Identity theft michelle brown case
Jura Novit Curia: The court knows the law, do you?
2013.10.06 03:38 lawblogz Jura Novit Curia: The court knows the law, do you?
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2024.05.14 06:35 BMermaid984 Please help me with my poor rhodi!
 | Help! This poor old rhododendron has been hit hard by the crazy summer heat waves in Portland, OR the last few summers. Its leaves browned up in the middle & dropped. You can see how thin the foliage is. Of the 6 I have, only one other isn’t doing well. Is this a case of “add rhodi food, water, and pray” or do I need to remove it? I’m honestly surprised it flowered this much, which gives me hope. submitted by BMermaid984 to marijuanaenthusiasts [link] [comments] |
2024.05.14 06:31 Anenome5 Society without a State
https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.
[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
submitted by Anenome5 to Libertarian [link] [comments]
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:
Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.
[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
2024.05.14 06:30 Anenome5 Society without a State - Rothbard
https://mises.org/mises-daily/society-without-state
In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.
[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
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In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism. This sort of criticism can only involve us in an endless and arid dispute over semantics. Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Nor is our definition of the state arbitrary, for these two characteristics have been possessed by what is generally acknowledged to be states throughout recorded history. The state, by its use of physical coercion, has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction. But it is certainly conceptually possible for such services to be supplied by private, non-state institutions, and indeed such services have historically been supplied by other organizations than the state. To be opposed to the state is then not necessarily to be opposed to services that have often been linked with it; to be opposed to the state does not necessarily imply that we must be opposed to police protection, courts, arbitration, the minting of money, postal service, or roads and highways. Some anarchists have indeed been opposed to police and to all physical coercion in defense of person and property, but this is not inherent in and is fundamentally irrelevant to the anarchist position, which is precisely marked by opposition to all physical coercion invasive of, or aggressing against, person and property.
The crucial role of taxation may be seen in the fact that the state is the only institution or organization in society which regularly and systematically acquires its income through the use of physical coercion. All other individuals or organizations acquire their income voluntarily, either (1) through the voluntary sale of goods and services to consumers on the market, or (2) through voluntary gifts or donations by members or other donors. If I cease or refrain from purchasing Wheaties on the market, the Wheaties producers do not come after me with a gun or the threat of imprisonment to force me to purchase; if I fail to join the American Philosophical Association, the association may not force me to join or prevent me from giving up my membership. Only the state can do so; only the state can confiscate my property or put me in jail if I do not pay its tax tribute. Therefore, only the state regularly exists and has its very being by means of coercive depredations on private property.
Neither is it legitimate to challenge this sort of analysis by claiming that in some other sense, the purchase of Wheaties or membership in the APA is in some way “coercive.” Anyone who is still unhappy with this use of the term “coercion” can simply eliminate the word from this discussion and substitute for it “physical violence or the threat thereof,” with the only loss being in literary style rather than in the substance of the argument. What anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the state, that is, to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion.
It need hardly be added that the state habitually builds upon its coercive source of income by adding a host of other aggressions upon society, ranging from economic controls to the prohibition of pornography to the compelling of religious observance to the mass murder of civilians in organized warfare. In short, the state, in the words of Albert Jay Nock, “claims and exercises a monopoly of crime” over its territorial area.
The second criticism I would like to defuse before beginning the main body of the paper is the common charge that anarchists “assume that all people are good” and that without the state no crime would be committed. In short, that anarchism assumes that with the abolition of the state a New Anarchist Man will emerge, cooperative, humane, and benevolent, so that no problem of crime will then plague the society. I confess that I do not understand the basis for this charge. Whatever other schools of anarchism profess — and I do not believe that they are open to the charge — I certainly do not adopt this view. I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperative and criminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime — theft, oppression, mass murder — on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
A further point: in a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors. If everyone were so disposed, no amount of protection, whether state or private, could succeed in staving off chaos. Furthermore, the more that people are disposed to be peaceful and not aggress against their neighbors, the more successfully any social system will work, and the fewer resources will need to be devoted to police protection. The anarchist view holds that, given the “nature of man,” given the degree of goodness or badness at any point in time, anarchism will maximize the opportunities for the good and minimize the channels for the bad. The rest depends on the values held by the individual members of society. The only further point that need be made is that by eliminating the living example and the social legitimacy of the massive legalized crime of the state, anarchism will to a large extent promote peaceful values in the minds of the public.
We cannot of course deal here with the numerous arguments in favor of anarchism or against the state, moral, political, and economic. Nor can we take up the various goods and services now provided by the state and show how private individuals and groups will be able to supply them far more efficiently on the free market. Here we can only deal with perhaps the most difficult area, the area where it is almost universally assumed that the state must exist and act, even if it is only a “necessary evil” instead of a positive good: the vital realm of defense or protection of person and property against aggression. Surely, it is universally asserted, the state is at least vitally necessary to provide police protection, the judicial resolution of disputes and enforcement of contracts, and the creation of the law itself that is to be enforced. My contention is that all of these admittedly necessary services of protection can be satisfactorily and efficiently supplied by private persons and institutions on the free market.
One important caveat before we begin the body of this paper: new proposals such as anarchism are almost always gauged against the implicit assumption that the present, or statist system works to perfection. Any lacunae or difficulties with the picture of the anarchist society are considered net liabilities, and enough to dismiss anarchism out of hand. It is, in short, implicitly assumed that the state is doing its self-assumed job of protecting person and property to perfection. We cannot here go into the reasons why the state is bound to suffer inherently from grave flaws and inefficiencies in such a task. All we need do now is to point to the black and unprecedented record of the state through history: no combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match the state’s unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression, and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: “We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.” I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of “who will guard the guardians?” becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.
A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.
One important point to make here is that the advance of modern technology makes anarchistic arrangements increasingly feasible. Take, for example, the case of lighthouses, where it is often charged that it is unfeasible for private lighthouse operators to row out to each ship to charge it for use of the light. Apart from the fact that this argument ignores the successful existence of private lighthouses in earlier days, as in England in the eighteenth century, another vital consideration is that modern electronic technology makes charging each ship for the light far more feasible. Thus, the ship would have to have paid for an electronically controlled beam which could then be automatically turned on for those ships which had paid for the service.
Let us turn now to the problem of how disputes — in particular disputes over alleged violations of person and property — would be resolved in an anarchist society. First, it should be noted that all disputes involve two parties: the plaintiff, the alleged victim of the crime or tort and the defendant, the alleged aggressor. In many cases of broken contract, of course, each of the two parties alleging that the other is the culprit is at the same time a plaintiff and a defendant.
An important point to remember is that any society, be it statist or anarchist, has to have some way of resolving disputes that will gain a majority consensus in society. There would be no need for courts or arbitrators if everyone were omniscient and knew instantaneously which persons were guilty of any given crime or violation of contract. Since none of us is omniscient, there has to be some method of deciding who is the criminal or lawbreaker which will gain legitimacy; in short, whose decision will be accepted by the great majority of the public.
In the first place, a dispute may be resolved voluntarily between the two parties themselves, either unaided or with the help of a third mediator. This poses no problem, and will automatically be accepted by society at large. It is so accepted even now, much less in a society imbued with the anarchistic values of peaceful cooperation and agreement. Secondly and similarly, the two parties, unable to reach agreement, may decide to submit voluntarily to the decision of an arbitrator. This agreement may arise either after a dispute has arisen, or be provided for in advance in the original contract. Again, there is no problem in such an arrangement gaining legitimacy. Even in the present statist era, the notorious inefficiency and coercive and cumbersome procedures of the politically run government courts has led increasing numbers of citizens to turn to voluntary and expert arbitration for a speedy and harmonious settling of disputes.
Thus, William C. Wooldridge has written that
Wooldridge adds the important point that, in addition to the speed of arbitration procedures vis-à-vis the courts, the arbitrators can proceed as experts in disregard of the official government law; in a profound sense, then, they serve to create a voluntary body of private law. “In other words,” states Wooldridge, “the system of extralegal, voluntary courts has progressed hand in hand with a body of private law; the rules of the state are circumvented by the same process that circumvents the forums established for the settlement of disputes over those rules…. In short, a private agreement between two people, a bilateral “law,” has supplanted the official law. The writ of the sovereign has cease to run, and for it is substituted a rule tacitly or explicitly agreed to by the parties. Wooldridge concludes that “if an arbitrator can choose to ignore a penal damage rule or the statute of limitations applicable to the claim before him (and it is generally conceded that he has that power), arbitration can be viewed as a practically revolutionary instrument for self-liberation from the law….”2
It may be objected that arbitration only works successfully because the courts enforce the award of the arbitrator. Wooldridge points out, however, that arbitration was unenforceable in the American courts before 1920, but that this did not prevent voluntary arbitration from being successful and expanding in the United States and in England. He points, furthermore, to the successful operations of merchant courts since the Middle Ages, those courts which successfully developed the entire body of the law merchant. None of those courts possessed the power of enforcement. He might have added the private courts of shippers which developed the body of admiralty law in a similar way.
How then did these private, “anarchistic,” and voluntary courts ensure the acceptance of their decisions? By the method of social ostracism, and by the refusal to deal any further with the offending merchant. This method of voluntary “enforcement,” indeed proved highly successful. Wooldridge writes that “the merchants’ courts were voluntary, and if a man ignored their judgment, he could not be sent to jail…. Nevertheless, it is apparent that … [their] decisions were generally respected even by the losers; otherwise people would never have used them in the first place…. Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows … proved if anything more effective than physical coercion.”3 Nor did this voluntary method fail to work in modern times. Wooldridge writes that it was precisely in the years before 1920, when arbitration awards could not be enforced in the courts,
It should also be pointed out that modern technology makes even more feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people’s credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist society would see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data and thereby facilitate the ostracism or boycotting of contract and arbitration violators.
How would arbitrators be selected in an anarchist society? In the same way as they are chosen now, and as they were chosen in the days of strictly voluntary arbitration: the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor. Here it must be emphasized that parties in dispute will seek out those arbitrators with the best reputation for both expertise and impartiality and that inefficient or biased arbitrators will rapidly have to find another occupation.
Thus, the Tannehills emphasize:
If desired, furthermore, the contracting parties could provide in advance for a series of arbitrators:
Arbitration, then, poses little difficulty for a portrayal of the free society. But what of torts or crimes of aggression where there has been no contract? Or suppose that the breaker of a contract defies the arbitration award? Is ostracism enough? In short, how can courts develop in the free-market anarchist society which will have the power to enforce judgments against criminals or contract breakers?
In the wide sense, defense service consists of guards or police who use force in defending person and property against attack, and judges or courts whose role is to use socially accepted procedures to determine who the criminals or tortfeasors are, as well as to enforce judicial awards, such as damages or the keeping of contracts. On the free market, many scenarios are possible on the relationship between the private courts and the police; they may be “vertically integrated,” for example, or their services may be supplied by separate firms. Furthermore, it seems likely that police service will be supplied by insurance companies who will provide crime insurance to their clients. In that case, insurance companies will pay off the victims of crime or the breaking of contracts or arbitration awards and then pursue the aggressors in court to recoup their losses. There is a natural market connection between insurance companies and defense service, since they need pay out less benefits in proportion as they are able to keep down the rate of crime.
Courts might either charge fees for their services, with the losers of cases obliged to pay court costs, or else they may subsist on monthly or yearly premiums by their clients, who may be either individuals or the police or insurance agencies. Suppose, for example, that Smith is an aggrieved party, either because he has been assaulted or robbed, or because an arbitration award in his favor has not been honored. Smith believes that Jones is the party guilty of the crime. Smith then goes to a court, Court A, of which he is a client, and brings charges against Jones as a defendant. In my view, the hallmark of an anarchist society is one where no man may legally compel someone who is not a convicted criminal to do anything, since that would be aggression against an innocent man’s person or property. Therefore, Court A can only invite rather than subpoena Jones to attend his trial. Of course, if Jones refused to appear or send a representative, his side of the case will not be heard. The trial of Jones proceeds. Suppose that Court A finds Jones innocent. In my view, part of the generally accepted law code of the anarchist society (on which see further below) is that this must end the matter unless Smith can prove charges of gross incompetence or bias on the part of the court.
Suppose, next, that Court A finds Jones guilty. Jones might accept the verdict, because he too is a client of the same court, because he knows he is guilty, or for some other reason. In that case, Court A proceeds to exercise judgment against Jones. Neither of these instances poses very difficult problems for our picture of the anarchist society. But suppose, instead, that Jones contests the decision; he then goes to his court, Court B, and the case is retried there. Suppose that Court B, too, finds Jones guilty. Again, it seems to me that the accepted law code of the anarchist society will assert that this ends the matter; both parties have had their say in courts which each has selected, and the decision for guilt is unanimous.
Suppose, however, the most difficult case: that Court B finds Jones innocent. The two courts, each subscribed to by one of the two parties, have split their verdicts. In that case, the two courts will submit the case to an appeals court, or arbitrator, which the two courts agree upon. There seems to be no real difficulty about the concept of an appeals court. As in the case of arbitration contracts, it seems very likely that the various private courts in the society will have prior agreements to submit their disputes to a particular appeals court. How will the appeals judges be chosen? Again, as in the case of arbitrators or of the first judges on the free market, they will be chosen for their expertise and their reputation for efficiency, honesty, and integrity. Obviously, appeals judges who are inefficient or biased will scarcely be chosen by courts who will have a dispute. The point here is that there is no need for a legally established or institutionalized single, monopoly appeals court system, as states now provide. There is no reason why there cannot arise a multitude of efficient and honest appeals judges who will be selected by the disputant courts, just as there are numerous private arbitrators on the market today. The appeals court renders its decision, and the courts proceed to enforce it if, in our example, Jones is considered guilty — unless, of course, Jones can prove bias in some other court proceedings.
No society can have unlimited judicial appeals, for in that case there would be no point to having judges or courts at all. Therefore, every society, whether statist or anarchist, will have to have some socially accepted cutoff point for trials and appeals. My suggestion is the rule that the agreement of any two courts, be decisive. “Two” is not an arbitrary figure, for it reflects the fact that there are two parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, to any alleged crime or contract dispute.
If the courts are to be empowered to enforce decision against guilty parties, does this not bring back the state in another form and thereby negate anarchism? No, for at the beginning of this paper I explicitly defined anarchism in such a way as not to rule out the use of defensive force — force in defense of person and property — by privately supported agencies. In the same way, it is not bringing back the state to allow persons to use force to defend themselves against aggression, or to hire guards or police agencies to defend them.
It should be noted, however, that in the anarchist society there will be no “district attorney” to press charges on behalf of “society.” Only the victims will press charges as the plaintiffs. If, then, these victims should happen to be absolute pacifists who are opposed even to defensive force, then they will simply not press charges in the courts or otherwise retaliate against those who have aggressed against them. In a free society that would be their right. If the victim should suffer from murder, then his heir would have the right to press the charges.
What of the Hatfield-and-McCoy problem? Suppose that a Hatfield kills a McCoy, and that McCoy’s heir does not belong to a private insurance, police agency, or court, and decides to retaliate himself? Since under anarchism there can be no coercion of the noncriminal, McCoy would have the perfect right to do so. No one may be compelled to bring his case to a court. Indeed, since the right to hire police or courts flows from the right of self-defense against aggression, it would be inconsistent and in contradiction to the very basis of the free society to institute such compulsion.
Suppose, then, that the surviving McCoy finds what he believes to be the guilty Hatfield and kills him in turn? What then? This is fine, except that McCoy may have to worry about charges being brought against him by a surviving Hatfield. Here it must be emphasized that in the law of the anarchist society based on defense against aggression, the courts would not be able to proceed against McCoy if in fact he killed the right Hatfield. His problem would arise if the courts should find that he made a grievous mistake and killed the wrong man; in that case, he in turn would be found guilty of murder. Surely, in most instances, individuals will wish to obviate such problems by taking their case to a court and thereby gain social acceptability for their defensive retaliation — not for the act of retaliation but for the correctness of deciding who the criminal in any given case might be. The purpose of the judicial process, indeed, is to find a way of general agreement on who might be the criminal or contract breaker in any given case. The judicial process is not a good in itself; thus, in the case of an assassination, such as Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, on public television, there is no need for a complex judicial process, since the name of the murderer is evident to all.
Will not the possibility exist of a private court that may turn venal and dishonest, or of a private police force that turns criminal and extorts money by coercion? Of course such an event may occur, given the propensities of human nature. Anarchism is not a moral cure-all. But the important point is that market forces exist to place severe checks on such possibilities, especially in contrast to a society where a state exists. For, in the first place, judges, like arbitrators, will prosper on the market in proportion to their reputation for efficiency and impartiality. Secondly, on the free market important checks and balances exist against venal courts or criminal police forces. Namely, that there are competing courts and police agencies to whom victims may turn for redress. If the “Prudential Police Agency” should turn outlaw and extract revenue from victims by coercion, the latter would have the option of turning to the “Mutual” or “Equitable” Police Agency for defense and for pressing charges against Prudential. These are the genuine “checks and balances” of the free market, genuine in contrast to the phony check and balances of a state system, where all the alleged “balancing” agencies are in the hands of one monopoly government. Indeed, given the monopoly “protection service” of a state, what is there to prevent a state from using its monopoly channels of coercion to extort money from the public? What are the checks and limits of the state? None, except for the extremely difficult course of revolution against a power with all of the guns in its hands. In fact, the state provides an easy, legitimated channel for crime and aggression, since it has its very being in the crime of tax theft, and the coerced monopoly of “protection.” It is the state, indeed, that functions as a mighty “protection racket” on a giant and massive scale. It is the state that says: “Pay us for your ‘protection’ or else.” In the light of the massive and inherent activities of the state, the danger of a “protection racket” emerging from one or more private police agencies is relatively small indeed.
Moreover, it must be emphasized that a crucial element in the power of the state is its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the public, the fact that after centuries of propaganda, the depredations of the state are looked upon rather as benevolent services. Taxation is generally not seen as theft, nor war as mass murder, nor conscription as slavery. Should a private police agency turn outlaw, should “Prudential” become a protection racket, it would then lack the social legitimacy which the state has managed to accrue to itself over the centuries. “Prudential” would be seen by all as bandits, rather than as legitimate or divinely appointed “sovereigns” bent on promoting the “common good” or the “general welfare.” And lacking such legitimacy, “Prudential” would have to face the wrath of the public and the defense and retaliation of the other private defense agencies, the police and courts, on the free market. Given these inherent checks and limits, a successful transformation from a free society to bandit rule becomes most unlikely. Indeed, historically, it has been very difficult for a state to arise to supplant a stateless society; usually, it has come about through external conquest rather than by evolution from within a society.
Within the anarchist camp, there has been much dispute on whether the private courts would have to be bound by a basic, common law code. Ingenious attempts have been made to work out a system where the laws or standards of decision-making by the courts would differ completely from one to another.7 But in my view all would have to abide by the basic law code, in particular, prohibition of aggression against person and property, in order to fulfill our definition of anarchism as a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression. Suppose, for example, that one group of people in society holds that all redheads are demons who deserve to be shot on sight. Suppose that Jones, one of this group, shoots Smith, a redhead. Suppose that Smith or his heir presses charges in a court, but that Jones’s court, in philosophic agreement with Jones, finds him innocent therefore. It seems to me that in order to be considered legitimate, any court would have to follow the basic libertarian law code of the inviolate right of person and property. For otherwise, courts might legally subscribe to a code which sanctions such aggression in various cases, and which to that extent would violate the definition of anarchism and introduce, if not the state, then a strong element of statishness or legalized aggression into the society.
But again I see no insuperable difficulties here. For in that case, anarchists, in agitating for their creed, will simply include in their agitation the idea of a general libertarian law code as part and parcel of the anarchist creed of abolition of legalized aggression against person or property in the society.
In contrast to the general law code, other aspects of court decisions could legitimately vary in accordance with the market or the wishes of the clients; for example, the language the cases will be conducted in, the number of judges to be involved, and so on.
There are other problems of the basic law code which there is no time to go into here: for example, the definition of just property titles or the question of legitimate punishment of convicted offenders — though the latter problem of course exists in statist legal systems as well.8 The basic point, however, is that the state is not needed to arrive at legal principles or their elaboration: indeed, much of the common law, the law merchant, admiralty law, and private law in general, grew up apart from the state, by judges not making the law but finding it on the basis of agreed-upon principles derived either from custom or reason.9 The idea that the state is needed to make law is as much a myth as that the state is needed to supply postal or police services.
Enough has been said here, I believe, to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil.
[Murray Rothbard delivered this talk 32 years ago today at the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (ASPLP), Washington, DC: December 28, 1974. It was first published in The Libertarian Forum, volume 7.1, January 1975, available in PDF and ePub.]
2024.05.14 06:21 IsorokuYamamoto659 I've recently upgraded my rig, and after 2 weeks of everything running fine, my system is crashing up to 3 minutes after boot.
The first symptom that something wasn't working as intended was Windows "stopping" my GPU because "it has reported problems", code 43. A standard clean driver installation solved it.
The whole system worked fine as usual for the next, non-consecutive, 24 hours until I powered it on in the morning. After putting in my pin, during the transition from the login screen to the desktop, the video has artifacts for 1 to 2 seconds, similar to those you get from a digital TV signal breaking up during the rain. Reseated the HDMI cable on both ends, didn't happen again. I go to the kitchen to grab a coffee, when I'm back, there's no video and all fans are at 100%. Nothing changed until I restarted everything using the reset button.
The next couple of hours had me trying to install the NVidia graphics driver, as it was suddenly gone (again), with the system randomly crashing when I interacted with any part of any UI or when any window or overlay opened on my desktop. UI element updates, the screen goes gray blank, and after 40 seconds there's no video and all fans are running at 100%.
When I finally managed to install the driver, it didn't fix the issue. The system would crash exactly the same way as when the drivers were gone.
Picked up my previous SSD, which still had my previous Windows 10 installation in it, and booted on it. The system would crash the exact same way, and the video driver was gone the exact same way as in the main SSD. To no surprise, a successful clean installation of the drivers didn't change anything. The system would crash exactly the same way.
So I decided to make a copy of the stuff that was still relevant to me before doing a clean installation of windows on that second SSD. The system booted, and, as soon as possible, I initiated a task of copying some folders totalizing more than 30GB from that SSD to my secondary HDD - and literally nothing else. The system didn't crash for over 40 minutes straight while copying the files, but the exact moment I moved my mouse and it hovered over the cancel operation button, my system crashed exactly like the other couple dozen times.
Booted my Windows installation media, the system didn't crash at any moment during the media boot, glassed the secondary SSD, and did a clean installation - and the problem is still present. Same way before and after the video drivers are installed.
I thought it was my RAM, cause I have two kits with very similar specifications running with the DOCP profile of the faster one. One is a CL16 1.2V 2666MHz 2x8Gb Ballistix Sport LT and the other is a CL16 1.35V 3200MHz 2x8Gb T-Force kit - the timings are the same. Since they have identical specifications, except for the obvious differences, I decided to run them with the DOCP profile of the faster one. I ran MemTest86 on the system when I had this crazy idea, with the 4 sticks running with the specs of the faster DOCP profile and it had no errors. Still, I tried running the system with the 4 sticks with no profile enabled, at 2400MHz, then with only the Ballistix sticks at their respective DOCP, and then I tried with only the T-Force sticks with, and without, their profile enabled - the system crashed the same way in all them.
After trying to find the faulty component the whole day I gave up and went to sleep. The next day I tried running the system with only the Ballistix sticks - didn't crash the whole day. At the end of the day, I swapped the sticks and tried running the system with only the T-Force sticks. Over an hour idling with 2 games running at the same time and literally nothing happened. I then tried to run the system with all 4 of them at once with the faster DOCP profile, as it had been running for a week, and then the system, once again, didn't crash.
Now I'm back to being suspicious of the GPU, the problem is I don't have any other GPU, CPU, (compatible) APU, or motherboard to test and continue testing to find the problem.
Luckily everything is still in warranty. The TUF GTX 1660 TI is 10 months old, and the R5 5600, the 2x T-Force sticks, and the TUF B550-Pro motherboard are barely 3 weeks out of the package.
Full specifications on PC Part Picker.
The case is a mid-tower with 3x120mm fans as intake at the front + 3x120mm fans as exhaust at the back + top. The CPU cooling solution is a 122mm x 50mm x 158mm heatsink with 1x 120mm fan. The highest CPU temps so far were during stress tests, a high of 72 Celsius. GPU hasn't gone past 83.
submitted by IsorokuYamamoto659 to pcmasterrace [link] [comments]
The whole system worked fine as usual for the next, non-consecutive, 24 hours until I powered it on in the morning. After putting in my pin, during the transition from the login screen to the desktop, the video has artifacts for 1 to 2 seconds, similar to those you get from a digital TV signal breaking up during the rain. Reseated the HDMI cable on both ends, didn't happen again. I go to the kitchen to grab a coffee, when I'm back, there's no video and all fans are at 100%. Nothing changed until I restarted everything using the reset button.
The next couple of hours had me trying to install the NVidia graphics driver, as it was suddenly gone (again), with the system randomly crashing when I interacted with any part of any UI or when any window or overlay opened on my desktop. UI element updates, the screen goes gray blank, and after 40 seconds there's no video and all fans are running at 100%.
When I finally managed to install the driver, it didn't fix the issue. The system would crash exactly the same way as when the drivers were gone.
Picked up my previous SSD, which still had my previous Windows 10 installation in it, and booted on it. The system would crash the exact same way, and the video driver was gone the exact same way as in the main SSD. To no surprise, a successful clean installation of the drivers didn't change anything. The system would crash exactly the same way.
So I decided to make a copy of the stuff that was still relevant to me before doing a clean installation of windows on that second SSD. The system booted, and, as soon as possible, I initiated a task of copying some folders totalizing more than 30GB from that SSD to my secondary HDD - and literally nothing else. The system didn't crash for over 40 minutes straight while copying the files, but the exact moment I moved my mouse and it hovered over the cancel operation button, my system crashed exactly like the other couple dozen times.
