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The Human Artificial Hivemind Part 512: The Pact Of Blades
2024.05.15 04:51 Storms_Wrath The Human Artificial Hivemind Part 512: The Pact Of Blades
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Ezeonwha was walking down a long hallway. The dry and plain painted walls and the pure white lighting of the lower levels of the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office helped to frame the dingy realities of those who could only afford these floors. Not even capable of having windows, these were for those who were the cheapest of the cheap or those who mingled with them. He'd passed several Guides on the way in, their claws echoing in the halls as a sign of authority in this lawless land.
Here, mediocrity was king, and he was a loyal servant. He drew his cloak closer about his neck, unwilling to reveal himself to those who weren't already equipped to see through it all. He was famous enough to be an abduction target if he let his guard down. This place was no exception, though Justicar tried to make them such. Too much security on the higher levels and too little on the lower levels. That was the way of things.
Another hallway, this one marked with bullet holes. Two contractors and a Guide were discussing the pricing of the fix project when he turned the corner. Their voices quieted to nothing, the stillness pressing down upon them with the same intensity as the false lighting. Ezeonwha clacked his jaws, giving them a low bow before continuing on his way. He saw the Guide's eyes light up with the sign of his implants getting a reading. It was another impromptu way of tracking via facial recognition, but it was an ancient practice.
Nothing was new about what the Guides did; only how many of them seemed to be on general patrol. Had Justicar hired more of them or actually done full conversions for all of them? Those arm cannons surely weren't cheap or ethical to insert into unwilling participants. And giving a victim a gun they couldn't be disarmed of was a very bad idea, even for Elders. And Justicar was better than most Elders when it came to abject stupidity. He'd likely only been dropped a few hundred times as a child versus the more likely Elder average of a few thousand.
Ezeonwha chuckled at his internal joke, heading deeper underground into the complex. He was going to a certain meeting, and it would be best not to be late. Even if the Guides tracked him, it wouldn't be negative. The group he had been approached by a few days ago wasn't a terror group. He'd looked them up. They dealt in 'freedom and liberation from all chains.'
The Eyes Of Liberty had focused upon Penny as their latest propaganda target and perhaps as a valuable ally in their fight against all tyranny. Though such a flowery message was likely steeped in idealism for the lower ranks, with more pragmatic and likely richer inner circle elites and leaders ensuring the pot would always simmer but never boil or grow cold. That was the way movements such as these managed to skirt the line between inaction and terrorism.
It was a dangerous thing to do. But these were dangerous times. If Penny left, he'd die. Someone with a grudge would kill him. It was a given, and he'd made peace with it now. He needed to get to work, to help others like him and those worse off, with just a small piece of the meager time he had left.
He was in the system as a friend of Penny, so little scrutiny would fall on him as he came and went. He had a new friend, one who was very interested in connecting to Penny.
The offer had come through his communicator, and he'd answered it given its interesting title. After a lengthy discussion about their goals for him and Penny, he'd agreed to at least have a meeting. He didn't tell them that he had a tracker from Phoebe, which would 'be impossible to miss' if things went badly. He knew the value he had, which was why one of the androids was also accompanying him under the guise of being a Sprilnav.
The android was 'walking' on all fours, its mechanical motion entirely silent. It was obscured by a wave of holograms and hard light holograms that would ensure that it wouldn't be considered suspicious beside him. His only guard was a capable one, and Phoebe had all the confidence of an AI who knew that the destruction of her android would only be an inconvenience for her.
Ezeonwha came to an unmarked door with a well-worn door frame. One knock. One pause. Two knocks. Another pause. Four knocks. He waited, and the door swung open. Eight Sprilnav greeted him warily but warmly, their eyes shifting to Phoebe.
The inside of the room was a dull red, coming from a pair of lights in the center of the ceiling that cast dark shadows near the edges. The whole room felt dark and dangerous, and the walls were lined with guns, computers, and several drones. Shelves and drawers were neatly stacked against the wall, as well as five couches and four double beds with ladder access to the top portions.
Bags of food rested atop a trash compactor unit, and the room service button on the inner side of the wall that Ezeonwha could see in the mirror was worn down to the raw metal. No paint jobs here, only grit and business. The room faintly smelled of body odor and assorted foods. Not entirely unpleasant, but also not what he'd expected from a group with sich a flamboyant name. Perhaps they worked in cell-based units. And that was another thing.
Minds were visible in the distance of the mindscape, but the people here were huddled together mentally. They appeared to be haphazard, but Ezeonwha recognized an old army-type defensive formation a mere step from each of their positions. They were more than they appeared. Though based on how their room looked, they probably weren't veterans, just decently trained.
As they walked through the doorway, a scanner activated. One of the Sprilnav, wearing a headset with numbers and letters swirling on the inner side of the visor, called out: "Phoebe android. Commando variant. Risk assessment: Certain Death. Ezeonwha. Carrying two pistols, one hidden in the pack on his left, and the other tucked inside a strap near the lower bottom of his chest."
That made them all pause, sizing each other up. Ezeonwha smiled nervously, failing terribly to break the building tension once again. His nerves started to get to him, but finally, Phoebe spoke. "Well, friends. I, for one, am happy to talk of the business of liberty. Tell us, what do you have in mind for my friend Ezeonwha?"
"It is not about him, AI. It is about the freedom all sentient beings deserve, and which we shall bring to the galaxy no matter if we are alive or dead."
"An honorable goal to strive toward," Phoebe said.
"Thank you. Your words are quite kind for your type."
"I didn't know I had one," Phoebe replied. "But thank you."
Ezeonwha turned his head toward the Sprilnav with all the fancy equipment.
"What is the best way for me and Penny to help in the fight?"
"The best way would be for you to start killing the gang leaders you come across. Barring that, have Penny ignore the graveyards, and continue freeing the slaves as she ought to. The dead have their freedom; the living need her work more."
"I agree with my companion," another of them said. "So far, Penny has done more for the fight for justice than any other on Justicar in generations, so it is a terrible thing to ask more, but we must ask. Even knowing the terrible toll it would have if she loses the Judgment, Sprilnav are at stake."
"People are at stake, you mean," Ezeonwha said. "There is no need to bring species into this."
"There would not be, but it is still a clear factor," another of them said, a female who looked more shifty in her gaze and demeanor. The Eyes of Liberty seemed like one of those groups with too much division.
"Do you disagree with each other often?" Ezeonwha asked innocently.
"Here and there," the tech guy said. "Not often enough to be a problem, and not when what matters is at stake."
"But that is the thing. How can you agree on when something that matters is a stake?"
"Is this a test?"
"Why would it be? Think of it as a genuine concern," Ezeonwha said. "To associate with your group, I have to be certain it will be resilient to change and risks escalating in the future. If the gangs cannot strike at Penny, they will pick the next best targets. Currently, that is me. If I associate with you in a way they can find out, and I assure you they will find out eventually, you all may be at risk as well. And your group's seemingly cell-based design also means large scale mobilization is difficult, ineffective, and risks severe coordination issues which cannot be quickly or safely remedied without changing core security features of it."
"You deduced all of that from context? You are smart, Ezeonwha. And have a good brain in your head. Everlasting knows we need one of those between all of us."
They all shared a laugh.
"I am not as young as I may look," Ezeonwha said. "Penny is not properly learned of the danger that faces us here. I am. The Underground will kill me when this is over. Do you want to die alongside me, all for your beliefs?"
Silence descended again. Ezeonwha kept the pressure on them when one of them stepped forward. "For freedom and liberty? Yes. I would die for that."
"As would I."
"And I."
They all declared the rest in orders that followed the patterns Ezeonwha was noticing. There were variances in their levels of belief and faith in their purpose. Each person had a different level of value difference, which meant that their lives would be worth more or less comparatively.
Cohesion was weaker, too. Not a full defector team, but likely pieces of several. Was that by design from a higher up leader, or was that just circumstance? Another thing to figure out later, that wasn't critical yet, but he would know before he truly went on any missions with them, if he did at all.
He suspected running messages to Penny would be the majority of their tasks. The quality of intelligence the Eyes of Liberty had offered was substantial. Perhaps enough for Penny to turn herself from a major annoyance to the gangs into an actual existential threat. With Justicar's swarming protection of the Fort Court and the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office, there was a limited amount of things that even the gangs could do. And if the rumors were correct, a Progenitor would be partaking in the trial.
"To be clear, if I join up with you, Phoebe would come too."
"Why would we let an AI join us?"
Phoebe smiled. "Without me, you'll die in this fight. You have trained for around 2000 days. You're acceptable combatants, as is Ezeonwha. But you are fighting in a city, and underneath it. You need to know how to keep a low profile. You need to know how to move through a crowd, get in and out. And you need to keep collateral damage to a zero, or the gangs will use you like they have others who had your purpose and were less careful to justify their 'protection' continuing. If you march in there and kill 50 slavers, if you kill a few slaves or a single bystander in the process, your credibility will be smeared. And frankly, with me on your team, you won't get blown up by an IED when you try clearing your first room in a fortress."
"IED?" One of them asked, while the rest digested her statement, going through various levels of offended looks.
"Your translator is too cheap. Improvised explosive device. Here, that can be old engines, reused oil, cracked plastic, frictional fuel bombs, circuit extruders, sodium splash grenades, as well as the more military style attacks they can pack, from small micro rockets all the way up to lower level fission or fusion bombs. Though if you're in a fight with those things involved, you're already dead."
"Why?"
"Because unless you're Elders, or holograms, a nuke will kill you whether you're right next to it or just inside the same shield. They concentrate the thermal pulse, so your bones would be ash before the pain hit your eyes."
"And what protection could you bring against that?"
"Telling you it's there before you start the attack. That is, if you listen to me. I value your lives over that of this android, but also I value Ezeonwha over all of you combined. I will not prevent him from doing this, but I will have you all know the risks involved."
"We are prepared, Phoebe. We have done much of the training you say, though we do not believe the gangs would plant explosive devices in their own fortresses. There is too much risk around that, with betrayals so common. However, the minefields we have scouted are easy to defeat with the right tactics. Perhaps you can give us a briefing on those, too?"
A challenge.
