray munitions, but it's not very good for long range combat." Another image of a soldier wearing a large bag on his chest appeared, with another tube leading to the back of the gun. "You can also get these high capacity holders for them. They can hold up to ten thousand rounds, and will allow for more sustained fire." Zirak said, "Yes. That's good. He also mentioned automatic shotguns?" I couldn't help but laugh. "Sweepers, huh? He has good taste. Yeah. We have some of those, too." I called up images of various ammunition types. Flechettes, buckshot, birdshot, bolo rounds, slugs, psycho slugs, shatter slugs, frangibles, and the tungsten tipped, steel jacketed maximum penetration magnum slugs. I grinned and said, "Let's see. From what I understand, you'll want to throw a lot of piercing damage downrange as fast as possible. As such, I think a full auto reverse loaded shell of flechettes would be best. As they turn in the air, they will force each other away, resulting in a large cloud of piercing destruction. A few dozen rounds ought to be enought to take down a couple hundred scabers, especially if you're at the optimal spread range. Combine this with the Premiere, and you can hose down an entire horde of scabers in seconds." She seemed interested. "That's perfect! We'll gladly take them." She tapped, and selected a semiautomatic gausse shotgun. "This looks good." I nodded. "That's a fine choice. I'm showing you a pared down selection, but yeah. All the weapons here are very reliable." "Joseph said he prefers ball projectiles because they're easier to load." I brought up a shotgun round schematic. "Yes and no. For single projectile magnetic or compressed air weapons, they absolutely are. For multiple projectile weapons like shotguns, it's not really any easier to load. They all go in the wad here. Round ball ammo is less effective than cylindrical ammunition or pointed ammunition, but mechanically, it is much, much simpler to design around." Zirak said, "I see, I see. Fascinating. Joseph has shown a talent for throwing accuracy, from up to twenty meters. Perhaps ranged weapons come naturally to your people." I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, I think so. Ranged weapons were used before we even had written language. The bow was developed on every continent on our planet independently. I'll call Terra and have them send a ship with semiautomatic and automatic compression shotguns, and those premiers. This cleaning solution is quality stuff, and I like the kiklat. Those accessories are going to sweep through human territories as a fashion statement, too." Xhikaat said, "I thought Joseph was just being childish when he said humans love colorful things." I grinned. "Not at all. We do love colorful things, and most humans have one or two favorite colors. Mine is daisy yellow. I'll also send a ship of experienced soldiers and armorers with you to get your people trained on the new guns. Give us two weeks for our people to arrive from Terra with the merchandise. The armorers will help you learn to repair them, and once you've reverse engineered them, I'm sure you'll be able to refit them to your people nicely." Xhikaat asked, "Are you certain? You don't need to do all that." I said, "Hey, nothing wrong with offering some help to new friends. Besides, you came all this way to visit us, no reason we can't return the favor, now that we've hammered out the terms." Xhikaat stood from her seat, and to my shock, she lowered herself in front of me, her large snout pointed down. "I came here ready to trade my life and freedom to secure your assistance. You have treated me as a most trusted and beloved friend. You have demonstrated openness and kindness that is rare in the galaxy. We owe you a great debt, and we do not soon forget such debts." I put in the orders, and soon had confirmation of the rush shipment, along with a Terran fleet corvette. One hundred twenty of Terra's best armorers, soldiers, and trainers were dispatched. The shipment was in space within a day, and would arrive within three weeks with the maximum speed. They were also bringing a bonewrapper for Zirak. Sharing medical technology will go a long way toward helping each other. I relayed the information to Xhikaat, and invited her to stay at the station for as long as she needed, free of cost. This was going to be a productive friendship! Next submitted by /u/Leather_and_chintz to r/HFY [link] [comments]

My child died after only a month on this earth. I’m going to spare myself the tears on explaining how, but the tears of my wife are ones I’ll never forget. Grief is ugly, it’s so fucking ugly. When we lost him, it sounded as if my wife was regurgitating fragments of her soul. Her wails could’ve shattered glass, curdled blood. The cries would turn to screams; screams at the universe, at whichever sick, twisted higher power would let this happen, at herself, at me. She’d scream until the skin of her throat shredded to ribbons. I’ll be honest, I didn’t cry. I don’t remember if I even shed a tear. But not because I wasn’t upset, I didn’t cry because it felt like she was already doing it for me. No pain is more shared than a grieving mothers cry. I wished there was a handbook on grief, a For Dummies, if you will. One that could’ve especially prepared me for the before and the after. Before, you’re just waiting, like you’re watching an hourglass of life on its last grain. My heart is pumping while he flatlines, and it hits like a wave. I’m going to have to grieve, I thought to myself. Before I could even experience it, I thought about how it was coming right for me. And I knew that in the blink of an eye, life was going to be something that I’d have to fight for. Maybe I was already grieving him before he went, maybe I was prepared. Or I just thought I was, I don’t think you ever could be prepared. Then, you reach the after. Not the moment you leave the hospital room, or even the drive home. It’s the moment you open that front door, the air sucked out of the room, and you feel that thorough fucking void; that void in your chest, in your relationship, in your home. This is it, this is my life now. This is real. What hurt even more was that this new life wasn’t so foreign to me, it was one I had nearly a month ago. I felt so guilty for not grieving him but instead grieving for what he could’ve been. I grieved for the first birthday and dozens after it, the first steps, the graduations, I’d even trade a hormonal teen fight with him over this. I couldn’t help but grieve the life he could’ve had instead of the one we lost. My wife felt differently; she missed their skin touching, humming to him, even dragging herself out of bed at 3am because he was crying again. We never really discussed it, but we could just tell that we were grieving down two separate paths. Our backs were always turned in bed, she’d flinch when I’d touch her; it was as if she was allergic to me, but I understood she needed her space. The funeral was absolute Hell on earth. Actually, I think rotting in the fiery pits of Hell would feel better than attending an infant's funeral. At least it’d be warm, unlike the icy grip of mourning. I remember walking up to the casket alone, staring down at him. And all I could think was, “Caskets shouldn’t be that small.” He laid in a box that was small enough to cradle in my arms. When they lowered him into the ground, the cries emerged again. My wife wailed into the clear morning sky, so guttural it was as if it was happening all over again. But she didn’t collapse into my arms, she collapsed to the ground, as if she wanted to join him. Then, you open the front door again and the voids are even deeper, everything is even realer. We packed up our child’s nursery, and his future, into boxes, then fought about whether or not to throw it all out. She said she wanted them in the attic, I said I’d never be able to go up there again if we did. So we just left it all in that room, collecting dust. The door stayed shut at all times, but never locked. Just closed. I think it symbolized our grief, in a way; we closed the door on that part of our lives but weren’t ready to lock it away forever. Each day doesn’t get easier, it just gets farther away from the day it happened. The mornings are the worst; you wake up, your eyes creak open, the morning sun is pouring through your window, and then you remember that you’re grieving, as if you could forget. Little things began to tick us off. One of us would forget to do the dishes and it’d end up with someone sleeping on the couch or taking a long, midnight drive. We tried couples therapy but we needed so much more therapy than that. It wasn’t even about us, it was about him. The wedge was him. I was at my wits end with how to deal with this, but it appeared that my wife was one step ahead of me when I heard a soft humming from our bedroom after I came home from work. My brows furrowed as I made my way upstairs; the last time I heard her hum this tune was at the hospital, right before the heart rate monitor hummed back. When I pushed the cracked open door, I felt like I was dreaming. She was laying in our bed, cradling a baby in her arms, looking down at it like she could see every planet, every star, every galaxy. I remember pinching my thigh as I stared at her, the slight pain stinging. She was so engrossed by it, I could’ve stood there till the end of time and she wouldn’t have noticed. “H-Honey… ?” She finally looked up. “Oh, hi.” She stretched a smile that had become so foreign. “Uh- What… do you- What are you holding?” “Oh- This? It’s a reborn doll.” I raised a brow at her. “They’re realistic dolls for… mothers to-… to help me… cope!” She nodded rapidly, her smile weakening. It was as if I had disrupted the fantasy just by asking. “Oh…” I couldn’t help but stare at it, and stare at her because of the way she’d stare at it, as if she was holding her own flesh and blood and not plastic. “Has it… helped?” “I’ve only had it for a few hours now, but it’s… comforting.” It rubbed me the wrong way at first, but if nothing else was working, I was glad if this would. “Do you wanna hold him?” Suddenly, I felt myself at a crossroads. I didn’t know if I could hold a doll and give her the reaction she wanted, I can’t look at it like it’s my son. But I knew that this wasn’t just about me, so I hesitantly walked over and stretched my arms out. A slight chill ran down my spine as it’s cold skin was placed onto my palms. I pulled it close and cradled it, staring down at it. And suddenly, I crumbled into tears. It felt too fucking real. I dropped to my knees as it laid in my shaking arms, my scrunched face already wet. I knew it wasn’t actually my son, but I realized how much I missed this, not just the moments we lost. My wife patiently waited as I wailed with my head hung. I let out cries I never knew I could, my voice cracking with each ugly sob. After that day, I noticed things getting better. It didn’t fill the voids, but something else stood inside of them for a while, just to keep them dormant. Whenever she had one of those days where standing on her own two feet didn’t feel worth it, she’d hold it, hum to it, sometimes she’d pretend to breastfeed it. I will admit it still creeped me out to some extent; it was comforting in a way, but I knew it wasn’t him. And I think this is when the wedge grew deeper. One day I came home, and as I walked upstairs, my entire body locked as I saw light leaking out of a door. That door. I knew it was unlocked, but I never expected either of us to ever open it, at least not so soon. I swallowed roughly as I approached it. Slowly opening the door revealed empty boxes and a full nursery; she had set up everything again. I observed the room as I stepped in, a feeling of concern weighing on me. Then, I noticed something in the crib. I wrapped my fingers around the railing and leaned in, my brows furrowing as I saw the doll laying. “I didn’t hear you come in.” My body jolted as I whipped around. “Jesus! S-Sorry, you… What is this?” “What?” “What… is this?” “Uh, our nursery?” “Well, yeah. But why is everything unboxed?” “Our baby needs a nursery.” We stared at each other with accusations of insanity. “I- Look… I’ve researched these… dolls, and I understand how this helps you. I’ll admit, it’s helped me a bit too. But this? You know this isn’t our-“ “This isn’t our what?” Suddenly I was tongue tied. “… I’m just concerned.” “I unpacked all of this myself, I’ll put it all back when I want to. Ok?” She said slowly and sternly, daggers shooting from her eyes. I could feel a million words crawling up my throat, but the only thing that came out was, “Ok.” “I think I need some alone time with him.” I nodded, looking away as I slipped past her. I was trying to be patient with her, I really was. But I just couldn’t meet her at the lengths she was going. Pretending this is our kid may help her, but it only made me feel worse. That night, not a word was exchanged under those sheets. I was turned towards the window, and she was turned towards the baby monitor that she put new batteries in. After making faces out of the moon, I eventually fell asleep. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I felt myself drift away from my dream and wake up. My eyes slowly creaked open, the dim moonlight coming through the window. The room was silent, except for the cries that came through the baby monitor. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, staring at the monitor as staticky cries emitted from the speaker. “Liv… ? W-Wake up…” I shook my wife till she groaned out of her slumber. She lifted her sleeping mask and looked at the monitor. My eyes darted towards her, then back at the monitor. She sighed, tossed her mask onto the dresser and stood up. “I’ll handle him, get some sleep.” I stared at her wide-eyed, my throat knotted, as she tiredly walked out of the room. As she stepped into the nursery, I began to hear her over the speaker. “Shhh, shhh… it’s ok.” I blinked like a deer in headlights as I listened to her hum, the crying slowing to a stop. My eyes shifted towards the door as she walked back in, grabbed her sleeping mask and laid back down. She didn’t say a word as I just continued to stare. A part of me wanted to go into the nursery, but I just laid there till my eyes dried and ran bloodshot. Before I knew it, the sun was up and I had to go to work. I slowly stood up and stiffly got ready. I tried to convince myself that it was a dream, but I had already woken up from one. When I finished getting dressed, I kissed her as she slept and left the room. As I passed the nursery, I paused for a moment. At first I considered going in, but instead I pressed my ear against the door. But there was nothing, just absolute silence. I don’t know what I thought I was going to hear, I didn’t even know what I heard last night. I couldn’t tell if hearing something now would’ve made me feel more or less insane. That day at work was grueling. I kept falling asleep at my desk, had a hard time processing what people were even saying to me; it was just one big blur. When I got home, the first thing I wanted to ask my wife was what the fuck happened last night, but after the incident in the nursery, I feared she’d tell me that the doll crying is normal because it’s our son. When I got home, I was ready to fall flat on my face. My wife stood at the sink washing dishes, her head turning as I walked in. “Hey, hun.” “Hi…” “How was work?” “Uh… y’know, the usual.” “Be quiet when you go upstairs, I just put him down and it wasn’t without a fight,” she chuckled. “… I’ll be sure not to wake it- him.” I anxiously cleared my throat as she quickly glared at me, then looked away. At least I was trying to play along. I quietly walked upstairs, minimizing the creaks of each step. As I passed the door, I could feel my breathing and heartbeat halt to a stop; something about it just always knocked the wind out of me. Dinner was so silent, you could hear a pin falling before it even dropped. Chewing and sipping filled the dense quiet. “I was thinking of taking him to a Mommy and Me class.” I looked up, my chewing slowed. “Is that-… Sounds good,” I bit my tongue and smiled. I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or if she just wanted to talk. “I also wish you’d spend more time with him. You avoid the nursery like the plague,” she laughed weakly. “I’ll, um…I’ll make sure to do that.” “… Thank you.” Watching her eat, the look on her face, I could tell she could barely get the food down her throat. She was trying, she was really fucking trying. I felt guilty for not being more understanding, it was hard to accept that we were just going to be grieving in different ways no matter what. But I was at a crossroads when it felt like our grief couldn’t help each other. But the one thing that was itching at the back of my mind was last night. It was crying, how could it be crying? It didn’t seem to surprise her either. I tried to make any logical reasoning for it; maybe she set an alarm with a baby crying sound? Or if there’s a speaker inside of it? Something to make it feel realer? It was possible, except for one other thing: it sounded so much like him. If you’re not a parent, a baby crying is just a baby crying, but I could pick out those cries from a crowd. Maybe it’s just grief playing mind games, I couldn’t tell. Later that night, after brushing my teeth, I was walking to our bedroom when I noticed my wife in the nursery. She was slowly rocking back and forth in the rocking chair, humming to it. “Hey. I finally got him to sleep,” she said after noticing me hovering in the doorway. “That’s good…” “Come say goodnight.” I stared for a moment before forcing myself to enter the room. She stood up and walked over to the crib, then gently placed it down. She leaned down, kissed his forehead, then turned to me. I glanced at her, then at it. I could tell she was expecting me to do the same. I hesitantly leaned towards it, my lips puckered. Suddenly, as I got closer, a pungent smell entered my nostrils. I tried to ignore it, but I recoiled as I got closer, the foul stench growing stronger. My wife glared at me in horror as I gagged, clasping my hand to my mouth. