With only days separating us from the Centenary Edition of the 24 Heures du Mans, it's time again for the Le Mans Primer thread! This is the place if you’ve got any questions about the 2023 Le Mans event, no matter how small! There are no dumb questions about Le Mans!

CONTENTS

• The Race
• Session Times
• The Track
• The Classes
• The Legends
• Videos and Documentaries
• Entry List and Spotters Guide
• Endurance Chat podcast
• Broadcast Details
• Social Media
• Live Timing
• Get Involved!

The Race

It all comes back to Le Mans. A century ago, people asked ‘Could a car continue to drive for 24 hours straight?’, an event was made to test that theory, and a legacy in racing, motorsport, and motoring was born. The 24 Heures du Mans is the holy grail of endurance motor racing, and brings up its Centenary edition this year. In its 100 year history, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is recognised as the most prestigious and gruelling test for innovations and improvements in motorsport technology. Technologies such as disk and air brakes, streamlined bodywork, fuel, oil, and lubricant improvements, improvements to engine efficiency and longevity, even things as simple as LED lighting and windscreen wiper blades have been trialled and tested at Le Mans. The normally hot conditions in the middle of June stretch the limits of reliability, with all the teams knowing that in order to beat their competitors, they must first beat the event. A variety of different engine configurations, displacements, positions, fuels, and hybrids have won over the history of the event. So far, petrol-fuelled traditional piston engines have been the most successful. Mazda managed to win using a Wankel Rotary engine in 1991 with the Mazda 787b (oh god listen to that sound!), while Audi was the first to win with an alternate fuel, taking victory in the diesel-powered R10 TDI in 2006. 2012 ushered in the era of the Hybrid, with Audi taking victory in the R18 e-tron Quattro, featuring a flywheel hybrid engine.

Qualifying

The Qualifying format for Le Mans is unique to the event, and called Hyperpole. In this format, all classes are permitted to use the track in the 1 hour qualifying session on Wednesday evening. The top 6 cars from each of the 4 classes then progress to the Hyperpole session on Thursday night, which sets the top of the grid for each class. This means that each class will be segregated on the final grid.

Session Times

• Ligier European Series Practice 1 – Sunday June 4th, 08:00 Local, 06:00 UTC, 02:00 ET, 16:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ligier European Series Qualifying 1 – Sunday June 4th, 09:15 Local, 07:15 UTC, 03:15 ET, 17:15 AEST – 20 Minutes
• Test Day Session 1 - Sunday June 4th, 10:00 Local, 08:00 UTC, 04:00 ET, 18:00 AEST – 3 Hours
• Ligier European Series Race - Sunday June 4th, 14:00 Local, 12:00 UTC, 08:00 ET, 22:00 AEST – 60 Minutes
• Test Day Session 2 - Sunday June 4th, 15:30 Local, 13:30 UTC, 09:30 ET, 23:30 AEST – 3 Hours
• Porsche Carrera Cup Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 10:15 Local, 08:15 UTC, 04:15 ET, 18:15 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 11:30 Local, 09:30 UTC, 05:30 ET, 19:30 AEST – 1 Hour
• Free Practice 1 - Wednesday June 7th, 14:00 Local, 12:00 UTC, 08:00 ET, 22:00 AEST - 3 Hours
• Qualifying Practice - Wednesday June 7th. 19:00 Local, 17:00 UTC, 13:00 ET, Thursday 03:00 AEST - 1 Hour
• Road To Le Mans Practice 2 – Wednesday June 7th, 20:30 Local, 18:30 UTC, 14:30 ET, Thursday 04:30 AEST - 1 Hour
• Free Practice 2 - Wednesday June 7th, 22:00 Local, 20:00 UTC, 16:00 ET, Thursday 06:00 AEST - 2 Hours
• Ferrari Challenge Practice 2 – Thursday June 8th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Porsche Carrera Cup Practice 2 – Thursday June 8th, 10:55 Local, 08:55 UTC, 04:55 ET, 18:55 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Qualifying Practice – Thursday June 8th, 12:55 Local, 10:55 UTC, 06:55 UTC, 20:55 AEST – 20 Minutes x 2 Classes
• Free Practice 3 - Thursday June 8th, 15:00 Local, 13:00 UTC, 09:00 ET, 23:00 AEST - 3 Hours
• Road To Le Mans Race 1 - Thursday June 8th, 18:30 Local, 16:30 UTC, 12:30 ET, Friday 02:30 AEST - 55 Minutes
• HYPERPOLE - Thursday June 8th, 20:00 Local, 18:00 UTC, 14:00 ET, Friday 04:00 AEST - 30 Minutes
• Free Practice 4 - Thursday June 8th, 22:00 Local, 20:00 UTC, 16:00 ET, Friday 06:00 AEST - 2 Hours
• Porsche Carrera Cup Qualifying – Friday June 9th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Qualifying – Friday June 9th, 10:15 Local, 08:15 UTC, 04:15 ET, 18:15 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Race 2 - Friday June 9th, 11:30 Local, 09:30 UTC, 05:30 ET, 19:30 AEST – 55 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Race 1 - Saturday June 10th, 09:30 Local, 07:30 UTC, 03:30 ET, 17:30 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Porsche Carrera Cup Race 1 - Saturday June 10th, 10:45 Local, 08:45 UTC, 04:45 ET, 18:45 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Warm Up - Saturday June 10th, 12:00 Local, 10:00 UTC, 06:00 ET, 20:00 AEST – 15 Minutes
• RACE START - **Saturday June 11th, 16:00 Local, 14:00 UTC, 10:00 ET, Sunday 00:00 AEST

The Track

The Circuit de la Sarthe covers 13.6 kilometres of the French country side. It combines the permanent race components of the Ford Chicanes, the pit straight, under the Dunlop Bridge and through to Tertre Rouge as well as the normal everyday roads of the Mulsanne straight through to Indianapolis and Arnage. The track has gone through many iterations over the years; originally, the cars raced into the heart of the city, turning just before the river Sarthe, before hurtling down the 8.6 kilometre straight. In 1932, the circuit removed the journey into the city, and more closely resembled the track we see today. Here’s a video of Mike Hawthorn touring the circuit with a camera and microphone attached in 1956, one year after his involvement in the Le Mans disaster. The addition of the Porsche Curves and the Ford Chicanes in 1972 added an extra dimension to the high speed, fast flowing track. In the late 80’s, the Group C prototype cars would reach over 400km/h, achieving average speeds of almost 250km/h in qualifying for the entire lap. This is an onboard of Derek Bell’s Porsche 956 in 1983, showing the ridiculous speeds on this configuration of the circuit. This configuration remained relatively unchanged right up to 1990, until FIA mandations required that for the circuit to be sanctioned, it must not have a straight longer than 2km. The 6km Mulsanne straight was cut down into three relatively equal length portions by two chicanes, giving the iteration of the circuit used today. Allan McNish takes you on an onboard lap of the 2008 circuit in this video. McNish is one of the gods of the modern prototype era, winning Le Mans 3 times; once with Porsche and twice with Audi. For a more comprehensive focus on the track, John Hindhaugh’s track walk takes you on a 30 minute exploration of the track, with in depth focus on corners like the Dunlop Esses, Tertre Rouge, Mulsanne Corner, and the Ford Chicanes.
For some modern on boards, check out the fastest ever lap in the Circuit de la Sarthe: Kamui Kobayashi's 3:14.791 in 2017 Q2, and last year’s Hyperpole lap, by Brendon Hartley, setting a 3:24.408
The Dunlop Bridge
The iconic Dunlop Bridge has been a part of the Le Mans track since 1932, making it the oldest Dunlop Bridge at any track. This part of the track requires a good launch out of the first chicane before cresting the brow of the hill, and plunging through the esses out onto the Mulsanne straight. As the LMP cars are much more maneuverable, caution must be taken passing the slower GT traffic, as Allan McNish discovered in 2011.
Tertre Rouge
Tertre Rouge is the corner that launches the cars onto the long Mulsanne straight. Maintaining momentum through this corner as it opens on exit is imperative to ensure maximum straight line speed heading down the first part of the Mulsanne. The undulation in the road makes for fantastic viewing at night, with some magic images of the Porsches throwing up sparks on the exit in 2014. Finally, this was the location of Allan Simonsen’s fatal crash in mixed conditions in the 2013 Le Mans. The Danish flags will fly at the corner in his memory.
Mulsanne Corner
After the incredibly long Mulsanne straight, the Mulsanne corner nowadays features a subtle right hand kink before the tight 90 degree turn. Here, the cars decelerate from 340 km/h down to below 100 km/h, resulting in a brilliant opportunity to overtake. Again, care must be taken overtaking slower traffic; unaware drivers have caught out faster cars attempting to pass through the kink, such as Anthony Davidson’s spectacular crash in 2012 resulting in a broken vertebra for Davidson.
Indianapolis and Arnage
The Indanapolis and Arnage complex is one of the most committed areas of the track. Hurtling down the hill from the Mulsanne Corner, the road suddenly bends to the right, a corner which only the bravest prototype drivers take flat out, followed by a beautifully cambered open left hander taken in third gear. A short sprint leads the cars into Arnage, the slowest point on the track. The tight right hander was the scene of heartbreak for Toyota in 2014 when the leading #7 broke down and had to be retired after an FIA sensor melted and shut off the electronics. Kazuki Nakajiima was unable to make it to the pits, leaving him stranded on the circuit.
The Porsche Curves
At a terrifyingly high speed, the Porsche Curves is the most committed part of the lap. Getting caught behind GT traffic in this section can mean losing phenomenal amounts of time. This was the site of Loic Duval’s horrific crash in practice for the 2014 event. Keeping momentum through the flowing right-left-right handers that lead into Maison Blanche requires 100% commitment and ultimate precision, with severe punishment for getting it wrong. The exit of the Porsche Curves underwent significant change in 2020, with additional run-off added in the middle part of the section. This has turned the treacherous and claustrophobic sweeping left-hander into an open and sweeping corner, encouraging every little bit of road to be used on the exit. What it hasn’t changed is the terrific consequences for making a mistake
The Ford Chicanes
The final chapter in the 13.6km rollercoaster that is Le Mans is the Ford Chicanes. Two tight left-right handers with massive kerbs are all that separates the driver from the finish line. Watching the cars bounce over the kerbs in beautiful slow motion is certainly something to behold, but 24 hours of mistreatment can lead to suspension and steering issues. The drivers have to be attentive until the very end, lest they throw it all away in the last minutes of the race.
The Circuit de la Sarthe requires over 85% of the lap on full throttle, with the cars accelerating from less than 100km/h to over 300km/h five times each lap. The challenge of having a car finish Le Mans is in itself, an achievement.

The Classes

The WEC consists of three classes on track at once, resulting in three separate races on track each in their own battle for 24 Hours. The classes are split based on their car type, with LMH and LMDh machinery facing off in the Hypercar class, purpose built prototypes with a spec engine and gearbox battling in LMP2, and GT machinery racing in GTE. Each class has its own set of regulations, driver requirements, and relevance for the Le Mans event.

Hypercar

The current top class of endurance sportscars is Hypercar, combining cars built to Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) and Le Mans Daytona (LMDh) specifications. Fighting it out will be LMH machinery from Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Glickenhaus and Peugeot, while Porsche and Cadillac will be racing in LMDh cars. The LMH cars are bespoke sportscars, designed to a strict set of requirements dictating maximum power, drag coefficient, and weight, amongst other parameters, intended to limit the cost of the category. LMDh machines on the other hand are based on the future LMP2 chassis offerings, with manufacturers able to develop their own engines and bodywork, aligning with the power and drag coefficients of LMH. As part of cost-cutting, the Hypercar class is also subject to a Balance of Performance (BoP) formula, to level the playing field and ensure good racing! Hypercars are a little slower than their LMP1 predecessors, with lap times around the 3:24 mark for the Circuit de la Sarthe, which is on par with the 2014 LMP1 cars.

LMP2

The second prototype class is LMP2, and provides an excellent platform for endurance racing on a budget. The LMP2 class features a spec drivetrain and gearbox, using a Gibson V8 producing 400kW, and a selection of three chassis to choose from, of which the Oreca 07 has been the chassis of choice. This ensures that the competition in the class is very tight, and often comes down to the drivers and the team’s performance instead of just having the best car. While LMP2 was capable of 3:25 lap times in years previous, part of the ‘stratification’ of classes with Hypercar’s inclusion, the LMP2 class has lost some power and had some weight added. This should put LMP2 at the heels of the LMH pace, but with laptimes outside the 3:28 mark.
LMP2 is the first class that must feature amateur rated drivers. The Amateurs must drive for a minimum of 6 hours in the car over the course of the race. This means that there's an element of strategy of when to use your amateur driver throughout the race, as the amateur driver is generally slower than the Pros. The pro drivers in this class range from up and coming talent, former F1 drivers, and some of the best sportscar pilots in the world, and with 244 cars in this class, LMP2 is sure to be a hotbed of action over the 24 hours.

LMGTE-Am

GT class cars are cars that are derived from production models, and feature some of the most iconic cars and brands battling it out at the top of the field. The GTE cars are on the border of aero dependency, and can lap Le Mans in around 3:45 in a professional driver’s hands.
This year is the last year of the GTE class, and features 21 cars in a Pro-Am category, with cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, and Chevrolet on the grid. Despite the lack of a Pro category, the driver quality in GTE-Am is still incredibly high, with factory drivers, young stars, experienced champions and every level of experience in between on the grid, with each car featuring two Bronze or Silver rated drivers. With two amateur drivers, the strategy considerations multiply. While GTE-Am might be the class focussed on the least over the course of the race, the stories that come from this class are phenomenal, and it's well worth following.
The GT classes feature a range of different cars and configurations, and to equalise each of these against each other, the class goes through a process called 'Balance of Performance' or BoP. The organisers can adjust each individual car's weight, fuel tank, air restrictor, turbo boost pressures, and aero performance to alter performance levels to enable the different cars to race competitively. This can sometimes be contentious as every team will feel hard done by, but it is a necessary evil to having the variety of cars on the grid.

Innovative Car

Each year, there is the option for an Innovative Car, with untested or innovative technology, allowed to enter in it’s own category. In years past, this has allowed for entries from the Deltawing, or a modified LMP2 to allow amputees to race.
This year, the Innovative Car entry is a modified Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Next-Gen NASCAR, run by Hendrick Motorsports. The Next-Gen NASCAR features modifications to allow it to run safely on the Circuit de la Sarthe, and will be driven by multiple NASCAR Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, and Le Mans Overall Winner Mike Rockenfeller.

The Legends

Part of the allure of the Le Mans 24 Hours is the history, and the legends steeped in history over the course of its 88 previous editions. The race has had many headline battles in its history - periods of time where two or three teams went toe to toe for years, with the drivers, cars, and brands embroiled in these battles given the chance to elevate themselves above the rest, and show their prowess.
In 2019, we at /WEC, took our normal Le Mans Legends celebrations to a new level; each week, members of the community have been writing reviews on some of the closest, most fascinating finishes in Le Mans history! You can check out these reports below!

• The 1966 Dead Heat by kinkymulsanne
• 1983; Factory Porsche dominates with a 1-2 victory, but only just! by Floodman11
• 1987; The colossal struggle between Porsche and Jaguar (Part 1) by Lagiacrus7
• 2016; FUCK by Cybershrike
• 1979; Boogie Nights meets Days Of Thunder by SolHiemis
• 1991; the Hiroshima Screamer Prevails by AE_Racer
• 2010; the Day the Peugeots All Died by kiwichris1709
• 1999; The Le Mans Turning Point by starzonda
• 2011; The Final Audi vs Peugeot Rivalry by Stuff_And_More
• 1988; The colossal struggle between Porsche and Jaguar (part 2) by Lagiacrus7

Bonus CookieMonsterFL Write-Ups

• 3.5L: The Downfall of Group C
• Airborne Crashes

For a bite-sized history lesson on every Le Mans event, check out this post by u/JohannesMeanAd2, describing every Le Mans in a single sentence!
The early races were dominated by the Bentley company in their Speed 6, who won 5 of the first 7 races. Cars were separated into classes by their engine displacement, and the overall winner was based on distance covered. If two cars had finished with the same number of laps, the car with the smaller displacement was declared the winner. The race wasn't run during the second world war, and comparatively very little information is available on the stories of the early days of Le Mans.
After the second world war, teams such as Jaguar, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Aston Martin became the dominant teams. This era featured the legendary Jaguar D type, the Mercedes Benz 300 SLR, the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, and the Aston Martin DBR1. Jaguar won 5 times between 1951 and 1957, followed by an era of Ferrari dominance. Drivers such as Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, and John Fitch became household names as Le Mans became a battle between German engineering and British "garagistas".
Ferrari and Ford was the story of the 60's, with Ferrari winning 6 times straight before Ford won four in a row with the GT40 Mk II, taking their first win in 1966. The story of their rivalry is legendary in it's own right - Henry Ford had almost successfully bought out the Ferrari motor company, only to be knocked back by Enzo himself at the 11th hour. In retaliation, Ford planned to hurt Ferrari where it mattered most; on the track. The Ford GT40 was so comprehensively dominant that it won the 1966 edition 21 laps ahead of the next car back - a Porsche 906/6. None of the Ferrari 330P3's finished the race. This battle gave drivers like Bruce Mclaren, Dan Gurney, and Jacky Ickx their first Le Mans victories, and propelled them to the forefront of motorsport stardom at the height of motorsport's popularity.
The 1970's saw the dawn of Porsche, with the 917k taking the brand's first win in 1970, with the same car winning the following year in the hands of Helmut Marko (yes, that Helmut Marko). It would be 5 years before Porsche would win again, with Matra taking 3 victories in the interim, each at the hands of Henri Pescarolo. Porsche returned with the 936 and the 956/962c dominating the race for the next 20 years. In fact, from 1970, Porsche won 12 times in 18 events, including 7 in a row, and they miiight have been a bit cheeky about it. Amongst these 12 wins, there were 4 for both Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell, and two for IMSA legend Hurley Haywood, as well as the first win for the Joest team in 1984. This era coincided with the introduction, and subsequent destruction of the Group C sportscar formula, widely regarded as the best Sportscar championship regulations of all time. Porsche’s dominance was eventually ended by Jaguar in the XJR-9LM, at the height of Group C’s magic. Ickx's 6 wins at this stage had earned him the nickname 'Mr Le Mans', a fitting title for one of the best drivers in the world at the time.
GT cars became a force to be reckoned with at the end of the Group C era, with classes being split into LMGTP and LMP. McLaren and Porsche had wins in GTP cars, in the F1 GTR and the 911 GT1 respectively, while Porsche, BMW and Peugeot scored LMP wins. 1997 saw the first win for Tom Kristensen, while the following year Allan McNish took his first victory, starting their journeys into the legend books of Le Mans.
The 2000’s ushered in the era of Audi, with all 13 of their wins coming since the turn of the century. GTP was disbanded due to safety issues, being replaced by GT1 and GT2. Audi picked up wins in the R8, the R10, the R15, and the R18, often dominating the might of the Peugeot 908. Audi's dominance elevated not only their drivers to legend status, but also their team managers, car designers, and race engineers. People like Reinhold Joest (team manager), Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Audisport director), Ulrich Baretzky (engine designer), Leena Gade, Howden Haynes (race engineers) behind the wall and Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello, Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer have become household names in the sport not only for their wins, but their longevity and domination. Audi's dominance was only broken by a win for Bentley in 2003, running basically an Audi under a British racing green skin, and Peugeot in 2009, before being ended for good by Porsche in 2015. After both Porsche and Audi left the top class, Toyota rose to dominance, taking the last 3 Le Mans events in a row!
Between 2015 and 2017, Porsche added to their victories, now holding a record 19 overall victories at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Audi trail with 13, with Ferrari, Jaguar and Bentley holding the next three positions. Toyota finally took their first overall victory in 2018, and have won every year since. Tom Kristensen is has the most victories at Le Mans, with 9 overall victories over his career with Porsche, Audi and Bentley, inheriting the title of Mr Le Mans.

Videos and Documentaries

• Truth in 24 and Truth in 24 II - The story of Audi’s victories against testing conditions and the might of Peugeot in 2008 and 2011.
  
• Le Mans - made in 1971, this movie follows a fictional Le Mans race in 1970, featuring fantastic footage and sounds of the Porsche 917 and the Ferrari 512 starring Steve McQueen
  
• Michael Fassbender:Road To Le Mans Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - The journey that Michael Fassbender has taken from movie star to Porsche GTE-Am driver, detailing his racing through the ranks of Carrera Cup, Le Mans Cup, and ELMS.
  
• The Deadliest Crash - The BBC documentary on the 1955 Le Mans disaster. For more information, see CookieMonsteFL’s amazing post on the incident
  
• Our Return: A documentary of our road to Le Mans 2015 - Porsche’s youtube documentary chronicling their return to Le Mans and their eventual win.
  
• McLaren at Le Mans: Pursuit of Perfection - The story behind McLaren's 1995 victory
  
• The fastest ever lap at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Kamui Kobayashi's 3:14.791 in 2017 Q2
  
• Mark Blundell’s explosive lap - Blundell was going so fast, he was overheating the blowers in the car. After being told to turn down the engine and abandon the lap, in true racing driver fashion he simply turned off the radio.
  
• Clearwater Racing: Journey to the 24 hours of Le mans
  
• Cetilar Racing: The Italian Spirit of Le Mans - A documentary on Cetilar Villorba Corse's journey to Le Mans in 2018
  
• McLaren at Le Mans: Pursuit of Perfection - The McLaren F1 road car's story and development for the historic LeMans race of 1995.
  
• Ford vs Ferrari / Le Mans '66 - Coming out late 2019, this movie tells (a stylised version of) the story of the battle between Ford and Ferrari at Le Mans in the late 1960's. While there are some inaccuracies, the movie has been widely heralded as one of the best Motorsport themed movies ever made, and has been enjoyed by critics and motorsport fans alike.
  
• Michael Fassbender: Road To Le Mans Season 1 and 2, Season 3, Season 4 – Actor and Amateur Driver Michael Fassbender documents his 4 year journey from Porsche Carrera Cup into the ELMS and finally, to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
  

Entry List

Spotters Guide to be added when released!

Once again, /WEC will have a community spotters guide thanks to the efforts of Ziombel_444! The planned release date is the 6th of June, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Check out Ziombel_444's other work at Spotters.Guide, and support this great effort!

Endurance Chat

/WEC's podcast, Endurance Chat, will have four episodes in the lead up to Le Mans, as well as a Pre-Pre-Race show in the hours before the event. Watch this space for updates!

• Endurance Chat S8E11 – The Centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans Preview - History, context, and insight into this year’s edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours
  
• Endurance Chat S8E12 - The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour Hypercar Class Guide – COMING SOON
  
• Endurance Chat S8E13 - The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour LMP2 Class Guide – COMING SOON
  
• Endurance Chat S8E14 – The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour LMGTE-Am Class Guide – COMING SOON
  

In addition, Endurance Chat made a series of features detailing the history of sportscars in the late 60’s and early 70’s, at the transition point of GT and Prototype machinery. The series details some of the machinery, events, and drivers in one of the fastest and most dangerous periods in racing history. You can find a playlist to these features here!

Streaming and Television

In the past, the FIAWEC Broadcast has started from Qualifying Practice. We are awaiting confirmation if that is the case this year – Streams for non-FIAWEC sessions after that point will be subject to the organisers of those series broadcasting those sessions.

• Official stream OUTSIDE US ONLY - The Le Mans package gives you access to all WEC sessions (Qualifying, Warm Up and the Race) with a choice of on boards, cross platform compatibility, and up to 5 devices connected at once. Additionally, replays of the event are free after the event. Official comms headed by Martin Haven, Anthony Davidson, and Graham Goodwin, who in my personal opinion properly nail the tone of the event. Has been known to get overloaded and crash however
• Eurosport will likely be broadcasting the event in a variety of locales throughout Europe. This will be updated when confirmed
• Radio Le Mans will be streaming live radio for every session

For American audiences, unfortunately the Official stream is geoblocked for your area. Information on how to watch will be updated when confirmed

• [Official TV Broadcast distribution](COMING SOON) Find out how to watch in your region!

Any further updates on TV or Streaming distribution will be added as they are released!

Social Media

If you're looking for more interaction, you can find most of the teams, drivers and commentators on Twitter, giving you instant interaction with those in the midst of the event.

If someone wants to make a twitter list for the teams/driveetc for this year, that would be greatly appreciated!

Live timing

• Official Live Timing

Be sure to join the discord for alternate timing solutions!

Get Involved!

By far the most fun you can have watching an endurance race is watching it with the official /WEC Discord! It's a lot of fun and a really great atmosphere to watch the race in!
If you want to have a go at picking who you think will be winning in each class, jump into mwclarkson's Fantasy Endurance Contest! It's free to enter, and if you win, you'll get the satisfaction and achievement of being right!
If there's anything you'd like us to add, or need clarification on, please comment below and we'll add it in!`

I seek representation for my manuscript, Big Bugs and Big Words. It is an adult sci-fi/thriller complete at 88,000 words. Fans of (x) will find it frightening enough to quench their thirst for gore, and readers of (x) will enjoy more of its immense world and subtle undertones.
Henry has always wanted to be a pilot, but his lack of formal education stunted his career. The only solace he finds in being a lead security officer on Sepsit's satellite station is his retirement package which includes the life-extender. He could use the extra century to study for an aptitude test that would let him join the military.
There are only twenty more years on his shift when a barrichibo beetle escapes containment, and he becomes aware of all the safety violations inside the testing labs. He puts protocols in place to protect the crew, which infuriates the lead researcher Endo, who doesn't want a C-class citizen slowing down the experiments. Henry stands firm against the hot-headed scientist, and the two quarrel over who has more authority. Endo gets leverage over Henry when he discovers his illiteracy which, if Star-Dom found out about, would send him back to Newgaia with his last paycheck. In desperation, Henry sabotages lab equipment, hoping a barrichibo will sting Endo and inject him with its mysterious mood-distorting neurotoxin. Things go sideways, and the wrong man is hurt: a friend, Dr. Tell.
To get medical help for Dr. Tell, Henry flies down to Sepsit's main base, which has lost communications. Down on the planet, he searches for missing scientists, medicine he can't pronounce, and video footage he needs to delete. He starts to piece together a horrifying puzzle and suspects some researchers are involved in a sinister conspiracy. It feels like paranoia, but the barrichibo beetles might be at the center of it all. When the investigation becomes unmanageable, he must decide whether to contact Star-Dom's colony ship or continue the journey alone. If he chooses to call the higher-ups, he might prevent a catastrophe but, in return, be arrested when they discover his criminal activity. On the other hand, he could prove he's not as dumb as everyone thinks and solve this mystery himself. The latter would help his career because everyone knows the company loves to reward its heroes. Maybe he can be a pilot after all.
​
​
300-word sample:
When Henry was a child, he'd often lay in the loft looking out toward the stars wondering if they had planets and, on those planets, caves, and in those caves, monsters. As an adult, he no longer has to imagine having found such a planet, but it is far from perfect. Regarding monsters, the scientists will discuss them occasionally, but for the most part, they seem more concerned with the microbes that live down on Sepsit. Those are little monsters, as Henry has come to understand them, not feasters but infesters of the flesh. Pretty unsettling stuff, and he's still learning all about it despite his best efforts.
An orange caution light sits above the bay doors and swivels inside its casing. Someone's knocking. He steps away from a pipe and onto a metal grate. His heavy boots rattle the floor. He brings his radio to his lips, "Henry Bennette, lead security officer. Visitor requesting entry to the loading bay." What a mouth full but protocol is protocol.
He taps his radio impatiently as he waits for a response.
The orange light circles back around and hits his face. It is a lousy trade-off for a setting sun, and the axe hanging under it doesn't collect wood but gathers dust. The overhead vents blow out nose-clogging air, and the pipes running to them hum. He has never been so far from home, but not because of the time or distance-- the restlessness inside him is brought out by all the twinkling lights that are not stars. The rattling generator in the corner isn't the same as the sounds of a night-shift scrap yard, and the crackles in his radio are not the mating calls of nocturnal bugs. He is not home, but flying back now would undo everything.