"I can, depending on how long you wish to do this for. But I have the stamina for either hours or weeks, depending on which you choose."
"What of your batteries?"
"They are of sufficient quality," Phoebe assured.
"I hope so."
Their tech guy nodded, more numbers flashing on his visor. Ezeonwha hoped he had a different way of display, like through an implant or something, for the missions in darker areas. The Underground was, by its name, not a place where much natural light was to be found. And the gangs controlled all the power systems in their territory. It was another part of the racket.
"Why aren't you guarding Penny?"
Phoebe's back straightened, a subconscious posture change to make her seem more confident. Ezeonwha caught the tactic for what it was, though without extensive knowledge of bipedal forms, it was less likely the surrounding Sprilnav knew it.
"Penny proved before a trillion eyes she's capable of fighting Elders, Progenitors, and a Dreadnaught Captain. Not to mention her immense power. I can shoot bullets, but she can literally snatch them out of the air and eat them. She has her own way of doing things, and it is a good way."
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Penny landed in the rubble and headed for the Vaquah with a trail of survivors behind her. Many of them, she could recognize the marks of slavery on, with numbers or brands on their skin or just the trauma crouching in their eyes dulled by the pain of a long life in a work camp. Penny went through the wreckage to the shield surrounding the rubble and the defining line between the rest of the city and the destruction. Several news drones flew above her.
More were arriving from various directions. The soft footsteps grew into a constant drumming sound, like a beating heart of doom. Penny marched with them, heading to the spaceport. A large medical operation there quickly rerouted many of its various branches to the most injured freed slaves.
Penny pressed her considerable psychic energy on the entire group, accelerating their healing, slowing bleeding, and generally repairing their bodies and cells from the trauma they'd suffered. But the cloud over their heads did not brighten. The atmosphere remained tense and mournful. Many of them had lost friends, family, and more. She had no right to ask them to feel any different.
She had freed them, that was all. They were not her servants. She was not their ruler.
Several of them came up to her, offering thanks in the small ways they could. Kind words. Attempts at hugs. Even offers of devout prayer and worship, which Penny respectfully declined. She knew, as did most of them, that veneration for her deeds was inevitable. She didn't want to be seen encouraging it at all, since this was a public place where many eyes were upon her.
She knew that it would be misconstrued as a threat if she did. Religions were some of the most major threats entrenched powers could face if not properly co-opted by the state to suit their needs. And here, the 'state' was a military dictatorship billions of years old, ripened with corruption, money, and the immortality of Elders sporting technology beyond any other in the galaxy.
The sky was blue with shields overhead. The Vaquah hung in the distance, its thrusters gently burning to keep it aloft. A trail of shuttles linked the massive ship with several spaceports, including this one. Penny watched the freed Sprilnav get on it one by one, promising themselves to a new life aboard her ship. Technically, they were citizens of the Autonomous Peoples' Stars.
That protection, Penny knew, was why the Vaquah and its innocent inhabitants were still intact. Elders already had hired mercenaries to attack it. They'd failed, thanks to Rimiaha and Penny, but also the defenses of Kashaunta's Grand Fleet when it was in higher orbit. Kashaunta, despite her willingness to use Penny as she would, also had a certain intelligence and empathy. It was highly selective, and only money and power seemed to flip that switch.
But Penny needed the Elder, and Kashaunta only had use for her as an asset. She palmed the new communicator Kashaunta had issued her after the last one's destruction. Kashaunta's hologram appeared. It looked around, noticing the news drones in the air.
"Not here."
"Where?"
"You will know."
In the mindscape, a Sprilnav appeared on Penny's layer. They felt odd to her, almost like the minds of certain humans high up in the hivemind's network. Penny greeted the Sprilnav warmly.
"Hello."
"Queen and Elder Kashaunta requests your presence on her flagship."
"Very well."
In reality, Penny looked around at the crowd. She waited until it dwindled to nothing, and then spoke.
"Displace."
Conceptual energy twisted, and she stood on Kashaunta's flagship, though nearer to the edge than she'd expected. The Elder was waiting for her in an outfit that looked much like pajamas, though they were under a few armor pieces that appeared anything but decorative. Now that Penny noticed it, it was the same sort of armor that Yasihaut had worn to their last encounter, which interfered with conceptual energy. The Sprilnav were highly advanced. She wondered just how far their technology could go. She'd heard mentions of some ships having artificial gravity, and of nanites and programmable matter. But nothing certain.
"Hmm," Kashaunta said, giving Penny a once over. "You have come back. Shall I assume you are still my ally?"
"Nervous, are we?"
"Nervous is what you should be, Penny. The Judgment is coming. Ten days. Indrafabar and Justicar will both be on the court as High Judges. That is not good for us at all. So I figured a bit of prudence was in order. I have thought long and hard about this, and with the great battles of our time so fast approaching, I figure it is time to mend our relationship before the chasm grows any wider."
Kashaunta motioned to a special looking sword sheath on her back. Slowly, she drew a sword. A Soul Blade. Penny began to draw up her armor.
"Oh, I am not wishing for a fight, Penny. I know the damage you could do, even in my sanctum in the sky. Tell me, do you know how Soul Blades are forged?"
"No."
"Good. And tell me, do you know why they draw so much power to swing, even for Elders and beings as capable as us?"
"I have a few theories."
"I am sure you do," Kashaunta said. "But here is the thing. Soul Blades are typically weapons assigned to highly promising Elders, or even Progenitors. Filnatra, undisputed sword master that she is, can wield them as easily as breathing. If I were to swing this blade, there would be no drawback. Why?"
"Because you own that Soul Blade."
"Because this Soul Blade is mine. It is not just something I own. I own around seven or so more Soul Blades, with some weapons nearing their quality lying in my various vaults even now. You did not detect them, because I willed that not to be. I need you to understand this, Penny. You have power. You have might. But you are not invincible. My Soul Blade, if it struck you, would not cutely separate Nilnacrawla or Cardinality from you. Nor would your speeding space entity be able to block this blade with his flesh. If this cut you, it would release unending agony upon you before you exploded in a burst of burnt gore."
Penny sighed. "There is no need to threaten me. Allies do not threaten each other."
"But you do not see me as an ally. You see me as your means to get through the Judgment. You believe I see you as nothing more but a linear singularity maker, and perhaps a passing curiosity I'm backing on a whim. You neglect to imagine that there might be firmer reasons why I back you, and why more Elders are getting drawn into this conflict. You believe I am comfortable with showing you my more pragmatic and ruthless sides because I am comfortable with the fact that you cannot harm me. That you would not dare to do so, when you need my assistance so badly. That I might even be aiming to normalize my 'new' self with you."
"That is hardly my belief alone."
"Is it now."
Kashaunta grinned. There was no warmth in her gaze.
"Nilnacrawla," Kashaunta said. "Cardinality. Exile. Come out and show yourselves. You are being rude as guests."
Exile detached from Penny's head. He grew into the shifting array of fractals and shapes she was more familiar with. What had once grated on her eyes did so no longer. Kashaunta stared at the speeding space entity for ten seconds, then looked back up at Penny.
"He will not work on us. I will cover his form with holograms if he walks through my ship out of courtesy for my workers and crew, if he cannot."
"I am capable, Queen Kashaunta."
"You are quite knowledgable, aren't you?" Kashaunta mused, looking at him hungrily. "Oh, how I wonder what secrets you have in your head. How many of ours do you know?"
"I will not be taken as a hostage," Exile said.
"You will not because I decide not to," Kashaunta said. "Formally, our species are still at war. There is no treaty."
"The Sp'rkial'nova no longer exist."
"Yes, they do," Kashaunta said. "The name was discontinued for use regarding the lesser specimens we created. But I can assure you, Exile, if you wish to go by that name here, that we still do exist. I am a Sp'rkial'nova in the flesh. In the blood. In the mind. In the soul."
"Say what you will, Sprilnav. It changes nothing."
"On that I agree. Though our views on how things are may differ, and yours is wrong, your opinion is not valuable enough to matter."
She turned to Penny. She would have defended Exile, but he gave her a simple shake of his head area.
Nilnacrawla formed out of psychic energy in front of Penny. Cardi did the same beside her. Kashaunta tapped a claw on the ground. Tables and chairs appeared. A chef brought in food that looked passable and a few decent attempts at human cuisine.
"We do not have to eat, though I would expect that all of you at least sit at the table. We will discuss our grievances, and how to solve them before we proceed with the future. We shall first go to the matter of the Alliance. Penny, many in their number wish to establish contact with you. Do you agree to this? If so, I will add their communicator numbers to the translation program I have reserved for your personal use, in case your own device needs another sudden replacement."
"I agree."
"Good. A first step of diplomacy, I would say. Agreement. Now, Nilnacrawla, you look like you have something to say to me. What is it?"
"Free Meridia."
"Meridia was detonated by planet cracker during the 139th Sector 9 Border War. I am sorry more could not be done."
A cold draft of air rushed out of Nilnacrawla's nose. He glared at her. "You let them die."
"I did not. A Grand Fleet was defending that star system, and three came to lay siege. I am many things. A tactician, a queen, an Elder. But I am not a god. I cannot perform miracles. I evacuated 30 billion people from that world and its surrounding stations before the planet crackers hit it. 4 trillion more souls died in that blast. The best I can do is to offer an apology."
"That will never be enough for what you did. If you had never established your nation, they would still be alive."
"They would be slaves. Chattel slaves, not that cute little 'wage slavery' concept privileged people throw around. Perhaps I should remind you just how much darker that reality would have been for your female descendents, specifically. I am a brutal warlord, a dictator with an iron fist. But my claws do not squeeze nearly as tightly as I could. Metrics say that I could extract at least 370% more profit from my people if I simply enslaved them. But despite the shock this may bring to you all, I do have principles. The Autonomous Peoples' Stars are my people. My nation. My empire, if you think I'm imperialist. But I protect them as best I can."
Nilnacrawla's cold anger didn't lessen. Penny placed a calming hand on his front left thigh. He blinked. He let out a long, pained sigh. And he bowed his head to her. Not to Kashaunta, but to Penny.
"There is no need to be cruel."