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” “I-I’m sorry, it-“ “HIM. NOT IT, HIM!” “Ok… HE smells like a fucking dumpster fire! What? Does he have built-in fecal mechanics too?!” Tears welled in her eyes as I looked away with guilt, my entire body shaking. “Just admit that this is a joke to you. You think I’m embarrassing myself, that I’m crazy. Just say it…” “Liv- No…” “Actually, don’t… Just sleep somewhere else tonight; the couch, the fuckin’ sidewalk, I don’t care.” “… Ok.” I flew out of the room before I could burst into tears of fury. I felt like such a fucking monster. Prioritizing both of our healing was just tearing me apart, it was tearing us apart. I curled up on the couch and screamed into the pillow, leaving tear stains on the cover. I sobbed until it exhausted me, eventually knocking me out. All of a sudden, I was ripped from my slumber at the sound of glass shattering, my body jolting awake. I quickly sat up, my eyes darting around in a blur. Throwing the blanket off of me, I stood up and searched for the source of the sound. The room was pitch black as I ran my hand along the walls to find a lightswitch. Suddenly, my eyes shot open as something sharp impaled the bottom of my foot. “Fuck! Shit!” I hissed to myself as I lifted my foot. Now I was hopping around till I found a lightswitch, while also avoiding glass that I could not see. Eventually, I found one and illuminated the kitchen. I looked down at my foot, a small train of blood drops behind me. I lifted it up, blood leaking down my skin. It was a small shard of porcelain. So I pursed my lips, took a deep breath, bit my cheek and yanked it out. I swallowed a scream as I placed the crimson coated shard on the kitchen counter. Then, I noticed some white powder on the bottom of my foot as well. I limped around the kitchen, soon finding a shattered cookie jar and an open flour bag spilled across the floor. “God fucking dammit…” I quickly tied an unused dish rag around my foot and began picking up the shards. The stress of the cut and the mess overshadowed the thought of how it even fell in the first place. But this thought came front and center when I noticed small flour coated footprints leading out of the kitchen. I slowly placed the last shard in the trash as my eyes stared under furrowed brows. I limped over and kneeled down, observing them closely. They looked like… No, impossible. I told myself it was impossible. But who else could have feet that small? It wasn’t my wife, and it wasn’t an animal. An uneasiness clouded over me as I quickly vacuumed it up. The trail was longer than I realized as I exited the kitchen and made my way through the living room. Eventually, I reached the stairs, noticing the footprints went up them too. My eyes slowly glided up, then stared deeply into the dark hallway. I was able to at least try and logically explain the crying the other night, but I couldn’t make anything of this. I took a deep breath and slowly made my way upstairs. With each footprint that vanished into the vacuum added one more beat to my pounding heart. When I reached the top step, I realized the trail led even farther. I continued to follow it, taking the curve it took that ended at a door. That door. I slowly stood up, my heavy, shaking breaths hitting the wood. But I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I just wanted to cry, feeling like I was being haunted by my own grief. I could’ve been standing there for a minute or an hour, either way it felt like forever before I finally stepped away and entered the bathroom. I held back tears as I made sure there wasn’t any glass left in my foot, then properly bandaged it. With everything that had happened and was happening, all I could think was: why us? Why me? I just wanted to be a husband, a father, a family. Why does life's unfairness have to be so cruel? It’s more than just not getting what you want, it’s losing what you love. It’s your son dying after only a month of being. It’s not unfair, it’s just cruel. So fucking cruel. After securing the bandage, I limped out of the bathroom, my body weighing with exhaustion. Then, I halted in front of the nursery door, my eyes scrunching shut as the sound of crying suddenly came from behind it. Never in my life have I prayed, not even for my son, it felt like shouting into a void. But at that moment, I prayed. I prayed for it to end. I needed it to end. But nobody was listening, life wasn’t that fair, I should’ve known that. I opened my eyes, tears welling in them, and kept walking past it. The cries grew fainter as there was a ceiling between us, but I could still hear them. I could feel them crying for Daddy as I laid my heavy head on the couch pillow. I had hoped that my wife would wake up and deal with it, but she never did. The entire night I laid there, the tears drying against my cheeks as it relentlessly cried. My psyche was shattering piece by piece as it grew impossible to even keep a grasp on reality or try and figure out what the fuck was going on while its screams filled my ears and bounced around in my skull. At that point, I just wanted to die. Or to at least just be numb. To have the ability to not give a single fuck about anything happening, even if just for five seconds, would’ve helped me sleep that night. By the time it was morning, the crying had stopped at some point, but I don’t remember when. “Jack,” my wife suddenly said, her hand resting on my shoulder. I jolted, my head whipping towards her. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” “It’s fine, I just… didn’t sleep.” I could see guilt hanging on her expression. “Is everything alright… ?” “I want to… apologize for last night. You’ve been very patient with me, and I feel like I’ve been asking you for more than you can handle.” We paused in silence for a moment, our eyes shifting around each other. “I… appreciate it. I’m sorry, too. I’ve been too judgmental. We don’t have to be on the same page to care about each other.” She sat down next to me and rested her head on my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head and enjoyed the quiet with her. I wanted to bring up what I saw last night, but figured now wasn’t the right time. “And about the smell… You weren’t wrong. I went to go see him this morning, and it hit me like a truck,” she chuckled weakly. “Turns out… he was molding on the inside, which can happen, apparently. I reached out to the seller and she said that it happens due to… poor upkeep.” Suddenly, she broke into tears, collapsing into my chest. I held her close as her tears soaked through my shirt. “How did I manage to lose him twice… ?” My heart shattered. “It’s ok… It’s ok… You can always get a new one.” “No, I can’t!” I looked into her eyes with deep concern. “Olivia… Can we speak honestly for a moment? With no hard feelings?” She slowly nodded. “It’s a doll. You can get a new one.” Even then, I pushed the wrong buttons as she ripped herself from my arms and stormed upstairs. “You don’t get it. You never did.” “Y’know what?! No! That’s not fucking fair!” “None of this is fucking fair!” Before I could get another word in, she was already in our bedroom, the door slamming behind her. I buried my face in my hands as I drew deep, slow breaths. Everyone always said grief brings people together, but all this is doing is tearing everything apart; my marriage, myself, my understanding of what’s real and what isn’t. I spent another work day in a complete daze; I even got reprimanded by my boss for “lack of work ethic.” When I got home, I was met with a distraught wife. She was definitely still mad at me, so I considered whether or not to even ask if she was ok. “Hey, hun. Are you alright?” “… I threw him out.” “Oh… I’m so sorry.” “Are you?” “Liv…” “Surprised you didn’t say ‘thank god’…” “Look, I- I’m sorry about this morning. But I’m trying, and I know you know that. But it’s hard when you keep flying off the handle! Do you… want to see somebody? A grief counselor?” “He was my grief counselor. That’s why I’m getting another one, just like you said. Right?” “… Right. Whatever works for you.” I smiled weakly. She sipped her coffee with a daze in her eye, like she could see something that wasn’t there. Just by looking at her you could tell she was dangling at the edge. But I couldn’t pry and prod anymore, for her sake and mine. She let me sleep in our bed that night, but we didn’t exchange any more words than “goodnight.” I could feel the back of her ankles against my legs, at some point she even turned towards me in her sleep, but she didn’t wanna touch me. She needed just enough space, and I let her have it. A night without it in the house gave me the best sleep I had gotten since he died. I woke up feeling refreshed for once, but I quickly noticed the emptiness next to me; she must’ve gotten up early. As I left the bedroom, my brows furrowed as I heard humming from behind the nursery door. My puzzled expression twisted further as I saw my wife cradling it in her arms. “Good morning. I… thought you had to get rid of him?” “Good morning. And I did, this is the new one,” she smiled. “Wow? Already? So… fast.” “Express shipping,” she shrugged with a chuckle. “Sweet…” “I’m gonna try and put him down for his nap. Could you brew me a cup?” “Yeah, sure,” I smiled before closing the door behind me. The second she couldn’t see me anymore, I stood absolutely baffled. Something about it just seemed… off. How could she have gotten a new one that quickly? It didn’t add up. She had gotten so attached to it, the thought of her wanting to keep it, no matter the mold, didn’t surprise me. What hurt the most is that she’d lie to me. After filling the steaming mugs, I set them down at the table and read the news on my phone as I waited for her to come down. “He didn’t put up a fight, thank god,” she sighed with relief as she trotted downstairs. “That’s good,” I sipped my coffee, keeping my eyes on the screen. She sat across from me, taking slow sips as she stared off in a daze again. I occasionally glanced up at her, watching her tap her finger against the mug and bite her cheek. “… Are you alright?” She laughed at the question, circling her finger around the rim of the mug. “Weather’s nice today,” she responded. “It is… Maybe you should spend some time outside. You could take him out for a walk.” “Yeah… That sounds nice,” her words trailed off like she was dreaming. I helped her take out the baby carriage that we never got to use and watched with unease as she laid the doll in it. “Hope you two have a nice time,” I smiled. “We’ll be back soon.” We quickly kissed before she was out the door. And finally, I could breathe. It was only a mere few hours, but it was still time to breathe. It was also time to think. The past few nights, I had experienced things that were beyond what I thought grief would be like. I knew it’d be haunting, but not like this. I never really believed in the supernatural, I’d say I’m a skeptical person. But after the constant crying, the footprints… I couldn’t make any logic out of it. I’d run in circles to death before it made any actual sense. And my wife seems to know more than she’s letting on but I was scared that one more question would push her out the door. I couldn’t lose her, too. But now our grief wasn’t just going down two different paths, it was going in completely opposite directions. She needed the doll to heal, and I needed it gone to heal. But I didn’t know how to get rid of it without hurting her in the process. I thought about tossing it and making her believe she misplaced it, but that just felt cruel. I didn’t need to put her under any more distress. By the time she got back, I hadn’t really moved off of square one. I still understood nothing, I figured out nothing, I was just aching even more. “Are you feeling better?” “Yeah, it was nice to get some sun. This little guy enjoyed it, too! Didn’t you, didn’t you!” She gushed. I couldn’t help but feel so uncomfortable watching her treat it like it was our son, but it’s her way of coping and I had to respect that. To at least put myself at some ease, I told myself that I’m just under a lot of stress and that my grieving mind is just playing tricks on me. I guessed being tormented by him was better than never seeing him again. That night, she laid close to me. Our legs intertwined as she fell asleep against me, her arm across my chest. I missed her warmth so much. I thought his death had cooled her touch, but she was still so warm, so comforting. It was easy falling asleep that night with her against me, like a child and their favorite stuffed animal. But I was stupid to forget that life isn’t unfair, it’s cruel. In the middle of the night, I was awoken by the cries over the baby monitor again. Only this time, as my eyes opened, I realized I couldn’t move anything else. My heart pounded as I drew in panicked breaths. My jaw merely trembled as I attempted to speak, pleas for help caught in my throat. A tear streamed down the side of my face as I waited for my wife to wake up, but she didn’t. I was locked on that bed, unable to do nothing but listen to its cries. I wanted to scream, sob, punch a fucking wall, but I could do absolutely nothing. Suddenly, the speaker cut out, its cries halting with a staticy screech. My trembling breaths filled the silent room as my body stayed frozen on the bed. I couldn’t even squeeze out a groan to try and wake her. Then, the sound of a door creaking open came from the hallway, and the cries began again. Not over the speaker, but from the hallway. Its cries sounded… distorted. They were deeper, more drawn out, and they sent goosebumps from head to toe. I scrunched my eyes as I begged to be able to move, the crying nearing closer. Then, the bedroom door slowly opened, the deep cries filling up the room. I looked over at my wife, who was somehow still asleep. I wondered if this was even happening outside of my own head. I couldn’t see it, but I could tell it was moving closer, and with each step its cries grew deeper. It reached the point that it sounded like it was gargling on its own blood. When it stood by my ear, its sobs were deafening. Now, I couldn’t move, and I couldn't hear anything besides this suffocating, dizzying crying that made me feel like I was drowning in molten tar. “Dada,” it gurgled. And just like that, I felt my entire body unlock, and a scream worth a thousand screams exited my mouth like a dam breaking open. The sound waves rippled my throat as I scatteredly threw myself off the bed and into the corner of the room. “Jesus Christ!” My wife shouted as she finally woke up, ripping off her sleeping mask and turning the lamp on. I let out wails of pure terror as I balled up in the corner, my body tremoring. “My God, what happened?!” “I- I- It- He was-“ I could barely squeeze a word out in between sobs. “Jesus…” She hopped off the bed and kneeled next to me, my body flinching as she reached for me. “What happened?” I slowly turned to her, my eyes gaping wide. Instead of saying a word, I stumbled to my feet and made my way out of the bedroom. “Where are you going? What happened?! Jack!” I ignored her calls as I threw the nursery door open. My eyes darted around as I searched for it, then realized it was in the crib. “Jack, what are you doing… ?!” “I’m not doing this anymore…” “Jack, can we talk about this?!” She gasped in horror as I yanked it out of the crib. “YOU’RE RIGHT, OLIVIA! THIS ISN’T A DOLL! THIS… IS A FUCKING PARASITE! AND I WANT IT GONE!” “JACK, PLEASE! THAT’S OUR SON!” “NO, IT’S FUCKING NOT!” She winced as I screamed. “STOP! PLEASE!” She begged, tears pouring down her face as I began rapidly shaking it in front of her face. “THIS! ISN’T! OUR! SON!” Then, in one final burst of rage, I gripped it by its throat and slammed it to the ground with all of my might. In this moment, I realized that I learned two things from the death of my son. Caskets aren’t supposed to be that small, And reborn dolls aren’t supposed to have internal organs. My wife crumbled to her knees as she let out those cries, the ones I could never forget. My breathing and heartbeat practically stopped, my body shutting down for a moment as I stared down at the spilled, greying organs and mushy skin that she attempted to cup in her trembling hands. I slowly looked up at her, utter horror hanging on my expression. “Olivia… What is this… ?” “He didn’t belong down there… He belongs with me… With us…” submitted by /u/sugarfruit33 to r/nosleep [link] [comments]

I am getting increasingly worried about the amount of warning signals that are flashing red for hyperinflation- I believe the process has already begun, as I will lay out in this paper. The first stages of hyperinflation begin slowly, and as this is an exponential process, most people will not grasp the true extent of it until it is too late. I know I’m going to gloss over a lot of stuff going over this, sorry about this but I need to fit it all into four posts without giving everyone a 400 page treatise on macro-economics to read. Counter-DDs and opinions welcome. This is going to be a lot longer than a normal DD, but I promise the pay-off is worth it, knowing the history is key to understanding where we are today. SERIES (Parts 1-4) TL/DR: We are at the end of a MASSIVE debt supercycle. This 80-100 year pattern always ends in one of two scenarios- default/restructuring (deflation a la Great Depression) or inflation (hyperinflation in severe cases (a la Weimar Republic). The United States has been abusing it’s privilege as the World Reserve Currency holder to enforce its political and economic hegemony onto the Third World, specifically by creating massive artificial demand for treasuries/US Dollars, allowing the US to borrow extraordinary amounts of money at extremely low rates for decades, creating a Sword of Damocles that hangs over the global financial system. The massive debt loads have been transferred worldwide, and sovereigns are starting to call our bluff. Governments papered over the 2008 financial crisis with debt, but never fixed the underlying issues, ensuring that the crisis would return, but with greater ferocity next time. Systemic risk (from derivatives) within the US financial system has built up to the point that collapse is all but inevitable, and the Federal Reserve has demonstrated it will do whatever it takes to defend legacy finance (banks, broker/dealers, etc) and government solvency, even at the expense of everything else (The US Dollar). I’ll break this down into four parts. ALL of this is interconnected, so please read these in order: Part One: The Global Monetary System- “A New Rome” < Part Two: Derivatives, Systemic Risk, & Nitroglycerin- “The Ouroboros” < Part Three: Banks, Debt Cycles & Avalanches- “The Money Machine” submitted by