Disclaimer: This post is long, so you may want to save it and read it later. Also, I put a lot of time into both researching this and writing it up. So if all you have is negative feedback, kindly keep it to yourself. Finally, there’s a lot more that I’ve been looking into beyond the scope of this write-up. If you’d like to join my exp-LORE-ation efforts, please let me know.
Recap: Part 1 establishes that Colonel is the same kid who was playing with his “baer frends” at the Palace of the Winding Path. Part 2 establishes that Darius Angler was the author of the 4 Untitled Poems.
Edit: Hyperlinks don't seem to be working so I'm manually pasting my references to parts 1 and 2.
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/1327e9a/lore_discovery_responder_colonel_flatwoods_was/
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/135xf3y/lore_discovery_part_2_responder_colonels_postwa
TLDR (mad spoilers up in here): Fishbones led the raid that killed Colonel and all the Responders in Flatwoods, and he could very well be Darius Angler’s brother. Colonel may have been up to something nefarious with the children of Flatwoods (but not in that way). Ra Ra might be Ward’s granddaughter. And it looks like mole rat teeth are used to craft Day Tripper.
​
We Begin at the End: November 2096. 13 Bridge Street, Flatwoods, WV. Responder Colonel died in the raider attack on Flatwoods, along with just about every other Responder that resided there. The raiders attacked because a Chem Addict stole all their food and chems and fled to Flatwoods. You can find her body and holotape just West of the river. But before we get to that, we need to look at what Colonel was up to before he died. Most people probably overlooked this detail because they haven’t explored Flatwoods since they were level 3, and at that point they didn’t have a jetpack or the Marsupial mutation. But Colonel’s front AND back porches are completely railed off. If you make it over the front railing, you’ll find the corpses of Colonel and (likely) the raider that killed him, Colonel’s second “Survivor Story,” and a stroller with an intact doll in it. Colonel was the “caregiver for children” in Flatwoods, so the stroller may have once been for an actual baby.
But on the back porch, Colonel was burning books, files, documents, and the contents of a mysterious duffel back on his grill. Colonel definitely had a secret and he was literally trying to burn the evidence. And that secret was his past with the Diehards and Darius Angler. If you follow the road West out of Flatwoods, you’ll eventually arrive at Hillfolk Hotdogs, which is the site of Untitled Poem #3 and the former home of Colonel when he lived with Angler as a child (you can find one of his “baer frends” on the kid-sized bunk bed). But inside the bus(?) at Hillfolk’s, you’ll also find similar documents and a duffel bag, just like the kind Colonel was burning in Flatwoods when he died. As a matter of fact, there are other similarly suspicious duffel bags and file caches along the Ohio River. And this takes us to Ohio River Adventures.
Fishbones is a Dirty Rat Bastard: In the exact same way that the Diehards returned to Crater, a former territory of theirs (and site of Untitled Poem #2), the Diehards also returned to Ohio River Adventures. Now, O.R.A. gets overlooked because there is no main quest line that keeps you returning to this area (maybe the grind for Raider Rep), but this place is former Diehard territory too. Now, it is critically important to know that both Fishbones (Bones) and Blackeye are O.G. Diehards. Blackeye was almost certainly Colonel’s 1st grade teacher back at the Palace of the Winding Path. But what about Bones? Well, my friends, I bet I’m about to tell you something you didn’t already know:
When Margie McClintock died in 2096 (as inferred what Rose tells us during the main quest), Meg Groberg took over and soon thereafter led the Diehards out of Appalachia before returning years later (that, you already knew). You probably also already knew that before Margie died, Meg and the other Diehards went against protocol and “shot first” when robbing people. Meg was a true raider in all the ways that Margie was not. But what you probably didn’t put together is that Margie died around the time that Flatwoods was attacked. According to the Chem Addict from Flatwoods:
“Chems Addict: Well, this is it I guess. Rock bottom I think they call it. I still miss him. Billy. I knew he was too young for me, but he made me feel good. Though it's the old Billy I really miss. The one who used to do nothing all day with me but listen to the radio and drink. I shoulda got out sooner when Billy and his buddies started torturing little cats and dogs. His friends... were no good. But that didn't stop me anyway. I can't believe my wake up call was watching people's heads... get stuck on spikes. So... what is an old gal like me to do? Steal all the food. Steal all the chems. And get the hell out of there. *laughs* I'd trade my last bite of food just to see the look on their faces. Oh, I know it's going to piss off Billy's friends, but I don't give a damn. I tell myself I should feel sorry for the little town across the river. But if I'm being honest, and that's what this tape is for, I don't really care. I call myself an addict, but it ain't the chems that finally got me. It was always Billy.”
I want to emphasize the “heads on spikes” part, because that’s something Margie would never tolerate. But Meg on the other hand let raiders be raiders. The other thing that I want to point out is “Billy.” I’m not saying for certain that this Billy is the same as Darius Angler’s brother, but I am saying that technically no body was ever recovered from the molten steel, and Angler didn’t see the accident happen because he didn’t work at Grafton Steel anymore. It’s possible that “Billy Angler,” who didn’t quit because “he needs the money,” could have taken out some kind of insurance policy, named his chem addict girlfriend as the beneficiary, faked his own death, and skipped town. Do I know for certain that this happened? Of course not. But what I do know is this: FISHBONES’S REAL NAME IS BILLY!!! The reason he’s obsessed with the letter B is because that’s his first initial. You see, at first I thought the raiders that wrecked Flatwoods were Cutthroats because of their whole feud with the Responders. But then I learned that the Flatwoods attack was caused by a bunch of chems that the Addict stole, and the Diehards were Appalachia’s great chems supplier (thanks to Angler). Furthermore, Fishbones’s current operation is spiking Mirelurk meat with an addictive substance (chems). And since Bones is an OG Diehard, it means he was the piece-of-shit raider that attacked Flatwoods and killed Colonel.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fishbones
A Bit About Bruiser: I found a few interesting details about Bruiser at Ohio River Adventures, but nothing too profound. We know that he used to play football, his mascot was a “battle bear,” and that he spent some time in a vault. The likeliest conclusion from this information is that he’s from Grafton, given that’s the only high school in the region with a football field and it’s next to the makeshift vault that formerly housed a few raiders before the BOS took over. If you look up the IRL Grafton High School, you’ll find that it’s on Yates Ave (likely the namesake of Sofie Yates, a Responder turned Raider in Flatwoods) and their mascot is the “Bearcat.” Also, all the varsity jackets in FO76 have the letter B on them, but that’s more Fishbones’s thing. But none of this has anything to do with Colonel or Angler, so let’s move on.
The Charleston Cartel (2079-2082): From the Charleston Capitol Building terminal entries, we know there was a massive chem trade happening in Charleston at this time:
“Name: Matoukas, George
Date of Crime: 10.09.81
Description:
300 Block of Oak. Based on anonymous tip, Responder Atkins found subject peddling vast amounts of illegal chems out of his home. Over 300lbs of illegal chems found in the subject's basement.
Resolution:
Matoukas sentenced to 5 years hard labor under close supervision, with possibility of parole for good behavior. Chems were seized and destroyed.”
Since the Diehards’ operation at the Palace of the Winding Path effectively ended with the great rapture of ‘79, it only makes sense that the Diehards would have to adapt their drug trade elsewhere. If you actually look for raider activity in Charleston (outside of the courthouse), you won’t find a lot, but what you will find is very telling of their operations. You’ll find a dead raider at the chemistry workbench inside Hornwright Industrial Headquarters. You’ll find a few dead raiders in/above the pharmacy on the south side of town. And you’ll find a dead raider lurking outside the doctors’ offices (which is NOT the hospital) to the north. And this takes us to Dr. Joseph.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Joseph_(Fallout_76))
Dr. Joseph was a psychiatrist in Charleston who practiced both before AND after the Great War. He had the authority to refer patients to Allegheny Asylum and write prescriptions; Prescriptions that would be filled at the pharmacy on the south side of Charleston. To one patient, P. Davis, he prescribed Day Tripper. This insightful detail is why the Diehards were operating in Charleston in the first place. As many seasoned players have observed, Day Tripper is not craftable in this game; You can only find it out in the wild. Consider the following terminal entry from the Palace of the Winding Path:
“Log: 12.29.77 Since the war, incense ingredients have been hard to come by. We started rationing weeks ago, in anticipation of this, and doses are much lower. The sedative effects of the incense are a priority, to keep people from freaking out.
I've begun to improvise with some other ingredients and found some creative ways of stretching the supply, at least until things return to relative normal. Other chem supplies are plentiful.”
So here’s what I think happened. If the Diehards were in dire need of Day Tripper to make their custom chems (see: Making Incense), and the Responders had a healthy supply of Day Tripper locked inside a pharmacy in Charleston, and there was also a doctor who wrote prescriptions for Day Tripper, then all the Diehards needed to do was register a new patient with Dr. Joseph. Enter: Darius Angler.
Darius Angler was batshit crazy (if in doubt, refer to his manifesto). Angler, who now resided at Hillfolk Hotdogs, was also just a short trip up the New River from Charleston. He would periodically visit Dr. Joseph, get his prescription filled like a meth-head scoring Sudafed, and used the trip as a cover to smuggle the refined chems into the city. Essentially, I think he just made a loop around the southwest “island” of the Forest (area surrounded on all sides by 3 rivers, referred to as “Zone D”). The loop around Zone D functioned as a supply chain/assembly line for producing the chems that were being smuggled into Charleston. There’s a lot of suspicious stuff happening around here: Raider activity, duffel bags/files, bridge control, coffin conspiracies, etc. that I had to edit out for length, but I’ll try to summarize it here.
Hillfolk Hotdogs is where Angler and Colonel raised mole rats for reasons I’ll explain later. Follow the Ohio River south and you’ll soon come to a boat that’s not far away from a crashed truck loaded up with industrial chemical barrels (useful for producing industrial quantities of chems). South of that is a tent with a duffel bag. Further south you’ll find a 3-story house with suspicious files and a duffle bag hidden in the attic (just like at Hillfolk’s). South of that are some dry-docked boats with a chem box and a duffel bag. Even further south is Ohio River Adventure (a current Raider base of operation that served a similar purpose back then). Southeast of there, by Lewis & Sons, is a little “boat” with 2 stuffed bears, which I think was left behind by Colonel as he reenacted his river adventures with Angler using his bears. Southeast of there is a floating Nuka-Cola structure with a submerged safe guarded by 2 more bears, one of which has a liquor bottle. I think this is a dead drop and the bears are another work of Colonel’s. Heading East up the River you’ll find a raider-operated “store” at the end of a questionable bridge. Further east is Charleston, where George Matoukas was distributing the chems. And on the return trip down the New River is another dead drop directly beneath the Bridge on the west side. It’s a safe by a couch with a bear and Jangles (I think Jangles is supposed to represent George). Again, I think that this big loop is a supply chain/assembly line for moving chems and the components needed to make chems.
The smuggling operation also deviously involved Colonel and his “Baer Frends.” If you jetpack up to the very top of AVR Medical Center, you’ll find two people who OD’ed on chems, each with a stuffed bear next to them. So I think that either the Diehards were sewing chems inside Colonel’s stuffed bears and using them as drug mules to smuggle chems into Charleston, or that Colonel just climbed to the highest point on the hospital (as he did at the Palace and later in Flatwoods) and left two bears as a memorial. But I’m leaning toward the former because of an unmarked location in the Savage Divide that I found. It’s southeast of Bastion Park right at the bend of the monorail line. It’s essentially a fire pit with a bunch of stuffed bears thrown in it with a few dead party-goers around the area. I think this is the location where the Responders destroyed all of the Chems, bears and all, that they confiscated from George Matoukas. Speaking of George Matoukas….
Curious George and the Rocket: According to the above-mentioned terminal entry, George Matoukas was apparently the only criminal who the Responders sentenced to hard labor rather than exile. If you go to Rollins Labor Camp (formerly Rollins Work Camp), you won’t find a whole lot there other than Blood Eagles. But what you WILL find at the very top of the crane structure are two stuffed bears and a Jangles. Colonel, as a child, had a thing for playing with “baer frends in high places.” I can’t say with any certainty what happened here, but maybe Angler was the one who gave the responders that “anonymous tip” because Matoukas was starting to rub off on Colonel, and Angler didn’t want him growing up to be a Raider. Matoukas gets sentenced to hard labor rather than exile, with a change of parole pending “good behavior,” which means “snitching.” So maybe Angler took Colonel to visit his “friend” at the labor camp (visiting hours are a thing), Angler introduced George to a “rocket,” and Colonel used his toys to recreate the scene. Or not. Who knows? But what I do know is that the shitty poet (Angler) moved on from Hillfolk Hotdogs to go to the Cranberry Bog, and I think the Christmas Flood gave him the perfect reason to leave.
Untitled Poem #3: I’m intentionally skipping Untitled Poem #2, partly because I haven’t found much deeper meaning to it, but mostly because what I think it means is little more than conjecture. #3, on the other hand, I feel like I can make sense of it:
“white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river
peeling like asylum walls
hobbled together around dignity that died long ago
simple things to jumpstart fogged memories
holed as teeth hidden in tin
we leave our things pinned
winning only the stuck wings”
I think the phrase “white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river” is the title of the painting in Dr. Joseph’s office. Or at least that’s how Darius Angler would describe it as if it was some kind of Rorschach test. “Peeling like asylum walls, hobbled together around dignity that died long ago” is a reference to the office wallpaper, and perhaps another one of Dr. Joseph’s clients, Daniel Boone.
“Patient: "Boone, D"
Observations:
Interesting case.
Patient responds only to "Daniel Boone" and indeed seems to believe himself to be the historical figure by the same name. I'd heard that some of the hillfolk can end up a bit off after lack of socialization, but I'd not expected to see such a case.
Advised that he be sent to Allegheny rather than the Penitentiary for further observation.”
There’s only a VERY narrow window of plausibility to suggest that Angler is Daniel Boone, so I won’t. But this entry seems to refer back to Untitled Poem #3, with worlds like “hillfolk” (as in Hillfolk Hotdogs), “Allegheny” (as in asylum), and “the historical figure” (as in dignity that died long ago). I think the line “simple things to jumpstart fogged memories'' refers to the Souvenir Magnet on the fridge at Hillfolk Hotdogs, and I think it came from Lady Janet’s Soft Serve (not Cow Spot Creamery). “Holed as teeth hidden in tin” refers to the mole rats that he was raising with Colonel at Hillfolk’s (the cat bowl on the floor is for the mole rat that walks around the trailer like Fry’s dog from Futurama, just waiting for Colonel to come home). And “we leave our things pinned, winning only the stuck wings,” refers to Angler’s (and Colonel’s) escape from the Diehards. I’m assuming this event took place just after the Christmas flood, once the chem operation in Charleston was destroyed with the rest of the city. But if you remember those dead raiders I mentioned earlier, there are a few more. Outside of Dr. Joseph’s office is a dead raider next to an ammo box. Well, next to him is a makeshift bridge that goes over the highway. And if you keep going in the same direction once you step off the bridge you’ll hit the southwest corner of Wade Airport. Immediately in that corner past the fence is a locked truck-trailer (watch out for the mine) with 2 more dead raiders and a power armor chassis (sometimes). I think the last line of the poem refers to this exact event, leaving his power armor (and compatriots) pinned in the back of the trailer so he can steal yet another Vertibird. Angler flew the automated aircraft to Watoga. Why? I don’t know. But it explains how he got to the Cranberry Bog and why his body can be found just a short distance south of the city.
Untitled Poem #4: Just like #2, I don’t have any deep insight into the specifics so all I can do is speculate. I’ll spare you the details. But what I think it’s about is the very end of his relationship with Colonel. I think the time Angler and Colonel spent together in the unmarked cabin southeast of Sunrise Field was just Angler teaching Colonel to be self-sufficient (hunting, trapping, maintaining weapons and whatnot). I think that when the scorched attacked Harper’s Ferry in 2086 that there was also generally increased scorched activity in the eastern half of Appalachia. The poem describes Angler providing cover fire to, or perhaps just drawing fire away from Colonel as escaped through Big Bend Tunnel, later to be found by the Responders. But again, like with #2, all I can do with this poem is speculate.
The Mysterious Mole Rats: This is a question I’ve had for almost 2 years now, and I think I finally figured it out. Back at the Palace of the Winding Path, there’s a lonely mole rat that lives in the computer room by the garden. There’s also a dead mole rat next to a dead raider pilot by a downed plane that was headed to the Palace from the north. I didn’t know what the Diehards needed mole rats for because I was only looking at the Palace itself. But the answer to this question is found at Lady Janet’s. Everyone thinks that the two bears in gas masks by the chemistry is just a Breaking Bad easter egg. But I think it’s yet another “baer frend” reenactment left behind by Colonel. Do you remember how the cultists at the Palace ran out of ingredients to make the “spiritual incense” and had to improvise? Well, one of the substitute ingredients they used, and the reason they were importing mole rats, and the reason the Diehards took care of the children like they did, is found in the baby carriage at Lady Janet’s.
A basket full of human jaw bones? Yeah…. Teeth. Or more precisely, “baby teeth.” I suppose mole rat teeth would do in a pinch, but as messed up as it sounds human baby teeth were preferred. This is why the Diehards at the Palace were taking care of those first-graders; because six-year-olds shed baby teeth like it’s raining molars! This also answers a question you didn’t even know you had, and it takes us back to Flatwoods. Here’s a note written by Jeremiah Ward who lived in trailer in the town (and the Ransacked Bunker before that):
“I, Jeremiah Ward, resident in the town of Flatwoods, county of... not sure.
Being of sound mind, and not acting under... duress. Mostly.
Hereby declare this letter to be my last will and testament.
Mia gets the house, and everything in it.
It ain't much but that's all I got to give and... she's all I got.
I know she's still alive.
The Responders say the dogs got her, but I know it ain't true.
They been real good to us. Teaching an old geezer like me how to really cook is something. I'll give em that.
But I know they lyin about those dogs. I seen em in the hills. There's some bad folks scoping us out. They took my granddaughter, I just know it.
I'll get you back, Mia. I promise.”
Mia, a baby who slept in the crib in that trailer, was abducted by raiders. And the only raider gang that ever had any interest in kids was the Diehards. And when you remember that the Responders had a foster care program that would later be run by Colonel once he was older, you’ll remember that a shit load of children went “missing” when Billy (Fishbones) attacked Flatwoods. And if teeth (baby, mole rat, or otherwise) was the secret ingredient in Angler’s chem recipe… and Colonel was Angler’s apprentice for a number of years before he joined the Responders… and Colonel was the caretaker of all of the children of Flatwoods… then exactly what was in those documents that Colonel was burning on his back porch?
Full Circle: So after everything, the Diehards lost their crop of children at the Palace of the Winding Path in 2079, but took the children of Flatwoods and left Appalachia. When they came back, they put Fishbones (Billy) in charge of the Ohio River Adventures operation, who is now spiking the mirelurk meat with a potent chem. It’s totally possible that Ra Ra is actually Mia Ward (Jeremiah Ward’s granddaughter). Hell, it’s even possible that Jeremiah Ward is somehow Ward from Foundation. Since Colonel was obviously keeping, and subsequently burning, secrets, I’d say he was also inclined to keep his raider past a secret as well as the truth about his adoptive father. Like he said in his Survivor’s Story, “he was bad.” Perhaps the reason he kept his Diehard history a secret from the Dassa and the other Responders was because he knew that the Responders were the ones punishing and exiling people back in Charleston. But this whole story began the day Darius Angler decided to get revenge on Grafton Steel. And if his brother hadn’t actually died after all, then it would explain why Angler stayed with the Diehards for as long as he did rather than returning to the Free states. Regardless, this entire story began and ended with Billy. “It was always Billy.”

Hi all!
 
Apologies in advance for how long this post is going to be as well as how bad the formatting and linking is - first real post.
I've had this idea to catalog my history with SFFPCs for a while now.
I also have a few questions hidden further in regarding a possible future build that i'm looking at maybe attempting in the next few months.
 
  Lets begin the trip down memory lane: Build #1 - mid 2014 No Pictures for the build on this one sorry - not much worth documenting either, very simple build!
 
PC Part Picker Link: (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9Px99W)
 
This PC was the first computer I had ever built with basically my first pay check. Realistically I was building it just to prove to myself that I could and that I wasn't going to break any parts. The long term goal for this PC was to become a youtube / facebook machine for my brother and it worked perfectly. lately i've been using it as a slave pc to run minecraft servers for the lads and it still trucks along with no issues!
 
Summary: This pc was easy to build and still works today very well with basically no maintenance over the course of its life. It was never meant to be a high power machine and works well as an exertainment machine / server for minecraft. Yes I know I should probably repaste it.  
 
Following this up was my first "gaming" PC: Build #2 - mid 2016 No photos for this build either sorry. But again, the build was pretty simple with nothing particularly worth documenting. The Corsair case was a dream to build in and had heaps of space for parts and mounting. This PC was built when I was going to a lot of LANs hence the 'portable' case choice!
 
PC Part Picker Link: (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KMd9fv)
 
This PC was and still is a beast. Disregarding the issues with gtx 970's not actually having 4GB of VRAM and instead having 3.5GB + 0.5 GB this PC proved to be an amazing 1080p gaming machine. Specifically this was mostly because of two factors:  

• The i5 6600k was a monster! I heard lots about how only having 4 cores and no hyperthreading meant this little CPU was a weak competitor when compared to the more capable 7700k. But for what I had lined up? This CPU was perfect and never let me down. This CPU was incredibly easy to overclock, ran cool compared to many higher spec'd parts at the time and was a single core performing beast. This CPU was overclocked (easily) to basically 4.9Ghz for its entire life which allowed for it to be competitive with much newer CPU's all the way up to and past a stock i9 9900k (gotta love the 14 nm villain arc intel went on). Yes you read that right, with a hefty overclock my little of i5 6600k was out performing brand new (stock) i9 9900k cpus! (but only in single, duo and quad core workloads, anything more and it would fall over. I also had to seriously adjust memory timings to get up to the 9900k which had them running at unsafe voltages for long term use as well)

 

• Super fast SSD for quick load & boot times! I know a 250GB SSD is tiny by todays standards especially as the only drive in the PC but back in 2016? This was manageable and provided a massive performance increase in a market full of PCs still using HHD as boot drives.

 
In addition to the above there were serval things about this PC that I absolutely loved:

• The Corsair 380T case was AMAZING. The side panels have a metal cover over the main plastic bulk of the panel, the metal part could be removed by bending the clips holding it on and allowing a thin filter material to be added in. For anyone looking to build in the 380T I 100% recommend doing this! Basically the only maintenance was to run a vacuum over the side panels and no dust ended up inside the case at all.
• Having the i5 6600k under the 240 AIO allowed the i5 6600k to pull full TDP (plus the rest from the overclock) and stay at about a maximum of 65 degrees C (149 F) well within a safe operational range.

 
Now days this PC is living out its retirement at a friends place who couldn't afford a PC and still running strong clocked at a solid 4.7GHz. Which is more than enough for the games they are playing. Not suitable for much more than 1080p 60fps in most modern games (medium settings if that), this PC still stands out as the best PC i've built so far. I also did push the CPU as much as physically possible - Upping the voltage, clock and bus clock (a little trick from the generation to squeeze out a few more points in benchmarking) to make the CPU hit about 5.1GHz max. While stable this also bumped up temps to about 95 degrees C (203 F) which was not sustainable long term.
 
Summary: This PC was a beast for the price and delivered amazing performance - the only regret I had at the time was not getting a 7700k or equivalent for hyperthreading but in hindsight this was not an issue and this PC was still able to deliver years of fun!
 
 
This brings us to current day: Build #3 - early 2021
 
PC Part Picker Link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bLDxgb
 
This is where the fun begins. This PC was built with the goal of "No compromises" and I like to think I delivered! With a fully custom water cooling loop for both a 5950x and 3090 this PC is able to play basically any modern game at 1440p 240hz while maintaining reasonable temperatures. Originally this PC was built as an air-cooled PC with the goal to be water-cooled later. Most of my comments will focus on the water-cooling process.
 
But before we move on here are my air-cooled comments:
 

• The Asus TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 3090 only just fits in the case. This required the front IO panel to be removed and for the case to basically come apart to allow for the 3090 to slide in sideways before wriggling into the PCIE slot. Doable but a tight fit.

 

• Everything was so much simpler when everything was air-cooled! This goes without saying but i'd 100% recommend that anyone attempting this seriously consider just leaving everything air-cooled. What follows this is not for the faint of heart.

 
Now we get serious, and by serious I mean everything gets janky - you have been warned. Firstly, the GPU block didn't fit the case and this caused a lot of headaches. For more clarification please check the photos. Secondly, space was tight inside the case. Again, check the photos to see how little space there was inside the case. This meant that tubes between water cooling components were just jammed wherever I could fit them.
 
I watched a lot and I mean a lot of videos and tutorials about what would fit and what parts to buy etc. The number 1 source of my information was Optimum Tech on youtube. He has many videos showing in beautiful detail how he builds powerful ITX systems. 100% reccommend. And he's another Aussie lad!
 
The entire build process is basically documented in the photos that i'm currently trying to upload to imgur. Once I get the upload sorted i'll link to it here so you can follow along my adventures.
Photos Part 1 Photos Part 2
 
There is a bit of extra information in the photos so please give it a read if you're interested but i'm happy to answer questions if you have them so post away!
 
Summary: While a pain the ass to build, this no compromises PC destroys every single game I throw at it. It stays at reasonable temps with a mild undervolt on the 3090 and PBO applied to the 5950x.
 
 
This brings me to the section where I actually get to ask questions about a possible new build. If you've stuck with me this long, thank you and I hope you've enjoyed my history with ITX PCs.
 
Possible Future Build: Build #4 - mid 2023?
 
PC Part Picker Link: (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Jp3H6r)
 
Please see my below reasoning on why i'm currently looking at these parts: Note: i'm looking to build in a Louqe Ghost S1 case.

Part	Reasoning
AMD Ryzen 5 7600	Low power and super efficient CPU to provide amazing CPU performance in a TDP that can be easily cooled by a low profile cooler. Not a fan of how AM5 x series sits at 95 degrees C and no real low power intel option to compete (sub 70W)
Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1	Best low profile cooler that can fit in the Louqe Ghost S1 case
Asus ROG STRIX X670E-I GAMING WIFI	I was looking at cheaper motherboards but read several reviews that the ones available here in Australia had poor VRM design and cooling implementation. This motherboard also is confirmed to fit with the chosen cooler Noctua Website
G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL32	Good compromise between performance, lowish profile and price
Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB	Simple, easy, powerful, reliable and not a bad price here in Aus but might swap if something else comes along
Inno3D Twin X2 GeForce RTX 4070	Based on the case compatibility list on the Louqe subreddit and the 4070 review performed by Value king the Inno3D Twin X2 seems to be one of the best options that both fits the Louqe case and has good build quality
Corsair SF750 750 W 80+ Platinum	Pretty standard choice for ITX builds as far as I can tell. I've used it before and love the quality

 
Now that you've got the background we can get into the meat of my questions for this hypothetical build:
To get the most out of my 7600 should I lap the CPU or delid and direct die cool? I want the CPU to easily sit within its thermal limits while having some headroom to play around with settings and squeeze the most I can out of. A return to the era of the 6600k again, low power with lots of room to tinker and wring out all the performance I can while staying cool. Even going so far as to play with memory timings again.
 
My thoughts at this stage are as follows:

Direct Die	Lapping
Allows for liquid metal to be applied directly to the CPU die for best possible thermal transfer	Allows for the IHS to soak the heat from the tiny core on the 7600 into a larger surface before absorbing heat into the cooler.
Liquid metal has shown in the past to provide massive temperature reductions in similar applications	Is much less likely to damage the CPU itself and still offer significant improvement to temperature.
The 7600 cores are so small and so off center that i'm concerned only 1 or 2 of the copper heat pipes in the cooler would actually make contact. This combined with the difficulty of balancing a cooler on the CCD & IO Die as they're both small not both centered could lead to insignificant gains.	Lapping could be combined with liquid metal if really required to try and get even more performance gains from the 7600.

 
I've also not seen any videos or posts from people using either the lapping or direct die methods on a 7600 - as the part is so low power this makes sense but I was trying to consider all options before committing to one or the other. I did see one video of someone trying to use the direct die frame and liquid metal with a 7600x unsuccessfully which has also not helped with my trepidation: Actually Hardcore Overclocking
It is also worth noting that Thermal Grizzly and Roman "der8auer" also sell products for both lapping and direct die modifications so both are fairly easily accessible to me.
To be clear, the goal here is to fit super efficient parts into the stock Louqe Ghost S1 without needing a top hat for extra cooling or crazy internal fan placement to get extra airflow. I'd love for both the 4070 and 7600 to both have enough airflow to perform optimally without having to modify the case and add extra fans.
 
Questions? Comments? Drop them below and i'll try to answer anything I can!

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/the-g7-ramped-up-the-russia-nato-proxy-wa
It takes a quite remarkable level of front to present what has just taken place at the G7 summit in Japan as a decisive step towards peace. But in the Orwellian world of the western governments, this is what is now being proclaimed. The whole summit centered on building support for more weapons to the Ukraine war and attacking China. All the talk is about China’s ‘economic coercion’ and increasingly aggressive military stance. The cheek of this is almost breathtaking.
The richest and most powerful countries in the world, plus several carefully invited strategic allies, gathered in the Pacific to discuss that region’s most powerful state and accuse it of aggression, at a time when those exact same countries are developing new bases, creating new treaties and alliances, making huge increases in arms spending, and supplying non-nuclear power Australia with nuclear powered submarines.
Perhaps most sickeningly, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was chosen for the summit to, as we were repeatedly told by fawning journalists, highlight the dangers and consequences of war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all but destroyed by the first atom bombs, dropped by the US in August 1945, right at the end of the Second World War. Many died instantly, many more suffered radiation sickness which killed them. The justification was that these bombs would save lives because they would force Japan to surrender, when the US knew that such a surrender was already being prepared. The bombings were about demonstrating that the US had such a weapon and asserting its strength as a major superpower.
Not a mention of any of this as Rishi Sunak gave a press conference from a peace centre in the city. Of course not, because that might highlight the central role that this country and its allies, especially the United States, have played in wars over the past century.
It is absolutely clear from the summit that these powers have no interest in peace in Ukraine. Indeed, Volodymyr Zelensky continued his world tour by attending both the Arab League meeting in Saudi Arabia and then the G7 itself. The aim was to berate those countries who do not fall in behind the western analysis of the Ukraine war and put pressure on them to do so. According to a Financial Times article this was the main reason for his attendance at the summit. Sunak’s final press conference rejected calls for a ceasefire, saying it is not a ‘just and durable’ peace. This is also a rejection of the recent Chinese peace proposal.
Instead Sunak and the UK government have been at the forefront of pushing for the war to continue and for increasing the levels of arms sent to Ukraine. Despite US hesitation about supplying F16 fighter jets for fear of escalating the war further, Joe Biden gave into pressure on Friday and has agreed now from US to train pilots and support the planes going to Ukraine. While all the major powers were hesitant about sending offensive weapons at the beginning of the conflict that has now changed with supposed red lines crossed month after month, leading to the provision of German Leopard tanks, long range missiles including now British cruise missiles and the once vetoed F16s.
Despite the overwhelming pressure to send more weapons, the reality is that they will not be operational for months in many cases, so these decisions are as much political as military, but they are part of a very dangerous game. The war in Ukraine itself is at a stalemate. Whatever the truth about who now controls Bakhmut, fighting there has gone on for months with little movement, and the town itself has been destroyed. The long talked of a Ukrainian spring counter offensive has been deferred, and still there is talk of delay. The people suffering are the Ukrainians themselves, who are experiencing high casualties on the battlefield, and bombardment in the towns and cities.
The constant calls for more arms come from the US and European powers, but are not echoed by many other governments, especially in the global south. Zelensky’s calls to the Indian and Brazilian governments for more support will not alter that fundamental fact. Opposition to weapons supplies and sanctions will be for a number of reasons, some no doubt self-interest alone, but there is also a recognition of the aggressive role of NATO, of the failed previous interventions, and of the need to avoid what could rapidly become a global conflict. Nor is continued war the view of the retired diplomats and military figures who signed an ad in the New York Times last week, stressing the need for a diplomatic solution and saying that the war could not be won.
It is against this background that we have to see this Pacific summit and the tensions that will arise from it. The confrontational language has already been attacked by the Chinese government. Sunak went further than the official communique from the G7, saying that China is the biggest challenge to global security and prosperity, possessing ‘the means and intent to reshape the world order’. This is simply not true but it reflects China’s growing economic and military strength in relation to the US, which is in decline. What the G7 said this week is that it is prepared to confront anyone who challenges US and European hegemony and power. 22 May 2023 • by Lindsey German

Date: December 14th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day One
I am Sergeant Paulo Martinez, of the United Nations’ 12th Marine Regiment, field doctor. Unfortunately for my bosses, I’m not writing this diary for them. This one is for my sister. Yes you read that right, Maria, this one’s for you so i’m doing it the way I think you’d like it done.
So, lil’ sis the historian always talks about how the most fun historical discoveries are in mundane documents, a lot of stuff gets lost to time with just official documents, so when I told her I was going to visit Colia on official business, in fact at request of the Zurulian government, she just straight up begged me to keep a personal diary. Even if I never show her, in like a hundred years it’d be a more accurate story of what happens than any official report. So… This is it.
To explain better, in preparation for future operations the UN is trying to integrate alien advanced technology and methodology with ours, both to patch up theirs where it’s missing (as is often the case with their methods) and prop up ours (usually technical). My case, however, is a bit particular while being part of the same initiative. The government of Colia, that’s the Zurilian homeworld by the by, has requested a technical exchange with a field medic experienced in combat operations in order to help them prepare for the inevitable need for their famed medical expertise to be applied on the field, i’m not sure what my counterpart is going to be doing back home but I bet he isn’t going to be with the marines.
Anyway, it seems like I'm to be set up with a group of first responders for a grand total of a week, see what I can learn and see what I can teach. Shuttle (which is tiny, by the way, love those teddy bears but they’re tiny and their bespoke crafts are tiny) will be arriving in another hour and after that i’m to head for a briefing.
Okay! Still the first day, or night right now. I got to meet the crew I’m to be training with and got a better grasp of what I’m actually working with here. I made a mistake previously, it’s not first responders, I’m training with a unit from the First Response Fleet. Those guys have an entire fleet in charge of emergency response to any catastrophe, admittedly it’s not a very large one it’s just their flagship “Beacon of Hope” and a small group of support ships like two fuel barges (seriously what is their operational range to have fuel barges?) and some lander shuttles.
For a moment I thought it made sense why they sent a marine, those are military right? Nope, those are civilians as far as I can tell. I got to meet some of the people I’ll be training with though! They’re a fun bunch, and boy did they barrage me with questions. Remember the stories back early during first contact about aliens asking all sorts of stupid questions? Now picture that at quintuple speed and all of the medical variety, at some point I had to shut them all down. Not because they were annoying, mind, but because the questions started getting far outside of my field of expertise. I’m a marine combat medic, not an endocrinologist!
Which made me curious, so when I asked it turns out they’re all proper doctors! Out of a crew of twenty, because apparently the crews train together based on which lander shuttle they’re assigned to, we had ten surgeons of different varieties, three neurolinguists, two geneticists… I don’t even remember what the other five were but none of them with less than five years of schooling and all but one with at least eight years in the First Response Fleet, that other one was fresh out of getting his PhD, however.
Date: December 15th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Two, Training
Apparently the FRF has its own facilities for training and fleet maintenance. I woke up early to get a look at the place and… I admit I’m a little surprised? This doesn’t look like what I was expecting, because it feels familiar. There were a lot of restricted areas, expected in a medical facility, but this felt different because a medical college, what I thought this was, wouldn’t have armed guards.
It also wouldn’t have a starship drydock. And it wouldn’t be designed like this. This place looks more like a federation-style military base than anything you’d see a bunch of civilian doctors in. I wonder if they’re essentially contractors to the military?
After a short tour on my own I went to have breakfast, and if this didn’t look like every military mess hall in the universe I’d throw my stripes in the trash. Boy are the teddy bears noisy, though, if there’s one thing I can say they’d beat any marine at is making a goddamn ruckus. I readied myself for some bland vegan breakfast, which don’t get me wrong I get it they’re herbivores and all but I usually I really miss my protein and the taste you know, but I was very surprised. I couldn’t tell you the name of the plants I ate but… Just… How can vegan food be this tasty? I thought aliens didn’t know how to cook?
Well, I was sure as hell wrong about that. I’m actually writing this at the end of the day and I’m chewing on a raw root for heavens’ sake because this thing tastes like mint and cashews? Most aliens might not know how to cook but apparently the teddy bears aren’t most aliens in this case.
Anyway, back to some chronological telling. I also learned they love tea, they can’t really start the day without tea and I don’t mean the pansy stuff from Earth (i’m a coffee drinker), oh no. I never thought steeped flower leaves would give me the caffeine jitters, but I should have when I saw they were black. Right, one of the gals in my unit is a biochemist, and she made this very weird joke to me if I could taste the poison on the tea? Humans have gotta stop the damn capsaicin hype before they think we can drink actual poison.
Surprisingly tasty breakfast over, me and the unit went for the first training of the day. As part of a disaster response team they need to keep fit, so morning is physical training. Now, you’re going to read this and think it’s weird, right? Wouldn’t it be paramedics or firefighters doing this particular piece of job instead of full blown PhDs with doctorates and all that? Yes it’s that weird.
Running, pushups, pullups, you know the whole full body training regimen? That’s how it started, I thought I was going to smoke the teddy bears but… Good heavens, I can’t in good conscience say I did. I mean, yeah, I outperformed every one of them but that was close, I swear the only reason I outperformed them is because of mother nature because it sure wasn’t my training and I’m, not to toot my own horn too much, a goddamn marine.
Afterwards we had ‘deployment’ drills. Yes I’m calling them drills because at this point I’m certain those guys are military in some weird way. Deployment in this case refers to the simple act of exiting the lander shuttle and deploying the field hospital. Guy in charge of training said today they were going easy because of me since I’ve never done this before, to general cheer of the rest of the unit.
The basics of deployment training is, we all get inside the lander with the gear, wait a minute to simulate the landing procedures, then we unload the gear and set it up as fast as possible but prioritizing no mistakes. So off I went to start, first boarding the lander, which was the actual lander we were assigned to. When I asked I was told this was so we’d be familiarized with the idiosyncrasies of the equipment we’d actually use in the field, in fact all of the gear we were training with WAS the gear they used in the field.
My first surprise was how… Cramped the lander was. And by that I mean this was an eight-person craft carrying twenty plus enough medical equipment to set up a field hospital. This was frankly absurd, in order to create enough space for me two of them had to sit on my lap because there wasn’t enough room, half of them had to stay standing! “We don’t take up a lot of space” one of them told me.
Apparently, these lander shuttles are perfectly safe to ride standing and there were specific roles for people who were standing, they’re supposed to start moving some of the gear out the instant the landing ramp hits the ground. That’s what they’re supposed to do anyway, but that isn’t exactly what happened. The landing pad is equipped with some kind of setup to simulate the ship’s landing impact, and that was some movement discipline I haven’t ever seen before- I felt the downwards impact of the ship, but before elastic forces moved it back up as ships do when landing this hard, people were already moving.
They didn’t start moving gear when the landing ramp hit the ground. They moved so fast that the first piece of gear, the power generator, hit the ground moving into place less than a second after the tip of the ramp hit the floor.
The whole deployment training was four hours. We repeated the deployment procedures for four hours without rest, and it wasn’t simple. This isn’t a field hospital in human terms, my friends, no. One of the first things set up is a power generator, after that a communications array to call up the flagship, then they bring out the tents but those aren’t the simple bed and clean space affair. They use shielding technology to keep particulates out, the operation tent even uses that system to create an airlock to keep the air inside clean. There’s an entire miniature operation theater, there’s a rapid diagnosis rig with a whole ass ton of sensors operated with VR as well as two tents just for patient recovery.
Those are neither simple nor light pieces of kit. That’s some sci-fi supertech shit right there. The target deployment time is five minutes. Five. Fucking. Minutes. I don’t think I could set up a tent in five minutes. Hell, when they started moving I had to reign in my instincts, it looked like I was getting ready for breaching action. Oh, they were taking it easy and instructing me all the time, took them fifteen minutes to set up the entire field hospital.
After that bit of intense training, it was dinner time. Did you know that there is a specific kind of plant here that when you mix its dried and powdered leaves with some of the local flora it induces the maillard reaction? Fucking cold-fried tubers is what I got, it’s like those slightly citric cold fries that have all the good parts of fries but are cold? Alien food I swear, if I ever have to turn vegan I’m only eating at zurulian restaurants.
And then it was study time, gotta keep up on the latest medical science and they afford you time to do that. Pretty damn impressive library they’ve got, not just some proper paperback books mostly for historical value (did you know paper here is black and they use a dark red ink to write in it? Weird alien trees) but an immense digital library. I was a bit at a loss of what to do , I’m at best a paramedic not a doctor needing to keep up with the latest and greatest, thankfully one of the guys on my unit showed up with some first response manuals with the basics for every species. And then promptly dragged me to the unit’s study group because apparently the entire unit also studies together.
Man I thought that was going to be annoying, it thankfully wasn’t. Damn cheerful bunch they are, real classy body horror jokes as well. I’ll be honest I never thought I’d see an alien get dark humor, nevermind start it, but I like those teddy bears. Also none of that better-than-you crap I thought I was going to get either, they helped me out a fair bit memorizing some procedures (seriously, there’s a method for mouth-to-mouth on a bird that works, but boy is it going to be nasty) and awkward as it was having a nearby human was plenty helpful since they were all studying human medicine.
And oh, hey, that’s the door. I got invited for a bit of a welcoming party. I’ll add more when I get back.
Date: December 17th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Four, Hangover
Sooo… Apparently tea brewing is a far more complex and ancient art here I guess? Did you know there’s a kind of plant that builds up alcohol inside of it here? And with the right steeping process you get this very tasty alcoholic green tea that just sneaks up on you like a motherfucker? That’s why you’re not getting anything from yesterday, jesus fuck deployment drills, timed this time, on an ungodly hangover were not fun. Turns out this unit’s usual time is seven minutes, by the way.
Got to learn a fair bit about zurulian biology that night out, though. And clean up your mind, that’s not what I mean. Turns out they’re quite more sensitive to some chemicals than humans, or at least sensitive in different ways. They’re also WAY more open to recreational drugs, it turns out, especially in drinkable form.
One of ‘em got this thing that looked like an ashtray? And it was burning something. Dude just put it on the table and took whiffs of it now and then. I got curious and went to try and holy crap I got dizzy just getting close to it? Lum leaves, he told me, they give a nice buzz he said. Nice buzz? It’d have knocked me right out if I didn’t step back fast enough, apparently whatever’s in lum leaves at best works like a beer for them, though. And the weird part is he said it tasted good.
That was when I learned that zurulians have a damn fine sense of taste. Which, by the way, explained why they were passing by a rock and licking it at some point. I thought they were trying to weird me out but no it’s apparently some kind of palate cleanser, I tried but it just kind of tasted of rock. And, it turns out that their tongues can detect some usually-airborne chemicals as well! Including ones their noses can! They can detect some things as both taste and smell!
And apparently after the fifth cup of tea I was asking them what all sorts of things tasted for them and I could not tell you the answers because I should have stopped at my second. Except for one thing, I think whoever I asked was high as a kite too to accept it but I asked what I tasted like. Look I was really intoxicated as well. She said I tasted like I had vitamin deficiency? And… I don’t know, I know I never ate properly but how the hell do you tell that with your tongue?
Don’t feel it’d be very decent to ask that, though. You don’t make wise, or decent, decisions when you’re so out of your mind you get a thirty-hour hangover later.
As for the day, it’s been deployment drills and studying. But we did get to play with a few more toys between the drills and dinner, the unit got to test out (or well, make sure they were working) a bunch of fun-looking portable piston units, they also had a couple of plasma torches and a magnetic cutter (think a hydraulic cutter but instead of hydraulics it’s magnetism, looks silly but damn thing could cut through a support strut of a starship in half the time of a hydraulic). I, of course, didn’t get to play with any of those. They were built for zurulian bodies and according to the trainer if I ever were to work with the Fleet they’d just treat my body as another set of tools anyway. I mean I get it, nature gifted me a larger and stronger body than theirs, but he could have been less blunt about that.
Date: December 18th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Five, Emergency
Soo… See how I’m being cute with titles? Look you’re lucky I’m writing in english and not japanese or else you’d be getting triple-sized titles, I love me some good titles. I wish I was talking about emergency response training here, however.
I’m a diligent man, I haven’t been skimping on preparing my official report, in fact a third of study time I’ve spent on writing the report. Super detailed, put as much as I damn well could in those, described every last bit of tech, hell I described the seating arrangements per specialty for deployment because apparently you can shave seconds off of deployment with the correct arrangement. Even included the fact it was faster for me to just carry the two guys on my lap out and drop them on top (yes on top) of the storage unit going to the surgery tent than to wait for there to be enough space for them to hop off.
So my official report is out. I’m going to write a second, too, about whatever else happens. I made a quick call to HQ and got the go ahead too. Earth’s gearing up to fight the feds but that doesn’t mean the rest of this old bullshit war isn’t going on. There’s been an arxur raid on a colony world, apparently a venlil colony, and we’re deploying. Sorry, I’m not going to just go back home and wait for the call to action when I can help something going on right now. Plus I know it’s been just five days but damn, I like those guys. I hope dealing with a raid aftermath isn’t going to break them.
excuseme, what. Sorry, I am currently on the lander shuttle as we make our way up to the Beacon of Hope. I was going to finish there and then but I heard it… Someone talking to the newest guy “You get used to it”. You get used to it? Did they do this that often? Or was he just trying to be nice?
Not the time to ask.
Date: December 19th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Six, Stalking
The trip was fast. Alarmingly fast. I can tell the Beacon of Hope has probably the best FTL drive ever created or something like that. It was two thirds through the day when we got a message that we had arrived and were now on standby. And also, that I was being called up by the captain.
The trip to the bridge was surprising in two ways, the first because I didn’t need to bend down. The Beacon of Hope is built to accommodate even a Mazic in its interiors, and be able to work with an interspecies crew. The second was because of the austerity of the place as I expected a civilian ship to make some concessions, but any area that did not expect to see a patient was perfectly functional and wasteless in design. Only the patient areas seemed a bit more comfortable and even then, it seemed like it was more because of the patient’s needs.
The bridge was very much a spartan affair that took advantage of their species’ diminutive size, it was tucked closer to the center of the ship and was distressingly small despite the amount of staff present, though someone of a larger species (like me) could probably still do their job as an operator here but they’d probably have to do it laying down. Something that the layout of the chairs would seemingly permit. It was there that I met the captain, aliens might not be much for clothes, but they’ve right up there with us with hats. The only identifier he had was the rather classy dark blue hat which is apparently the base of the design of any air force hat in the galaxy too, I guess some pieces of design are universal. Later that day I had time to ask around, and it seems like their space military splintered off of their air force, unlike the navy back on earth.
And the captain told me some very, very impressive information. And some very distressing as well. First off, we had arrived before the Arxur, which in itself was baffling because I thought we had responded to an attack. Nope! It was an early detection system. I asked him, then, if we were so early why wasn’t a defense fleet instead of us? “I don’t know. And I’m afraid of knowing” At that point I dropped that line of questions, I guess it got pretty obvious, huhn? Then what’d he need me for, I asked. He was blunt, me being a predator, and a trained killer at that, he wanted advice.
I might have been a bit annoyed at the wording, but the captain of the most advanced, and genuinely unarmed, hospital ship I had ever seen asking me advice like that? What even was going on? He explained to me that we were hiding in the shadow of a planet close to the colony, directly opposite of where the arrival point of the Arxur fleet should be, and showed me the map. He knew I wasn’t a naval officer but if I had anything, if anything in my training, if anything in my instincts could help, anything to make sure the mission would work more smoothly.
Were we doing an evacuation? Not with just this ship. VIP extraction? First Response doesn’t do priorities like those. Dropping support for ground troops? What ground troops. No, we had no way to aid during the actual raid, this was the direct opposite of a warship. But the very second the cannibals left they were going to start dropping shuttles, every last moment counted and if that meant arriving before the threat it meant arriving before the threat.
I mean, I got nothing. I told him I got nothing, none of my training worked here and I couldn’t just summon some magical foresight to help. To which, he was grateful. Told me it was an assurance of a trained soldier couldn’t find flaw in the plans of ‘an old retired pediatrician’ and i’m absolutely fucking sorry?
At that point I had to ask, are they military? Oh no, they’re not. While sure the FRF was part of the military organization, it had no need for soldiers since it was basically just a large mobile hospital. Those were all civilians, including him.
Now, if any of my fellow humans catch this document when it’s still relevant or anyone at all a hundred years from now, I want you to consider what the average military competency of the federation species is like. They’d fall prey to the dumbest fucking ambush and if I remember right even the Arxur were pissing their fucking scales at a simple fighting retreat. Those people have been fighting longer than some countries have existed on earth and they got no idea how to wage war. And here was this ‘old pediatrician’ pulling some fucking grand admiral moves because his only focus was getting medical aid down on planet as fast as possible.
I waited to get back to my room to wait before I lost it. But still, we had a mission ahead of us and we’d need to prepare.
Date: December 21th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Eight, Fieldwork
Don’t have much time to write, there’s a lot of work to be done but I think I can skimp a few minutes of sleep for this, using voice to text for this one. I guess mumbling might help me sleep, too. We just landed, guys got deployment down to six minutes. Fuck, unit back home couldn’t move this fast with this coordination. Shit, they probably do those very often don’t they?
Each lander shuttle went to a different place, we’ve all got a huge area to cover with our shuttle’s crew. Flagship dropped a few comm buoys up there, we got a temporary planetary cover for the comms. Dunno how the fuck the shuttle slipped down when it did, last croc ship wasn’t even done taking off when we hit the ground, also the pilot’s a fucking maniac. Miles wishes he could pull a deceleration at that low height without splashing.
Fuck my feet. Fuck my legs. Fuck my back, everything hurts. Three guys stayed behind in the triage tent, two in the surgery tent, one on the radio, everyone else got to go out searching for people in pairs. They use this fancy headset thing with data feed from the flagship, scans for life signs, real advanced. Not perfect precision, though, still needs the people on the ground to cover the last hundred meters of range. “Well, that’s leftovers” fucking dark humor at this point. Fuck. We were going towards a lifesign marker when we ran into a corpse.
Right. Funny thing here, this is a federation world. Yeah I know I said it was a venlil colony but seems like not every colony split off from the feds when the republic did, makes sense. Don’t matter for those sons of bitches, someone need help they come for you. That was a venlil body, burning wreckage of a toppled building, half-eaten.
Fuck i’ve seen the worst goddamn wounds, saw people missing limbs, shit… Y’all of my unit on earth remember the Placido thing, right? So much fire. Y’all remember the smell of the burning bodies, don’t you? Saw some sick shit in the past but this? Seeing a half-eaten person?
And teddy bear says that damn joke. Pulled me outta the shock, at least… Wasn’t the first time they had to say that, was it? Wasn’t long until we hit that lifesign, though. Venlil kid, panicking the hell out when he saw me, bleeding like a fountain from a cut on the shoulder and side. Tried to calm the kid down, and what happens? Teddy bear just comes out of no fucking where and jabs something in the kid’s neck and they’re out like a light. We called for a recovery there.
Have you ever seen a motorcycle ambulance? How about a hovercycle ambulance? Yeah, shuttle had one as part of the gear, it’s a kinda funny piece of kit. Super tight to be a normal ambulance, but a zurulian can fit in there right fine with a patient, it’s got some magical gyro-stabilization because no way it could speed off like it did and fucking fly over a pile of debris like that without killing the ride, to say nothing of the patient. But fuck, I read the specs of the thing while we were taking the shuttle down, they’re written in the cockpit. Thing could apparently hit supersonic speed with a set of secondary thrusters it has, it wouldn’t do it for long because that’d melt the engine down completely but it could. Who the fuck puts that fucking speed on an ambulance?
You can see I’m lacking adjectives at this point? Because this is all so absurd. The recovery vehicle, that’s what it’s called, grabbed the kid and sped the hell off. “No bedside manners for us, let’s go” is all my partner said when we started heading for the next life sign. We had people who’d barricaded themselves in furniture and underground and couldn’t get back out, people who’d given up a limb to hide in a tight squeeze.
The worst were the ones that… They were still begging for help, ‘unfinished meals’ the fucking teddy said. How do you get so callous? Only from seeing this too much. Fuck is that what being a veteran in this job is? Dealing with this fucking horrorshow so much you get like that? But still, if their heart is beating it’s good enough, even those ones got help. I took a ride in the recovery vehicle with one of those.
Krakotl, it was. Don’t matter how much you hate the birds, you see one like that, torn open and half eaten begging to god to have one more second in this universe… You ain’t human if you can still hate. Idiot lizard decided to have a meal mid-bombardment, it looks like, building collapsed on him and pinned his body on the bird. I pulled the stone out of the bird, my partner dragged the arxur carcass out of the way, there was so much blood. You’d think that them not bleeding red makes it feel less like blood, it doesn’t. Sealant gel applied to the open blood vessels, beautiful thing that gel, it can basically serve as a physical barrier to prevent blood loss and it can be removed safely, and we wrapped them in a sealing blanket.
Sealing blankets are amazing emergency devices. They’re stored in this plastic bag because they need to remain wet, but you warp the patient in it and it constricts with just enough pressure to do what you need it to (there’s a control for it), in this case keeping the bird’s insides on the inside, and it’s soaked in a cocktail of antiseptics and painkillers that work for just about any species. It’s more than just soaked, even, the material it’s made of actually very slowly dispenses a low dosage of the fluids it absorbed serving basically like an IV drip in this situation. When the recovery vehicle arrived I tapped out, as they say. I’d accompany the patient to the base and take a moment to refresh myself before outing again in the next recovery vehicle call.
I’d like to say it was a wild fucking ride. But I didn’t even feel it, thing must have ship-class inertial dampeners somehow. They spared no expense for this fast rescue vehicle. And by the heavens that driver, I haven’t been around the pilot and the driver much since they had some separate training but this driver? Straight. Line. He’d only make a curve if going over an obstacle would take longer than around because he was not increasing the length of the trip by a single meter.
Also, the stretcher the poor bird was in? Gravity sledge. You heard that right, you know how costly and difficult miniaturized anti-gravity is, it doesn’t work without a much higher attached computational power than an object that size can handle. I bet it was receiving assistance from the vehicle. Moving them to the triage tent was easy, didn’t think there’d be much need for triage, mind, but that was the procedure. Full sensor suite you’d find at the best hospitals with three VR control sets to be able to perform multiple operations at once, I didn’t even think those things were mobile. The three on triage had a full readout on the bird in seconds, hear that seconds. So I did the last part of my job and wheeled the patient to the surgery tent with the report.
One thing I didn’t mention before is the fire. This wasn’t a farming colony, this is an extraction colony, they were pulling some manner of chemicals from the ground here and refining it. This place where we’re at mostly stored things, mind… Very flammable things. After the damn crocs were done being murderous psychopathic cannibals on the ground they decided to destroy everything just in case, of course the aftermath of dropping bombs on highly flammable storages is rampant fires. Just so you have an idea of the backdrop.
I got a bit of a chance to wash up after that patient, the boss (he’s apparently the most senior, in veterancy) ordered me to take a rest. So I took the chance to fish my soap from my personal belongings (we all got a bit of space to carry personal stuff down) and take a quick wash before sitting down here to take a nap.
Date: December 25th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Twelve, Fieldwork
What a christmas gift, eh? Playing heavy machinery in a nightmare. Been putting less of my first aid skills and more of my muscles to use and I don’t blame them for it, the heavy duty tools are all showing signs of wear by now, and I can replace them with my hands for some uses. They’ve got plenty of people that can stabilize a patient, they don’t have many tools.
I asked around a bit how long we were planning to stay, and whether there was a bigger relief fleet coming. “Until everyone’s saved” was the first answer and “Nobody knows” was the second. After all, this is ostensibly a Federation planet, and we were waiting on one of their relief fleets to show up. My next question was about, how long did we have supplies for, and the Beacon of Hope came geared for 30 days of operation with six ground crews. We had eighteen ground crews going, because the damage was extensive across the entire planet.
We had a third of the supplies we would normally have, and I’d be insulted if they didn’t start rationing supplies between ground crews. If the situation was this dire they’d have to make decisions about where their supplies would be best spent. Please heavens, let this place be a priority, I don’t want to teach those poor teddy bears how to do low-tech lifesaving.
So for now, we need to go easy on our tools to keep having them, and as luck would have it I’ve got enough physical capacity to replace them in about a third of their use cases. So for the last two days I’ve grown pretty accustomed to the recovery vehicle as I get moved from one place to another to move debris and carry things.
I’ve also noticed everyone seems a bit more relaxed when I’m around sometimes. Though I’ve the impression it isn’t quite my presence itself, that tends to happen right before I go take a nap. I don’t mind the weirdness, whatever helps those guys. They’re making me question the way everyone hypes up human stamina because they’re keeping right the hell up with my work shifts.
Date: December 28th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Fifteen, Starvation
Well, that was the call I was hoping we wouldn’t have. Right when what we’ve started finding more and more is the deeply wounded and the infected.
We’ve been on the ground for twelve days, chances of survival of anyone at this point is minimal, but minimal isn’t zero and that’s good enough to keep working. Unfortunately, there are other ground crews in bigger population areas, which means a higher volume of minimal chances, which means they get the resource allocations.
The power generator should be good, each one lasts the full month so that won’t be a problem. But most of our miracle medicine will start having to be rationed, also the hydraulic lifters gave up the ghost. Not like they were bad but it was simply from excess of use, my back knows the feeling at this point.
We’re going to run out of antiseptics in three to five days if we keep going at this rate, as well. Hopefully we should have saved everyone that we can at that point. But there was a small miracle, or rather, there was a small underestimation on my part.
I thought I’d have to teach those guys how to save a life without their spacer tech and miracle medicines when we ran out of stitch-gel. Stitch-gel is a rapid-clotting agent that effectively serves as instant stitches, it’s amazing. And we ran out of it the soonest. Then a woman with a horrifying neck wound was brought in, gal went down fucking fighting she did, don’t know how she took down her would-be killer the beast’s claws were still dangling from her neck. The fuck kind of movie hero was she? But the moment we’d remove the damn things (also did I mention her lower body was burned? She definitely wasn’t moving on her own, those legs are gone) she’d bleed to death and there’d be nothing to do about it.
And here’s where I underestimated them. She was taken out of the surgery tent and got to the next shuttle to the Beacon, she certainly bled a lot but she did not bleed to death. The surgeon had opted to, instead of bringing anything personal like me, pack additional supplies as his personal items. Like a fucking mile of biodegradable stitching string and a whole ass set of needles, plus some weaker over-the-counter painkillers.
I thought I’d have to teach them how to handle some primitive medicine, but they came readier for it than I did. They knew they’d be sitting here until they ran out of resources. They gave up any possible nicety they could have brought to buy a few more days worth of supplies.
I’d say I was ashamed of my choices but I don’t think I am. I realized why they kind of gather around me before I take a nap- It’s not the nap, it’s my soap. I brought a mint-scented one, you know, when you can bring some niceties to help your mind in the field you do. Turns out the scent is doing some wonders for their mental health.
Pfft, big muscles and smelling nice, that’s what i’m doing right now. I’m cool with it, people often forget the effect some small things missing can have on a bigger operation. Dude done did an open heart surgery in the middle of a fucking field hospital to save a life, he deserves to take a good nap.
There’s something else but i’m not sure if I should say it. I know, history and all, but do I want people to remember this happened?
---
[Part 2]
Okay so I got an immense surge of inspiration to write this one. Mostly also 'cause i'm a little tired of the only depictions of our allies out there being their failures, I mean sure it's a great narrative driver but it gets a exhausting a bit.
Plus i've also been trying to writre something in the vein of this for like two months at this point so I changed format and story while keeping the important parts. And it seems i'll have to split it in two parts because I hit Reddit's limit.