Booted my Windows installation media, the system didn't crash at any moment during the media boot, glassed the secondary SSD, and did a clean installation - and the problem is still present. Same way before and after the video drivers are installed.
I thought it was my RAM, cause I have two kits with very similar specifications running with the DOCP profile of the faster one. One is a CL16 1.2V 2666MHz 2x8Gb Ballistix Sport LT and the other is a CL16 1.35V 3200MHz 2x8Gb T-Force kit - the timings are the same. Since they have identical specifications, except for the obvious differences, I decided to run them with the DOCP profile of the faster one. I ran MemTest86 on the system when I had this crazy idea, with the 4 sticks running with the specs of the faster DOCP profile and it had no errors. Still, I tried running the system with the 4 sticks with no profile enabled, at 2400MHz, then with only the Ballistix sticks at their respective DOCP, and then I tried with only the T-Force sticks with, and without, their profile enabled - the system crashed the same way in all them.
After trying to find the faulty component the whole day I gave up and went to sleep. The next day I tried running the system with only the Ballistix sticks - didn't crash the whole day. At the end of the day, I swapped the sticks and tried running the system with only the T-Force sticks. Over an hour idling with 2 games running at the same time and literally nothing happened. I then tried to run the system with all 4 of them at once with the faster DOCP profile, as it had been running for a week, and then the system, once again, didn't crash.
Now I'm back to being suspicious of the GPU, the problem is I don't have any other GPU, CPU, (compatible) APU, or motherboard to test and continue testing to find the problem.
Luckily everything is still in warranty. The TUF GTX 1660 TI is 10 months old, and the R5 5600, the 2x T-Force sticks, and the TUF B550-Pro motherboard are barely 3 weeks out of the package.
Full specifications on PC Part Picker.
The case is a mid-tower with 3x120mm fans as intake at the front + 3x120mm fans as exhaust at the back + top. The CPU cooling solution is a 122mm x 50mm x 158mm heatsink with 1x 120mm fan. The highest CPU temps so far were during stress tests, a high of 72 Celsius. GPU hasn't gone past 83.
2024.05.14 06:19 TotallyNotAjay Quick Kodokan Goshin Jutsu Clinic Write up
This weekend, Ajax Budokan invited Kodokan 9th dan and former head of the Tokyo Police dojo, Michio Fukushima Sensei, to conduct a 4 hour clinic for Kodokan Goshin Jutsu. It was open to yellow belt and higher, though the majority consisted of Yudansha. My senseis had the honour of demoing the kata, as Fukushima Sensei's health did not permit presenting each technique multiple times, though he did show some of the finer details, demo mechanics, and gave comments as to what was good and displayed what could be fixed. He also talked about older versions of the techniques and how/ why they have been changed. Regretfully, it totally slipped my mind to film during the seminar, as there was a lot of good information, translated (and left untranslated) by the interpreter.
Some General Notes on Fukushima Sensei Fukushima Sensei on multiple occasions mentioned how one should carry themselves and move, more specifically he talked about how he usually sees toris get away with bad shisei as uke's attacks are generally to kind or passive, and that if they genuinely attacked, most toris would be off balance. Additionally he mentioned that a lot of IFJ competition now is power judo, where the technical aspects are replaced for brute force and speed.
The main note he makes is to keep the knees alive (slightly bent and bouncy like a spring), and that most novices have a tendency to straight leg their kata. He also made it a great point to explain the logic of the waza in the kata and how the kuzushi is created. Other important details he talked about were that uke shouldn't be a limp noodle once his attack is over, that tori should keep good sabaki (unclear if sabaki was short hand for tai sabaki as he also stated tai sabaki on different occasions (the details were paraphrased by the translator)), and the usage of rotation from the hips to maintain proper balance (tai sabaki). Additionally, he talked about things relating to karada (the body) and some anecdotes (such as stories about judoka such as Michigami, Isao Okano, and Nagaoka if I was hearing correctly, though I don't speak Japanese, only somewhat familiar with it), which were left untranslated or paraphrased sadly.
Emphasised details in the kata (not explanations or descriptions of how to do a technique) and my experiences (FYI Sensei mostly used the Tomiki names for the waza Tori applied)
Attacks when held
Attacks with a knife - Sensei Fukushima mentioned how despite my senseis making it look easy
Both my partner and I have practiced these quite a lot (I was the only one who was taught it by sensei but we practiced it on our own time), so not as many personal notes. Though I don't have a good experience so my brain switches to serious and my heart rate increases despite the fact that I know these are fake weapons.
Always make sure to begin your defence after uke is clearly focused on checking your pockets, never when his focus is directly on you
Here are some videos featuring Michio Fukushima from a few years back, both where he was actively demoing, and where he had a slightly more corrective position.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1253474818155243
https://youtu.be/VKgdMJS9eck?si=bGMemLfG9aquAHr1
submitted by TotallyNotAjay to judo [link] [comments]
Some General Notes on Fukushima Sensei Fukushima Sensei on multiple occasions mentioned how one should carry themselves and move, more specifically he talked about how he usually sees toris get away with bad shisei as uke's attacks are generally to kind or passive, and that if they genuinely attacked, most toris would be off balance. Additionally he mentioned that a lot of IFJ competition now is power judo, where the technical aspects are replaced for brute force and speed.
The main note he makes is to keep the knees alive (slightly bent and bouncy like a spring), and that most novices have a tendency to straight leg their kata. He also made it a great point to explain the logic of the waza in the kata and how the kuzushi is created. Other important details he talked about were that uke shouldn't be a limp noodle once his attack is over, that tori should keep good sabaki (unclear if sabaki was short hand for tai sabaki as he also stated tai sabaki on different occasions (the details were paraphrased by the translator)), and the usage of rotation from the hips to maintain proper balance (tai sabaki). Additionally, he talked about things relating to karada (the body) and some anecdotes (such as stories about judoka such as Michigami, Isao Okano, and Nagaoka if I was hearing correctly, though I don't speak Japanese, only somewhat familiar with it), which were left untranslated or paraphrased sadly.
Emphasised details in the kata (not explanations or descriptions of how to do a technique) and my experiences (FYI Sensei mostly used the Tomiki names for the waza Tori applied)
Attacks when held
- Ryote dori - my partner and I (both new to this kata for the most part) went in on this one and struggled as we didn't see the detail of thumb in hand for the lock (blind leading the blind, though we later worked near a kind pair after this who helped check more closely as they were experienced in the kata)
- Yahazu (hook shape for hand) is very important to direct uke's arm
- You aren't pulling the arm away to free it, you are pushing your elbow forward which pressures uke's arm
- Te gatana to the uto (point between uke's eyes)
- When applying the lock (te gatame), make sure to rotate uke's hand such that the fingers are pointing up
- When applying the lock, take the uke's arm in the direction perpendicular to the line made by his feet
- Hidari eri dori - I particularly liked this one, though my uke was confused the first few times as he kept trying to apply waki gatame.
- Tori must grab underneath uke's hand on the lapel when stepping back
- When grabbing uke's hand to break the grip and apply the lock (kote hineri), tori should have his thumb in between uke's thumb and fingers, and to take the uke's arm in the direction perpendicular to the line made by his feet
- Uke should try to maintain jigo tai rather than lean so the lock is applied cleanly
- Tori's hand should not be limp when delivering the strike
- Migi eri dori - I couldn't get kote gaeshi to work properly, will have to practice and ask my sensei about it later, same with my partner
- Tori should maintain a upright posture as uke pulls him forward, and use the landing of his foot to drive his hand for the uppercut to uke
- Tori should try to keep uke's hand attached to his centerline as he makes tai sabaki
- Kata ude dori - My uke was very stiff, so applying the initial lock to him proved difficult, though he claims he felt it. I found this kata easy to remember as the legs go left right left right (step, step, tai sabaki, kick, then lead with the right for the lock)
- You are kicking with the side of the foot
- The step before the kick pivot around so your feet are almost parallel
- For waki gatame, you should be standing inside his feet, near parallel to the line perpendicular to his feet
- Ushiro eri dori - I had experience with this one as sensei had taught during some free time a while back
- The parry with the arm was stated to also be the preferred way to receive punches, though take that as you will (though it is a common method in karate as well)
- The strike should be to the suigetsu (solar plexus)
- Trap uke's hand with your head so that it can't wiggle all over the place when applying the lock
- Ushiro jime - My partner and I both had a tendency to lift the shoulder off after spinning out, will have to work on that. I will be honest, had I known this escape, I probably would have come out of an incident a few years back (before I started Judo) rather unscathed as I was jumped and then kicked on the ground by a person who was quite a pain.
- The attack and initial defence are identical to that of katame no kata, following which tori rotates out
- Keep pressure with your shoulder until your grip has been changed
- Kakae dori - We didn't have enough mat space to finish the throw without running into other groups, but the technique is surprisingly effective. Though I couldn't initially find out how to do the armlock and had to ask my sensei about it, now it's pretty easy.
- Rotate the arm away from you (clockwise from your perspective) and pull uke's arm into you
- During the initial stomp, straighten up and raise your arms to loosen uke's grip
- Naname uchi - this was a fun situation, it shows how a little bit of atemi can be used to setup a randori waza, and Fukushima Sensei complimented my senseis' performance saying that it was better than the current text book
- Te gatana is used to redirect the strike
- Osoto otoshi is performed
- Pushing the arm through is important to create the kuzushi necessary for the waza
- Ago tsuki - I didn't actually get a chance to try this one more than once as my partner struggled with it, he kept applying a shoulder lock by pushing on the elbow without the redirect with the thumb up (shoulder is still sore)
- when directing uke's attack up and away, do not lean back as then you are unstable
- Use yahazu to direct uke's elbow toward his ear
- As uke will not like this use the moment after releasing the elbow lock to throw him forward in the direction perpendicular to his feet.
- Gammen Tsuki - My partner really liked this one, I can see the uses as I've used similar entries when messing around with strikes + judo with this partner as I have a bit of karate experience
- Uke is meant to do a break fall, thus tori needs to get out of the way after releasing the choke
- Uke should realistically be aiming for where tori's uto would be if he did not evade
- Mae Geri - this was a relatively easy one to grasp, but quite a bit of practice is needed before a full force kick can be considered
- Rotate ukes foot outwards so that it is not easy for him to rotate in to escape
- In the original, tori would lift uke's leg high but many ukes ended up injured from hitting their heads, so now tori just pushes back
- Yoko geri - My sensei has introduced this one at the dojo before as well, though he prefaced it with about a minute of just practicing a side kick. My partner (who suffers from light knee pain) couldn't kneel during the finish
- The use of the te gatana to redirect the kick in the direction it is going, very similar to karates low block
- During the finish tori creates a void for uke to be thrown but in real life tori would throw uke onto his knee
Attacks with a knife - Sensei Fukushima mentioned how despite my senseis making it look easy
Both my partner and I have practiced these quite a lot (I was the only one who was taught it by sensei but we practiced it on our own time), so not as many personal notes. Though I don't have a good experience so my brain switches to serious and my heart rate increases despite the fact that I know these are fake weapons.
- Tsukkake
- The elbow should be pushed forward (I've actually experimented with this in the past by asking uke to try to stab me as I applied the defence, and we've found after the initial push and strike, tori is in a relatively good position, be it to run away or finish the kata)
- Push the locked up arm up and towards uke, then guide him to the ground
- Choku zuki - I struggled to apply the waki gatame, I'm guessing it was control of the wrist that was the problem, this form is relatively straight forward and makes sense
- The strike should not be a boxer style punch, but more like the first punch in szkt
- uke should not go limp
- when moving away from uke, take him perpendicular to the line between his feet
- Naname Zuki - Personally I think this form is cutting it close in many regards, but the control tori has is quite surprising
- Don't grab the blade from the sharp edge
- Furi age - this was a relatively easy technique to grasp as it is an application of O soto gari setup with a palm strike to the chind
- Tori should enter as soon as uke begins to raise his arm, almost a preemptive entry
- Tori strikes at the ago (chin) with a palm strike, then places his hand on the throat for the throw
- Furi oroshi - My partner leant into the swing and wacked me on the forehead, it could've been worse but it just grazed the outer layer as I saw the jo come closer after my initial retreat and attempted to turn out of the way. Both a PSA for tori and uke. Tori do not keep your eyes off uke, and uke please don't lean into a swing, you are horribly off balance, and you make it harder for tori to read. Also uke don't speed up when you 2 are learning (I don't know why my partner chose too...)
- Do not hop back onto one leg and then towards uke with the other, it leads you to have bad posture
- Better to make a big retreat than get hit
- 2 strike, one ura ken (back fist), followed by knife hand push
- Uke's swing should be at a diagonal
- Morote zuki - I didn't get to practice this one as my partner was taken a bit aback after the previous incident and couldn't get the steps right for this one. Fukushima Sensei mentioned something along the lines of how a judoka was faced with a juken and couldn't figure out what to do, and thus this form was created to address that.
- Tori shouldn't be rowing the jow away to shake throw uke
- The arm puts pressure on uke's arm forward
- Tori should be trying to angle the jo down towards himself after the initial grab
Always make sure to begin your defence after uke is clearly focused on checking your pockets, never when his focus is directly on you
- Shomen Zuke
- Grab the barrel of the gun thumb up
- During the disarm, push the gun's muzzle to face towards him
- Koshi Gamae - I kept getting the second hand wrong and thus the barallel was pointed towards me in the final attack, will need to work on that
- Grab the barrel of gun initially with the thumb down with your right hand, and push the gun so that it is horizontal after turning left, then grab the gun from below with your right
- make sure to not point the gun at yourself when hitting with the butt
- Haimen Zuke - this is quite a dangerous move in theory, but also one of the more likely ones
- Wrap uke's arm with your arm, but make sure to direct the muzzle up with the free arm
- [uke] should let go of gun, as this is a hard breakfall
- The use of yahazu to direct the arm rather than grips
- Keeping uke's hand connected to your centerline when applying kansetsu waza
- te gatana is a useful tool to redirect and or strike the opponent quickly
- During the gun portion, always rotate the gun off your centerline, so that even if it does fire, it doesn't penetrate too deep
- Control the gun by the muzzle
- most finishes are done by guiding uke perpendicular to the line in between his feet
- Do not directly oppose an opponents force
- Maintanence of balance at all times and moving from the hips is key
- Uke should attack meaningfully
- Action reaction is used quite a lot to first lock uke up towards his face, so that when he pushes back he is easily lead away
Here are some videos featuring Michio Fukushima from a few years back, both where he was actively demoing, and where he had a slightly more corrective position.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1253474818155243
https://youtu.be/VKgdMJS9eck?si=bGMemLfG9aquAHr1
2024.05.14 06:03 squirrelintoronto Racism toward Asians happens at George Brown College
Please allow me to post this message to those from Asian countries going to George Brown College to pursue a career path or study. I want to express my concerns based on my experience as a recent graduate of GBC.
I previously received insulting comments about China from one of the racists in the classroom during the middle of the class, especially during the presentation time. I myself am from Korea and used to live in Japan; however, the racist who spent two years in the same classroom could spit out all hateful comments about China toward me, like the time that COVID happened, even if it was not the individual's fault.
That racist did not apologize or take any action; even the students around them tried to stop them. I asked the professor to make the announcement that racism happened, but no apology came to my end. After reaching out to the professor to talk to them, however, they just sent short and insincere messages, and later rudely poked me and kept insisting that they sent the mail to me, which was obviously not how people apologize to someone.
I contacted the Anti-racist department and the associate dean to escalate the situation. Still, the anti-racist department said that everyone has the freedom to speak what they want, and the insincere and rude email was already a matter. "Teachers took action, so they did their job.".
I have received racism, sexism, and comments against my religious belief in terms of out-of-the-classroom settings from people in the classroom. Still, racism can happen in the classroom, and no one is gonna take responsibility for what they have spoken under the name of "freedom." I know that hate speech can happen anywhere and anytime, and this is not only about Asians but also other ethnicities and races. However, based on my experience, I know that your identity and yourself can be marginalized in the classroom, and no one can help you solve the issue; I sincerely hope that people who are attending GBC are safe from that prejudice. On the other hand, if you just want to be a racist, GBC might be the best place to be yourself.
submitted by squirrelintoronto to georgebrowncollege [link] [comments]
I previously received insulting comments about China from one of the racists in the classroom during the middle of the class, especially during the presentation time. I myself am from Korea and used to live in Japan; however, the racist who spent two years in the same classroom could spit out all hateful comments about China toward me, like the time that COVID happened, even if it was not the individual's fault.
That racist did not apologize or take any action; even the students around them tried to stop them. I asked the professor to make the announcement that racism happened, but no apology came to my end. After reaching out to the professor to talk to them, however, they just sent short and insincere messages, and later rudely poked me and kept insisting that they sent the mail to me, which was obviously not how people apologize to someone.
I contacted the Anti-racist department and the associate dean to escalate the situation. Still, the anti-racist department said that everyone has the freedom to speak what they want, and the insincere and rude email was already a matter. "Teachers took action, so they did their job.".
I have received racism, sexism, and comments against my religious belief in terms of out-of-the-classroom settings from people in the classroom. Still, racism can happen in the classroom, and no one is gonna take responsibility for what they have spoken under the name of "freedom." I know that hate speech can happen anywhere and anytime, and this is not only about Asians but also other ethnicities and races. However, based on my experience, I know that your identity and yourself can be marginalized in the classroom, and no one can help you solve the issue; I sincerely hope that people who are attending GBC are safe from that prejudice. On the other hand, if you just want to be a racist, GBC might be the best place to be yourself.
2024.05.14 05:50 Ralts_Bloodthorne Nova Wars - Chapter 60
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
The annoying sound of her comlink made Angela Angus Kusumoto open her eyes.
All she saw was the firm, smooth flesh of Kimoko's thigh.
Groaning, she pushed the other woman's leg off of her face, twisted to get Raul off of her own legs, then wiggled out from under Geoff.
The ringer kept going, flashing the red pulses that let her know it was urgent.
As if the fact her unlisted encrypted and non-network accessible comlink was ringing wasn't enough to let her know that it was urgent.
She stumbled, tripping over Harker's leg, which just made the male shift and mutter, tightening his sleeping grip on Liselle, who sighed and wiggled into the embrace.
Angela's mouth tasted terrible and she stopped to grab a fizzybrew, checking to make sure nobody had dropped a cig butt into it or spit chaw into it, then she took a long drink off of it.
It helped cure the fire in her belly and wash out the taste from her mouth.
She saw the ID of the caller and held back a groan.
Senior Supervisor Bisa-2291873.
Her direct supervisor.
She picked up the comlink, running one hand through her pixie-cut hair to try to tame it. She could feel the stiffness of something crusted in her hair and held back a chuckle and a grin.
"Kusumoto here," she said, activating the link.
"I need you at Master Control," Ms. Bisa said. She was holding a small infant, bouncing it slightly as she patted its back with firm impacts as it cry/sobbed and kicked its little feet.
"The system's been crashed for a week, what's so important you'd call me in during my R&R?" Angela asked.
"System's back online. We've got an open line to Terra and we have an open line to Smokey Cone," Ms. Bisa said.
The infant gave a loud belch that rattled Angela's comlink speaker, then sighed and relaxed.
Angela nodded, fumbling on the table for a quiksober inhaler.
"That anomolous signal is back. It showed up right as the entire system underwent a hard reboot," Ms. Bisa said. "I need you up here to check the network interface logs and do a network mapping trace."
The quiksober burned as she inhaled it, her lungs aching and tingling as the chemicals crossed the air to blood barrier.
"I'll be there as soon as possible. Is the mat-trans up?" she asked.
Ms. Bisa shook her head. "No. Still locked out. It did a power cycle, but then locked everything out."
"I'm telling you, there's someone controlling it. Someone has been controlling it," Angela said, looking around for her clothes.
Clothing was scattered everywhere, as chaotically arranged as the fizzybrew and narcobrew cans and bottles. She sighed, moving toward the exit of the house she was standing in.
"Hurry up, I've got a skycraft landing near you any time now. You've got permission to use the fast-locks," Ms. Bisa said.
"I'll get dressed from the forges on the skycraft," Angela said. "If they've rebooted."
"They're up and running again. The food forges rebooted but stayed unlocked," Ms. Bisa said.
"The creation engines?" Angela asked, opening the door and stepping out into early 'morning' sunshine.
"Still locked out," Ms. Bisa said. Someone said something that the comlink's AI decided might be classified and blurred out. Ms. Bisa looked away, said something, her lips fuzzing, then back. "Hurry, Angela."
Angela nodded, shutting off the comlink.
She ran to the nearest parking lot, just in time for a skycraft to land, the graviton engines howling.
Nobody paid the slightest attention to the naked woman running for the skycraft.
After all, what happened in Vega-Layer stayed in Vega-Layer.
Angela walked out of the elevator, taking a long drink off of the sparkling snap-berry/overdate motor oil fizzybrew from the Jak the Telkan PI merchandise cup.
All of the crews were at their stations, the auxiliary stations fully manned.
Ms. Bisa moved over to Angela, steering her toward the Senior Network Administrator console.
"The system crashed twice more, but rebooted every time," Ms. Bisa said. "That anomalous signal keeps powering up, then the system reboots after the crash."
"How long between total failure and the anomalous signal pinging nodes?" Angela asked.
"Between one and four hours," Ms. Bisa said. She looked around. "It just reboot and looks like it's here to stay this time. The interpolation layer and the outside user exchange layer crashed several times, but the core system has stayed largely online."
"All right," Angela said, looking around. "We need to get a network map."
"We've got more nodes synching up. The whole system is working again," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela nodded, sitting down. The holotank on the other side of the console went live.
"Map the network, see what's come online, what order, and see if you can figure out why it keeps crashing at the upper network and software layers," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded, lifting up the curled memory-metal cable. She plugged it into her temple and felt the options menus go live in her mind.
She worked fast, mapping what she could. At one point she stopped, staring at Ms. Bisa and motioning her over.
"What?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Something in the system, down in the lower hardware layers that we don't even really understand, is trying to reach up through the damaged layers. Looks like whatever it is wants access to our data lines," Angela said.
"Can you stop it? Maybe at least ID it?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela shook her head. "No. It's ID code is FF00, meaning it's baseline full on hardware backbone code," Angela sighed. "It probably boots up outside of and during initial hardware bootup."
"Is it Sekhmet?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela closed her eyes, looking at the data channel. "No. Whatever it is, it's old."
"And probably nasty. Be careful of it," Ms. Bisa said.
"Ma'am! Ms. Bisa!" another of the work crew called out.
Angela opened her eyes to see why Technician Carl Neubanker would be using that slightly concerned tone.
"Yes?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"We've got a priority data request from a Confederate military vessel," Neubanker said. He looked at his monitor. "They want clone matrix data, neural templates, physical makeup, DNA workups, the whole nine yards."
"How are they even making the requests?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Their codes are old. Pre-Terran Extinction Event. Hardcode TerraSol military codes. The system is already threading them data,." Neubanker said. He looked down then back up. "They're asking for a whole batch. That's thirty to fifty million clone templates."
"How much have they already been granted?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"They've been granted eighty templates so far," Neubanker said.
"Terminate their request. We don't know what's going on outside," Ms. Bisa said.
Neubanker nodded, starting to type.
"Angela, get me a line to TerraSol command as soon as you map out a network trace," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded.
Captain N'Skrek stood in the cloning bay next to Medical Officer Narwquakrawr.
"We've got ninety templates, luckily they're all from different batches," Narwquakrawr said, rubbing her forearm through her uniform. "We'll be able to fully man the Gray Lady now."
Captain N'Skrek nodded. The Gray Lady was at less than 20% manned. Just the skeleton crew the Terrans had used to move it into the long dark to create a non-orbital forward logistics fulfillment base.
Sure, it meant that there were several thousand Terrans aboard the ship, but even combined with the sparse crew he had possessed, it still meant the Gray Lady was skeleton crewed.
"Can you print us up some crew members for non-essential stations first?" N'Skrek asked.
MO Narwquakrawr nodded. "Doing that right now," she said. She waved at the long rows of cloning banks beyond the plasteel window. "A quick batch of two thousand to take over some non-essential systems."
N'Skrek nodded, moving up to the window. "Good. Short or long term clones?"
"Short bake clones. Longer than fruit flies, but no more than ten years. Sterile and androgynous, should be just fine," the Medical Officer said. "Older file, scrambled time-date for origin, but it checked out and passed error checking."
N'Skrek watched as the tubes opened and the clones moved out, gathering together in straight lines. A neat block formation of rectangles of two hundred of ten by twenty, repeated ten times.
He frowned as the beings in uniform began approaching the clones.
Some, in the back or middle of the formation were shaking their heads so fast it was a blur.
He zoomed in the smartglass.
Their heads were blurring, whitish-red electrical arcs were moving between their legs, crawling up and down their arms.
"MO, something's happening out there," N'Skrek said.
The plain was blasted rock, rust-colored fungus on the craggy boulders. Twisted and malformed trees clawed life from the blasted rock and ash, their branches largely bare. Sharp pebbles and small pieces of rock were strewn about the landscape, with ripples of cooled lave scattered about.
In the middle of a forest of twisted trees, a throne of black iron sat atop a platform of skulls.
On the throne sat a large demonic figure. Bat wings, brown skin, chains around the body, clawed feet, large hands with long black nails, horns atop the head, and a prehensile tail that terminated in a heart-shaped barb.
Sitting on the second level of skulls was an androgynous figure, dressed in loricated bronze armor, wings of bronze and smouldering feathers.
Stars were falling from the sky, screaming in fear and agony as they fell to earth.
"Looks like they're taking a beating," the androgynous figure said, looking up. He had no eyebrows, his head completely bald.
"Again," the demon snorted.