edit: Done for now! Worlds draw on the 15th I think! Love you guys! Hope you have a great rest of your day! #TSMWIN #FIRSTSEED #WORLDSISOURS #GRUBHUBGAMERS LCS CHAMPIONS ONCE AGAIN! TSM 2020 SUMMER CHAMPS! GG FLYQUEST! WE ARE NA'S #1 SEED BJERGSEN PLAYER OF THE SERIES Tweets are being updated manually so I'd recommend coming back after awhile. Priority: LCS Player/Coach Tweets > Interview > Org Player/Staff Tweets > Other Tweets PRE-SERIES TSM Treatz: Last day of this split A lot of long days and hard times to bring everyone here but it can all be worth it. Let's get that last #TSMWIN and the trophy Travis Gafford (Clip/Quote from G2 Perkz) G2 Perkz: "We didn't actually practice this comp, we saw TSM play it yesterday and then we thought it made sense. We should play it today as well. Then we did. I'm pretty happy for that. Thank you TSM." G2 Jankos Stealing pick from TSM worked out 😏 Flyquest (Twitter) Now it's our turn... #FLYWIN Cloud9: Today is a #FLYWIN We appreciate you, C9 🥺 FLY Sygh (Lead Analyst): TSM it is! We get side select for tomorrow after all. Will be looking forward to it FLY DLim (Head Coach): Spica is a zoomer Markz Twitter: Spica shouldn't get credit for Jungle Shen. Perkz: We got Jungle Shen from Spica Shakarez Prediction - FLY 3-2 Empyre Before yesterday I would have comfortably said FLY wins this series today, but Doublelift returning to form and additonal target bans that TSM has accrued over playoffs makes it a tricky matchup for FLY now. Will breakdown the matchup on stream and then make a prediction #LCS Raz FLY win today imo, looking forward to seeing the DRAFTS and lvl1 madness Crumbz Flyquest 👏 are 👏 the 👏 favorites! Azael TSM looking for their first Championship since Summer 2017. FlyQuest looking for their first Championship ever! One team trying to regain their title as the most dominant org in #LCS & another trying to establish themselves as a new power in the region. FINALS ARE A GO! HYPE! Tim Sevenhuysen Prediction: FLY 3-1 YamatoCannon Watch Bjergsen get MVP of the finals tonight and that is all folks Veigarv2 Tsm foh sho (in response to poll about who wins) TSM Dunc You spelt vv2 wrong (in response to someone saying Spica got the Shen pick from Zanzarah) LS Picture of Woman, the Reaper LCS Stream Phreak/Azael (Casters Today) POE: People are saying that FLY is strong together but not as individual units. Santorin has beaten top junglers, I've beaten top mid laners, we 3-2'd TL, we 2-0'd TSM. I think we're strong as a team and individually. Phreak: Current record between Bjerg and POE is 9 - 8. Azael: POE is one of the few who have been able to take it to Bjergsen. Analyst Desk (Kobe, Markz, Pr0lly) TSM/FLY are the two most aggressive teams so it should be an explosive match. FLY in 1st with the fastest fb with TSM sitting in 2nd in the same category. Bjergsen heading towards another peak in his career. Reaching/is? the most banned player in the world. WildTurtle has the highest amount of flashes in LCS. Very on brand lol SO many shared champs shared by Bjerg and POE. POE uniquely has Kog/Swain/Kass/Malz (in terms of on-stage games), and Bjerg has TF/Zil/Sett/Fiddle/Sett/Zoe as unique picks. They share Azir, Ori, Syndra, Leblanc, Cass, Corki SPICA'S PLAYED POOL: LEESIN, SETT, NIDALEE, GRAVES, VOLI, OLAF, TRUNDLE, SHEN, KAYN, J4, KINDRED, EVE, SKARNER. 13 CHAMPS THIS SEASON! As the youngest player in one of the most high pressure positions on the highest pressure org. Official Declaration: Spica not a ward. A 1st for TSM. Series going to come down to how the two junglers stack up. Santorin is the final boss for TSM. PREDICTIONS: KOBE: 3-2 TSM. PR0LLY 3-1 FLY. MARKZ 3-1 FLY. Fan Vote: 68% TSM 32% FLY GAME 1 DURING DRAFT LS Not happy about the Ashe/Sett first picks from TSM. "They're draining my grandmother's life force" Zil/Camille make it okay. Still not happy about Ashe/Sett. Would've been great if Ignar locked in Tahm, terrible into TSM's comp. Lux is good. Viktor pick from FLY is a good thing for TSM. Doesn't like the Karma pick from TSM. Really weird here. Understandable pick but overall FLY's draft is better. Empyre: TSM is not messing around. Zilean 1st game no shits given. FLY almost perfect comp for themselves w/ questions around Ignar on Lux. Can he affect the map with that champion?? Have to feel Bjergsen Zilean wins game 1 but if FLY execute their comp they have so much zone control. Also, Ignar is 9-1 on Thresh this summer, so good on TSM for making sure that's banned to begin the series. Ignar performance on non-Thresh is gonna have huge implications. Veigarv2 TSM has done this mistake before over valueing Karma. I think Bard, Lulu Soraka would be better picks here, bard vs viktor cait lux together with sett zilean would be a scary 2 man / 3 man running around the map together. Karma does nothing vs lux imo TSM Smak: Time to go again for the finals! #TSMWIN Voyboy: FINALLY we see the Viktor come out, love to see the pick from POE! Teams have been under rating Viktor relative to his strength for awhile now but I fully expect him to be a power pick for Worlds. #LCS Invert: Playing with zilean ultimate into cait traps = 🙃 DURING GAME RUNES Invert (Beginning of the Game) If FlyQuest wins game 1 off of viktor scaling (good vs sett and camille diving), the Zilean doubt starts to kick in for TSM and they'll be at a pretty big draft disadvantage (commit 2 bans vs just lb if they want to play it) for future games. This means a lot for this series LS w/ Crownie LS: Flyquest have the better draft... BUT TSM is going to win. I am TSM Chris Crownie: FLY's draft is saint. (as opposed to sinner) LS: Brokenblade should've cheatered (~3) but it's fine now since he got a really good trade on Sol- nvm he messed up his lane again. He could've got the wave to come back into him and zone Ornn but he's just attacking the wave again. Both: TSM are in a really good spot at the moment overall. (~4:50) LS: Spica gets the first dragon. Great for Karma. She's probably the best single cloud drake user. She perma uses it. (6:40) LS side note: Akali probably the best infernal user. Kat is good too. Both: FLY's comp outscales TSM pretty hard. LS: This Herald rotation is such a joke and it's so consistent (9:40) Ashe roams all the way to Herald, Cait gets all the cs bot and takes a turret plate. Not worth it. The gold gained from the Herald doesn't surpass the gold you would've got by staying in lane and csing instead of contesting the team getting it. LS: "Chat we stopped analyzing the game like 10 min ago because the game ended when infernal soul died" (~28). Started talking about planets and how to pronounce Uranus 3rd item tiamat is bad for BB (Elder fight) TSM should've waited for at least Ashe to come up before taking the Elder. Just 9 seconds and there is no way for lvl 11 Lux to steal vs lvl 15 Jungler. Should've just reset and then took Elder. Sneaky & Meteos Meteos: TSM are up two drags but it's going to start becoming hard for TSM to team fight against FLY's comp (~14:40) "Cringe ult by Solo" (~17:40) TSM get the drag. Sneaky: Game might just be over if this goes late because of how Cait works against Zilean. She counters his ult with her traps. POST GAME POST GAME STATS TSM Treatz It's only been a day and people have already forgotten? (referring to Bjerg Zil) Team Liquid (Twitter) Today's Wisdom @FlyQuest (Ban Zilean) Phreak/Azael Every TSM player played well that game. CSD, Spica getting basically every objective cleanly, being a good front line for the team. Teamfights were done well by everyone. Good stuff from TSM. "HYPE!" DIG Dardoch Yeah idk its just a bit disrespectful to say the least at this point to leave the Zilean open guys Scarra watching a zil abuser win north america TSM (Twitter) TIME LORD BJERG.JPEG Locodoco If I’m FLY I’m targeting Zilean + Shen and other enabler picks for topside carry Solo should be able to build leads topside and FLY needs to find ways to win teamfights with that advantage Markz This may come as a surprise to some of you but... I'm not feeling too hot on my FLY prediction right now. Dunc: Does that change if they perma Zilean Markz: Honestly, not really? Bjerg zil is dummy good but a lot of other things scared me too Kien Bjergsen's scoreline over 4 games on Zilean this playoffs is 17-2-30, which is good for 23.5 KDA. He also hasn't died on the pick in three consecutive games now. Just ban it. TSM Hazed Ye, keep giving @Bjergsen the time lord. #TSMWIN TSM Smak Dear god that was a massacre. Invert What do people consider counters to Zilean beyond LB? Would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts on it. I personally think we don't see enough poke (velkoz, corki, lux) into it. I also have a blindspot on sylas vs zilean but I believe in solo queue it favours zilean. Kobe These 8 teams that defeated @Bjergsen Zilean honestly deserve medals. #LCS (Bjerg is 24-8 on Zil) Diovana lesgo YamatoCannon Hmmmmmmmmmm (in reply to Bjerg MVP tweet he made pre-series) Cloud9 The #LCS didn’t learn yet Pastrytime #LCS Trophy Club check-in for this series. First off looking at @TSM ! TSM have the #1 and #3 trophy holders in Doublelift (7) and Bjergsen (5). If @Biofrostlol wins again, he'll enter a pretty exclusive four trophy club, currently shared by only Impact and WildTurtle! Sneaky/Meteos on Analyst Desk Sneaky: Hard to get a strength read on teams going into Playoffs. Their power level was sort of random entering playoffs. Was feeling the TSM win today though. Meteos predicted FLY until this point Meteos: Bjerg seems to whip out Zil when they feel like they really need to win and here they're doing it right out of the gate. Probably better options for FLY than Viktor/Lux Sneaky: Cait is a good counter to Zil. Traps counter his revive. Viktor as a champ is way too week right now. Meteos: 4man Botlane dive early on was really troll by FLY. They all saw TSM coming down to dive and Ornn went down bot and gave Camille 2 plates. Very bad macro. Sneaky: All of FLY's comp was really good except for the Viktor. Just too weak from what he's seen from solo queue. Meteos: They should ban Zilean. Zil is so annoying to deal with and TSM are good at using it. Not many good answers to it right now. GAME 2 DURING DRAFT LS & Crownie LS: Zil/Nidalee bans are good from FLY. Seems like a salty runback with a different mid. If that happens with Zil ban then it's a FLY draft win. Sending Sett top here is fine (after seeing FLY's first 3). TSM lost draft again BUT... they're going to win. Sneaky & Meteos Meteos: Champs are changed but TSM picks champs that had basically the same role as last game. Sneaky: Panth/Cait isn't really a combo. Don't like it. Panth himself can take over a game though. Locodoco FLY getting so little from draft -Cait fp is pretty meaningless if TSM gets to counterpick support -Zilean ban is also moot if TSM gets to pick TF and enable BB through that Needs a different look or swap to red side Empyre Ban Zilean but leave open TF??????????????????????????? (Bjerg 5-0 on the champ) Tim Sevenhuysen: If I'm FLY, I'm more scared of TF than I am of Zilean... IgNar is going to have to smurf this one. Arguably TSM is stronger with TF than with Zilean because of how easy it is now to be proactive in early game and get BB ahead lol Kobe Game 1: I saw Zilean murder @FlyQuest right in front of me! VOTE HIM OUT NOW!!(Among us Joke) TSM Smak Jax has always been my favorite champion to watch. Always happy to see BB play it. DURING GAME RUNES LS w/ Crownie & Sanch LS: If TSM win 2-0 then they'll win the 3rd. I don't think FLY is the type of team that can come back from that. BB pushing too fast again (~2:40). Now he can't cheater recall. If he cheaters and gets cull it's absolutely broken. Really hard to lose lane if you do that. Predictions based on games thus far: LS 3-0 TSM. Sanch 3-0 TSM. Crownie 3-1 TSM LS/Crownie: TSM are clearly in their comfort zone right now (~7:40). They're doing good and they kill Ornn during the best timing to do so. LS: Good game for Spica to go Triforce + Black Cleaver LS: Game state is really good for TSM (~10) The movement to Herald is sort of fine here since bot is resetting. LS (Twitter) Why are every NA LCS teams obsessed with herald btw? Does no one actually do the math and count what is being lost in the mass majority of cases in side lanes/waves/jungler camps timings etc? It's so weird man Tim Sevenhuysen: I think having a set play for Herald is easier to execute than a more nuanced set of rules for what to do in varying circumstances in 8:00 - 12:00. Clean execution of imperfect game plan is better than poor execution of best game plan. In LCS, execution is harder to come by. IWD (Twitter) The Law of LCS - The team that starts herald will instantly lose the game there. (~10) TL Steve @Regi I'm already dead (Late reply to Regi's "TSM TSM TSM Steve Sucks" tweet) Empyre I wonder if NA teams received bad training from watching Spring C9 going for every dragon/herald on spawn in spring and didn't understand how C9 was compounding those objectives with their comps/skirmishing. (~10 pause) Empyre/Shakarez In response to Markz saying he doesn't feel good about his FLY prediction anymore: Same (from both) Pause Team Liquid (Twitter) The power is working here at the AWTF, can we jump in? #LCS Phreak: IDK can you beat TSM in a best of 5? Kobe: HOLY ☠️☠️☠️ Captain Flowers: phreak just ratio'd the horse TSM (Twitter) aka Dunc: We all know how that went yesterday. Captain Flowers This break is a great chance for everyone to go get a quick game of Solo Q in so you can start the series 0-1 too and experience that authentic Finals Day pressure! #LCS Empyre Could we see a GenG vs. DRX situation where DRX was completely out of their depths and came back figuring out to draft/play out the game? This could be huge for FLY. Zikz Both of the teams have an hour to figure out how they want to play out the rest of the game with their comps, should be an interesting game from this point on #LCS Max Olivo While we wait, just wanted to say I’m so thankful that my two favorite forms of entertainment: the LCS and NBA have both found ways to to make a watchable product during the pandemic. They have their drawbacks, but it’s better than I thought it’d be. Insane production teams G2 Grabbz When you think NA cant get more boring they hit you with the 45min pause Azael We are truly in a post apocalyptic world here! Our players have to play the #LCS finals from home due to a Worldwide pandemic, and now the finals are delayed because California is so hot that power is going out! Time to move LCS to Canada!?! GAME RESUME LS w/ Crownie Talking about American Pie and stuff since the game is basically over. (~19) Sneaky & Meteos Sneaky: Cait generally isn't good at holding 1v2. Wave clear isn't good enough (~15:30) Sneaky: PANTH ULTED BACKWARDS. Big Misclick(15:50) Meteos: Panth support is going to do a whopping nothing this game (~18:30) Sneaky: He doesn't scale. He's not going to do anything. Sneaky/Meteos: Game is just GG (19:30, score is 1 -11) Sneaky: Wait what the hell, kind of running it down here (TF/Bard stun Cait and then get 4-manned) Meteos: TSM can't throw hard enough with this lead and comp anyways. Still GG Meteos: Doesn't feel like these teams are close. It's like TSM is just shitting on FLY. It doesn't seem like FLY is in the right mindset. It's like they're comfortable without killer instinct. Game is basically over. They talk about breadsticks and stuff (~28) Meteos: I've seen teams come back 12k gold down... I haven't seen teams come back with Pantheon support. (~29:40) Meteos/Sneaky: Maybe they were drinking... It wasn't a power black out... they just blacked out. Sneaky: HE JUST MISSED A CANNON. IT'S DOOMED FOR BURGERSIN (31) Meteos: IGNAR GOT THE WOLF.. OOOH Name another support that would've done that.. I'll wait.(~31:10) Everyone on TSM other than Bio is 18, Fly is 16, 14, 18, 16, 12 (~33) Sneaky: GASP Dwagon Soul!! (~35 Soul for FlyQuest) Actually... Azir does a ton of damage. TSM might not have as much of a massive lead as we think. Ornn Items + Infernal Soul Sneaky/Meteos: Game is actually no joke winnable with this Azir (39) TSM Reginald Proud of the guys, they’re playing well. This is how league should be played. Winning or losing #TSM (~21) Jacob Wolf GG go next. #LCS (20min) Malaclypse It's really next to impossible to leave a game for almost a hour and come backto starting playing again when ata deficit already in the game. Such a shit situation. Raz imagine getting up from your pc taking a 30+minute drive to a new location during the heat set up your new station then instantly get: bard ulted+ashe ulted+ TF ult into gold card and deleted Turtle about to close his pc and go back home (~16) POST GAME POST GAME STATS G2 Perkz the king is back and there is no stopping him @Bjergsen 😎 G2 Jankos I want to play TSM at Worlds 🧐 Rogue Tomislav: get in line TSMA Evolved One more game 😝 TSM Treatz One. More. Game. #TSMWIN TSM Nightris (Partnerships): My heart is about to leap out of my chest. 