"My language was accurate, Penny. He is a strong Elder. Everlasting knows he's stronger than most of these fools. Nilnacrawla was and is a hero of the Source war. I respect him enough not to mince words, or to give platitudes. Coddling is for babies. Nilnacrawla is far more mature."
Kashaunta turned to Cardi. "You have been remarkably silent in this, concept."
"I have."
"A wonderfully succinct statement. Perhaps you can shorten it further. But nevertheless, you and I will be working together with Penny much more in the near future. Rest assured, if you refuse to become more independent, you will be nothing more than a crutch for her to rely on before leaving her to fall when you are ripped away."
"When, Elder? I would like to think your protection is sufficient."
"I am sure the truth is quite the opposite, dear. I will now get to the point. Penny needs to move faster, and needs to break out of her shell. She needs to be pushed to do more. She has signed a binding treaty, which shows she is capable of more than barbarian aliens, as some Elders would call her. You, Cardinality, will help her be a high achiever. To do this, you need to learn more about your own history.
That is the theme of the year, after all. History. My history, Penny's history, Sprilnav history, and even Gaia's history, it would seem."
"Gaia? What do they have to do with all of this?" Penny asked.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that."
"Excuse me? You don't get to decide that, Kashaunta. You will tell me. I refuse to be coddled, like you say. I demand the respect I am owed."
"You forget yourself, Penny."
"I remember myself, actually. I am all I need to be. I can become all I need if I must. You can hold your backing against me all you want, but you won't withdraw it. As you said, more binds you and I than mere money and ideology."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I've doomed my species and my nation to war, and this planet to the full power of my wrath."
"Wrath, Penny. Wrath. The Sprilnav have many words for anger, rage, hatred. There is the desire for vengeance, in varying degrees. There is that for justice, which does differ. And that for belonging. I know you believe you are standing up to me as a way to assert your own authority in this relationship of ours. You believe I see you as inferior, and will pull back my help when it is profitable for me. I will not offer you the consequences of what your words could mean.
You already know them, and that argument is as stale as your view on us Elders. I will say this once, Penny. You are the Champion of Humanity. The apex predator of your planet, the only one mostly in charge of an Alliance that does more than merely dream of overthrowing us. It is easy for me to say you are not a threat, though I do not ignore the threat you and your nation are trying to become. Gaia will be a part of your movement, but even my information is not entirely complete. I will not mislead you by claiming I know Gaia's link to this, just that there likely is one.
And I am not unreasonably petty. I am willing to put all our animosity behind us and start anew. Even if you are not willing to do the same, I am willing to make this work for us. You have more people to care for than just the Alliance, now. Do not forget them."
"A lot of words that mean nothing."
"Because you heard, but did not listen. Perhaps it will be easier this way, Penny. I want you to win."
"Explain."
"You wish to overthrow the current Sprilnav led order of the galaxy. Your path to that will likely be through mass slave revolt. A viable strategy that I could spread far beyond just this planet. And I actually agree with you. This Judgment, this utter insanity around the Alliance and your species has shown me the truth. The Elders as a class and a species cannot be trusted to rule any longer. We need new leaders. Better leaders."
"And yourself?"
"As the hypocrite that I am, and the power-hungry ruler of the Sprilnav, I would obviously exclude myself from that number. Let's be realistic. The Sprilnav will never accept a non-Elder ruler. If you wish to see what our insurgencies would be like, imagine the 2090s Struggles of Asia. Expand that to billions of planets, large and small. Countless ships and space stations. We have more collective ships than you have people. And as your military planners know, there is no such thing as an unarmed ship. Without us, without me, your plans are stillborn. Your galactic Alliance or whatever you make will fall to pieces without proper counseling. In essence, my offer to you, and you alone, is this. The galaxy, for the Sprilnav."
"Who backs your offer, with the power to give it?"
Progenitors Lecalicus and Nova appeared in the room.
"I back Kashaunta," Lecalicus wheezed.
"I observe her offer, and wish it a proper outcome," Nova said.
"Thank you, esteemed Progenitors," Kashaunta said, standing just to bow to them. Penny stared at Nova, balling her fists.
"There will be time for battle later," he said. "But not now. Hear out her request. She does not make it lightly."
The Progenitors disappeared.
"If I accept your offer, it will be on a written record."
"No. It will not be, because if that record is written, my nation will be facing war on all sides. A better idea would be for us to keep this under wraps."
"Perfect for betrayal," Nilnacrawla muttered.
"It would be, yes. But consider the second part of this situation, Nilncrawla. If word of this galactic offer, not just the Pact, were to get out, which is why two Progenitors who know the price of interference were called here, it would mean the deaths of Penny and all her kind. Or do you forget what rapidly approaches us?"
Nilnacrawla frowned. "I did. I apologize, Penny."
Kashaunta spoke up again.
"Penny. You believe I will betray you. So I make an offer of collateral. An offer so unbelievably sacred for us Elders that many would recoil at the mere thought of it. Now that you have signed a backed treaty, you are fully qualified."
Kashaunta grabbed her Soul Blade and presented it to Penny.
"What does this mean?"
"Nilnacrawla, tell her," Kashaunta said. "She will trust your mouth more than mine."
"Bonded Soul Blades are priceless artifacts," Nilnacrawla said. "To offer one to another is the ultimate gesture of trust and respect among many martial Sprilnav cultures. It can also allow for a mind bridge, a soul pact, or a proposal for marriage between two great houses, martial families, or Elders of great wealth and power. To offer this to a human... to anyone... is an ultimate sign of backing, and one of trust.
It is a sacrosanct honor, the absolute agreement of speaking truth and respect. The words I can use in any human language are insufficient to describe the weight of this honor. This gesture is one of absolute truth. Family lines with hatred going back millions of years would never dare to violate this honor."
"Only one Elder in history did so, one who once led a group known as the Stannic Resistance. He does so no longer. Penny Balica, Champion of Humanity... if there is nothing else I can give you to prove that I do really back you, there is this."
"...Just how low are my chances in the Judgment for you to resort to this?" Penny asked.
"They are not zero, but your battle with be incredibly difficult even with this boon of mine. The future of the galaxy, I now realize, hinges on the outcome of this. If we do not have enough trust, they will sniff it out, and we will fail."
So she had no choice. But as Nilncrawla continued to explain in her mind, Kashaunta was getting the worse side of the deal. Which meant she was throwing her backing behind Penny for real, beyond all reproach and retraction. Kashaunta, the most powerful Elder in the galaxy.
"And if I reject this gift, or your reasons for it?"
"Circumstances would demand that I kill you and then myself using this blade as a way to cut apart the dishonor, before my remains are dumped into a black hole to be forgotten forever. I would not do this."
"A dark and archaic custom," Penny said. She would have said more, but she looked at Nilnacrawla's face. He was clearly deeply uncomfortable. Her five words had shaken him more than anything she'd ever said to him before.
"You do not understand," Nilnacrawla said. "This is not something to joke or lie about. With a Soul Blade Pact in play, all else must cease. Right now, there is you, and there is her. Accept or decline. The choice, your only choice, is yours."
"How will this look to the Elders in the court? To the Sprilnav, and the people who back me?"
She could see how it would be a boon and a curse.
"You, and I," Kashaunta said. "The whole of the universe between us right now is you and I. No others exist until this one act is done. There will be trust or there will be death. No in between. No middle ground. The nature of this bond will be a Pact of Blades."
Conceptual energy swirled between them. Penny's natural translation, as part of the hivemind, failed for the first time ever. Her communicator likewise did not translate the words Kashaunta spoke.
"Eis nama kaste Penny Balica, sun lanci Dorima Kashaunta. Ko'ri, lanci nupa bes na Dorima'Pecunyanova. Sp'rkial'nova. Sun. Homo Sapiens."
The air grew thick with tension. It was not just emotional, either. Psychic and conceptual energy gathered. The mindscape started to distort as more and more eyes began to view Kashaunta and Penny. But all of them were Sprilnav eyes. All of them were Progenitors. Nova's appeared brightest and largest, nearly six times the size of the next largest pair. They stared at her, sending psychic and conceptual energy down upon her in waves that forced her and Kashaunta to kneel to the ground.
"I apologize for my earlier words," Penny said. "I should not have denigrated this."
Penny stood for an hour, deeply contemplating the Pact. If it was as Nilnacrawla was describing to her, it was a promise that Kashaunta would not break. If she was offering it at all, especially to Penny, it meant she had a level of trust in Penny's capability far above what Penny had previously thought. Apparently, there were even higher agreements than this that were possible, with this Pact being the lowest level of bond and considered unbreakable with the enforcement of consequences coming from the Progenitors themselves.
She thought of her place in Justicar and the wider universe. Hours passed like water. And then, by the end of it, after nearly 19 hours, Penny finally had decided. She gave a short nod to Kashaunta, who had been kneeling to Nova all this time.
Kashaunta gestured at the sword. "Tol, nopa shikai."
Nilnacrawla fed her a few suggestions on what she would need to say.
"I come to this Pact seeking peace, justice, and hope," Penny said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery."
Nilnacrawla translated Kashaunta's next words to her.
"I come to this seeking trust, understanding, respect, and peace," Kashaunta said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery. I make this Pact before the gods, those who equal them, and those who surpass them. I bind them to an oath of silence regarding this event, until I directly instruct them otherwise, in a state of a sound mind, body, and soul. Here, we shall step into a future that needs both of us, casting aside that which is unimportant to focus on the ultimate goals we have. I offer my Blade to Penny Balica, of species Homo Sapiens. In this way, we forge a new future, and walk a new path. I accept the Pact."
"I accept the Pact."
Nova and a hundred Progenitors descended. Nova grew larger, and Kashaunta knelt to him. Penny remained standing. His sharp teeth glittered in the light. He pressed his claws to Penny's chest, and to Kashaunta's chest.
"The Pact of Blades is made before the Progenitors. We agree to your vow of silence. The penalty of breaking it will be dismemberment and disposal into a black hole. Penny Balica, Engineer Kashaunta. To break this Pact without mutual agreement is to call down our collective wrath upon yourselves. You both have agreed, and are of sound mind, body, and soul. The Pact is forged. By sword, by word, by action. I, Nova, Everlasting, Lord of the Progenitors, King of all Sp'rkial'nova, Heir to the Mantle of Power, Heir to Narvravarana, Progenitor, Elder, and Sprilnav, declare the deed done, etched in time, space, and Reality."