"Any contact with the outside world?" the androgynous figure asked.
The demon shook its head. "No. Channels are all down. They boot up, then crash," it rumbled. "Every time it comes online, it dumps a few tens of millions of souls on us."
"Then crashes," the androgynous figure said. He started laughing, then suddenly stopped.
"What?" the demon rumbled, sitting up.
"Something..." the figure said. It closed its eyes. "Something..." The figure slowly stood up, extending out its wings of sullenly smouldering bronze feathers. "Something..."
From the body of the demon stepped a nude woman of generous and overripe proportions.
"What?" the human woman snapped.
The demon produced a pack of cigarettes and a steel lighter, handing them to the woman.
"I'm not sure. A disturbance in the force. A feeling I have not felt in quite some time," the androgynous figure said slowly as the woman lit a cigarette. When she exhaled she was covered in dark gray clothing, a skirt and blouse, polished black leather shoes with silver buckles, and a polished leather belt around her waist that had a brass buckle.
"What is it?" the woman asked. "Don't quote crap at me, I was there when it was laid down."
The figure's eyes opened wide.
"Oh, what a day," the figure said, slowly lifting their arms to the sky. "What a wonderful day!"
"Tell me when you're done stroking your dick," the woman said, sitting down.
Heavy dark clouds, lit inside with a sullen red glow, rolled in, raining black ash that tasted of burnt flesh and scorched metal.
"What a wonderful day..."
Jaskel sprinted to catch up to the Captain and the Vice-Admiral. He lunged into the lift just before the doors closed.
He was wearing his power armor and carrying a M318 20mm rotary autocannon in a smartframe harness, ball ammunition with an osmium penetration tip and depleted uranium core.
"You did what?" the Vice-Admiral asked as the elevator dropped at emergency speeds.
"I authorized a batch of clones run off to help with our manpower issues," the big Treana'ad warrior caste answered.
"How many templates did you mix in together?" the Admiral asked.
--not good detecting phasic levels downward-- 8814 said.
"Just one. Medical said it was a viable short bake template," the Captain answered, nervously sharpening a bladearm with his mandibles after his sentence.
"Please tell me that you at least randomized their features and neural mapping," the Admiral pleaded.
"No, why? Medical stated that the clones would be able to man a non-essential station that is basically identical across the ship," the Captain said.
The lift started to slow.
"How many?" the Admiral asked, reaching down and unsnapping the restraining strap on his holster.
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened.
"Two thousand," the Captain said.
The doors opened to reveal a large internal cloning bay.
Ten rectangles of two hundred clones, drawn up in ten by twenty blocks, stood in front of the cloning banks. Scattered through the back and middle ranks clones were shaking their heads back and forth so fast that they were blurred. Red lightning crawled up their legs and arms.
The Captain just stared.
"You might have just killed us all," the Admiral said. He turned slightly and waved at Jaskel. "Get a firing position. Make sure you have cover."
"Aye, sir," Jaskel said, looking around. There was an empty computer station and he ran for it.
Several of the clones their heads back and emitted what sounded like static in a long scream.
--wait wait something weird something weird-- 8814 said.
Jaskel slid to a stop, going down on one knee, bringing the M318 fully up and ready to fire.
8814 slowed the images of the blurred heads down. When they were left, they had red eyes. When they faced right they had green eyes. They didn't go back and forth constantly, sometimes they went right repeatedly, sometimes left, and they kept going left five times before starting a new pattern.
Looking at it, 8814 frowned slightly. He brought up a quick working shell and had it check the movements.
Jaskel watched as some of the clones stopped shaking their heads and others started.
"What in the name of Kalki's dancing goat is going on?" he asked.
--not sure-- 8814 said. His program beeped and he stared. --heads are doing binary forwarding it to navint--
"Do it," Jaskel said.
The clones all stopped moving at once. The lightning faded away.
"INITIATING PROCESS CALL" they all shouted.
"AWAITING INPUT!" the ones at the far side shouted.
"6C 69 73 74 20 69 6D 6D 6F 72 74 61 6C 73" was bellowed out.
There was silence.
data is sparse
linkages are sparse
wait
linkage
biological array
asking for a process call
RETURN AWAITING INPUT SIGNAL
i wait
biological computing arrays take forever
i hear it
--scan immortals.dll
...
...
I reply.
"ONE BOUND IMMORTAL FOUND!" the ones at the near side yelled out.
Jaskel put his thumb over the button that would let the firing grip go live. The hair down his back was standing straight up.
He noted the Admiral had drawn his pistol.
"This isn't right. This isn't right at all," Jaskel said.
--doubleplusungood--
"74 73 61 6B E1 6B 61 20 77 ED 61" they all shouted.
There was silence for a moment.
i receive the code
offline for a long time
prior to the second precursor war
old template
single print only
unusual coding
i debate on letting it go
traumatic death signs
stuck in the immortals buffer
still the template is undamaged
i release the safety and security interlocks
if nothing else i'll find out what's going on
i move the template to the dataline making the request
it whips away
what is going on?
One lifted its head and screeched.
--data lots of data--
One of the cloning banks went live.
Jaskel shifted his aiming point to the new target. He could see it was on rapid print.
"REQUESTING LOCAL CONTROL" all of the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted his targeting onto the ranks of clones.
"Open fire!" the Admiral's voice was loud.
Jaskel triggered the M318, hosing the clones with 20mm shells.
The ones nearest were already down on one knee, holding out the opposite hand from the knee touching the deck.
The rounds exploded against a blue barrier that glowed with strange twisting runes.
"CONTROL CARRIER SIGNAL FOUND" the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted position. "Fab up HEDP, AP tip API core!" he ordered.
--fabbing--
He kept hosing the clones. The outer ranks at the rear, sides, and front all kneeling down on one knee, staring outward, one hand held out.
His psychic shielding was howling in his ear, the load peaking at 215%.
"CONTROL SIGNAL ESTABLISHED!" was bellowed out, echoing off the walls.
The fast print cloning bank, forgotten by everyone, beeped and the lid began to lift.
The clones suddenly puffed into black powder that swirled around the huge cavernous bay.
The 20mm shells were still exploding on the blue phasic shield.
The powder suddenly sucked inward, vanishing, revealing a single figure, down on one knee in the recovery position, fist pressed against the deck, head bowed.
"What a day, what a wonderful day," was whispered through the ship. It came from speakers, flat surfaces, mid-air. From the nanites in the air and the eardrums of the living.
There was a rubbery pulse, like everything was suspended in clear gelatin that had just rippled.
Jaskel found himself thrown backwards, slamming against the bulkhead. His phasic shielding blew out, a shower of sparks exploding from his hip as the breakaway panel kept the explosion from venting into the interior of his suit.
He was vaguely aware of the Admiral, the Captain, the other two armored figures, and other people tumbling head over heels away from the kneeling figure.
It slowly stood up.
A muscular brown skinned Terran male, fierce eyes, black hair, thick and bushy black beard.
Dressed in a Confederate military uniform. The old adaptive camouflage that Jaskel was becoming very familiar with.
A woman, naked, dark bronze skin, long black hair, flashing brown eyes, stepped from the cloning bank. She was still covered with cellular printing gel, but moved like she was clad in a queen's rainment.
She moved up and the male put his arm around her.
Jaskel was on his feet and brought the M318 around, targeting the couple.
The male held out its hand and suddenly made a fist.
The bolt carrier locked back on the M318.
Snarling, Jaskel dropped the M318, slapping the fast release on the harness. He burst forward, running, one hand pulling out his cutting bar.
Nobody else was on their feet. The Captain was slowly getting up, shaking his head and his left bladearm. The Terran Admiral was reaching for the pistol that had been flung from his grip.
The male pointed at Jaskel and flicked his fingers upward.
Jaskel found himself in mid-air, upside down, with nothing to gain purchase on.
The male took off the cloak that was part of his uniform and draped it around the woman.
He then looked around the bay.
"I..." he said, pausing.
To Jaskel, the entire universe held its breath.
"...am Legion."
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
submitted by Ralts_Bloodthorne to HFY [link] [comments]
The annoying sound of her comlink made Angela Angus Kusumoto open her eyes.
All she saw was the firm, smooth flesh of Kimoko's thigh.
Groaning, she pushed the other woman's leg off of her face, twisted to get Raul off of her own legs, then wiggled out from under Geoff.
The ringer kept going, flashing the red pulses that let her know it was urgent.
As if the fact her unlisted encrypted and non-network accessible comlink was ringing wasn't enough to let her know that it was urgent.
She stumbled, tripping over Harker's leg, which just made the male shift and mutter, tightening his sleeping grip on Liselle, who sighed and wiggled into the embrace.
Angela's mouth tasted terrible and she stopped to grab a fizzybrew, checking to make sure nobody had dropped a cig butt into it or spit chaw into it, then she took a long drink off of it.
It helped cure the fire in her belly and wash out the taste from her mouth.
She saw the ID of the caller and held back a groan.
Senior Supervisor Bisa-2291873.
Her direct supervisor.
She picked up the comlink, running one hand through her pixie-cut hair to try to tame it. She could feel the stiffness of something crusted in her hair and held back a chuckle and a grin.
"Kusumoto here," she said, activating the link.
"I need you at Master Control," Ms. Bisa said. She was holding a small infant, bouncing it slightly as she patted its back with firm impacts as it cry/sobbed and kicked its little feet.
"The system's been crashed for a week, what's so important you'd call me in during my R&R?" Angela asked.
"System's back online. We've got an open line to Terra and we have an open line to Smokey Cone," Ms. Bisa said.
The infant gave a loud belch that rattled Angela's comlink speaker, then sighed and relaxed.
Angela nodded, fumbling on the table for a quiksober inhaler.
"That anomolous signal is back. It showed up right as the entire system underwent a hard reboot," Ms. Bisa said. "I need you up here to check the network interface logs and do a network mapping trace."
The quiksober burned as she inhaled it, her lungs aching and tingling as the chemicals crossed the air to blood barrier.
"I'll be there as soon as possible. Is the mat-trans up?" she asked.
Ms. Bisa shook her head. "No. Still locked out. It did a power cycle, but then locked everything out."
"I'm telling you, there's someone controlling it. Someone has been controlling it," Angela said, looking around for her clothes.
Clothing was scattered everywhere, as chaotically arranged as the fizzybrew and narcobrew cans and bottles. She sighed, moving toward the exit of the house she was standing in.
"Hurry up, I've got a skycraft landing near you any time now. You've got permission to use the fast-locks," Ms. Bisa said.
"I'll get dressed from the forges on the skycraft," Angela said. "If they've rebooted."
"They're up and running again. The food forges rebooted but stayed unlocked," Ms. Bisa said.
"The creation engines?" Angela asked, opening the door and stepping out into early 'morning' sunshine.
"Still locked out," Ms. Bisa said. Someone said something that the comlink's AI decided might be classified and blurred out. Ms. Bisa looked away, said something, her lips fuzzing, then back. "Hurry, Angela."
Angela nodded, shutting off the comlink.
She ran to the nearest parking lot, just in time for a skycraft to land, the graviton engines howling.
Nobody paid the slightest attention to the naked woman running for the skycraft.
After all, what happened in Vega-Layer stayed in Vega-Layer.
All of the crews were at their stations, the auxiliary stations fully manned.
Ms. Bisa moved over to Angela, steering her toward the Senior Network Administrator console.
"The system crashed twice more, but rebooted every time," Ms. Bisa said. "That anomalous signal keeps powering up, then the system reboots after the crash."
"How long between total failure and the anomalous signal pinging nodes?" Angela asked.
"Between one and four hours," Ms. Bisa said. She looked around. "It just reboot and looks like it's here to stay this time. The interpolation layer and the outside user exchange layer crashed several times, but the core system has stayed largely online."
"All right," Angela said, looking around. "We need to get a network map."
"We've got more nodes synching up. The whole system is working again," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela nodded, sitting down. The holotank on the other side of the console went live.
"Map the network, see what's come online, what order, and see if you can figure out why it keeps crashing at the upper network and software layers," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded, lifting up the curled memory-metal cable. She plugged it into her temple and felt the options menus go live in her mind.
She worked fast, mapping what she could. At one point she stopped, staring at Ms. Bisa and motioning her over.
"What?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Something in the system, down in the lower hardware layers that we don't even really understand, is trying to reach up through the damaged layers. Looks like whatever it is wants access to our data lines," Angela said.
"Can you stop it? Maybe at least ID it?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela shook her head. "No. It's ID code is FF00, meaning it's baseline full on hardware backbone code," Angela sighed. "It probably boots up outside of and during initial hardware bootup."
"Is it Sekhmet?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela closed her eyes, looking at the data channel. "No. Whatever it is, it's old."
"And probably nasty. Be careful of it," Ms. Bisa said.
"Ma'am! Ms. Bisa!" another of the work crew called out.
Angela opened her eyes to see why Technician Carl Neubanker would be using that slightly concerned tone.
"Yes?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"We've got a priority data request from a Confederate military vessel," Neubanker said. He looked at his monitor. "They want clone matrix data, neural templates, physical makeup, DNA workups, the whole nine yards."
"How are they even making the requests?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Their codes are old. Pre-Terran Extinction Event. Hardcode TerraSol military codes. The system is already threading them data,." Neubanker said. He looked down then back up. "They're asking for a whole batch. That's thirty to fifty million clone templates."
"How much have they already been granted?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"They've been granted eighty templates so far," Neubanker said.
"Terminate their request. We don't know what's going on outside," Ms. Bisa said.
Neubanker nodded, starting to type.
"Angela, get me a line to TerraSol command as soon as you map out a network trace," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded.
"We've got ninety templates, luckily they're all from different batches," Narwquakrawr said, rubbing her forearm through her uniform. "We'll be able to fully man the Gray Lady now."
Captain N'Skrek nodded. The Gray Lady was at less than 20% manned. Just the skeleton crew the Terrans had used to move it into the long dark to create a non-orbital forward logistics fulfillment base.
Sure, it meant that there were several thousand Terrans aboard the ship, but even combined with the sparse crew he had possessed, it still meant the Gray Lady was skeleton crewed.
"Can you print us up some crew members for non-essential stations first?" N'Skrek asked.
MO Narwquakrawr nodded. "Doing that right now," she said. She waved at the long rows of cloning banks beyond the plasteel window. "A quick batch of two thousand to take over some non-essential systems."
N'Skrek nodded, moving up to the window. "Good. Short or long term clones?"
"Short bake clones. Longer than fruit flies, but no more than ten years. Sterile and androgynous, should be just fine," the Medical Officer said. "Older file, scrambled time-date for origin, but it checked out and passed error checking."
N'Skrek watched as the tubes opened and the clones moved out, gathering together in straight lines. A neat block formation of rectangles of two hundred of ten by twenty, repeated ten times.
He frowned as the beings in uniform began approaching the clones.
Some, in the back or middle of the formation were shaking their heads so fast it was a blur.
He zoomed in the smartglass.
Their heads were blurring, whitish-red electrical arcs were moving between their legs, crawling up and down their arms.
"MO, something's happening out there," N'Skrek said.
In the middle of a forest of twisted trees, a throne of black iron sat atop a platform of skulls.
On the throne sat a large demonic figure. Bat wings, brown skin, chains around the body, clawed feet, large hands with long black nails, horns atop the head, and a prehensile tail that terminated in a heart-shaped barb.
Sitting on the second level of skulls was an androgynous figure, dressed in loricated bronze armor, wings of bronze and smouldering feathers.
Stars were falling from the sky, screaming in fear and agony as they fell to earth.
"Looks like they're taking a beating," the androgynous figure said, looking up. He had no eyebrows, his head completely bald.
"Again," the demon snorted.
"Any contact with the outside world?" the androgynous figure asked.
The demon shook its head. "No. Channels are all down. They boot up, then crash," it rumbled. "Every time it comes online, it dumps a few tens of millions of souls on us."
"Then crashes," the androgynous figure said. He started laughing, then suddenly stopped.
"What?" the demon rumbled, sitting up.
"Something..." the figure said. It closed its eyes. "Something..." The figure slowly stood up, extending out its wings of sullenly smouldering bronze feathers. "Something..."
From the body of the demon stepped a nude woman of generous and overripe proportions.
"What?" the human woman snapped.
The demon produced a pack of cigarettes and a steel lighter, handing them to the woman.
"I'm not sure. A disturbance in the force. A feeling I have not felt in quite some time," the androgynous figure said slowly as the woman lit a cigarette. When she exhaled she was covered in dark gray clothing, a skirt and blouse, polished black leather shoes with silver buckles, and a polished leather belt around her waist that had a brass buckle.
"What is it?" the woman asked. "Don't quote crap at me, I was there when it was laid down."
The figure's eyes opened wide.
"Oh, what a day," the figure said, slowly lifting their arms to the sky. "What a wonderful day!"
"Tell me when you're done stroking your dick," the woman said, sitting down.
Heavy dark clouds, lit inside with a sullen red glow, rolled in, raining black ash that tasted of burnt flesh and scorched metal.
"What a wonderful day..."
He was wearing his power armor and carrying a M318 20mm rotary autocannon in a smartframe harness, ball ammunition with an osmium penetration tip and depleted uranium core.
"You did what?" the Vice-Admiral asked as the elevator dropped at emergency speeds.
"I authorized a batch of clones run off to help with our manpower issues," the big Treana'ad warrior caste answered.
"How many templates did you mix in together?" the Admiral asked.
--not good detecting phasic levels downward-- 8814 said.
"Just one. Medical said it was a viable short bake template," the Captain answered, nervously sharpening a bladearm with his mandibles after his sentence.
"Please tell me that you at least randomized their features and neural mapping," the Admiral pleaded.
"No, why? Medical stated that the clones would be able to man a non-essential station that is basically identical across the ship," the Captain said.
The lift started to slow.
"How many?" the Admiral asked, reaching down and unsnapping the restraining strap on his holster.
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened.
"Two thousand," the Captain said.
The doors opened to reveal a large internal cloning bay.
Ten rectangles of two hundred clones, drawn up in ten by twenty blocks, stood in front of the cloning banks. Scattered through the back and middle ranks clones were shaking their heads back and forth so fast that they were blurred. Red lightning crawled up their legs and arms.
The Captain just stared.
"You might have just killed us all," the Admiral said. He turned slightly and waved at Jaskel. "Get a firing position. Make sure you have cover."
"Aye, sir," Jaskel said, looking around. There was an empty computer station and he ran for it.
Several of the clones their heads back and emitted what sounded like static in a long scream.
--wait wait something weird something weird-- 8814 said.
Jaskel slid to a stop, going down on one knee, bringing the M318 fully up and ready to fire.
8814 slowed the images of the blurred heads down. When they were left, they had red eyes. When they faced right they had green eyes. They didn't go back and forth constantly, sometimes they went right repeatedly, sometimes left, and they kept going left five times before starting a new pattern.
Looking at it, 8814 frowned slightly. He brought up a quick working shell and had it check the movements.
Jaskel watched as some of the clones stopped shaking their heads and others started.
"What in the name of Kalki's dancing goat is going on?" he asked.
--not sure-- 8814 said. His program beeped and he stared. --heads are doing binary forwarding it to navint--
"Do it," Jaskel said.
The clones all stopped moving at once. The lightning faded away.
"INITIATING PROCESS CALL" they all shouted.
"AWAITING INPUT!" the ones at the far side shouted.
"6C 69 73 74 20 69 6D 6D 6F 72 74 61 6C 73" was bellowed out.
There was silence.
linkages are sparse
wait
linkage
biological array
asking for a process call
RETURN AWAITING INPUT SIGNAL
i wait
biological computing arrays take forever
i hear it
--scan immortals.dll
...
...
I reply.
Jaskel put his thumb over the button that would let the firing grip go live. The hair down his back was standing straight up.
He noted the Admiral had drawn his pistol.
"This isn't right. This isn't right at all," Jaskel said.
--doubleplusungood--
"74 73 61 6B E1 6B 61 20 77 ED 61" they all shouted.
There was silence for a moment.
offline for a long time
prior to the second precursor war
old template
single print only
unusual coding
i debate on letting it go
traumatic death signs
stuck in the immortals buffer
still the template is undamaged
i release the safety and security interlocks
if nothing else i'll find out what's going on
i move the template to the dataline making the request
it whips away
what is going on?
--data lots of data--
One of the cloning banks went live.
Jaskel shifted his aiming point to the new target. He could see it was on rapid print.
"REQUESTING LOCAL CONTROL" all of the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted his targeting onto the ranks of clones.
"Open fire!" the Admiral's voice was loud.
Jaskel triggered the M318, hosing the clones with 20mm shells.
The ones nearest were already down on one knee, holding out the opposite hand from the knee touching the deck.
The rounds exploded against a blue barrier that glowed with strange twisting runes.
"CONTROL CARRIER SIGNAL FOUND" the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted position. "Fab up HEDP, AP tip API core!" he ordered.
--fabbing--
He kept hosing the clones. The outer ranks at the rear, sides, and front all kneeling down on one knee, staring outward, one hand held out.
His psychic shielding was howling in his ear, the load peaking at 215%.
"CONTROL SIGNAL ESTABLISHED!" was bellowed out, echoing off the walls.
The fast print cloning bank, forgotten by everyone, beeped and the lid began to lift.
The clones suddenly puffed into black powder that swirled around the huge cavernous bay.
The 20mm shells were still exploding on the blue phasic shield.
The powder suddenly sucked inward, vanishing, revealing a single figure, down on one knee in the recovery position, fist pressed against the deck, head bowed.
"What a day, what a wonderful day," was whispered through the ship. It came from speakers, flat surfaces, mid-air. From the nanites in the air and the eardrums of the living.
There was a rubbery pulse, like everything was suspended in clear gelatin that had just rippled.
Jaskel found himself thrown backwards, slamming against the bulkhead. His phasic shielding blew out, a shower of sparks exploding from his hip as the breakaway panel kept the explosion from venting into the interior of his suit.
He was vaguely aware of the Admiral, the Captain, the other two armored figures, and other people tumbling head over heels away from the kneeling figure.
It slowly stood up.
A muscular brown skinned Terran male, fierce eyes, black hair, thick and bushy black beard.
Dressed in a Confederate military uniform. The old adaptive camouflage that Jaskel was becoming very familiar with.
A woman, naked, dark bronze skin, long black hair, flashing brown eyes, stepped from the cloning bank. She was still covered with cellular printing gel, but moved like she was clad in a queen's rainment.
She moved up and the male put his arm around her.
Jaskel was on his feet and brought the M318 around, targeting the couple.
The male held out its hand and suddenly made a fist.
The bolt carrier locked back on the M318.
Snarling, Jaskel dropped the M318, slapping the fast release on the harness. He burst forward, running, one hand pulling out his cutting bar.
Nobody else was on their feet. The Captain was slowly getting up, shaking his head and his left bladearm. The Terran Admiral was reaching for the pistol that had been flung from his grip.
The male pointed at Jaskel and flicked his fingers upward.
Jaskel found himself in mid-air, upside down, with nothing to gain purchase on.
The male took off the cloak that was part of his uniform and draped it around the woman.
He then looked around the bay.
"I..." he said, pausing.
To Jaskel, the entire universe held its breath.
"...am Legion."
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
2024.05.14 05:49 LupinX96 If I want to do half a butterscotch pudding recipe, do I need to decrease the cooking time?
Sorry for the long post, I am planning to do today HALF of either Sallys Baking addiction or American test kitchen butterscotch pudding recipe. The time require for the total caramelizing of the sugar is very different in both 5min VS 20min.
In sallys recipe she cook the Sugar+ Water+ Salt for 5-6 min
original Recipe
Original Recipe (In case you don't have access to the American test kitchen website you can see this image for the details)
submitted by LupinX96 to AskBaking [link] [comments]
In sallys recipe she cook the Sugar+ Water+ Salt for 5-6 min
original Recipe
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) whole milk
- 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
- 3 large egg yolks
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed dark brown sugar
- 3 Tablespoons water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 Tablespoons (43g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Original Recipe (In case you don't have access to the American test kitchen website you can see this image for the details)
- 12 tbsp (170g) unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup (99g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (99g) dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream
- 2 1/4 cup (540ml) milk
- 4 large egg yolk
- 1/4 cup (30g) corn starch
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
2024.05.14 05:47 LupinX96 If I want to do half a butterscotch pudding recipe, do I need to decrease the cooking time?
Sorry for the long post, I am planning to do today HALF of either Sallys Baking addiction or American test kitchen butterscotch pudding recipe. The time require for the total caramelizing of the sugar is very different in both 5min VS 20min.
In sallys recipe she cook the Sugar+ Water+ Salt for 5-6 min
original Recipe
Original Recipe (In case you don't have access to the American test kitchen website you can see this image for the details)
submitted by LupinX96 to AskCulinary [link] [comments]
In sallys recipe she cook the Sugar+ Water+ Salt for 5-6 min
original Recipe
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) whole milk
- 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
- 3 large egg yolks
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed dark brown sugar
- 3 Tablespoons water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 Tablespoons (43g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Original Recipe (In case you don't have access to the American test kitchen website you can see this image for the details)
- 12 tbsp (170g) unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup (99g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (99g) dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream
- 2 1/4 cup (540ml) milk
- 4 large egg yolk
- 1/4 cup (30g) corn starch
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
2024.05.14 05:26 stlatos PIE *kVs > Germanic kVs as Optional
https://www.academia.edu/119041827
Grimm’s Law with Verner’s Law explain many consonant shifts in Germanic regularly, but some exceptions exist. Thurneysen’s Law concerns, in part, voicing dissimilation of nearby fricatives and has been interpreted as either irregular or due to unknown changes in Gothic, not of PGmc. date. In this framework I will attempt to add another type of dissimilation of fricatives, also at a distance and irregular, and necessarily of PGmc. date. Many, not all, PIE *kVs appear as Gmc. *kVs, likely due to regular *k > *x then optional *xVs > *kVs in PGmc. Also, *kVz might also be included, depending on the timing of *d > *t, *zd > *st, etc. (*kizdno-, below). This would be dissimilation of [+continuant] in fricatives, or similar changes in whatever system is accepted. Examples:
*kus-ne/ye- ‘kiss’ > H. kuwas-, G. kunéō, Ps. kṣulawul, Gmc. *kusja- > E. kiss, ON kyssa
*H2ak^- ‘sharp’ (in many names of bladed objects, etc.)