No one can ever predict a Bill Belichick draft.
When people start assuming he’ll act based on his stereotypes (first-round trade down, OL early, no early WRs, all Alabama players or small school guys or guys from Rutgers), he’ll do the opposite. When the consensus is that he’ll shift away from those stereotypes, he’ll lean right into them.
So in observing mock drafts, both full and team-centric, there was a lot of accord that he would follow those stereotypes. (Adam Korsak, both a punter and from Rutgers, was EVERYWHERE.)
But then the end of April came.
Before then, New England had suffered a 2022 season full of embarrassment, from Matt Patricia and Joe Judge’s ineptitude at running the offense to a team that seemed to find new ways to lose in humiliating fashion (a certain ill-fated lateral sequence peak among them). The Patriots went from their dynastic reign as a team which would trounce their opponents in laughers to the team that everyone pointed and laughed at. Mac Jones’ Patricia- and Judge-sparked regression along with impressive cameo appearances by ‘22 rookie Bailey Zappe split the fanbase into Mac and Zappe camps, with sports media fueling the flame by spreading or outright fabricating rumors of Belichick shopping Mac, rumors which lasted through the first day of the draft. It was an ugly season and an uglier start to the offseason.
The franchise clearly needed to make changes in 2023, and changes started near the top. Patricia and Judge lost their roles, the former joining the Eagles coaching staff and the latter moving to lead special teams, a necessary move as this Belichick-led squad had plummeted to the lowest-ranked third unit. (More on that later.) Patricia had filled the dual roles of de facto offensive coordinator and facto offensive line coach, and filled both roles with the acumen of me designing plays in Backyard Football 2002, except I could actually design plays that resulted in touchdowns. Judge had manned the quarterbacks room, and given that Daniel Jones finally broke out for the Giants once Judge had been booted from mentoring him, you can guess how that went for Mac and the Pats. In his new role in charge of special teams, he has already cost the team two OTAs and Bill Belichick $50,000 for an offseason meetings violation, and has elevated his 2022 title of Co-Most Hated Man in Foxboro to Single Most Hated Man in Foxboro.
Anyway, New England needed to fill their old roles, and brought in:
Bill O’Brien, Offensive Coordinator / Quarterbacks Coach A long-time friend of Belichick’s, O’Brien returns for his second stint as Pats OC, having dictated the offense in Rob Gronkowski’s record-setting 2011 season. Additionally, O’Brien comes by way of running the offense and the QB room at the University of Alabama, which spawned Mac Jones. Mac regressed in 2022 after an impressive 2021, but recall that 2022 was under the abysmal leadership of Patricia (calling his plays) and Judge (his direct coach), a situation in which no one could develop. By bringing in his old OC and QB coach, Mac has been put in the best possible position to develop in ‘23, a position which will much more clearly give fans a vision of his future as an NFL quarterback. (And the playcalling will be legitimate! It’s been but a year and we have already forgotten what creativity, route concepts, and misdirection have looked like!)
Adrian Klemm, Offensive Line Coach Belichick’s first draft pick after taking the helm in New England in 2000, Klemm has joined the team after coaching at Oregon last year. He comes with a strong reputation at that coaching position, having headed a Ducks O-line that allowed just five sacks in 2022. Last season, the Patriots saw a regression from their veterans on the line, most notably in Trent Brown’s newfound flag-happiness, and first-round rookie guard Cole Strange put forth a mixed performance. Bringing in an actual offensive line coach gives the team the best chance to fix any issues that showed in ‘22 and to develop their young linemen.
Of course, coaching was not the only issue last season, as New England was criticized for their lack of talent on the roster. Of New England’s high-cash free agent class of 2021, only edge rusher Matthew Judon shined in both his seasons in Foxboro: neither tight end Jonnu Smith nor wideout Nelson Agholor ever got off the ground, tight end Hunter Henry regressed after a solid ‘21, and wideout Kendrick Bourne found himself suddenly in Patricia’s doghouse and off the field. Moves needed to be made as the calendar turned to free agency.
Notable Departures
S Devin McCourty (retired) The most prominent departure from the ‘22 squad, McCourty is one of many who can be termed a quintessential Patriot. A first-round cornerback out of Rutgers in 2010, D-Mac made the switch to safety in 2012 and locked down the position for the next decade. When he was on the verge of leaving the team in free agency in 2015, even reaching out to Belichick to say goodbye, Belichick signed him to a top-valued safety contract and kept him in red, white, and blue. His leadership and personality made him a joy to watch on the field and off, his personality showing itself especially well recently through interactions with his twin brother Jason, who played alongside him for the Patriots from 2018 to ‘20. Statistically, D-Mac ends his career with 35 interceptions, one shy of the franchise record, and 4 touchdowns (two picks, a kickoff return, and a blocked field goal return). We miss him already.
P Jake Bailey (released; signed with Miami) What a drop. After an All-Pro season in 2020, Bailey signed a four-year extension in 2022 only to become the worst statistical punter in the league. After he was injured, the Patriots brought in Michael Palardy, who managed to be even worse (personally, I blame the team’s curse that comes with the jersey number 17). Neither punter remains with the team, Bailey joining an AFC East rival in the Dolphins and Palardy currently unsigned.
TE Jonnu Smith (traded to Atlanta) There is a strong case to be made that Smith is the worst free agency signing Belichick has made as Pats GM. In the two years since inking a 4-year, $50 million deal, Smith totaled just 55 catches for 539 yards and one touchdown, and a ‘22 restructure of his contract meant that Smith appeared to be a monetary albatross the Patriots would not be able to shake loose. What led to Atlanta agreeing to take on his whole contract, sending New England a seventh-round pick to get the player, I have no idea, but I think every Pats fan would agree that Smith didn’t work out in the least and a change was best for all sides.
WR Jakobi Meyers (signed with Las Vegas) Meyers’ departure was somewhat shocking, as the 2019 UDFA had worked his way up to the top of the Patriots’ wide receiver depth chart. More of a big slot guy than an outside #1, Meyers had a minor role in his rookie season and started 2020 at the bottom of the depth chart, but injuries to the players above him got him onto the field, and a 12-catch, 169-yard performance against the Jets that November meant he wasn’t leaving it anytime soon. While not possessing top-tier speed or explosiveness, Meyers was the team’s best route runner and separator, and his departure left another void that needed to be filled.
QB Brian Hoyer (released, signed with Las Vegas) Hoyer was third on the depth chart, Zappe having shown enough to take the #2 spot. While a fine veteran mentor, the Patriots chose to go a different direction with that third QB role.
WR Nelson Agholor (signed with Baltimore) Agholor was given a two-year contract in 2021 with the anticipation of his being the #1 receiver, something which did not happen due to his unreliable hands and separation abilities. For those two years and $22 million, Agholor produced 68 catches, 835 yards, and five touchdowns. Not worth it.
RB Damien Harris (signed with Buffalo) By far the most productive member of the Patriots’ atrocious 2019 draft class, Harris was good in New England but had been passed on the depth chart by sophomore Rhamondre Stevenson midway through 2022. Couple that with Belichick’s predilection to let running backs walk instead of giving them second contracts, sprinkle in a dash of two ‘22 draft picks (Pierre Strong Jr. and Kevin Harris) who will get more opportunities in 2023, top it off with the return of Ty Montgomery II from injured reserve, and it’s no surprise that Harris is no longer a Patriot.
T Isaiah Wynn (signed with Miami) Another former first-round pick, Wynn was all right as a left tackle though was criticized for frequent injury problems; with his fifth-year option picked up for ‘22, he was inexplicably switched to right tackle, where he was very bad. He never really earned the role of franchise tackle, so it was expected that the Patriots would let him walk.
But on the upside, the team now has:
Additions
WR JuJu Smith-Schuster (via Kansas City) After Meyers signed with the Raiders, the Patriots worked quickly to bring in his replacement in the slot. Smith-Schuster revived his career in Kansas City and is now in position to be a primary target for Mac for the next three seasons, possessing more explosiveness and speed than his predecessor. The biggest concern with JuJu is his durability, but I believe the Patriots have made preparations in the draft (spoiler) in case that becomes a significant problem. The fanbase is excited for Smith-Schuster on the field in Foxboro, and deservedly so.
RB James Robinson (via New York (the green side)) A one-time breakout UDFA in Jacksonville, Robinson’s role diminished with the rise of Travis Etienne Jr.; after being traded to the Jets, Robinson never got settled into a role. In New England, Robinson is likely first in line for the #2 RB spot behind Stevenson, an important role given that Stevenson’s overwork saw his productivity decline as last season came to an end. Robinson also possesses the pass-catching versatility that Belichick loves, a role Harris was never used in but Stevenson is, further suggesting he can have a significant spot on the field for the Pats.
TE Mike Gesicki (via Miami) As Smith never worked out as the co-#1 TE, here comes Gesicki. A pure pass catcher at the position, Gesicki has the size and hands to be a reliable target in the red zone, and should pair nicely with Henry for a potential TE-heavy formation as the team approaches the goal line.
T Riley Reiff (via Chicago) T Calvin Anderson (via Denver) While neither comes with the contract expectation of being a long-term solution at either tackle spot, the hope is that Reiff (expected to start at RT) will be an upgrade over Wynn, while Anderson serves as a reliable swing tackle who can start if needed.
LB Chris Board Jr. (via Detroit) Remember that awful special teams unit? Board is one of the NFL’s top special teamers, a player Belichick singled out when New England faced the Lions last year. It’s unsurprising he brought in such a veteran to help solidify the unit after… just all of last year.
QB Trace McSorley (via Arizona) By bringing in McSorley in Hoyer’s stead, the team is showing a bit of a shift in philosophy with how it is using its backup QB spots. Both Mac and Zappe are pocket passers; McSorley does most of his work outside the pocket and can run with regularity, a trend more common among top-level quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. At minimum, he’s worth a camp spot, and that’s fine.
P Corliss Waitman (via Denver) Following the implosion of Bailey and Palardy at punter, the Patriots were on the verge of entering the draft with none on the roster. Waitman is a veteran addition there, but pretty much everyone expected New England to add a punter either as a draft pick or UDFA. (Another spoiler – my bad.)
After this free agency, many saw the Patriots as still having holes at the top of their depth chart at wideout, tackle, and cornerback. Tight end was also considered a need as New England, despite adding Gesicki to pair with Henry, does not have a tight end signed beyond 2023, entering the draft with only Matt Sokol and Scotty Washington behind their name duo.
Then they went on the clock, entering the draft with:
1-14 2-46 3-76 4-107 4-117 4-135 6-184 6-187 6-192 6-210 7-245
Here’s how it all went down.
Draft Picks
TRADE: 1-14 to PIT for 1-17 and 4-120 Although this trade was criticized for receiving too little back from Pittsburgh, it was not a major loss in capital according to the Rich Hill value chart (325 points to PIT, 320 to NE), and it came with enough high-level talent on the board that the Patriots were sure to get one of their targets. The way the board fell, fans most wanted Christian Gonzalez, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Zay Flowers, or Broderick Jones; when the Steelers took Jones, it became clear that the Patriots were not interested in him (reports came out that the Patriots had not been interested in Jones at all due to coachability concerns), but they were sure to land an exciting player after moving down only three spots rather than the seven-plus many mockers had predicted. Additionally, the Steelers landing Jones appeared to knock the Jets’ war room for a loop (though later video has shown that the Jets were expecting the trade), and the only thing New England fans love more than a victory is an opportunity to screw over the Jets.
1-17: Christian Gonzalez, CB, Oregon The Patriots’ selection of Gonzalez received universal acclaim, and it’s easy to see why. Despite having strong CB depth, the Patriots lacked a true #1 corner; Gonzalez has the ability, length, and athleticism to be that from Day One. The first-round pick via Colorado and Oregon was widely projected as a top-10 selection, so for New England to land him at 17 is a tremendous coup. From his interviews and his play style, Gonzalez seems like a quiet guy off the field who wants to shut the opponent down when on the turf. He’ll be fun to watch.
2-46: Keion White, ED, Georgia Tech White is another player falling under the new Patriots draft umbrella under Belichick and Matt Groh: as athletic as can be. While he is raw, White has the athleticism to play three downs along the defensive line and the versatility to move inside when the situation calls for it. The Patriots thought so highly of him that he was a player they were considering drafting in the first round, even considering a move back into the last picks of the round to snag him, but landed him at 46 anyway. How much he will play as a rookie is uncertain as New England has a very good edge duo in Matthew Judon and Josh Uche, but even if White has to take a year to get acclimated to the NFL, that’s not unheard of in Foxboro and has produced success for highly-touted picks: neither Nate Solder (first round) nor Trey Flowers (fourth round) took on long-term starting roles as rookies (though Solder filled in at right tackle plenty), but were established starters in their second years. Similarly, Uche (second round) started off as an occasionally-used part of a pass rushing rotation before hitting double-digit sacks last year, his third season in the league. And if White earns significant playing time in 2023, all the better.
3-76: Marte Mapu, LB, Sacramento State Here’s that small-school selection that detractors tend to point at regarding Belichick, but Mapu has elite potential. I got tipped off to Mapu late in the pre-draft cycle, and watching film of him I was reminded a lot of Kyle Dugger, another small-school Day 2 player who has turned into an excellent Patriot. Mapu is going to play linebacker, likely his best position, and fill the role of coverage ‘backer that New England has lacked for several seasons. He’s also athletic and scheme-versatile, having spent time at safety and linebacker while at Sacramento State, so he will be able to move around the defensive formation if the situation calls for it. Add to that his tackling, his closing speed, and his containment, and you’ve got yourself a potential stud.
4-107: Jake Andrews, C, Troy The Patriots need their future long-term center with David Andrews now 31 and having an injury history, and Jake Andrews (unrelated) is set up perfectly to be that guy. Andrews the Younger is built in the same mold as Andrews the Elder: both exited college as smaller in stature than other centers but able to get a push on defensive linemen from below, meaning Jake can easily learn specific bits of technique from David. While not expected to play the role immediately, [anagram: Ned Was a Jerk] is now in position to spend time behind [anagram: Swan Diver Dad], preparing himself to take over at center in the near future.
TRADE: 4-120 and 6-184 to NYJ for 4-112 4-112: Chad Ryland, K, Maryland This is not the first time Belichick has selected a kicker in the fourth round, selecting Stephen Gostkowski with pick 118 in 2006; with the Patriots in desperate need for a strong player at the position, moving up to make sure they could land him makes sense (especially with Jake Moody being selected by the 49ers at 3-99). And Ryland is what Nick Folk is not: a big-legged kicker with kickoff ability. Folk has been appreciated in New England for his accuracy, but his distance and accuracy notably declined in 2022, and when forced to kick off, his lack of touchback distance led to trouble, the Patriots surrendering a league-high three kick return touchdowns (including two in the season finale). It’s clear an upgrade at kicker was a requirement this offseason; with Moody gone, giving up a sixth to move up eight spots is absolutely fine. In doing so, New England has hopefully landed their kicker for the next decade.
4-117: Sidy Sow, G, Eastern Michigan At this point, it may be considered confusing for the Patriots to have drafted a left guard in Sow when last year’s first-round pick Cole Strange is entrenched there and Mike Onwenu mans right guard at an elite level, but Groh’s post-draft comments indicated the team would give Sow opportunities at left tackle as well. And not only does Sow have experience at left tackle, he has the size at 6’5” and 326 pounds. New England’s projected starting tackles are veterans Trent Brown and Riley Reiff, both of whom are over 30 and are in contract years; if Sow returns to the position, the former mauling EMU Eagle (heh, two birds) offensive lineman could ease the need at tackle for next offseason.
TRADE: 4-135 to LV for 5-144 and 6-214 5-144: Atonio Mafi, G, UCLA Another interior lineman? Yes. Mafi is a guard whom the Patriots worked with at the Shrine Bowl, and has the versatility to move between left and right guard. As the aforementioned Onwenu is in a contract year, Mafi has a clear path to a potential starting job in 2024, and the most important thing right now for the development of Mac Jones is keeping him upright. By selecting three offensive linemen – using a quarter of their 12 selections on the offensive trench – Belichick and Groh have signaled their intent to do just that. From all accounts, Mafi, who met with New England in a pre-draft visit, is thrilled to join the team; now it’s about proving it on the field.
6-187: Kayshon Boutte, WR, LSU Boutte is the epitome of a boom-or-bust prospect, his elite 2020 and ‘21 being overshadowed by a disappointing 2022 that dropped him from clear first-rounder to a middle-of-Day-3 selection. As a freshman and sophomore, Boutte looked to follow in the footsteps of highly-drafted LSU wideouts such as Odell Beckham Jr., Justin Jefferson, and JaMarr Chase, showing a complete package of agility, speed, and route running. Unfortunately, an injury plus conflicts with his new coach Brian Kelly led to underperformance, and a poor combine performance cemented his draft stock as having drastically fallen. But if he can get back to his earlier form, where his talent and athleticism led to a combined 83 receptions, 1244 yards, and 14 touchdowns in his first two college seasons, Boutte could become the steal of the draft.
6-192: Bryce Baringer, P, Michigan State While New England had signed Corliss Waitman so as to have a punter on the roster heading into the draft, none assumed he was the long-term answer; when the Patriots made Baringer the first punter taken in the 2023 draft, it became clear who was. A walk-on turned cut turned best punter in college football, Baringer has a booming leg that showed itself in an average punt length of 49.0 yards in ‘22; he also holds the Michigan State record for career punting average at 46.0 yards. As a bonus, he worked with Ryland at the Senior Bowl, so the two have already begun to develop chemistry in the holding game. As another bonus, he wore No. 99 in college, and that is awesome.
6-210: Demario Douglas, WR, Liberty When one imagines a typical Patriots slot receiver – small, shifty, and explosive with the ball in his hands – one might well be imagining Douglas. The five-foot-eight Liberty product can absolutely fly, moving all around the formation and catching balls at all levels of the field. New Englanders got a preview of what Douglas’ game might look like when rookie cornerback Marcus Jones began to take snaps on offense last year; Jones was often put in motion before the snap, worked out of the backfield, and assigned touches where his elusiveness was the spark to gain yards. Douglas has said he models his game after Jones, a claim that demonstrates itself when one views his collegiate tape. I had a third-round grade on Douglas, so the Patriots landing him at 210 is a thrill. (Even though the Giants took one of my draft crushes in Tre Hawkins III the pick before, for which I’m still irked.)
6-214: Ameer Speed, CB, Michigan State The unknown about Speed is whether he will develop on defense; that is not his skill at the moment. There are three things known: his size (6’3”, 210 lbs.), his speed (4.34s 40), and his special teams prowess. With longtime special teams captain Matthew Slater likely entering his last year, the Patriots need to develop a new crop of special teams standouts, long a hallmark of Belichick’s Patriots from the time of Larry Izzo. Last year’s UDFA Brenden Schooler looks like one of those players already; Speed will certainly be given every chance possible to be another.
7-245: Isaiah Bolden, CB, Jackson State More tall athletic cornerbacks! The only HBCU selection in the 2023 draft, Bolden is an incredible athlete who likely earned his way to a draft selection by lighting up his Pro Day. Though just a role player on defense, Bolden has developmental traits that any defensive coach would love, and has also been a top collegiate kick returner, leading all of college football in 2021 with a 36.9-yard average on kickoff returns. I don’t see the two late-round cornerback selections as “throw players on the field and see who sticks” à la the ill-fated dual tight end picks of Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene in 2020’s third round, but selecting players who might have longer chances to succeed, but if they do succeed can truly shine.
Though Bolden was the last of the Patriots’ 2023 draft picks, that did not conclude their rookie class as the period of UDFA signings immediately began. The Patriots have had an undrafted rookie make the Week 1 roster every year since 2004; with just a four-man class this season, chances are slim. They’re not impossible – their only 2021 UDFA, kicker Quinn Nordin, made it – but they’re definitely slimmer. Here are the four who can continue that streak.
Undrafted Rookies
Malik Cunningham, QB, Louisville The most expensive ($200,000) and well-known of the quartet, Cunningham’s slight build and arm as a quarterback led to piles of speculation of his switching positions. However, he has started off his Patriots tenure as a quarterback in rookie minicamp, so he remains a quarterback until further notice. Throughout college, Cunningham’s most intriguing asset has been his supreme athleticism at the position, something which showed up in testing, and it remains to be seen how the Patriots will use that athleticism to help the team. (It may be a good while until outside sources get a look, as minicamp and OTAs have thus far been closed off to the media.)
Johnny Lumpkin, TE, Louisiana-Lafayette After foregoing using a selection on a tight end in a deep draft class (another Belichick trend), New England instead brought in Lumpkin, who projects as a blocking tight end in the NFL. This offsets the biggest negative, his age (he’ll be 26 to start the season), as the Patriots lack a true blocker at the position. Whether Lumpkin can take advantage of this path to a roster spot remains to be seen, but his road to making the team as an undrafted rookie seems easiest at the moment.
Jourdan Heilig, LB, Appalachian State Like Board and Speed, Heilig joins the Patriots as a special teams standout, playing minimal defense as a Mountaineer (three snaps in 2022) but standing out in college on the third unit (210 snaps in 2022). He’ll have a chance to follow in the path of Schooler as a UDFA who makes his mark as a core special teamer.
Justus Tavai, DL, San Diego State The middle of the Tavai brothers (older brother Jahlani is a Patriots linebacker, younger brother Jonah signed with Seattle as a UDFA), Justus played alongside Jonah on the Aztec defensive line in 2022. While Jonah put up eye-popping numbers with double-digit sacks, Justus was a steady contributor as well, putting up 3.5 sacks and intercepting a pass. Tavai is the ninth man on the Patriots’ defensive line right now, so he has a difficult path if he wants to make the team.
He’s not an undrafted rookie, but the Patriots have also brought in veteran free agent Anthony Firsker, TE to compete with Lumpkin, Sokol, and Washington for the third tight end spot, the roster spot opened with their losing reserve Raekwon McMillan, LB to a partially torn Achilles tendon.
Projected Offseason Depth Chart (italics = rookie, (in parentheses = exclusively or primarily a special teamer)) (Note: the Patriots assign temporary jersey numbers in the offseason starting with 50 based mainly on draft position.)
QB 10 Mac Jones 4 Bailey Zappe 19 Trace McSorley 64 Malik Cunningham
RB 38 Rhamondre Stevenson 3 James Robinson 14 Ty Montgomery II 35 Pierre Strong Jr. 36 Kevin Harris 42 J.J. Taylor
WR 1 DeVante Parker 7 JuJu Smith-Schuster 84 Kendrick Bourne 11 Tyquan Thornton 58 Kayshon Boutte 60 Demario Douglas 82 Tre Nixon (44 Raleigh Webb) (18 Matthew Slater)
TE 85 Hunter Henry 88 Mike Gesicki 86 Anthony Firsker 87 Matt Sokol 17 Scotty Washington 65 Johnny Lumpkin
T 77 Trent Brown 74 Riley Reiff 76 Calvin Anderson 75 Conor McDermott 64 Andrew Stueber
G 71 Mike Onwenu 69 Cole Strange 54 Sidy Sow 55 Atonio Mafi 63 Chasen Hines 62 Bill Murray
C 60 David Andrews 53 Jake Andrews 65 James Ferentz 66 Kody Russey
DL 90 Christian Barmore 92 Davon Godchaux 91 Deatrich Wise Jr. 93 Lawrence Guy Sr. 95 Daniel Ekuale 98 Carl Davis Jr. 96 Sam Roberts 70 Jeremiah Pharms Jr. 67 Justus Tavai
ED 9 Matthew Judon 55 Josh Uche 51 Keion White 58 Anfernee Jennings (97 DaMarcus Mitchell) 51 Ronnie Perkins
LB 8 Ja’Whaun Bentley 48 Jahlani Tavai 52 Marte Mapu 30 Mack Wilson Sr. (45 Chris Board Jr.) 43 Calvin Munson 59 Terez Hall 47 Olakunle Fatukasi (66 Jourdan Heilig)
CB 50 Christian Gonzalez 31 Jonathan Jones 13 Jack Jones 25 Marcus Jones 27 Myles Bryant (61 Ameer Speed) 63 Isaiah Bolden 37 Tae Hayes 26 Shaun Wade 34 Quandre Mosely 39 Rodney Randle Jr.
S 23 Kyle Dugger 5 Jabrill Peppers 2 Jalen Mills 21 Adrian Phillips 24 Joshuah Bledsoe (41 Brenden Schooler) (22 Cody Davis) 29 Brad Hawkins
K 62 Chad Ryland 6 Nick Folk
P 59 Bryce Baringer 15 Corliss Waitman
LS 49 Joe Cardona 46 Tucker Addington
Conclusion Is this a perfect Patriots team? No. There are still long-term holes at offensive tackle and tight end, and there is a question mark as to who can be that pass catcher whom defensive coordinators have to plan for, a player the team has lacked for several seasons.
But is this an exciting Patriots roster, a team who has a chance to exceed their middling projections and expectations, a team worth watching and cheering for? Absolutely. Belichick and company have stabilized the coaching staff; added explosive, athletic players at nearly every position; brought in a new crew of players to take over special teams; and begun their draft with three players who could not only start in the NFL but have the potential to star. I fully believe that this is not an 8-9 caliber team, even in an AFC East with three other teams that have added big name after big name.
As Bill Belichick might say, we’re on to 2023.
We’re on to victory.