They winked out of existence one by one, leaving Penny and Kashaunta alone, to ponder the future. Penny's thoughts turned to the Judgment, and her confidence she could win it began to waver. How much worse was this Judgment going to be than before?
Penny stared at Kashaunta's Soul Blade. With careful fingers, she took it. Kashaunta sat up, satisfied.
"Now we can begin. I shall compile all the news about you I can find, and we shall see how to address the questions the High Judges will ask. Now that you trust me, I cannot betray you."
submitted by Storms_Wrath to HFY [link] [comments]
Ezeonwha was walking down a long hallway. The dry and plain painted walls and the pure white lighting of the lower levels of the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office helped to frame the dingy realities of those who could only afford these floors. Not even capable of having windows, these were for those who were the cheapest of the cheap or those who mingled with them. He'd passed several Guides on the way in, their claws echoing in the halls as a sign of authority in this lawless land.
Here, mediocrity was king, and he was a loyal servant. He drew his cloak closer about his neck, unwilling to reveal himself to those who weren't already equipped to see through it all. He was famous enough to be an abduction target if he let his guard down. This place was no exception, though Justicar tried to make them such. Too much security on the higher levels and too little on the lower levels. That was the way of things.
Another hallway, this one marked with bullet holes. Two contractors and a Guide were discussing the pricing of the fix project when he turned the corner. Their voices quieted to nothing, the stillness pressing down upon them with the same intensity as the false lighting. Ezeonwha clacked his jaws, giving them a low bow before continuing on his way. He saw the Guide's eyes light up with the sign of his implants getting a reading. It was another impromptu way of tracking via facial recognition, but it was an ancient practice.
Nothing was new about what the Guides did; only how many of them seemed to be on general patrol. Had Justicar hired more of them or actually done full conversions for all of them? Those arm cannons surely weren't cheap or ethical to insert into unwilling participants. And giving a victim a gun they couldn't be disarmed of was a very bad idea, even for Elders. And Justicar was better than most Elders when it came to abject stupidity. He'd likely only been dropped a few hundred times as a child versus the more likely Elder average of a few thousand.
Ezeonwha chuckled at his internal joke, heading deeper underground into the complex. He was going to a certain meeting, and it would be best not to be late. Even if the Guides tracked him, it wouldn't be negative. The group he had been approached by a few days ago wasn't a terror group. He'd looked them up. They dealt in 'freedom and liberation from all chains.'
The Eyes Of Liberty had focused upon Penny as their latest propaganda target and perhaps as a valuable ally in their fight against all tyranny. Though such a flowery message was likely steeped in idealism for the lower ranks, with more pragmatic and likely richer inner circle elites and leaders ensuring the pot would always simmer but never boil or grow cold. That was the way movements such as these managed to skirt the line between inaction and terrorism.
It was a dangerous thing to do. But these were dangerous times. If Penny left, he'd die. Someone with a grudge would kill him. It was a given, and he'd made peace with it now. He needed to get to work, to help others like him and those worse off, with just a small piece of the meager time he had left.
He was in the system as a friend of Penny, so little scrutiny would fall on him as he came and went. He had a new friend, one who was very interested in connecting to Penny.
The offer had come through his communicator, and he'd answered it given its interesting title. After a lengthy discussion about their goals for him and Penny, he'd agreed to at least have a meeting. He didn't tell them that he had a tracker from Phoebe, which would 'be impossible to miss' if things went badly. He knew the value he had, which was why one of the androids was also accompanying him under the guise of being a Sprilnav.
The android was 'walking' on all fours, its mechanical motion entirely silent. It was obscured by a wave of holograms and hard light holograms that would ensure that it wouldn't be considered suspicious beside him. His only guard was a capable one, and Phoebe had all the confidence of an AI who knew that the destruction of her android would only be an inconvenience for her.
Ezeonwha came to an unmarked door with a well-worn door frame. One knock. One pause. Two knocks. Another pause. Four knocks. He waited, and the door swung open. Eight Sprilnav greeted him warily but warmly, their eyes shifting to Phoebe.
The inside of the room was a dull red, coming from a pair of lights in the center of the ceiling that cast dark shadows near the edges. The whole room felt dark and dangerous, and the walls were lined with guns, computers, and several drones. Shelves and drawers were neatly stacked against the wall, as well as five couches and four double beds with ladder access to the top portions.
Bags of food rested atop a trash compactor unit, and the room service button on the inner side of the wall that Ezeonwha could see in the mirror was worn down to the raw metal. No paint jobs here, only grit and business. The room faintly smelled of body odor and assorted foods. Not entirely unpleasant, but also not what he'd expected from a group with sich a flamboyant name. Perhaps they worked in cell-based units. And that was another thing.
Minds were visible in the distance of the mindscape, but the people here were huddled together mentally. They appeared to be haphazard, but Ezeonwha recognized an old army-type defensive formation a mere step from each of their positions. They were more than they appeared. Though based on how their room looked, they probably weren't veterans, just decently trained.
As they walked through the doorway, a scanner activated. One of the Sprilnav, wearing a headset with numbers and letters swirling on the inner side of the visor, called out: "Phoebe android. Commando variant. Risk assessment: Certain Death. Ezeonwha. Carrying two pistols, one hidden in the pack on his left, and the other tucked inside a strap near the lower bottom of his chest."
That made them all pause, sizing each other up. Ezeonwha smiled nervously, failing terribly to break the building tension once again. His nerves started to get to him, but finally, Phoebe spoke. "Well, friends. I, for one, am happy to talk of the business of liberty. Tell us, what do you have in mind for my friend Ezeonwha?"
"It is not about him, AI. It is about the freedom all sentient beings deserve, and which we shall bring to the galaxy no matter if we are alive or dead."
"An honorable goal to strive toward," Phoebe said.
"Thank you. Your words are quite kind for your type."
"I didn't know I had one," Phoebe replied. "But thank you."
Ezeonwha turned his head toward the Sprilnav with all the fancy equipment.
"What is the best way for me and Penny to help in the fight?"
"The best way would be for you to start killing the gang leaders you come across. Barring that, have Penny ignore the graveyards, and continue freeing the slaves as she ought to. The dead have their freedom; the living need her work more."
"I agree with my companion," another of them said. "So far, Penny has done more for the fight for justice than any other on Justicar in generations, so it is a terrible thing to ask more, but we must ask. Even knowing the terrible toll it would have if she loses the Judgment, Sprilnav are at stake."
"People are at stake, you mean," Ezeonwha said. "There is no need to bring species into this."
"There would not be, but it is still a clear factor," another of them said, a female who looked more shifty in her gaze and demeanor. The Eyes of Liberty seemed like one of those groups with too much division.
"Do you disagree with each other often?" Ezeonwha asked innocently.
"Here and there," the tech guy said. "Not often enough to be a problem, and not when what matters is at stake."
"But that is the thing. How can you agree on when something that matters is a stake?"
"Is this a test?"
"Why would it be? Think of it as a genuine concern," Ezeonwha said. "To associate with your group, I have to be certain it will be resilient to change and risks escalating in the future. If the gangs cannot strike at Penny, they will pick the next best targets. Currently, that is me. If I associate with you in a way they can find out, and I assure you they will find out eventually, you all may be at risk as well. And your group's seemingly cell-based design also means large scale mobilization is difficult, ineffective, and risks severe coordination issues which cannot be quickly or safely remedied without changing core security features of it."
"You deduced all of that from context? You are smart, Ezeonwha. And have a good brain in your head. Everlasting knows we need one of those between all of us."
They all shared a laugh.
"I am not as young as I may look," Ezeonwha said. "Penny is not properly learned of the danger that faces us here. I am. The Underground will kill me when this is over. Do you want to die alongside me, all for your beliefs?"
Silence descended again. Ezeonwha kept the pressure on them when one of them stepped forward. "For freedom and liberty? Yes. I would die for that."
"As would I."
"And I."
They all declared the rest in orders that followed the patterns Ezeonwha was noticing. There were variances in their levels of belief and faith in their purpose. Each person had a different level of value difference, which meant that their lives would be worth more or less comparatively.
Cohesion was weaker, too. Not a full defector team, but likely pieces of several. Was that by design from a higher up leader, or was that just circumstance? Another thing to figure out later, that wasn't critical yet, but he would know before he truly went on any missions with them, if he did at all.
He suspected running messages to Penny would be the majority of their tasks. The quality of intelligence the Eyes of Liberty had offered was substantial. Perhaps enough for Penny to turn herself from a major annoyance to the gangs into an actual existential threat. With Justicar's swarming protection of the Fort Court and the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office, there was a limited amount of things that even the gangs could do. And if the rumors were correct, a Progenitor would be partaking in the trial.
"To be clear, if I join up with you, Phoebe would come too."
"Why would we let an AI join us?"
Phoebe smiled. "Without me, you'll die in this fight. You have trained for around 2000 days. You're acceptable combatants, as is Ezeonwha. But you are fighting in a city, and underneath it. You need to know how to keep a low profile. You need to know how to move through a crowd, get in and out. And you need to keep collateral damage to a zero, or the gangs will use you like they have others who had your purpose and were less careful to justify their 'protection' continuing. If you march in there and kill 50 slavers, if you kill a few slaves or a single bystander in the process, your credibility will be smeared. And frankly, with me on your team, you won't get blown up by an IED when you try clearing your first room in a fortress."
"IED?" One of them asked, while the rest digested her statement, going through various levels of offended looks.
"Your translator is too cheap. Improvised explosive device. Here, that can be old engines, reused oil, cracked plastic, frictional fuel bombs, circuit extruders, sodium splash grenades, as well as the more military style attacks they can pack, from small micro rockets all the way up to lower level fission or fusion bombs. Though if you're in a fight with those things involved, you're already dead."
"Why?"
"Because unless you're Elders, or holograms, a nuke will kill you whether you're right next to it or just inside the same shield. They concentrate the thermal pulse, so your bones would be ash before the pain hit your eyes."
"And what protection could you bring against that?"