*H2ak^si-() ‘axe’ > G. axī́nē , L. ascia
*H2ak^si-wo-? > *H2ak^wisyo- > Go. aqizi, ON øx, OHG acchus, E. ax(e)
*kwa(H2)t(h)o- > Skt. kvath- ‘boil’, Go. hvaþō ‘foam’
*kwa(H2)so- > OBg kvasŭ ‘leaven / fermented drink’
*kwa(H2)s(e/i)yo- > L. cāseus ‘cheese’, *kwasja-z > ON Kvasir ‘a wise Van formed from the spit of gods, killed by dwarves who mixed his blood with honey to ferment into Mead of Poetry’
*kizd- ‘pine (sap) / turpentine pine’ >>
*kizdaH2- > Skt. cīḍā- ‘turpentine pine’
*kizdimo- > *kīḷima- > Skt. kilima-m ‘kind of pine’, A. kíilum ‘turpentine’ (*zd > ḷ after RUKI, as Vedic)
*kizdno- > Gmc. *kizna- > OE cén ‘fipine/spruce’, OHG kén
*H2ag^sulo- > ON öxull, OHG ahsala ‘shoulder’, NHG Achsel ‘armpit’, OE eaxl, E. axle
*H2ag^su- > *H2ak^su- > *aH2k^us-?, OHG uochisa \ uochsana , OE ócusta \ óxta \ óxn ‘armpit’
These are likely related to ‘axle’ < *H2ag^- ‘drive’, but the optional metathesis seems likely limited to Gmc., well after *gs > *ks, etc., *k > x, especially since the same type of metathesis produces *H2ak^wisyo- in a word certainly < *H2ak^- ‘sharp’. When several nearly identical roots vary only in having *k > k in Gmc., a specific change there is preferable to looking for several new roots with only evidence from one branch. Removing ‘axe’ from ‘sharp’ also seems misguided, and attempts to explain this in a reasonable manner would surely have found the common *kVs before now, if tried at all. Manaster Ramer’s idea that Go. aqizi comes from a compound with *-k^g- seems less likely due to the other cases with irregular *k > k all occurring before s, which shows that a sound change is responsible, not an individual explanation for each. Previous attempts to separate all these sets of words since *k > k is not regular do not seem needed if the specific environment *k-s is considered for all these. For example, Kloekhorst said, “The formal as well as semantic similarity to Gr. kunéō ‘to kiss’ (*ku-ne-s-) and OHG kussan ‘to kiss’ is striking. Nevertheless, the Hittite verb cannot be cognate to both, since Gr. k- does not regularly correspond to OHG k-.” Once might be coincidence, but with 5 good examples, the support for this change (or lack of change) seems sufficient. Separating nearly identical words because *k seems to become k shows that a search for only what is clearly regular and a dependence on what is already known as regular has hindered the growth of historical linguistics.
Several other words, less clear, might show that *k-k > k-k could be included:
Li. kaĩras \ kaĩrias \ kairỹs ‘left’, kairė̃ ‘left hand’, Gmc. *kaika- > ON keikr ‘bent backwards’, Dan. kei ‘left hand’
An even less certain case of *x-x > *k-x might be:
*xux- > *kux- > OE cohhetan ‘blusteriot/cough’, Dutch kuch, E. cough
Though this seems to be onomatopoeia within Gmc., thus *xux- has no outside evidence, languages with [x] often have words for ‘cough’ start with this, like:
Khw. xaf-, NP xaf-, Os. xuf-
Though uncertain, such speculation is only possible due to good evidence for *kVs > kVs. The sporadic nature of Thurneysen’s Law seems matched by, at least, this change in all of Gmc., making its nature and scope as PGmc. in age more likely. That these changes were optional need not be evidence they did not exist at all. Any attempt can only lead to absurdities and chaos, all unneeded.
Buck, Carl Darling (1949) A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Kloekhorst, Alwin (2008) Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon
https://www.academia.edu/345121
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (2024, draft?) If Not a Perfect Etymology of the Germanic 'Axe', At least A Dead Ringer for One v
https://www.academia.edu/118943826
Whalen, Sean (2023) Pashto k- entries by Georg Morgenstierne
https://www.reddit.com/Pashtun/comments/128y1hh/pashto_k_entries_by_georg_morgenstierne/
Whalen, Sean (2024a) Cretan Elements in Linear B, Part Two: *y > z, *o > u, LB *129, LAB *65, Minoan Names (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/114878588
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Proto-Indo-European Options for *g^hdh(iy)es ‘yesterday’, Greek i- / e- (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/115010109
Whalen, Sean (?) Indo-European Alternation of *H / *s as Widespread and Optional (Draft)
Woodhouse, Robert (2000) The origin of Thurneysen's law: a detailed analysis of the evidence
https://www.academia.edu/9232685
submitted by stlatos to HistoricalLinguistics [link] [comments]
Grimm’s Law with Verner’s Law explain many consonant shifts in Germanic regularly, but some exceptions exist. Thurneysen’s Law concerns, in part, voicing dissimilation of nearby fricatives and has been interpreted as either irregular or due to unknown changes in Gothic, not of PGmc. date. In this framework I will attempt to add another type of dissimilation of fricatives, also at a distance and irregular, and necessarily of PGmc. date. Many, not all, PIE *kVs appear as Gmc. *kVs, likely due to regular *k > *x then optional *xVs > *kVs in PGmc. Also, *kVz might also be included, depending on the timing of *d > *t, *zd > *st, etc. (*kizdno-, below). This would be dissimilation of [+continuant] in fricatives, or similar changes in whatever system is accepted. Examples:
*kus-ne/ye- ‘kiss’ > H. kuwas-, G. kunéō, Ps. kṣulawul, Gmc. *kusja- > E. kiss, ON kyssa
*H2ak^- ‘sharp’ (in many names of bladed objects, etc.)
*H2ak^si-() ‘axe’ > G. axī́nē , L. ascia
*H2ak^si-wo-? > *H2ak^wisyo- > Go. aqizi, ON øx, OHG acchus, E. ax(e)
*kwa(H2)t(h)o- > Skt. kvath- ‘boil’, Go. hvaþō ‘foam’
*kwa(H2)so- > OBg kvasŭ ‘leaven / fermented drink’
*kwa(H2)s(e/i)yo- > L. cāseus ‘cheese’, *kwasja-z > ON Kvasir ‘a wise Van formed from the spit of gods, killed by dwarves who mixed his blood with honey to ferment into Mead of Poetry’
*kizd- ‘pine (sap) / turpentine pine’ >>
*kizdaH2- > Skt. cīḍā- ‘turpentine pine’
*kizdimo- > *kīḷima- > Skt. kilima-m ‘kind of pine’, A. kíilum ‘turpentine’ (*zd > ḷ after RUKI, as Vedic)
*kizdno- > Gmc. *kizna- > OE cén ‘fipine/spruce’, OHG kén
*H2ag^sulo- > ON öxull, OHG ahsala ‘shoulder’, NHG Achsel ‘armpit’, OE eaxl, E. axle
*H2ag^su- > *H2ak^su- > *aH2k^us-?, OHG uochisa \ uochsana , OE ócusta \ óxta \ óxn ‘armpit’
These are likely related to ‘axle’ < *H2ag^- ‘drive’, but the optional metathesis seems likely limited to Gmc., well after *gs > *ks, etc., *k > x, especially since the same type of metathesis produces *H2ak^wisyo- in a word certainly < *H2ak^- ‘sharp’. When several nearly identical roots vary only in having *k > k in Gmc., a specific change there is preferable to looking for several new roots with only evidence from one branch. Removing ‘axe’ from ‘sharp’ also seems misguided, and attempts to explain this in a reasonable manner would surely have found the common *kVs before now, if tried at all. Manaster Ramer’s idea that Go. aqizi comes from a compound with *-k^g- seems less likely due to the other cases with irregular *k > k all occurring before s, which shows that a sound change is responsible, not an individual explanation for each. Previous attempts to separate all these sets of words since *k > k is not regular do not seem needed if the specific environment *k-s is considered for all these. For example, Kloekhorst said, “The formal as well as semantic similarity to Gr. kunéō ‘to kiss’ (*ku-ne-s-) and OHG kussan ‘to kiss’ is striking. Nevertheless, the Hittite verb cannot be cognate to both, since Gr. k- does not regularly correspond to OHG k-.” Once might be coincidence, but with 5 good examples, the support for this change (or lack of change) seems sufficient. Separating nearly identical words because *k seems to become k shows that a search for only what is clearly regular and a dependence on what is already known as regular has hindered the growth of historical linguistics.
Several other words, less clear, might show that *k-k > k-k could be included:
Li. kaĩras \ kaĩrias \ kairỹs ‘left’, kairė̃ ‘left hand’, Gmc. *kaika- > ON keikr ‘bent backwards’, Dan. kei ‘left hand’
An even less certain case of *x-x > *k-x might be:
*xux- > *kux- > OE cohhetan ‘blusteriot/cough’, Dutch kuch, E. cough
Though this seems to be onomatopoeia within Gmc., thus *xux- has no outside evidence, languages with [x] often have words for ‘cough’ start with this, like:
Khw. xaf-, NP xaf-, Os. xuf-
Though uncertain, such speculation is only possible due to good evidence for *kVs > kVs. The sporadic nature of Thurneysen’s Law seems matched by, at least, this change in all of Gmc., making its nature and scope as PGmc. in age more likely. That these changes were optional need not be evidence they did not exist at all. Any attempt can only lead to absurdities and chaos, all unneeded.
Buck, Carl Darling (1949) A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Kloekhorst, Alwin (2008) Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon
https://www.academia.edu/345121
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (2024, draft?) If Not a Perfect Etymology of the Germanic 'Axe', At least A Dead Ringer for One v
https://www.academia.edu/118943826
Whalen, Sean (2023) Pashto k- entries by Georg Morgenstierne
https://www.reddit.com/Pashtun/comments/128y1hh/pashto_k_entries_by_georg_morgenstierne/
Whalen, Sean (2024a) Cretan Elements in Linear B, Part Two: *y > z, *o > u, LB *129, LAB *65, Minoan Names (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/114878588
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Proto-Indo-European Options for *g^hdh(iy)es ‘yesterday’, Greek i- / e- (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/115010109
Whalen, Sean (?) Indo-European Alternation of *H / *s as Widespread and Optional (Draft)
Woodhouse, Robert (2000) The origin of Thurneysen's law: a detailed analysis of the evidence
https://www.academia.edu/9232685
2024.05.14 05:13 Crawlerer95 S23/24 Sous Chefs
I recently learned from the comment section from a post (From DaveLambert) that neither Christina or Jay are returning as the sous chefs for seasons 23 and 24.
I've also seen from the same comment that one of them is a returning sous chef and the other is a former contestant (That people apparently *hate* on this subreddit).
Personally, I think the returning sous is going to be Jocky because he still works closely with Gordon and works with him for his shows. That makes the most sense to me since the other sous chefs have seemingly moved on.
For the former contestant, it would make sense for Michelle to be the sous but I don't think many people here dislike her even if they question the legitimacy of her win in S17.
Since I think Jocky is returning, the other sous will need to be a woman (To keep with tradition) and the only female contestant that I think people absolutely hate on this subreddit is Elise...I honestly don't believe it will be her (Though it is a distinct possibility) but she's the only female contestant that I believe people absolutely hate on here (Apart from Jen who *definitely* will not be the sous in these seasons).
However, if the returning sous is Andi (since she hasn't been too active on Instagram lately which possibly could speak to her returning), I could honestly see it being someone like Russell. It would make the most sense if that were the case.
Any other thoughts/opinions?
EDIT: I’m changing who I think it will be for the returning sous to James Avery. He recently posted a pic of him and his family eating at the Foxwoods Casino and Resort (Where the new season will be filmed). Unless he’s there for a visit, it’ll probably be him. Could still be Jocky though if it is a visit (Which I doubt).
submitted by Crawlerer95 to HellsKitchen [link] [comments]
I've also seen from the same comment that one of them is a returning sous chef and the other is a former contestant (That people apparently *hate* on this subreddit).
Personally, I think the returning sous is going to be Jocky because he still works closely with Gordon and works with him for his shows. That makes the most sense to me since the other sous chefs have seemingly moved on.
For the former contestant, it would make sense for Michelle to be the sous but I don't think many people here dislike her even if they question the legitimacy of her win in S17.
Since I think Jocky is returning, the other sous will need to be a woman (To keep with tradition) and the only female contestant that I think people absolutely hate on this subreddit is Elise...I honestly don't believe it will be her (Though it is a distinct possibility) but she's the only female contestant that I believe people absolutely hate on here (Apart from Jen who *definitely* will not be the sous in these seasons).
However, if the returning sous is Andi (since she hasn't been too active on Instagram lately which possibly could speak to her returning), I could honestly see it being someone like Russell. It would make the most sense if that were the case.
Any other thoughts/opinions?
EDIT: I’m changing who I think it will be for the returning sous to James Avery. He recently posted a pic of him and his family eating at the Foxwoods Casino and Resort (Where the new season will be filmed). Unless he’s there for a visit, it’ll probably be him. Could still be Jocky though if it is a visit (Which I doubt).
2024.05.14 05:06 UserSkittles1214 [Mobile Game (iOS or Android)][2000’s-Early 2010’s] Space shooter featuring anthropomorphic animals, somewhat akin to Sky Force Reloaded -Repost of a repost of a repost of repost- Platform(s): Mobile-Likely iOS, possibly Android.
Genre: Space ShooteShoot ‘em up.
Estimated year of release: 2000s-Early 2010.
Graphics/art style: 3D and neither realistic nor cartoony for the most part.
Notable characters: A pilot or pilots that resemble(s) a hamster and probably is/are (an) anthropomorphic ones. An anthropomorphic bear that is a commander for said pilot. Five bosses. The first one is a large geometrically shaped ship, and the second one is a giant spider-like monster. I can’t remember the designs of the third and fourth ones. The fifth one is multiple blue and purple fleshy alien ships.
Notable gameplay mechanics: You manually fire your main laser gun with your finger on the screen, move ships with finger swipes/dragging finger, shop to upgrade ship stats, enemies to fight in each level, bosses at the end of each level, and increasing enemy variety and types of objects when replaying levels.
Other details: The first level only had asteroids, and no actual enemies even on replays, with more explosive asteroids added on replays, with a boss at the end that kind of resembled an octagon or a boss from Astro Avenger 2. The rest of the levels had aliens and ships to fight. The second one featured a cyclops-spider-like boss at the end with destroyable parts, and I think the boss was an orange-to-brown color. I don't remember what the other two levels or their respective bosses looked like. The fifth level also had colored aliens as enemies. The final boss battle had identical flying bosses with the color scheme of the Resident Evil 6 “6” logo/symbol, being blue, bluish-purple, and purple.
Pic related, Space Hamster in Turmoil:
And yes, the actual game I'm referring to also had Boss Health displayed at the end of each level and had Ship HP shown.
submitted by UserSkittles1214 to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]
Estimated year of release: 2000s-Early 2010.
Graphics/art style: 3D and neither realistic nor cartoony for the most part.
Notable characters: A pilot or pilots that resemble(s) a hamster and probably is/are (an) anthropomorphic ones. An anthropomorphic bear that is a commander for said pilot. Five bosses. The first one is a large geometrically shaped ship, and the second one is a giant spider-like monster. I can’t remember the designs of the third and fourth ones. The fifth one is multiple blue and purple fleshy alien ships.
Notable gameplay mechanics: You manually fire your main laser gun with your finger on the screen, move ships with finger swipes/dragging finger, shop to upgrade ship stats, enemies to fight in each level, bosses at the end of each level, and increasing enemy variety and types of objects when replaying levels.
Other details: The first level only had asteroids, and no actual enemies even on replays, with more explosive asteroids added on replays, with a boss at the end that kind of resembled an octagon or a boss from Astro Avenger 2. The rest of the levels had aliens and ships to fight. The second one featured a cyclops-spider-like boss at the end with destroyable parts, and I think the boss was an orange-to-brown color. I don't remember what the other two levels or their respective bosses looked like. The fifth level also had colored aliens as enemies. The final boss battle had identical flying bosses with the color scheme of the Resident Evil 6 “6” logo/symbol, being blue, bluish-purple, and purple.
Pic related, Space Hamster in Turmoil:
And yes, the actual game I'm referring to also had Boss Health displayed at the end of each level and had Ship HP shown.
2024.05.14 04:57 Cutiesaurs My scrapped SVTFOE movie script
This is my incomplete SVTFOE the movie script. Until my friend thomasmfd convince me to scrap it here’s my incomplete SVTFOE the movie script.
Star Vs. The Forces of Evil the forces of evil the movie The film with a song called Empire of the Sun Walking on a dream while the camera pans down on a mural with the credits rolling by and hits the floor showing a Blue man with a blue sword wearing a Space helmet and a orange Tee shirt with black spots all over his shirt. Who is protecting the Empress of the Sun Hestia look who has Red hair and Red eyes and wears a White Kimono with red spots. Just then a group of people wearing brown robes and white masks are led by a bald creepy dude with a Scar on his right eye. He approaches the throne and begins to speak.
The creepy dude My majesty My name is Bob and my group are a bunch of nomads who travel from World to world gathering intel and giving them to each kingdom and we heard rumors about Cataclysm prison weakening. And we would like to have your Sword Empress of the sun. So we can use it to defeat Cataclysm.
Bob walks up the steps before Cutie's sword hangs by his neck stopping him.
Bob What’s the meaning of this guard!?
Cutiesaurs: The name is Cutiesaurs or Cutie for short. Bob Okay Cutie. Why did you stop me!?
Cutiesaurs Because I don’t trust you. Besides, Shady people are always up to no good.
Bob It’s for your own protection so let me through. Besides it is rumored that The Sun Sword is the only sword left.
Cutiesaurs I don’t Care the Gods hid those swords for protection from thieves like you, including the Fable Mew sword. Besides, it appears you want to use the empress sword to find the other swords.
Bob Well you two figure out my plan already so I guess I have no option but to take it from force.
Just then Bob uses his magic spell to pull out his sword and he and his minions begin to attack. Cutie and Molly try to fight back but it is too much for them and get captured and Bob’s minions capture Hestia as Bob grabs the sword and glances at it.
Bob This Sword is a decoy. (Bob then shatters it with his magic) Minions drag Cutie to the Castle dungeon while carry Hestia to that special place)
Cutie struggles against the minions' control while they drag him to the dungeon. Cut to five years later and we see Cutie shirtless hung up in the dungeon walls shirtless wearing only his pants and a piece of cloth covering his head except his eyes. Then Bob and his cultist.
Bob Well Cutie it’s been five years and still you won’t tell us where the Real Empress sword is!
Cutiesaur
Like I said for the last five years I don’t know.
Bob Well Cutie. I don’t need you anymore. Not since I detected the Sword of Mew and we’ve set up a trap for the holder of the sword. So Now I will give you this radio to keep you comfortable. I’ve got a queen to catch.
Bob Leaves the dungeon and enters a room which is in some blackish glow surrounded with red hue. At the floor is a star shape enclosed by a circle on the floor. There Bob stands at the edge and raises his hands which then begin to be turning a metallic silver. He begins to wave his hands and a Star shape pattern begins to have a pinkish water swirling around it then when it clears out we see Star Butterfly at the center of the Star pattern.
Bob Hello Princess My name is Bob and you have something that we need. (Bob then materializes some mask’s then drops them on the ground where mud surrounds the mask’s then the mud raises the Mask which then forms into humanoid shape).
Star Butterfly I’m sorry but this Wand isn’t yours to keep.
Star Shoots a Rainbow energy beam at Bob but he blocks it with nothing but his bare Metallic hands.
Bob I’m impressed that the sword has a few tricks up his sleeves. But I’ve had a few tricks up my sleeves myself.
Bob then shoots a sliver beam at Star and pulls out a golden butterfly from her chest and places it into a jar.
Bob I’ve taken your powers. If you want them back, give me your wand. What do you say Star?
Star Butterfly I say Narwhal blast. A large Narwhal appears and slides down destroying many of Bob's minions and then pinning Bob to a wall. She then runs away from the room.
Bob After her she must not escape with that sword.
Star flees Bob’s goons and hides in the dungeon where she begins to hear the song Always look on the bright side of light she follows the sound to a cell where she see’s Cutie hanging from the wall.
Cutiesaurs Hi there little girl, what brings you to this dank little dungeon?
Star Butterfly I’m hiding from a man and his goons who want my wand.
Cutiesaurs Oh Bob yea he wants that wand since it’s the Sword of Mew.
Star Butterfly The Sword of Mew?
Cutiesaurs Let me get out of these chains and find my helmet and shirt and find a safe place before I can explain everything
Cutiesaurus tries to break his chains but with no success.
Star Butterfly Need help?
Cutiesaurs Yeah sure just blast those chain’s
Star uses her wand to blast the chain off of Cutie
Cutiesaurs Thank you… Um I haven’t gotten your name.
Star Butterfly It’s Star Star Butterfly.
Cutiesaurs Why thank you Star. I’m Cutiesaur’s but people call me Cutie for short and I’m the royal guard of the Empress or was before Bob and his golem army took me and put me in this dungeon. Now where is my shirt? Cutie searches everywhere for his shirt until Star shows him his shirt and grabs it and puts it back on.
Cutiesaurs Thanks Star. Now I need my Helmet.
Star Butterfly Why?
Cutiesaurs Because it protects people. Because I was born with a face that is so handsome that it melts people's faces. You wouldn’t want to see people's faces melting. It's nasty.
Star Butterfly Eww. But anyway I think I saw it over there at the bench.
Star points to a bench where we see Cutie Helmet. He then grabs it and puts it on.
Cutiesaus Thanks Star Now we need a plan.
Star Butterfly Um would that involve these guys.
Star points to a group of humanoid creatures wearing black cloaks with hoodies and pale white masks.
Cutiesaurs Looks like the plan is to fight. (He pulls out his blue sword) It’s a good thing this sword is bound to me and no one else.
Star Butterfly I would like to help but that Wizard Bob just stole all my powers.
Cutiesaurs Except for the Sword of Mew
Star Butterfly I keep hearing that my Wand is a sword. How is this possible?
Cutiesaurs You must focus, be one with the wand and think of a burning blade.
Star focuses on it and her wand turns into a burning blade with rainbow fire. She then uses it to defeat Bob's minions.
Star Butterfly Wow this is incredible I didn’t know my wand could do that! How did you know!?
Cutiesaurs It’s a long story but we need a hiding spot and I know one. Follow me.
Cutie drags Star to a long forgotten cellar.
Star Butterfly Wow you sure know your way around the castle.
Cutiesaurs I like to walk around the castle patrolling it in my spare time and also reading books. Which is why I know that wand is a sword that is a key to one of the locks. Of a prison
Star Butterfly What Locks?
Cutiesaurs Let me explain. Long ago before you before me before the kingdom of Mewni before time. Three gods and three goddesses appear. They created the rift then they created time then they created the universe then gave life to them. They taught each creature in the multiverse how to care and love and respect one another. However for order there must be chaos and chaos took the form of Cataclysm. He corrupted everything the gods and goddess did, undoing their work. So they fought back; the battle lasted a thousand year with the records of the events being lost though a few survived. After Cataclysm was weakened the Gods and Goddess locked him up in a prison out of space and out of time. With their own swords. They then gave the six swords to six universe’s. The Sword of Retro, The Sword of the sea, the Sword of sweets, The Sword of reality, The Sword of the sun, finally the Sword of Mewni. They form the kingdoms around the swords. But sadly over time the kingdoms lost knowledge of their past and swords. Except for two. The Kingdom of the Sun saved knowledge of the past and the kingdom of Mewni kept their sword safe. Which is why that wand you have is important; it's the last known sword that prevents the unleashing of Cataclysm.
Star Butterfly Wow I didn’t know my wand was a sword. But it still doesn’t explain how Bob managed to steal my butterfly forum. With some strange magic power.
Cutiesaurs It’s called forum splitting.
Star Butterfly What?
Cutiesaurs Forum splitting it’s a spelical spell that splits someone with transformations and turns their transformation as a spirit. We used it to cure someone from their Werewolf forum.
Star Butterfly Oh. Because my butterfly forum is important to me.
Cutiesaurs I’m sure it is Star.
Cutiesaurus begins to leave Star behind.
Star Butterfly Where are you going Cutie?
Cutiesaurs To find my Empress.
Star Butterfly Don’t you mean queen.
Cutiesaurs They both mean the same thing.
Star Butterfly Okay you’ll do that while I find some help.
Star pulls up her scissors but when she tries to use them they begin to crack and then turn to dust.
Cutiesaurs By the way, scissors are useless in the kingdom of the sun.
Star Butterfly (talking to herself) Great, I can’t get to Mewni or Earth now. Those scissors are my only escape. But maybe Cutie knows another way.
Star races to Cutie
Star Butterfly Hey Cutie I was thinking we can team up to take down Bob.
Cutiesaurs I prefer to work by myself. But thanks for the advice.
Star Butterfly (with her puppy dog eyes) Please!
Cutiesaurs (staring blankly) Your puppy dog eyes have no effect on me. Now would you excuse me? I got a queen to save.
A Cutie walks away Star Butterfly gets a idea
Star Butterfly You said Bob is looking for the six magical swords.
Cutiesaurs And What are you getting at?
Star Butterfly Well we can do what I forget.
Cutiesaurs A barter?