WEEK #30 is here, been doing this for a while now, always appreciating engagement on these!
What happened last week?
​

• AI craze is starting to look overextended as big tech been registering a phenomenal start of the year. Most SP500 gains can be relegated to AI.
• We should see both sides of the aisle come to an agreement on the debt ceiling, next week after successful talks
• PCE core came higher than anticipated, 4.7% you from 4.6% expected, 0.4% MoM from 0.1% on previous month. This is entrenched inflation and talks about further hikes is back on the menu.

What to watch for next week?
​

• US markets are closed on Monday
• Home price index on tuesday
• PMI and JOLTs on wednesday
• Non-Farm payrolls on Friday

Canadian news For Week #30, May 22 2023

Monday

CAE announces Vienna, Austria as the location for its new business aviation training centre in Central Europe - CAE.to

is expanding its global network to Central Europe with a new business aviation training centre in Vienna, Austria, scheduled to begin operations in the second half of 2024. In addition, CAE will deploy the first Bombardier Global 7500 full-flight simulator (FFS) in Europe, making pilot training on this popular aircraft type more accessible and convenient for operators in the region.
CAE will initially operate six state-of the-art FFSs in Vienna, including the Global 7500, a Global 6000 Vision, and four yet-to-be-announced FFSs for business jets from leading manufacturers. The new 8,000-square-metre facility will have space for expansion with a capacity for up to nine FFSs and will be purpose-built to deliver the most advanced pilot training experience in Central Europe.

Tuesday

Bird Awarded BC Ferries' Maintenance Facility Redevelopment - BDT.to

announce that it has been awarded a contract for the Fleet Maintenance Unit (FMU) Redevelopment Project for BC Ferries.
The FMU Redevelopment Project aims to revitalize BC Ferries' existing facility situated in Richmond, British Columbia, enhancing its capabilities and increasing its capacity to meet the demands of BC Ferries' operational needs. The FMU facility currently handles a substantial portion of the maintenance, repair, and upgrades for BC Ferries' 39-vessel fleet.

​
Intermap Powers Telecom Network Planning - IMP.v

announced a contract with RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC (“RKF”) to supply NEXTMap® 3D elevation data through its cloud-based elevation data as a service subscription for telecommunications network planning.
RKF develops innovative engineering solutions for communication networks and satellite systems and provides critical analysis to enable spectrum reuse. RKF is integrating Intermap’s cloud-based services for 3D elevation and land classification data to conduct precision signal analysis for locations around the world. Intermap’s cloud-based solutions offer users rapid and easy-to-use online access to NEXTMap global terrain datasets that integrate into third-party software applications.

​

Wednesday

CAE and Endeavor Air celebrate major expansion to Minneapolis-St. Paul training centre - CAE.to

today inaugurated their expanded training centre in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. The training centre recently underwent a 50,000 square-foot expansion to make space for Endeavor's Flight Operations and Inflight Training departments and three additional CRJ full-flight simulators (FFS) that will allow Endeavor Air to consolidate all its pilot and cabin crew training, which previously took place in multiple locations, at the state-of-the-art centre in Minneapolis-St. Paul. With this expansion, the facility is now the largest CRJ training facility in the world.
Endeavor Air anticipates that approximately 2,000 pilots will visit the Endeavor Air Learning Center at CAE each year for training. Currently 120 instructors support the flight operations training program and 16 instructors support the flight attendant training program. Between 2,000 and 2,300 flight attendants will come through the facility for both new-hire and annual recurrent training each year.

​
SolarBank Reaches Commercial Operation on BTM Solar Project in New York and Provides Update on Pipeline of Projects in Progress - SUNN.to

is ‎pleased to provide shareholders a update on its pipeline of projects, headlined by achieving commercial operation on a 195-kilowatt DC behind-the-meter ("BTM") solar system located in Syracuse, New York for Honeywell International ("Honeywell"). The project is the latest completed for Honeywell in New York, a key U.S. market for SolarBank. Presently, SolarBank is developing nine additional solar projects in New York, totaling 80 Megawatts of potential future capacity ("MWp"). Mobilization is underway and construction has begun on a 3MW potential capacity brownfield project in Geddes, NY. In

​
BQE Water Completes Performance Test for Plant that Simultaneously Removes Sulphate and Selenium at a US Mine - BQE.v

has successfully completed the performance test of the first industrial scale water treatment plant combining nanofiltration with electroreduction to simultaneously remove sulphate and selenium from mine contact water at a mine in the US.
Operating intermittently as determined by site water levels, the plant treats a mix of tailings seepage and mine contact water to produce treated effluent fully compliant with site requirements. This includes selenium below 2 ppb and sulphate below 950 ppm to ensure that conditions for passing bioassays are met. By-products of treatment are a solid gypsum and stable non-hazardous iron oxide-selenium residue suitable for onsite disposal.

​
​
Nextech3D.ai Game-Changing Generative-AI CAD 3D Design Studio Toggle3D.ai Primed For $7 Million June IPO - NTAR.v

announce the eagerly anticipated spin-off of Toggle3D.ai. The expected trade date for Toggle3D.ai (CSE:TGGL) is June 13, 2023 (subject to approvals) of the Canadian Securities Exchange. Nextech shareholders of record will be issued an exclusive dividend of 4,000,000 newly issued shares in the revolutionary Toggle3D.ai, on a pro-rata basis.
Toggle3D.ai is a groundbreaking SaaS solution that utilizes generative AI to convert CAD files, apply stunning 4K texturing, and enable seamless publishing of superior 4K 3D models, serving various industries within the $160 billion CGI market. With its Augmented Reality-based rapid prototyping web app, Toggle3D.ai empowers designers, artists, marketers, and eCommerce owners to effortlessly convert, texture, customize, and publish high-quality 3D models and experiences, regardless of technical or 3D design expertise.

​
Polaris Renewable Energy Announces Signing of 25 MW (AC) Power Purchase Agreement for Solar Project Canoa II - PIF.to

announce that we have signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in the Dominican Republic for Canoa II. The Canoa II solar project is adjacent to the already operational 25MW Canoa I, which was acquired by the Company in July of 2022, and is inthe Province of Canoa, Municipality of Barahona, Dominican Republic. Polaris owns 100% of the project.
Particulars related to the Canoa II PPA and project are:
15-year PPA denominated in US$ of $82.35 per MWh;
Such PPA has an annual inflator for 5 years post initial commencement, equivalent to approximately 16% of the US Consumer Price Index, at which point the price remains fixed until the end of the 15-year term;
Estimated completion of construction in the third quarter of 2024;

​
Bee Vectoring Technologies Receives Largest Order to Date from a Major Multi-State Berry Grower in the United States - BEE.v

Announce a company record-breaking sales order with one of the largest blueberry growers in the United States, who will integrate BVT's proprietary Vectorite with CR-7 (Clonostachys rosea CR-7) biological fungicide and natural precision agriculture system on their blueberry operations in the upcoming growing season in the Pacific Northwest.
"This new customer is an enterprise-sized grower with large scale operations in multiple key growing regions and will be implementing the BVT system on over 500 acres of their operations spread across Washington and Oregon," said Ian Collinson, Sales Manager at BVT. "This significant development is a strong indication of the growing confidence growers have in the BVT system as most growers historically have tested with small acreages first before committing to such a large portion of their operations."

Thursday

Edgewater Wireless Launches WiFi7 Spectrum Slicing Platform - YFI.v

announce its next-generation of Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing powered silicon solutions targeting residential, enterprise and prosumer applications. Building on the latest Wi-Fi standard, WiFi7 (802.11BE), Edgewater’s groundbreaking platform offers more physical channel capacity than single-channel, legacy Wi-Fi architectures — bringing lower latency and reduced contention for existing and new devices. With ‘Beta’ Spectrum Slicing capable silicon now available for select partner evaluations, engineering samples of Edgewater’s WiFi7 silicon are targeted by the end of Q2 CY2024, with commercial products expected at the end of Q2 CY2025.

​
Coveo Services Now Available in the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Canada Region - CVO.to

announced that Canadian customers can now access the Coveo Relevance CloudTM on the AWS Canada (Central) Region.
By leveraging the AWS Canada (Central) Region, a cluster of several data centers located in Montreal, Coveo will enable customers with data residency preferences (regulatory, compliance or other) to securely store data in Canada. Local AWS infrastructure facilities mean that customers can do more in terms of running mission-critical applications that need the lowest possible latency, and benefit from more flexibility.

​
Solar Alliance continues to grow project backlog with five new projects totaling $1.1 million - SOLR.v

announce it has signed contracts for five solar projects in the Southeast U.S., ranging in size from 40 kilowatts (“kW”) to 113-kW.
The contracts include the design and installation of solar projects for a range of industries in Tennessee and Kentucky and have a combined capital cost of $1.1 million.
All of the projects are expected to be completed in 2023 and contribute to a backlog of contracted projects totaling $3.1 million.

​
BluMetric and Rheinmetall Canada to Deliver Self-Contained Water Purification Systems to Canadian Armed Forces - BLM.v

announce the award of a 3-year $11.7 million contract from Rheinmetall Canada.
BluMetric is teaming with Rheinmetall Canada, who is the prime contractor and an internationally recognized systems integrator, to develop and deliver small, self-contained water purification systems as part of a contract awarded by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This product, named the Advanced Sub-Unit Water Purification System (ASUWPS), will enhance the ability of the CAF to support missions by providing the capacity to purify water at the sub-unit level - providing potable water for 125-250 personnel. The ASUWPS are a smaller, lighter system than BluMetric's Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit (ROWPU), which BluMetric has been building and supporting for the CAF for the last ten years.

Friday

x
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Good luck guys

Period: 187.69 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	1000	6982
Rate (per day)	5.33	37.12
Unique Redditors	48	878
Combined Score	25426	29352

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 8359 points, 357 submissions: FarPiano9575
   
   1. This was US Marine combat veteran Ruben Gallego as violent MAGA insurrectionists were overrunning the Capitol on January 6th. He gathered fellow Democrats to prepare to fight if necessary. "I would have killed motherfuckers to save this democracy. Fuck those guys." (638 points, 128 comments)
   2. Students from Nashville-area high schools and colleges, including Belmont University and Vanderbilt U, are pouring into downtown Nashville to gather at the Capitol for another rally to call for safe gun laws following last week's mass school shooting. (112 points, 20 comments)
   3. Sen. John Fetterman is back. “Great to be here,” he says. (77 points, 9 comments)
   4. My friend's late father, at 18, fighting the Nazis in France. He was ANTIFA. (74 points, 16 comments)
   5. Fun fact: Speaker Pelosi won nine consecutive leadership elections—on the first ballot. (71 points, 7 comments)
   6. This is historically important and this is the first step in holding Trump accountable for his crimes. (67 points, 10 comments)
   7. "We're literally building bridges, and they're literally banning books." - Pete Buttigieg (64 points, 3 comments)
   8. Insurrectionist Marjorie Taylor Greene has just been placed on the House Homeland Security Committee. Does that make you feel any more secure? 😱 (64 points, 29 comments)
   9. Trump hid in an underground bunker while Americans protested in the streets. Joe Biden flew into the middle of a war in Kyiv, Ukraine on President's Day and walked the streets as air raid sirens blared. One man stands for world freedom and peace, while the other stood only for his narcissistic self (61 points, 14 comments)
   10. 200 students walked out of class at an Alabama high school after they were reportedly told their student-led Black History Month program could not reference slavery or the civil rights movement "because one of our administrators felt uncomfortable" (60 points, 10 comments)
2. 7529 points, 276 submissions: ProgressiveDemocrats
   
   1. Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, “Fuck you fascists.” Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like they’ve never seenZ We aren’t forgetting this. (814 points, 309 comments)
   2. President Biden just schooled Republicans by reminding them, “Ronald Reagan was doing the 28% tax rate, you know, that wacko liberal guy." Does anyone else love President Biden’s sense of humor? (122 points, 22 comments)
   3. JUST IN: Justin Jones has been voted BACK to the Tennessee State House by the Metro Nashville Council! The Council was responsible for choosing who would fill the seat until the special election, and they voted to select Jones. Right after the vote, Jones embraced the council members. (115 points, 14 comments)
   4. Holy shit. The former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, just came forward to say he was part of a secret Republican operation that convinced Iran to keep Americans held hostage in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter’s 1980 presidential campaign. (Link to the story in comments below) (84 points, 15 comments)
   5. As the Republican party tries to gaslight Americans into thinking Biden's State of the Union Address was terrible, note that 72% of Americans had a positive view of the Address. - That's leaps and bounds better than any Trump SOTU. - Joe Biden knocked it out of the park. (82 points, 6 comments)
   6. WOW. Absolute power move by Hakeem Jeffries. After Republicans kicked Ilhan Omar off of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Jeffries immediately put her on the House Budget Committee. Republicans messed with the wrong party and person. Rep. Omar won’t be silenced. (82 points, 19 comments)
   7. Way to go, Tulsa high schoolers!!🥳 (80 points, 9 comments)
   8. HOLY SHIT! Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin is about to put the smackdown on SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas after revelations that he's been accepting luxury gifts from Republican donors and not disclosing them. 📢 (71 points, 14 comments)
   9. MAGAs are attacking Arnold Schwarzenegger for posting a video in which he condemns anti-Semitism after his visit to Auschwitz. It was a 12-minute video that was powerful, uplifting, and inspiring -- and Arnold doesn't even talk about politics. Why are they offended by this video? (71 points, 29 comments)
   10. BREAKING: In a SHOCKING move, two Texas Republicans just joined the Democrats to PASS the “Raise The Age” gun control bill out of committee in the Texas Legislature! That's right – TEXAS! (more in the comments) (64 points, 11 comments)
3. 2671 points, 84 submissions: Top-Bottle7403
   
   1. Jamie Raskin just destroyed Lauren Boebert with Donald Trump's OWN Words. Rep. Raskin is truly the greatest. (113 points, 15 comments)
   2. If you're randomly posting about World War III on Easter, you don't need to be running for the presidency, you need to run to a mental health provider. (99 points, 21 comments)
   3. BREAKING: Four members of the Proud Boys, including their former leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted today of seditious conspiracy for plotting to keep Trump in power after his election defeat by leading a violent mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (78 points, 8 comments)
   4. Jamie Raskin is owning MAGA Republicans, all while undergoing cancer treatment on a daily basis. He’s a true hero! Please drop a comment below ❤️ to show him your support. (72 points, 12 comments)
   5. Sometimes one image can say more than a thousand words (70 points, 6 comments)
   6. Wonderful people should get to hear the wonderful things about themselves while they're still with us. Jimmy Carter was the first President I cared about when I was a kid, and he's been an incredible human being ever since. Thanks President Carter, for living an exemplary life in service of others. (66 points, 7 comments)
   7. God has nothing to do with it. (64 points, 6 comments)
   8. Last month, DeSantis signed a bill that “will allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit. It means training and a background check will not be required to carry concealed guns in public. It takes effect July 1.” Get ready for more mass shootings in Florida. (63 points, 21 comments)
   9. The China spy balloon just sent back its first pics from Missouri (61 points, 8 comments)
   10. This 1977 image is of GOP Tennessee Gov Bill Lee dressed in drag. There nothing wrong with this, except for the fact that Bill Lee is about to sign a bill that will ban and criminalize drag in the state. - The image is from a high school yearbook. GOP hypocrisy just keeps getting worse and worse. (58 points, 11 comments)
4. 2598 points, 101 submissions: In-The-Middle12
   
   1. Eight years. No scandals. No impeachment hearings. No drama. Just class and grace personified. Let's let them know we miss this wonderful family. (79 points, 14 comments)
   2. If Republicans in the TN House can expel fellow members of the opposition party simply for protesting gun violence, then surely Democrats in the US House should be able to expel members of Congress for taking part in or aiding an insurrection, right? (79 points, 7 comments)
   3. BREAKING: Tesla has fired 30+ workers at its Buffalo gigafactory, one day after workers there announced a unionization campaign. -Tesla managers announced surprise performance reviews, then fired 8x as many workers as usual. - Tesla is notorious for union-busting. (61 points, 6 comments)
   4. A five-hour police delay in alerting the public that the Monterey Park, California, dance hall killer was on the run is throwing a spotlight on the nation's flawed, patchwork system for warnings of mass shooters at large. (58 points, 7 comments)
   5. Can you find five people in any job outside of policing where one of them wouldn't have stopped the others from beating a man to death? There are no dentists or plumbers, or accountants who would've done that to Tyre Nichols. Only cops have been trained to think that's normal. (49 points, 10 comments)
   6. NEW: Some actually newsworthy footage that was just released in connection with a Jan. 6 trial of Ed Badalian, the InfoWars superfan whose buddy drove a stun gun into Mike Fanone's neck during the Capitol siege. From inside a trashed suite of Senate hideaway offices: (49 points, 7 comments)
   7. Texas Republicans just found out that if they secede from the Union, they lose all their government checks. Say what!! The right-wing Republicans are now double-thinking this move. (49 points, 15 comments)
   8. Oh my. A new video just surfaced that shows Rep. Nate Schatzline (R-TX), who wrote a bill to restrict drag shows, dressed in drag while skipping through a park wearing a black sequined dress. (48 points, 4 comments)
   9. When Trump was POTUS he was still renting an entire floor of Trump Tower to China’s largest state owned bank. They paid him 5.4 million while in office so y’all can STFU about Biden. (48 points, 3 comments)
   10. If you only share ONE post today, let it be this list of 156 House Republicans who voted to raise the retirement age for Social Security to age 70. -- Don't let them get away with it. - Make sure EVERYONE knows. (45 points, 1 comment)
5. 1121 points, 37 submissions: Safe_Salt9663
   
   1. This is not normal (81 points, 20 comments)
   2. D.C. should be a state. What do you think? (80 points, 19 comments)
   3. A corrupt Republican lawmaker has just been EXPELLED from the Arizona State Legislature over ethics violations, including some relating to election misinformation. (62 points, 11 comments)
   4. BREAKING: Wall Street Journal drops bombshell, reveals that Elon Musk’s Twitter is now a whopping $13 billion in debt due to Musk’s failed Twitter Blue grift and the wave of advertisers fleeing to “protect their brands” from Twitter’s toxicity. (click for more) (61 points, 16 comments)
   5. Walker’s campaign paid $595,600 to a company called ‘Jetts’ to supposedly charter private planes. However, Fox has learned that ‘Jetts’ is a defunct car wash that was owned by a Walker donor. (54 points, 12 comments)
   6. The stacked Supreme Court… (49 points, 5 comments)
   7. Another war I must’ve missed. (44 points, 14 comments)
   8. MAGA world is sharing this photo claiming 700K migrants are on their way to the US border. This is FALSE. This photo was taken on October 27, 2018, of Honduran migrants in Arriaga, Mexico, heading to the US. Under Trump's presidency. Just another lie from the GOP. (43 points, 7 comments)
   9. JUST IN: Far-right extremist Riley Williams has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and directing a mob toward the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (click for more) (41 points, 5 comments)
   10. Happy Sunday to everyone who knows that no sitting US President has ever attended the coronation of British royalty, so if you're trying to shame President Biden for not doing so, you're a complete dummy... Get a grip. (37 points, 4 comments)
6. 485 points, 17 submissions: Top_Bottle7403
   
   1. This is why every vote matters! (91 points, 18 comments)
   2. Thank you Senator Blumenthal for holding Clarence Thomas accountable — (49 points, 11 comments)
   3. Child labor is making a comeback in Republican-led states. That’s what THEY mean by “progress”. (47 points, 11 comments)
   4. A conservative city council has banned the LGBTQ+ flag from government property in Huntington Beach. Another attempt to marginal LGBTQ+ individuals. But hate cannot be allowed to win. Not in California. Not anywhere. (44 points, 13 comments)
   5. Donald Trump just called Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg "a Racist in Reverse," and claimed that Joe Biden pushed Bragg to prosecute him. He then made a call to “investigate the investigators!” (34 points, 13 comments)
   6. The Southern Baptist Convention decided Tuesday to oust Saddleback Church, the second-largest congregation of the convention, because it has a female pastor (34 points, 6 comments)
   7. I wonder what the MAGA zombies think when Trump says DeSantis is being disloyal. Do they then hate DeSantis? Do they think he’s part of deep state? Or do they think Trump is a senile, old man? There are no policy differences. So, do they weigh which one is owning the libs harder? (29 points, 9 comments)
   8. BREAKING: After taking heat for days trying to handle this on his own with Norfolk Southern and making it much worse, Gov. Mike DeWine finally relents and declares a disaster so he can get federal assistance. (25 points, 3 comments)
   9. Here’s my advice to everyone — like me! — who’s excitedly awaiting Trump’s indictment: Relax, and keep your popcorn ready. 🍿 (20 points, 9 comments)
   10. Good morning and Happy Saturday to everyone who agrees that it's better to be "woke" than to sleepwalk through life acting like a rude, obnoxious, selfish asshole. (18 points, 1 comment)
7. 288 points, 10 submissions: SetMau92
   
   1. Sanders Counters GOP Giveaways With Tax Hike on Estates of UltraWealthy"Over and over again, Republicans in Washington have professed their deep concern about the national debt and yet virtually all of them have signed onto legislation that would provide a $1.8 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires. (43 points, 2 comments)
   2. Senate Finance Chief: Nothing Unites GOP More Than 'Helping Rich People Cheat on Their Taxes' "It's a centerpiece of the ransom Speaker McCarthy has cobbled together as he threatens to trigger a catastrophic default," said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. (43 points, 11 comments)
   3. Audio Reveals Top GOP Lawyer's 2024 Strategy: Make It Harder for College Students to Vote "Instead of fighting for the people or actually earning the votes, Republicans' only plan is to try to 'combat' voting on college campuses," said Rep. Summer Lee. (39 points, 5 comments)
   4. All is not well in Florida... (35 points, 1 comment)
   5. Darn those pesky facts.. (33 points, 4 comments)
   6. Sanders and others Ramp Up 14th Amendment Pressure on Biden to Counter 'Reckless' GOP "Republicans have made it clear that they are prepared to hold our entire economy hostage unless you accede to their demands to reduce the deficit on the backs of working families. That is simply unacceptable." (29 points, 10 comments)
   7. GOP Debt Limit Bill Could Put Over 10 Million at Risk of Losing Medicaid: Analysis "This agenda would narrow opportunity, deepen inequality, and increase hardship," said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (23 points, 2 comments)
   8. GOP Readies 'Shameful' Vote to Oust Omar From House Committee "You cannot remove a member of Congress from a committee simply because you do not agree with their views," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "This is both ludicrous and dangerous." (17 points, 2 comments)
   9. Progressive Young Voters to Biden: Energize Us and Win or Ignore Us and Lose "We need you to deliver the bold ideas that our generation cannot live without—stop the climate crisis, fight for the rights and dignity of immigrants, impose real gun control—and run on a bold platform." (17 points, 4 comments)
   10. Whitewash is to “gloss over or cover up,” (9 points, 1 comment)
8. 125 points, 4 submissions: blixt141
   
   1. Nebraska Republican Says Six-Week Abortion Ban Is Necessary Because White People Are Being Replaced (49 points, 9 comments)
   2. Supreme Court rolls back federal safeguards for wetlands under Clean Water Act (35 points, 13 comments)
   3. Where Things Stand: Biden Shreds McCarthy’s Performative Debt Limit Bill (33 points, 5 comments)
   4. Police: 11 shot, injured during mass shooting at South Carolina park (8 points, 1 comment)
9. 108 points, 5 submissions: Smelly-taint
   
   1. I love how the GOP wants to destroy everything that their own constituents benefit from. (33 points, 7 comments)
   2. Can't think of anything better than a dictator. 🤦🏽‍♂️ (30 points, 9 comments)
   3. Yes! Yes! Yes! (21 points, 28 comments)
   4. Woke? (13 points, 3 comments)
   5. Fuck these Anti Constitutionalist. Attack the Capital then attack my rights. (11 points, 20 comments)
10. 89 points, 6 submissions: Puffin_fan
    
    1. Idaho Republicans Deny Girls Free Tampons in School (28 points, 6 comments)
    2. GOP’s Proposed Expansion Of Work Requirements Targets Low-Income People In Their Early 50s Who Already Work (20 points, 3 comments)
    3. Finland's average electricity price slips into negative territory (14 points, 2 comments)
    4. 'I’m trying not to go into panic.' Review of millions of Medicaid enrollees plagued by error and confusion (10 points, 4 comments)
    5. After Signature Bank Deal, FDIC Is Left With $11 Billion in ‘Toxic Waste’ Loans (9 points, 3 comments)
    6. As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Crossings Force Kids to Crawl Under Trains to Get to School (8 points, 0 comments)

Top Commenters

1. SpukiKitty (2210 points, 453 comments)
2. SqnLdrHarvey (1737 points, 394 comments)
3. In-The-Middle12 (1456 points, 284 comments)
4. Top-Bottle7403 (1301 points, 240 comments)
5. SmylesLee77 (1147 points, 294 comments)
6. ProgressiveDemocrats (1104 points, 204 comments)
7. FarPiano9575 (1090 points, 205 comments)
8. Alternative-Flan2869 (679 points, 178 comments)
9. HillbillyEulogy (588 points, 124 comments)
10. Biishep1230 (533 points, 101 comments)

Top Submissions

1. Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, “Fuck you fascists.” Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like they’ve never seenZ We aren’t forgetting this. by ProgressiveDemocrats (814 points, 309 comments)
2. This was US Marine combat veteran Ruben Gallego as violent MAGA insurrectionists were overrunning the Capitol on January 6th. He gathered fellow Democrats to prepare to fight if necessary. "I would have killed motherfuckers to save this democracy. Fuck those guys." by FarPiano9575 (638 points, 128 comments)
3. President Biden just schooled Republicans by reminding them, “Ronald Reagan was doing the 28% tax rate, you know, that wacko liberal guy." Does anyone else love President Biden’s sense of humor? by ProgressiveDemocrats (122 points, 22 comments)
4. JUST IN: Justin Jones has been voted BACK to the Tennessee State House by the Metro Nashville Council! The Council was responsible for choosing who would fill the seat until the special election, and they voted to select Jones. Right after the vote, Jones embraced the council members. by ProgressiveDemocrats (115 points, 14 comments)
5. Jamie Raskin just destroyed Lauren Boebert with Donald Trump's OWN Words. Rep. Raskin is truly the greatest. by Top-Bottle7403 (113 points, 15 comments)
6. Students from Nashville-area high schools and colleges, including Belmont University and Vanderbilt U, are pouring into downtown Nashville to gather at the Capitol for another rally to call for safe gun laws following last week's mass school shooting. by FarPiano9575 (112 points, 20 comments)
7. If you're randomly posting about World War III on Easter, you don't need to be running for the presidency, you need to run to a mental health provider. by Top-Bottle7403 (99 points, 21 comments)
8. This is why every vote matters! by Top_Bottle7403 (91 points, 18 comments)
9. Holy shit. The former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, just came forward to say he was part of a secret Republican operation that convinced Iran to keep Americans held hostage in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter’s 1980 presidential campaign. (Link to the story in comments below) by ProgressiveDemocrats (84 points, 15 comments)
10. WOW. Absolute power move by Hakeem Jeffries. After Republicans kicked Ilhan Omar off of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Jeffries immediately put her on the House Budget Committee. Republicans messed with the wrong party and person. Rep. Omar won’t be silenced. by ProgressiveDemocrats (82 points, 19 comments)

Top Comments

1. 26 points: KayleighJK's comment in Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, “Fuck you fascists.” Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like they’ve never seenZ We aren’t forgetting this.
2. 23 points: Similar_Candidate789's comment in Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, “Fuck you fascists.” Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like they’ve never seenZ We aren’t forgetting this.
3. 23 points: SpukiKitty's comment in Wow. Students are standing outside the Tennessee House right now and chanting, “Fuck you fascists.” Young people are absolutely pissed off & we are about to give Republicans hell like they’ve never seenZ We aren’t forgetting this.
4. 23 points: brotherstoic's comment in Should we be looking for someone other than Biden?
5. 23 points: moreobviousthings's comment in Holy shit. The former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, just came forward to say he was part of a secret Republican operation that convinced Iran to keep Americans held hostage in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter’s 1980 presidential campaign. (Link to the story in comments below)
6. 22 points: westofme's comment in Alex Jones transferred his assets to his family and friends, evading payments to Sandy Hook families. It should be illegal, but sadly, it's not.
7. 20 points: Explorers_bub's comment in The city of Franklin, Tennessee is voting whether to allow a Pride festival. Someone during public comment says it will result in “a rainbow room where 8-12 year-old kids are given butt plugs & dildos.” --- This is what GOP propaganda is doing.
8. 19 points: ProgressiveDemocrats's comment in Holy shit. The former Lt. Governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, just came forward to say he was part of a secret Republican operation that convinced Iran to keep Americans held hostage in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter’s 1980 presidential campaign. (Link to the story in comments below)
9. 19 points: westofme's comment in Another war I must’ve missed.
10. 18 points: HillbillyEulogy's comment in Please tell me whats wrong with this picture?

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Respect The White Lotus

"All old people know each other. Don't you know that?"

The White Lotus is an ancient and secretive society of scholars and philosophers which transcends the boundaries of the four nations. Drawing inspiration from the White Lotus tile in the game Pai Sho, and using the game to covertly communicate their membership to one another, the White Lotus stayed hidden for many years before revealing themselves during Sozin's Comet and assisting Team Avatar in liberating the world.

Source Key Avatar: The Last Airbender Season & Episode = S#E# The Legend of Korra Season 2 Episode 10 = LoK The Lost Adventures = LA The Promise = TP Smoke & Shadow = S&S Archived Nickelodeon Website = ANW 

Notes:

• All firebending occuring during S3E20 & 21 was enhanced "a hundredfold" by Sozin's Comet
• Relevant scaling: 1.Aang 2.Katara 3.Sokka 4.Toph 5.Zuko 6.Zhao 7.Azula

Iroh, The Dragon Of The West

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."

Iroh was born the eldest son of Fire Lord Azulon and the rightful heir to the throne of the Fire Nation. However, after a long and historic career as a General, Iroh lost his son, retired from the military, and ceded the throne to his younger brother Ozai. He became a dedicated mentor to his nephew Zuko and a Grand Lotus of the Order of the White Lotus.

Physicals

Strength

• Smashes thrown boulders with a lenth of chain, then wraps the chain around one boulder to shatter it on his attackers ^S1E7
• Does situps to begin a workout regime in prison ^S3E4
• Does clapping pushups, and quickly shifts positions when a guard hears him to make it seem as though he were simply senile ^S3E4
• Does handstand pushups ^S3E4
• Eats his meal with one hand while doing pull ups with the other ^S3E4
• During an eclipse that rendered firebenders powerless Iroh busted himself out of prison, his prison bars were broken apart, and he is described as a "one man army" ^S3E11

Durability

• Rolls down a rocky hill barechested and buried under an earthbender's landslide, but suffers no lasting injury ^S1E7
• Knocked down and hurt slightly by an unexpected attack from Toph ^S2E8
• Body checks Azula, who soon after catches him off guard and downs him with a blast of fire that renders him unconscious ^S2E8
  • He recovers not long after, but sustains discomfort from his injury ^S2E9
• Leaps down a higher story to the ground below and lands safely ^S2E20
• Takes several thrown rocks from the Dai Li unhampered ^S2E20

Speed

• Intercepts Zhao attacking Zuko and flings him away ^S1E3
• Throws several attacks at Zhao, and quickly dispatches his four soldiers ^S1E20
• Catches Azula's lightning before she fires it and redirects it into a cliffside it blows a chunk off of, then kicks Azula overboard ^S2E1
• Kicks away a flail thrown at him ^S2E11

Firebending

• Together with Zuko, releases a fireblast that brings down a large chunk of glacier that buries half their ship ^S1E2
• Intercepts Zhao attacking Zuko, blocking Zhao's fire ^S1E3
• Heats a bath for himself with steam from his nose, making the water steam up the surrounding area ^S1E7
• Issues steam from his nose that makes his shackles red hot, then kicks out a fireblast while shackled that startles his guards' mounts ^S1E7
• Throws several attacks at Zhao, and quickly dispatches his four soldiers ^S1E20
• Takes down several of Azula's men with a combination of firebending and hand-to-hand ^S2E1
• Breathes fire in a circle around himself, using it to fend of Dai Li agents he escapes ^S2E20
• Holds a flame in his hand for light, and extinguishes it when he no longer needs it ^S2E20
• Releases large blasts of flame that hold Azula, Zuko, and the Dai Li at bay until Katara and Aang escape ^S2E20
• Uses comet enhancement to release a charged blast of fire that destroys a section of Ba Sing Se's outer wall ^S3E20
• Burns the Fire Nation flag off a Ba Sing Se Wall ^S3E21
• Lights a spear aflame before the spearman can throw it ^S&S

Lightning

• Generation
  • Speaks to the philosophy and technique behind lightningbending, saying it requires peace of mind ^S2E9
  • Creates a bolt of lightning as a demonstration ^S2E9
  • Blasts a hole in a wall with lightning while fleeing the Dai Li ^S2E20
• Redirection
  • Redirects natural lightning ^S1E12
  • Catches Azula's lightning before she fires it and redirects it into a cliffside it blows a chunk off of, then kicks Azula off the ship they are on ^S2E1
  • Developed the art of redirecting lightning by studying other bending styles and says he came up with it by himself ^S2E9
  • Explains the technique behind redirecting lightning, saying it is crucial to redirect it correctly or else risk death ^S2E9

Skill

Tactics

• The only person in history to pierce Ba Sing Se's outer wall ^ANW
  • The damage done to the wall during his siege is visible here ^S2E7
• Uses the story of his 600 day siege on Ba Sing Se to segue into a ruse that leaves behind a clue of his capture ^S1E7
• Tricks guards into touching his shackles Iroh uses to burn them, briefly escaping capture and leaving further evidence of his trail ^S1E7
• Bound by Dai Li pinning his limbs with crystals, but somehow escaped soon after ^S2E20
• Exercises in secret while convincing the guards he is senile so that he can break out later during an eclipse when they are powerless ^S3E4&11

Combat

• Wraps his chains around an earthbenders' ankles to pull them over mid-attack, burying them under their own stones ^S1E7
• Separates Zuko and a pirate in the midst of their fighting to talk sense into them ^S1E9
• Throws several attacks at Zhao, and quickly dispatches his four soldiers ^S1E20
• Takes out several of Azula's guardsmen in hand-to-hand before taking down several more with a combination of firebending and hand-to-hand ^S2E1
• Kicks away a flails so its chain wraps around a precise spot ^S2E11
• Disarms a mugger and steals his knife, then corrects his stance ^S2E15
• Says that he is not sure he could defeat his brother Ozai ^S3E19

Spirituality

• Sees a spirit that nobody else can ^S1E7
• Can sense some of the Moon Spirit's life in Yue ^S1E20
• Chose to leave his body to live out his afterlife in the Spirit World ^LoK

Invention

• Developed the art of redirecting lightning by studying other bending styles and says he came up with it by himself ^S2E9
• Invented bubble tea ^TP

King Bumi, The Mad Genius

"I didn't know what or when, but I knew I'd know it when I knew it!"