😭 TSM Smak ONE MORE, ONE MORE Think ahead to Worlds Zilean Bans. Zilean Bans Everywhere Evil Geniuses (Twitter) Looks about right. TSM Drone ONE MORE Pastrytime Man Turtle made such a great Turtle play there and Biofrost just YOINKED away that teamfight with that Exhaust. TSM up 2-0 looking to repeat G2's sweep from earlier this morning! (last team fight) LS One more game #TSM #LCS Dellzor: LETS FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOOOO TSM Seazer When will they learn. Wait, it wasn't Zilean? It's all Bjergsen? Always has been. Markz The only way to defeat Fly/Tree/Sea Quest? Global warming. Cloud9: Banger Damonte: Good tweet. Proud. Team Liquid: #LIVEEVIL Raz we need a counter on how many cait ults weren't body blocked when intended in both NA and EU in playoffs. Tim Sevenhuysen TSM have looked good for the past couple weeks not because Bjergsen turned on playoffs mode or Spica suddenly had something click or Doublelift finally understood Senna; it's because TSM fixed some macro holes and improved their self-awareness / identity. Team fundamentals. #LCS I've been harping on TSM's fundamentals literally all year, btw. It's taken them far too long to sort things out, but I'm encouraged that they finally made progress on it. I hope it will serve them well at Worlds. Azael I'm really shocked that people haven't figured out how to shut down Bjergsen yet. It's honestly REALLY simple, all you need to do is ban Zilean, Syndra, Zoe, Leblanc, Orianna, Azir, Corki, Lucian, Irelia, Akali, Sett, Twisted Fate, Sylas, Cassiopeia, Ryze, Taliyah, Lissandra, Lu TSM looking like they're in their best form of the entire year! Loving the top lane focus w/ counter picks & the team facilitating Brokenblade to put him consistently ahead. Bjergsen has been amazing through both games at empowering their top laner w/ TF ganks / Zilean. I want to see FlyQuest give Solo counter pick top & at least try to contest the gameplan. Blind picking him Ornn every game & watching him be chain ganked, TPed on, Ulted, Dove & generally ran over by TSM just AINT IT. GIMME SOME MORE GAMES FLYQUEST! Empyre: Not confident they can pull that off. Doesn't seem like something they've put time into or practiced (getting solo CP and playing through him). Could turn out badly. Maybe Renekton is good enough tho Azael: HP or Morde even just not BLIND Empyre: Yeah agreed, I think just not giving BB a free lane is key. Morde/Renekton/maybe GP good Empyre TSM still has issues securing dragons in midgame while theyre snowballing but overall solid gameplay today. Obviously they got two dream drafts so far, so we'll see if FLY can spice things up next game (doubt). Max Olivo Is it coming home Pr0lly TL was able to fight TSM closer with their TF take-away to shutdown brokenblade's carry picks. IF POE doesn't want to play the TF, they have to think of another option quickly to deal with TSM's style Tim Sevenhuysen: How much do you think there is to say about PowerOfEvil's creative counterpick pool (Swain etc.) being a less useful trait against Bjergsen's ability to blind pick every game and not get punished? GAME 3 DURING DRAFT LS w/ Crownie & Sanch Wait... are TSM just picking the same comp over and over? (TSM lock in Sett, TF, Ashe) Talk about IGNs and katie from high school and Among Us for most of draft FlyQuest have drafted really saint comps.. and TSM has drafted worse and worse. But TSM is going to win. Sanch: FLY's comp is the juice. Sneaky & Meteos Meteos - Everyone feed on Nautilus' Sneaky - I expect 20 death Ignar Meteos - TSM should troll one for the fans. Malaclypse oh no the lvl 1 is a disaster already in top DURING GAME RUNES LS w/ Max, Sanchovies, Crownie Bio misses Q and Spica misses E. Ori cancels TF's ult with his. (~6) Crownie: Weird basing difference botlane (8). Ashe has BF/Cull & Senna has Pickaxe talks about donos for awhile Sneaky & Meteos Meteos: Everytime FLY gets a pick it just feels like TSM gets more because of what FLY committed for it. (~13:50) Sneaky: Might be a mistake not going Manamune on Jayce. Scales so well like Senna build. Meteos: Santorin solo ulting Bjerg was weird. Doesn't have enough damage to do that. (2nd drag) Even when something goes well for them (FLY) they don't turn it into anything. They're just making bad decisions Sneaky: Also seems like they're scared of something. Meteos: Teams that are like this typically have really messed up/cluttered comms Chat: FLY is throwing so they get the easier group at Worlds Sneaky/Meteos: Ooooooooooh Sneaky: It's not necessarily that TSM is better at outplaying or has better mechanicaly players overall. They're just getting smacked in macro play. Meteos: It's hard to play against TSM's comps. They put so much pressure on you. Santorin is always being spotted out by DL's hawkshot. Not being able to see Spica's Sett means they're always being under threat of being killed if the laner has CC. Sneaky: TSM is always taking advantage of something else if FLY goes for something. (FLY kills DL backing on a ward but then TSM catch POE and then TP flanks Turtle). (~26) Meteos: FLY goes for the fight after TSM dives GP at 2nd tier bot turret but they really should've just recognized that they can't do anything about fighting after GP died and cleared the vision in the jungle. (~29) Sneaky: DL gets caught and dies with flash but he really wouldn't survive anyways. It's really hard for Ashe to survive against a Hecarim in that situation ~31 Meteos/Sneaky: BJERG THE GAMER. Hits the blast cone to deny him from the pit (~31:30) Meteos: Bjerg already level 18 again. It's like he's running exp quints (32:30) Sneaky: Still winnable for FLY. They're still really strong with their champs. (Ori/GP) (34) Sneaky: BB hard trolled that fight (fight in mid where he flashed in place) Meteos: Also that Bard ult anti-synergy with Sett ult Sneaky/Meteos: Looks like TF trolled by canceling recall but he got canceled by GP ult. It's still pretty troll that they double splitted with a baron team running it down mid. Shakarez: IE Senna... (~41) POST GAME 4 Zikz FLY needs to ban Zilean and TF to keep this going - TSM is getting too much value out of their globals and side pressure Kien the last time TSM was in the LCS finals, they were up 2-0 as well. hmm... Travis Gafford I mean I predicted a TSM finals win but I was hoping it would be interesting at least. Oh, @FlyQuest follows my twitter account I guess. PastryTime MORE GAMES WOO. Flyquest finally nabbing one with some quality Fly-tier teamfighting and at least denying the shutout. Empyre Keep drafting this way! Malacylpse Lets gooooooooooo Tim Sevenhuysen I have a very special relationship with TSM. I perma-no-faith them and they beat GG in the runback, knock out C9, beat TL, and 2-0 FLY. I admit that I've underrated them and praise their growth curve, and they drop game 3. Is it possible for me to be TSM-neutral? FLY Sygh we are alive Allorim That had to have been a mis-flash from BB Xico But why dafuq TSM only starts splitting when enemies have Nash? AHAHHA this game was so free ... Fionn My man PowerofEvil not going down that easily G2 Esports NA and throwing at baron, name a more iconic duo #LCS To everyone responding "G2 and #LEC championships" Yes. T1 Esports: Europe and 0-3 Worlds finals Shakarez: going to bed. TSM win game 4 GAME 4 DURING DRAFT LS w/ Crownie & Sanchovies Crownie: Probably going to be a copy-paste draft from TSM. Going to be up to FLY to adapt and support the Cait properly. LS: Ugh... TSM's draft dude.... nooo not the Jayce. He can't play it at a professional level. Only a few can play it at the top level Nuguri, TheShy, Kiin, etc. LS: Really really hate these TSM drafts. Crownie: How is TSM supposed to front the back without a front? LS: They expect Bjerg to just Q-E-R someone and instakill them. That's the strat. Tim Sevenhuysen Okay I have feelings about TSM's draft but I don't want to swing the game in either direction by leveraging my anti-prediction powers, so I will just say: TSM is a team that drafted a draft. #LCS Nelson Sng (LNG Coach (LPL)): TSM won draft but not sure if they can execute Tim: I'm surprised TSM picked Jayce on 4 to give away the Sett flex value. More worried about IgNar on a support counter I guess, which I think is fair given the roles of IgNar and Solo, but as an overall concept I go support there. Nelson: You pick Jayce there regardless as it is the counter to FQ's B123, arent any lane counters which are viable which won't screw up FQ's teamcomp Malaclypse: + support counterpick is OP with ashe Malaclypse what a malphite angle Nelson: Only way FQ could have saved the draft Allorim: This series is in DESPERATE need of some more Malphite Empyre Somehow FLY mind controlled TSM into not picking TF and not counterpicking top lane. Hate the Panth blind pick but this game is in FLY's territory now. Let's get a game 5!!!! #FLYWIN Locodoco TSM opted out of TF + toplane counter pick + 2 free bans in second round of draft We get a game 5 at this rate Shakarez Support pantheon this is how it ends huh DURING GAME Sticking with Sneaky & Meteos. LS & Co. keep getting off topic talking about planets, icecream, etc. Meteos: Morg isn't really a counter to Panth. Sure you stop his stun but then he's already on you and does a ton of damage and then he can just negate all the damage that you throw at it after binding him. Maybe Tahm would be better. BB got solo turret but now he's been at around 110 cs for the past couple minutes (~17) FLY also have way better Drag control with their comp. POE lose the fight at 3rd drag but they're at soul point. POE just saved ulti for some reason. Could've used it to push out Bjerg/Bio Power Outage. Taking tweets w/ Laptop + Phone. Empyre SANTORIN IS THE REAL MVP#FLYWIN (~27) Raz REVERSE SWEEP (~27) Kien that dragon standoff was textbook league of legends in case you weren't sure. queue silver scrapes (~27) C9 Mateus LETS FUCKING GO FLYQUEESYTTTTT Loyota (FLY Analyst) LETS GO Vedius Yo wtf are these drake fights (~25?) Malaclypyse We have officially reached fiesta status (~27) POST GAME 4 POST GAME STATS TSM Treatz Game 5 comfort zone entered again TSMA Winston TSM haven’t lost a game 5 all split no worries 😎 Kien TSM's drake contest strategy of "spica flash in and steal it lol" was pretty good but it looks like they may need to try another approach in game5 Markz This may come as a surprise to some of you but... I'm feeling a little better about my FLY prediction right now. Jankos I’m not staying up to 4AM again. Goodnight 😂 IWD: fake. GG Danan DUH NUH NUH DUH NUH NUH DUH NUH NUH Shakarez hm Kobe ANOTHER Game 4 in playoffs! Really impressed @FlyQuest have had the fortitude to fight their way back from the 0-2 start and amssive pause to force match point! It all comes down to this, play the silver scrapes Big Flyquest sure know how to entertain the viewers, always going for 5 games every series Team Liquid .@TSM: Turtle, after all thsi time? @Wildturtle: Lol no. Empyre TSM has to go back to the TF or find something else. 5v5 front to back comps, they will almost never beat FLY #LCS Veigarv2 tsm should replace shen ban with caitlyn and draft for Brokenblade when redside. not that doublelift is playing bad, i think hes playing rlly well recently just think bb is very good carry. also idk why morgana got picked over braum here T1 Esports Positive: Silver Scrapes Less positive: another game of this #LCS Goldenglue SPAM THIS FISH 🐟 TO HELP SEAQUEST #FLYWIN Cloud9 Honor all after this Game 5 #LCS Locodoco TSM has to take redside, FLY has to ban Lucian/Nidalee/Zilean. Only real decision to be made is if TSM opts into playing TF with top lane counter pick again. I don't think TSM can beat FLY playing teamfight comps at this point, they need a switch up #LCS Dunc: don't ban it @FlyQuest JacobWolf Cloud9 1.0 couldn't take down TSM. but Cloud9 2.0 might be able to. Travis Gafford GG: Well it's match point, but we can probably give Bjergsen Zilean... C9: Well it's match point, but we can probably give Bjergsen Zilean... TL: Well it's match point, but... Rogue Esports Yo @TSM can you finish this fast please. It's 3:30am over here 😴 TSM Smak Me watching all these playoff games. GAME 5 DURING DRAFT Sneaky & Meteos TSM have not changed their ban the whole series Ooooh Senna... why did they ever stop picking Senna? Actually there wasn't really good opportunities to do so OOOH TF IS BACK Ori pick is great. She pressures weak laning champs really well Meteos: Don't remember seeing Biofrost lose on Rakan Overall good comp for TSM. Great teamfight comp for FLY Veigarv2 jax rlly insane for flyquest no? Solo doesn't jax. GP/Morde/Renekton/Ornn only Locodoco FLY banning Tahm instead of Rakan was pretty meh, Bio 100% goes on his most comfortable champ after Bard TSM going blue was also weird but atleast they got TF with a top carry Either TSM wins through blowing up GP over and over again or FLY outscale and teamfight to win Malaclypse Why didn't we just 4p GP and counterpick support again? I'm confused Kien TSM is going to gank Solo at level 1, level 2, level 3, level 4, level 5, etc Shakarez Based on comps I'd say TSM take it, time to sleep see u on the other side G2 Esports You know what? As long as both teams are having fun, do we really care who wins? #LCS Wait nvm nothing about this series is fun Just end this already. (4 man bot dive) DURING GAME Meteos & Sneaky Not sure who won draft 4 Man gank on bot was extremely huge for FLY. Great TP by Ori. Not sure why mid laners don't do this TP all the time. Incredibly nasty trades from BB (~6) BUT FLY just got an ocean soul. Ocean soul really affects lanes. Top the most. Despite Bjergsen being on TF, POE is pressuring the map way harder than Bjerg (~12) Bjerg is fucking himself over with how he is macroing but BB is being given a lot to carry. (~13:30) Meteos: If you want a champ to carry from top lane, Camille is the champ you want. Sneaky: TSM are hard controlling this game so far (20) Meteos: And Renekton wasn't banned. Renekton is pretty good into Camille. Meteos: Solo dies again for the 4th time. 1st time was his fault but the rest aren't really his fault. TSM's comp made it so he's just pretty much fucked. He's the new Dyrus Ignar went Shurelyas. So squishy he just dies to TSM so easily here. (~24) Really nasty position for TSM they're really ahead and they just take all the enemy camps on cooldown (~26) Brokenblade trolled really hard. What does he expect to happen when he jumps on a Leona ahead of his team under turret with no flash. (~26:10) Really bad decision making from FLY after BB inted. They use everything and have no cds... then they run at TSM and die. Give up a bunch of kills and Baron Bjerg actually ults for the lich bane proc vs Solo TSM Hazed FLAME HORIZON APPROACHING #TSMWIN (Spica Flame Horizons Santorin) Zikz 100% confident TSM has this one in the bag, throughout the series they showed a really solid 1-3-1 and were very proactive. Hope there are game 5s in group stage at Worlds ^ #LCS (~31) Dunc Broken Blade, The TopFather (~26) Locodoco That dive so fucking huge. Leona has so much space to roam around and pressure mid now #LCS (4 man bot early) Markz That's a clean dive right there. (4 man bot early) Xico Am I fucking my sleeping schedule for tsm? THERE IS NO WAY RIGHT?! Yes I am... Tim Sevenhuysen Has anyone ever had a more valuable playoff run in the #LCS than Bjergsen this split? Maybe others dominated more start to finish, but the sheer value in lifting his team through tight series... He's been a walking win condition. POST SERIES INTERVIEW NOTES IN COMMENT SECTION. I RAN OUT OF CHARACTERS. PLAYER/ORG TWEETS TSM INTERVIEW NOTES & MORE TWEETS IN COMMENTS. I RAN OUT OF CHARACTERS. BrokenBlade WE FUCKING DID IT BRO I CANT BELIEVE IT BANGER SERIES TSMMMMMMMM IWD: CLEAN GAME 5 BB LETS GO Yassuo: So happy for u bro Spica WE ARE THE BEST TEAM IN NORTH AMERICA Tarzaned: best jg na too TannerSlays: You're the smite king. I really hope you're happy. You played out of your mind and stepped up. Well deserved legend! Bjergsen cool Treatz: Yeah Cloud9: The return of the King Doublelift WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GG FLYQUEST p.s: spring split doesn't matter 😗 Biofrost Feels surreal to win it all after 2 years. I really miss playing on stage with a real crowd. Looking forward to playing at worlds. Thanks to everyone that supported me this split and my teammates ❤️ Treatz NUMBER ONE. 🏆 #LCS CHAMPIONS SUMMER 2020 #TSMWIN Parth A few weeks ago @currylol messaged me "see you in the finals". Lot of respect to @FlyQuest and their players/staff for their insane year. Looking forward to representing NA at Worlds alongside them. Leena No refunds 😬 DL: 😳 JoshMabrey Woot! Another banger series TSM Zexrow what did tsm win? LustBoy @TSMBrokenBlade @Spicalol @Bjergsen @TSMDoublelift @TreatzLoL @Biofrostlol huge props to the players, they stepped up on time different time each series. also the staff worked very hard and almost made me feel embarrassed. you guys are the heroes. DL: best position coach Reginald . @TSMBrokenBlade stepping up huge TSM (Twitter) 7 TIMES LCS CHAMPIONS🏆 TSM Subroza Congrats to the LoL team for winning this split! Insane performances on Game 5's by them. Well deserved #TSMWIN Dunc: I’m exhausted. Depleted. I’ve put so much energy into this. Feels like it’s all truly been worth it for this moment. Can’t even imagine how it feels to be the players. I’m just the tiniest cog in a mega machine. But heck I am so proud. TSMA Winston This has to of been one of the greatest playoff runs in LCS history no?! Watching these guys work there asses off all split and there insane improvement is crazy so happy for the lads! #TSMWIN TSM Mackwood #TSMWIN LETS FUCKING GOOOO TSM Emad TSM IS THE BEST ORG IN THE WORLD #TSMWIN ily @TSM TSM TannerSlays Dude i look up to Bjergsen so damn much. Maybe it's because of all the 1v1s i did from back in the day. I feel like him and i are similar in more ways than one. GGWP to the #LCS boys tonight. Well deserved