Star Butterfly Yea a barter.
Cutiesaurs By getting the four other swords by doing a trade for the empress then we use our might together to defeat Bob and kill two birds with one stone! I’m such a genius.
Star Butterfly Yes you are so how are you planning on getting to the realms?
Cutiesaurs I have a ship. In an old hanger.
Star Butterfly But how do we get there?
Cutiesaurs Well I know the secret paths around this old castle.
Cutie pulls an old touch handle but discovers it’s the wrong one and then pulls the right one. Which reveals a path which Cutie enters and Star follows behind. It leads to a rusty hanger with a giant shiny red space ship with jet engine thrusters and a jet pilot cockpit.
Cutiesaurs Behold the Gummi ship the most advanced ship in the kingdom, well the only one since all are now scrap. It took me 13 yea… (Notice Star biting the ship) Star what are you doing!?
Star Butterfly You said it’s a Gummi ship and I thought it was made out of gummi’s.
Cutiesaurs I called it the Gummi ship because it looks like it’s made out of gummi. Not made of Gummi.
Star Butterfly Oh. But how would this old thing get us where we are going?
Cutiesaurs Well it takes us to the rift.
Star Butterfly The Rift!? What’s that?
Cutiesaurs It’s like a highway. Star Butterfly What’s that?
Cutiesaurs (I might be too smart for her) It’s where a group of car’s go very fast like a road.
Star Butterfly Oh like a shortcut?
Cutiesaurs (sarcastly) Yes, much like a shortcut. (sarcasm ends) Anyway The rift used to be how one person got from one realm to the other. It was the world that was between realms. However with the invention of technologies and how certain realms like our Kingdom of the sun here isolated themselves. The Rift was no longer used and ships were turned to scrap. Well before I came along and fixed this baby up. Let’s go inside and take a tour and start this baby up.
Cutie and Star enter’s the Gummi ship
Cutiesaurs This ship has everything we need for our trip. It has bed’s and a guest bed for passengers. (in case it was an overnight trip.) A dining room, A kitchen for cooking food, A fireplace. A bookshelf with books throughout the realms is my favorite and finally the cockpit with an autopilot so the captain can do other things and it has a comfy seat with cup holders. It has everything to make you feel right at home. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yea where is the kitchen sink?
Cutiesaurus then bang his head on the controls
Cutiesaurs I knew I forgot something. I guess I add this on stuff to add to the ship along with weapons. So let’s start this ship up.
Star Butterfly By pressing the big red button. (Star looks for the big red button) where’s the big red button?
Cutiesaurs Yea I did not add one since I don’t want people to be tempted by pushing a big red button. And besides, I don't want to discard myself when I start up the ship. And besides that’s not how you start the ship. (Pulls out the keys) This is how you start the ship
Cutie inserts the keys while the hangar doors open and the ship hovers for a bit before bursting into speed and opening a hole to the rift. But not before Bob and his minions race to the hanger seeing them fly away. The camera fades while Bob quietly makes a grin on his face. The screen then pans to the Gummi ship flying across the rift. Inside Star and Cutie figured out what to do next.
Star Butterfly So um Cutie do you know where the swords are?
Cutiesaurs Well legends say that one of the Swords will reveal the next sword. And since your sword is the only known one I think we’ll start there.
Cutie leads Star to the Bottom of the ship
Cutiesarus This is the map room. Well the only one that functions since this is the only ship that can travel across the rift. Since I have that ship I will navigate our course to where the next sword is.
Star Butterfly How are you gonna to do that? Since you have the knowledge and I have magic.
Cutiesaurs Correct Star but I have an idea. If you cast magic on your wand then it should act like a beacon. That only the swords will hear pinpointing its location. Thus selecting the location and flying to grab it. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yes, one. I didn’t know Bacon could do that.
Cutiesaurs (Talking to himself) Sometimes I wonder if my kind is too advanced for people who look like they didn’t pass the middle ages.
Cutiesaurs No it’s not. After this read my books. Just use your magic
Star Butterfly I’m gonna create puppies that shoot laser beams.
Cutiesaurs I was thinking of dynamite with a laser beam but your idea sounds fair enough. (Though I must give someone a box of puppies when we land. Because one puppy is enough for me to handle for me right now.
submitted by Cutiesaurs to cartoons [link] [comments]
Star Vs. The Forces of Evil the forces of evil the movie The film with a song called Empire of the Sun Walking on a dream while the camera pans down on a mural with the credits rolling by and hits the floor showing a Blue man with a blue sword wearing a Space helmet and a orange Tee shirt with black spots all over his shirt. Who is protecting the Empress of the Sun Hestia look who has Red hair and Red eyes and wears a White Kimono with red spots. Just then a group of people wearing brown robes and white masks are led by a bald creepy dude with a Scar on his right eye. He approaches the throne and begins to speak.
The creepy dude My majesty My name is Bob and my group are a bunch of nomads who travel from World to world gathering intel and giving them to each kingdom and we heard rumors about Cataclysm prison weakening. And we would like to have your Sword Empress of the sun. So we can use it to defeat Cataclysm.
Bob walks up the steps before Cutie's sword hangs by his neck stopping him.
Bob What’s the meaning of this guard!?
Cutiesaurs: The name is Cutiesaurs or Cutie for short. Bob Okay Cutie. Why did you stop me!?
Cutiesaurs Because I don’t trust you. Besides, Shady people are always up to no good.
Bob It’s for your own protection so let me through. Besides it is rumored that The Sun Sword is the only sword left.
Cutiesaurs I don’t Care the Gods hid those swords for protection from thieves like you, including the Fable Mew sword. Besides, it appears you want to use the empress sword to find the other swords.
Bob Well you two figure out my plan already so I guess I have no option but to take it from force.
Just then Bob uses his magic spell to pull out his sword and he and his minions begin to attack. Cutie and Molly try to fight back but it is too much for them and get captured and Bob’s minions capture Hestia as Bob grabs the sword and glances at it.
Bob This Sword is a decoy. (Bob then shatters it with his magic) Minions drag Cutie to the Castle dungeon while carry Hestia to that special place)
Cutie struggles against the minions' control while they drag him to the dungeon. Cut to five years later and we see Cutie shirtless hung up in the dungeon walls shirtless wearing only his pants and a piece of cloth covering his head except his eyes. Then Bob and his cultist.
Bob Well Cutie it’s been five years and still you won’t tell us where the Real Empress sword is!
Cutiesaur
Like I said for the last five years I don’t know.
Bob Well Cutie. I don’t need you anymore. Not since I detected the Sword of Mew and we’ve set up a trap for the holder of the sword. So Now I will give you this radio to keep you comfortable. I’ve got a queen to catch.
Bob Leaves the dungeon and enters a room which is in some blackish glow surrounded with red hue. At the floor is a star shape enclosed by a circle on the floor. There Bob stands at the edge and raises his hands which then begin to be turning a metallic silver. He begins to wave his hands and a Star shape pattern begins to have a pinkish water swirling around it then when it clears out we see Star Butterfly at the center of the Star pattern.
Bob Hello Princess My name is Bob and you have something that we need. (Bob then materializes some mask’s then drops them on the ground where mud surrounds the mask’s then the mud raises the Mask which then forms into humanoid shape).
Star Butterfly I’m sorry but this Wand isn’t yours to keep.
Star Shoots a Rainbow energy beam at Bob but he blocks it with nothing but his bare Metallic hands.
Bob I’m impressed that the sword has a few tricks up his sleeves. But I’ve had a few tricks up my sleeves myself.
Bob then shoots a sliver beam at Star and pulls out a golden butterfly from her chest and places it into a jar.
Bob I’ve taken your powers. If you want them back, give me your wand. What do you say Star?
Star Butterfly I say Narwhal blast. A large Narwhal appears and slides down destroying many of Bob's minions and then pinning Bob to a wall. She then runs away from the room.
Bob After her she must not escape with that sword.
Star flees Bob’s goons and hides in the dungeon where she begins to hear the song Always look on the bright side of light she follows the sound to a cell where she see’s Cutie hanging from the wall.
Cutiesaurs Hi there little girl, what brings you to this dank little dungeon?
Star Butterfly I’m hiding from a man and his goons who want my wand.
Cutiesaurs Oh Bob yea he wants that wand since it’s the Sword of Mew.
Star Butterfly The Sword of Mew?
Cutiesaurs Let me get out of these chains and find my helmet and shirt and find a safe place before I can explain everything
Cutiesaurus tries to break his chains but with no success.
Star Butterfly Need help?
Cutiesaurs Yeah sure just blast those chain’s
Star uses her wand to blast the chain off of Cutie
Cutiesaurs Thank you… Um I haven’t gotten your name.
Star Butterfly It’s Star Star Butterfly.
Cutiesaurs Why thank you Star. I’m Cutiesaur’s but people call me Cutie for short and I’m the royal guard of the Empress or was before Bob and his golem army took me and put me in this dungeon. Now where is my shirt? Cutie searches everywhere for his shirt until Star shows him his shirt and grabs it and puts it back on.
Cutiesaurs Thanks Star. Now I need my Helmet.
Star Butterfly Why?
Cutiesaurs Because it protects people. Because I was born with a face that is so handsome that it melts people's faces. You wouldn’t want to see people's faces melting. It's nasty.
Star Butterfly Eww. But anyway I think I saw it over there at the bench.
Star points to a bench where we see Cutie Helmet. He then grabs it and puts it on.
Cutiesaus Thanks Star Now we need a plan.
Star Butterfly Um would that involve these guys.
Star points to a group of humanoid creatures wearing black cloaks with hoodies and pale white masks.
Cutiesaurs Looks like the plan is to fight. (He pulls out his blue sword) It’s a good thing this sword is bound to me and no one else.
Star Butterfly I would like to help but that Wizard Bob just stole all my powers.
Cutiesaurs Except for the Sword of Mew
Star Butterfly I keep hearing that my Wand is a sword. How is this possible?
Cutiesaurs You must focus, be one with the wand and think of a burning blade.
Star focuses on it and her wand turns into a burning blade with rainbow fire. She then uses it to defeat Bob's minions.
Star Butterfly Wow this is incredible I didn’t know my wand could do that! How did you know!?
Cutiesaurs It’s a long story but we need a hiding spot and I know one. Follow me.
Cutie drags Star to a long forgotten cellar.
Star Butterfly Wow you sure know your way around the castle.
Cutiesaurs I like to walk around the castle patrolling it in my spare time and also reading books. Which is why I know that wand is a sword that is a key to one of the locks. Of a prison
Star Butterfly What Locks?
Cutiesaurs Let me explain. Long ago before you before me before the kingdom of Mewni before time. Three gods and three goddesses appear. They created the rift then they created time then they created the universe then gave life to them. They taught each creature in the multiverse how to care and love and respect one another. However for order there must be chaos and chaos took the form of Cataclysm. He corrupted everything the gods and goddess did, undoing their work. So they fought back; the battle lasted a thousand year with the records of the events being lost though a few survived. After Cataclysm was weakened the Gods and Goddess locked him up in a prison out of space and out of time. With their own swords. They then gave the six swords to six universe’s. The Sword of Retro, The Sword of the sea, the Sword of sweets, The Sword of reality, The Sword of the sun, finally the Sword of Mewni. They form the kingdoms around the swords. But sadly over time the kingdoms lost knowledge of their past and swords. Except for two. The Kingdom of the Sun saved knowledge of the past and the kingdom of Mewni kept their sword safe. Which is why that wand you have is important; it's the last known sword that prevents the unleashing of Cataclysm.
Star Butterfly Wow I didn’t know my wand was a sword. But it still doesn’t explain how Bob managed to steal my butterfly forum. With some strange magic power.
Cutiesaurs It’s called forum splitting.
Star Butterfly What?
Cutiesaurs Forum splitting it’s a spelical spell that splits someone with transformations and turns their transformation as a spirit. We used it to cure someone from their Werewolf forum.
Star Butterfly Oh. Because my butterfly forum is important to me.
Cutiesaurs I’m sure it is Star.
Cutiesaurus begins to leave Star behind.
Star Butterfly Where are you going Cutie?
Cutiesaurs To find my Empress.
Star Butterfly Don’t you mean queen.
Cutiesaurs They both mean the same thing.
Star Butterfly Okay you’ll do that while I find some help.
Star pulls up her scissors but when she tries to use them they begin to crack and then turn to dust.
Cutiesaurs By the way, scissors are useless in the kingdom of the sun.
Star Butterfly (talking to herself) Great, I can’t get to Mewni or Earth now. Those scissors are my only escape. But maybe Cutie knows another way.
Star races to Cutie
Star Butterfly Hey Cutie I was thinking we can team up to take down Bob.
Cutiesaurs I prefer to work by myself. But thanks for the advice.
Star Butterfly (with her puppy dog eyes) Please!
Cutiesaurs (staring blankly) Your puppy dog eyes have no effect on me. Now would you excuse me? I got a queen to save.
A Cutie walks away Star Butterfly gets a idea
Star Butterfly You said Bob is looking for the six magical swords.
Cutiesaurs And What are you getting at?
Star Butterfly Well we can do what I forget.
Cutiesaurs A barter?
Star Butterfly Yea a barter.
Cutiesaurs By getting the four other swords by doing a trade for the empress then we use our might together to defeat Bob and kill two birds with one stone! I’m such a genius.
Star Butterfly Yes you are so how are you planning on getting to the realms?
Cutiesaurs I have a ship. In an old hanger.
Star Butterfly But how do we get there?
Cutiesaurs Well I know the secret paths around this old castle.
Cutie pulls an old touch handle but discovers it’s the wrong one and then pulls the right one. Which reveals a path which Cutie enters and Star follows behind. It leads to a rusty hanger with a giant shiny red space ship with jet engine thrusters and a jet pilot cockpit.
Cutiesaurs Behold the Gummi ship the most advanced ship in the kingdom, well the only one since all are now scrap. It took me 13 yea… (Notice Star biting the ship) Star what are you doing!?
Star Butterfly You said it’s a Gummi ship and I thought it was made out of gummi’s.
Cutiesaurs I called it the Gummi ship because it looks like it’s made out of gummi. Not made of Gummi.
Star Butterfly Oh. But how would this old thing get us where we are going?
Cutiesaurs Well it takes us to the rift.
Star Butterfly The Rift!? What’s that?
Cutiesaurs It’s like a highway. Star Butterfly What’s that?
Cutiesaurs (I might be too smart for her) It’s where a group of car’s go very fast like a road.
Star Butterfly Oh like a shortcut?
Cutiesaurs (sarcastly) Yes, much like a shortcut. (sarcasm ends) Anyway The rift used to be how one person got from one realm to the other. It was the world that was between realms. However with the invention of technologies and how certain realms like our Kingdom of the sun here isolated themselves. The Rift was no longer used and ships were turned to scrap. Well before I came along and fixed this baby up. Let’s go inside and take a tour and start this baby up.
Cutie and Star enter’s the Gummi ship
Cutiesaurs This ship has everything we need for our trip. It has bed’s and a guest bed for passengers. (in case it was an overnight trip.) A dining room, A kitchen for cooking food, A fireplace. A bookshelf with books throughout the realms is my favorite and finally the cockpit with an autopilot so the captain can do other things and it has a comfy seat with cup holders. It has everything to make you feel right at home. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yea where is the kitchen sink?
Cutiesaurus then bang his head on the controls
Cutiesaurs I knew I forgot something. I guess I add this on stuff to add to the ship along with weapons. So let’s start this ship up.
Star Butterfly By pressing the big red button. (Star looks for the big red button) where’s the big red button?
Cutiesaurs Yea I did not add one since I don’t want people to be tempted by pushing a big red button. And besides, I don't want to discard myself when I start up the ship. And besides that’s not how you start the ship. (Pulls out the keys) This is how you start the ship
Cutie inserts the keys while the hangar doors open and the ship hovers for a bit before bursting into speed and opening a hole to the rift. But not before Bob and his minions race to the hanger seeing them fly away. The camera fades while Bob quietly makes a grin on his face. The screen then pans to the Gummi ship flying across the rift. Inside Star and Cutie figured out what to do next.
Star Butterfly So um Cutie do you know where the swords are?
Cutiesaurs Well legends say that one of the Swords will reveal the next sword. And since your sword is the only known one I think we’ll start there.
Cutie leads Star to the Bottom of the ship
Cutiesarus This is the map room. Well the only one that functions since this is the only ship that can travel across the rift. Since I have that ship I will navigate our course to where the next sword is.
Star Butterfly How are you gonna to do that? Since you have the knowledge and I have magic.
Cutiesaurs Correct Star but I have an idea. If you cast magic on your wand then it should act like a beacon. That only the swords will hear pinpointing its location. Thus selecting the location and flying to grab it. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yes, one. I didn’t know Bacon could do that.
Cutiesaurs (Talking to himself) Sometimes I wonder if my kind is too advanced for people who look like they didn’t pass the middle ages.
Cutiesaurs No it’s not. After this read my books. Just use your magic
Star Butterfly I’m gonna create puppies that shoot laser beams.
Cutiesaurs I was thinking of dynamite with a laser beam but your idea sounds fair enough. (Though I must give someone a box of puppies when we land. Because one puppy is enough for me to handle for me right now.
2024.05.14 04:56 huunkie middle class californian finds the perfect fit!!
Demographics
international relations or poli sci (depending on the school)
Academics
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
ap spanish: 9/10
apush: 5/10
counselor: 6/10?? idk
Interviews
brown video: 4/10 it was pretty bad and i had a terrible time filming it
american u: 7/10 it was my first one and my only one in person, i thought it went good
washu: 6/10 i didn't get one with an alum but i got one with a current student, so im not certain if it counted
occidental college: 4/10 i did not click with my interviewer at all lmao
syracuse: 9/10 i accidentally missed my interview originally but my interviewer was super understanding and we rescheduled and it went great
northwestern: 9/10 i felt like this one went really well, and i really clicked with my interviewer
georgetown: 8/10 nothing really remarkable that i can remember, i just remember feeling good afterward
Essays
im going to keep this anonymous just in case im recognized from this (i hope im not lol). i think on the whole everything was pretty decent.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
brown ED: rejected
maryland EA: accepted+merit
wisconsin EA: accepted
uc davis RD: accepted
uci RD: waitlisted -> withdrew
sdsu RD: accepted
american u RD: accepted+merit
uw RD: accepted
ucla RD: rejected
ucsb RD: waitlisted -> withdrew
washu RD: rejected
oxy RD: accepted+merit
syracuse RD: accepted
gwu RD: accepted+merit
northwestern RD: rejected
georgetown RD: rejected
cal poly RD: rejected
cal RD: rejected
DECISION: MARYLAND CO '28!!!! GO TERPS
Additional Information:
i go to a pretty competitive high school in a relatively wealthy area and learned about the process, got high hopes, and honestly got a little prestige obsessed around my junior year. I had five dream schools (brown, ucla, washu, northwestern, and georgetown) and ended up getting rejected from all of them which was both a total punch in the gut and a much needed wake up call. the decision for me based on fit and financials came down to maryland, washington, and davis, and as a result of the really generous merit aid i recieved at umd as well as the university's perfect location near washington DC, it was just the perfect fit. After visiting the school, I totally fell in love with the campus, the culture, and having a big 10 sports program definitely didn't hurt it. looking back on everything, i was totally naïve and applied to a ton of schools, which thankfully worked out for my targets, but i was at one point certain that i would get into at least one of my reaches. in the end, im really glad that i didnt get into any of them because i would have never considered maryland, a school i almost didnt even apply to. also, as a jewish student, the thriving jewish community on maryland's campus is really comforting, especially with everything going on right now at colleges. congrats to all of this years seniors and good luck to all the incoming seniors with their apps! and if youre going to maryland next year, hmu!!!
submitted by huunkie to collegeresults [link] [comments]
- Gender: Male
- Race/Ethnicity: white
- Residence: socal :)
- Income Bracket: middle class
- Type of School: public
- Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): n/a
international relations or poli sci (depending on the school)
Academics
- GPA (UW/W): 3.87/4.59
- Rank (or percentile): n/a
- of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 aps
- Senior Year Course Load: academic decathlon, ap lit, ap stats, apah, ap french, ap gov/ap micro
- ACT: 34 (36E, 32M, 33R, 33S)
- AP/IB: ap euro (4), ap lang (3), ap spanish (5), apush (5), apes (4)
- academic decathlon president
- shift leader at parents' small business
- spanish national honors society treasurer
- varsity discus and shot put captain
- religious school post-confirmation
- local library volunteer
- spanish and french tutor
- local climate change awareness organization
- summer program at prestigious university
- youth leadership program
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
- a handful of academic decathlon medals from county competitions
- scholar athlete
- national spanish exam bronze medal
- ap scholar with distinction
ap spanish: 9/10
apush: 5/10
counselor: 6/10?? idk
Interviews
brown video: 4/10 it was pretty bad and i had a terrible time filming it
american u: 7/10 it was my first one and my only one in person, i thought it went good
washu: 6/10 i didn't get one with an alum but i got one with a current student, so im not certain if it counted
occidental college: 4/10 i did not click with my interviewer at all lmao
syracuse: 9/10 i accidentally missed my interview originally but my interviewer was super understanding and we rescheduled and it went great
northwestern: 9/10 i felt like this one went really well, and i really clicked with my interviewer
georgetown: 8/10 nothing really remarkable that i can remember, i just remember feeling good afterward
Essays
im going to keep this anonymous just in case im recognized from this (i hope im not lol). i think on the whole everything was pretty decent.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
brown ED: rejected
maryland EA: accepted+merit
wisconsin EA: accepted
uc davis RD: accepted
uci RD: waitlisted -> withdrew
sdsu RD: accepted
american u RD: accepted+merit
uw RD: accepted
ucla RD: rejected
ucsb RD: waitlisted -> withdrew
washu RD: rejected
oxy RD: accepted+merit
syracuse RD: accepted
gwu RD: accepted+merit
northwestern RD: rejected
georgetown RD: rejected
cal poly RD: rejected
cal RD: rejected
DECISION: MARYLAND CO '28!!!! GO TERPS
Additional Information:
i go to a pretty competitive high school in a relatively wealthy area and learned about the process, got high hopes, and honestly got a little prestige obsessed around my junior year. I had five dream schools (brown, ucla, washu, northwestern, and georgetown) and ended up getting rejected from all of them which was both a total punch in the gut and a much needed wake up call. the decision for me based on fit and financials came down to maryland, washington, and davis, and as a result of the really generous merit aid i recieved at umd as well as the university's perfect location near washington DC, it was just the perfect fit. After visiting the school, I totally fell in love with the campus, the culture, and having a big 10 sports program definitely didn't hurt it. looking back on everything, i was totally naïve and applied to a ton of schools, which thankfully worked out for my targets, but i was at one point certain that i would get into at least one of my reaches. in the end, im really glad that i didnt get into any of them because i would have never considered maryland, a school i almost didnt even apply to. also, as a jewish student, the thriving jewish community on maryland's campus is really comforting, especially with everything going on right now at colleges. congrats to all of this years seniors and good luck to all the incoming seniors with their apps! and if youre going to maryland next year, hmu!!!
2024.05.14 04:55 StoFish The Metals Company (NASDAQ:TMC) - A Quarterly Deep-Sea Mining Misfortune
Abstract:
The Metals Company (NASDAQ:TMC, the “Company”) - sustained heavy mining operations in abyssal depths of 3500 - 5000m using all new technology while asserting environmental friendliness in an “emerging” market lacking a regulatory foundation. Profitability is a distant and very uncertain gleam on the horizon.
Today’s “earnings” saw an overshoot in estimated loss by 60% compared to street estimate. The stock took a dive -10% aftermarket. This is your shot at a management team that already tried and failed miserably.
TMC, the Company and Management:
The Company is specialised in Deep-sea mining (DSM) and exploration, was established in 2021 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
Members of TMC's management team, including CEO Gerard Barron, were previously associated with Nautilus Minerals, another company specialised in DSM. Nautilus Minerals' attempt to extract minerals from the seafloor within Papua New Guinea's territorial waters ultimately resulted in an environmental disaster and bankruptcy in OCT 2019.
The project was marred by instances of social, environmental, and financial mismanagement. A reported theft of $10 million was coupled with the lack of disclosure of investigation findings to shareholders.
What followed was a new DSM company called DeepGreen Metals, which in turn went public in 2021 through a SPAC merger with Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corp and took today’s name The Metals Company (TMC).
The Claims:
TMC possesses exploration contracts awarded by the The International Seabed Authority (ISA) through three subsidiaries: NORI, sponsored by the Republic of Nauru; TOML, sponsored by the Kingdom of Tonga; and DeepGreen Engineering Pte. Ltd., which has entered into an agreement with Marawa Research and Exploration Limited, a company owned and sponsored by the Republic of Kiribati.
All claims are situated within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean, which is regulated by the ISA.
NORI encompasses a seabed area of 74,830 km2 and is projected to harbour approximately 866 million wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules. TOML, spanning 74,713 km2 of seabed, hosts an inferred resource totaling 756 million wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules. As for the Marawa arrangement, its resource assessment remains pending.
Their compositions are found to consist of approximately 30% Manganese, 1.3% Nickel, 1.1% Copper, and 0.2% Cobalt. Based on current assessments, the net present combined value of mineable metals is estimated to range from $6.8 to $8.6 billion. The combined claims of NORI and TOML would constitute the second-largest nickel mine globally in terms of resource size.
Deep-sea mining (DSM) for Polymetallic Nodules:
A remotely controlled undersea robot is sent down from a support vessel to dredge and suck polymetallic nodules off the seafloor. In late 2022, TMC successfully demonstrated its mining capabilities by collecting approximately 4500 t of material and extracting 3000 t of nodules with a sustained production rate of 86.4 tonnes per hour during a system test. The company aims for 200 tonnes per hour with additional collector heads and a bigger capacity riser pipe.
Profitability estimates for DSM vary widely.