"Telling you it's there before you start the attack. That is, if you listen to me. I value your lives over that of this android, but also I value Ezeonwha over all of you combined. I will not prevent him from doing this, but I will have you all know the risks involved."
"We are prepared, Phoebe. We have done much of the training you say, though we do not believe the gangs would plant explosive devices in their own fortresses. There is too much risk around that, with betrayals so common. However, the minefields we have scouted are easy to defeat with the right tactics. Perhaps you can give us a briefing on those, too?"
A challenge.
"I can, depending on how long you wish to do this for. But I have the stamina for either hours or weeks, depending on which you choose."
"What of your batteries?"
"They are of sufficient quality," Phoebe assured.
"I hope so."
Their tech guy nodded, more numbers flashing on his visor. Ezeonwha hoped he had a different way of display, like through an implant or something, for the missions in darker areas. The Underground was, by its name, not a place where much natural light was to be found. And the gangs controlled all the power systems in their territory. It was another part of the racket.
"Why aren't you guarding Penny?"
Phoebe's back straightened, a subconscious posture change to make her seem more confident. Ezeonwha caught the tactic for what it was, though without extensive knowledge of bipedal forms, it was less likely the surrounding Sprilnav knew it.
"Penny proved before a trillion eyes she's capable of fighting Elders, Progenitors, and a Dreadnaught Captain. Not to mention her immense power. I can shoot bullets, but she can literally snatch them out of the air and eat them. She has her own way of doing things, and it is a good way."
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Penny landed in the rubble and headed for the Vaquah with a trail of survivors behind her. Many of them, she could recognize the marks of slavery on, with numbers or brands on their skin or just the trauma crouching in their eyes dulled by the pain of a long life in a work camp. Penny went through the wreckage to the shield surrounding the rubble and the defining line between the rest of the city and the destruction. Several news drones flew above her.
More were arriving from various directions. The soft footsteps grew into a constant drumming sound, like a beating heart of doom. Penny marched with them, heading to the spaceport. A large medical operation there quickly rerouted many of its various branches to the most injured freed slaves.
Penny pressed her considerable psychic energy on the entire group, accelerating their healing, slowing bleeding, and generally repairing their bodies and cells from the trauma they'd suffered. But the cloud over their heads did not brighten. The atmosphere remained tense and mournful. Many of them had lost friends, family, and more. She had no right to ask them to feel any different.
She had freed them, that was all. They were not her servants. She was not their ruler.
Several of them came up to her, offering thanks in the small ways they could. Kind words. Attempts at hugs. Even offers of devout prayer and worship, which Penny respectfully declined. She knew, as did most of them, that veneration for her deeds was inevitable. She didn't want to be seen encouraging it at all, since this was a public place where many eyes were upon her.
She knew that it would be misconstrued as a threat if she did. Religions were some of the most major threats entrenched powers could face if not properly co-opted by the state to suit their needs. And here, the 'state' was a military dictatorship billions of years old, ripened with corruption, money, and the immortality of Elders sporting technology beyond any other in the galaxy.
The sky was blue with shields overhead. The Vaquah hung in the distance, its thrusters gently burning to keep it aloft. A trail of shuttles linked the massive ship with several spaceports, including this one. Penny watched the freed Sprilnav get on it one by one, promising themselves to a new life aboard her ship. Technically, they were citizens of the Autonomous Peoples' Stars.
That protection, Penny knew, was why the Vaquah and its innocent inhabitants were still intact. Elders already had hired mercenaries to attack it. They'd failed, thanks to Rimiaha and Penny, but also the defenses of Kashaunta's Grand Fleet when it was in higher orbit. Kashaunta, despite her willingness to use Penny as she would, also had a certain intelligence and empathy. It was highly selective, and only money and power seemed to flip that switch.
But Penny needed the Elder, and Kashaunta only had use for her as an asset. She palmed the new communicator Kashaunta had issued her after the last one's destruction. Kashaunta's hologram appeared. It looked around, noticing the news drones in the air.
"Not here."
"Where?"
"You will know."
In the mindscape, a Sprilnav appeared on Penny's layer. They felt odd to her, almost like the minds of certain humans high up in the hivemind's network. Penny greeted the Sprilnav warmly.
"Hello."
"Queen and Elder Kashaunta requests your presence on her flagship."
"Very well."
In reality, Penny looked around at the crowd. She waited until it dwindled to nothing, and then spoke.
"Displace."
Conceptual energy twisted, and she stood on Kashaunta's flagship, though nearer to the edge than she'd expected. The Elder was waiting for her in an outfit that looked much like pajamas, though they were under a few armor pieces that appeared anything but decorative. Now that Penny noticed it, it was the same sort of armor that Yasihaut had worn to their last encounter, which interfered with conceptual energy. The Sprilnav were highly advanced. She wondered just how far their technology could go. She'd heard mentions of some ships having artificial gravity, and of nanites and programmable matter. But nothing certain.
"Hmm," Kashaunta said, giving Penny a once over. "You have come back. Shall I assume you are still my ally?"
"Nervous, are we?"
"Nervous is what you should be, Penny. The Judgment is coming. Ten days. Indrafabar and Justicar will both be on the court as High Judges. That is not good for us at all. So I figured a bit of prudence was in order. I have thought long and hard about this, and with the great battles of our time so fast approaching, I figure it is time to mend our relationship before the chasm grows any wider."
Kashaunta motioned to a special looking sword sheath on her back. Slowly, she drew a sword. A Soul Blade. Penny began to draw up her armor.
"Oh, I am not wishing for a fight, Penny. I know the damage you could do, even in my sanctum in the sky. Tell me, do you know how Soul Blades are forged?"
"No."
"Good. And tell me, do you know why they draw so much power to swing, even for Elders and beings as capable as us?"
"I have a few theories."
"I am sure you do," Kashaunta said. "But here is the thing. Soul Blades are typically weapons assigned to highly promising Elders, or even Progenitors. Filnatra, undisputed sword master that she is, can wield them as easily as breathing. If I were to swing this blade, there would be no drawback. Why?"
"Because you own that Soul Blade."
"Because this Soul Blade is mine. It is not just something I own. I own around seven or so more Soul Blades, with some weapons nearing their quality lying in my various vaults even now. You did not detect them, because I willed that not to be. I need you to understand this, Penny. You have power. You have might. But you are not invincible. My Soul Blade, if it struck you, would not cutely separate Nilnacrawla or Cardinality from you. Nor would your speeding space entity be able to block this blade with his flesh. If this cut you, it would release unending agony upon you before you exploded in a burst of burnt gore."
Penny sighed. "There is no need to threaten me. Allies do not threaten each other."
"But you do not see me as an ally. You see me as your means to get through the Judgment. You believe I see you as nothing more but a linear singularity maker, and perhaps a passing curiosity I'm backing on a whim. You neglect to imagine that there might be firmer reasons why I back you, and why more Elders are getting drawn into this conflict. You believe I am comfortable with showing you my more pragmatic and ruthless sides because I am comfortable with the fact that you cannot harm me. That you would not dare to do so, when you need my assistance so badly. That I might even be aiming to normalize my 'new' self with you."
"That is hardly my belief alone."
"Is it now."
Kashaunta grinned. There was no warmth in her gaze.
"Nilnacrawla," Kashaunta said. "Cardinality. Exile. Come out and show yourselves. You are being rude as guests."
Exile detached from Penny's head. He grew into the shifting array of fractals and shapes she was more familiar with. What had once grated on her eyes did so no longer. Kashaunta stared at the speeding space entity for ten seconds, then looked back up at Penny.
"He will not work on us. I will cover his form with holograms if he walks through my ship out of courtesy for my workers and crew, if he cannot."
"I am capable, Queen Kashaunta."
"You are quite knowledgable, aren't you?" Kashaunta mused, looking at him hungrily. "Oh, how I wonder what secrets you have in your head. How many of ours do you know?"
"I will not be taken as a hostage," Exile said.
"You will not because I decide not to," Kashaunta said. "Formally, our species are still at war. There is no treaty."
"The Sp'rkial'nova no longer exist."
"Yes, they do," Kashaunta said. "The name was discontinued for use regarding the lesser specimens we created. But I can assure you, Exile, if you wish to go by that name here, that we still do exist. I am a Sp'rkial'nova in the flesh. In the blood. In the mind. In the soul."
"Say what you will, Sprilnav. It changes nothing."
"On that I agree. Though our views on how things are may differ, and yours is wrong, your opinion is not valuable enough to matter."
She turned to Penny. She would have defended Exile, but he gave her a simple shake of his head area.
Nilnacrawla formed out of psychic energy in front of Penny. Cardi did the same beside her. Kashaunta tapped a claw on the ground. Tables and chairs appeared. A chef brought in food that looked passable and a few decent attempts at human cuisine.
"We do not have to eat, though I would expect that all of you at least sit at the table. We will discuss our grievances, and how to solve them before we proceed with the future. We shall first go to the matter of the Alliance. Penny, many in their number wish to establish contact with you. Do you agree to this? If so, I will add their communicator numbers to the translation program I have reserved for your personal use, in case your own device needs another sudden replacement."
"I agree."
"Good. A first step of diplomacy, I would say. Agreement. Now, Nilnacrawla, you look like you have something to say to me. What is it?"
"Free Meridia."
"Meridia was detonated by planet cracker during the 139th Sector 9 Border War. I am sorry more could not be done."
A cold draft of air rushed out of Nilnacrawla's nose. He glared at her. "You let them die."
"I did not. A Grand Fleet was defending that star system, and three came to lay siege. I am many things. A tactician, a queen, an Elder. But I am not a god. I cannot perform miracles. I evacuated 30 billion people from that world and its surrounding stations before the planet crackers hit it. 4 trillion more souls died in that blast. The best I can do is to offer an apology."
"That will never be enough for what you did. If you had never established your nation, they would still be alive."
"They would be slaves. Chattel slaves, not that cute little 'wage slavery' concept privileged people throw around. Perhaps I should remind you just how much darker that reality would have been for your female descendents, specifically. I am a brutal warlord, a dictator with an iron fist. But my claws do not squeeze nearly as tightly as I could. Metrics say that I could extract at least 370% more profit from my people if I simply enslaved them. But despite the shock this may bring to you all, I do have principles. The Autonomous Peoples' Stars are my people. My nation. My empire, if you think I'm imperialist. But I protect them as best I can."