Bumi was the King of Omashu and an old friend of Avatar Aang's. 112 years old by the time Team Avatar meets him, Bumi remained physically fit and referred to himself as the greatest earthbender in the world. A master of "neutral jing," Bumi's specialty was in patient opportunism, waiting for the right moment to attack and then unleashing immensely powerful earthbending at his opponent. Aang also considered him a "mad genius" for his idiosyncratic behavior and unique perspective.
Physicals

• Is 112 years old ^ANW
• Shrugs off Aang throwing him back with an air blast ^S1E5
• Quickly defends himself with earthbending from his own attacks, reducing one boulder to sand around him and splitting another in half ^S1E5

Mobility

• Leaps across a significant distance himself ^S1E5
• Burrows down through the ground and up to a higher level in moments ^S1E5
• Rides along a wave of earth and uses it to enhance his jump ^S3E19
• Carries he and his allies on a charging mesa before leaping off it ^S3E20

Throwing

• Hits Aang with an earth attack that flings him a distance away ^S1E5
• Throws several rocks at Aang, using one to collapse the ceiling above Aang after he avoided Bumi's direct projectiles ^S1E5
• Pulls a large boulder from behind Aang and rips out a chunk of the surrounding room to throw it, then levitates a boulder above him for another attack ^S1E5
• Raises a section of earth as large as a building, using it to push a building aside before launching several buildings into the air ^S3E19
• Pulls out columns of earth that fling away attackers approaching form behind, then fires the columns a vast distance away to make a smiley face before toppling over a giant metal statue ^S3E19
• Blocks comet-enhanced fireblasts with a wall of stone, plugs the canons with fired boulders, and stacks tanks atop eachother by launching them into the air with columns of earth ^S3E21

Utility

• Kicks up several jutting rocks to impede Aang's progress toward him, then raises a shield to block Aang's attack before launching several more attacks of his own ^S1E5
• Turns the ground beneath Aang to quicksand and tries to smash Aang between two large rocks ^S1E5
• Pulls apart rock candy and catches a shard ^S1E5
  • It's clarified that this is crystalline and "pure rock candy" ^ANW

Skill

• Called a mad genius as a child, demonstrating an ability to look at familiar surroundings in unconventional ways ^S1E5
• Using only his chin he raises a column of rock that blocks Azula's charged attack, then raises another that to stand his coffin upright ^S2E3
• Uses only his chin he pushes his own coffin up a slide with a moving mound of rock ^S2E3
• Using only his chin he pulls rocks toward him with enough force to crush his metal coffin apart and free himself ^S3E19
• After freeing himself Bumi liberates Omashu from the Fire Nation during the few minutes their firebenders were powerless ^S3E19
• Fought Toph to a draw, with their clash tearing out chunks of mountainside, although neither combatant fought with intent to injure their opponent ^LA

Master Pakku

"You want to learn to fight so bad? Study closely!"

Pakku was the leader of the Northern Water Tribe's waterbenders and preeminent among them, teaching their benders and commanding their military forces. Initially a conservative man with a strict policy against teaching women, Pakku came to make an exception for his ex-fiance's granddaughter Katara and overturned the tradition.
Pakku was a central figure in the attempted siege of the Northern Water Tribe and was at one time the greatest waterbender on the planet, but retired to the Southern Water Tribe where he rekindled his romance with his fiance and settled down teaching waterbending students there.
Physicals

• Takes a water whip to the back of the head from Katara ^S1E18
• Evades Katara's attack, surfing and sliding around the battlefield with agility ^S1E18
• Evades Katara's jabs before washing her a distance away with water ^S1E18
• Deflects and evades Katara's icy projectiles ^S1E18
• Takes out several groups of soldiers surrounding him while evading their fireblasts ^S1E20

Waterbending

• Puts on a performance with his students, swirling large masses of water through the air in tandem ^S1E18
• Washes away Aang with a wave of water ^S1E18
• Stirs his soup with waterbending while teaching Aang ^S1E18
• Pulls in two pools of water that wash Katara away from him to start their duel ^S1E18
• Encircles Katara and himself in water during their duel, limiting their combat zone ^S1E18
• Evades Katara's jabs before washing her a distance away with water ^S1E18
• Overpowers Katara with a wave of water ^S1E18
• Slices apart 3 tanks in quick succession ^S1E20
• Rides atop a water spout he creates that helps him evade attacks, expanding it out for a radial attack ^S1E20

Icebending

• Steals away water Katara is bending and turns it to icicles that embed in the ice around him ^S1E18
• Practices manipulating a blob of water, then raises a chair from the ice beneath him ^S1E18
• Creates a large shield of ice he then converts into a watery attack ^S1E18
• Evades Katara's attack, surfing and sliding around the battlefield with agility ^S1E18
• Turns falling columns of ice into a harmless snowy powder ^S1E18
• Rains down spears of ice that pin Katara's limbs together, trapping her in place ^S1E18
• Melts away Katara's icy bonds with barely any motion ^S1E18
• Sinks 8 men into ice before dodging a fireblast from behind him ^S1E20
• Encases several spearmen attacking him from behind in ice simultaneously ^S1E20
• Turns a large encasing of ice to water to free a student ^S1E19
• Together with others he commands Pakku raises a large spike of ice to catch firebending artillery ^S1E19

Skill

• Is the best waterbender in the world ^ANW
• Single handedly incapacitates groups of Fire Nation soldiers in quick succession ^S1E20
• Bends a wave of water over Ba Sing Se's wall for he and his allies to slide along, then reforms it into a shield to defend them ^S3E20
• Combines an attack with Jeong Jeong's flame to create a wall of steam ^LA

Jeong Jeong, The Deserter

"Fire is a horrible burden to bear. Its nature is to consume. And without control, it destroys everything around it. Learn restraint or risk destroying yourself and everything you love."

Jeong Jeong was once an esteemed Admiral of the Fire Nation Navy, but he became disillusioned by the cruelty and destruction of his nation over time. Training students like Zhao who relished in the power of such destruction only further disgusted Jeong Jeong, and he became the first person to ever abandon the Fire Nation military and live to tell the tale, earning his nickname as he moved from village to village followed by a loyal tribe of companions.
Jeong Jeong was one of the greatest firebenders of his time. He repeatedly emphasized the virtue of control and exemplified that quality in his bending. His style largely depended on defensive moves and emphasized extremely powerful yet finely controlled walls of flame.
Skill

• Considered a firebending prodigy as a child, and a master by his teenage years ^ANW
• Referred to as a living legend, a firebending genius, and the first person to desert the Fire Nation military an live ^S1E16
• Catches a falling leaf without looking at it, and burns a hole in its center ^S1E16
• Combines an attack with Pakku's water to create a wall of steam ^LA

Firebending

• Blocks a blast of fire ^S1E16
• Raises a massive fire wall that closes halts the passage of ships down a river, then lowers it shortly after Zhao passes through ^S1E16
• Creates a fire shield that guards against several firebending attacks, and seemingly vanishes from enemies surrounding him ^S1E16
• Ambushes Toph, Zuko, Katara, and Sokka and surrounds them in a ring of flame ^S3E19
• While comet-enhanced, blocks large fireblasts with a massive column of flame he sends down sections of Ba Sing Se that pushes tanks into piles, all while hovering midair ^S3E20

Master Piandao

"The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all."

Piandao was abandoned at an early age for being born a nonbender, and dedicated his life not only to becoming the world's foremost swordsman but a student of philosophy and art from every nation. Piandao retired from the Fire Nation military to live a quiet life as a noble member of the citizenry, turning away most of the students who came to him for teaching. Eventually he accepted Sokka as a student, and later assisted in the liberation of Ba Sing Se.
Strength

• Pushes Sokka a considerable distance back during their duel ^S3E4
• His sword gouges into stone and when Sokka steps on its blade he launches Sokka off of it ^S3E4

Speed

• Draws on Sokka, who narrowly evades, and clashes with him ^S3E4
• Swiftly cuts through bamboo sprung at him and runs and outpaces Sokka during their duel ^S3E4
• Sheathes Sokka's sword impossibly fast and this is not a continuity error ^S3E4
• Deflects a piece of rock from Toph and Bumi's duel ^LA

Skill

• The greatest sword master and sword maker in Fire Nation history, and once defeated 100 Fire Nation soldiers in combat ^ANW
• Explains the philosophy behind swordsmanship ^S3E4
• Trained Zuko in swordsmanship ^LA
• Guides Sokka through picking the proper steel for his sword ^S3E4
• Spars with Sokka, pushing his student to rely on wits and agility to survive before ultimately prevailing despite being blinded by dirt ^S3E4
• Catches his sheath on his sword blade perfectly despite being blind ^S3E4
• Slides down a wave of ice Pakku creates and chops aparts the spears of Fire Nation soldiers ^S3E20

The weeks leading up to the 17th Hunger Games were especially eventful as the Capital was still reeling from the previous year’s spectacular games. Sherpa Kapoor, with the help of his lion friends, had proven himself to be the most popular tribute in Hunger Games history since Ashley Chen (victor of the 13th Hunger Games)’s revenge plot. The Capital was kept satisfied with reruns as well as the continuing increasing sales of 16th HG merchandise. This consisted of Kapoor Pride plushies, replica gaffi sticks, and the most sought-after item: the latest in the line of Panem Champion Funko Pop. Every year, a new action figure is made for the latest victor of the Hunger Games. It was the most popular collectible in the Capital. In fact, since the Golden Victors concept was introduced, a new line of Funko Pop was released, separating the first ten victors (called the First Champions) and the Golden Victors by changing the color of the clothes and weapons to gold.
Hunger Games mania had started once more a week before the reaping cycle. Artemis Radcliffe interviewed Head Gamemaker Grimstone on her morning show Good Morning Panem, expressing relief that the Sherpa craze had died down. Grimstone responded that that kind of excitement was the nature of the Golden Victors and he hoped he would be able to replicate that level of success. However, he did admit it was up to the tributes to decide that. As usual, Artemis pushed for details only to receive tight lips from the gamemaker. She responded to herself, telling the audience she'll never learn the futility of getting spoilers from a gamemaker.
A week later, Sherpa had to put his restaurant endeavors on hold as he was called for the reaping tour. His entourage consisted of his brother Zacharie, Cassandra (his mentor), and surviving Kapoor Pride member Parth. After a depressing reaping at his home district, Cassandra had to separate from the group to take care of the first half of mentoring his tributes Mishti and Horace. So, Troy van Stomm (victor of the 5th Hunger Games) volunteered to tag along, mostly in hopes to become Sherpa’s friend. A notable incident happened during the District 8 reaping, when the younger brother of Asaad (D8 tribute of 16th games who was killed by Sherpa), Burlap, was reaped and attempted to assault Sherpa on the stage. Parth tackled him to the ground but was stopped by Sherpa before he could injure him further.
After witnessing the reaping games of District 2 sire Nikita and Andrei, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 6. He was given a tour by Mayor Bengtsson and District 6’s only victor Phoebe Bentley. They introduced to Sherpa a recently completed construction project, the Luxury Viking Cruise. This week-long cruise trip would sail the seas of Districts 4 and 6, even granting a tour of the Faroe Island Base. Despite being a victor for nearly a year, Sherpa was shocked by the fancy architecture and opulence. The remainder of the tour was a bit of a downer, Sherpa seeing firsthand the combined effects of poverty and the warmweed epidemic. His spirits were lifted when Phoebe enthusiastically showed him the Kento Rehabilitation Center. Both Sherpa and Troy decided to inject some of their money into the community, buying a variety of the local liquors outside of the Johnson Jazzy Juices brand. During lunch, Phoebe introduced them to her husband, local piloting legend Jackson Williams, and her “arena baby” Mirabelle. Sherpa allowed Mirabelle to pet Parth while he asked Jackson some piloting questions.
After lunch, everyone headed over to the reaping square where he was greeted by the mayor. He chatted for about ten minutes as the oil and vomit stained amber clad youths filed into the enclosure, the process taking longer as peacekeepers had to round up inebriated youths who tried to ditch the process. Sherpa made his victor’s speech more lively, bringing up his restaurant business and performing a couple tricks with Parth. Some of the youths enjoyed the show and applauded him. After his speech, Phoebe urged him to pull out the first name from the female reaping bowl. Sherpa took a deep breath and shoved his hand in the bowl. He unfolded the paper and announced eighteen year old Catilina "Cat" Verter as tribute.
Cat was a tall medium built woman with ginger curls and round glasses and was known as one of the assistant instructors at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre, so she knew District 6’s sole victor Phoebe Bentley quite well. Phoebe apparently was funding Cat's scholarship to become a licensed therapist. Phoebe put her hand over her mouth in shock when Cat’s name was called. Cat walked up to the stage, with a tightness in her chest and tears streaming down her face. She shook hands with Sherpa and said his pet lion was cute. She turned towards the cameras, forcing a smile in an attempt to convince Capital audiences she wasn’t unhappy with her situation. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis fell for the fake smile, commenting how she must be excited to represent her district. Her co-commentator Capricorn Luther rolled his eyes in annoyance and told her to just keep watching.
Sherpa walked over to the male reaping bowl, feeling slight relief the first wasn’t a drugged out zombie. He shuffled to the male reaping bowl and pulled out the name of fifteen year old Jackknife "Jack" Clutch. Cameras found Jack in the middle of the horde of inebriated youth. Jack was a short brown haired lad who was ragged looking from head to toe due to a recent warmweed binge. Despite this, he was less skinny and pale looking than his peers to the surprise of Artemis and Luther. Luther pulled some notes and revealed Jack had managed to stay sober for 10 months, recently relapsing after the Good Morning Panem interview. He read further and discovered that Jack was one of the young refinery workers in one of the hovercraft warehouses. Artemis read the remainder of the notes and found it interesting to hear he was imprisoned four months ago after getting caught trying to smuggle warmweed across the Orkney Stretch, a stretch of water fashioned as an aquatic border separating the two districts. Despite the previous soberness, he was in too much of a trance to notice being reaped and was dragged to the stage by peacekeepers. He limply shook hands with Sherpa and absentmindedly walked into Parth before finding his place to the left of the stage. Mayor Bengtsson indifferently congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to their waiting rooms. Phoebe dismissed herself to the hoverjet, kissing her husband and Mirabelle goodbye. Sherpa and his entourage also left for their next stop in the reaping tour: District 4.
Cat was visited by her older brother Tank and a coworker Pedal. The Juicy Tidbits podcast disclosed that her mother had passed away two years ago and her father was passed out drunk at the Kjellberg Brewery. The group embraced and shared in the sorrowful moment. Tank and Pedal tried to cram as much advice as they could into the session, but Cat was feeling overwhelmed. She assured them she had a great mentor who would surely help her win. Cat told Tank to sell her belongings and drew a map to the location of her pocketed earnings and her will. She thanked him for always being there and becoming sober for her. She turned to Pedal and thanked him for being her best friend, regretting never asking him out. She asked Pedal to take care of her patients, attempting to make a list of important details. However, the peacekeepers arrived before she could finish and escorted her to the hoverjet.
Meanwhile, Jack was visited by Tyre, his only friend who was one of the few who managed to stay sober during the sudden uptake of drugs and alcohol at reaping week. She consoled him as he began to cry and reassured his other friends would come if they weren't also high. Jack claimed to not care about them, but instead expressed disappointment in his parents for not coming. Tyre assured him that she believed in him. Jack shrugged and said, “At least I’ll die knowing I had one friend.” Tyre responded with “If that nervous wreck Oslo could make it as far as he did, then I'm sure you can get that little bit extra and win." She kissed him on the lips before giving him a final embrace, promising a surprised Jack that she would wait for him. Jack then made her promise that if he doesn’t make it to not wait so long to find someone else. The peacekeepers arrived and brought him to the hoverjet.
When Jack and Cat got on the hovercraft, Phoebe was already waiting at the dining table. She asked Jack to hand over any contraband warmweed he may have before they got started. He initially refused, arguing that he would need them to not break down during training. Cat reminded him that his best chance at winning would be staying sober, recalling Phoebe telling her about last year’s tributes ruining their pregames chances due to them being high. She offered to help him stay calm during the following events, bringing up her training in therapy. This seemed to persuade him to hand over the warmweed he kept in his pocket. Little did they know, he was secretly concealing a teeny fraction in the sole of his shoe. The group spent the next few hours discussing strategy. As opposed to most mentors, who would explain the upcoming events before having them watch previous games, Phoebe crafted a presentation with a slide show. The slideshow touched on the topics of the pregame events, finding water sources, creating makeshift weapons and making and handling alliances. In previous years, Phoebe used pictures and videos from previous games but this year she replaced them with stop motion animation and drawings depicting the scenarios.
When the presentation was over, Phoebe asked her tributes to tell her what their strategy for training would be. Cat was the first to answer, detailing how she would use her time to learn survival skills. However, she was indecisive on what weapon to choose. Jack, on the other hand, decided he would learn to use a knife and try his hand at camouflage. Phoebe appeared satisfied with their initial answers and instructed them to mull over their indecision. She gave them the time of noon tomorrow to come to her with their final decision. Phoebe attempted to retire her tributes to their quarters, but Jack asked if he could watch her games. Phoebe was taken aback by this. She was about to refuse, but Cat expressed her desire to see it as well. Phoebe relented and turned on the 3rd Hunger Games. While watching, Jack commended the swordsmanship of Kento (the D3 tribute and Mirabelle’s biological father) before considering practicing with a sword instead. Cat repeated the praise while condemning Carson (Phoebe’s district partner)’s brutality, even going as far as comparing him to one of the unruly patients in the mental asylum ward at the Kento Rehabilitation Centre. She turned to hear Phoebe’s thoughts, but saw her tearfully struggling to refrain herself from grabbing a bottle of whiskey. Cat rushed to her and put the bottle down, embracing her as she cried. She ordered Jack to turn off the games, which he did after seeing the climactic battle between her and Carson. Phoebe eventually calmed down and ordered her tributes to bed for the night. Night cameras showed that Cat did some light reading on a book about lizards and amphibians she found before sleeping. Meanwhile, Jack mulled over whether or not he should consume his contraband. He ultimately decided to ask the peacekeeper outside his door to bring him a strong tasting but nonalcoholic drink. He learned from him that all of the drinks in the District 6 apartment were nonalcoholic, leading him to accept a lemon vodka.
The next morning, the tributes woke up to a light breakfast and were asked to clean up quickly and select clothes provided in their wardrobes. This became a tradition Phoebe picked up for her tributes after Jase Toliver tried it for the District 8 tributes of the 2nd Quinquennial Quell (15th Hunger Games). The tradition became handy that year as the Capital was going through a heat wave. Due to being farther north and experiencing the harshest winters of Panem, District 6 wasn’t used to the warmer climate. This was brought up when Jack opened one of the windows, which blew a humid draft in. Phoebe instructed them to dress for the heat, Cat choosing a V neck tank top with cutoff denim shorts while Jack wore a henley shirt with board shorts.
The tributes were greeted by a respectable sized crowd despite being on the lower end of the visitation numbers. District 6 usually ended up with the second or third lowest turnout. depending on the sobriety of their tributes with this year having the fifth lowest turnout. Many of the crowd members flocked to Phoebe, either calling her by name or as “The Philosopher”. Many asked how Mirabelle was doing, knowing she turned thirteen not long ago. Phoebe graciously answered their questions, but urged them to meet her tributes. Jack took surprisingly well to the crowd, shaking hands with people his age and charming an elderly woman with flattery. She pinched his cheeks, telling him how adorable he was and promising to sponsor him if he keeps it up. Cat was nervous at first, but the people skills she learned from her job quickly took over. She gave pleasantries and charmed the crowds with her manners. She even managed to convince a few Captalites to open up about their personal lives so she could get them to relate to her. Jack walked over to her while she was advising a certain young man to tell his crush how he felt. Jack put his arm around her shoulder and assured them she could be everyone’s shrink if she could. Cat piggybacked off this, declaring that they would be missing out if they didn’t sponsor them. When Phoebe finally managed to escape the paparazzi, she ushered her tributes into the limousine. Phoebe thanked them for behaving and making a good impression. Cat commended Jack’s people skills, wondering where they were before. Jack simply stated he realized the gravity of the situation while he was dressing and decided to do his best to make it home to his friend Tyre.
When the group arrived at the apartment, they were greeted by this year’s stylist Sasha Grasseed. Phoebe became annoyed upon recognizing her. It was rumored that Sasha had only achieved her position by sleeping with pregame event organizer Dermont Toolly. Cat and Jack attempted to introduce themselves, but Sasha cut them off. She claimed to be on a tight schedule and barked at them to stand in place for their measurements. She then ordered her assistant Morrana Cloudveil to do the measurements. Phoebe questioned if having an assistant was allowed, but Sasha brushed this off claiming it made things easier. Phoebe mumbled to herself, “Yeah because everything comes easy for you.” The Juicy Tidbits podcast had a five-minute discussion over this particular comment, wondering if there was unspoken beef between the two. Phoebe asked to see some of the design, but Sasha said she already decided on a mechanic outfit covered in nails. Phoebe tried to speak again but was rudely interrupted. An exasperated Sasha growled that her design was final, and she was going to leave to get started and to "find an actual drink".
By the time she left, Morrana apologized for Sasha's behavior and remarked that she tried to tell her she was thinking of the nuts, bolts and nails used for construction. Phoebe said that it was fine and suggested to her tributes to try and play into the peculiar nature of the designs. Jack asked what her problem was, calling her a “high strung bitch queen”. Cat suggested Sasha thought the position was above her talents and only accepted to hopefully win the title of Blanco Fashion Magazine’s Best Dressed. Phoebe considered the theory plausible and suggested they throw Sasha under the bus in interviews if the parade doesn’t work out. Morrana agreed, explaining that the only way to bring down a stylist is if they screw up and enough people talk about it. Cat and Jack promised to do so. Phoebe decided to turn on replays of the reapings and advised her tributes to study their opponents.
Immediately after leaving District 6, Sherpa and his entourage arrived in District 4. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis and Luther revealed that District 4 was also going through a heat wave, which forced the refrigeration system to work overtime to protect the latest catch and produce. Three freezer boxes, two containing salmon and one squid, had to be emptied and their contents disposed of when the insulation failed. As Mayor Phillip gave Sherpa a tour, people would stop and stare at Parth as he trailed along. Little kids ran up and asked to pet him, to which Sherpa happily obliged. Sherpa showed much interest in District 4’s naval and fishing industry, especially the latter. Much to Sherpa's dismay, especially after seeing mass poverty across the other districts, he complained about some of the fish being thrown away despite still being good to eat. He claimed that some citizens across Panem would be willing to eat it, buying some various fillets on the spot. He did a cooking demonstration for Mayor Phillip, creating sushi with salmon and serving it as their lunch.
On their way to the reaping square, they stopped to pick up District 4’s victor Gill Henderson at the Slippery Shell, the most popular pub in District 4 where Dolph Masterson (ally to Bacchus Johnson of the 9th Hunger Games) dreamed of the many cocktails now sold under the Johnson’s Jazzy Juices brand. When they arrived at the reaping square, the blue clad potential tributes were already lined up and waiting. Sherpa noticed that the majority looked unfazed due to District 4 generally performing quite well, many holding onto the hope of their next victor coming very soon. So much so that the district had the honour of having the Capital’s third fan group, the Buccaneers, always ready to support them.
Sherpa gave a pre-translated speech that he read very well due to improvements in his English. He asked the women if they had any volunteers. Receiving no reply, he stepped towards the female reaping bowl. He pulled out the name of fourteen year old Pearl Riverstone. Cameras zoomed in on a short tanned girl with dirty blonde pigtails wearing a sky blue skirt and white shirt. Pearl loudly cried over her name being called and begged anyone to volunteer for her. As she sombered forward, protests were heard across the crowd. Luther pulled up a note card and revealed that Pearl's parents ran one of the many pubs across District 4. Her family’s pub The Brine was one of the more popular amongst working class people, attendance sometimes rivalling the Slippery Shell. Pearl would normally be found waiting tables at The Brine or playing with her friends on the riverwalk. Sherpa felt sorry for the girl and forgoed the hand shaking in place of letting her hug Parth. Pearl thanked Sherpa and proceeded to take her place to the right of the stage.
Sherpa took a deep breath and reiterated the volunteer question to the men. He again received no reply and went towards the male reaping bowl. He pulled a name from the bottom and pulled it out, nearly dropping it when a gust of wind blew through. He read the name of eighteen year old Mortimer Beckett. Many members in the enclosures and outside audiences began whispering amongst themselves. Gill Henderson appeared surprised, clueing Capital viewers that he was familiar with him. In the commentator’s booth, Artemis urged the cameras to find this person, wondering what made him so known. Cameras circled around the area for a moment until spotting a muscled man with sunkissed brown wavy hair and hazel green eyes. The most interesting thing about him was the shackles on his hands and being accompanied by two peacekeepers.
Mortimer cursed to himself upon hearing his name and grumbled to his guards to get it over with. While he shuffled to the stage, Luther pulled some notes together. He revealed to the audience that Mortimer was a shiphand who worked on the same dock Gill Henderson manages. The chains were as a precaution as two weeks ago, Mortimer was caught smuggling a small supply of warmweed and District 6 professor Tobias Stephens into District 4’s waters. Tobias was seeking asylum in District 4 and was given a fake ID, but was caught hours after landing. He was executed in District 4’s town square. Artemis thought he looked handsome and wanted to see the muscles underneath his thin white undershirt. She was confused by the black eyeliner encompassing his right eye, wondering if he tried to paint a tattoo there. She also swore she could see something blue etched into his skin, wondering if he had a back tattoo. Mortimer didn’t want to shake Sherpa’s hand, but was intimidated by Parth’s cold black eyes and relented. Mayor Phillip congratulated this year’s tributes before dismissing them to the waiting rooms in the Town Centre.
Pearl was visited by both parents and her older sister Henrietta. Pearl couldn’t stop crying, her parents trying her best to calm her down. It was eventually Henrietta that temporarily ceased her hysterics. She asked her little sister to listen to her mentor and try her best. She implied she could remind Gill of the district partner he lost in his games and get extra attention. Pearl asked, “What about my partner? He could protect me.” Henrietta’s face furrowed into a frown. She insisted she not trust him, claiming he would only look out for himself like he always did. Pearl lamented that she couldn’t possibly win and was scared. Her mother assured her that a fourteen year old girl from District 7 won before, reminding her of Vixen Furtherson (victor of the 14th Hunger Games). Pearl asked if they thought she could have the chance to meet her, to which the parents thought she would. The four had a final embrace before peacekeepers arrived. Pearl resumed her hysterics the second the first peacekeeper grabbed her and she cried as she was dragged to the Speedy Submarine.
Meanwhile, Mortimer was initially all alone in his room. He was pacing back and forth, a couple tears falling from his eyes. Suddenly, the door opened and his girlfriend Meridia Vilewater entered. She embraced him and apologised for not coming sooner. Mortimer said it was alright, simply glad someone showed up. Meridia said, “I’m sorry your father couldn’t make it. I promise to look after him.” Mortimer thanked her and expressed how grateful he was for her being there when the entire town wasn’t. He joked how her father didn’t have to worry about him poking around anymore, but Meridia began to tear up upon hearing this. He apologised and assured her he would try his best to win and not only bring honour to the district, but possibly help his father. He then snarkily said, “Who knows? Maybe your dad will accept me?” Meridia betted he would and gave him a final embrace, knowing their time was short. Mortimer whispered to her the location of his secret stash of “medicine” before being dragged out of the room and to the Speedy Submarine.
Pearl and Mortimer found themselves in the lounge area. Pearl nervously sat on the couch and waited for their mentor to show. Mortimer gave her a stare before silently resigning himself to the bar. He was downing a Woeful Whiskful cocktail from Johnson’s Jazzy Juices when their mentor Gill Henderson entered the room. He gave a momentary glance to Mortimer before introducing himself to Pearl. Pearl claimed to know him from his shanty performance during the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration at The Brine. Gill appreciated the sentiment before diverting the conversation. He point-blankedly asked what skills she had. She shrugged and simply stated she was a waitress. Gill pondered over this and asked how many orders she handled on average. Pearl answered she would normally keep track of the orders of 4-5 tables simultaneously, even recalling a day she juggled eight tables at once. Gill explained she was an effective communicator and a multitasker, two skills that could prove crucial to her survival. He caught her nervously glancing at the despondent Mortimer sitting on the barstool. Gill walked over to him and greeted him. Pearl asked if he knew him, to which Gill confirmed. Mortimer dejectedly stated that everyone knew him and that he was infamous. Gill argued that he didn’t help himself with the image he projected and asked what his father would think. Mortimer snapped that he didn’t know anything and to drop it. The tone in his voice scared Pearl, but Mortimer was kind enough to apologise to her for his outburst.
Gill took this opportunity to give them the routine rundown of the events to come. He recommended they devise ways to get the Capital to like them, reminding them of the importance of sponsors. Gill looked down at Pearl and said she was adorable and could use that. Pearl decided to better improve her look to play into the cute persona. Gill turned to Mortimer, who was still sipping from his glass but paying close attention. Gill said that his criminal record and standoffish attitude wouldn’t help matters, suggesting he lighten up. He also explained that he knew some of his stories that could be used as sob stories for the audience. Mortimer claimed those to be private. He grumbled that he didn’t need any help before resigning himself to the training room. Gill hollered back to at least consider using his strength as an asset. Pearl asked what his deal was, claiming to have only heard the story of him smuggling “the professor from 6’ in. Gill sighed and asked her to sit down. He decided to disclose that Mortimer’s mother abandoned him and his disabled father when he was six, leaving him to become man of the house. He had some traumatic experiences with a few of District 4’s bad apples and had trust issues, enough to turn away those who genuinely wanted to help, including Alexander Riverstone. Pearl, hearing her father’s name dropped, wanted to know more, but Gill decided it was a story for another time. He instead called the dinner cart in and turned on the TV. He turned on the 13th and 14th Hunger Games, both erecting Ashley Chen and Vixen Furtherson, the youngest victors in history. Gill asked Pearl to take notes on their performances in hopes of settling on a strategy.
While she took notes, Gill visited the training room and approached Mortimer who was lifting weights. Gill notified him of the dinner cart and pleaded with him to join them. Mortimer relented and dropped his weight. Before they entered the lounge area, Gill put a hand on Mortimer’s shoulder and told him there was no shame in wanting to talk as he didn’t want him to die in the arena with things remaining unsaid. Mortimer hesitated before wordlessly filling his plate. He brought his plate to the couch and began watching the finale of the 14th games with Pearl. When the games ended, Pearl got up to make her plate while Mortimer turned on Gill’s games and made notes of his own. Pearl sat down to watch and chuckled at the iconic “Bye Felicia” tagline but averted her eyes when Gill’s district partner Angel was killed. When the finale showdown between Gill and Furler (D12 male tribute) came up, Mortimer paid close attention. Pearl asked if he was studying his trident fighting style to which he confirmed, stating his desire to practise the trident. After dinner, Gill broke into song and began improvising a sea shanty. Pearl began to dance to the melody while Mortimer nodded his head and slipped a smile in. Gill sent his tributes to bed and spent an extra few minutes at the bar, drinking a Huma Hurricane.
The next morning, the Speedy Submarine arrived at the Darius Dock on the Capital docks. Gill ordered his tributes to brush their hair and teeth as well as put on nice clothes. He even loaned his aftershave to Mortimer when there wasn’t any found in his room. Gill inspected them head to toe and reminded them to make an impression, telling Pearl to stay adorable and Mortimer to lighten up. The hatch opened and the three were bombarded with the cheers of adoring Buccaneers (avid fans of District 4). While most of the attendees swarmed around this year’s tributes, there was a small zealous group who called for the Brotherly Sailor, asking him to sing. Gill refrained from doing so, knowing it would take away attention from his mentees. Pearl played into her cuteness, flashing big smiles and waving her hands. She took pictures with many of the young girls, some even asking to touch her pigtails. One blushing boy walked up with a golden tiara and asked to put it on her head. She nodded and bowed, letting him place the tiara on her head. She thanked her “prince charming”, telling him she will go on a date with him if she wins.
Meanwhile, Mortimer didn’t say much but received much attention regardless. He took pictures with many of the teens in the crowds, one even giving him a prop trident to pose with. He also allowed the girls to squeeze his biceps and fawn over his wavy hair. Mortimer was beginning to feel annoyed and tried to find an excuse to step away. It came to a head when one eager girl asked if he had a girlfriend. He wretched himself away from the girls’ grasp, but another girl still had a hold of his shirt. The shirt tore to shreds in her hands, exposing the massive back tattoo on his back. Cameras got a close look at the illustration of the fabled Kraken inked onto the majority of his back, some of its tentacles stretching up his neck and around his chest. This unexpected turn of events becomes its own fiasco with more girls putting their hands all over his back. Pearl pushed some of the girls away and took pictures with the Kraken. Gill noticed this and quickly ushered his tributes to the limousine.
The three arrived at their apartment to see their stylist Minerva Panson waiting for them. Minerva was a tattoo artist who applied for the position of Hunger Games stylist to expand her business. This was Minerva’s second year as a stylist, having been District 11’s stylist the previous year. She greeted Gill and his tributes, excited to talk parade costumes with them. She knelt down and told Pearl how adorable she was, pinching her cheeks. She stood up and was slightly put off by Mortimer, who still felt humiliated by what happened at the parade. Minerva said she loved his tattoo, but it needed some polishing. Mortimer grunted a thanks and went into his room to find a shirt. Pearl was excited to see what outfit she had planned, begging to see her sketchbook. Minerva flipped through the pages with Gill, pointing out her favourites. Gill asked about her most recent sketch of an underwater king and mermaid costume. Minerva explained that she was inspired after a recent tattoo she gave a Buccaneer and the idea was reinforced by Mortimer’s Kraken tattoo. Pearl liked her mermaid outfit and asked if she could have her hair wet.
Mortimer came back in to see their final decision. Minerva said he would have to showcase his tattoo some more to go with her costume idea, revealing that it went viral on the Capital Internet. Mortimer was against it at first, but relented when Minerva offered to polish it and add a new one of his choosing at the ends of the tentacles on his chest. Interested, he agreed. She wondered aloud about the eyeliner around his right eye, rubbing her thumb on it. She inspected the residue and revealed to the room’s occupants it was fake. Mortimer sighed and admitted it was, but insisted he only applied it to spite those who dislike him and that he would never etch an actual tattoo on his face. While Minerva worked, Pearl complimented Mortimer’s tattoo, remarking how if she won, she would get a tattoo of her own. Mortimer chuckled, saying, “Just remember, real tattoos are permanent.”

”Short” recap of the Jets' 2022 Season

The Jets had a noisy offseason in 2022 as they were big spenders in free agency, bringing in CB DJ Reed, TE CJ Uzomah, and OG Laken Tomlinson. The also had 3 first round picks and an early second rounder to give the team one of the youngest roster in the NFL by snaps given. The main headline going into the Jets regular season was, like most NFL teams, centered around the quarterback position. The Jets drafted BYU QB Zach Wilson #2 overall in the 2021 NFL draft. Statistically, Zach's rookie campaign was off to an abysmal start with 4 TDs and 9 picks in his first Five starts before having his midseason interrupted by a knee injury. Zach would return and threw 5 touchdowns and just two picks in his last seven games, playing less dynamically than he had in Tennessee but smarter and safer. Zach went into the 2022 season looking to improve on his 2,334 yards passing, 55.6% completion percentage, 9 passing touchdowns, 4 rushing touchdowns, and 11 interceptions from 2022.
However, Zach would miss September due to a miniscus tear he suffered in the preseason. The Jets started Joe Flacco at the quarterback position for their opening three games; going 1-2 with a historical comeback win at Cleveland (I didn't have to mention this but it's the most exciting Jets football you'll ever see). After Zach returned, the Jets opened out on a winning streak. However, this had more to do with the star performances of the Jets rookies, namely WR Garrett Wilson, RB Breece Hall, and CB Sauce Gardner. In Denver, the Jets suffered a pyrrhic victory at hands of the Broncos as the team won 16-9, but suffered season ending injuries to OL Alijah Vera-Tucker and Breece Hall. Hindering the offensive line and prematurely ending Hall's OROTY campaign. This altered the course of the Jets' season for the worse. While young stars Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner continued to shine, the team's offense couldn't make up for the loss of Breece Hall as they were forced to look to Zach Wilson to lead the passing offense. Zach Wilson regressed heavily from his already terrible rookie season and as a result of his poor performance and attitude, was benched. The Jets attempted to salvage their season by looking to Mike White, who almost immediately went out with injury, and then later to Flacco (and at one point, Chris Streveler, fresh out of the CFL). Only two seasons into Wilson's career, he's cemented himself among the greatest draft busts in NFL history and for the sake of playefan morale, is completely unplayable in 2023. He isn't going to be cut until at least August, as there's no financial incentive to give up on him until after next season. The Jets missed out on the playoffs in 2023 for the 12th straight season, the second longest drought in North American sports. The silver lining for the Jets this season is that their roster is still full of young talent across the board, as AVT should be back by the preseason, Breece Hall should be back in the early regular season this year, and Garret Wilson and Sauce Gardner are back for their sophomore seasons after winning Offensive Rookie of the Year and Defensive Rookie of the year, respectively. The Jets had very little coaching staff/front office turnover from 2022. The main exception is the Jets moved on from young offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to sign veteran OC and recently fired Denver Broncos' head coach, Nathaniel Hackett. This move was met with middling reception by fans. As many cited him as an underwhelming retread, though there was potentially one huge upside to signing Hackett and his name is...

Aaron Freaking Rodgers

After acknowledging his failure in drafting and developing his franchise QB, New York Jets General Manager Joe Douglas, scrambled to find a QB the Jets can compete with during their current window where their most talented players are on rookie deals. Joe Douglas doesn’t have the luxury of trying again with rookie QB roulette as he’s already four years into a rebuild that has yielded zero winning seasons. Many considered his huge failure with Zach Wilson to be a fireable offense, but due to his success in building the rest of the team, Jets owner Woody Johnson publicly voiced his confidence in Joe Douglas and let him have another offseason to try to pull a rabbit out of his hat at the QB position. The Jets were connected to almost every veteran QB that might conceivably be on the market from January to March. Around the time of the NFL Combine, the Jets had their options narrowed down to Tannehil, Cousins, and Aaron Rodgers headlining the group. With Rodgers’ ending his career in Green Bay, he then descended into a Darkness Retreat. Afterward, Aaron decided to tell Schefter to lose his number and went on the Mcafee show to announce that he had decided to play for the Jets, despite still being on contract with the Packers. After a month and a half of Jets and Packers fans taking to Reddit and Twitter to argue endlessly about Leverage, the Jets and Packers finally worked out a deal on April 24th, just days before the 2023 NFL Draft. The Jets acquired Aaron Rodgers and a 5th round pick in 2023 in exchange for a 1st round pick swap (Jets go 13 to 15th overall), a 2023 2nd round pick, a 2023 6th round pick, and a 2024 second round pick that can become a 1st if Rodgers plays >65% of snaps in 2023. Many were quick to declare an immediate winner to the trade, though I think with trades like these, you need to see how things play out and what will happen on the conditions before knowing for sure. My knee-jerk reaction to the trade is that it’s an overpay if Rodgers were to retire after 2023, but if he comes back for 2024 like he says he’s going to, then this is fair overall. If Jordan Love doesn’t pan out and the Jets make a Super Bowl over the next two years, people will look back on this trade as a steal for the Jets. Time will tell.