The Financial Situation:
TMC has a market capitalization of ~$460 million. It incurred a loss of $25.2 million last quarter, with a trailing twelve-month loss amounting to $73 million. Total cash at hand stands at $4 million. The company has the option to access $25 million in additional proceeds from an unsecured credit facility maturing AUG 2025, which remains undrawn, and another $20 million maturing SEPT 2025, of which $2.9 million were drawn in MAR this year.
Pro forma liquidity is ~$49 million. Dept sits at ~$16 million.
The ship should stay buoyant for another 12 months from now, without resorting to measures like dilution.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA):
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) serves as the principal regulatory body overseeing the exploration and exploitation of minerals located on the international seafloor. Established under Article 156 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the ISA is responsible for developing regulations governing these activities.
As of now, the ISA has yet to finalise a rulebook for the industry.
In 2021, TMC, sponsored by Nauru, utilised a regulatory loophole to initiate a process that imposed a two-year deadline on the ISA to establish regulations for DSM within its jurisdiction. With the ISA failing to meet this deadline in 2023, countries are now permitted to apply for mining licences in the absence of official guidelines.
TMC plans to apply for exploitation rights after the ISA session JUL – AUG this year.
The application review process is expected to drag on for 12 months. Production is anticipated to commence in Q1 2026 (revised from Q4 2025).
It is noteworthy that the USA is not a member of the ISA.
Relationship highlight - TMC and Nauru:
Nauru, formerly a prosperous island nation buoyed by abundant phosphate deposits, has faced financial challenges since the depletion of these resources in the 1990s. In recent years, the country has been associated with activities such as money laundering for the Russian mafia and detaining refugees seeking asylum in Australia in conditions widely criticised as inhumane. Additionally, Nauru has been noted for its propensity to alter political allegiances in pursuit of financial benefits, recently ditching Taiwan for China.
“The partnership with TMC is hoped to become the largest contributor to Nauru’s GDP, once fully operational, and vital for the country's economic survival.” This is according to Peter Jacob, a former chief of staff for Nauru’s Office of the President who now works as the NORI Country Manager at TMC.
Nauru Ocean Resources has pledged to pay corporate income tax in Nauru, where the current rate stands at 25 percent. Additionally, Nauru will receive a predetermined payment (tbd) for each ton of nodules extracted through mining activities.
Recent Development:
TMC has invested an approximate total of $100 million towards conducting environmental impact assessments as part of the regulatory process for securing mining rights from the ISA. The company submitted the biggest comprehensive dataset on the environmental impacts of DSM as of yet to the ISA, with an even bigger one announced for the ISA’s session JUL this year.
A life cycle assessment done in 2023 by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence suggests TMC’s NORI-D nodule project could outperform land-based routes in all measured environmental categories, including mining, transport, processing and refining.
Several countries, including China, Russia, Norway, Mexico, and the UK, advocate for the advancement of the DSM industry. China, in particular, already asserts claims to deep-sea mineral resources and has already undertaken mineral exploration activities in the international waters of the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
On JAN 9 of this year, the Norwegian parliament made a decision to open extensive areas in Arctic waters for DSM activities. In response, the European Parliament passed Resolution B9-0095/2024 in late January, expressing significant environmental concerns regarding Norway's action. The resolution reiterated Parliament's support for a moratorium on DSM and urged the European Commission and Member States to adopt a precautionary approach and advocate for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining, including at the ISA. A total of 24 countries worldwide, including seven European Union (EU) member states (Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden), have voiced their support for a moratorium or suspension of deep-sea mining activities. France has outright banned the practice.
In FEB 2024, the ISA released a streamlined draft of regulations with key areas yet to be “consolidated”.
In MAR, legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the U.S. to “support international governance of seafloor resource exploration and responsible polymetallic nodule collection by allied partners”, and to “provide financial, diplomatic, or other forms of support for seafloor nodule collection, processing and refining.”
Steve Jurvetson has joined TMCs board in APR.
Risks:
The Secretary-General of the ISA faces reelection in JUL. Michael Lodge, who served two terms, now faces accusations of "interfering with the decision-making process" and "sharing information with mining companies." He's not been nominated by the UK for his third term as before, but by the island nation of Kiribati. I fear Lodge's absence could spell short-term trouble for the sector, given the presence of some fiercely prohibitive candidates.
The recent earnings loss overshot was partly attributed to heightened transportation costs of nodules to a partner facility in Japan for processing. This highlights that the business model faces inherent risks, including the lack of provenness, the novelty of the technology, and the certainty for unforeseen challenges during sustained operations.
A surge in climate change and biodiversity cases indicates, DSM litigation is foreseeable as aggrieved countries, communities, and other stakeholders impacted by DSM can take the ISA, mining companies, and other parties they deem liable to international, regional, and national courts.
Profitability might face additional constraints due to anticipated seabed restoration obligations that are expected to accompany exploitation rights.
Considering the current financial situation and the expected timeframes, there is a risk of dilution due to liquidity challenges by Q3/Q4 2025.
All of these factors are compounded by a highly speculative and politically charged regulatory limbo, where states are beginning to enact regulations on a national level.
Finally, crowned by TMC's management team's prior involvement with Nautilus Minerals and the outcome of Nautilus' deep-sea mining project.
Speculation:
Treating TMC as a mining company at 20% - 50% of its underlying asset’s NPV, the price tag should be $9 - $11. Though TMC is everything but a “traditional” mining company.
Worst Case - a ban on DSM: Considering the lengthy processes of exploration, assessments, applications, and environmental studies, along with the current financial situation, the company may remain operational in its current structure for another 2-3 challenging years, but your investment will plummet to the depths of Hades.
Timelines shift to the future: This could be due to a prohibitive candidate becoming the next secretary-general at the ISA, or environmentally fueled initiatives to delay DSM. The more time passes, the more TMC will feel the urge to squeeze its shareholders.
TMC applies, the ISA misses the deadline again: We’ve come full circle, though with a higher potential. TMC could go to court, start operations as planned or something in between. I expect upside potential from this.
TMC applies, the ISA approves with restoration obligations: Based on the severity of potential outcomes, I anticipate the valuation range to be between $3.4 to $6 until the business model's feasibility emerges.
Bull Case - TMC applies, the ISA approves with minimal to no restoration obligations: Full potential upside is realised, until the business model's feasibility emerges.
Catalyst:
-ISA Vote JUL 2024 -TMC Application for exploitation following ISA session Q3/Q4 2024
submitted by StoFish to ValueInvesting [link] [comments]
The Metals Company (NASDAQ:TMC, the “Company”) - sustained heavy mining operations in abyssal depths of 3500 - 5000m using all new technology while asserting environmental friendliness in an “emerging” market lacking a regulatory foundation. Profitability is a distant and very uncertain gleam on the horizon.
Today’s “earnings” saw an overshoot in estimated loss by 60% compared to street estimate. The stock took a dive -10% aftermarket. This is your shot at a management team that already tried and failed miserably.
TMC, the Company and Management:
The Company is specialised in Deep-sea mining (DSM) and exploration, was established in 2021 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
Members of TMC's management team, including CEO Gerard Barron, were previously associated with Nautilus Minerals, another company specialised in DSM. Nautilus Minerals' attempt to extract minerals from the seafloor within Papua New Guinea's territorial waters ultimately resulted in an environmental disaster and bankruptcy in OCT 2019.
The project was marred by instances of social, environmental, and financial mismanagement. A reported theft of $10 million was coupled with the lack of disclosure of investigation findings to shareholders.
What followed was a new DSM company called DeepGreen Metals, which in turn went public in 2021 through a SPAC merger with Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corp and took today’s name The Metals Company (TMC).
The Claims:
TMC possesses exploration contracts awarded by the The International Seabed Authority (ISA) through three subsidiaries: NORI, sponsored by the Republic of Nauru; TOML, sponsored by the Kingdom of Tonga; and DeepGreen Engineering Pte. Ltd., which has entered into an agreement with Marawa Research and Exploration Limited, a company owned and sponsored by the Republic of Kiribati.
All claims are situated within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean, which is regulated by the ISA.
NORI encompasses a seabed area of 74,830 km2 and is projected to harbour approximately 866 million wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules. TOML, spanning 74,713 km2 of seabed, hosts an inferred resource totaling 756 million wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules. As for the Marawa arrangement, its resource assessment remains pending.
Their compositions are found to consist of approximately 30% Manganese, 1.3% Nickel, 1.1% Copper, and 0.2% Cobalt. Based on current assessments, the net present combined value of mineable metals is estimated to range from $6.8 to $8.6 billion. The combined claims of NORI and TOML would constitute the second-largest nickel mine globally in terms of resource size.
Deep-sea mining (DSM) for Polymetallic Nodules:
A remotely controlled undersea robot is sent down from a support vessel to dredge and suck polymetallic nodules off the seafloor. In late 2022, TMC successfully demonstrated its mining capabilities by collecting approximately 4500 t of material and extracting 3000 t of nodules with a sustained production rate of 86.4 tonnes per hour during a system test. The company aims for 200 tonnes per hour with additional collector heads and a bigger capacity riser pipe.
Profitability estimates for DSM vary widely.
The Financial Situation:
TMC has a market capitalization of ~$460 million. It incurred a loss of $25.2 million last quarter, with a trailing twelve-month loss amounting to $73 million. Total cash at hand stands at $4 million. The company has the option to access $25 million in additional proceeds from an unsecured credit facility maturing AUG 2025, which remains undrawn, and another $20 million maturing SEPT 2025, of which $2.9 million were drawn in MAR this year.
Pro forma liquidity is ~$49 million. Dept sits at ~$16 million.
The ship should stay buoyant for another 12 months from now, without resorting to measures like dilution.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA):
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) serves as the principal regulatory body overseeing the exploration and exploitation of minerals located on the international seafloor. Established under Article 156 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the ISA is responsible for developing regulations governing these activities.
As of now, the ISA has yet to finalise a rulebook for the industry.
In 2021, TMC, sponsored by Nauru, utilised a regulatory loophole to initiate a process that imposed a two-year deadline on the ISA to establish regulations for DSM within its jurisdiction. With the ISA failing to meet this deadline in 2023, countries are now permitted to apply for mining licences in the absence of official guidelines.
TMC plans to apply for exploitation rights after the ISA session JUL – AUG this year.
The application review process is expected to drag on for 12 months. Production is anticipated to commence in Q1 2026 (revised from Q4 2025).
It is noteworthy that the USA is not a member of the ISA.
Relationship highlight - TMC and Nauru:
Nauru, formerly a prosperous island nation buoyed by abundant phosphate deposits, has faced financial challenges since the depletion of these resources in the 1990s. In recent years, the country has been associated with activities such as money laundering for the Russian mafia and detaining refugees seeking asylum in Australia in conditions widely criticised as inhumane. Additionally, Nauru has been noted for its propensity to alter political allegiances in pursuit of financial benefits, recently ditching Taiwan for China.
“The partnership with TMC is hoped to become the largest contributor to Nauru’s GDP, once fully operational, and vital for the country's economic survival.” This is according to Peter Jacob, a former chief of staff for Nauru’s Office of the President who now works as the NORI Country Manager at TMC.
Nauru Ocean Resources has pledged to pay corporate income tax in Nauru, where the current rate stands at 25 percent. Additionally, Nauru will receive a predetermined payment (tbd) for each ton of nodules extracted through mining activities.
Recent Development:
TMC has invested an approximate total of $100 million towards conducting environmental impact assessments as part of the regulatory process for securing mining rights from the ISA. The company submitted the biggest comprehensive dataset on the environmental impacts of DSM as of yet to the ISA, with an even bigger one announced for the ISA’s session JUL this year.
A life cycle assessment done in 2023 by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence suggests TMC’s NORI-D nodule project could outperform land-based routes in all measured environmental categories, including mining, transport, processing and refining.
Several countries, including China, Russia, Norway, Mexico, and the UK, advocate for the advancement of the DSM industry. China, in particular, already asserts claims to deep-sea mineral resources and has already undertaken mineral exploration activities in the international waters of the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
On JAN 9 of this year, the Norwegian parliament made a decision to open extensive areas in Arctic waters for DSM activities. In response, the European Parliament passed Resolution B9-0095/2024 in late January, expressing significant environmental concerns regarding Norway's action. The resolution reiterated Parliament's support for a moratorium on DSM and urged the European Commission and Member States to adopt a precautionary approach and advocate for a global moratorium on deep-sea mining, including at the ISA. A total of 24 countries worldwide, including seven European Union (EU) member states (Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden), have voiced their support for a moratorium or suspension of deep-sea mining activities. France has outright banned the practice.
In FEB 2024, the ISA released a streamlined draft of regulations with key areas yet to be “consolidated”.
In MAR, legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the U.S. to “support international governance of seafloor resource exploration and responsible polymetallic nodule collection by allied partners”, and to “provide financial, diplomatic, or other forms of support for seafloor nodule collection, processing and refining.”
Steve Jurvetson has joined TMCs board in APR.
Risks:
The Secretary-General of the ISA faces reelection in JUL. Michael Lodge, who served two terms, now faces accusations of "interfering with the decision-making process" and "sharing information with mining companies." He's not been nominated by the UK for his third term as before, but by the island nation of Kiribati. I fear Lodge's absence could spell short-term trouble for the sector, given the presence of some fiercely prohibitive candidates.
The recent earnings loss overshot was partly attributed to heightened transportation costs of nodules to a partner facility in Japan for processing. This highlights that the business model faces inherent risks, including the lack of provenness, the novelty of the technology, and the certainty for unforeseen challenges during sustained operations.
A surge in climate change and biodiversity cases indicates, DSM litigation is foreseeable as aggrieved countries, communities, and other stakeholders impacted by DSM can take the ISA, mining companies, and other parties they deem liable to international, regional, and national courts.
Profitability might face additional constraints due to anticipated seabed restoration obligations that are expected to accompany exploitation rights.
Considering the current financial situation and the expected timeframes, there is a risk of dilution due to liquidity challenges by Q3/Q4 2025.
All of these factors are compounded by a highly speculative and politically charged regulatory limbo, where states are beginning to enact regulations on a national level.
Finally, crowned by TMC's management team's prior involvement with Nautilus Minerals and the outcome of Nautilus' deep-sea mining project.
Speculation:
Treating TMC as a mining company at 20% - 50% of its underlying asset’s NPV, the price tag should be $9 - $11. Though TMC is everything but a “traditional” mining company.
Worst Case - a ban on DSM: Considering the lengthy processes of exploration, assessments, applications, and environmental studies, along with the current financial situation, the company may remain operational in its current structure for another 2-3 challenging years, but your investment will plummet to the depths of Hades.
Timelines shift to the future: This could be due to a prohibitive candidate becoming the next secretary-general at the ISA, or environmentally fueled initiatives to delay DSM. The more time passes, the more TMC will feel the urge to squeeze its shareholders.
TMC applies, the ISA misses the deadline again: We’ve come full circle, though with a higher potential. TMC could go to court, start operations as planned or something in between. I expect upside potential from this.
TMC applies, the ISA approves with restoration obligations: Based on the severity of potential outcomes, I anticipate the valuation range to be between $3.4 to $6 until the business model's feasibility emerges.
Bull Case - TMC applies, the ISA approves with minimal to no restoration obligations: Full potential upside is realised, until the business model's feasibility emerges.
Catalyst:
-ISA Vote JUL 2024 -TMC Application for exploitation following ISA session Q3/Q4 2024
2024.05.14 04:55 meveve13 How to make the app safer in case of theft?
If I set up the block for the app using the fingerprint it can be overriden by using the pin number, which I think beats the purpose of extra security. Am I missing something?
submitted by meveve13 to whatsapp [link] [comments]
2024.05.14 04:34 AggravatingPen8392 Yellow flakes and brown circles
 | My son has had a case of “cradle cap” that NEVER went away. He is age 6. It is now no longer just yellow flakes, but brown circles growing down toward his face and behind his ears. submitted by AggravatingPen8392 to dandruff [link] [comments] Due to living in a very rural area, home treatment is the only viable option. The only time I got all of the flakes off was after doing warm coconut oil with tea tree for days, but they came back. Read about malassezia fungus and that coconut oil would be bad for it. I started him on a vinegar spray with tea tree oil before bath. Selsun Blue, and we will do salt water “styling” in the AM. Any advice or opinion appreciated |
2024.05.14 04:31 _WeWillNeverBeRoyals If (straight) men and women can't be friends because one of them will fall in love with the other (usually the guy), then how can I have friends as a bisexual person? Am I just not able to have friends with the gender(s) I'm attracted to? Or what about pan/polysexual men?
So, I actually tried asking this question over in AskMen and it actually got taken down because I violated one of their rules- so I'd thought I would ask this question here because I want to hear the opinions of other LGBT people as an LGBT person myself because I feel like I have never really gotten an answer- so I'm just gonna copy and paste what I wanted to ask over there onto here, and I want to hear some of you guys' takes on this topic:
So, I'm a bisexual cis man- more specifically I'm Achillean, which is under the bi umbrella, meaning I am attracted to men (cis and trans) and masculine-presenting/transmasc non-binary people (AMAB/AFAB non-binary people who identify with masculinity and may medically transition to appear more masculine, but without identifying as a man). But for intensive purposes, I'm just bi who's attracted to men and masc non-binary people. That's it.
Seeing the whole discourse on "can men be friends with women?" as an LGBT outsider looking in must be so fucking sad- because my bi ass over here is just wondering: "Wait, if men can't be friends with women because they just wanna sleep with each other secretly in the back of their heads, then how can bi or pan people make friends with the gender(s) they're attracted to? How are LGB people friends then? How the fuck am I, a bisexual man, able to be friends with a man or non-binary people without wanting to sleep with them?". Like, can I not be friends with any man? I can't be friends with any man without wanting to sleep with them? Or any non-binary person? I can't be friends with anyone of the genders I'm attracted to without wanting to f*ck them? Really? My best friend of almost 8 years, since middle school, is an asexual cis man and I never had any feelings for him beyond just being like he's my brother. Never. I've never had any sort of a crush on him. Like, he's not ugly, but I just don't find him sexually or romantically attractive. He's not bad-looking, but that's it. He's just a friend. He's like my brother. But also, I feel like bi men who are attracted to women can be friends with women without wanting to f*ck all of them. Like, where do bi or pansexual people fit into all of this? Or what about queer people or people who are attracted to more than one gender identity at large?
So, I just thought I wanted to ask all the straight men of Reddit: If straight men and women can't be friends because one of them will end up wanting to f*ck the other, then how are us bisexuals supposed to have any friends? Can bisexuals be close, best friends with each other? With the gender(s) they are attracted to? Can bi men be friends with men, women, or nonbinary people without falling in love? What about bi men who are attracted to the binary genders- men and women- they can't be friends with either of them? Or what about bi men who are attracted to women and non-binary people? Or hell, on that note, what about pansexual people? Or polysexual people? They can't be friends with ANYONE, or anyone who is of the gender(s) they are attracted to? Can pansexual people make friends? Or what about gay men, can they be best friends with the other men? No one says that gay men can't be best friends with other gay men? Same-sex attracted people can be friends with people of the same sex without ever wanting to f*ck or date them? Does the same hold for lesbians?
Does the same apply to trans men? Can trans men and trans women be close, best friends with each other? Or is it just WOMEN in particular that men/male-aligned people can't be friends with? If that's the case: can bi, pan, or polysexual men be friends with women? Why is it JUST straight men can't be friends with women, but no one thinks that bi or pansexual men can't be friends with women? Bi and pan men don't have a problem being close friends with women without wanting to sleep with them, they seem totally fine. LGB men in particular can be best friends with the gender(s) that they're attracted to, so why is it so hard for straight men? I can be friends with men without wanting to f*ck every guy friend that I have ever had.
You know what, how is anyone in the LGBT+ community friends with anyone? Do you think we're all just f*cking each other, that we don't have a SINGLE friend that we've never f*cked, ever? That just seems kinda sad.
Also, where do non-binary people fit into all of this? What about AMAB non-binary people, who don't medically transition but just don't identify as men, they have a sexuality too. AMAB non-binary people can't be friends with women if they're attracted to women? How do they work?
Also, why is it just that straight women can be friends with straight men without falling in love, but not the other way around? Are you seriously telling me that you CAN NOT for the life of you be friends with any woman without just falling in love with them? If so, why do you think that men fall in love with their female friends much more than women fall in love with their male friends? Why is it easier for women to be close friends with men without wanting to sleep with them than it is the other way around for men?
I just feel so confused over the whole men-women friends discourse because where the fuck do we LGBT people exist in this convo? Like, I feel like LGBT people over here are just chilling and we're not arguing over if gay men can be friends with other gay men. Of course, the LGBT community is not perfect by any means, but do you guys actually believe that YOU PERSONALLY can't be friends with any women?
Sorry for the blurge. I just needed to rant because I feel like no one can answer this question.
submitted by _WeWillNeverBeRoyals to lgbt [link] [comments]
So, I'm a bisexual cis man- more specifically I'm Achillean, which is under the bi umbrella, meaning I am attracted to men (cis and trans) and masculine-presenting/transmasc non-binary people (AMAB/AFAB non-binary people who identify with masculinity and may medically transition to appear more masculine, but without identifying as a man). But for intensive purposes, I'm just bi who's attracted to men and masc non-binary people. That's it.
Seeing the whole discourse on "can men be friends with women?" as an LGBT outsider looking in must be so fucking sad- because my bi ass over here is just wondering: "Wait, if men can't be friends with women because they just wanna sleep with each other secretly in the back of their heads, then how can bi or pan people make friends with the gender(s) they're attracted to? How are LGB people friends then? How the fuck am I, a bisexual man, able to be friends with a man or non-binary people without wanting to sleep with them?". Like, can I not be friends with any man? I can't be friends with any man without wanting to sleep with them? Or any non-binary person? I can't be friends with anyone of the genders I'm attracted to without wanting to f*ck them? Really? My best friend of almost 8 years, since middle school, is an asexual cis man and I never had any feelings for him beyond just being like he's my brother. Never. I've never had any sort of a crush on him. Like, he's not ugly, but I just don't find him sexually or romantically attractive. He's not bad-looking, but that's it. He's just a friend. He's like my brother. But also, I feel like bi men who are attracted to women can be friends with women without wanting to f*ck all of them. Like, where do bi or pansexual people fit into all of this? Or what about queer people or people who are attracted to more than one gender identity at large?
So, I just thought I wanted to ask all the straight men of Reddit: If straight men and women can't be friends because one of them will end up wanting to f*ck the other, then how are us bisexuals supposed to have any friends? Can bisexuals be close, best friends with each other? With the gender(s) they are attracted to? Can bi men be friends with men, women, or nonbinary people without falling in love? What about bi men who are attracted to the binary genders- men and women- they can't be friends with either of them? Or what about bi men who are attracted to women and non-binary people? Or hell, on that note, what about pansexual people? Or polysexual people? They can't be friends with ANYONE, or anyone who is of the gender(s) they are attracted to? Can pansexual people make friends? Or what about gay men, can they be best friends with the other men? No one says that gay men can't be best friends with other gay men? Same-sex attracted people can be friends with people of the same sex without ever wanting to f*ck or date them? Does the same hold for lesbians?
Does the same apply to trans men? Can trans men and trans women be close, best friends with each other? Or is it just WOMEN in particular that men/male-aligned people can't be friends with? If that's the case: can bi, pan, or polysexual men be friends with women? Why is it JUST straight men can't be friends with women, but no one thinks that bi or pansexual men can't be friends with women? Bi and pan men don't have a problem being close friends with women without wanting to sleep with them, they seem totally fine. LGB men in particular can be best friends with the gender(s) that they're attracted to, so why is it so hard for straight men? I can be friends with men without wanting to f*ck every guy friend that I have ever had.
You know what, how is anyone in the LGBT+ community friends with anyone? Do you think we're all just f*cking each other, that we don't have a SINGLE friend that we've never f*cked, ever? That just seems kinda sad.
Also, where do non-binary people fit into all of this? What about AMAB non-binary people, who don't medically transition but just don't identify as men, they have a sexuality too. AMAB non-binary people can't be friends with women if they're attracted to women? How do they work?
Also, why is it just that straight women can be friends with straight men without falling in love, but not the other way around? Are you seriously telling me that you CAN NOT for the life of you be friends with any woman without just falling in love with them? If so, why do you think that men fall in love with their female friends much more than women fall in love with their male friends? Why is it easier for women to be close friends with men without wanting to sleep with them than it is the other way around for men?
I just feel so confused over the whole men-women friends discourse because where the fuck do we LGBT people exist in this convo? Like, I feel like LGBT people over here are just chilling and we're not arguing over if gay men can be friends with other gay men. Of course, the LGBT community is not perfect by any means, but do you guys actually believe that YOU PERSONALLY can't be friends with any women?
Sorry for the blurge. I just needed to rant because I feel like no one can answer this question.
2024.05.14 04:28 Godzilla-30 Does anyone remember the incident of February 23rd, 2014? [Part 2]
It is a man, old and scraggy. He wears a jacket that lays over the red plaid button shirt and blue jeans. He wears an old baseball cap and a pair of glasses. He yelled something to Dad, holding his hands up like he was pleading, although we couldn’t hear it over the truck engine. They talked, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Hey, what are they saying”, I asked, while petting Matt’s hair, calming him. The old man then put his hands down and came close to Dad in a cautious way. They seem to start having some kind of conversation.
“I don’t really know, hopefully, something good”, Mom answered. They talked for a little while, with daylight beginning to disappear, giving us a sense of dread, and making me more worried about what weird creature was going to show up. Eventually, the old man turned and pointed toward what I think is the northeast. They then shook hands and walked back to their respective vehicles. “What’s going on”, Mom asked as Dad got into the truck.
“Well, our new friend here invited us to dinner at his farm”, Dad replied.
“Does he have supplies?”
“Well, he says has supplies for us to make the journey.”