[Updated 2025-01-15] The following is just a small sample from my new database THE CERT PORTAL. Here is the link! https://www.notion.com/templates/cert-portal?srsltid=AfmBOorDgt5-IOVHN6nbaHwm4Idd1g1bn7sabd9Pfh8nQRI1DOSVI2Sf If you are looking to train for the trifecta, you've come to the right post! Numbered lists are ranked in descending order of value (my opinion of course). I recommend taking notes on a video course, book, and five practices exams to comfortably pass each certification. Notion is the top note-taking application - highly recommended. Resource Platforms Computer Based Training (CBT) Video Platforms: Udemy.com - free market (like YouTube) of self-posted courses and practice exams (lifetime access) from top-ranked instructors. Courses have a fake price of ~$200 but go on sale biweekly for ~$15. Professormesser.com - FREE videos by Professor Messer. Labs, notes, and practice exams for a price. CBTNuggets.com - whiteboard style lessons from instructors hired by CBTNuggets. $59 monthly subscription. Some labs and Kaplan practice exams included. ITPro.tv - lecture style lessons from instructors hired by ITPro.tv. $29 per month for videos; $49 per month for unlimited video, lab, and practice test access. Lynda.com / Linkedin.com/learning - free market of courses. Many public libraries offer free access, or $25 monthly subscription. Pluralsight.com - curated courses for $29 per month. CompTIA.org - inferior OEM option. Examsdigest.com - some PBQs. Book Vendors: McGraw Hill's All-in-One Series - highly organized, readable, and thorough books. Wiley's Sybex Series - organized and thorough books that sometimes cover topics AIO skims. Independent Vendors - see specific certification for relevant titles. CompTIA.org - expensive OEM books which IMO are not worth considering. Practice Exam Platforms: Udemy.com - many options from instructors like Mike Meyers, Jason Dion, and others. Sybex - Kindle or print books with ~1000 questions and online test bank. Examsdigest - questions CBTNuggets' Kaplan Tests - hundreds of questions for each cert; included with $59 video subscription. Total Tester - Mike Meyers' practice test banks of ~1000 questions, $75 to $100. Lab Platforms: Total Sims - hundreds of simulations for $99 (A+ and Network+ only) CompTIA's CertMaster Labs - CompTIA's own lab engine. $129. Flashcard Platforms: Anki Android App - make your own flashcards. Quizlet - make your own, or use card sets made by others. See this post for relevant lists of terms. CompTIA Tech+ (FC0-U71) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 12 hr 24 min Practice Exams Mike Chapple via Udemy 5 hr 1 min Scott Jernigan via Udemy 4 hr 53 min Quizzes Andrew Ramdayal via YouTube 6 hr 2 min Ronnie Wong via ACI Learning 18 hr 9 min Practice Exams James Conrad via CBTNuggets 28 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Scott Jernigan via All-in-One 496 pages Quentin Doctor via Sybex 768 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 300 Qs Total Tester 150 Qs CompTIA A+ (220-1101 and 220-1102) A+ I Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 25 hr 36 min Practice Exams James Messer via YouTube 9 hr 36 min Mike Meyers via Udemy 15 hr 36 min Practice Exams Vlad Catrinescu via PluralSight 12 hr Ronnie Wong via ACI Learning 11 hr 26 min Practice Exams Keith Barker via CBTNuggets 29 hr Practice Exams A+ II Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 35 hr 39 min Practice Exams James Messer via YouTube 9 hr 34 min Mike Meyers via Udemy 17 hr 58 min Practice Exams Glenn Weadock via PluralSight 12 hr Ronnie Wong via ACI Learning 12 hr 55 min Practice Exams Book Author Length Mike Meyers via All-in-One 1472 pages Quentin Docter via Sybex 1744 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy (Core 1) 269 Qs Pocket Prep (Core 1) 1000 Qs Boson (Core 1) 270 Qs Wiley (Core 1) 1500 Qs Whiz Labs (Core 1) 150 Qs Udemy (Core 2) 270 Qs Boson (Core 2) 240 Qs Whiz Labs (Core 2) 145 Qs CompTIA Network+ (N10-009) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 32 hr 47 min Practice Exams James Messer via YouTube 12 hr 55 min Mike Meyers via Udemy 21 hr 39 min Practice Exams Michael Brown via PluralSight 10 hr Ross Bagurdes via PluralSight 14 hr Practice Exams Wes Bryan via ACI Learning 34 hr 9 min Practice Exams Keith Barker via CBTNuggets 30 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Todd Lammle via Sybex 1024 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 540 Qs Pocket Prep 1100 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 25 hr 38 min Practice Exams Mike Chapple via LinkedIn Learning 17 hr 30 min Quizzes James Messer via YouTube 15 hr 11 min Mike Meyers via Udemy 20 hr 18 min Practice Exams Christopher Rees via PluralSight 12 hr Practice Exams Wes Bryan via ACI Learning 30 hr 19 min Practice Exams Erik Choron via CBTNuggets 30 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Wm. Arthur Conklin via All-in-One(one version behind) 784 pages Mike Chapple via Sybex 704 pages Darril Gibson via Certification Experts 672 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 271 Qs Pocket Prep 1000 Qs Boson 270 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs Whiz Labs 125 Qs CompTIA Server+ (SK0-005) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jean Francois Landry via PluralSight 20 hr Ronnie Wong via ACI Learning 13 hr 39 min Practice Exams Knox Hutchinson via CBTNuggets 26 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Daniel Lachance via All-in-One 448 pages Troy McMillan via Sybex 608 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 200 Qs Pocket Prep 500 Qs Whiz Labs 110 Qs CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 21 hr 8 min Practice Exams Andrew Mallett via PluralSight 27 hr Wes Bryan via ACI Learning 17 hr 39 min Practice Exams John McGovern via CBTNuggets 32 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Ted Jordan via All-in-One 768 pages Mike Chapple via Sybex 992 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 180 Qs Pocket Prep 500 Qs Boson 360 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-004) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Tom Carpenter via Udemy 14 hr 53 min Quizzes Lauren Deal via ACI Learning 16 hr 53 min Jacob Moran via CBTNuggets 37 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Eric Vanderburg via All-in-One 640 pages Ben Piper via Sybex 480 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 201 Qs Pocket Prep 600 Qs Whiz Labs 110 Qs CompTIA Project+ (PK0-005) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 15 hr 30 min Practice Exams Joseph Phillips via Udemy 11 hr 29 min Practice Exams Casey Ayers via PluralSight 22 hr Lauren Deal via ACI Learning 15 hr 28 min Practice Exams Bob Salmans via CBTNuggets 12 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Joseph Phillips via All-in-One 544 pages Kim Heldman via Sybex 480 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Pocket Prep 500 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ (CLO-002) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 11 hr 19 min Practice Exams Sophia Goodwin via ACI Learning 8 hr 15 min Bart Castle via CBTNuggets 15 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Quentin Docter via Sybex 368 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Pocket Prep 500 Qs CompTIA DataX (DY0-001) Book Author Length Fred Nwanganga via Sybex 416 pages CompTIA DataSys+ (DS0-001) Book Author Length Mike Chapple via Sybex 368 pages CompTIA Data+ (DA0-001) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 13 hr 43 min Practice Exams Mike Chapple via LinkedIn Learning 5 hr 50 min Erik Choron via CBTNuggets 18 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Mike Chapple via Sybex 368 pages CompTIA PenTest+ (PT0-003) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 32 hr 44 min Practice Exams Michael Solomon via Udemy 14 hr 43 min Practice Exams Matthew Lloyd Davies via PluralSight 15 hr Practice Exams Ronnie Wong via ACI Learning 17 hr 49 min Practice Exams Bob Salmans via CBTNuggets 32 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Heather Linn via All-in-One 464 pages Mike Chapple via Sybex 576 pages Glen Clarke via Dummies 528 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Udemy 300 Qs Pocket Prep 500 Qs Whiz Labs 105 Qs CompTIA CySA+ (CS0-003) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 36 hr 11 min Practice Exams Mike Chapple via LinkedIn Learning 12 hr 55 min Khet Kendrick via Udemy 14 hr 47 min Quizzes Dale Meredith via PluralSight 6 hr Practice Exams Daniel Lowrie via ACI Learning 15 hr 11 min Practice Exams Erik Choron via CBTNuggets 14 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Bobby Rogers via All-in-One 560 pages Mike Chappele via Sybex 576 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Pocket Prep 1050 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs Whiz Labs 106 Qs CompTIA CASP+ (CAS-004) Video Author Duration Bonus Content Jason Dion via Dion Training 40 hr 13 min Practice Exams Adam Gordon via ACI Learning 26 hr 18 min Practice Exams Bob Salmans via CBTNuggets 22 hr Practice Exams Book Author Length Nicholas Lane via All-in-One 848 pages Jeff T. Parker via Sybex 592 pages Practice Exams Number of Questions Pocket Prep 1000 Qs Wiley 1000 Qs submitted by /u/canadian-sysadmin to r/CompTIA [link] [comments]

Hello everyone. In this essay I shall explain to you why the Fire Nation couldn't have possibly committed the Air Nomad Genocide, why it wouldn't make any sense for them to even want it, and who did it. I must warn you: English is not my native language, so please forgive me for any errors regarding spelling and/or grammar. I'd like to start with a short disclaimer: I am not denying the Air Nomad Genocide, nor any real life genocide, I'm merely saying we've been looking at the wrong perpetrators all along: neither am I denying the further conquests of the Fire Nation in the Hundred Year War. The goal of this essay is not to paint anyone as the ''good'' or ''bad'' guys: you can decide that for yourself. I'm merely here to share the truth so cleverly hidden by the real criminals. Now then, let's get started. ​ Chapters: ​ Why the Fire Nation didn't do it; The greatest suspect; The actual murderers; Azulon's alterations; The true history; epilogue ​ Chapter I: why the Fire Nation didn't do it It is commonly accepted by people in the show and fans alike that the Fire Nation committed the Air Nomad Genocide. However, upon closer examination of its traces, one gradually finds that multiple problems with this ''truth'' arise, most of them rather practical limitations of reality. I'll first sum them all up, then break them down individually. ​ The impractical geographical location of the Fire Nation; The logistical nightmare to carry enough fuel on the ships for a journey all the way to the Northern and Eastern Air Temples; The very narrow window of the bending enhancement granted by the Comet; The lack of Fire Nation intelligence concerning the exact location of any Air Temple; The unlikelihood of the Fire Nation fleets passing unnoticed through Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom waters, and therefore an unlikelihood of achievement of complete surprise; The simple lack of evidence of Fire Nation presence at any but the Southern Air Temple, and in extension, lack of evidence of a massacre; The complete absence of any means of transport to get Fire Nation Soldiers to the Air Temples; The inability of Fire Nation soldiers to get up to the Air Temples (or down to, in the case of the Western Air Temple) in the first place, despite being boosted in power by the Comet; The nonsensical approach to the alleged genocide and the power of the comet not matching with the ruins; Propaganda and secrecy being an integral part of Fire Nation policy; The Fire Nation choosing to kill the Avatar makes no sense. ​ The impractical location of the Fire Nation possible routes Take a look at this map that I have modified. It immediately should raise a few questions with those among us sharp of mind and skeptical of heart. The two Air Temples within striking distance of the Fire Nation were the Western and Southern Air Temples. The Fire Nation could've easily struck those and gotten out, true. But the Northern and Eastern Air Temples are a whole different story. As you can see on the map, it's impossible for the Fire Nation to have arrived there unnoticed. Either the Earth Kingdom military, the Water Tribe military, or even the air benders could and would have spotted them. As we all know, the arrival of any Fire Nation fleet is heralded by clouds of smoke and ash: the very nature of Fire Nation ships makes it impossible for them to approach any target unnoticed, and that's not the intention. Fire Nation ships want to impose fear before the battle even starts (positive jing): stealthy approaches aren't their strategy. We can see Zhao's fleet doing this as he attacks the Northern Water Tribe, but even five ships raiding the Southern Water Tribe produce a sizeable cloud that can't go unnoticed: see the picture below. black snow This makes even less sense when we take into account the very narrow window in which this attack had to take place, but I'll address this later. 2) The logistical nightmare to carry enough fuel on the ships for a journey all the way to the Northern and Eastern Air Temples This point speaks for itself. The Fire Nation didn't have any colonies or supply depots en route to the Air Temples, and they still had to bring fire benders with them. They could've made it to the Western and Southern Temples, sure, but to the Temples on the other side of the known world? The Fire Nation at the beginning of the Hundred Year War wasn't as technically advanced as in the near end of the war, and her navy was significantly smaller and less modern. I'm skeptical towards the notion it had enough capacity for both enough coal for the journey and enough benders to take out an entire Temple. Since speed was of the essence, loading an entire ship full of coal to function as supply ship wouldn't make much sense either, since that would mean either resupplying the other ships in the open sea or risking detection on land. I do not buy this narrative. 3) The very narrow window of the bending enhancement granted by the Comet Sozin's Comet was a phenomenon only occurring once every hundred years, and for a limited amount of time: let's be generous and say it lasted an entire day. When you look at the distances from the Fire Nation to all four Air Temples, this means they had to time their attack in such a way that all four task forces would arrive perfectly in time for the Comet's arrival. If they did too soon, the Air Nomads or the animals native to their lands would surely notice them, if Earthbenders or Waterbenders hadn't already. If they were too late, well, they couldn't hope to eradicate the Air Nomads. I'm sure most of you will see where I'm going with this. Because of the narrow time frame, four separate task forces had to be present at the Air Temples at exactly the right time. This immediately creates one big problem. While two task forces can go directly towards the Western and Southern Air Temples, the ones going to the Northern and Eastern ones need to pass through other nation's waters, they even need to pass Air Temples themselves. This is where I get back to where I left off at point one. If any of the task forces somehow managed to evade detection by anyone but arrived too soon, they'd still have to encamp in close proximity to the air temples: there's no way nobody would've noticed them and raised the alarm. In conclusion, I don't believe the Fire Nation would be able to execute a worldwide operation of this scale without anybody at all noticing, and the Air Nomads, not even a single one (save Aang) being able to escape in time. 4) The lack of Fire Nation intelligence concerning the exact location of any Air Temple; ''The temples are typically located in isolated and difficult-to-reach environments, such as mountaintops or islands;'' ''...but had four air temples, one at each corner of the globe, hidden away atop mountain ranges and under cliffs, in the northern Earth Kingdom and on three remote islands.'' ~Avatar Wiki Fandom, Air Nomads There is no given evidence of the Fire Nation knowing exactly where the Air Temples were. Throughout the show, the only foreigner we see at an Air Temple is Avatar Roku: there has been no mention of pilgrims from other nations, only from other Air Temples. Despite being the ethnicity with the lowest population, the area they had at their disposal was considerably larger, at least twice the size of the entire Fire Nation. I've cut and pasted them all into one map (save for the Northern Air Temple, because we don't know its exact boundaries): comparison territory Pinpointing the exact location of the Air Temples in an area this large without prior intelligence would be next to impossible during the invasion within the time frame of the Comet's duration, especially the location of the Western Air Temple, which was completely concealed from view underneath a cliff. This leaves only one further option: scouting the area before the attack, but this would be nigh impossible to do. Not only because the Air Nomads have mastery of the skies and would've seen any Fire Nation scouting party, but also because the Fire Nation simply didn't have the technology yet to mount a good scouting expedition. There were no hot air balloons until the later stages of the Hundred Year War, same goes for tundra tanks. There's no recorded evidence of domesticated Mongoose Lizards. Eel Hounds then? But those were native to the Earth Kingdom, not the Fire Nation, and buying them suddenly would not only not be cost effective but also be suspicious. Same story for the Shirshu. Scouting parties therefore had to be dropped off by ship ahead of the invasion force, which would without a doubt be noticed and alert the Airbenders, who were already on edge. 5) The unlikelihood of the Fire Nation fleets passing unnoticed through Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom waters, and therefore an unlikelihood of achievement of complete surprise; I already addressed this in the previous points, but to summarize; There's no way not a single soul would have noticed the black snow and ashen clouds accompanying a Fire Nation naval squadron. And if they did notice, it would be suspicious and strange to say the least, since Fire Nation ships had never ventured that far out in those numbers; The Fire Nation would be forced to put four fleets into position at the same time, making two of them pass the Western and Southern Air Temples (who were on alert), who would without a doubt have alerted their kin in the Eastern and Northern Air Temples; The Council of Elders of the Southern Air Temple sensed something bad was hanging in the air. This was the reason they revealed to Aang he was the Avatar at age 12 instead of the usual age of 16. Since the Southern Air Temple suspected something and communication between all Air Temples was very close, I can't imagine no other Air Temple community was alert. The only way an attack on the Air Nomads would have succeeded is for it to have come from an unexpected direction, which I'll talk about later in my essay. 