Nilnacrawla's cold anger didn't lessen. Penny placed a calming hand on his front left thigh. He blinked. He let out a long, pained sigh. And he bowed his head to her. Not to Kashaunta, but to Penny.
"There is no need to be cruel."
"My language was accurate, Penny. He is a strong Elder. Everlasting knows he's stronger than most of these fools. Nilnacrawla was and is a hero of the Source war. I respect him enough not to mince words, or to give platitudes. Coddling is for babies. Nilnacrawla is far more mature."
Kashaunta turned to Cardi. "You have been remarkably silent in this, concept."
"I have."
"A wonderfully succinct statement. Perhaps you can shorten it further. But nevertheless, you and I will be working together with Penny much more in the near future. Rest assured, if you refuse to become more independent, you will be nothing more than a crutch for her to rely on before leaving her to fall when you are ripped away."
"When, Elder? I would like to think your protection is sufficient."
"I am sure the truth is quite the opposite, dear. I will now get to the point. Penny needs to move faster, and needs to break out of her shell. She needs to be pushed to do more. She has signed a binding treaty, which shows she is capable of more than barbarian aliens, as some Elders would call her. You, Cardinality, will help her be a high achiever. To do this, you need to learn more about your own history.
That is the theme of the year, after all. History. My history, Penny's history, Sprilnav history, and even Gaia's history, it would seem."
"Gaia? What do they have to do with all of this?" Penny asked.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that."
"Excuse me? You don't get to decide that, Kashaunta. You will tell me. I refuse to be coddled, like you say. I demand the respect I am owed."
"You forget yourself, Penny."
"I remember myself, actually. I am all I need to be. I can become all I need if I must. You can hold your backing against me all you want, but you won't withdraw it. As you said, more binds you and I than mere money and ideology."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I've doomed my species and my nation to war, and this planet to the full power of my wrath."
"Wrath, Penny. Wrath. The Sprilnav have many words for anger, rage, hatred. There is the desire for vengeance, in varying degrees. There is that for justice, which does differ. And that for belonging. I know you believe you are standing up to me as a way to assert your own authority in this relationship of ours. You believe I see you as inferior, and will pull back my help when it is profitable for me. I will not offer you the consequences of what your words could mean.
You already know them, and that argument is as stale as your view on us Elders. I will say this once, Penny. You are the Champion of Humanity. The apex predator of your planet, the only one mostly in charge of an Alliance that does more than merely dream of overthrowing us. It is easy for me to say you are not a threat, though I do not ignore the threat you and your nation are trying to become. Gaia will be a part of your movement, but even my information is not entirely complete. I will not mislead you by claiming I know Gaia's link to this, just that there likely is one.
And I am not unreasonably petty. I am willing to put all our animosity behind us and start anew. Even if you are not willing to do the same, I am willing to make this work for us. You have more people to care for than just the Alliance, now. Do not forget them."
"A lot of words that mean nothing."
"Because you heard, but did not listen. Perhaps it will be easier this way, Penny. I want you to win."
"Explain."
"You wish to overthrow the current Sprilnav led order of the galaxy. Your path to that will likely be through mass slave revolt. A viable strategy that I could spread far beyond just this planet. And I actually agree with you. This Judgment, this utter insanity around the Alliance and your species has shown me the truth. The Elders as a class and a species cannot be trusted to rule any longer. We need new leaders. Better leaders."
"And yourself?"
"As the hypocrite that I am, and the power-hungry ruler of the Sprilnav, I would obviously exclude myself from that number. Let's be realistic. The Sprilnav will never accept a non-Elder ruler. If you wish to see what our insurgencies would be like, imagine the 2090s Struggles of Asia. Expand that to billions of planets, large and small. Countless ships and space stations. We have more collective ships than you have people. And as your military planners know, there is no such thing as an unarmed ship. Without us, without me, your plans are stillborn. Your galactic Alliance or whatever you make will fall to pieces without proper counseling. In essence, my offer to you, and you alone, is this. The galaxy, for the Sprilnav."
"Who backs your offer, with the power to give it?"
Progenitors Lecalicus and Nova appeared in the room.
"I back Kashaunta," Lecalicus wheezed.
"I observe her offer, and wish it a proper outcome," Nova said.
"Thank you, esteemed Progenitors," Kashaunta said, standing just to bow to them. Penny stared at Nova, balling her fists.
"There will be time for battle later," he said. "But not now. Hear out her request. She does not make it lightly."
The Progenitors disappeared.
"If I accept your offer, it will be on a written record."
"No. It will not be, because if that record is written, my nation will be facing war on all sides. A better idea would be for us to keep this under wraps."
"Perfect for betrayal," Nilnacrawla muttered.
"It would be, yes. But consider the second part of this situation, Nilncrawla. If word of this galactic offer, not just the Pact, were to get out, which is why two Progenitors who know the price of interference were called here, it would mean the deaths of Penny and all her kind. Or do you forget what rapidly approaches us?"
Nilnacrawla frowned. "I did. I apologize, Penny."
Kashaunta spoke up again.
"Penny. You believe I will betray you. So I make an offer of collateral. An offer so unbelievably sacred for us Elders that many would recoil at the mere thought of it. Now that you have signed a backed treaty, you are fully qualified."
Kashaunta grabbed her Soul Blade and presented it to Penny.
"What does this mean?"
"Nilnacrawla, tell her," Kashaunta said. "She will trust your mouth more than mine."
"Bonded Soul Blades are priceless artifacts," Nilnacrawla said. "To offer one to another is the ultimate gesture of trust and respect among many martial Sprilnav cultures. It can also allow for a mind bridge, a soul pact, or a proposal for marriage between two great houses, martial families, or Elders of great wealth and power. To offer this to a human... to anyone... is an ultimate sign of backing, and one of trust.
It is a sacrosanct honor, the absolute agreement of speaking truth and respect. The words I can use in any human language are insufficient to describe the weight of this honor. This gesture is one of absolute truth. Family lines with hatred going back millions of years would never dare to violate this honor."
"Only one Elder in history did so, one who once led a group known as the Stannic Resistance. He does so no longer. Penny Balica, Champion of Humanity... if there is nothing else I can give you to prove that I do really back you, there is this."
"...Just how low are my chances in the Judgment for you to resort to this?" Penny asked.
"They are not zero, but your battle with be incredibly difficult even with this boon of mine. The future of the galaxy, I now realize, hinges on the outcome of this. If we do not have enough trust, they will sniff it out, and we will fail."
So she had no choice. But as Nilncrawla continued to explain in her mind, Kashaunta was getting the worse side of the deal. Which meant she was throwing her backing behind Penny for real, beyond all reproach and retraction. Kashaunta, the most powerful Elder in the galaxy.
"And if I reject this gift, or your reasons for it?"
"Circumstances would demand that I kill you and then myself using this blade as a way to cut apart the dishonor, before my remains are dumped into a black hole to be forgotten forever. I would not do this."
"A dark and archaic custom," Penny said. She would have said more, but she looked at Nilnacrawla's face. He was clearly deeply uncomfortable. Her five words had shaken him more than anything she'd ever said to him before.
"You do not understand," Nilnacrawla said. "This is not something to joke or lie about. With a Soul Blade Pact in play, all else must cease. Right now, there is you, and there is her. Accept or decline. The choice, your only choice, is yours."
"How will this look to the Elders in the court? To the Sprilnav, and the people who back me?"
She could see how it would be a boon and a curse.
"You, and I," Kashaunta said. "The whole of the universe between us right now is you and I. No others exist until this one act is done. There will be trust or there will be death. No in between. No middle ground. The nature of this bond will be a Pact of Blades."
Conceptual energy swirled between them. Penny's natural translation, as part of the hivemind, failed for the first time ever. Her communicator likewise did not translate the words Kashaunta spoke.
"Eis nama kaste Penny Balica, sun lanci Dorima Kashaunta. Ko'ri, lanci nupa bes na Dorima'Pecunyanova. Sp'rkial'nova. Sun. Homo Sapiens."
The air grew thick with tension. It was not just emotional, either. Psychic and conceptual energy gathered. The mindscape started to distort as more and more eyes began to view Kashaunta and Penny. But all of them were Sprilnav eyes. All of them were Progenitors. Nova's appeared brightest and largest, nearly six times the size of the next largest pair. They stared at her, sending psychic and conceptual energy down upon her in waves that forced her and Kashaunta to kneel to the ground.
"I apologize for my earlier words," Penny said. "I should not have denigrated this."
Penny stood for an hour, deeply contemplating the Pact. If it was as Nilnacrawla was describing to her, it was a promise that Kashaunta would not break. If she was offering it at all, especially to Penny, it meant she had a level of trust in Penny's capability far above what Penny had previously thought. Apparently, there were even higher agreements than this that were possible, with this Pact being the lowest level of bond and considered unbreakable with the enforcement of consequences coming from the Progenitors themselves.
She thought of her place in Justicar and the wider universe. Hours passed like water. And then, by the end of it, after nearly 19 hours, Penny finally had decided. She gave a short nod to Kashaunta, who had been kneeling to Nova all this time.
Kashaunta gestured at the sword. "Tol, nopa shikai."
Nilnacrawla fed her a few suggestions on what she would need to say.
"I come to this Pact seeking peace, justice, and hope," Penny said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery."
Nilnacrawla translated Kashaunta's next words to her.
"I come to this seeking trust, understanding, respect, and peace," Kashaunta said. "And a promise not to betray one another, by lies or by treachery. I make this Pact before the gods, those who equal them, and those who surpass them. I bind them to an oath of silence regarding this event, until I directly instruct them otherwise, in a state of a sound mind, body, and soul. Here, we shall step into a future that needs both of us, casting aside that which is unimportant to focus on the ultimate goals we have. I offer my Blade to Penny Balica, of species Homo Sapiens. In this way, we forge a new future, and walk a new path. I accept the Pact."
"I accept the Pact."
Nova and a hundred Progenitors descended. Nova grew larger, and Kashaunta knelt to him. Penny remained standing. His sharp teeth glittered in the light. He pressed his claws to Penny's chest, and to Kashaunta's chest.