“Should we even trust him? We just met h-”
“Relax, he’s just an old man, living alone at his farm, feeding his cows. What could go wrong”, Dad countered. The old man then entered the truck that was running and drove slowly, expecting us to follow him.
“Alrighty then, but we have to be cautious”, Mom said, with her suspicions of the old man. We then followed the old truck along the dark, frozen road. It just feels like something is going to show up along the road, but nothing happened. Matt did eventually stop crying, but he is still upset about the Joe escape thing.
“Where are we going”, Matt lamented, with the prior series of events in mind.
“I guess somebody is offering us dinner”, I answered.
“Why can’t we just go home?”
“It’s only going to be a stop, like a hotel. After that, we go to our new home, I guess”, I said, taking another look at Matt and cradling to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay.” I stared out into the darkness. I looked to the sky from the window and I faintly saw something in the clear, dark sky, lit up by the waning moon. They were brilliant, green auroras that defy the bright moon, dancing across the sky like ribbons in the wind. The truck eventually took a right-hand turn into another road, with us following suit. I can see a bright, orange light emerging from a patch of tree. When we passed by, it seemed it was a house, at a farm, burning in a massive flame.
“I guess those people aren’t so, uh, lucky”, Dad said, taking a quick look at it before looking at the road. Passing by, we went on and continued to follow the old man’s truck. We passed onto another intersection until he turned into a driveway to what I believe to be his farm. Going into the driveway, I can see an old house, along with a dilapidated farm further away, barely visible by the headlights. The old man parked by the house, where there were a few other trucks there. We parked alongside the truck and we got out into the cold, near-silent night.
“Welcome to sanctuary, where all are welcome”, the old man bellowed. This is the first time I’ve heard his voice. Matt was the last to get out of the truck, slowly and clumsily climbing out of the truck.
“What’s your name”, my Mom politely asked the old man.
“Oh, I guess your husband didn’t tell ya. My name is Steven, but you can call me Steve”, the old man said, with some crackling in his voice. “I am very proud to host a dinner for you and your family”, he continued. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, my name is Janice”, Mom replied, quite pleased at his politeness.
“Hello, Janice, and what are their names”, Steven asked, pointing to me and Matt.
“That’s my daughter Kate and my son Matt”, Dad said to Mom.
“Oh, what wonderful names for a couple of beautiful children you have”, Steve grinned. “Come, it is dangerous out here.” We followed him to the house, which looked like it had seen better days. He entered through the double-set door, the first a solid door and a screen door behind. Entering the house, it smelled like what you’d expect, old man. Looking onto the floor is made of glossy wood and walls with cracks, likely caused by the earthquake. It is dark in there, lit by candlelight from many candles, yet it’s fairly warm here. I don’t know why we went into the house, but Dad was right, Steve is just a lonely, old man. Matter of fact, there seems to be nothing wrong here, other than the cracks in the walls. “Sorry, the power went out. Had to resort to the candles. I knew my wife would come in handy”, Steve explained as he took his coat off. “Oh, supper will be ready right away. Had to use the fireplace to cook. Also, can you take your boots off?” We took our boots and set them aside. We went into what seemed to be a living room, with dusty old-style furniture.
“So, where do we sit”, Mom asked.
“Oh, well, follow me”, Steve commanded, leading us to the dining room, with a long, wooden table and six wooden chairs, along with their corresponding old-fashioned plates, glasses and cutlery, lit up in the candlelight. We noticed that everything on the table was covered in a thin veil of dust. “My apologies, the recent shocks dropped a bit of dust on the table”, he explained as he noticed us looking at the plates and moved into another room nearby. “Take your seats if you like.” We all settled onto the chairs, and blew off our plates of the dust settled there.
“When will we eat”, Matt impatiently said.
“Once Steve comes out with the food”, Mom answered. Matt sat there with a tired look on his face. Dad seemed to be in a better mood than before and it looked like he wanted to start a conversation.
“Hey, should we talk about something”, Dad asked. I then see Steve with a bowl and a silver plate.
“Here we go, may not be much, but at least it’ll fulfil the soul”, Steve said, smiling when he served us mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “So, shall we pray?” That came unexpectedly, as we are not too religious, but we were in his house and gave us shelter and food.
“Sure, we can do that”, Mom said and we all bowed our heads and put our hands together. Steve cleared his throat
“Thank you, Lord, for this good food to feed the soul in these hard times. I shall pray, in the name of the Lord and Jesus Christ, that these hard times shall be over, so we can get on with our lives. Amen.” We raised our heads and grabbed whatever food there was onto our plates. “Oh, there’s no gravy, so we have to deal with bare potaters and meatloaf.”
“Oh, not to worry. Thank you for the food”, Dad thanked Steve. We began to eat the food once we got it sorted.
“So, what brings you here”, Steve asked.
“Well, there is an evacuation order in effect for this area, so we had to go to Regina”, Dad explained, with Steve taking in every word. “So, we came from Strasbourg, we tried going south towards Regina, but we hit an obstacle in the way and we had to take another route, leading us here.”
“And we encountered a few odd things along the way”, Mom added.
“Huh, interesting. What do you guys think is going on”, Steve inquired.
“By the things we saw, we have no idea. Dinosaurs, devil dogs, hell pigs, the whole deal. I shouldn’t forget the earthquake. They told us a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake”, Dad clarified to Steve.
“Hmm… is that so”, Steve wondered. “Wonder what I think is happening? The Rapture is happening. Do you know how the Bible tells us of the end times? Good people sent to be with God and his kingdom, the rest here to suffer the Hell unleashed by Satan.” By this point, he was beginning to rant, but we couldn't stop it as we all began to feel tired and powerless. “So, the Devil will send his demons in the form of these illusions so that they can torment the sinners. It is happening, it is-” Steve manically continued as I drew towards blackness and his voice becoming less coherent. My vision is now all black.
I saw those same lights, but more rapidly than before. I then emerged onto the same clear sky, but something felt different. I can smell something in the air. I can smell what seems to be chemicals in the air. Looking down, I was terrified. Dark, grey rock in the shape of ropes and folds, similar to those I saw of lava flows on a volcano in pictures. This went on as far as the eye could see. I can see no tree this time, just the cooled lava everywhere. I then walked, feeling every bump and crag. I thought I walked forever until I heard a rumbling sound and woke up.
I am in total darkness. It is cold and it smells like cow manure. I tried to move my hand, but it seemed to be bonded behind my back by a rope. I tried to move my feet, but they were also bound by rope to the legs I tried to speak, only to realise my mouth was agape by a cloth in my mouth. I heard shuffling nearby but I could not see. It was then shone in light when Steve entered the door, holding a candle, revealing all of us in the same situation. I then can see what we are in. We are in that same wooden dilapidated barn we saw earlier and seems to be more damaged than the house, wood creaking can be heard.
“These sedatives are more effective than I thought. Maybe I should use them more often”, Steve smoothly explained, like he’s some kind of agent and began pacing. “Wonder why you are here? Well, I wondered the same thing to myself, why didn’t God take me to his heaven? When I first heard of the government telling us of those evacuation plans, I thought it was that, a leaking pipe. I began to notice things I couldn’t believe myself, at least at first. Earthquakes, weird creatures showing up, people disappearing, the whole spiel. I connected the dots. The Rapture is happening, for sure, but why me? Why was I the one left here on this Earth”, Steve calmly ranted, pacing around the barn, but it seemed to sound crazier and angrier the more he paced. “I thought I had lost my way. I’ve been unfaithful to God and his son. But, I realised that God always has a plan and he left me on this Earth to serve a purpose. I wondered what my purpose was until I had a moment.” He then stopped in place and calmed down. He turned to look at Mom with accusing yet crazed eyes.
“I’m supposed to keep the sinners here in line, to earn a place in God’s kingdom, or suffer in Hell. I know you are a sweet woman, Janice, but your treachery with Satan is over and I am going to do what’s right.” Mom then looked at all of us, with assuring eyes like that of an innocent yet caring mother we all know knew. I began crying and trying to speak through the cloth, but I was helpless to watch by. “Forgive me, Father, for what I am going to do.” He then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into Mom’s neck with no mercy. I looked away once he did that, trembling, with tears pouring out and my vision glazed and I fell limp. I could see my brother tearing up, but he did not look away. I can hear Dad behind me, with his screams of agony and anger covered by the cloth. It felt like I was in slow motion, taking in every moment.
I then heard the chair, screeching as Steve dragged the chair containing Mom’s lifeless body towards the door, leaving behind a trail of blood. I couldn’t bear to see my mother like this. I shut my eyes very hard and hoped it would go away. The door then shut, leaving us alone with a candle, fearing what would come next. I stared at the candle, seeing it dance in the flames like a woman dancing in the darkness. Is this how it’ll end, I thought. End up dying to this sick man? My Mom was killed in front of me. I sobbed with that thought, then I began to think about the inevitable death of me. I hope there’s something after I die. Maybe I’ll see Mom again.
It was silent for a while, nearly no sound other than our moans. Dad seems to be fidgeting at the back of his chair, rocking it slowly. Looking past him, I shuddered at the glistening pool of blood, where Mom was last alive, could be my fate. I then see Dad release his arms from the back of the chair and remove the cloth from his mouth. He silently stood up and bent down to untie his legs from the chair legs. He then went to me and removed my cloth.
“H-h-how did you do that”, I silently wept, fearing that Steve would show up at the door and kill us all.
“My binding is loose. The old man probably took a liking to me”, Dad whispered. “I should remove your binds.” He untied them, releasing me, doing the same for Matt. “Now, we need to be quiet.” We then walked, quietly, along the painfully creaking wood in the near dark, following the blood trail, glistening in the candlelight. We cringed and dreaded each sound we made and watched the door in case it began to creak open. A few silent steps later, we made it to the door and we slowly opened it so as not to make any noise. What was revealed to us is nothing new, other than the blood trail continuing in the snow directing towards the back of the barn. “Okay, Kate, Matt, you guys run to the truck.”
“What about you”, I sobbed.
“Don’t worry about me”, Dad responded, giving me his keys and forcing them into my hand. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, leave. Don’t look back, take care of your brother, okay? I love you, no matter what happens.” He then kissed me on the head and ran to follow the blood trail. We quickly walked towards the black truck, stranded there for maybe hours. Getting closer, freedom is getting closer. When we got to a fair distance to the truck, I heard footsteps behind me and, the next thing I knew, I was knocked over to the ground into the hard snow on my face. A hand turned me over to give me a glimpse of a crazed Steve, his eyes wilder than before.
“Oh, yes, trying to escape”, he bragged. I looked at him, frozen in fear, like a deer in headlights and he caressed my face with his bloodied blade. “You do have a pretty face, but I’m afraid you are just one of Satan's creations, made to pull me to lust.” He then raised his knife in the air when a familiar side emerged, out of the blue.
Joe came and bit him in the arm that was holding the knife. Steve screamed in agony the moment he realised what happened. He shook Joe off and stood up to stand his ground. I stood up as Joe hissed and walked around the crazed being he wounded, not in fear but in aggressiveness. “Is this one of your pets, demon”, Steve screamed as Joe came in for another attack, but Steve countered that with a slash to the snout. Joe then ran away, whining, into the darkness. This sequence of events gave me the chance to enter the truck on the driver’s side. I had some trouble starting it, besides this is my first time driving a truck.
Steve menacelily walked towards the when Dad came barreling and tackled him to the ground. Dad was on top when he went limp. I finally put the keys in the engine turned it on and backed out, with memory serving me the instructions on such a vehicle. Steve pushed Dad’s body and stood up, but by that time, we left the farm.
“Turn back, we have to get Dad”, Matt cried, but I was very emotional, accepting what happened. I felt that, without my parents, I feel… useless.
“Dad’s dead”, I screamed at Matt and he began gagging uncontrollably in tears. I began to feel sorry for him. “Sorry, I, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Matt sniffled. “I guess Mom and Dad are dead anyways.” It was silence for a few more minutes, tears welling in our eyes.
“Hey, our parents are in a better place”, I said, trying to make the situation positive.
“But we are stuck here, without them? Don’t we deserve to go to a better place?”
“Don’t say that”, I huffed and I paused for a bit. “I know we are in the, uh, right place now. Let me tell you something, once we get to Regina, I will take care of you, no matter what life throws at us.”
“What about Joe”, Matt asked.
“He’ll be fine. He probably found his girlfriend already.”
“Hey, don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“I, uh, I don’t have one. That I know of”, I spoke, bringing me back to Sam, remembering that she’s the only friend that I ever knew, and I left her. Without her, I felt alone, no one would ever relate. I began to tear up. “I don’t have any friends. I am alone,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I’m your brother!” I looked at Matt, and smiled, happy that he acknowledged that we were in this together.
“Thank you”, I thanked him. I slowly stopped on the road, just to hug Matt hard, crying my eyes out. We then heard what sounded like an elephant in front of us. We looked up to see a walking snow-covered brown fur wall with four pillar-like legs in front of us. Its curved tusks gleaned in the light and the eyes reflected in the light. The furry trunk waved around like a searching snake from a tree. We both knew what it was.
“Hey, look at that, a woolly mammoth”, Matt said, excitement running through him. At this point, we weren’t surprised.
“Yep, that is a woolly mammoth”, I added. The mammoth turned to us on the road, seemingly confused about where it was. It looked at our truck and seemed to growl, like an elephant. We are starting to realise this thing is becoming aggressive.
“Uh, should we move”, Matt asked. I remembered hearing something about standing your ground in case of an encounter with an elephant. I hoped it would work for a bigger, furrier version of one.
“No, we have to stand our ground.”
“But, it’ll attack u-”
“Trust me!” I then honked my horn and it backed up. It then rushed, then stopped, a mock charge. Eventually, it moved out of the road, disappearing into the darkness. We sighed in relief.
“That was close”, Matt sighed. I then continued to drive in the night, headlights leading the way. The road is bumpy, as noticed by every ditch and peak we hit, but surprisingly, Matt was fast asleep. I began to get comfortable driving and used to the road by that point. It was silent for a while until we hit a smaller intersection. That is when the truck shut down, completely and stopped. I tried the gas many times but with no effect. There is no light, nothing. It is near-darkness here, shone only by the moonlight.
“Shit”, I yelled, desperate to turn the truck on without much success. Matt woke up, confused.
“What happened”, he yawned.
“The truck turned itself off. I can’t get it back on”, I fretted and at that moment, Matt was just as panicked as I am.
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know. One moment, we were driving, another it just-”, I quavered, when I heard something rustle in the distance. We stood still, hoping whatever it was didn’t find us. I looked around, hoping to see something in the moonlight. I then see a long, walking animal. It looked like some sort of alligator at first, except for a dinosaur-like head. Once I strained my eyes to the darkness, my fear levels rose as I could see it walk on its hind limbs, with its forelimbs dangling nearly touching the ground.
It was wandering around on the road when I heard a near-crocodilian growl at Matt’s side of the truck. Another of those creatures appeared, seemingly looking into the window like a hungry bear, giving us a chance to see its scaly head. Its exposed alligator teeth gleaned in the light like knives, but more terrifying was the eye. Its serpentine pupil shone brilliantly in the light like eyes in the dark. It then ducked down, gave a hiss, and moved towards the other one. A few more showed up and formed a group.
“What should we do”, Matt asked. “Should we stay?” I looked around, hoping for another way to escape them without them noticing. I further strained my eyes and mentally mapped out the area. There is a cemetery on my right-hand side, a grain bin storage yard on my left and a series of trailers on the other side of the highway, which is ahead of us, from the storage area. There, I see a series of white, storage buildings, something we can go to and wait it out inside.
“Okay, so slowly open the door”, I instructed Matt. The click of the doors opening cringed us. We looked at the group, but there was no response from them. We then, as slowly as we could, opened the door and stepped out. Still no response. Matt then quietly ran to the other side, towards me. “Okay, we are going into the storage yard and go to the other entrance”, I said, pointing to the other right-hand corner. I wanted to get as far away from these things as possible before making a safe crossing. “Then, we cross the highway on the other side, run into the buildings and stay there for the night. Are you ready?”
“I guess”, he whispered, looking at me in fearful doubt.
“We are going to do this”, I whispered back. We then silently ran over, having to rely on our night-adapted eyes, to the corner, walking past the bins. We made it and nothing behind us so far. “We’re good so far.” We then crossed the road and noticed nothing. We noticed a tanker truck, leaking some sort of fluid across the road. I easily recognized it as fuel, based on its distinctive, sickly smell. I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t for a collapsed light pole that is somehow still flickering with electricity near the area where the fuel would be flowing. We quickly avoided the fluid when I froze to see the group of the walking alligators, running towards us. “Run!” Matt tried to run, but one of those things appeared and clamped its jaws at the back of his neck. He yelped in pain and it took him down to the ground. “Matt”, I yelled, helplessly watching as the creature tore into him.
Matt reached out his arm before the others came to him, then a flash of fire came. At this point, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t even think before it exploded. It blew me towards the building, far away. I was knocked out for a few seconds before I regained consciousness, groaning in pain on the ice. I noticed something especially painful just below my chest. I reached towards the area with my hand. I pressed on it, more painful than ever and raised my hand, only to see blood, brightened by the fire. I realised I was wounded, maybe by shrapnel made by the explosion.
I looked toward where the truck was and all I saw was a blaze. Those things weren’t there, at least. I also noticed something else, too, there’s no Matt. I tried to look around for something, some sort of sign of my brother within the fire, but I saw none. I then wept, realising I had failed. I have failed to keep him safe. I have failed to give him a better life. I failed him as a sister. I could’ve done better. The thoughts poured in as tears glazed my eyes. At that moment, I failed to look around me.
I noticed a dark thing beside the blaze. I thought it was Matt, preparing to greet him back, even though I knew he couldn’t survive the explosion. The image became clearer and clearer as I noticed it was one of the walking crocs that, glazed by the fire, was coming towards me.
“Just kill me”, I screamed, preparing to painfully die to meet my maker. The creature was about to attack me when something large, silent as the wind, came charging and clamped down its massive jaws, filled with conical teeth on the hapless creature and raised it. The crocodile struggled before going limp with a crunch within its strong jaws. The big, dark and scaly monster that it is towered over me and is as long as a bus, possibly longer. Its large legs are a contradiction to its small arms that hide beneath its scarred, bulky body.
It turned to look at me with an oddly bird-like expression, revealing in the firelight numerous scars from battles I could never know and looked at me with its beady bird-like eyes, breathing out wisps from its nostrils like a dragon in the cool air. I recognized it as a creature I know too well, a T. Rex. I breathed heavily and sickly, looking at the thing, nearly expecting me to drop the body and go after me. Instead, it simply walked away, carrying its bloody prize with it, and steadily retreated into the darkness.
I then lay down in agonizing exhaustion on my back, thinking of the next step of action like I'm on a suicide mission I would never come back from. I looked in the direction of the graveyard and had one thought. I guess I am dying. a graveyard will do. I struggled to stand up, noticing my blood-soaked clothes and felt a broken left leg. I grasped my wound, limping step by step and enduring the sharp pain while shaking in the cold. Every step I took, I remembered all the memories, good or bad, that I had with my parents. My brother. My friends. My family. I eventually reached the cemetery and slouched at a tree.
“Guess I’m joining you, guys”, I said, speaking to the snow-covered gravestones, only to hear something. A familiar sound of chirping emerged and, lit by the blaze, it was a sight I can hope for. “Joe, what are you doing here”, I depressingly cheered as Joe went to me and curled up in my lap as if he were a cat. I noticed the new-found scar he had on his little snout, but I paid no mind as I petted him. “I guess you came back. Thank you so much for what you did”, I thanked him, not expecting such a loyal creature would be with me, comforting me, to the end, like what my mother used to do when I was a newborn. I heard another noise, this time a deep rumble.
I thought it was another earthquake coming, but it got louder the closer it got to me, becoming more animalistic only felt small vibrations I barely felt. Joe stayed put, oddly enough, as T. Rex, different from the first one, came. It walked towards us until it stopped short of us. It began to produce a low-pitched, bird-like purring, attracting Joe. I realised something, that this T. Rex is Joe’s parent. He joined the rest like him, whom they showed up and all chirped around.
The grown Rex then brought its snout closer to me, not to kill me, but to look at me. It did not reveal its teeth and was still purring. I put my hand out and its nose came close to it. It rubbed it against my hand and started to pet its cold, scaly skin as it breathed through its nose and put it on my chest. I rested my head on it before it pulled away. It gave out a hiss, but I knew it wasn’t that of a threat, but more of a thank you for bringing its small, sometimes immature, child home.
That gave me relief, as it felt like I at least did something for once. They walked away, along with Joe, towards the darkness amongst the gravestones in the cemetery. I glimpsed one last desperate look at Joe before walking beside his parent. I looked up at the sky and I could see all the stars, twinkling, and the dancing green auroras. I began to feel limp and felt the cold embrace of death coming over me, tears pouring out of my eyes. The sky then grew brighter and brighter, the stars faded into the light and I could see my family welcoming me to a new home. It then slowly went black, darker than a cave.
You would think this is the end of me. It wasn’t, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I eventually woke up in a hospital in Regina. I was told I was rescued by a team that transported me while I was in a coma. The doctors said I was very lucky to be alive, as the shrapnel narrowly avoided my vital organs. After that, I was adopted into a new family, but I was only with them for a couple of years before finding a new job and moving out.
As for Sam, I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think she is safe, somewhere else. As for my family, I think of them all the time. I was in a depressive period right after that. Eventually, over the years, I accepted that they were gone and went to a better place. For Joe, I would like to think he is all grown up, like his parents, and becoming the king of the jungle. I hope we meet again.
As for the evacuated area, it wasn’t some pipeline rupture that caused an evaluation, but an anomaly, with the exact reason not known. There are excuses for the claims of weird stuff going on in there, from disease to chemicals, to eventually a previously unknown geological event, but I saw through it all.
You may ask how, it's because I've been there. Take it or leave it, this is the story I have. As the decade came by, cover-ups were made to hide it, even walls were put around it. Since the incident, the exclusion zone grew from a mere 80 kilometers in diameter to 460 kilometers in diameter, emptying entire cities of the likes of Regina and Saskatoon. I had to move to North Battleford, by the recommendation from the same government covering it up, making me think that time will tell before the floodgates of truth open.
The anomaly didn’t have a name initially, however, over the years, everyone agreed on one name in particular: The Saskatchewan Anomaly.
submitted by Godzilla-30 to mrcreeps [link] [comments]
“Hey, what are they saying”, I asked, while petting Matt’s hair, calming him. The old man then put his hands down and came close to Dad in a cautious way. They seem to start having some kind of conversation.
“I don’t really know, hopefully, something good”, Mom answered. They talked for a little while, with daylight beginning to disappear, giving us a sense of dread, and making me more worried about what weird creature was going to show up. Eventually, the old man turned and pointed toward what I think is the northeast. They then shook hands and walked back to their respective vehicles. “What’s going on”, Mom asked as Dad got into the truck.
“Well, our new friend here invited us to dinner at his farm”, Dad replied.
“Does he have supplies?”
“Well, he says has supplies for us to make the journey.”
“Should we even trust him? We just met h-”
“Relax, he’s just an old man, living alone at his farm, feeding his cows. What could go wrong”, Dad countered. The old man then entered the truck that was running and drove slowly, expecting us to follow him.
“Alrighty then, but we have to be cautious”, Mom said, with her suspicions of the old man. We then followed the old truck along the dark, frozen road. It just feels like something is going to show up along the road, but nothing happened. Matt did eventually stop crying, but he is still upset about the Joe escape thing.
“Where are we going”, Matt lamented, with the prior series of events in mind.
“I guess somebody is offering us dinner”, I answered.
“Why can’t we just go home?”
“It’s only going to be a stop, like a hotel. After that, we go to our new home, I guess”, I said, taking another look at Matt and cradling to comfort him. “It’s going to be okay.” I stared out into the darkness. I looked to the sky from the window and I faintly saw something in the clear, dark sky, lit up by the waning moon. They were brilliant, green auroras that defy the bright moon, dancing across the sky like ribbons in the wind. The truck eventually took a right-hand turn into another road, with us following suit. I can see a bright, orange light emerging from a patch of tree. When we passed by, it seemed it was a house, at a farm, burning in a massive flame.
“I guess those people aren’t so, uh, lucky”, Dad said, taking a quick look at it before looking at the road. Passing by, we went on and continued to follow the old man’s truck. We passed onto another intersection until he turned into a driveway to what I believe to be his farm. Going into the driveway, I can see an old house, along with a dilapidated farm further away, barely visible by the headlights. The old man parked by the house, where there were a few other trucks there. We parked alongside the truck and we got out into the cold, near-silent night.
“Welcome to sanctuary, where all are welcome”, the old man bellowed. This is the first time I’ve heard his voice. Matt was the last to get out of the truck, slowly and clumsily climbing out of the truck.
“What’s your name”, my Mom politely asked the old man.
“Oh, I guess your husband didn’t tell ya. My name is Steven, but you can call me Steve”, the old man said, with some crackling in his voice. “I am very proud to host a dinner for you and your family”, he continued. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, my name is Janice”, Mom replied, quite pleased at his politeness.
“Hello, Janice, and what are their names”, Steven asked, pointing to me and Matt.
“That’s my daughter Kate and my son Matt”, Dad said to Mom.
“Oh, what wonderful names for a couple of beautiful children you have”, Steve grinned. “Come, it is dangerous out here.” We followed him to the house, which looked like it had seen better days. He entered through the double-set door, the first a solid door and a screen door behind. Entering the house, it smelled like what you’d expect, old man. Looking onto the floor is made of glossy wood and walls with cracks, likely caused by the earthquake. It is dark in there, lit by candlelight from many candles, yet it’s fairly warm here. I don’t know why we went into the house, but Dad was right, Steve is just a lonely, old man. Matter of fact, there seems to be nothing wrong here, other than the cracks in the walls. “Sorry, the power went out. Had to resort to the candles. I knew my wife would come in handy”, Steve explained as he took his coat off. “Oh, supper will be ready right away. Had to use the fireplace to cook. Also, can you take your boots off?” We took our boots and set them aside. We went into what seemed to be a living room, with dusty old-style furniture.