6) The simple lack of evidence of Fire Nation presence at any but the Southern Air Temple, and in extension, lack of evidence of a massacre ''But OP, what are you talking about? In the Southern Air Temple the gang finds a fire nation helmet (which is burned... for some reason?), and surrounding the skeleton of monk Gyatso there are scores of firebender corpses (sure, corpses in Fire Nation armour). Isn't that evidence enough?'' No, it's not. In fact, There's a huge lack of remains of Fire Nation presence, and the only evidence there is, seems planted to frame the Fire Nation. Let me explain. Let's play a game, shall we? It's called ''Spot the fire damage'': no fire damage 1 no fire damage 2 no fire damage 3 Having any difficulty? I can imagine you do. No scorch damage on the walls, pavement, ceiling... Not even the slightest sign of burn marks on Monk Gyatso's clothes and amulet, both made out of flammable material. Curtains and cloth ceiling completely intact and unburned. Then there's these wooden objects at the Southern Air Temple specifically. They're made out of wood, so you'd expect significant visible damage after a fire attack that's a hundred times more powerful than norma firebendingl. Take a look: no fire damage 4 Again, no fire damage whatsoever: it's all in perfect shape, as if the Air Nomads just packed their bags and left their temples yesterday. ''But OP, the screenshots you've shown us are the Air Temples over a hundred years after the Genocide. Any damage the Fire Nation did surely must've faded away due to rain and other factors!'' Okay, a fair point. Except that this fire would've been no ordinary fire. It would, according to Ozai, burn with ''the power of a hundred suns''. comet's power There's no way you can convince me that fire of that intensity wouldn't leave any kind of mark, even after a hundred years: stone would simply deform when being confronted by such heat, yet everything is pretty much in its original state, just eroded and ruined. Something's not right. But that's not the only thing that's off. Why is it that the Eastern Temple has suffered the most damage despite it being furthest away from the Fire Nation, while the Western Temple is the most intact despite being closest? Why is there only evidence of Fire Nation presence in the Southern Air Temple? The Fire Nation boasted about it, right? So why would they hide any evidence: in fact, why wouldn't they leave their flag hanging as a sign of victory, like they do everywhere they go? Also, why is there only one corpse of an Air Nomad found (Monk Gyatso) despite many airbenders fighting back? Where are the hundreds, if not thousands of air bender corpses/skeletons? Where are the Fire Nation's remains in other air temples? Nothing adds up. Even the ''evidence'' that is present is feeble at its best. Look at the only evidence we have: the heaps of armour (important: just the armour with skeletons inside) around the skeleton of Monk Gyatso. I've set up a comparison with Fire Nation firebender soldiers. comparison Red: The Fire Nation helmets found at the Southern Air Temple appear to be of one colour, and completely smooth. Blue: The corpses seem to feature sleeves of a single red colour, while in reality firebender soldiers had grey sleeves and a dark red armour piece. Yellow: The spikes on the helmets found at the Southern Temple are way too broad, long and don't match the proportions of actual Fire Nation helmets. It's almost as if someone tried to copy Fire Nation armour, but failed to copy it exactly. Why would someone do this? To frame the Fire Nation, perhaps? The only helmet that exactly looks like a Firebender helmet is the one found by Sokka: fire nation helmet But then my question is: why has this helmet traces of burning on it? Did the Fire Nation attack one of their own? No, they didn't, obviously: if a comet-enhanced bender scorched a helmet, only ash would remain. This looks like regular, minor fire damage: as if a fire was started by a non-firebender. Now we're getting somewhere. Side note: why did the Fire Nation not repatriate the casualties on their side? It can't be that the soldiers surrounding Monk Gyatso were the only attackers of the Southern Air Temple. Even if they were, why didn't the Fire Nation send out a party to retrieve their corpses once it was clear the soldiers of that mission wouldn't return? And if they weren't the only ones, why didn't the rest of the unit bring them home? I can't imagine the Fire Nation would leave their men to decompose so disgracefully. It makes no sense. That was just the lack of evidence for Fire Nation presence, but maybe the most obvious question is: where are all the air nomad remains? The skeleton of Monk Gyatso is the only witness to any Air Nomad casualties, and the most should've perished during the first assault. However, in not a single temple do we see any remains, whether that be a corpse, bones, clothes, anything at all. So where are the Air Nomad remains? ''Oh you dumb OP, the firebenders incinerated them on the spot and their ashes scattered in the wind, duh!'' Okay. But then why are there no scorch marks on the surroundings, or deformed stone to see? A comet-enhanced fire blast can't hit an air nomad clean without the fire going all around. Furthermore, that's not the only thing that's wrong about this view. Bones cannot burn, let alone instantly incinerate. The process of cremation takes several hours of continuous intense heat, and even then the ''ashes'' are just whatever remains grinded together. Bones can show scorch marks however, but this is not in the slightest visible on Monk Gyatso's bones. ''But... But they just cremated the Airbender corpses afterwards...'' I doubt it. They cremated all the Airbender corpses but left their own men to decompose with their armour still on? And if that's the case, why didn't they cremate Gyatso? Furthermore, why would they even want to in the first place? They never meant to hide it, right? Why bother getting rid of the evidence? I'm not convinced. 7) The complete absence of any means of transport to get Fire Nation Soldiers to the Air Temples '' The tundra tanks' first known use was during the battle for the Northern Air Temple;'' ''The hot air balloon, also referred to as a war balloon, is an experimental weapon that the mechanist originally developed for the Fire Nation;'' ''...the Fire Nation blackmailed the mechanist into building new weapons, including steam-powered battle tanks, a war balloon...'' ''During his time as Fire Lord, Sozin began the tradition throughout the Fire Nation of hunting dragons as the ultimate sport.'' ~Avatar Wiki Fandom, Tundra Tank/Hot Air Balloon/Mechanist/Dragon Let's be extremely generous and say the Fire Nation knew the exact location of all four Air Temples, managed to get to them undetected, and were right in time for the Comet's arrival. Then what? As I've said above, all Air Temples were intentionally built in/on ''isolated and difficult-to-reach environments, such as mountaintops or islands'' and ''hidden away atop mountain ranges and under cliffs''. The only instance of the Fire Nation assaulting an Air Temple in the show with some degree of success was in the Siege of the Northern Air Temple: but in that instance, the Fire Nation had Tundra Tanks at its disposal, something they didn't have back in the day of the Air Nomad Genocide. As seen in this picture, the tanks scaled the cliffs with ease using chains and hooks: tanks scaling mountain ''But OP, in the same assault a small pathway leads to the top of the peak. Fire Nation soldiers are clearly shown scaling it! Surely the Fire Nation could've done the same in Sozin's time!'' single file Yeah, sure. Single file, at a snail's pace. And in this instance, even a bunch of ragtag refugees who couldn't bend managed to repel their assault, nevermind a temple full of airbenders, masters included. Let's quickly disregard that possibility. They couldn't have used balloons either, since, as mentioned before, the Mechanist was the first to invent them. When the Fire Nation discovers the crashed hot air balloon Sokka used, the officer describes it as ''a new weapon: a gateway to many victories''. So: the Fire Nation didn't have any means of transportation for reaching the peaks. And before dragons are brought up: dragons are highly intelligent animals, rarely forming bonds with humans. The only three humans we see them bond with and allowing them on their back are Fire Lord Sozin, Avatar Roku, and Fire Lord Zuko, either the highest rank of nobility or the Avatar. Furthermore, dragons can't carry a lot of people, which makes them impractical to say the least as transport for big numbers: not to mention Sozin started the practice of hunting them for sport, which would make any dragon extra wary and distrustful of firebenders. Dragons as a means of transport are out of the question. Then: what about firebending? 8) The inability of Fire Nation soldiers to get up to the Air Temples (or down to, in the case of the Western Air Temple) in the first place, despite being boosted in power by the Comet Let's agree on one thing. The power of the Comet boosts the power of a Firebender tremendously. In the words of two firebending masters: ''Only once every hundred years can a firebender experience this kind of power.'' ~Iroh, just before liberating Ba Sing Se It gives firebenders ''the power of a hundred suns''. ~Firelord Ozai However, what the Comet does not grant a firebender is skill: and there's lots of skill needed to propel yourself into the air using firebending, keeping your balance, changing directions, and so on. This is why I don't buy the argument that Fire Nation soldiers propelled themselves to the Air Temples: they simply didn't have the required skill to do it. ''But OP, they could've just trained it in anticipation of the arrival of the Comet! That way, they would be prepared to do it at the critical moment!'' Alright, fair enough. Except in the show, we only see firebenders with a great level of skill being able to use fire propulsion to achieve short flight without the extra powers of the Comet, a prime example being Azula, a firebending prodigy: propulsion Azula Even during the Comet, we only see firebending masters utilise firebending propulsion to achieve flight: propulsion masters Why is that we never see the average firebender use fire propulsion to achieve flight during the episodes with the Comet? Answer: because it takes great skill and mastery of firebending to do it. Therefore, this explanation of firebenders reaching the Temple too is undone. Then who was in a position to easily reach the Temples? The answer to that is just as simple, but I'll get back to that later. 9) The nonsensical approach to the alleged genocide and the power of the comet not matching with the ruins Let's refresh the power of a comet-enhanced Firebender: power In the show, we see that firebending gets enhanced by maybe a hundredfold: Iroh even has enough power to single-handedly breach the ''unassailable'' walls of Ba Sing Se (granted he's one of the most skilled firebenders in the world, if not the most skilled, but still). Why would the firebenders need to get up close and personal with the airbenders? Assuming the Fire Nation did it, we know they got up close and personal because of the corpses surrounding Monk Gyatso's skeleton. This approach however makes no sense because of the following reasons: It's highly impractical since every firebender wields enormous power. The narrow corridors of air temples make friendly fire almost unavoidable; As mentioned, the Comet grants firebenders enormous power: we even see the terrifying reach a firebender has, for example when they roast the earth all the way from an airship. Why not surround the Air Temples with firebenders and melt the entire structure from a distance? According to Ozai, the Comet grants firebenders ''the power of a hundred suns'': enough to at least deform stone, especially when blasted from the supposed distance the firebenders were (in the temple itself). Yet, we see no such markings. The structures are all perfectly intact and a bit caved in at best, but that can be attributed to time and the weather. The damage we see doesn't correlate to the alleged approach of the firebenders concerning the Air Nomad Genocide. 10) Propaganda and secrecy being an integral part of Fire Nation policy As we all know, the Fire Nation is highly authoritarian and autocratic: the truth is more often than not bended (or even completely altered), and it's quite hard if not impossible for Fire Nation citizens to discover anything from before Sozin's time (since he ordered the Dragonbone Catacombs, where the royal records were kept, sealed). This is e.g. shown to us when Aang attends a Fire Nation school, and it turns out they've been feeding the students false information about the Air Nomad defenders. But if they've been spreading one lie, could it be possible they've been spreading multiple? Characteristics of the Fire Nation as a whole that support this: ​ Sozin established a vast cult of personality centered upon himself and the royal family, one that would be upheld through the reigns of Azulon and Ozai after him. Numerous monuments were constructed in reverence of himself, and the imperialist regime enforced various forms of propaganda that established Sozin as a higher, benevolent being (Avatar Wiki Fandom, ''Sozin''). Other monuments to think of are the Great Gates of Azulon, the enormous statue of Ozai in New Ozai/Omashu, and the ''firebending'' statue of Ozai in the city (Fire Fountain City) where Team Avatar fights Combustion Man (a.k.a. Sparky Sparky Boom Man). This effectively means absolute loyalty, and not questioning the will of the Firelord. This grants the ruler great power, even the power to alter history without anyone being able to check him. In the show, we're shown that the entire Fire Nation already believed the lie that the Air Nomads possessed an army: other ways of propaganda exist as well, for example ''The Boy in the Iceberg'' performed by the Ember Island Players, letting children at school pledge loyalty to the Firelord and the nation, the thought that Fire Nation islanders are superior to colonists and people of other nations, and so on; Sozin ordered that the Dragonbone Catacombs be sealed off so that all Fire Nation history recorded before his reign would be erased from the national conscience, making it appear as if Fire Nation history began with himself (Avatar Wiki Fandom, ''Sozin''). Note that Zuko exclaims ''Was this it? Where is the rest of it?'' after having finished reading the so-called ''Secret History (why there would be a document with such a remarkable name is still beyond me, let alone it containing the truth in a society so open about propaganda)''. To me, this is suspicious to say the least. The rest? You're meaning to tell me Sozin only wrote about his memoirs before the actual invasion of the Earth Kingdom, where he won glorious victories like the Battle of Han Tui? It makes no sense. It's almost as if someone else forged these records to fit a certain narrative. More on that later. But let's play Devil's Advocate here and assume the ''Secret History'' wasn't a forgery. Even then there are inconsistencies. For example, look at this picture of Sozin's image of an Air Temple, and the Eastern Air Temple, the one that most closely resembles it: comparison temples Red: Where are the bridges in his flashback? Blue: Why are the rooftops clearly different? Let's not forget it's merely Zuko reading the document, not actually Sozin speaking (we merely see him speak for cinematographic reasons): there's absolutely no guarantee that whatever is written in that document is the truth, and even if we would've seen Sozin speak first hand and not in a flashback through Zuko, I don't think Sozin can be accounted for a trustworthy narrative. Here's why: Fire Lord Sozin didn't exactly have the most peaceful years later in his life. He got betrayed by his old friend and nearly got killed, he inhaled volcanic gases for several hours and at long last saw said old friend die an agonizing death without him being able to do anything (going by the thought the Secret History is a lie); Fire Lord Sozin lived until a whopping 102 years of age, and I don't think he was exactly the brightest anymore. 