"The Pact of Blades is made before the Progenitors. We agree to your vow of silence. The penalty of breaking it will be dismemberment and disposal into a black hole. Penny Balica, Engineer Kashaunta. To break this Pact without mutual agreement is to call down our collective wrath upon yourselves. You both have agreed, and are of sound mind, body, and soul. The Pact is forged. By sword, by word, by action. I, Nova, Everlasting, Lord of the Progenitors, King of all Sp'rkial'nova, Heir to the Mantle of Power, Heir to Narvravarana, Progenitor, Elder, and Sprilnav, declare the deed done, etched in time, space, and Reality."
They winked out of existence one by one, leaving Penny and Kashaunta alone, to ponder the future. Penny's thoughts turned to the Judgment, and her confidence she could win it began to waver. How much worse was this Judgment going to be than before?
Penny stared at Kashaunta's Soul Blade. With careful fingers, she took it. Kashaunta sat up, satisfied.
"Now we can begin. I shall compile all the news about you I can find, and we shall see how to address the questions the High Judges will ask. Now that you trust me, I cannot betray you."
2024.05.15 04:33 notlegendarry [H] 200+ Steam Games/DLC, TF2 Keys [W] Games, Paypal, Offers
If you have a game list, comment/link it down below and I can take a look at it.
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
submitted by notlegendarry to GameTrade [link] [comments]
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
2024.05.15 04:33 notlegendarry [H] 200+ Steam Games/DLC, TF2 Keys [W] Games, Paypal, Offers
If you have a game list, comment/link it down below and I can take a look at it.
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
submitted by notlegendarry to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
2024.05.15 04:33 notlegendarry [H] 200+ Steam Games/DLC, TF2 Keys [W] Games, Paypal, Offers
If you have a game list, comment/link it down below and I can take a look at it.
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
submitted by notlegendarry to SteamGameSwap [link] [comments]
My REP Page
112 Operator
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
911 Operator
A New Beginning - Final Cut
A Plague Tale: Innocence
AER Memories of Old
Adom
Aegis Defenders
Age of Wonders III
Ageless
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
All You Can Eat
As Far as the Eye
Atomicrops
Automachef
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Bad North: Jotunn Edition
Banners of Ruin
Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
Batman: Arkham Origins
Bee Simulator
Beyond the Wire
Black Book
Black Future '88
Black Skylands
Bloodstained
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3: Directors Cut
Boreal Blade
Broken Age
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Bravery Pack
Call of Duty®: WWII - Call of Duty Endowment Fear Not Pack
Carto
Cepheus Protocol
Children of Morta
Command and Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin)
Corridor Z
Crowntakers
Crying Suns
Curse of the Dead Gods
Cyber Hook
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Darkest Dungeon Shieldbreaker DLC
Deadly Days
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Deep Rock Galactic
Desolate
DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
Dirt 5
Dirt Rally
Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
Disjunction (GOG Launcher)
Doom Eternal SE
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
ENCODYA (GOG)
EarthNight
Eastside Hockey Manager
Effie
Elderborn
Electrician Simulator
Endless Space 2
Endless Space® - Collection
Endzone - A World Apart
FALLOUT 76 (Steam Key)
FRAMED Collection
FRIENDS VS FRIENDS
Fling to the Finish
For The King
Fort Triumph
Frostpunk: The Rifts DLC
Fun with Ragdolls
Fury Unleashed
GARAGE: Bad Trip
GOLDEN LIGHT
GRIME
GameGuru
Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
Going Under
Gold Rush! Classic
Golf With Your Friends - OST
Gonner
Gunscape
Guts and Glory
HERO'S HOUR
HIJAC (Honey I Joined a Cult)
Hammerting
Heaven's Vault
Hedon Bloodrite
Hero Siege Complete
Hiveswap Friendsim
House Flipper
If Found....
Ikenfell
Iris and the Giant
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
John Wick Hex
Juno: New Origins
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe Dinosaur Pack
Katana Zero
Kerbal Space Program
Kill It With Fire
Killsquad
Kingdom Classic
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Treasures of The Past
Kingdom Two Crowns
Knights of Pen and Paper 2
Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
Last Oasis
Legend of Keepers
Lovecraft's Untold Stories
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mad Max
Man of Medan
Maneater
Max Payne 3 (GOG Launcher)
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star
Mobius Front '83
Moon Hunters
Narita Boy
Neon Abyss
Newt One
Nex Machina
Nimbatus The Space Drone Constructor
No Time to Explain Remastered
Not For Broadcast
Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet
OTHERCIDE
Orbital Racer
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Out of Space
Outward - Soundtrack
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks
Overlord II
PGA TOUR 2K21
Panzer Paladin
Paradise Killer
Partisans 1941
Path of Giants
Paw Paw Paw
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Pesterquest
Phoenix Point Year One Edition
Planet Coaster - World's Fair Pack
Planet of the Eyes
Plunge
Police Stories
Popup Dungeon
Project Wingman
Project Winter
Quantum Break
Radio Commander
Railway Empire
Realpolitiks
Regular Human Basketball
Remnants of Naezith
Ring of Pain
Rise of Industry
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
Rover Mechanic Simulator
Rustler
Ryse: Son of Rome
Röki
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
SUPERHOT
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
Saints Row
Secret Neighbor
Shing!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Simple Rockets 2
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Snowtopia
StarCrossed
Starbound
Still There
Streets of Fury EX
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Supraland
Swag & Sorcery
Sword Legacy Omen
Syberia 3
THRONEBREAKER: THE WITCHER TALES
TOHU
Tabletop Playground
Terraformers
Textorcist
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Ascent
The Ball
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Surge 2
The Survivalists
This War of Mine
Timelie
Tools Up!
Tooth and Tail
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Train Station Renovation
Tribes of Midgard
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Vertiginous Golf
Victoria 3
Voidigo
WARSAW
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
WWE 2K Battlegrounds (EU Key)
Wargroove
We Need to Go Deeper
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
West of Dead
When Ski Lifts Goes Wrong
Wingspan
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack DLC
X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
XCOM® 2: Reinforcement Pack
XCOM® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Yakuza 3
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Yes, Your Grace
Yoku's Island Express
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
[Want]
Game Offers
Paypal
Midnight Fight Express
Nobody Saves the World
Lords and Villeins
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Chaotic Great Edition
The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice Edition
Yakuza 4 Remastered
Marvel's Midnight Suns
2024.05.15 04:13 Papa_Bear_20 Glory Hole Falls -Arkansas
 | Waterfall coming through a hole in the rock about 20ft tall submitted by Papa_Bear_20 to Waterfalls [link] [comments] |
2024.05.15 02:52 ashtonguy 5 VR GAMES 25% OFF Some might be used up so please tell me which ones those are
After The Fall https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2160364850746031/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Assassins Creed Nexus Vr https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5812519008825194/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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Another Fisherman’s Tale https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/4543286815791830/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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Beat Saber https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2448060205267927/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Blade And Sorcery Nomad https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2031826350263349/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Breachers https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5740397619319389/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Barbaria https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5296016923775393/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Battle Glide https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/9685315748175636/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Black Hole Pool https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/3692779304142039/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Black Top Hoops https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/4416817901687071/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Broken Edge https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5136958036416423/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Contractors https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2436897736439055/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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Death Horizon Reloaded https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2115015981923610/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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Green Hell VR https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/3815577785147028/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Into The Radius https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5817243991680545/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Job Simulator https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/3235570703151406/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/2010043642376517/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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Little Cities https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/4988470131168299/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
Medieval Dynasty New Settlement https://www.oculus.com/appreferrals/KingSlayer0012/5900444653303887/?utm_source=oculus&utm_location=2&utm_parent=frl&utm_medium=app_referral
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2024.05.15 02:40 ShiftYourReality How to Escape the Confines of Time and Space According to the CIA (The Gateway Experience)
In the ’80s, the spy agency investigated the "Gateway Experience" technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime.
The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience, which is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to alter consciousness and ultimately escape the restrictions of time and space.
The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time, including the theory of applications of remote viewing, which is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified and are available to view.
This is a comprehensive excavation of The Gateway Process report. The first section provides a timeline of the key historical developments that led to the CIA’s investigation and subsequent experimentations. The second section is a review of The Gateway Process report. It opens with a wall of theoretical context, on the other side of which lies enough understanding to begin to grasp the principles underlying the Gateway Experience training. The last section outlines the Gateway technique itself and the steps that go into achieving spacetime transcendence.
Let’s go.
THE TIMELINE
• 1950s - Robert Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive, begins producing evidence that specific sound patterns have identifiable effects on human capabilities. These include alertness, sleepiness, and expanded states of consciousness.
• 1956 - Monroe forms an R&D division inside his radio program production corporation RAM Enterprises. The goal is to study sound’s effect on human consciousness. He was obsessed with “Sleep-Learning," or hypnopedia, which exposes sleepers to sound recordings to boost memory of previously learned information.
• 1958 - While experimenting with Sleep-Learning, Monroe discovers an unusual phenomenon. He describes it as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by bright light. It allegedly happens nine times over the proceeding six weeks, and culminates in an out-of-body experience (OBE).
• 1962 - RAM Enterprises moves to Virginia, and renames itself Monroe Industries. It becomes active in radio station ownership, cable television, and later in the production and sale of audio cassettes. These cassettes contain applied learnings from the corporate research program, which is renamed The Monroe Institute.
• 1971 - Monroe publishes Journeys Out of the Body, a book that is credited with popularizing the term “out-of-body experience.”
• 1972 - A classified report circulates in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. It claims that the Soviet Union is pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis for espionage purposes.
• 1975 - Monroe registers the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronized. Monroe dubs the state "Hemi-Sync" (hemispheric synchronization), and claims it could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness.
• 1978 to 1984 - Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle contributes to 450 remote viewing missions under Project Stargate. He is known as “Remote View No. 1”.
• June 9th, 1983 - The CIA report "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" is produced. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind.
• 1989 - Remote viewer Angela Dellafiora Ford helps track down a former customs agent who has gone on the run. She pinpoints his location as “Lowell, Wyoming”. U.S. Customs apprehend him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.