“So, where do we sit”, Mom asked.
“Oh, well, follow me”, Steve commanded, leading us to the dining room, with a long, wooden table and six wooden chairs, along with their corresponding old-fashioned plates, glasses and cutlery, lit up in the candlelight. We noticed that everything on the table was covered in a thin veil of dust. “My apologies, the recent shocks dropped a bit of dust on the table”, he explained as he noticed us looking at the plates and moved into another room nearby. “Take your seats if you like.” We all settled onto the chairs, and blew off our plates of the dust settled there.
“When will we eat”, Matt impatiently said.
“Once Steve comes out with the food”, Mom answered. Matt sat there with a tired look on his face. Dad seemed to be in a better mood than before and it looked like he wanted to start a conversation.
“Hey, should we talk about something”, Dad asked. I then see Steve with a bowl and a silver plate.
“Here we go, may not be much, but at least it’ll fulfil the soul”, Steve said, smiling when he served us mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “So, shall we pray?” That came unexpectedly, as we are not too religious, but we were in his house and gave us shelter and food.
“Sure, we can do that”, Mom said and we all bowed our heads and put our hands together. Steve cleared his throat
“Thank you, Lord, for this good food to feed the soul in these hard times. I shall pray, in the name of the Lord and Jesus Christ, that these hard times shall be over, so we can get on with our lives. Amen.” We raised our heads and grabbed whatever food there was onto our plates. “Oh, there’s no gravy, so we have to deal with bare potaters and meatloaf.”
“Oh, not to worry. Thank you for the food”, Dad thanked Steve. We began to eat the food once we got it sorted.
“So, what brings you here”, Steve asked.
“Well, there is an evacuation order in effect for this area, so we had to go to Regina”, Dad explained, with Steve taking in every word. “So, we came from Strasbourg, we tried going south towards Regina, but we hit an obstacle in the way and we had to take another route, leading us here.”
“And we encountered a few odd things along the way”, Mom added.
“Huh, interesting. What do you guys think is going on”, Steve inquired.
“By the things we saw, we have no idea. Dinosaurs, devil dogs, hell pigs, the whole deal. I shouldn’t forget the earthquake. They told us a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake”, Dad clarified to Steve.
“Hmm… is that so”, Steve wondered. “Wonder what I think is happening? The Rapture is happening. Do you know how the Bible tells us of the end times? Good people sent to be with God and his kingdom, the rest here to suffer the Hell unleashed by Satan.” By this point, he was beginning to rant, but we couldn't stop it as we all began to feel tired and powerless. “So, the Devil will send his demons in the form of these illusions so that they can torment the sinners. It is happening, it is-” Steve manically continued as I drew towards blackness and his voice becoming less coherent. My vision is now all black.
I saw those same lights, but more rapidly than before. I then emerged onto the same clear sky, but something felt different. I can smell something in the air. I can smell what seems to be chemicals in the air. Looking down, I was terrified. Dark, grey rock in the shape of ropes and folds, similar to those I saw of lava flows on a volcano in pictures. This went on as far as the eye could see. I can see no tree this time, just the cooled lava everywhere. I then walked, feeling every bump and crag. I thought I walked forever until I heard a rumbling sound and woke up.
I am in total darkness. It is cold and it smells like cow manure. I tried to move my hand, but it seemed to be bonded behind my back by a rope. I tried to move my feet, but they were also bound by rope to the legs I tried to speak, only to realise my mouth was agape by a cloth in my mouth. I heard shuffling nearby but I could not see. It was then shone in light when Steve entered the door, holding a candle, revealing all of us in the same situation. I then can see what we are in. We are in that same wooden dilapidated barn we saw earlier and seems to be more damaged than the house, wood creaking can be heard.
“These sedatives are more effective than I thought. Maybe I should use them more often”, Steve smoothly explained, like he’s some kind of agent and began pacing. “Wonder why you are here? Well, I wondered the same thing to myself, why didn’t God take me to his heaven? When I first heard of the government telling us of those evacuation plans, I thought it was that, a leaking pipe. I began to notice things I couldn’t believe myself, at least at first. Earthquakes, weird creatures showing up, people disappearing, the whole spiel. I connected the dots. The Rapture is happening, for sure, but why me? Why was I the one left here on this Earth”, Steve calmly ranted, pacing around the barn, but it seemed to sound crazier and angrier the more he paced. “I thought I had lost my way. I’ve been unfaithful to God and his son. But, I realised that God always has a plan and he left me on this Earth to serve a purpose. I wondered what my purpose was until I had a moment.” He then stopped in place and calmed down. He turned to look at Mom with accusing yet crazed eyes.
“I’m supposed to keep the sinners here in line, to earn a place in God’s kingdom, or suffer in Hell. I know you are a sweet woman, Janice, but your treachery with Satan is over and I am going to do what’s right.” Mom then looked at all of us, with assuring eyes like that of an innocent yet caring mother we all know knew. I began crying and trying to speak through the cloth, but I was helpless to watch by. “Forgive me, Father, for what I am going to do.” He then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it into Mom’s neck with no mercy. I looked away once he did that, trembling, with tears pouring out and my vision glazed and I fell limp. I could see my brother tearing up, but he did not look away. I can hear Dad behind me, with his screams of agony and anger covered by the cloth. It felt like I was in slow motion, taking in every moment.
I then heard the chair, screeching as Steve dragged the chair containing Mom’s lifeless body towards the door, leaving behind a trail of blood. I couldn’t bear to see my mother like this. I shut my eyes very hard and hoped it would go away. The door then shut, leaving us alone with a candle, fearing what would come next. I stared at the candle, seeing it dance in the flames like a woman dancing in the darkness. Is this how it’ll end, I thought. End up dying to this sick man? My Mom was killed in front of me. I sobbed with that thought, then I began to think about the inevitable death of me. I hope there’s something after I die. Maybe I’ll see Mom again.
It was silent for a while, nearly no sound other than our moans. Dad seems to be fidgeting at the back of his chair, rocking it slowly. Looking past him, I shuddered at the glistening pool of blood, where Mom was last alive, could be my fate. I then see Dad release his arms from the back of the chair and remove the cloth from his mouth. He silently stood up and bent down to untie his legs from the chair legs. He then went to me and removed my cloth.
“H-h-how did you do that”, I silently wept, fearing that Steve would show up at the door and kill us all.
“My binding is loose. The old man probably took a liking to me”, Dad whispered. “I should remove your binds.” He untied them, releasing me, doing the same for Matt. “Now, we need to be quiet.” We then walked, quietly, along the painfully creaking wood in the near dark, following the blood trail, glistening in the candlelight. We cringed and dreaded each sound we made and watched the door in case it began to creak open. A few silent steps later, we made it to the door and we slowly opened it so as not to make any noise. What was revealed to us is nothing new, other than the blood trail continuing in the snow directing towards the back of the barn. “Okay, Kate, Matt, you guys run to the truck.”
“What about you”, I sobbed.
“Don’t worry about me”, Dad responded, giving me his keys and forcing them into my hand. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, leave. Don’t look back, take care of your brother, okay? I love you, no matter what happens.” He then kissed me on the head and ran to follow the blood trail. We quickly walked towards the black truck, stranded there for maybe hours. Getting closer, freedom is getting closer. When we got to a fair distance to the truck, I heard footsteps behind me and, the next thing I knew, I was knocked over to the ground into the hard snow on my face. A hand turned me over to give me a glimpse of a crazed Steve, his eyes wilder than before.
“Oh, yes, trying to escape”, he bragged. I looked at him, frozen in fear, like a deer in headlights and he caressed my face with his bloodied blade. “You do have a pretty face, but I’m afraid you are just one of Satan's creations, made to pull me to lust.” He then raised his knife in the air when a familiar side emerged, out of the blue.
Joe came and bit him in the arm that was holding the knife. Steve screamed in agony the moment he realised what happened. He shook Joe off and stood up to stand his ground. I stood up as Joe hissed and walked around the crazed being he wounded, not in fear but in aggressiveness. “Is this one of your pets, demon”, Steve screamed as Joe came in for another attack, but Steve countered that with a slash to the snout. Joe then ran away, whining, into the darkness. This sequence of events gave me the chance to enter the truck on the driver’s side. I had some trouble starting it, besides this is my first time driving a truck.
Steve menacelily walked towards the when Dad came barreling and tackled him to the ground. Dad was on top when he went limp. I finally put the keys in the engine turned it on and backed out, with memory serving me the instructions on such a vehicle. Steve pushed Dad’s body and stood up, but by that time, we left the farm.
“Turn back, we have to get Dad”, Matt cried, but I was very emotional, accepting what happened. I felt that, without my parents, I feel… useless.
“Dad’s dead”, I screamed at Matt and he began gagging uncontrollably in tears. I began to feel sorry for him. “Sorry, I, I don’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Matt sniffled. “I guess Mom and Dad are dead anyways.” It was silence for a few more minutes, tears welling in our eyes.
“Hey, our parents are in a better place”, I said, trying to make the situation positive.
“But we are stuck here, without them? Don’t we deserve to go to a better place?”
“Don’t say that”, I huffed and I paused for a bit. “I know we are in the, uh, right place now. Let me tell you something, once we get to Regina, I will take care of you, no matter what life throws at us.”
“What about Joe”, Matt asked.
“He’ll be fine. He probably found his girlfriend already.”
“Hey, don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“I, uh, I don’t have one. That I know of”, I spoke, bringing me back to Sam, remembering that she’s the only friend that I ever knew, and I left her. Without her, I felt alone, no one would ever relate. I began to tear up. “I don’t have any friends. I am alone,” I sobbed.
“What do you mean? I’m your brother!” I looked at Matt, and smiled, happy that he acknowledged that we were in this together.
“Thank you”, I thanked him. I slowly stopped on the road, just to hug Matt hard, crying my eyes out. We then heard what sounded like an elephant in front of us. We looked up to see a walking snow-covered brown fur wall with four pillar-like legs in front of us. Its curved tusks gleaned in the light and the eyes reflected in the light. The furry trunk waved around like a searching snake from a tree. We both knew what it was.
“Hey, look at that, a woolly mammoth”, Matt said, excitement running through him. At this point, we weren’t surprised.
“Yep, that is a woolly mammoth”, I added. The mammoth turned to us on the road, seemingly confused about where it was. It looked at our truck and seemed to growl, like an elephant. We are starting to realise this thing is becoming aggressive.
“Uh, should we move”, Matt asked. I remembered hearing something about standing your ground in case of an encounter with an elephant. I hoped it would work for a bigger, furrier version of one.
“No, we have to stand our ground.”
“But, it’ll attack u-”
“Trust me!” I then honked my horn and it backed up. It then rushed, then stopped, a mock charge. Eventually, it moved out of the road, disappearing into the darkness. We sighed in relief.
“That was close”, Matt sighed. I then continued to drive in the night, headlights leading the way. The road is bumpy, as noticed by every ditch and peak we hit, but surprisingly, Matt was fast asleep. I began to get comfortable driving and used to the road by that point. It was silent for a while until we hit a smaller intersection. That is when the truck shut down, completely and stopped. I tried the gas many times but with no effect. There is no light, nothing. It is near-darkness here, shone only by the moonlight.
“Shit”, I yelled, desperate to turn the truck on without much success. Matt woke up, confused.
“What happened”, he yawned.
“The truck turned itself off. I can’t get it back on”, I fretted and at that moment, Matt was just as panicked as I am.
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know. One moment, we were driving, another it just-”, I quavered, when I heard something rustle in the distance. We stood still, hoping whatever it was didn’t find us. I looked around, hoping to see something in the moonlight. I then see a long, walking animal. It looked like some sort of alligator at first, except for a dinosaur-like head. Once I strained my eyes to the darkness, my fear levels rose as I could see it walk on its hind limbs, with its forelimbs dangling nearly touching the ground.
It was wandering around on the road when I heard a near-crocodilian growl at Matt’s side of the truck. Another of those creatures appeared, seemingly looking into the window like a hungry bear, giving us a chance to see its scaly head. Its exposed alligator teeth gleaned in the light like knives, but more terrifying was the eye. Its serpentine pupil shone brilliantly in the light like eyes in the dark. It then ducked down, gave a hiss, and moved towards the other one. A few more showed up and formed a group.
“What should we do”, Matt asked. “Should we stay?” I looked around, hoping for another way to escape them without them noticing. I further strained my eyes and mentally mapped out the area. There is a cemetery on my right-hand side, a grain bin storage yard on my left and a series of trailers on the other side of the highway, which is ahead of us, from the storage area. There, I see a series of white, storage buildings, something we can go to and wait it out inside.
“Okay, so slowly open the door”, I instructed Matt. The click of the doors opening cringed us. We looked at the group, but there was no response from them. We then, as slowly as we could, opened the door and stepped out. Still no response. Matt then quietly ran to the other side, towards me. “Okay, we are going into the storage yard and go to the other entrance”, I said, pointing to the other right-hand corner. I wanted to get as far away from these things as possible before making a safe crossing. “Then, we cross the highway on the other side, run into the buildings and stay there for the night. Are you ready?”
“I guess”, he whispered, looking at me in fearful doubt.
“We are going to do this”, I whispered back. We then silently ran over, having to rely on our night-adapted eyes, to the corner, walking past the bins. We made it and nothing behind us so far. “We’re good so far.” We then crossed the road and noticed nothing. We noticed a tanker truck, leaking some sort of fluid across the road. I easily recognized it as fuel, based on its distinctive, sickly smell. I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t for a collapsed light pole that is somehow still flickering with electricity near the area where the fuel would be flowing. We quickly avoided the fluid when I froze to see the group of the walking alligators, running towards us. “Run!” Matt tried to run, but one of those things appeared and clamped its jaws at the back of his neck. He yelped in pain and it took him down to the ground. “Matt”, I yelled, helplessly watching as the creature tore into him.
Matt reached out his arm before the others came to him, then a flash of fire came. At this point, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t even think before it exploded. It blew me towards the building, far away. I was knocked out for a few seconds before I regained consciousness, groaning in pain on the ice. I noticed something especially painful just below my chest. I reached towards the area with my hand. I pressed on it, more painful than ever and raised my hand, only to see blood, brightened by the fire. I realised I was wounded, maybe by shrapnel made by the explosion.
I looked toward where the truck was and all I saw was a blaze. Those things weren’t there, at least. I also noticed something else, too, there’s no Matt. I tried to look around for something, some sort of sign of my brother within the fire, but I saw none. I then wept, realising I had failed. I have failed to keep him safe. I have failed to give him a better life. I failed him as a sister. I could’ve done better. The thoughts poured in as tears glazed my eyes. At that moment, I failed to look around me.
I noticed a dark thing beside the blaze. I thought it was Matt, preparing to greet him back, even though I knew he couldn’t survive the explosion. The image became clearer and clearer as I noticed it was one of the walking crocs that, glazed by the fire, was coming towards me.
“Just kill me”, I screamed, preparing to painfully die to meet my maker. The creature was about to attack me when something large, silent as the wind, came charging and clamped down its massive jaws, filled with conical teeth on the hapless creature and raised it. The crocodile struggled before going limp with a crunch within its strong jaws. The big, dark and scaly monster that it is towered over me and is as long as a bus, possibly longer. Its large legs are a contradiction to its small arms that hide beneath its scarred, bulky body.
It turned to look at me with an oddly bird-like expression, revealing in the firelight numerous scars from battles I could never know and looked at me with its beady bird-like eyes, breathing out wisps from its nostrils like a dragon in the cool air. I recognized it as a creature I know too well, a T. Rex. I breathed heavily and sickly, looking at the thing, nearly expecting me to drop the body and go after me. Instead, it simply walked away, carrying its bloody prize with it, and steadily retreated into the darkness.
I then lay down in agonizing exhaustion on my back, thinking of the next step of action like I'm on a suicide mission I would never come back from. I looked in the direction of the graveyard and had one thought. I guess I am dying. a graveyard will do. I struggled to stand up, noticing my blood-soaked clothes and felt a broken left leg. I grasped my wound, limping step by step and enduring the sharp pain while shaking in the cold. Every step I took, I remembered all the memories, good or bad, that I had with my parents. My brother. My friends. My family. I eventually reached the cemetery and slouched at a tree.
“Guess I’m joining you, guys”, I said, speaking to the snow-covered gravestones, only to hear something. A familiar sound of chirping emerged and, lit by the blaze, it was a sight I can hope for. “Joe, what are you doing here”, I depressingly cheered as Joe went to me and curled up in my lap as if he were a cat. I noticed the new-found scar he had on his little snout, but I paid no mind as I petted him. “I guess you came back. Thank you so much for what you did”, I thanked him, not expecting such a loyal creature would be with me, comforting me, to the end, like what my mother used to do when I was a newborn. I heard another noise, this time a deep rumble.
I thought it was another earthquake coming, but it got louder the closer it got to me, becoming more animalistic only felt small vibrations I barely felt. Joe stayed put, oddly enough, as T. Rex, different from the first one, came. It walked towards us until it stopped short of us. It began to produce a low-pitched, bird-like purring, attracting Joe. I realised something, that this T. Rex is Joe’s parent. He joined the rest like him, whom they showed up and all chirped around.
The grown Rex then brought its snout closer to me, not to kill me, but to look at me. It did not reveal its teeth and was still purring. I put my hand out and its nose came close to it. It rubbed it against my hand and started to pet its cold, scaly skin as it breathed through its nose and put it on my chest. I rested my head on it before it pulled away. It gave out a hiss, but I knew it wasn’t that of a threat, but more of a thank you for bringing its small, sometimes immature, child home.
That gave me relief, as it felt like I at least did something for once. They walked away, along with Joe, towards the darkness amongst the gravestones in the cemetery. I glimpsed one last desperate look at Joe before walking beside his parent. I looked up at the sky and I could see all the stars, twinkling, and the dancing green auroras. I began to feel limp and felt the cold embrace of death coming over me, tears pouring out of my eyes. The sky then grew brighter and brighter, the stars faded into the light and I could see my family welcoming me to a new home. It then slowly went black, darker than a cave.
You would think this is the end of me. It wasn’t, or else I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I eventually woke up in a hospital in Regina. I was told I was rescued by a team that transported me while I was in a coma. The doctors said I was very lucky to be alive, as the shrapnel narrowly avoided my vital organs. After that, I was adopted into a new family, but I was only with them for a couple of years before finding a new job and moving out.
As for Sam, I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think she is safe, somewhere else. As for my family, I think of them all the time. I was in a depressive period right after that. Eventually, over the years, I accepted that they were gone and went to a better place. For Joe, I would like to think he is all grown up, like his parents, and becoming the king of the jungle. I hope we meet again.
As for the evacuated area, it wasn’t some pipeline rupture that caused an evaluation, but an anomaly, with the exact reason not known. There are excuses for the claims of weird stuff going on in there, from disease to chemicals, to eventually a previously unknown geological event, but I saw through it all.
You may ask how, it's because I've been there. Take it or leave it, this is the story I have. As the decade came by, cover-ups were made to hide it, even walls were put around it. Since the incident, the exclusion zone grew from a mere 80 kilometers in diameter to 460 kilometers in diameter, emptying entire cities of the likes of Regina and Saskatoon. I had to move to North Battleford, by the recommendation from the same government covering it up, making me think that time will tell before the floodgates of truth open.
The anomaly didn’t have a name initially, however, over the years, everyone agreed on one name in particular: The Saskatchewan Anomaly.
2024.05.14 04:15 drinkmilkplsss What are the best options for me to handle a "no-insurance" ticket?
I just got my first car (Hyundai Sonata 2016). With the things going on with Hyundai recently, and no prior insurance record, and no driving record, no insurance company wanted to insure me. Even if I got a quote it was about $500-600 a month. I went to the dealership and got anti-theft software and devices. I now have insurance with State Farm.
I was pulled over 2 days after getting my car on my way to the insurance company. Should I just pay my fine of $365 or should care explain to the judge in the hope of having the case dismissed or at least having fines dropped to the state minimum?
submitted by drinkmilkplsss to legaladvice [link] [comments]
I was pulled over 2 days after getting my car on my way to the insurance company. Should I just pay my fine of $365 or should care explain to the judge in the hope of having the case dismissed or at least having fines dropped to the state minimum?
2024.05.14 04:10 Positive_Leaugue_79 Hi to you all, I’m here because I lost my 2 brothers in 1995 and 1996 when I was 15 and 16 years old. Unfortunately they fell into the heroine route and got hiv then aids. I was lucky to have a different life but this effect me for ever.I’ve never done drugs and have always been a conservative girl
but in 2015 I met a guy and I hoped he was the one with whom I was going to have a family, this guy intentionally passed to me a genital herpes and even ebv, my whole world collapsed and I entered a tunnel of desperation, I felt the psychological pain of living with a permanent disease with its risks and since me and this guy broke up in January 2019 I’m single because I don’t want anyone to get close to me I just don’t think anyone would accept my condition, I’m devastated my life has totally collapsed, I lost my job and I live on my very elderly parents because my psychological state and my inflamed body consumed my energies and I’m really living in difficulty, for my case.
I came here on this subreddit to see how are you all doing and what’s going on with hiv progress and I was impressed to see that people can manage to have it non detectable and to have a serene life with it while taking medicines. See, one of my brothers did make it to come out of the addiction to heroine and he even found a beautiful girlfriend and they got engaged but when she found out that he had this virus she ended the relationship immediately even if she was really in love with him and they were a perfect couple. This brother of mine did take the treatment that was given in those days and it was about big brown pills, as my mother said that she saw but unfortunately his liver didn’t make it and he got some other major complications next that took him to an end.
I’m really glad to read that things aren’t the same as they were in the 90s, sometimes I think to myself why weren’t my brothers that lucky as well? I even read that someone in here on Reddit got hiv in 1988 and is doing well and maybe I can receive some answers from anyone in here.
Also, are you following Fred Hutch? I read they are working in hiv as well. Do you have any clinical trials for any new treatments?
A few years ago I found out that a girl who was at high school with me (I’m 44) got hiv, her sister told me but I never spoke to her I just can’t my emotional status can’t handle it and I don’t want to cause her pain with my stories I wouldn’t be able to be strong so I wish all will be well for her and for a cure to finally be done.
Thank you for your input and I wish you all the best to you all ❤️ good luck and God bless ❤️
submitted by Positive_Leaugue_79 to hivaids [link] [comments]
I came here on this subreddit to see how are you all doing and what’s going on with hiv progress and I was impressed to see that people can manage to have it non detectable and to have a serene life with it while taking medicines. See, one of my brothers did make it to come out of the addiction to heroine and he even found a beautiful girlfriend and they got engaged but when she found out that he had this virus she ended the relationship immediately even if she was really in love with him and they were a perfect couple. This brother of mine did take the treatment that was given in those days and it was about big brown pills, as my mother said that she saw but unfortunately his liver didn’t make it and he got some other major complications next that took him to an end.
I’m really glad to read that things aren’t the same as they were in the 90s, sometimes I think to myself why weren’t my brothers that lucky as well? I even read that someone in here on Reddit got hiv in 1988 and is doing well and maybe I can receive some answers from anyone in here.
Also, are you following Fred Hutch? I read they are working in hiv as well. Do you have any clinical trials for any new treatments?
A few years ago I found out that a girl who was at high school with me (I’m 44) got hiv, her sister told me but I never spoke to her I just can’t my emotional status can’t handle it and I don’t want to cause her pain with my stories I wouldn’t be able to be strong so I wish all will be well for her and for a cure to finally be done.
Thank you for your input and I wish you all the best to you all ❤️ good luck and God bless ❤️
2024.05.14 04:08 OrderlyProfits New Physical Therapist Story…
As part of my recent NSAID relapse, I am now dealing with bilateral peroneal tenoniditis, tennis elbow, and left insertional hamstring tendonitis on both ends. I decided to reach out to a Physical Therapist for help in recovery and today was my initial evaluation. The new PT is probably younger than 35.
He asked me why I was there and I told him that I was dealing with a reaction to NSAIDs that has caused some systemic tendonitis. His very next question was “Have you ever taken Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics?” I said, “Matter of fact…” and we carried out a long conversation about Fluoroquinolone Toxicty.
I asked how many patients he has ever had that identified their problems as being from FQs. He said other than me only one. However, he has learned over the past few years of his practice and through his schooling that when anyone reports with non-injury related tendonitis, especially under the age of 50, he immediately goes into their history of antibiotic usage to identity if they have ever taken FQs. He also has a list of other FQT symptoms he asks them about. So, he said only one other has self identified, but he has identified many others who had no idea their symptoms were likely from FQT.
1) This made me happy not having to explain more than I had to about FQs, but 2) that the damage that FQs cause is becoming more widespread and in his case, he said they spoke about it extensively on his PT schooling.
submitted by OrderlyProfits to floxies [link] [comments]
He asked me why I was there and I told him that I was dealing with a reaction to NSAIDs that has caused some systemic tendonitis. His very next question was “Have you ever taken Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics?” I said, “Matter of fact…” and we carried out a long conversation about Fluoroquinolone Toxicty.
I asked how many patients he has ever had that identified their problems as being from FQs. He said other than me only one. However, he has learned over the past few years of his practice and through his schooling that when anyone reports with non-injury related tendonitis, especially under the age of 50, he immediately goes into their history of antibiotic usage to identity if they have ever taken FQs. He also has a list of other FQT symptoms he asks them about. So, he said only one other has self identified, but he has identified many others who had no idea their symptoms were likely from FQT.
1) This made me happy not having to explain more than I had to about FQs, but 2) that the damage that FQs cause is becoming more widespread and in his case, he said they spoke about it extensively on his PT schooling.