11) The Fire Nation choosing to kill the Avatar makes no sense It makes no sense for Sozin wanting to kill the reincarnated Avatar. If he killed the Avatar of the Air Nomads, he'd just be reborn into the Water Tribe: a people with a higher population density, a better ability to defend themselves (as we see in the Siege of the North), close ties to the Earth Kingdom, and an overall stronger offensive/defensive element than air. It would be better to capture the Avatar instead, and use the power of the Comet to invade the Earth Kingdom, a much stronger opponent than the feeble Air Nomads. Think about it: what is more profitable, killing the Avatar and letting him be reincarnated, giving you sixteen years of free reign at most, or to capture a child who can only airbend and not even control his Avatar state yet? In the show, Admiral Zhao captures Aang by using the abilities of the Yuyan archers without much difficulty. Aang cannot free himself and doesn't use the Avatar State to escape: only through the aid of Zuko (disguised as the Blue Spirit) does he manage to escape. This proves the Avatar can be captured and kept in custody in an even safer environment. So why kill him? Answer: they didn't, nor wanted to. Aang busted Now imagine if Sozin used the twelve years after the death of Roku to build a secure prison facility the Avatar couldn't possibly be broken out of (much like the facilities we see in The Legend of Korra, harbouring members of the Red Lotus). This would give the Fire Nation over a hundred to possibly a few hundred years of unopposed time (seeing how old Avatars on average become, with the most notable example being Avatar Kyoshi, who became 230 years old). Yet the Fire Nation decided to kill the Avatar? It makes no sense from a strategic viewpoint, since Aang disappearing for a hundred years was pure luck on the Fire Nation's part. One more point on this. The choice to genocide an entire people doesn't fit Sozin's world view. Sozin's ambition was world domination, true, but not in a brutal sense: he was more of an enlightened monarch, wanting to share the wealth and technological advancements of the Fire Nation with the other three nations, lifting everyone up with his own while under Fire Nation hegemony. The ''genocide'' narrative simply doesn't fit Sozin's character, vision for the world, and intentions. We do however see his successor commit a near genocide on the Southern Water Tribe, about which a lot can be said, but more about that later. Little side point: are we to believe Sozin was the first to discover and utilize the power of the Comet? Didn't the Fire Islanders use it on each other a hundred years before? There's no sources of it. Are we really to believe Sozin knew of this power and directed all of his forces at the Air Nomads and not at the Earth Kingdom? It doesn't make any sense. In fact, I'd like to argue his son, Azulon, was the first to know about it. ​ Chapter II: the greatest suspect We have already established that it made no sense for the Fire Nation to kill the Avatar. Then, for who did it make sense? Who had the most to gain by killing the Avatar and framing the Fire Nation? There was something that caught my attention while doing research: ''The outrage over this cultural destruction [Air Nomad Genocide] compelled the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe to take up arms and declare war on the Fire Nation, leading to the large-scale war that continued for one hundred years''. ~Avatar Wiki Fandom, Air Nomad Genocide So as it turns out, the Fire Nation never attacked, as Katara claims in the opening of the show: they were attacked. Interesting. Now, let's examine who had most to gain by a strike against the Fire Nation. The Water Tribes? They were few in number and peaceful in nature, and had never shown any grand imperial ambitions. Even if they had, they could not maintain a war (of attrition) against the industrially, economically and demographically superior Fire Nation. They had no just cause for war either. So we'll disregard them. The same goes for the Air Nomads, besides the fact that they were, well, nearly extinct by the time the war began in earnest. That leaves us with one candidate. A candidate with a motive, the means, and the will to do it: the Earth Kingdom, and the Dai Li specifically. You must be laughing, but hear me out. It will make much more sense. The Earth Kingdom has the motives, the means, and the positioning. I shall list the reasons for suspecting them below. ​ The Earth Kingdom wanted to reconquer the territory they lost to Fire Nation colonies, especially cities like Yu Dao, which were great economic hubs: a hundred years after the Genocide, Earth King Kuei would do exactly this by leading a force to Yu Dao. To think the Earth King at the time of the Genocide right after losing said territory wanted to do the same thing isn't a weird thought; The Earth Kingdom needed an ally to fight the Fire Nation. However, because of the Water Tribes' peaceful nature, they'd never join a war of aggression against the Fire Nation. Unless, of course, the Fire Nation committed some kind of horrible crime; The Earth Kingdom has a means of reaching all four Air Temples (earth lifts), remaining undetected by the Air Nomads, even while making camp (simply making an artificial cave and closing the entrance would suffice), and crossing great distances without seeming suspicious (since they'd be traveling through their own territory). Earth lifts were already known in the time of Avatar Roku, as we can see here: earth lift ​ Earth is the opposing element to air, as the Wiki explains (Avatar Wiki Fandom, ''Airbending''): ''Earthbending is considered the direct opposite, whereas airbenders avoid or deflect oncoming attacks, earthbenders absorb or overwhelm them with superior force. Airbenders are constantly moving in circles, while earthbenders require to be firmly rooted in one place to effectively bend''. We also hear this in the show. The sensible choice for taking out airbenders are skilled earthbenders. Look at this shot from The Legend of Korra, where a whole group of airbenders can't move the Dai Li, who simply anchor their feet in the ground: air vs. earth ​ Having an interest in killing the Avatar, in contrast to the Fire Nation, who'd benefit most from capturing him. If they killed the Air Avatar, they'd ignite the war, dragging the Water Tribes with them. The Fire Nation would surely attack them sooner or later, since they were much weaker than the Earth Kingdom. Then the Water Avatar would be slain, so that he/she would reincarnate in the Earth Kingdom, giving the Earth Kingdom a big advantage in the war and rallying the populace; ​ The Earth Kingdom is centrally located in comparison to the Air Temples, in stark contrast to the Fire Nation. This gives them the ideal geographical position to strike from: possible routes ​ The damage seen at the Air Temple ruins doesn't seem to have been caused by Comet-enhanced ''power of a hundred suns'' stone-deforming firebending - rather, what we see is suggestive of earthbending: rock/boulder impact ​ Also, there's something odd about the corpse of Monk Gyatso. I first noticed how we only see his upper body, and his lower body (out of sight) seems to be too close to the ground. I immediately thought of the so-called ''earth sink'' method: a bending form in which an earthbender buries (part of) the enemy's body. We see this method being applied multiple times throughout the show, example: earth sink My suspicions were confirmed when Aang activated his Avatar State: the ''Fire Nation'' corpses got blown away, Sokka got swept off his feet... however, the skeleton of Monk Gyatso mysteriously stayed exactly where it was: like it was stuck in the ground, for example. There's no way for an Airbender to get out of this bind. ''But OP, that's nonsense. That's clearly rubble!'' Mhm. Rubble that's conveniently fallen only on his corpse, and left his upper body unburied. That's too coincidental for me to believe. Besides, if it was just rubble, it would be blown away by Aang's Avatar State. Also, his clothes are torn in multiple spots, not burned - an indication of earth attacks: Gyatso A friendly reminder that Aang's garb got burned even when not directly hit by a fire blast from Zhao, so how is it possible Gyatso's garb isn't scorched in the slightest by comet-enhanced firebenders? Aang scorched ''Oh OP, you're so silly. That's not how Gyatso died. He obviously waited for the firebenders to surround him, then created a vacuum inside the room, taking them all down with him! That's how he died, dummy!'' Hard to believe. I'd like someone to explain to me, first off, how you can create a vacuum inside a building that has cloth for a roof: open roof There's no evidence the building used to have a roof either, since that would mean it caved in on the cloth, which then couldn't remain in place. No rubble on the ground inside or around either. So, he didn't create a vacuum, or rather, couldn't. Then what about asphyxiation? We see Zaheer do it to the Earth Queen. Sure thing, a master like Gyatso could easily suffocate an entire room full of enemies at the same time. But then a new question arises, or two, rather. If he asphyxiated his assailants, why the need to kill himself with them? And don't give me that ''muh rage, muh revenge'' nonsense. Gyatso was an Air Nomad Elder, and he knew there might be survivors out there. I think he'd do everything in his power to stay alive for them so he could protect and guide them. Second issue: suffocation is not instant. Surely some firebenders would be able to blast him, yet we see no scorches on his clothes or amulet, like already mentioned. That leaves only one option: he was sunk into the earth, his bending immobilized, and finished off. ''But OP, that makes no sense! If they wanted to frame the Fire Nation, why would they leave Gyatso stuck in an earthbending technique? Everybody would notice!'' Did Aang notice at any point? Nope, he didn't. I suppose the perpetrators didn't think somebody would go all the way up there to check, reasoning that the narrative the Fire Nation had done it would be instantly believed, seeing their aggressive expansion into Earth Kingdom territory. ​ Furthermore, there's of course the concept of jing: the different options one has during battle and how to direct one's energy. Bumi claims there's at least 85 different types of jing, but let's just focus on the main three: positive, negative, and neutral jing. Positive jing is an aggressive expansion of chi, and therefore is used most by firebenders (as mentioned before). Negative jing is more of the ''avoid and evade'' type, ''being the leaf'': used predominantly by airbenders. And then there's neutral jing: listening and waiting for the right moment to strike. The concept of waiting twelve years for a comet (Sozin was for some reason the first to use the power of in history) doesn't fit the aggressive firebender way of doing things. Waiting twelve years for the perfect opportunity to frame the Fire Nation however... sounds like earthbenders alright. ​ Lastly, the Earth Kingdom being the perpetrator explains the absence of Air Nomad corpses/skeletons. If one would examine the remains, it would become clear the cause of death was earthbending (think of broken bones, fractured skulls, and so on): they had to get rid of the evidence. Only in the Southern Air Temple they'd leave Gyatso on display surrounded by Air Nomad corpses clad in replicated Fire Nation armour (nobody would check on or bury the hated ''Fire Nation'' soldiers, and over time they'd simply be skeletons): no doubt an organisation with a huge intelligence network like the Dai Li knew about what Gyatso meant to Aang, and tried to fuel his will to fight and bring down the Fire Nation. To be continued in the comments. submitted by /u/BlueTheBard to r/FanTheories [link] [comments]

This is a friend's story, but it's too good not to share. My friend is defending an audit by one of the densest, most literal auditors. The company she works for is a fairly new company staffed by experienced people who are mostly doing the right things: * Customer data is stored in AWS with no local servers. * Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. * Separate test/stage/production environments exist and dummy test data used in test & stage. The auditor, however sees through all this and is very concerned about a few things. He's peppering my friend for details. Auditor:"So, this Awe-us server. Is it in the data center here?" Friend:"We don't have a data center in this building. Our infrastructure lives in two different AWS availability zones. If you take a look at our network diagram, you'll see how it fits together" Auditor, pointing at the diagram:"And where is the Awe-us server you mentioned?" Friend:"AWS is our hosting provider. Our servers live in that environment." Auditor:"Why didn't you say that before?" Friend (facepalming inside):"We thought you'd be familiar with cloud services." Auditor:"I have one last issue. Your internal network is insecure." Friend:"I'm sorry, I don't understand." Auditor:"I was able to get on the internal network by plugging into this port here. That's a serious security problem." Friend:"Uh. What kind of privileged access do you think you have from this conference room?" Auditor:"I'm on the network without any authentication." Friend:"There's no access you have here that you wouldn't have in a coffee shop down the street. " Auditor:"Internal networks have to have authentication prior to access" Friend:"Show me where this conference room is on the network diagram." submitted by /u/lawtechie to r/talesfromtechsupport [link] [comments]

The DApps are coming, the DApps are coming! Chin up boys and girls – the DApps (Decentralized Apps) are finally coming. Utility, not speculation/manipulation/shilling etc., is what, in the end, will give/justify the value of blockchains.   Of the top 100 tokens, 91 of them are on the Ethereum blockchain (ERC-20). The most valuable non-Ethereum tokens by market cap are USDT (4) and GAS (25). Eventually, ICX (6), VeChain (3) and EOS (1) and several others will be migrating to their own blockchains. Still, this leaves Ethereum with an overwhelming market dominance for tokens (aka DApps) and Ethereum has been clearly recognized as the blockchain to launch ICOs/DApps.   We have already seen several DApps successfully launch on mainnet including CrytptoKitties, Crypto Sportz, Edgeless, Etherbots, Ethercraft, Etheremon, Etheroll, ETHLend, Forkdelta (RIP Etherdelta), 0xBitcoin and Ethlance among others. Check out a whole list on DappRadar and track the progress of some lesser known, smaller projects on StateoftheDApps (Note: I cannot vouch for all of these DApps. There have been and always will be scammers in the crypto space. Please, always do your own research!)   For the rest of March + Q2 (April - June) we are going see the biggest implementation of DApps on the Ethereum mainnet to date. Below I’ve laid out, in alphabetical order and in varying detail, what’s happening between now and the end of Q2 of this year. (I’ve also added some info, where especially relevant, of big stuff coming after Q2). I hope any biases I may have do not come through too much in the writing.   To hammer home on utility once more: One year ago today, the daily transaction count was at 57,000. Yesterday, the network confirmed over 752,000 transactions (a 13x increase) (And remember, ATH in January was 1.349 million txns!) [Source]   On to the DApps:   Airswap Subreddit AirSwap is a decentralized exchange for trading Ethereum based tokens. It allows its users to trade tokens in a peer-to-peer fashion across the Ethereum blockchain. The token trader is currently live, in a limited capacity, trading AST and (W)ETH. More token pairs will be added before the end of the Q1, as part of the upcoming release, Token Marketplace. A mobile app is also in development and will be entering beta soon.   Aragon Subreddit Aragon is a project that aims to disintermediate the creation and maintenance of decentralized organizational structures by using blockchain technology. "We provide the tools for anyone to become an entrepreneur and run their own organization, to take control of their own lives." Originally slated for a February release, Aragon Core v0.5 (which is a fully functioning version of the DApp on mainnet) should be released any day now.   Augur Subreddit Augur is a fully-decentralized, open-source prediction market platform built on the Ethereum blockchain for any and all predictive markets. Augur Beta is currently live on Kovan testnet and launch is “months away.” In order to mitigate bugs and problems, the first market on mainnet will be something along the lines of 'Will there be a critical vulnerability discovered in Augur by a certain date?” Given Augur’s development history, this could be launching a little after Q2, but the progress looks promising. UPDATE (3/7/18): Contract audits are complete and the full audit report of augur-core will be released next week. "Some work still being down on UI, Augur Node, and additional screens." Next step is the bug bounty (first prediction market on Augur). UPDATE (3/12/18): Core security audit report is released following a four-month long audit by Zeppelin. Augur's contracts are ready to ship and "over the coming weeks we plan to release more details around a bug bounty program and market."   BlockCAT Subreddit BlockCAT lets anyone create, manage, and deploy smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain with just a few clicks. No programming required. BlockCAT will be releasing their first visual smart contract on the mainnet on March 14 (the full details of exactly what this contract does, will also be released when it goes live.) UPDATE (3/14/18): BlockCAT's first visual smart contract, Tabby Pay, has been released on mainnet. Tabby Pay is a smart contract that’s built to prevent user error - if you send Ether to the wrong wallet, you can cancel the payment and your Ether will be returned.   