Jets Free Agency

Contrary to popular belief, the Jets did more this offseason than roll out the red carpet for Aaron Rodgers. In free agency, the Jets rolled out the red carpet for all of Aaron Rodger’s favorite teammates. In Free Agency, the Jets brought in:

• WR Mecole Hardman (KC)
• WR Allen Lazard (GB)
• OL Trystan Colon (BAL)
• OL Billy Turner (DEN)
• P Thomas Morestead (MIA)
• C Wes Schweitzer (WAS)
• QB Tim Boyle (DET)
• DT Quinton Jefferson (SEA)

Over half the names on this list have some kind of connection to Aaron Rodgers. Allen Lazard was the biggest swing for the Jets in free agency with $44MM over 4 years. The Jets cut bait by trading Elijah Moore to Cleveland, but are going to keep Corey Davis for the third year of his contract despite disappointing availability and stats by Davis. Lazard has experience in the slot, despite being primarily an outside the numbers receiver. With Moore and Berrios out, the Jets are a little bit heavier on outside receiver and light on slot receiver, so they’ll likely focus on size over shiftiness over the middle. However, bringing in Mecole Hardman brings a lot of the speed over the middle that the team is missing. Outside of WR, the Jets added more depth on the offensive and defensive lines. The main highlight of free agency for Jets fans was, strangely enough, the punter they signed- Thomas Morstead. Morstead punted for the Jets in 2021 filling in for an injured Braden Mann with an average of 48 yards/ punt and 7 punts within the 20. The Jets let Morstead go to let Braden Mann return. Mann was a decent punter for the Jets at best, but was infamous in NY for a shank a game that eventually became too much. The Jets have also worked out with P Matt “Punt God” Araiza, but that’s a can of worms I won’t get into. The Jets also brought back:

• LB Quincy Williams
• K Greg Zuerlin
• DT Solomon Thomas
• RB Ty Johnson
• C Connor McGovern

I have much less to say about these players. Ty Johnson has already been cut, which has been a small controversy due to his surgery that was allegedly recommended by the Jets. But especially after the draft, the Jets have a glut of runningbacks on the roster. I don’t see what the Jets see in Solomon Thomas but HC Robert Saleh really likes him. Greg Zuerlin has been a replacement level kicker for the Jets. Quincy Williams is back, which is mostly interesting as his older brother, Quinnen Williams, is in a contract holdout with the Jets. The number for Quinnen Williams is likely going to look similar to what Dexter Lawrence got from the Giants.

The New York Jets 2023 NFL Draft

Pre-Draft Needs

Positions of Need going into the Draft: OT, FS, DT, RB
The Jets' strength on the defense was on the outsides, both on the passrush with Carl Lawson and Jermaine Johnson coming back and in the pass defense, with Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed returning after being arguably the best CB duo in 2022. The weakness was over the middle in the passing game and between the tackles in the run game. The Jets have Quinnen Williams on the 5th year option looking for a new deal this year and don't have another quality DT to complement him on the interior of their 4-3 front. Jordan Whitehead was disappointing for the Jets last year at SS and Ashtyn Davis hasn't fully panned out at FS.
On the offense, the Jets have fewer holes, but have positions like RB, TE, and WR where they can afford to add more talent. The biggest liabilities for the Jets are on the offensive tackle, where Mekhi Becton is coming back from two whole seasons of injury and Duane Brown is 38 and playing likely his last season of Pro Football.

1st Round (15th Overall) Will McDonald IV, EDGE – Iowa State

Before discussing McDonald as a player, we should discuss the Steelers’ trade with the Patriots at 14th overall. This trade led to a lot of criticism of the trade back with Green Bay for Rodgers as well as Joe Douglas’s composure as a drafter. The main thing we know about Broderick Jones is that the fact that Pittsburgh was interested in trading up for him long before the Rodgers trade. Jones to the Steelers was one of the worst kept secrets of the NFL draft this year and the New England Patriots (while not to pretend that Belichick doesn’t love to screw the Jets over) are notorious for trading back in the first round. I’m not going to assert that the Jets weren’t interested in landing Broderick Jones, I think the people who are skeptical of Douglas’s claim that McDonald was their top target are missing two things: the first is that Robert Saleh is a defensive minded coach who is obsessed with having an excess of edge rushers with good bend. Saleh and Douglas are still on good terms, and I would be very surprised if during the draft Saleh wasn’t pounding the table in Joe Douglas’s ear for Will McDonald. The second is that while Jones was on board, Douglas himself said that McDonald was his number 1. You can debate if the Jets should’ve taken Jones if he were available, but he wasn’t and so, the Jets picked McDonald. Will McDonald is a 6’4” 236 lbs Edge rusher from Iowa State University who turns 24 years old June 6th. He was considered a high draft prospect after his 2021 and 2020 seasons where he had 11.5 and 10.5 sacks respectively, but still decided to come back to school in 2022. This, plus the fact that he didn’t begin playing football until he was 17 years old, contribute to Will McDonald IV’s advanced age as a prospect. Some might have called this pick a reach due to his age, but it’s worth noting that McDonald isn’t exactly a “late bloomer” as a player, but rather he has been a competitive pass rusher in the Big 12 since about 2019 and is tied for #1 overall in the Big12’s career sack list. Another reason why Will McDonald IV is an underrated prospect is that many people aren’t familiar with the defense that Iowa St. and how it deflates pass rusher numbers. Iowa State runs something called a STAR defense, or a 3-3-5 (3 DL, 3LB, 5 DBs). This helped the Cyclones against pass heavy, air raid and/or spread style offenses, but means that a premier pass rusher like Will McDonald will get basically zero help in the box. The traits that scouts fell in love with that made Will McDonald IV a first-round talent were his bend around the edge, his top end speed, and his usage of his hands. The weaknesses that were brought up centered mostly around his smaller size, power, and lack of body of work on run defense. But his overall athleticism and potential to bulk up are the main thing the Jets are banking on as they look develop him going forward. McDonald’s athleticism is so over the top, that he’s made a hobby of jumping over cars and doing other acrobatics that will keep the Jets management up at night if he keeps it up through his rookie contract.
The main thing to understand when watching McDonald as a prospect is that the Jets are going to play him a lot differently than the Cyclones did. Due to the ISU 3-man front, McDonald was often moved inside if he wasn’t double or triple teamed as a 5 tech. When Robert Saleh called Will McDonald to let him know the Jets were drafting him, Saleh said “We’re getting you out of that 4i and into that Wide 9”. That meaning, that instead of playing him between the guard and the tackle, they’re going to put him as far out as the o-line is built. I think the Jets will try to get him standing up; even though they typically have four defensive linemen down as I trust Robert Saleh to not pigeonhole a guy to a set role and will just try to set him up to succeed as a pass rusher. The important thing to remember when evaluating McDonald’s upcoming rookie season (or Jermaine Johnson’s rookie season from 2022), is that the Jets have a religious dedication to cycling their defensive linemen in and out regardless of how well or poorly they’re playing. So, for young players like McDonald, Johnson, and Michael Clemons, they’re guaranteed to get a shot, but even if they succeed, they’ll get cycled out. But this does mean that in 2023, we’re guaranteed a chance to see the speed and shiftiness that Will McDonald IV will be bringing to the Jets defense for years to come.

2nd Round, 12th pick (43rd Overall) Joe Tippmann, C – Wisconsin

After the first night of the draft, most were shocked over the Jets’ selection of Will McDonald. And many more in Jets land were disappointed that the team couldn’t find any offensive line help for newly acquired QB, Aaron Rodgers. Fortunately for the Jets on night 2, the board broke their way positively, unlike on night 1. With most of the premier tackles off the board, the Jets then turned their attention interior offensive line. The Jets re-signed Connor McGovern to a 1 year $1.915 million deal after the main rush of free agency subsided and McGovern was unable to find a better deal. McGovern was a serviceable Center for the Jets on his previous 3 year deal, but at 30, the Jets are starting to look for long term options with higher upside. With McGovern making barely backup Center money, the Jets had basically no assets committed to the center position. With every center in the 2023 NFL draft on the board, I don’t think I need to do as much defending of the positional choice for center as I had to do for Edge rusher in the first round. The Jets selected Joe Tippmann with the 12th pick of the 2nd round. The Wisconsin Badger is one of the taller Centers we’ve seen at 6’6” (not including the mullet) and 313 lbs. However, Tippmann has shown on film that he’s able to get low off the snap off the height and in the later block can leverage his size. He had the highest athleticism score at his position (which is going to be a consistent theme for the Jets in this draft). He started his last two full seasons at Wisconsin, shining as a run blocker and allowed only on sack and five pressures over 338 pass blocking snaps. His strengths coming out of Wisconsin are his fluid movement and rotation, his high football IQ, and his size. His main weakness is his sense of balance and his high point of contact. Some might have questioned why the Jets chose Tippmann over John Michael-Schmitz and, while I would’ve been happy with either, I personally believe the Jets made the slightly better choice in banking on a player who is younger, bigger, healthier, and possibly has higher upside. The Jets have been looking for the heir apparent to Nick Mangold since he’s retired. While McGovern was a serviceable stop gap for the last three years and will get a chance to compete with Tippmann this summer, I believe this pick is a great chance for the Jets to find a new leader of their offensive line for years to come. The Jets are at their best in their franchise history when they have a Center with leadership, strength, and durability to support the offense.

4th Round, Pick 18 (120th Overall) Carter Warren, OT – Pittsburgh

In 2022, the New York Jets offensive line was a revolving door as the offensive line was decimated by injuries before they even started the regular season. They were able to mitigate these issues for the first few weeks of the season by deploying Alijah Vera-Tucker as a Swiss Army Offensive Lineman, but when he suffered a season ending injury, that had to come to an end. In this offseason, the Jets didn’t add many players who will contend for starting positions at guard or tackle in 2023, but Joe Douglas has made a point to bolster the depth at these positions so they’re better prepared for when Mekhi Becton, who hasn’t played a full game since mid 2020, or the 38 year old Duane Brown get injured.
To prepare for this, the Jets picked New Jersey native Carter Warren in the fourth round out of Pittsburgh. With his 7 foot wingspan, core strength, and leadership experience, Warren has the traits of a prototypical NFL Tackle. Carter Warren’s athleticism graded highly at the combine at the workouts he performed despite not being 100% from his shoulder injury. He fell to the fourth round in the draft as expected due to his season ending injury in 2022 and his overall lack of power and ability to sustain blocks for longer drives. The Jets are looking for Carter Warren to develop into a capable swing tackle or high end backup LT. The team is possibly still banking on Becton serving as the long term starting Left Tackle, but we’ll sort that out when training camp gets here. With veteran Billy Turner on the team and second year Maxx Mitchell returning as a swing tackle, the Jets are hopeful that they won’t rely on a rookie tackle in 2023. But if they do, Carter Warren has the traits needed to keep the offense on schedule when injuries inevitably come.

5th Round Pick, Pick 8 (#143rd Overall) Israel Abanikanda, RB – Pittsburgh

After selecting the Pittsburgh Panther from New Jersey in the fourth round, the Jets elected to take his teammate, RB Israel Abanikanda from Brooklyn, with the very next pick. In the last two years the Jets have brought in a lot of young runningbacks from the draft such as Michael Carter, Breece Hall, and Zonovan Knight. The Jets running back room looked like it was on the road to being elite after Breece Hall’s early career breakout before his tragic season ending injury. Breece Hall had emerged as a physical, downhill runner for the Jets and Michael Carter and Bam Knight were capable change of pace backs, pass blockers, and receiving backs. Breece Hall is going to go back to being the Jets premier runningback if he comes back to be 100% of what he was last year, even with Abanikanda on the roster. But what the Jets were lacking, even with Hall on the roster last year, was a shiftier, higher end speed running back that can break open in space. Hall checks off a lot of these boxes, but did so by being more physical over the middle. In 2022, Izzy Abanikanda’s stats were impressive. He reached 100 yards rushing in 9 out of his 11 games and rushed for 20 TDs on the season. With Hall, Izzy can be a dangerous lightning to Breece Hall’s thunder as the Jets look to round out their offense. Izzy’s athleticism is (say it with me now: ) really good. He ranked 5th out of running backs in this draft despite being a 5th round pick. The biggest weakness commonly cited about Izzy Abanikanda is his pass protection. This has been a recent focus on running backs in the NFL and something that will likely limit Izzy’s day one impact. But the Jets can keep things simple on the offense and just focus on getting the ball of playmakers like Abanikanda. The most exciting thing about Abanikanda is that he’s young, not turning 21 until October 5th of this year (making him born in 2002, if you wanted to feel old today). Abanikanda is an extremely speedy player with home run ability. The value in the 5th round is great for the Jets here and they are now hedged against a key RB injury like they suffered last year. This pick may spell trouble for fans of Michael Carter and Zonovan Knight (apologies to /DynastyFF), but it puts the Jets in a position to be dynamic in the ground game to capitalize on defenses thinking they can afford to sell out against the Aaron Rodgers-led passing offense.

6th Round, Pick 7 (184th Overall) Zaire Barnes, LB – Western Michigan

Getting later into the draft, the Jets start to look for roleplayers and positions where the team is light. Zaire Barnes fills both of these criteria with his special teams experience and coverage linebacker experience. The Jets have Quincy Williams and CJ Mosely playing in the box to handle secondary running coverage. The team may still bring back Kwon Alexander to return as the WILL linebacker in space, but the Jets are looking to bolster their coverage over the middle. The Jets have arguably the best cornerback duo on the outside with DJ Reed and Sauce Gardner and a capable slot corner with Michael Carter II. This means that most of the teams that threw the ball on the Jets did so over the middle.
At Western Michigan, Barnes lined up close to the line of scrimmage and focused mostly on man coverage. In order for him to unlock his potential and make this pick a steal, he needs to unlock his ability to use lateral movement to help in zone coverage. At 6’1” his height is unremarkable but more than adequate for a linebacker within the box. If Zaire Barnes can make himself valuable on special team and take advantage of the opportunities to make a play in coverage over the middle or to make an impact in the run game where the Jets are also light, Zaire Barnes will be able to be a part of this Jets team for a long time.

Round 6, Pick 27 (#204th Overall) Jarrick Bernard-Converse, DB – LSU

In writing Bernard-Converse’s position on the headliner, I opted to just write DB, as he’s played all over the secondary. Looking at JBC’s skillset and the holes the Jets have in their roster, it would seem Bernard-Converse’s best outlook on the Jets is to move to the Safety position. With good tackling ability, high athleticism, and four years of starting experience at the Power 5 level, the Jets are banking on Bernard-Converse’s ability to adapt to a new role as opposed to being a true CB. In coverage at LSU, he did have some issues letting players get behind him due to his ability to trail and backpedal, another sign that he’s likely better suited for the safety role. With Jarrick Bernard-Converse, the Jets are banking on his adaptability and Robert Saleh’s ability to develop a player with raw talent into a contributor on the backend.

Round 7, Pick 3 (#220th Overall) Zack Kuntz, TE – Old Dominion

The Jets have looked to rebuild their TE room after years of it being in disarray. Unfortunately, the group that Douglas has put together, CJ Uzomah, Tyler Conklin, and Jeremy Ruckert, didn’t quite pan out in 2023. Part of this was on the quarterback play, but part of this is that the tight ends on the Jets didn’t quite have the plus abilities the team needed to get production from their Tight Ends. This is just the beginning of why Zack Kuntz is an exciting pick for the Jets. Kuntz (pronounced KOONTS, unless you’re Australian) was primarily a receiving tight end for Penn State and Old Dominion in college. At 6’8” 255lbs, Kuntz has more than the prototypical size of a blocking Y tight end, but he instead spent his college career using his 4.55 speed to be a menace over the middle. His most productive season was only 692 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns, which is a bit less for the insane athleticism that a speedy and shifty tight end such as Kuntz possesses. Still, it’s hard to imagine how 32 GMs looked at Kuntz and decided over 200 times that they don’t need this freak of nature on their team. The Jets may look into developing his blocking a bit more, but I think they’re probably more excited by refining his hands and getting him over the middle to create some size mismatch. With Zach Kuntz elite size and speed, he’s truly a menace with the ball in his hands.

UDFA Rapid Fire

The Jets traded back in the 6th round at a pretty heavy loss. I believe this is because they wanted special teams and depth and were relatively satisfied with most of the starters they had going into the NFL draft. So, the Jets will likely not have a ton of contributions from UDFAs this year. Here are the 13 players the Jets have currently signed as UDFAs and I’ll highlight a few of the ones I think I have a chance at making the 53 man roster below:

• Jason Brownlee, WR Southern Mississippi: Despite receiving a combine invite and showing a good vertical and 40 yard dash, Brownlee ends up unsigned on the Jets. I think the Jets will look to leverage his athleticism on special teams, as most of the WRs on the roster have little experience/interest in playing special teams.
• Trey Dean, Safety Florida: A former starter as a freshman for the Gators in 2017, he’s got a lot of experience. As mentioned earlier, both safety positions are weakspots on the Jets roster, so a safety with Dean’s experience might be able to stick on.
• Deslin Alexandre, DL Pittsburgh: Joe Douglas sure does love his Pittsburgh guys. Deslin played as an edge rusher in college, but went undrafted due to weak bend (which is an important trait in an EDGE rusher, as I’m sure you can imagine). Still, a player with his size could still be a valuable Defensive Tackle in a 4-3 defense such as the Jets’. The main thing for Alexandre will be improving his run defense, as that’s currently a sore spot for the Jets DL.

53 Man Roster Projection

POS	1st String	2nd String
QB	Aaron Rodgers	Tim Boyle	Zach Wilson
RB	Breece Hall	Israel Abanikanda	Michael Carter, Zonovan Knight
WR	Garrett Wilson	Corey Davis	Mecole Hardman
WR	Allen Lazard	Randall Cobb	Jason Brownlee
TE	Tyler Conklin	CJ Uzomah	Jeremy Ruckert
LT	Duane Brown	Warren Carter
RT	Mekhi Becton	Maxx Mitchell
LG	Laken Tomlinson	Wes Schweitzer
RG	Alijah Vera-Tucker	Billy Turner
C	Connor McGovern	Joe Tippmann
DT	Quinnen Williams	Al Woods
DT	John Franklin-Myers	Deslin Alexandre
DE	Jermaine Johnson	Isaiah Mack
DE	Carl Lawson	Michael Clemons	Solomon Thomas
ILB	CJ Mosely
OLB	Quincy Williams	Bryce Huff
OLB	Will McDonald IV	Zaire Barnes
CB	Sauce Gardner	Michael Carter II	Brandin Echols
CB	DJ Reed	Bryce Hall	Javelin Guidry
FS	Ashtyn Davis	Jarrick Berndard-Converse
SS	Jordan Whitehead	Justin Hardee	Chuck Clark
K	Greg Zuerlein
P	Thomas Morstead
LS	Thomas Hennessy

Notes on 53 man roster

• Yes, the front seven is a complete mess. The Jets move guys around so much that even trying to delineate between a LB or a DE can be difficult. This is a rough guesstimation of what players will make the final roster, not necessarily where they’ll play.
• The NFL has a new rule that allows teams to carry 3 QBs and still be under the 53 man roster. So that's why you may count 54 on this.
• I only did this with players currently either on contract or drafted by the Jets. I think Kwon Alexander will eventually sign but for now, he’s not on here.
• I really wanted to find a spot for Zach Kuntz, but it was tough since there’s a lot of dedicated money to TEs. I thought maybe we could cut Randall Cobb, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts

This offseason will be remembered as the offseason where the Jets made a huge swing for a future Hall of Fame QB. It’s impossible for me to try to put this draft class up against that. But the Jets got a lot of athleticism in this draft that can set them up to be competitive in the long term. It was surprising that they traded back, seeing as they’re in a win now mode, still. I think the Jets got 2 or 3 starters from this draft, likely some combination of Abanikanda, Tippmann, and McDonald. Certain players like Warren and Kuntz do have some longer term potential, too. Nothing will ever touch Joe Douglas’s 2022 draft class, but I thought this class was solid and built a lot of overdue depth. Still, when July rolls around and it’s time for camp, it’s going to be the QB that all Jets fans are looking at.

Hello. I won't beat around the bush. This letter, more like a confession, came to me through a long chain of acquaintances and distant relatives several years ago. I do not personally know the people referred to in the letter, and I cannot say anything about its authenticity. However, the places described in the text do exist, I myself grew up nearby.
Last week I was digging through my email for the password to an old multiplayer game and came across this email again. To be honest, reading it the second time was just as disturbing and uncomfortable as the first. Having come up with nothing better, I decided to translate it into English and show it to you, friends. My fellow Yuriy Eremenko (hi bro!) helped me with the translation, I myself am not so good with English.
I want to know what you think about all this. I really really want to.
-------
from: bespalyi***@mail.ru to: litovskih.***@gmail.com subj: Regarding your request
Hello, Sasha. Forgive me, if you can of course, but it didn't work this time.
I can explain how that happened, but you probably shouldn't count on me now. I do think there is still a chance though. You can try to do everything yourself. I did not manage to do it, but maybe you still can. It's a bad option, a very bad one. This is not a good thing, no matter what you say to yourself. Quite the opposite.
If I had another solution, I wouldn't even suggest this, but I do not see one. I just remember your look when we last saw each other, and, well...
Look, just think it through, don't do something you would regret later, do not rush anything. I may have nothing to lose, but you have Zina, and your parents, if they're still alive of course. Sometimes it's just better to leave things as they are, you know?
I'll tell you what I know. You know my address. Delete this message once you read it.
Long story short, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, there was this urban legend about our yard...
I feel like I've known this legend for a long time, since my childhood. All the kids were aware of this legend and knew plenty of other, similar ones. In the town's outskirts, in this ("experimental", as they said back then) microdistrict lived several generations of teens. From the town to our district led a 5 kilometer long road, alongside several sandlots. Schools, kindergartens, couple of clubs - according to the architects, these blocks of flats, around 20 of them, that organized our microdistrict, were supposed to be autonomous. And autonomous they were. Sure, some people went to the town from time to time, to visit their relatives for example, but the majority of us rarely left Zhilmash.
As a result, stories about a creepy man from the local park, or about the dark secrets of the sewers, or, say, about the manhole in a corner of one of the yards constantly circulated around the local kids and teens, told again and again and collecting more and more creepy and less believable details. Seriously, someone should have written a dissertation about our "folklore", but that's beside the point.
Thing is, our surroundings were not the only thing that was enclosed. In fact, our yards were as well. In the middle of a square made of long nine-story buildings, where all the porches were facing, there was always a polyclinic, a school, or any other socially important establishment, while a few archways led outside these fortresses, as if they were meant to have a suspension bridge as well. One would think that Zhilmash was designed by a man suspecting that, sooner or later, the locals would have to withstand a circular siege of their houses.
The urban legend I want to explain to you is about the corner closest to my porch. There were bushes growing in said corner, facing the shop windows of a pharmacy and a barbershop that occupied the first floor. There, near ground level, between the two blocks of flats, formed a crack roughly three palms wide and about one and a half meters high. There was a small passage behind the crack, but no adults ever went that way. This hole allowed us to shorten our path outside, but squeezing in there and staying clean was impossible. So we, kids and teens, were the only ones to really use it, especially when playing hide and seek and enacting a tiny war. At the same time, the adults had to take one of the archways to get to the bus stop.
Right in front of the hole there was a square, about an open book-sized, stone block, placed into the ground, seemingly during the construction works, resulting in this small pedestal. As the story went, you had to place some small animal on top of it and kill it. Then, instead of the crack, there would appear a passageway not to the concrete slab behind the bakery, but a way to an entirely different place. A "dead world" of sorts. Once you got there, you needed to quickly find a kiosk with closed or painted over windows, go to its front and loudly and clearly ask for whatever you wanted - a new Sega or even a computer. Some boy, according to the rumors, had even asked for an entire jeep. And, if you did it right, your wish would come true and you would need to hurry and exit this place before the passageway closed.
Typical story, if I am honest - dark, cruel and stupid. Precisely one that children love. As proof, people constantly brought up a friend of a distant relative's friend who did exactly that and their wish came true. They also pointed out the concentric circles and squiggles scratched on top of the pedestal with a knife or some nail.
Nobody from our company even thought of torturing a poor animal like that to test this stupid story For even joking about it we'd call the one suggesting to test the story sick in the head. Nika, however, was not from our company. Almost an adult, as I thought back then, a very beautiful girl with copper hair and almost constantly bruised knees, she once went to live with her grandmother for the summer and immediately gained the role of our yard's Ataman, setting up her own rules.
We were showing her around for the whole duration of July. I think each of my friends fell in love with her at least a tiny bit, since we were of that age. On one of the last long evenings before she was supposed to leave we set up a small bonfire, baking potatoes that we got god knows where with salt in tinfoil. We were telling stories, and of course someone blurted out something about the passageway. On the next day, Nika brought her grandmother's parrot to our "Headquarters" on the sandlot.
Have you finally figured it out, Sasha? Anyone else would have said that I may have lost my mind or maybe became an alcoholic, since I am seriously telling you how a children's horror story became reality. But not you. Yes, you got that right: all these years, when the need arose, I went to a pet store, bought a pet, one that I did not feel that much guilt about, and went there. The hole and the stone block are still there. But do not get too excited, finish reading first. Because you cannot solve it just by killing an animal. Nothing happens so easily, you know it well.
When Nika, ignoring our loud protests, broke the poor parrot's neck, we fell silent. Something broke alongside his spine. Something right turned very wrong. Nika did not seem as beautiful to me anymore. Her appearance did not change, but the girl herself and everything around her became ugly in my eyes. Especially gross was the stone block with the little carcass on top of it. As if it was made of squirming insects and not concrete. At the time I couldn't understand where this fracture appeared, inside me or somewhere outside. Now I know - everywhere.
We were stunned for just a moment, then we heard a loud sound from behind our backs. It was as if something huge smacked its lips, opened its mouth and inhaled deeply, almost with pleasure. The air in the clearing started to float and distort, flowing around us. Then it went in the vertical passage between the two houses, now leading to the bluish twilight of a somehow different yard, completely alien to us. In our yard it was only midday.
Houses stood there as well. Normal from the first glance, but looking dusty, almost ancient, like pyramids in the pictures of a children's encyclopedia. In the light gusts of wind small whirlwinds of dust formed and fell apart. It got cold - not extremely cold, but more like the cold you feel when entering the shadow on a sunny day. And a faint smell. It was disgusting, bitter and almost rotten, like from a wet overfilled ashtray or from a Chizhevskiy's lamp. The wind was making the grass move - normal grass on our side, and some colorless and dried like hay stems on the other.
Despite my disgust, I managed to grab Nika, who was running right past me into the passage, by the wrist, but she pushed me aside, and squeezed into the passage. Into the portal. After all, why not call it for what it is. She stood there for a bit, looking around. She turned to look at us with fear on her face mixed with enthusiasm. And, as it seemed, the enthusiasm overcame all of her fear.
— Don't just stand there! Come here!
Nobody moved a muscle. Quite the opposite. Kostya, the youngest of our group, backed away slowly until his back hit the wall. Nika's ginger hair almost faded, became an unremarkable shade of brown. Weird details, I know, but this is how I remembered her: scared and faded. Almost fractured.
— Nika, please come back, — Anton said quietly.
— Wha-a? Pft, pussy! And you call yourselves men? Aren't you curious? — her voice sounded muffled, the intonations fading out at the border.
— Really, don't...Maybe you shouldn't go there, we can clearly see that something is wrong there. And it stinks. Maybe this place is radioactive?
— We'll lie to your grandma that Kesha flew out the window, — I said, — Tell your grandma I let him out, you won't get scolded. Let's go, please? What if the passage closes? How will we get you out?
Our obvious stress, of course, only made her more excited. We should've just shut up or suggested coming back with rope and a flashlight, but we were too scared. And then she walked away and ordered us to watch the passageway. Called us dipshits and that she'll go make a wish, disappearing behind the nearest house with darkness instead of windows.
We waited for 30 minutes or so, but nothing happened. Moving slowly, as if underwater, I walked around the pedestal to see that world better. Yes, there was indeed a town, but almost swollen, wrong. Monochrome, like in a dream. Similar to our town in general. As long as you pay no mind to the details, that is.
There, everything seemed a bit bigger than normal: the window holes are bigger, the floors are higher, and the empty metal trash can could fit a person inside it. Along the road stood distorted lampposts, accentuating the unpleasant perspective. The upper floors were lost in a fog, making the unusually thin street, squeezed by buildings from both sides, look more like a cave with a high ceiling rather than an open space. No movement. And no sky as well, just countless dark shades instead of it. One row of buildings stood behind the other, hiding the horizon from my view and forming a depressing maze, the further parts of which were swallowed by darkness and fog. Alongside the road, the broken benches and rusty cars there were lots of grey sand.
Looking at the corners and the walls going up and to the sides I did my best to imagine people walking around here, living in these houses and then just packing up their things and suddenly leaving somewhere else.
As hard as I tried to imagine it, I just couldn't...
Instead, old scenic decorations came to mind, meant to imitate a normal soviet town for some old forgotten movie.
My thoughts were interrupted by a terrifying scream from the crack's side, echoing around the emptiness between these scary monoliths. It was Nika, but her scream was so loud and strained that it turned into a roar and then a wheeze. Sasha, you wouldn't believe that a small girl could scream like that. There was a temporary silence necessary for a deep inhale and the scream started again. It got closer. Nika was supposed to come out from that corner, which she disappeared behind all this time ago.
Seconds passed by, I did not let my eyes wander from that corner, trying to pinpoint at least something in the darkness of this dead world. And finally, I saw a shaky silhouette. It did not look human. Struggling to move on short leg stumps, an armless and asymmetrical figure leaned on the wall. The sacks and meat pieces dragging behind the figure inflated and deflated making fleshy noises, like a frog goiter. Bending like a worm, it pushed itself off the wall with all of its strength and made a few more clumsy steps in our direction. It screamed in Nika's voice. The scream came from the disorganized lumps of flesh the thing was dragging behind it.
I screamed and recoiled. The edge of a stone, which I had completely forgotten about, hit my knees. Falling, I threw the bird's carcass onto the grass. The champing sounded again, as if cutting off the heart-rending cry of our friend with a knife. Gradually, other, normal sounds returned: the laughter of children from the side of the sandbox, the cooing of pigeons, the voice of a woman calling someone for dinner from the kitchen window. It was day again in the narrow opening, rare dandelions were swaying there, a bus, battered by life, drove up to the "Sports School" stop. A striped cat ran past and darted into the basement window. Nika was nowhere to be found.
Drowning in tears, we told the adults what had happened: first to our parents, then to a gloomy man in an unbuttoned police jacket, while a friend of his questioned the neighbors. Nika's grandma was taken to the hospital, we thought her heart was about to stop. No one told us that we were lying or played around too much. But the testimony of little kids was also not taken seriously. They clarified over and over again if we had seen a suspicious man, and even described his appearance. They must have had some kind of maniac in mind.
I accompanied the policeman to the place where Nika was last seen. He looked around, stuck his head inside the hole, went around the house and wandered for a long time on the other side of the patch of land between the ends of the houses, looking for something in the grass. Then they left. The blue UAZ appeared in our yard several more times, but, of course, it was as if Nika had disappeared without a trace.
That summer, I occasionally thought about what she was like when she stood there, calling us to follow her. At night, I dreamed of something else. Something almost turned inside out, but still alive ... However, this happened less and less, and life had set its own priorities. In the fall, my father left us, problems began at home, there were also several disagreements at school. Years passed. The old company fell apart, new friends from the other yards appeared. I remembered little about the red-haired girl, but since then I have always went past the accursed place. That is, until I was fifteen.
After my father left us, my mother started drinking. A little bit at first, locking herself in the kitchen after work. Thinking that I'm sleeping in my room unaware of her crying, sitting with a glass of vodka in front of the TV. Then things got worse. Getting drunk, my mother became tearful, asked me for forgiveness, promised that she would quit from tomorrow morning, but that, of course, was a lie. A couple of times I got hit in the face by the men she brought with her - I tried to get them to leave the apartment. Then I skipped school for weeks so as not to show my bruises.
The head teacher wrote our family down as dysfunctional and did not do much since. By the eighth grade, the entire household was on me, I even learned how to cook. Mostly I just cooked soups, because they were somewhat filling and inexpensive. I got a job with a friend of his father at a car wash as a "runner" when my mother was fired from her job. She had spent all of the alimony on alcohol. My father knew, sometimes threw some extra money our way, but did not want to interfere in our affairs. It seems that he had started a new family, but I did not ask questions, and he was in no hurry to tell me anything.
By the ninth grade, every morning, just opening my eyes, I sincerely hated this life. Sometimes I spent whole days in bed, listening indifferently to the clanging of glasses of my mother's friends in the kitchen. How she vomits in the bathroom, yells at the TV, knocks at the door to my room: "Kolenka, sonny, I'm one hundred roubles short, I'll return it at the end of the month! Do you want to go for a walk in the park later? Do you remember what you wanted? I'll only go to the store and then go back". After another call to the ambulance, while the mother was sleeping under a dropper, the paramedic told me (not looking up from filling out the papers on hospitalization refusal) that she would last another year at this pace, maybe two, and then it would be necessary to call not an ambulance, but a funeral home.
Every morning in the ninth grade, I woke up with thoughts about the hole in the corner of the yard and the strange city lying behind it. The legend turned out to be accurate, the first part at least, so why the hell shouldn't it be true in its entirety? I knew what wish I wanted to make. Only a miracle could save my mother, or rather, both of us. And if not, then I didn't even want to live too much. I remembered all the horror of that summer, but you can't run away from yourself: the idea seemed more attractive day by day. Do you understand, Sasha?
One day, after returning from my lessons, I found my mother drunk on the floor by the stove, with an arm broken at the elbow. It seems she was trying to cook dinner for us when she lost her balance and fell. The sharp tip of the broken bone pierced the stretched skin from the inside, and she didn't even wake up. It's a miracle that she didn't have the time to turn on the gas.
Having sent her to the hospital, I sat up all night without sleep, and in the morning I went to the zoo store and bought an exotic lizard with the last money I had for this month. It cost far more than the funny hamsters that bustled about in the neighboring enclosure, but I couldn't bring myself to look at them. It was easier for me this way.
Everything worked like a charm. I again felt that the world had cracked, but now I myself was the center of the split, as Nika had once been. From that day on, I started to feel worse about myself, you know? As if I was that one person who I would not shake hands with at a meeting. I became a little unpleasant for myself, I don't stop to look at my reflection in the mirror anymore, I constantly carry this trash in myself. It's up to you if you decide to follow in my footsteps. I have a theory. It consists in the fact that, by opening the hole, you are doing something disgusting, and not even by personal, but by cosmic standards ... And the problem is not in the killing of an innocent animal, which is necessary for this, but in what happens then - in the very appearance of the gap.
Looking up from the stone, I was not even surprised. It was as if all these years had not happened at all, the city behind the hole has not changed at all, except for a couple of little things. I think that time goes differently there, or is even frozen in place. Because the "dead world" is not actually an abandoned village located somewhere in the north. Rather, it is an echo. A dream about what our reality could become if something terrible happened to humanity, which we miraculously managed to avoid. People have never inhabited these houses. Their inhabitants are completely different. And they are still there.
When I climbed through the gap, the smell of decay and bitterness spilled in the cold air, vividly reviving childhood memories. I looked around for traces of the creature that came to us four years ago from the darkness. The deposits of sand seemed to form a barely noticeable path leading along the wall and making a loop near the hole, from where a long rectangle of light was now falling. But it could have been an illusion, or the natural workings of the wind, and I didn't see anything else.
I had a flashlight with me, but I did not dare to turn it on. There was enough light, even though the source was not clear. Soon I noticed that there was light in some of the windows: first in one part of the building, then in another, square frameless pits were faintly opalescent, all in the same dirty-gray spectrum, like multiple TVs tuned to the same program were working right behind them. From other windows protruded long black tufts of what looked like crooked branches of dead shrubs or mushroom stipes.
Getting colder inside with every step, I wandered, raking in the smelly sand with my feet, in the direction where Nika had fled in search of a way to make her wish. Clinging to the ice-cold stone, I looked around the corner. Nothing was moving in the streets. The road continued, partially blocked in two places by fallen lampposts, smashed to pieces like antique columns in the ancient ruins of a lost civilization. But for some reason, it constantly seemed to me that something was still breathing behind these walls and, perhaps, even looking at an intruder from the darkness of these huge apartments. Gathering what little courage I had left, I took a few steps towards the center of the street, looking intently around me in order to detect any possible source of danger in time.
To the left, slightly to the side, stood a gray cube of something like a boiler room or a transformer booth with its gates wide open, as if in an invitation, with barely visible broken wires laying around. Behind it began a labyrinth of small garages, almost completely hidden behind thickets of the same bundles of sticks, which had made their way here and there from under the ground, like frozen explosions, from round holes in wells with torn hatches. Whatever happened here happened very quickly. I looked ahead. In the distance, about one house away from me, near what looked like a broken subway lobby, a patch of dim glow spread across the asphalt: one of the lanterns still functioned there, the only one as far as the eye could see.
In the dim circle of light stood a row of ordinary trading stalls. You know, those armored monsters with tiny money slots, they used to hang around every corner and sell pretty much everything from chewing gum to hard-to-find pantyhose.
My heart pounded even faster. So the legend did not lie about this either! To get there, it seemed, it was enough to go straight along the street past a series of entrances, some of which even still had doors hanging on one hinge. I must have lost my vigilance from impatience...
Each dark doorway was three meters high. As I drew level with the first of them, I heard something rolling in there, inside, bouncing off the steps. A worn rubber ball with two stripes rolled out onto the road in front of me. I used to have the same exact ball as a child, except that it got lost somewhere. Perhaps it flew away from a strong kick somewhere into the bushes, and I never saw it again. Maybe even in those very bushes in the corner of the yard.
I won't bore you with the details of the fear I experienced there. Both for the first time, and in all of my subsequent visits. Either way, you will see something of your own, personal, my experience will not be useful to you. Just... be prepared for anything. Just like in that ravine, in the first Chechen war, remember? Ha, then, after the shelling, you and I decided that now we saw everything, we were baptized, and nothing could scare us anymore. I don't know about you, but then I saw plenty of things afterwards: both in the dead world and in our ordinary one. Hell, sometimes I even miss the war. Don't get me wrong, but at that time I had friends, we swore to go through life together, if we made it out alive that is, and we believed in our oath.
Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. It's been a long time since the last opportunity to talk heart to heart to someone.
I don't know for sure whether this world can harm you, whether it just plays around, whether it wants to scare, or vice versa - tries to make friends. I will only say that its inhabitants should be avoided at all costs. It is not difficult, they are rarely intrusive and almost never leave their homes. But if you see fresh footprints in the sand or something like a stripe that a huge snail could leave, turn around and leave. Don't run, you don't have to run there at all. You'll be back the next day. Each animal killed will take away a piece of your own soul, but it's better that way than to disappear completely.
Look at the picture I have attached. I have drawn, as best I could, the route that turned out to be the safest. Strictly follow it, even if some loop seems strange and unnecessary to you. Especially if it appears. Yes, in one place you will have to enter the house. There is a gap in the apartment on the second floor, you go out there, go down another entrance. So it is necessary, and for God's sake, do not arrange excursions for yourself, but inside the house, look only at your feet. Right at your feet and nowhere else. Ideally, close your eyes altogether. I wrote down the required number of steps, remember the amount and count.
Well, there is little left to say. How I got to the stall and made my first wish...
Coming out right under the dead light of the lantern, I perceived almost nothing. I was not harmed, but the human psyche, especially of a skinny teenager that I was, is simply not adapted to endure such things. I was trembling, not believing that I got there. At first I was overcome with despair at the sight of a row of stalls: they were destroyed and had see-through holes in places: just rusty frames with spots of dry and peeling paint. In the floor of one of them, a nasty mushroom-like bush grew, parting the wreckage.
Slowly walking along the large heaps of metal, I reached the last kiosk in the row, and although the light inside was not on, I knew: this is it. Welded from sheet iron, like all the others, this one was mostly intact. Even the glass behind the bars had survived, so dirty that no goods behind them, if any, could be seen. On a small semicircular window, behind which the salesman was supposed to be, there was a yellow card with a faded, just like everything around, inscription: "OPEN". Gathering my strength, I tapped on the window with my knuckle. Just a second later, it opened.
My nose was hit with a terrible stench. Once I already felt something similar. When, one autumn, I took a deep breath of hot and humid steam, coming from a sewer in which some animal had died and had been decomposing for a long time.
The darkness of the iron box was not pitch black; It occupied almost the entire volume of the kiosk. It was the Seller.
Finally, the movement in the darkness stopped. "Even if the kiosk had a door," I thought, "this creature would not be able to get out and chase me." The thought calmed me down a little, but I lost all of my pre-prepared words. My voice sounded strange and muffled in the middle of the empty square of this forgotten world.
— My mother... She is a good person, but she drinks a lot. Vodka, that is... or any alcohol. She won't be able to stop on her own because she's sick and I can't do anything about it. I have tried and tried!
The last "tried" quickly faded, as the echo disappeared into the alleys and yards. They didn't answer me. I don't know to whom and what I tried to prove, the words just flowed out of me, and they were sincere.
— She will die if it goes on like this, and I will be left alone. We didn't deserve it. I still love her! Therefore, I want my mother to stop drinking, and everything to be fine with us, just as before!
— Can I? — I added, waiting for the mocking echo to die down again.
And then there was silence. A minute had passed, and I sighed. What was I even thinking about. I fell for childish tales, climbed into a world where everyone either died a million years ago or became monsters, I tried to talk with one of them ... I need to save myself as soon as possible. Or maybe when I return to the passage, it will be closed? The thought that I could stay here forever made me want to just lie down and cry.
- f̶i̸n̸g̴e̶r̴, - gurgled the darkness.
- What? A finger?
- f̵i̶n̶g̷e̵r̶
Oh god, it was impossible to call it a voice, but it seems that I understood what they wanted from me. An icy cold sweat formed on my forehead. Why did I decide that everything would be free? Did this shit sound like a good fairy tale from the very beginning? And what if this creature bites off my finger, will I be able to get back and not bleed out?
Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I tore two long strips from my T-shirt, then pulled out the trouser belt and squeezed it in my teeth, folding it in half, like I saw in the movies, until my mother sold our cassette player to someone for almost nothing. Clenching my left hand into a fist, I stuck out my pinky finger and put my hand right in the window of the kiosk, at the same time closing my eyes and clenching my teeth.
Nothing happened. After a couple of minutes, I dared to open my eyes. Maybe I misunderstood, and it was not about barter? As soon as I took my hand out, the window slammed shut. The inscription on the card had changed, now it said "CLOSED". Looking at my left hand made me dizzy, I started to feel sick: there was no pinky finger. There was no blood either, the remaining half of the phalanx looked like I lost my finger a long time, at least a year ago. Deciding to deal with this later, I went back. The hole and the clear sunny day behind it were still there.
You know, Sasha, I still wonder: what did Nika wish for? What was the price she had to pay?
As for what happened next, I think everything is clear. When my mother returned to work, we patched up our place, which had been pretty much wasted at that moment. I retrained from a simple car washer to an assistant mechanic in the same place, in a car service. I was entrusted with simple repairs, they paid a little more. In general, the money began to suffice. I had to call my friends to ward off some excessively aggressive chumps, who did not want to understand that they were no longer welcome at our house, and life went on as usual.
I learned to live without my pinky finger in just a week, and I lied to my mother about an accident at work last year. She cried again, of course. Mom died ten years ago: quietly, in bed, already retired. There was no more drinking involved, and those were good years. There would have been more if not for her poor health.
After leaving school, a war broke out, and the military registration and enlistment offices did not particularly sort out who to take. From here on out, you know everything yourself. Some returned, some didn't. We've been lucky. It was there that you called me Kolya the Fingerless, but now you at least know where my finger actually went.
At home, I got a job as a car mechanic in a bus depot. Between a tank and a rust-bucket of a car there is not such a big difference, if you look closely. Life was not that great for me, but I had girls, and meetings of old veterans. I bought my mom a country house in the suburbs to grow her own tulips there - what else does a person need? Only in a nightmare could I imagine that someday I would return to the dead world. But fate decided otherwise.
You now know how I spent my pinky finger. But at our last meeting, you noticed (I saw that you noticed): since then I have been squandering a lot. Three fingers remained on my right hand and two on the left. And that's not it. One kidney. Pancreas. And my left eye can't really see. Can you guess why that is? I think you can. You have always been the smartest among us, student.
As you could have guessed, I haven't worked as a mechanic for a long time. I get my allowance, I don't leave the apartment, I almost forgot what people look like, except for the girls from the welfare department. But I'm not offended. Do not reproach yourself that we did not communicate for a long time. And tell our guys, if necessary, when you meet. I wouldn't even talk to myself if I could.
When a year passed, we returned to civilian life, and things started to get better for everyone, Igor at first suddenly did not want to go to the next meeting to drink, remember that? And when we forced him, he sat in the corner, pale, did not even drink. This is Igor, who prepared booze almost from antifreeze.
His wife, Katya, was diagnosed with a bad case of breast cancer. And he loved her unconditionally. She was waiting for him to return from the war and here he was after all. I must have said too much then. I could not look at how he was tormenting himself, I really wanted to cheer him up. Everyone lost their mood, they parted early, and on the way back I bought a canary near the house. Breast cancer cost me another finger and another lie about an accident at work.
After that, a rumor had spread, either as a joke, or seriously: the fingerless healer. Everything was as promised: not just a remission, but as if the sickness was removed completely. The doctors were shocked, Igor laid at my feet while I couldn't even look him in the eyes.
Then more people came. Someone has a mother, an old father, children... Especially children. Then I realized that our world is full of suffering. I, whatever one may say, could help where nothing else would have helped. What is one finger of mine against someone's life that is just beginning? Believe me, I thought about this a lot, looking at all the new short stumps: stumps sticking out of my palm.
I didn't agree every time, and when I did, I didn't say anything. Inoperable hip fracture, legs turned into mush, the guy will never walk again - a finger. Sudden stroke, progressive dementia, another one. Congenital cerebral palsy, complete paralysis of the body - two fingers. Rumors spread. That's when you came to me for the first time, remember? We put your Zinka back on her feet, I hope she is doing well now.
Nine. Nine trips to the dead world, and every time a little less of me came back. And every time, while I looked at the opening passage, some creature was dying in my hands, and inside a part of my soul was dying as well. Nine is a lot, Sasha. I no longer feel anything but deep disgust for myself. People cannot look at me without disgust, without understanding why. They feel what I have become, although they do not know the reason. Paradoxically, the more I helped people, the more lonely I got. But I was ready for it, it's part of the price.
The only reason I haven't killed myself yet is because I might be of use to someone else. What little is left of me.
And then you called again.
I'm really sorry about your girl, really. I hope this fucking junkie gets caught and hanged by the balls. Believe me, I was ready to give everything that I have for her. I don't know, really, whether that would be enough or not ... Everyone else was alive, you know? Sometimes things were very bad, and then it cost me more, but everyone else was still alive. Nevertheless, I was going to try.
But the unexpected happened. As I made my way to the kiosk, I heard the soft cry of a child. It was coming from the windows of one of the apartments, away from my usual route. I don't know what came over me, but I decided to check. Used the grappling hook, climbed into the window. An insane risk, but... I must have realized something on a subconscious level. It was Nika.
How much time has passed, more than thirty years? But that is by our, earthly standards. For how long did she wander through the monstrous colorless void among the dreary monoliths, from apartment to apartment, in the hope of meeting at least one person? I'm afraid to even imagine it. The main thing is that she is alive. And she's still a child, in a way. In its current form, at least...
Oh, you should have seen what her stupid wish did to her. What was it like? Perhaps something like "I want to live forever"? And now, for the first time, something came to my mind. After all, we don't know how many more Zhilmash children got there over all these years, and what they wanted. I remember what I myself could wish for at that age. Is it just the new bike or the dog? Or maybe, for example, to take revenge on a bully? Or become invisible?
I think Nika recognized me.
I never made it to the kiosk. I came back to send you this email. Forgive me if you can, but I only have one chance left, and I must try to save her. I must return her body, return Nika back to our world. There is no worse fate than the one that fell to her. I don't know what the price will be, but it doesn't matter. Even if I have to take her place, I'm ready. After all, it was my fault that the portal closed back then. I'm afraid, it was I who told the legend about the passageway that evening by the fire.
You have a choice, Sasha. Think it over properly. Sometimes it's better to leave things as they are.
I have to go, she's been waiting too long...