Digix Subreddit Digix is a DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization) and is composed of two main parts: DGD and DGX, both of which are ERC-20 tokens. DGD is a governance token that allows holders to vote on proposals that are submitted for the growth of the Digix ecosystem and offers rewards to holders on the basis of their successful contribution to the Digix Ecosystem. DGX is a gold-backed token and is slated for a public market release by end of Q1 2018. DGX is backed by physical gold on a basis of 1 token to 1 gram of gold. "DGX represents value on the blockchain that can be retained over time with relatively little volatility; giving it greater utility than Ether for a wide range of use-cases. Retail, Rentals, Salaries, Commerce, Lending, Wealth Management." UPDATE (3/13/18): DGX will be launching on mainnet this week and Digix will be partnering with Kyber Network to be the first decentralized exchange to offer their asset tokens (like DGX) against ETH at launch. UPDATE (3/23/18): The first couple thousand DGX have been created on mainnet and the marketplace opens on April 8. Prior to that, the KYC Whitelist will open on March 26   Ethorse Subreddit Ethorse is a DApp for betting on the price of Cryptocurrencies and winning ETH from everyone who bets against you. Users bet with ETH on one of the listed coins or tokens to have the highest price gain in a fixed period. Currently live on the Kovan testnet, with mainnet launch before end of Q2. UPDATE (3/22/18): Ethorse has launched a bug bounty to stress test the security of its smart contracts and they are estimating the DApp to go live on mainnet no later than mid-April   FunFair Subreddit FunFair is a decentralised gaming technology platform which uses the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts and their own Fate (State) Channels to deliver casino solutions with games that are “fun, fast and fair.” FunFair has been on testnet for many months now and the Showcase has been live for even longer. Currently on-boarding casino operators, FunFair is on schedule to launch with its first operator in early Q2.   FundRequest Subreddit FundRequest is a decentralized marketplace for open source collaboration. It introduces an easy and secure way to reward bugfixes and feature builds on any project. The FundRequest platform will be going live on mainnet in Q1-Q2 and will allow users to fund and crowdfund open source issues on GitHub using the FND token. Developers can claim the FND token after they’ve successfully resolved the GitHub issue. Q2 will also bring the ability to use any ERC-20 token to fund Open Source Issues on GitHub.   Giveth Wiki Giveth is an Open-Source Platform for Building Decentralized Altruistic Communities. The first working prototype of their “Minimum Loveable Product,” the Giveth Donation Application, is live on testnet and they “expect to fully open the platform for the public in March 2018.”   Golem Subreddit Golem has branded itself as “the worldwide supercomputer.” Golem Brass beta will be releasing on the mainnet before end of Q2, allowing users to sell their computing power and earn real GNT for the first time.   iExec Subreddit iExec is a decentralized cloud computing platform that is blockchain-based. Using a decentralized cloud that connects users to one another it aims to tackle the current limitations of centralized cloud computing that are holding business and innovation back. Launching in Q2, iExec 2.0 — Cloud Marketplace will include the full marketplace platform network, with the PoCo algorithm (Proof-of-Contribution) enabling the first decentralized cloud.   Kyber Subreddit Kyber network is an on-chain protocol which allows instant exchange and conversion of digital assets and cryptocurrencies with high liquidity. Launched on mainnet in February and was at first only available to people on the ICO whitelist but has since slowly started allowing new user on the platform. Currently only has a few tokens listed but that list will continue to grow and will hopefully bring along with it a surge in daily users/volume.   MakerDAO Subreddit MakerDao is a decentralized stable coin project that is currently live on mainnet. It is composed of two main parts: MKR and dai (both are ERC-20 tokens). MKR is a governance token: "MKR holders are the highest authority in the Maker system - they govern the system and benefit financially when they govern it well, but they also have to foot the bill if things are mismanaged - as a group they need strong social cooperation and a vigilant attitude towards governance." Dai is a decentralized stable coin that is price stabilized against the value of the U.S. Dollar. Dai is used in conjunction with their Oasisdex decentralized exchange, and their CDP (collaterized debt position) margin trading platform to offer "a full solution for global decentralized finance where everyone gets to benefit from the massive economies of scale that become available when global finance is done right." Currently, dai is only collateralized by Ether but multi-collateral dai will be released in Q2. This means dai will begin to be backed by gold (through DGX) and other ERC-20 tokens. Maker is also looking into collateralizing more traditional investments, like real estate, in the future. This project can take a little time to understand, so here's a thorough ELIM5 walkthrough.   Melonport Subreddit The Melon protocol is a portal to digital asset management on the blockchain. The frontend operates on top of IPFS, while the backend leverages off a set of Ethereum smart contracts. Melonport just launched on mainnet and they currently have a bug bounty with 500 MLN in it. In a few weeks, the current version will be shut down for fixes and a new version will roll out. Melonport: "Disrupting the US$84.9 trillion asset management industry, one block at a time."   OmiseGO Subreddit OmiseGo is the Plasma decentralized exchange, hosting an open-source digital wallet platform created by parent company, Omise, connecting mainstream payments, cross-border remittances, and much more. They just had their White Label Wallet SDK public release. In Q2, OmiseGO will deliver the OmiseGO network and lay the foundations in preparation for Plasma. In Q2 we will see the OmiseGO Proof of Stake public blockchain release, meaning staking will be possible. (OMG’s cash in/out interface and the Plasma mainnet launch are scheduled for the tail end of 2018/early 2019. Learn more about Plasma from the most cheerful person I know, Karl Floersch, here   Request Subreddit Request is a decentralized network that allows anyone to request a payment for which the recipient can pay in a secure way. The first iteration of Request working with Ethereum on mainnet is still on track to launch before March 31. The code for mainnet is currently being audited and when the audits are done, a bug bounty program will follow. UPDATE (3/16/18): Request is currently undergoing its second smart contract audit, which will be followed by a bug bounty program. Request is still on track to be released on mainnet on/before March 31, 2018.   Spankchain Subreddit A cryptoeconomic powered adult entertainment ecosystem built on the Ethereum network. Basically, a decentralized cam site (plus a lot more!) Launching on mainnet in Q2 is SpankChain Camsite v1 which will allow for ETH + ERC20 payments and public and private shows all while implementing a low 5% fee for performers (According to their whitepaper, most adult camsites take between a 30-50% cut of performer earnings on top of payment processing fees). UPDATE (3/23/18): According to community manager Chase Cole, they are aiming to launch the camsite on April 2. UPDATE (3/27/18): It's official - beginning April 2, the cam site beta program will give token holders and community members access to the initial closed beta shows.   status.im Subreddit A mobile Ethereum OS. Currently in Alpha with mainnet Beta scheduled before end of Q2 (likely even sooner). (Bonus: some other cool working Ethereum OS apps: Cipher, Toshi and Trust Wallet   Streamr Subreddit Streamr tokenises streaming data to enable a new way for machines and people to trade it on a decentralised p2p network. The data marketplace will be coming to mainnet by March 31.   The 0x Protocol Subreddit 0x is a protocol that facilitates trustless peer-to-peer exchange of ERC20 tokens. 0x protocol is free to use and allows anyone to create a decentralized exchange; we call these relayers. This isn’t a DApp, but allows for the creation of DApps. A list of some of the DEXs, in varying states of development, that will be utilizing 0x: DDEX Dextroid ERC dEX Ethfinex OpenRelay Paradex Radar Relay Shark Relay The Ocean X (previously called The 0cean)   Also, an informative article about some of the differences between the various decentralized exchange protocols here.   Some general Ethereum news to be excited about:   Vitalik recently hinted, in a since deleted tweet, that the sharding testnet will be coming online in the near future (I think Q2 isn’t too early a guess). What is sharding? Sharding is where the entire state of the network is split into a bunch of partitions called shards that contain their own independent piece of state and transaction history. In this system, certain nodes would process transactions only for certain shards, allowing the throughput of transactions processed in total across all shards to be much higher than having a single shard do all the work as the mainchain does now. [Source]   Alpha Casper FFG testnet has been successfully running since Dec. 31, 2017. What is Casper? Casper FFG aka Vitalik’s Casper is a hybrid POW/POS consensus mechanism. This is the version of Casper that is going to be implemented first. In a Proof of Stake system, validators stake a portion of their Ethers and start validating blocks. Meaning, when they discover a block which they think can be added to the chain, they will validate it by placing a bet on it. [Source]   (To stay up-to-date on Ethereum research development, check out Ethresear.ch)   The Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) is March 8-10 in Paris. Talks will focus around “scalability, anonymity, development tools, governance compliance” among other topics. Speakers include representatives from the Ethereum Foundation, Ledger, Metamask, Shapeshift, Oraclize, Uport, Web3Foundation, Melonport, ConsenSys, JP Morgan, Coinbase – Toshi, Parity, SpankChain, FunFair, Aragon, AirSwap, EEA, IExec, Cosmos, OmiseGO, Circle, Gnosis, among others. UPDATE: EthCC was a resounding success! If you missed it or want to re-watch any of the talks, check out this handy thread of videos, painstakingly culled and timestamped by u/alsomahler. The Ethereum Developer Conference (EDCON) is May 3-5 in Toronto. This will be the biggest ETH dev conference since DEVCON 3 last November. The agenda is still being worked out, but speakers include representatives from the Ethereum Foundation, Polkadot, Parity, Plasma, OmiseGO, Cosmos, Tendermint, Giveth, Maker, Gnosis, and many others. The Enterprise Ethereum Foundation (EEF) just keeps growing and growing and growing.   More, because I just can’t stop: MetaMask recently passed 1 million installs! 5.6 billion requests per day for Infura.io (Decentralized web3 infrastructure) 280,000 downloads of TruffleSuit (ETH development framework) [Source]   ConsenSys has grown to over 600 employees in six major offices located around the world. I personally think ConsenSys is important (and awesome) because they are huge Ethereum evangelists and provide (in)valuable resources to help bring DApps come to life! From their website: “The ConsenSys “hub” coordinates, incubates, accelerates and spawns “spoke” ventures through development, resource sharing, acquisitions, investments and the formation of joint ventures. These spokes benefit from foundational components built by ConsenSys that enable new services and business models to be built on the blockchain.” Several of the projects I listed above are ConSensys formations including AirSwap and MetaMask.   Thanks for reading this far! Hopefully it wasn’t too exhausting of a read.   I am certain I have forgotten some DApps, so please feel free to comment/PM any and all suggestions/corrections to make this list more informative/inclusive/accurate and I will update it. TL;DR submitted by /u/GetYourAssToPluto to r/ethtrader [link] [comments]

TL;DR: Don't let ANYONE get a hold of your IP. Buy a VPN. Avoid Skype. If DDoSed, reset router or call ISP to change your IP. With DDoS being so popular right now in pro games, I decided to write a guide on what it means and what it is for DOTA 2. So let's get started and I hope you find some of my advice helpful. For the average player, this guide is just information which they probably don't need. Pro-players should get informed and maybe use some of the advice. What is DDoS? There are tons and tons of information you can google about this subject so I'll try to be brief: DDoS is an attack triggered by a computer or server that receives a target and the order to start. Once started, a network of infected computers will begin sending dead packets (useless data) to the target's router and hence blocking all sorts of communication. Imagine a river flooded with trash and your router is trying to get rid of it with a shovel. How does it happen? First things first. In every DDoS attacks there are only two things that matter: *Service provider: The attacker first has to find a DDoS service provider or as they are called nowadays: "Stressers". They are paid services and their prices depend on the amount of time they want to DDoS you for and how much bandwidth they offer (possible amount of trash they can throw at your router). *The target: A target is identified by its IP address. If they have it, they can DDoS it. The attacker may encounter port problems but with enough dedication he WILL find the spot. Once they have your IP they can use the DDoS provider to send trash packets to your router and eventually make your connection so painfully slow that you'll think you're disconnected. So if one of these salty assh* gets their hand on the Dota 2 server's IP and they happen to be renting a DDoS Service then this will probably happen. Note: Picture taken from this post. How are IPs leaked? This is probably the most important part about DDoS. If there is no target, then there is nothing to DDoS. Now, Valve server IPs are extremely easy to find so even scriptkiddies could DDoS the servers somewhat easily. So, how do you find the IP? *You can ask Dota 2 to give you the IP. *Even if they spoofed the server's IP in the console, you could use a Packet Sniffer and find it anyways. Okay but that's for when Dota 2 servers get DDoSed, what about pro players? *Your IP can be found by using a Skype resolver. All they need to find your IP is your Skype username. Even if you're online, the system will have your last used IP on file. Example. *There are several other ways of finding your IP such as Email sender IP, packet sniffing Steam Voice Chat, and probably any number of other ways that I haven't heard of yet. Example So I found a free DDoS service that delivers a 10mbps blow to your router (up to 200mbps I think) as a trial for their service. This free version is strong enough to take down most domestic networks. But that's not all, see how incredibly easy it is to DDoS something. All you need is the target's IP and you're set. Protection We've reached the final part and before I continue allow me to tell you that I'm not a security expert and there may be several other ways to protect yourself from DDoS. So here we go: Rent a VPN. VPNs will hide your IP behind a strong and protected server. If you're chatting, sending emails or using Skype for some reason, make sure you're connected behind the VPN. You need to find one with a proper location either near you or near the target servers. I'd recommend PureVPN since it's cheap but there are literally hundreds of VPN providers. Limit your Skype usage. I know it's hard for pro players because most tournament organizers use Skype to communicate with everyone involved but yeah... as you can see, all they need is your username and even if you're offline they'll find your IP. This MAY help too.. Make sure nobody besides your team or friends know the Teamspeak server IP. Yes, Teamspeak servers can be DDoSed as well. Make sure you don't have any stupid viruses installed on your computer. Most people think their computers aren't infected, but you'd be surprised. Firewalls. Some routers have a built-in useless firewall. Windows also has a useless built-in firewall but it doesn't really matter since your router is the target. Anyhow, I'm sure you can hire an IT expert to set up a firewall for your gaming house or CASTING STUDIO. Don't post on fishy forums. Mods and Admins can see your IP. More tips HERE. That's about all I know. If you know of more ways to protect yourself please feel free to post them in the comments so I can add them here with due credit. HELP THEY ALREADY HAVE MY IP Once the attacker has your IP and an attack is underway (you'll notice you're being attacked because your internet will stop responding). Now, does your ISP have dynamic IP? Yes: Close Skype and head over to your router and turn it off. Wait for 30 seconds and turn it back on. That should be enough time for it to get a new IP. Now go back to the previous section and protect yourself. No: Why the f*ck not? Okay whatever. Close Skype and call your ISP. Don't tell them you're being DDoSed unless you really really have to. Odds are that the person who's speaking to you won't know what that means. If he's clueless, ask to speak with his/her administrator/manager/person in charge. Tell them you need to reset your IP because some website says it's blocking your IP. When you're done, go back to the previous section and protect yourself. And also, change your ISP to one that gives you a dynamic IP. Alternative: If hell is breaking loose, you may try this guide to reset your IP. Credits /u/notR1CH for his suggestions. /u/j0ffe for MORE PROTECTION TIPS!. I'm sorry if I'm missing someone, this thread had a lot more responses than I expected. Closing remarks I'm also sick of watching paused games because of DDoS and I just want it to go away. You can't stop DDoSers, but you can stop yourself from being DDoSed. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if mods deleted this thread like they did with those about scripters. Any suggestions, comments or feedback are welcome. submitted by /u/CookiezNOM to r/DotA2 [link] [comments]