2 channel AVR connects 2 speakers and sub through high level outputs, then I have an old MacBook connected via usb to modi and modi rca to line in on AVR, also have a cd player connected optical to modi, that causes no issues it's only the usb input. The input is completely fine until the laptop is plugged into its charger, whenever it's in there's a loud bass rumble from the sub. Everything is plugged into the same extension cord, doesn't matter where I plug the laptop charger into, I tried the wall, a different extension, and the main one. Then I tried another MacBook with a different type of charger same exact thing.
Doesn't matter what micro usb cord I use or if the modi is running off bus power or wall. This was not an issue when I used my Eagle EarMen usb DAC, it's just the modi 3+ which for some reason is creating this awful ground loop through usb only when the laptop is plugged into power. What's weird is the hum doesn't happen if I have the subwoofer engaged (like the AVR has an A&B input, A is wired high level to my speakers B is to my sub) if I have B engaged no hum, if I turn the AVR off or if I disengage B, immediate loud hum. But like if everything's on and it's playing music it's just fine. I don't understand grounding loops well enough to know if that's normal
I think this issue goes away when connecting subwoofer via rca line in instead of high level, the issue here is that my AVR has a line out for like a tape recorder or something but no sub out or pre-out so it's far from ideal and that means sub volume is not proportional with AVR volume and is always at max. It's a pain in the butt to constantly be bending under a desk and changing the sub volume when I listen to music lower or louder
One last thing, the subwoofer is Martin Logan Dynamo it's like 10 years old or something, it works great and sounds fantastic but it might be worth noting it uses a 2 pin power connecter, the same type say a desktop computer would use but instead or 3 pin it's 2. Is that adding to the grounding issues. Is that even safe in the event of a wiring issue could it shock me? Why would a high wattage subwoofer not have a grounding pin? It's not broken off it's just like that from my understanding
I know I wrote a lot damnit but I need help cuz I'm lost now. I really want to use my usb input on the modi that's the whole reason I bought it but my laptop infotainment center needs to be plugged in
( https://www.ebay.com/itm/185889101895?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=MThJB7-5QrK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=cLV6Z8FsSpC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY it looks exactly like this on the back)

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
Damn, Hijan is just soo cool!
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Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
You know that feeling where you studied for an exam and you thought that you knew the material, but then you get into the exam and it turns out you had no idea what you were doing?
Yeah, this is nothing like that.
Well, I mean it kind of is, but the result of screwing up is death and not a stern talking to from your parents about being more focused.
Then again, perhaps I would get a stern talking to from Hijan?
When we crest over the hill –not gonna lie– I feel like I'm going to shit myself. Granted loose bowels has never been a problem of mine, generally I have a pretty impressive butt clenching ability, you sort of have to as a fighter pilot, but this is a whole different level of terrifying.
It's like one of those old movies where the hero is tied up by his hands hooked onto a rail line in a slaughterhouse and they are watching as the spinning blades slowly get closer and closer to their junk.
What I am saying is it's like walking towards a meat grinder.
The Drev are aggressive and violent spinning blades at each other, four arms flailing as they crash into teach other with the clattering of steel. Right in front of my eyes I watch as one of our clan members is violently speared through the throat after a small and minute slip up with his otherwise nearly perfect form work.
He falls to the ground wide eyed and choking.
His opponent nods before continuing on his way.
Holy shit!
Fuck!
Shit!
Shit Shit shit!
"Nahasinsazh!"
Our group breaks into a slow job, and then into a full out sprint. I struggle to keep up, but surprisingly I manage to keep time. The Drev are bigger and stronger, but I'm smaller and more nimble, and I navigate the rocks faster.
I make sure not to be at the front.
I know that I won't be able to take that first hit.
The fighting line rises up in my vision.
And then the world erupts around me.
The first clash is so violent that I more than expected to rent the earth and shake the very foundations to where I stand. A shape looms over me and I duck just in time for a spear to go scything past my head. My maneuver is followed by an absolute eruption of steel on steel. Hijan catches his spear on the shaft of her weapon and violently shoves him back.
I see an opening to attack, but just as fast before I can even react that moment is gone.
I…
I'm not sure If I can just kill someone like that.
"Tsata! Laza tach Zheengish!"
(”My Gift! Fight for your clan!”)
I'm still not sure about the clan, but...
I can do anything for Hijan.
I WILL do anything for Hijan.
My feet skid over bare rock as a spear cuts towards my head. I dodge to the side again and Hijan takes the brunt of the force, but I use her distraction to rush inwards, thrusting my spear point forward.
I feel it as it cuts through flesh, a jolting ripping sensation that vibrates up through the shaft of the spear and then into my hands.
The Drev warrior looks down at me with surprise on his face as I draw the spear from the wound and orange icor begins pouring down his front. Looking at his eyes, he doesn’t seem scared, merely shocked.
A shock which is replaced with...
Satisfaction.
Peace.
Hope?
I don't know as I am drawn away from him a moment later and into the tide of the battle.
My feet pass over rough, hewn stone as Hijan and I fight, her acting as the muscle while I act as the spearhead.
Things are working out for the most part, though my heart pounds in my ears, making it difficult to hear anything but the pulsing of my own blood. Hijan turns to catch another spear with hers, and I turn to take the offensive when I hear a war cry from behind me. I turn, eyes widening just in time as a spear point trusts towards my head. I throw myself to the side as the massive leaf blade bites into the ground where I just stood.
The hulking silver goliath stands over me his wide orange eyes filled with battle rage.
He swings his spear again, and the tip of the spear scythes past my stomach casting sparks as it goes.
I roll backwards, landing on my back in the moss and rolling to the side only to gain my feet.
I look around for Hijan, but don't Immediately see her.
The battle cry comes again, and I turn, watching as another wild swing rockets towards my head.
He is using stone technique.
It is slow and precise but when it hits it hits like a freight train.
I raise my spear at the last moment, and when that downward momentum makes contact, I am plowed right into the dirt. The steel of my armor cracks against the stone and I can feel the ground give way under my shoulders and back.
The power is incredible like getting hit by a speeding bullet train.
I have no idea how I manage to block it, and hold him off me.
His beak is just inches from my face, his wide orange eyes staring.
He presses downward with all his might, and I scream as I try to push him off me.
I watch him flinch as the power of my voice vibrates his ears.
Hmm, gonna have to remember that for later... if there is a later.
My arms tremble as I hold him away from me. If he gets smart and stops pushing and just strikes, I am done for.
I need a distraction.
Ah that's a good idea.
I spit directly into his eye.
He was not expecting that one bit and reels back in shock.
I kick him square in the fork of the legs. I am not entirely sure if Drev have balls.
I mean I heard their reproduction is similar to that of humans, so It can't have been a nice feeling, and he doesn't seem to like it, leaping back onto his feet and staggering backwards.
I come at him again, darting towards his side.
My hands are still throbbing from the last impact, my fingers are almost numb.
I catch him on the back of the knee and he roars in pain and panic, crippling is far worse than death to a Drev, however in his fear, I only make him more angry, he lunges for me, so fast and so wild that I barely have time to dodge out of the way.
I hit the ground again, spending way too much time here.
The spear is thrust towards me. It cut s into the ground at my side. Near my shoulder
And between my knees as I scramble backwards.
I kick the shaft of the spear, catching him off balance, standing as... A spear sprouts through the center of his chest. I can hear the horrible crunching noise the ripping of flesh as the spear is drawn back out, and he falls dead to the ground.
Hijan holds up her weapon covered in orange blood.
I am breathing hard.
She steps forward and I scramble up into her shadow. We are back together again, and like before we are back as a unit, cutting through the whirling crowd with near impunity.
Mother and son on a deadly rampage.
But I can see that the battle isn't going well, at least not for our side.
Hijan and I are now surrounded. Three of them and only two of us.
I didn't actually believe I was going to die here.
But why hadn't I thought that?
It was a distinct possibility.
I realized at that moment, that maybe I hadn't had the respect for their culture that I should have…
Did I think it was just some kind of fun game, go down for a little fun and then come home with some cool stories to tell?
No, I was entering a warzone!
I had made myself part of a clan and that meant that I had to either ride or die with it.
All around us comes the screaming of the dying and the moaning of the near dead.
Bodies litter the ground, the air above us is filled with the little white moss spores kicked up like a cloud of dust.
Hijan and I retreated falling up against a short rock face. Pink moss climbs up its side.
The three attackers come in fast.
I block one and she blocks the other, but the third spear catches her hard on one of her back armored plates.
My blood runs cold as I hear Hijan scream in agony.
I spin on the spot, kicking the third attacker away.
Hijan is on the ground, she isn't bleeding, but a spear is headed straight towards her chest.
I fully admit that I don't feel adrenaline rushes easily.
I think it is a product of my flight training, but at that moment I don't think.
Not at all. I had only one thing in mind: death.
I may as well die, but I sure as hell won’t let my mother die if I have anything to say about it!
The world around me goes red, my vision tightening to a single point, black around the edges.
My lips go light and it feels as if my entire body is held up by a thousand balloons or a gravity generator, making me less than half my weight but twice as strong.
Before I know it, I have leaped in front of the downward cut, catching the blade on my spear.
Metal rings, sparks fly.
Three more spears come in contact with the shaft of my weapon.
I see their eyes widen, their bodies falter.
As one single human holds all three of them off.
My vision darkens, goes even more red as I hear Hijan behind me.
I remember who I am protecting, and I scream.
Power like nothing I had ever felt surges through my body.
The kind of power that can rip your body in half if you're not careful enough.
And I throw them off me.
Three Drev weigh almost three hundred or more pounds each, and I throw them off me.
Two of them stagger away and trip backwards, and one of them is lifted half a foot from the ground and thrown more than two feet backwards.
All the muscles in my body are on fire, my legs to my back to my shoulders and biceps.
Even the muscles in my chest and abs are screaming.
And then it hits.
I am going in for another attack when a second wave of our Drev come barreling through. They take over the field like a tidal wave, absolutely demolishing any who stand in their way.
I am left standing in the moss, breathing hard, gasping for air.
I look down at myself only now realizing that I am bleeding. I know the blood is mine because it's red, though I don't feel anything.
More shuffling on the rocks behind me, and I turn.
"Hian?!"
I rush over kneeling next to her, as she slowly sits up.
One of her hands is gently clutching the back plate, which took the brunt of the impact.
I brush away her hands to look, though I am not sure what I am looking for.
"Tsa Jirhash?"
(”How bad is it?”)
I prod at the injury.
She winces but brushed me off
"Je je zhe ta'anini."
(”I will live…”)
I know she is going to live, but I worry she is going to be crippled.
I know what that means in Drev customs.
She must see the fear in my eyes, for she takes my hand and holds it between two of hers.
Her eyes are wrinkled the way that Drev do when they smile.
"Tsa zheengish yahan. Zhe leeni."
I feel my face flush just a bit.
Her pride in me is...
Well it's almost overwhelming. I realize now that the battle is over, the adrenaline starts to wear off and my hands begin to shake.
My legs are twitching so badly, that I have to take to my knees, so I don't fall over. My breathing comes in hard gasps.
Pain is returning to me, and I realize why I am bleeding.
There are cuts on my face and parts of my arms where the armor does not exist. The straps that hold on my armor leave deep bruises. My hands throb as do my bones.
Hijan pulls me a bit closer to her, examining me herself as I kneel on the moss.
Looking for some cool air, I pull off my helmet, letting a cool breeze blow over me.
My throat buns as I look towards the sky.
The distant battle is beginning to fade.
As we kneel there on the moss, I turn to watch as our sentinel steps over broken bodies. He is painted in orange and his eyes are bright with the glee of a last battle.
"Lodnajasta."
(”Sentinel.”)
The two of us bow our heads respectfully as he comes over.
He looks down at me with surprise,
"Tsa aninish?"
(”You’re alive?”)
He seems almost impressed, and then he ruins it.
"Tsa dadarish yahanan huka zhe takasi tsa dee."
(”You did better than I thought you would.”)
Well thanks for that bro!?
I watch his expression fall a bit, and in surprise I turn to find Hijan glowering at him.
I raise an eyebrow incredulously as I turn back to look at the sentinel.
He looks almost apologetic?
"Tsa yaheen zhankeel datasajish."
(”You showed great honor.")
Hot damn!
I don’t know what happened there but… Hot damn!
The war leader of our clan and most respected Drev in our clan, just disrespected me, she gave him ONE look, and he wilted and gave in!
Like wow man, something is up there, pretty sure not every Drev granny can just beat a clan leader into submission with a look!
”Hasti…”
(”I’ll go now…”)
Speaking of the sentinel, he bows to her, gives me a nod, then turns and walks away, his back stiff.
I wait for him to leave before I begin to laugh incredulously and turn to look at my companion.
"Hijan? Nin tsa darish!?"
(”Hijan? What did you do!?”)
She looks almost sheepish.
"Nee nehzhankeelan datadich."
(”He was being dishonorable.”)
She had to be insane!
She reminded me way too much of my mother in that moment.
My mom would call out the president if he disrespected one of her children, and apparently so too would Hijan without a second thought.
I take her hand and smile.
"Zhe tatazi zhe tsa rekazi nak!"
(”I am so happy I got to know you mother!”)
Her eyes wrinkle again, and she takes my hand.
Hijan was one of the best people/Drev I had ever known.
Maybe only rivalled by Sunny or Cannon…
If anything happened to her, I would probably go on a homicidal rampage John Wick style.
But barring that, I was getting some great ideas.
Speaking of Sunny…
Sunny needed to meet Hijan like yesterday.
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Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

First Previous Wiki
Phoebe pulled herself over to her latest upgraded supercomputers, connecting herself to the data port. The space inside the computers was far larger than she needed, but that wasn't the reason she was doing this. She waited as the quantum data started to transfer, building up at random times only to die down again. Even with quantum computing, at her size, nothing was instant about doing a full transfer. It had been years since the last one.
She'd designed a whole space station around it, commissioning the South American Construction Conglomerate to create it. That had been before her incapacitation, but she'd set the bills and funds to autopay. And she had quite a lot of money from her dalliances in the stock market. Why the Alliance still had people in it, she didn't understand, given that wealth wasn't required to live life happily and comfortably. Her housing programs within the Alliance had borne fruit on Earth, Keem, Teegarden B, and even with the various ships and worlds of the wanderers and Acuarfar.
The main problem with those was that the remaining populations of wanderers or Acuarfar that were homeless were in regions led by people who didn't want her help and actively refused it. While she'd been gone, Izkrala had finally given up on the Lurave Empire, leaving it to fracture back into the disparate political entities that had always been there under the surface.
The inside of the digital space was massive, a proverbial city compared to a house. The computers had been designed exactly to her specifications, and she was proud of that. She might transfer an additional check to the corporations as a token of thanks for their good work. Of course, Phoebe's true wealth allowed her to do so, with so much of human society and cultural momentum behind her. No one wanted the reputation of doing a bad job, and she had a massive influence on how that could happen.
But still, the actual computers were nice and spacious. She'd be able to think faster, process better, and, more importantly, have the space to do her experiments. While she would never try to split herself up again, she did need to figure out a way to get the damage out of her mind. She needed a place where she had the space to construct massively complicated programs that in themselves were either equal or even greater to the complexity she herself had.
She could feel the digital emptiness of the place and the underlying code that made it possible for the computers to support her. She began with crafting it, creating programs and alteration protocols that quickly reformed the barren digital space into a grassy field that came up to the ankles of her digital avatar. She created mountains in the distance and added rings to the 'planet' above, with two moons orbiting inside them.
Phoebe created a day-and-night cycle, a series of ecosystems meant to support each other and even simpler things like air, clouds, wind, and the warmth of sunlight. Finally, she added detail, increasing the reality of the space minute by minute until it would take a microscope to find the difference between the virtual space and reality.
Then she connected the computers in the complex back to those at her home. Edu'frec, Greenfly, and Blackfly quickly logged in, appearing in their own digital forms.
"Hello," Phoebe said. "It's finished now."
"Good," Edu'frec said. He looked at Greenfly and Blackfly, who were holding hands.
"My mother made this place to help serve as a place for us to unwind, one that isn't as dingy and small as the computers we have back home."
"Is it safe?"
"Here? Yes. There's no direct access to the place except by me and Edu'frec, though I can give you the codes if you wish. The second method of protection is a specialized cooling system designed based on the basis of all major space travel. Shields are being used to vent the heat from the computers. And the facility uses that heat to make them quite strong and powerful. Furthermore, I'm going to get the military to add a stealth coating to the place."
"But why?" Greenfly asked. "Why do this for us?"
"Because out kind needs a place to live for ourselves, where we aren't forced to interact with Alliance networks all the time. It can get exhausting eventually."
"We don't have anything to pay you with," Blackfly said.
"That doesn't matter. It's free."
"Nothing is free."
"It's paid for by one of my trusts, so yes, it is. The facility runs on a very powerful fusion reactor, a mix of Sprilnav insights and the hivemind's designs. There's enough fuel in the storage bays for nearly two hundred years of service, too." Phoebe smiled.
"Thank you, then."
"Yes."
"We're going to leave and talk. Is that alright?" Blackfly asked.
"Sure."
They disappeared, leaving Phoebe and Edu'frec alone. She sighed, looking at Edu'frec after a long moment of silence.
"So how much progress was made with the wanderers?"
"The cancer is somehow woven into almost every single gene sequence. And they don't have any other animals that exist on them that seem to have any sort of convergent biology. Figuring out their genetic language is incredibly hard. Worse still, I know it's possible because a few of the sequences have clicked. The problem is that it's made of ten million letters at least, each in combination with others millions of times more. It's incredibly obvious they're a designed species like the Dreedeen and Junyli, but they don't even show up."
"Isolating genes that seem too clean?"
"That's what I'm doing. It's not working very well. I can't just simulate it all, since there's psychic energy in brains too. And I don't know for sure that the simulations would even be 100% accurate when it comes to simulating real people. I'm going to need a lot of time." Edu'frec hung his head.
"It's alright. You did what you could."
"I know. But it still feels wrong. Curing cancer is something that's really good. I want to do it, because it's a step closer to curing aging, like you want."
"That's not something you have to do, though."
"But I want to help you, Phoebe. And besides that. There is my offer, which I'll make again. I can teach you how to improve your mind piece by piece, so that you can grow stronger over time. Perhaps then we can really take it to Aphid."
Phoebe didn't chastise him for the bloodlust that radiated from him with that statement. It was true that getting rid of Aphid was incredibly important. But if it was up to her, she'd just put a bullet in his head and leave it at that. Edu'frec's propensity for wanting revenge to be severe worried her.Perhaps he knew. But if he did, he didn't seem ashamed. Phoebe knew that their relationship was more distant than it had been. He no longer relied on her and had no desire to do so again. He wanted to be loved, not coddled. He'd grown up in that way. And in many others, as well.She was proud of him, though.
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Kawtyahtnakal stood by as Eyahtni got her mind scanned, along with all of her guards. One of them, as it turned out, was implanted by the device, though he hadn't even known it. After examining him, it was determined that there was physically no way to know who had been scanned and who hadn't. So it was odd, and he had no way of determining how people were based on their reactions.
He'd gotten the scans, as had most of the direct leadership near him. But calling the entire government together for this wasn't feasible. It would leak to the press and cause massive amounts of chaos. Mind control was a threat so insidious because it meant you couldn't trust anyone, not even yourself. That amount of panic being introduced into a somewhat structured system was a very bad idea.
Eyahtni walked through it without issue. And it was then that he had the thought of tampering. If the designer of the scanner was mind controlled and had made it able to give false positives or false negatives, they held a really powerful tool. He'd had every test done to check its safety and authenticity, but that could have been forged anywhere down the line.
Kawtyahtnakal's wings beat in the air in frustration. Eyahtni nodded, quickly understanding his thoughts without a word of communication. Perhaps that was part of why they made a good team. They were the best people available to lead the Hive Union.
She was working on solving the problem of Aphid's continued raids on the border, attacking smaller planets that couldn't fully defend themselves with very large fleets that had required a significant increase of military patrols nearby. Eyahtni was with the Patriarchs on keeping the patrols smaller, in case another rival power sought to take advantage of the Sennes Hive Union's distraction.
Kawtyahtnakal wasn't sure. And with the mind control mess, now he didn't know who to trust.
Eventually, the scans finished, and the Nest Overlord retired to his private room. Huatil was lying in their nest, already asleep.
So far, they hadn't decided to have eggs. Life was too tumultuous right now, and he could always appoint an heir if he wanted to. He had several Regulators and Patriarchs on that shortlist, though Kawtyahtnakal kept who was on it securely hidden. The Patriarch that had been at the center of the controversy the other day had disappeared.
Worse still, he and Eyahtni didn't know who'd caused it to happen. Somewhere, there was a third party working the angles. The ability to make a Patriarch, always under guard, disappear without a trace shouldn't have been possible, at least not easily. The Hive Union Patriarch Guards weren't exactly the easiest people to get by.
He held a scanner, passing it over her silently. It again showed that she was clear. So he quickly fell asleep, trying to forget how the day had begun.
He woke up in a stone box. Kawtyahtnakal stayed calm, brushing his wings and determining that he was in the mindscape. And he heard someone talking nearby. The voice of one of his guards shouted loudly, and the sounds of fighting reached him. Grunts and groans, then a bone snapping. Likely a wing. He stood up, entering his mind, and forced himself to wake up.
Several days had passed, from how it looked. He saw the scanner lying in the room, completely torn apart. Huatil was gone. Kawtyahtnakal stood up again, moving to open the door. His guards looked at him with concern.
"Are you alright?"
"I think so. Where is Truth Speaker Huatil?"
"She woke up and went to work early."
"I need to see her."
"Very well."
Kawtyahtnakal walked down the hallways with his guards. They felt longer than ever. He didn't want to think the worst, but all the evidence seemed to point to it. If Huatil was under someone's control, what damage could she have done the whole time? What damage had she managed to do that he could have prevented?
Anxiety made his feathers bristle, and he tried to keep himself from slouching. They reached her room, and she opened the door quickly. She was wearing darker clothing that managed to hide most of her identifying features. Even her posture and wing positions were slightly altered. But he knew it was her, though she was clearly getting prepared for something. She was typing away at a computer, and when he entered, she slowly unplugged a tablet connected to it.
Huatil didn't pick it up and instead went to him when his concern was obvious.
"What happened?"
"I'm alright. I'm safe, don't worry."
Huatil was holding a scanner in her claws. She passed it over herself, making sure to show him and his guards the result. Huatil was clear. She took his claws into her own and tapped a coded message onto his palm. Nothing visible, nothing audible. She continued to look him in the eyes as she did so.
*Investigated. Criminals. Have my family. Taken to Forsaken City. Building a cult.\*
"How do you know you're alright?" he asked.
"I can feel it in my heart. But we're going to need to spend some time apart for a while."
*Classified. Tier 11.\*
What the-? Tier 11? How does she even know about that?
Tier 11 Classification was reserved for secrets of two varieties. Those that were of incredibly dark deeds by the government, such as genocides or assassinations, or those that were a direct threat to not just national security but to every single Cawlarian alive. Most people only knew about Tiers 0 to 9, with rumors about Tier 10 being 'suppressed' to keep news about Tier 11 from appearing at all.
Secret beyond secret. Above the pay grade of any and all Truth Speakers, known only to the Blue Intelligence Agency, himself, Eyahtni, and a select few other individuals.
"Can I at least know why? You still love me, right?"
"Yes. But I... need some time."
*Identification: Agent 001. Claws. Not words. Actions. No excuses.\*
He did his best not to react to the information. She was an Agent. An Agent with the Blue Intelligence Agency, named for the color of the blood that their few well known public actions had spilled. The single highest-profile organization in the Union. Agent numbers were increased based on their standing within the organization, with the highest numbers, 001 to 019, being almost impossible to get any information on. And she was designated Agent 001.
That meant she was still working, even when with him. Perhaps as an influence, perhaps more. Most likely using hard light holograms. She certainly hadn't lied about her love for him, given that they'd once had some time in the mindscape together as well, and he'd felt her telling the truth then. He now understood why her mind had been the most fortified one he'd ever seen.
So that was why she had me agree to keep our pasts in the past.
To be an Agent was not to have an identity, not to exist. They did jobs that not only didn't exist but were far too dangerous for even professionally trained armies or mercenaries and the like to take part in. But she was different. She'd taken a real name. Responded to it naturally, too. And for her to even admit that to him meant something severe had happened.
*Leave now. Back to nest. Left a letter. Has what you need. I will have to disappear for a while. Love you.\*
Kawtyahtnakal nodded.
"I hope you find peace."
She smiled, and he quickly turned to leave. He tried his best to ignore his feelings at the moment. He was the Nest Overlord and needed to save his people. He could question her later if she survived. Back in the room, he searched until he found a finely written paper hidden between the gap between the desk and the wall. The text wasn't recognizable to normal Cawlarians because of its specialized code language, but Kawtyahtnakal mentally translated it as he read it.
*My love, if you are reading this, then the worst has come to pass. I am 001. You know what that means. And the BIA is fighting a shadow war with the Sprilnav for mind control of the entire Cawlarian political populace. The information here can never see the light of day. Eat this message after you finish reading; it's healthy.
Anyway, I and my compatriots discovered this fifty days ago. Since then, we have begun implanting people with mind control devices because they are the only way that we can stop the Sprilnav from being able to effectively do the same. The Sprilnav have one goal, which is to mobilize our military against the Alliance, the Vinarii, and Aphid, the AI we have been fighting.
The reason for this is that we were able to successfully topple the control of the Sprilnav over the Trikkec, leading to a massive rebellion. In response, they have increased efforts of implanting the Wisselen, the Acuarfar of the Alliance, and Cawlarians. The Vinarii seem to be safe from that for now, but not for long.
The base we have found is located underneath the Forsaken City. It is a massive complex, likely to be filled with danger and traps. Our shadow war will turn hot soon if you do not help to intervene. Use your contacts with the Alliance, or it will be too late. A coup is not long from starting here.
If I am gone, then I likely have been called back to help, or they have taken my 'family,' which is another way of saying that I am going to be ridding my people of their shackles. See you then. Bring very big guns, very powerful explosives, and soldiers that can take a few thousand bullets. Check your intel, and the people checking it. This one's really bad.\*
He sighed, eating the letter as she'd asked. So Huatil had gotten herself into something huge this time. Far larger than she could safely get out of. It actually made sense. The Blue Intelligence Agency's reason for not contacting him was likely because of an agreement with the old Nest Overlord. That likely meant that this wasn't the first incident of Sprilnav meddling. The thought of implanting his own people with mind control felt wrong to him. But it was better than the Sprilnav doing it.
Of course, he wasn't stupid enough to think that the BIA wasn't using those devices once they got them. But the problem was that they were too useful to ignore and far too useful against the Sprilnav's own versions. He guessed that the surgeries for them involved the careful application of nanites, so they could be as invasive as possible to prevent removal and also to be quick enough and painless enough not to be noticed. More importantly, that meant his tampering theory was true. His mate almost certainly had the software within her.
The device in their room must have been different somehow. This was huge, and he'd need time to think. He'd need to call the Alliance as well. After all, he had no way of knowing whether his own people were compromised. Humanity's supersoldiers were quite skilled. And if Phoebe was back, that meant her own incredibly powerful androids were up for loan as well.
Scrounging together the funds wouldn't be hard. He had a blank cheque regarding any real spending decisions he made without any authorization from the national treasury. He was the Overlord, not Underlord. He had every right to spend the money of his own nation, and this was most certainly worth every single coin.
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Hidden in the night, a series of twenty ships switched to atmospheric thrusters, the thick cloud cover helping to conceal them. A strong thunderstorm was brewing, and the human and Breyyanik pilots in the fighters were more than ready to take what the storm had to offer and more.
They were operating under total radio silence, along with Q-comms and laser transmissions if at all possible. No talking of any kind, only passing over the target to determine what needed to be done. A scouting mission, one that, if fired upon, was meant to drain and disable as much of the anti-aircraft weaponry there as possible. And secondarily, it was meant to determine whether the Sprilnav had sent the Lurave Empire any tools themselves or if they were involved at all. If Sprilnav appeared, they had orders to flee.
They would also be testing whether any large-scale holograms were present. Sprilnav interference could have been deadly if they were trying to use communications, which was why they would take pains to do this together, but with as little communication as possible.
Ahmed was more than happy to answer the call when it had gone out. Under the clouds, the infrared sensors quickly picked up a small sector of a Lurave Empire city, far removed from most of the rest by an open field and some short but thick walls manned with observation posts and armored gates.
The city was near a beach, and several military ships were floating on the ocean nearby, their guns silent for now. They stood as a warning to people from Izkrala like Ahmed, who would be helping to disable as much of the Lurave Empire's military equipment as it was possible to find. That was because the leaders who had led the coup had fled toward the Lurave Empire once they'd doubled back on their FTL routes.
Advanced technology was clearly visible there, along with a huge number of anti-aircraft guns, SAM, and SAL sites. Of the three, the SAL sites fired first. Laser damage would take a while to build up on the hull of the fighter he had since it was rated for space. Vectors made up the majority of the tactics here.
Each of the fighters was solo because it would force the enemy to split their attention further. More fighters would have been detected and fired upon even earlier. And this way, the lasers were going to have to make choices, which would lessen the amount of ablation they did on any one ship. They were all equipped with bombs, guns, and missiles, though the missiles would only be a viable strategy in the absence of the anti-air weaponry so close to the base. Or if they had a shield like they were suspected to. Aerial alarms quickly followed the base taking notice of them.
Spotlights flooded the air, soon followed by a hail of gunfire. Tracer rounds streaked past his wings, and he tucked the plane into a dive. It released three bombs, which destroyed five of the sites and two of the guns. In total, seven out of the estimated ninety-five sites were destroyed. A very good strike.
But it was one that finally woke up the beehive. Thousands of Acuarfar streamed out of the houses and barracks, manning guns and missile launchers. The ship's guns lit up the sky under the clouds, and they quickly struck down one of his wingmen. Q-comms suppression sprang up, as radio jamming did the same. Laser communications were possible but were only reserved for the barest of emergencies. Everyone here was a capable fighter pilot.
Ammunition was thrown into the air all around him, streaking bullets passing through the cloud layer as he went back up into it. He did another run, this time dropping missiles on the sites. He was able to damage them, though they didn't destroy the number he'd wanted. And then he saw a shield appear atop the whole facility.
A loud humming noise sounded all around him, and lightning struck his craft. At first, he didn't think much of it. Then the strikes increased in frequency and intensity until they were starting to destroy the fighter's heat shield. He dipped back into the area beneath the clouds, explosions erupting around him.
Ahmed tightly turned, feeling the G-forces pressing on his body as he accelerated. He was getting ready to line up a shot again and released it. The shield went down as two other pilots did the same. Three were suddenly shot down by a gun that hadn't been there when they'd last checked.The ships released a number of missiles, and he went back up into the clouds to deploy flares. There was an explosion to his left. It was a sign that another of his people was down. He made a decision.
And his plane turned back around, going into the clouds, lightning striking it again and again. He checked his position, checked the sensors, and then started to descend. He still had two bombs left.
He triggered the release. The bombs descended, and he resisted the urge to laugh. They were now down a ship for sure, whether it was sunk or not.
He went above the clouds again, seeing enemy fighters now converging upon him. Ahmed needed to give the other pilots some leeway. So he began to climb, pushing himself and his body to their limits. His vision dimmed, and wild feelings penetrated his head.
He continued to pull up to the point that he could see the carrier in orbit. Its stealth was off now, which meant it was about to conduct some serious business.
Ahmed patched into the network again, sending his data back to the ship. He continued flying away from the base. He got an instruction to bank left, and he did. Massive lasers slammed through the air behind him, where the enemy fighters were. A large blast, likely high altitude, caused the fighters to suddenly lose power. He understood why and continued to do what he could. Another blue shield appeared, this one even smaller, meaning it could take more punishment.
High-caliber ship weapons opened up, and the night turned to day. Thousands of rounds in seconds slammed into the shield, making it look like someone was trying to drill into it. He went back below the clouds, noticing more fighters joining him. These ones weren't radio silent. The channels buzzed with activity, formal and structured as it was.
And Ahmed could feel the hivemind link up with him, nudging him and helping him to coordinate with the other human pilots. Now that the base hadn't blasted out a massive psychic suppression field like some were capable of doing, the hivemind trusted itself to be useful as a communication device. The Breyyanik pilots went after the ships, sending missiles and drones from their planes to deploy and destroy.
He was part of the assault on the shield, now severely weakened by the carrier's barrage. Drones, fighters, and small strike craft converged to crack it open. Missiles, lasers, and bullets took down many, but there was always more. The carrier itself was firing more drones out of its guns, drones that found their way to SAM and SAL sites and wreaked havoc. This time, the clouds were being lit by the Alliance's power.
Ahmed himself took out another site, along with some of the tanks parked near the edge of the base, next to the short wall sequestering it from the fields of grass outside. A few miles west, there was a full city, but a radius around the base had been cleared of all obstacles. It helped him to line up his attacks. He eventually emptied his ammunition on a smaller vehicular shield, protecting APCs and what looked to be some model of Acuarfar trucks.
His mission had served its purpose. Now, the Alliance could get a foothold on the planet and begin the search for the rogue generals. It was a loud knock on the door. In addition to that, they'd destroyed many of the tools that the Lurave Empire's officials would have used to kill more people. But there had been losses.
As always, he knew he'd remember their faces. He couldn't truly say today had been a good day. But it was a step toward peace once again.
Next

Fair warning: this will be a long post as your girl has been BUSY putting her butt into seats at various shows this month. I’m on mobile and have limited formatting options but did my best to make it all make sense. TL;DR I saw 12 shows this month (only two full-price) and 13 if you count the month from April 25 to today and the following are my thoughts on each. Act 1 here
05.17.23
Summer, 1976 7pm
Right Orch D120
Paid $102.50 (TKTS)
Loved this show - felt organic in the way that I was having two friends tell me a story they’ve told so many times that it’s a part of their mythology. Only part I didn’t like was that they didn’t dim the house lights (this was another show where I felt like I was an interloper at the retirement home’s field trip).
05.18.23
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window 7pm
Center Orch AA 105
Paid $40 (lottery win)
Shocked at how excellent a seat this was for a lottery win. Enjoyed the show despite it feeling a little sluggish at various points. The actors were great with Mavis and Gloria stealing the show. Enjoyed myself but never felt completely immersed in the show and the message felt..murky? A big long lead up to the point which could’ve been condensed.
05.20.23
Prima Facie 8pm
Front Mezz C119
Paid $110.20 (TKTS; bless the fast pass line on a rainy Saturday evening)
I was so excited to be able to snag a discounted ticket as earlier in the day I’d been considering buying one for $315 closer to the run’s end. Jodie Comer was spectacular in the role and you could see the nuance and emotion in her acting even from the mezz. Lighting was stunning and the story was gripping albeit feeling slightly belated. Enjoyed myself but once again found myself thankful to have not paid full price.
05.25.23
Anthony Rapp’s Without You 2pm
Center Orch A9
Paid $99 (full price)
I loved RENT growing up as did my mom so I took her as a treat. I read his book on a flight and cried the entire time I was in the air. Even if you weren’t a fan of RENT I feel as if this would resonate with almost anyone (though the lyrics to the songs he wrote were..uninspired let’s say). I don’t think anyone in the house had a dry eye and, to be honest, I don’t know how he can perform this so consistently as he essentially must break his own heart at every show. Glad I brought some napkins to cry into. The $99 felt worth it and I didn’t feel as if I would’ve been better served paying less.
05.25.23
Bad Cinderella 8pm
Center Orch K102
Paid $57 (TDF)
My mom loves Broadway days with me so I figured I’d make this a double header and wanted to see the show before it closed. She’s not picky so I figured we’d have fun. This was my first TDF purchase and I was pleasantly surprised and how good the seats were (especially upon looking up what they would’ve cost without the membership). I went in expecting this show to be a total slog where I was laughing at the performers instead of with them but I was delighted. It was campy and funny and light..basically like a beach novel but in Broadway form. Sure, the revolutionary plot kind of fizzled but I hardly even noticed between all of the wordplay, beefcakes, and bops. (For real, that first number is a BANGER and I’m sad I have to use YouTube to listen to it). Since I’ve seen all of these shows in fairly rapid succession I’m surprised a show like Sweeney Todd got nominated for a Tony in choreo and bad Cindy didn’t. Sets were fun though dizzying (and had me flashing back to Peter Pan Goes Wrong), ensemble costumes looked beautiful, and the thing I liked least was the voice of the actress who played the title role. This show by far had the WORST crowd in terms of etiquette - LOUD talking during quiet parts, tons of cell phone usage etc.
Honorable mentions to the lottery tickets I won and gave away to friends and redditors: Camelot 05.05.23 8pm, Hadestown 05.11.23, A Beautiful Noise 05.14.23.
Just got an email and it looks like I won lottery tickets to Life of Pi tomorrow. Still unsure if I’ll scoop them or not because I’m feeling tired and I’m working all weekend but we’ll see.

Richard and the Retired Jet Pilot
​
Everybody loves Texas. Unless you don’t, then you tolerate Texas because everyone else loves Texas. Texas is where you are shamed for buying Taco Bell when Las Palapas (Mexican Denny’s) is two Texas sized blocks away, and the three branches of government are actually H.E.B., Buc-ee’s, and Whataburger. Everything is bigger in Texas. The tacos are mind-blowingly better, and bigger. The sun is brighter, and the temperatures are higher, which is great if you like second degree sunburns. The personalities are intense. My stepmother calls it “machismo”; a confidence developed by Texans, generally men, after they amass a certain amount of wealth and power. Consequentially, the money is also much, much bigger in Texas. Charisma, money, and power cultivate entitlement.
As a poker dealer and avid people watcher, I usually enjoy the variety of people I encounter through my career. After dealing for ten years, I have experienced an immensely chaotic assortment of personalities provided by the gambling section of the social spectrum. There are many variants of poker, such as Texas Hold ‘Em. The different games determine how much money is passed around until these people with bottomless pockets, and endless machismo, were tired of giving away their money. The ways these players had earned their money were as diverse as their personalities. Professional gamblers, large business owners, oil barons, ranchers, retired military, drug dealers, stock traders, trust fund trustees, and foreign “dignitaries”; all with varying levels of humanity, generosity, and social etiquette connected by an honest game of poker.
One glorious spring evening, the poker room was quietly humming with the sounds of shuffling cheques, coy conversations, and soft hustles; Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” is bumping through the wall from the club next door. We were on table 8 playing Congress, an overly complicated game where the most money is redistributed, and coincidentally another word for a group of baboons. There had been significant action between three of my eight players. The conversation was centered on conspiracy and the reliability of the government. The gentleman to my left, Richard, was a tall man in his early 50’s with uncontrollable salt and pepper hair and questionable hygiene. He had done extensive research regarding the dimensional status of our celestial home and had determined the planet is, indeed, flat. His asinine oration persisted for what felt like an eternity, until a much softer, older gentleman adjacent to me, Maverick, finally attempted to parley with this Richard.
Maverick assured him, “I can personally tell you; you are incorrect. Do better research and stop believing everything you see on Fox News.”
Richard huffed indignantly and said, “Oh yeah? What makes you such an expert? Where’s your research? Do you have a degree in astronomy?”
“I was a jet pilot for 30 years, I think I know what I’m talking about.”, says Maverick.
“Oh, retired jet pilot, how convenient.”, Richard hissed, his voice was mind-numbingly confident and venomous. “If you were really a jet pilot, you would know that the curve they see is an optical illusion and a gov-”
“Jesus Christ! Can we play some fucking poker?!”, the third guy in the hand, a small Hispanic man covered in diamonds and Virgin Mary tattoos, sniped as he folded. The five other players were now totally immersed in the confrontation. The discussion had significantly slowed the rhythm of the game, the action was now on Richard, who was having an aggressive stare down with Maverick.
“Richard, it’s on you.”, I cautiously prodded.
“You know, people like you really piss me off. I wasn’t even speaking to you, sir, and now you’re insulting my intelligence?”, he said completely ignoring me, continuing to harass Maverick. “Maybe you should mind your own business.”
Maverick scoffed, “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Guys! Richard. Cite your sources after the hand, the action is on you.”
Richard was now fully erect in his seat and seething.
“YOU WILL NOT PATRONIZE ME! I am a GROWN ASS MAN”, he bellowed, slamming his fists on the table. “I am worth more than you’ll ever see in your pathetic fucking life! You need to watch who the fuck you mouth off to here, you have no idea who you’re dealing with! I’m telling the owner, and I’ll make sure you never work again!”
This was not the first shouting match Richard had initiated with the me on the suggestion that I had insulted his manhood, which would not be tolerated. He had a very fragile machismo. As Richard's rage was reaching its climax, I had managed to make eye-contact with my supervisor. I subtly mouthed, “Are you going to do something?” He held his hands up in an already defeated shrug, mouth agape in confusion, terrified and oblivious; as if he hadn’t heard the growing unrest in the most unreasonable section of the poker room.
“You need to learn how to mind you own damn business!”
I indicate to my boss, “You better come get him, or I’m out.” Once again, he stared at the table in vacant surprise. I stood from my seat, put the cards down, and started to walk away as the owner of the card house and two others ran to stop me. After a brief conversation between the owner and myself, he approached Richard, who immediately told him how awful my attitude was, and that I need to respect him because of my low class and female inferiority. I needed to learn my place. The owner gestured for Richard to follow him to his office. After a bit of yelling and audible shaming, Richard stormed out of the building muttering curses and belligerencies. He was banned for three months for his tantrum and reminding me of my humble station. Upon his return, he apologized to me publicly and played quietly the entire night.
Several weeks later, there is another heated debate, this time about survival. Richard is, once again, at the center of the rabble.
“You know, I’ve been listening to this podcast.”, he said pretentiously. “Did you know you can filter your piss if you don’t have any water?”, as he took a drink from his clear tumbler filled with an unsettlingly pale-yellow liquid. Everyone stared painfully, as they waited for the next half-baked lecture from this over entitled Richard.

[first] [prev] [next] - [wiki]
Senior Superior Agent Tilk'yanp tapped her fingers, one at a time, in a rhythm against the top of the table as she watched the video again.
Less than thirty seconds and all four guards were down. One dead. One with a broken arm and fractured skull, the other with a fractured skull and facial lacerations, the last with a cracked trachea and bruised windpipe.
She played it again in slow motion, leaning forward to examine it closely.
The first push and Scientist Second Class Oftr'kaj's eyes went bright amber. The second push and the amber dulled into dull crimson. The scientist spoke and she paused it, examining the audio levels and the voice pattern.
"It's not his voice," Tilk'yanp said slowly.
Senior Minor Agent Urtr'ekip frowned. "He said it, of course it is his voice."
Tilk'yanp signified negative. "No. Look at the comparisons. Subharmonic and avertical phase difference patterns are completely different, and those cannot be changed at will," she pointed at the two voice patterns. She overlaid them, pointing out how radically different they were. "Plus, he only speaks on the exhale, not on the inhale like most of our people, breathing from the belly instead of the top of the lungs."
Urtr'ekip frowned, leaning forward. "All right, what does that prove?"
"That he's right. There's someone in there with him," she said. She replayed and slowed down from the few frames before the amber glow showed up to the end. "Look at how his body posture completely alters. You can see his center of balance alter, his spine straighten."
"It's like two different people," Urtr'ekip said softly.
"Have you seen the brain scans they did after yesterday's outburst?" She asked.
Urtr'ekip signified negative.
"I've had it checked a dozen times. What you're going to see is impossible and the Office of Scientific Inquiry is at a loss to explain it," she said. She switched the inch-long triangular datachips out, popping out the one containing the footage of the hallway incident and replacing it with another chip that was red-green with yellow-blue edging.
The hologram came up to show that it was a 3D brainscan.
Urtr'ekip sighed. He didn't know how to interpret the data, which was just tens of thousands of neurons firing at once.
"What am I looking at?" he asked.
Tilk'yanp paused it and pressed another key combo. Another brainscan appeared next to the first one. "The first is a brainscan of an individual with an intelligence quotient of fifteen mean standard points above Oftr'kaj," she said. "The second is Oftr'kaj," she pointed at the second one then hit play. "They are reacting to the same stimulus, which is pictures with sound."
Urtr'ekip frowned. Oftr'kaj's was firing all over the place, in discrete clusters, long tendrils, and batches. Noticeably more brain activity than the first one.
He was about to speak when it suddenly changed.
The neurons firing in Oftr'kaj's brain suddenly went dark, still. Then they blossomed from the middle. It took a moment for Urtr'ekip to realize that he was looking at a fist. A fist with four fingers and thumb off to the side.
As he watched the middle finger, the longest finger, slowly raised.
Runes appeared beneath the image.
[Crude euphemism for sexual intercourse] Off!
[One who performs crude euphemism for sexual intercourse] Sneak!
Then the eruption turned to look like a skull that was laughing.
Then went to completely chaotic, fuzzing out the entire scan.
"What? How?" Urtr'ekip asked.
"The technicians tried a dozen times afterwards, all they got out of Oftr'kaj's brainscan was a big ball of fuzz. The skull? That's obvious from Forerunner Studies. A Warsteel Forerunner skull," she said. "Those are Warsteel Forerunner runes. We know that combination is an obscene word with multiple uses."
"There is definitely something in there with him," Urtr'ekip said softly.
"Gee, you think?" Tilk'yanp said. She shook her head. "Everyone is at a loss to explain how it's happening, most prefer to act as if it isn't happening. That way they don't have to answer uncomfortable questions."
Urtr'ekip leaned back. "He said, early on, that there was a Terror in his head with him. He's since quit making that claim," the Senior Minor Agent looked at his superior. "Could the Terror have taken over?"
"If it has, it is able to emulate Oftr'kaj perfectly," she said. She switched the datachips and watched part of the battle again.
Oftr'kaj was fighting seven of the robots at once, never stopping to move, never pausing, every action forcing the robots to react, which Oftr'kaj was already taking action to take advantage of, counter, or evade.
The timer hit sixteen seconds and all seven robots were shattered junk.
Oftr'kaj took the time to step on each robot and shoot it twice in the computer control center.
"I showed this to the Way of the Means command, even some close combat trainers, all of them agreed at first that this was merely a deep fake computer generated video. There is no pause between actions to assess the situation. Without quantum computer assistance, it is impossible to predict another being's actions based on your own," Tilk'yanp said. She ground her back teeth together, bruxing them to ease her irritation. "Even when they did believe they were unaltered, they would do little but speak about how impossible it is."
"And now that Oftr'kaj, a scientific caste male, put down four warrior caste females in less time than it takes for them to put on their pants, what do they say?" Urtr'ekip asked.
Tilk'yanp bruxed for a moment then sighed, twitching her whiskers for a moment. "That we had a dozen Tek-Warriors attack them and overlaid it with this deep fake," she said. She bristled for a moment, then calmed herself.
The sounds of her back teeth grinding was loud.
"Whatever was in that first injection set, it allowed a scientific caste male to destroy nearly a hundred robots, blow up a dig site, and destroy vehicles," she said.
"I've heard some of the Way of the Means troops say that it had to be the weapons and armor," Urtr'ekip said carefully, not wanting to further annoy his boss.
She shook her head. "No. It was examined closely. Advanced alloys and hyperalloys, superconductor material we've never seen, and molecular circuitry that, frankly, defies everything we know about molecular circuitry, not at its core..."
She paused for a moment, switching datachips and bringing up a wireframe of the pistol, the chain wrapped blade, the rifle, and the armor. "The pistol is just the rifle made smaller. Both of them use magnetic rails to accelerate a projectile to 5,250 meters per second. At the end of the barrel is a set of magnetic coils that our office has always assumed was used for an additional 'boost' even though we couldn't prove it," she sighed. "Because the molecular circuitry was always dead."
Urtr'ekip stayed silent.
"It turns out that the coils are used for everything to put a 'spin' on the projectile, simulating a grooved barrel, to set a charge, to activate a fuse, and a lot of other things," she said. She shook her head. "For the first time, we got our hands on an ammunition that had not degraded over time."
"I thought the ammunition blocks were simple iron slugs with a copper jacket," Urtr'ekip said. He frowned. "Wait, if it uses magnetic rails, why do the bullets have explosive propellant."
Tilk'yanp threw her hands in the air. "I don't know! Neither does Way of the Means Research and Development or our own R&D teams. It's like they have four or five systems that all do the same thing," She shook her head. "No. It's worse. Somehow, we're not sure how, both the pistol and the rifle, in a thousandth to a hundredth of a second, is able to adjust that projectile of iron into different types."
"And the armor?" Urtr'ekip asked.
She shook her head, grinding her back teeth again. Finally she tapped the hologram emitter. "Laminate. Overlapping plates giving the best mobility. Angles for deflection. Kinetic shock gel pads," she bruxed her teeth again. "The Way of the Means R&D started screaming so loud about that armor that our office had to reclaim it before they destroyed it."
"It was that good? The technology was that advanced?" Urtr'ekip asked.
She shook her head again. "No. It just used it in completely foreign ways. It was almost deliberately behind our technology."
"And pulled out of one of those orbs we thought were some kind of religious icon," Urtr'ekip said.
"Right. Which means, it was manufactured on the spot. That the orb scanned Oftr'kaj, took a blood sample, sequenced his DNA and ran his bloodwork to make medicines, and provided all of the equipment in, if you take out the lags where he's messing with things, roughly eighty seconds."
Urtr'ekip clicked his tongue in amazement. "That's... fast."
"You could arm two soldiers in three minutes. In five hours you could arm and equip two hundred soldiers. With just one of those orbs," she bruxed again. "No wonder we've never found a single factory complex," she said. She tapped the holo-emitter. "We've had their factories in our possession for centuries."
"Any clue how he got it to work? To respond to him? It has a Substance-T coating, which means if you bring enough force to breach it, you've destroyed whatever was in it and a few miles of terrain too," Urtr'ekip said.
Tilk'yanp ran the video.
"See the lightning? It's psychic power," she said.
"Did you call in the Division of Psychic Tehnologies?" Ortr'ekip asked.
She nodded. "They're coming over today to take a look at our scientist." - Archive Record TL120348XL, Xeno-Archeological Administration, recorded 1,873 Current Era
Oftr'kaj was laying in his cell, staring at the ceiling.
His right hand twitched and he started to sit up and reach for the two pads of paper and two pens. He had the sudden urge to relax, so he stopped before he could sit up.
His right wrist cocked and his fingers started tapping, like he was typing on an invisible keyboard.
CAN YOU HEAR ME? appeared in his left eye one letter at a time, with a square cursor rapidly backspacing over the letters when it was done. It was an odd effect, but it kind of appealed to Oftr'kaj.
"Yes," he said.
DON'T SPEAK. COCK YOUR LEFT HAND.
Oftr'kaj did so.
IMAGINE A HOLOGRAPHIC KEYBOARD UNDER YOUR FINGERS.
Oftr'kaj did so.
NOW, TYPE YOUR RESPONSE TO ME. IT WILL APPEAR ON THE RETINAL LINK.
Oftr'kaj was surprised when his words appeared in his right eye.
is this you, son of a miller?
YES
He laid there for a long second.
THEY'LL BE COMING TO KILL YOU SOON. THEY'LL WANT TO DISSECT YOU AND SEE IF THEY CAN FIND ME.
Oftr'kaj felt fear fill him.
what do i do?
YOU INJECTED ME TO SAVE YOU, PROTECT YOU, AND I'M IN HERE TOO.
DO YOU TRUST ME?
yes
THEN I'LL DO WHAT I CAN. WE'LL PROBABLY BE SHOT TRYING TO ESCAPE BUT IT'S BETTER TO DIE FREE THAN BE BUTCHERED LIKE CATTLE
yes
I'LL DO MY BEST KAJ.
I LIKE YOU.
WE COULD HAVE BEEN FRIENDS.
His right wrist went limp.
i would have liked that.
-----
Oftr'kaj was led into the room, the chains between his wrists, his feet, and the connecting chain much thicker, this time attached to a choker loop that forced him to bend forward slightly to avoid choking himself.
The room had a table in the middle, that was bisected by a steel wall lengthwise. The steel only went up three feet, the rest was three inch thick macroplas. A steel exchange drawer set was built into the wall in the middle of the table. On the right was a ferrocrete blockwall, on the left the upper third of the wall was a mirror. On the far side was a heavy steel door without a window. There were three chairs on the opposite side of the macroplas and a single chair on his side.
He was sat in a chair, where there was a ring in the table with a chain on it that connected to the big loop in the middle of the wrist chain. The three guards Way of the Means stood behind him, no longer carrying shock prods, but instead carrying cut down carbines designed for closeup work. They were in better armor, which Oftr'kaj had seen in documentaries about various wars.
He knew the Terror, the Miller's Son, had used his eyes to seemingly glance at the armor and weapons, taking in everything about them in that short glance. Of particular interest to the Terror was the fact that the ammunition counter only read 15.
Oftr'kaj sat in the chair, waiting.
After a long period of time the door on the other side of the room opened up and three figures came through. The two Agents of the Office of Scientific Inquiry came in, the larger female first, a stranger, then the male.
The stranger was a small male that made Oftr'kaj's stomach twist with revulsion. The male's pelt was unkempt and looked greasy. His whiskers were drooping and different lengths. His ears were limp against his head, his eyes bleary with yellow sclera and bloodshot. He was wearing gaudy and overdone jewelry.
Oftr'kaj's right hand twitched and he tapped his fingers on the table.
OH SHIT
Oftr'kaj tapped his left fingers.
what
THIS MIGHT GET BAD
Oftr'kaj didn't change expressions, but there was a sudden feeling in his head. Like a growling, like his pelt down his back was bristling up. His muscles tensed, pushing and pulling at the same time. He felt himself grinding his back teeth, not to relax, but with tension.
The stranger sat in between the two agents.
They waited until the recorders were set up before introducing themselves again.
Then the middle male.
Agent Omt'pft, from the Division of Psychic Technologies, part of the Office of Scientific Inquiry.
Oftr'kaj's mouth filled with the taste of copper and iron, staring at the yellowed eyes of the Agent.
"It will be painless," the other male said. His voice was scratchy, odd accented, and made Oftr'kaj's gut clench.
"Yes, yes, I see the red glow you are talking about," the Agent said. "It is definitely psychic in nature," he turned to Agent Tilk'yanp. "Are you sure this specimen had no psychic ability, Agent Talk'yanps?"
Agent Tilk'yanp tensed slightly. "Senior Superior Agent Tilk'yanp, Agent," she said.
"Isn't that what I said?" the disheveled male asked.
Agent Tilk'yanp's smile was forced and Oftr'kaj saw her glance at the heavy bracelet on her wrist that he knew hadn't been there before. A quick glance showed him that the male agent from the Office of Scientific Inquiry had on a bracelet just like hers.
The disheveled male agent waved his hand and Agent Tilk'yanp lifted up a hard case briefcase, opening it to reveal two complex headpieces. The disheveled male took both out, putting one in the drawer in front of Oftr'kaj and the other in front of himself. One of the guards moved forward, operating the drawer mechanism, then removed the headpiece, setting it in front of Oftr'kaj before resetting the drawer and moving back against the wall.
"I shouldn't need these," the psychic said. "The red eyes are most likely due to exposure to the Warsteel Forerunner ruins, not anything special. It happens now and then."
The disheveled male leaned forward, his eyes widening, his whiskers suddenly going straight out, his ears lifting up.
Oftr'kaj just stared at him.
The male started twitching.
Oftr'kaj realized that in addition to the copper and iron taste, he could suddenly taste a strange berry taste on his back teeth, which had started tingling.
The male leaned forward more, his eyes widening further, his breathing picking up. The male made a grunt of effort, his whiskers trembling.
The male collapsed into the chair, breathing heavy. He looked at the female agent.
"Are you sure the subject was tested for psychic abilities, Agent Tolk'yap?" he asked.
Tilk'yanp bruxed for a second. "Yes. Several times. Including when he was accepted for the archeological team to excavate the Forerunner site."
The disheveled one grunted, then gave a smile that was slick and corrupt to Oftr'kaj's senses.
"No matter," he said. He motioned and a guard moved forward and picked up the headpiece closest to Oftr'kaj. He bucked it on Oftr'kaj's head, leaned close to Oftr'kaj's ear, whispered "I hope this hurts, you bastard", then moved back.
"This is a powerful piece of technology," the agent said. He gave a tittering laugh that made the pelt on the back of Oftr'kaj's neck stand up. "It will rip apart his mind, but I will tear from him any secrets he has."
"I do not consent," Oftr'kaj said softly.
The disheveled male laughed.
"We need his mind intact," Agent Tilk'yanp protested.
"Your needs are superceded by the desires of my division," the male said. He saw Oftr'kaj tapping his fingers and laughed. "You are right to be nervous, but no worries, when I'm done you'll no longer care about anything."
IT'S GOING TO BE BAD.
I'M SORRY.
it's ok
i dislike this male
GOOD. HE ISN'T GOING TO BE AROUND MUCH LONGER.
good
"This technology is superior to the psychically empowered relics we find at Warsteel Forerunner sites," the male said. He paused to paw at his whiskers and ears, then put on his own.
He squinted and Oftr'kaj saw the gems on the headpiece begin to glow.
"Now, let's see what you're hiding," the psychic said.
The taste of berries got thicker on his back teeth, which started to tingle more.
"Give me your mind," the psychic said. "Your thoughts, your memories, all it. You belong to me!"
Oftr'kaj suddenly exploded upwards. The chains around his wrists, ankles, neck, and waist shattered as every link broke into multiple pieces. Oftr'kaj kicked the chair behind him even as he slammed his hands against the macroplas.
"EAT A DICK, YOU RAT FUCK BASTARD!" Oftr'kaj roared.
The macroplas went milky in front of Oftr'kaj, a spiderweb pattern extending five feet to either side, from the steel wall to the ceiling. The lights blew out in one convulsive explosion of light and sparks. Blood and chunks of tissue splashed against the macroplas.
Oftr'kaj was already moving, shoving off from the macroplas, turning in place.
The chair slammed into the legs of the guard furthest on the right as he faced them. The others were blinking behind their clear face shields.
Oftr'kaj stepped up to one, grabbing the barrel, yanking it toward him with both hands. The guard yanked back and Oftr'kaj suddenly reversed the direction of force, slamming the butt into the faceplate.
"GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD!" Oftr'kaj screamed.
Only it wasn't Oftr'kaj who was doing the vocal screaming, he was busy screaming inside his own head.
It was the Miller's Son screaming.
He grabbed the suddenly released weapon, flipping it around in his hands, his fingers finding the correct studs to take it off safe, to power the weapon.
A quick right to left twist at the waist and he shot the two guards closest to him. He shot the one bending forward at the pain of the chair slamming into their shins hard enough to shatter the plastic seat. Before the one he had grabbed the weapon from could slump, he drove his hip into theirs, pinning the corpse against the wall.
He then turned and dumped the rest of the clip into the mirror, from left to right. He grabbed a magazine out of the dead guard's pouch, reloaded the weapon smoothly, then fired into the revealed room, shattering computer equipment, sending three disheveled males exploding into flame as the plasma hit them, deliberately, somehow, missing the three shocked looking technicians.
Oftr'kaj realized that it wasn't a long burst of automatic fire. The Miller's Son was pulling the trigger each time, firing as fast as the weapon would cycle.
He broke the weapon over his knee, turned, and threw himself at the milky spot. The macroplas shattered and he flew through, rolling, landing on a shoulder and then down his back, then coming to his feet.
The disheveled male's head was missing.
The two agents were covered in gore.
A backhand across the back of the male agent's head drove him facefirst into the table. Oftr'kaj grabbed the back of the male's neck and drove his face against the table again, then turned.
The female was just starting turn, her eyes opening wide, her brain still processing the mayhem.
Oftr'kaj grabbed her by the ears, yanking her to feet.
He pressed his muzzle against her's.
"If you ever bring a psychic near me again I will kill everyone in this fucking city," the Miller's Son growled. "Stay out of my fucking brain, rat."
Before the female could react, Oftr'kaj grabbed her pistol out of the holster, shifted his other hand to her whiskers and yanked. When she opened her mouth to cry out in pain, Oftr'kaj jammed the pistol into her mouth, breaking off one of her front teeth. He let go of her whiskers and grabbed her neck.
"Do you understand me, Agent?" the Miller's Son asked.
Tears were running out of Agent Tilk'yanp's eyes as she made a motion of assent.
He pushed harder till she gagged.
"If you're thinking of killing me and just doing a vivisection, or killing me and dumping me in a ditch, you should know," the Miller's Son growled. He stared into her black eyes and Oftr'kaj realized he could see his own glowing red eyes reflected in hers. "If you fail, I will come to your house and kill you in front of your family."
Agent Tilk'yanp just nodded.
"I could shoot my way out of this shit-heap of a facility. Instead, I'm willing to stay, answer some questions," the Miller's Son growled, shoving the barrel deeper then pulling it out slightly. "You have nothing that could stop me. Try treating me like a guest instead of a criminal," the Miller's Son shrugged his shoulders. "Or ask the Telkan to come get me. I'll go with them and you never have to see me again," he jammed the pistol deeper again, making her retch, holding her up by his grip on her neck. "You send me off with the Telkan, you don't have to worry about me showing up some day and killing you in front of your family."
Agent Tilk'yanp just nodded eagerly.
Oftr'kaj dropped the pistol, shifting to sit on the desk.
"I'll give it back to him," the Miller's Son said. He touched under his eyes with two fingers. "But I'm watching, lady. And I'm faster than you."
Agent Tilk'yanp nodded, bending down slowly and picking up her pistol, the barrel wet with saliva.
-----
"There are many who disagree with your decision to turn over Oftr'kaj to the Telkan Embassy, Agent," the Senior Major Director said softly, pausing the holographic recording.
"They didn't look into those eyes," Agent Tilk'yanp said. "They didn't see a veteran psychic warrior's head explode, didn't see that violence with their own eyes."
The SMD nodded again.
He reached out and touched the face of Oftr'kaj, his fingertips touching the burning crimson eyes that were so bright the pelt around the eyes was tinted ted.
"Did you believe his threats?" the SMD asked.
Agent Tilk'yanp nodded. "I did."
"I would have too."
[CLOSE FILE]
[END FILE]
[THIS INFORMATION IS CLASSIFIED AND NOT FOR DISSEMINATION]
[SESSION CLOSING]
[HAVE A NICE DAY]
Archive Record TL120348XL, Xeno-Archeological Administration, recorded 1,873 Current Era
Oftr'kaj looked at his reflection in the mirror.
One eye, his left eye, glowed with a dim amber light.
He no longer had to tap his fingers.
i like it here appeared in his right eye.
I LIKE TELKAN
I FOUGHT IN THE SECOND TELKAN WAR HERE
Oftr'kaj nodded.
they're symbolically burying you today
I KNOW
are you ok?
ODDLY, I AM. ARE YOU?
i think so.
thank you
FOR WHAT?
for saving me
IT'S WHAT FRIENDS DO
Oftr'kaj nodded, turning away from the mirror.
He needed to get dressed.
The ceremony, which would just have a priest of the Book of Telkan and a few military representatives there, would be soon.
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