• 2003 - The CIA approves declassification of the Gateway Process report.
• 2017 - The CIA declassifies 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Stargate.
THE REPORT
Personnel
The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, hereon referred to simply as Wayne. There isn’t a tremendous amount of information available on the man, nor any photographs. In 1983, Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable American-Israeli scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.
A scientific approach
From the outset of the report, Wayne states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:
• A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process.
• Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
• Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
• Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation).
Methodological frames of reference
Before diving into the Gateway Experience, Wayne develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies. He’s basically saying, there’s no way you’re going to get through The Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.
1) He begins with hypnosis. The language is extremely dense, but the basic gist is as follows: the left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data direct, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.
2) Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation. He distinguishes it from hypnotism. Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 - 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David’s Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)
3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices. Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.
The Gateway mechanics
With that, Wayne takes a first stab at the Gateway process. He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”
What distinguishes the Gateway process from hypnosis, TM, and biofeedback, is that it requires achieving a state of consciousness in which the electrical brain patterns of both hemispheres are equal in amplitude and frequency. This is called Hemi-Sync. Lamentably, and perhaps conveniently, we cannot as humans achieve this state on our own. The audio techniques developed by Bob Monroe and his Institute (which are comprised as a series of tapes). claim to induce and sustain Hemi-Sync.
Wayne employs the analogy of a lamp versus a laser. Left to its own devices the human mind expends energy like a lamp, in a chaotic and incoherent way, achieving lots of diffusion but relatively little depth. Under Hemi-Sync though, the mind produces a “disciplined stream of light.” So, once the frequency and amplitude of the brain are rendered coherent it can then synchronize with the rarified energy levels of the universe. With this connection intact, the brain begins to receive symbols and display astonishing flashes of holistic intuition.
The Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a Frequency Following Response (FFR). It works like this: an external frequency emulating a recognized one will cause the brain to mimic it. So if a subject hears a frequency at the Theta level, it will shift from its resting Beta level. To achieve these unnatural levels, Hemi-Sync puts a single frequency in the left ear and a contrasting frequency in the right. The brain then experiences the Delta frequency, also known as the beat frequency. It’s more familiarly referred to these days as binaural beats. With the FFR and beat frequency phenomena firmly in place, The Gateway Process introduces a series of frequencies at marginally audible, subliminal levels. With the left brain relaxed and the body in a virtual sleep state, the conditions are ideal to promote brainwave outputs of higher and higher amplitude and frequency. Alongside subliminal suggestions from Bob Monroe (naturally), the subject can then alter their consciousness.
The Gateway system only works when the audio, which is introduced through headphones, is accompanied by a physical quietude comparable to other forms of meditation. This increases the subject’s internal resonance to the body’s sound frequencies, for example the heart. This eliminates the “bifurcation echo”, in which the heartbeat moves up and down the body seven times a second. By placing the body in a sleep-like state, The Gateway CD’s, like meditation, lessen the force and frequency of the heartbeat pushing blood into the aorta. The result is a rhythmic sine wave that in turn amplifies the sound volume of the heart three times. This then amplifies the frequency of brainwave output. The film surrounding the brain—the dura—and fluid between that film and the skull, eventually begin to move up and down, by .0005 and .010 millimeters.
The body, based on its own micro-motions, then functions as a tuned vibrational system. The report claims that the entire body eventually transfers energy at between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz, which matches Earth’s own energy (7 - 7.5 Hertz). The resulting wavelengths are long, about 40,000 kilometers, which also happens to be the perimeter of the planet. According to Bentov, the signal can move around the world’s electrostatic field in 1/7th of a second.
To recap, the Gateway Process goes like this:
• Induced state of calm
• Blood pressure lowers
• Circulatory system, skeleton and other organ systems begin to vibrate at 7 - 7.5 cycles per second
• Increased resonance is achieved
• The resulting sound waves matches the electrostatic field of the earth
• The body and earth and other similarly tuned minds become a single energy continuum.
We’ve gotten slightly ahead of ourselves here though. Back to the drawing board.
A psycho-quantum level deeper
Wayne then turns to the very nature of matter and energy. More materially (or less if you will), solid matter in the strict construction of the term, he explains, doesn’t exist. The atomic structure is composed of oscillating energy grids surrounded by other oscillating energy grids at tremendous speeds. These oscillation rates vary—the nucleus of an atom vibrates at 10 to the power of 22, a molecule vibrates at 10 to the power of 9, a human cell vibrates at 10 to the power of 3. The point is that the entire universe is one complex system of energy fields. States of matter in this conception then are merely variations in the state of energy.
The result of all these moving energies, bouncing off of energy at rest, projects a 3D mode, a pattern, called a hologram, A.K.A our reality as we experience it. It's best to think of it as a 3D photograph. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down here. Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our "life."
Consciousness then can be envisaged as a 3D grid system superimposed over all energy patterns, Wayne writes. Using mathematics, each plane of the grid system can then reduce the data to a 2D form. Our binary (go/no go) minds can then process the data and compare it to other historical data saved in our memory. Our reality is then formed by comparisons. The right hemisphere of the brain acts as the primary matrix or receptor for this holographic input. The left hemisphere then compares it to other data, reducing it to its 2D form.
In keeping with our species' commitment to exceptionalism, as far as we know humans are uniquely capable of achieving this level of consciousness. Simply, humans not only know, but we know that we know. This bestows upon us the ability to duplicate aspects of our own hologram, project them out, perceive that projection, run it through a comparison with our own memory of the hologram, measure the differences using 3D geometry, then run it through our binary system to yield verbal cognition of the self.
The click-out phase
Wayne then shows his cards as a true punisher, issuing, "Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins." Shots fired, Wayne. What he's preparing the commander reading this heady report for is the reveal—how we can use the Gateway to transcend the dimension of spacetime.
Time is a measurement of energy or force in motion; it is a measurement of change. This is really important. For energy to be classified as in motion, it must be confined within a vibratory pattern that can contain its motion, keeping it still. Energy not contained like this is boundary-less, and moves without limit or dimension, to infinity. This disqualifies boundary-less energy from the dimension of time because it has no rate of change. Energy in infinity, also called "the absolute state," is completely at rest because nothing is accelerating or decelerating it—again, no change. It therefore does not contribute to our hologram, our physical experience. We cannot perceive it.
Now back to frequencies. Wave oscillation occurs because a wave is bouncing between two rigid points of rest. It's like a game of electromagnetic hot potato (the potato being the wave and the participants' hands being the boundaries of the wave). Without these limits, there would be no oscillation. When a wave hits one of those points of rest, just for a very brief instant, it "clicks out" of spacetime and joins infinity. For this to occur, the speed of the oscillation has to drop below 10 the power of -33 centimeters per second. For a moment, the wave enters into a new world. The potato simply disappears into a dimension we cannot perceive.
Theoretically speaking, if the human consciousness wave pattern reaches a high enough frequency, the “click-outs” can reach continuity. Put another way, if the frequency of human consciousness can dip below 10 to the power of 33 centimeters per second but above a state of total rest, it can transcend spacetime. The Gateway experience and associated Hemi-Sync technique is designed for humans to achieve this state and establish a coherent pattern of perception in the newly realized dimensions.
Passport to the hologram
In theory, we can achieve the above at any time. The entire process though is helped along if we can separate the consciousness from our body. It’s like an existential running head start where the click-out of a consciousness already separated from its body starts much closer to, and has more time to dialogue with, other dimensions.
This is where things get a little slippery; hold on as best you can. The universe is in on the whole hologram thing, too, Wayne writes. This super hologram is called a "torus" because it takes the shape of a fuck-off massive self-contained spiral. Like this:
Give yourself a moment to let the above motion sink in...
This pattern of the universe conspicuously mirrors the patterns of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Galaxies north of our own are moving away from us faster than the galaxies to the south; galaxies to the east and west of us are more distant. The energy that produced the matter that makes up the universe we presently enjoy, will turn back in on itself eventually. Its trajectory is ovoid, also known as the cosmic egg. As it curls back on itself it enters a black hole, goes through a densely packed energy nucleus then gets spat out the other side of a white hole and begins the process again. Springtime in the cosmos, baby!
And that is the context in which the Gateway Experience sits.
[Deep breaths.]
THE TECHNIQUE
The following is an outline of the key steps to reach focus levels necessary to defy the spacetime dimension. This is an involved and lengthy process best attempted in controlled settings. If you’re in a rush, you can apparently listen to enough Monroe Institute Gateway Tapes in 7 days to get there.
The Energy Conversion Box: The Gateway Process begins by teaching the subject to isolate any extraneous concerns using a visualization process called “the energy conversion box.”
Resonant Humming: The individual is introduced to resonant humming. Through the utterance of a protracted single tone, alongside a chorus on the tapes, the mind and body achieve a state of resonance.
The Gateway Affirmation: The participant is exposed to something close to a mantra called The Gateway Affirmation. They must repeat to themselves variations of, “I am merely a physical body and deeply desire to expand my consciousness.”
Hemi-Sync: The individual is finally exposed to the Hemi-Sync sound frequencies, and encouraged to develop a relationship with the feelings that emerge.
Additional Noise: Physical relaxation techniques are practiced while the Hemi-Sync frequencies are expanded to include “pink and white” noise. This puts the body in a state of virtual sleep, while calming the left hemisphere and raising the attentiveness of the right hemisphere.
The Energy Balloon: The individual is then encouraged to visualize the creation of an “energy balloon” beginning at the top of the head, extending down in all directions to the feet then back up again. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that this balloon will provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels that he or she may encounter when in the out-of-body state.
Focus 12: The practitioner can consistently achieve sufficient expanded awareness to begin interacting with dimensions beyond their physical reality. To achieve this state requires conscious efforts and more “pink and white noise” from the sound stream.
Tools: Once Focus 12 is achieved, the subject can then employ a series of tools to obtain feedback from alternate dimensions.
Problem Solving: The individual identifies fundamental problems, fills their expanded awareness with them, and then projects them out into the universe. These can include personal difficulties, as well as technical or practical problems.
Patterning: Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere.
Color Breathing: A healing technique that revitalizes the body’s energy flows by imagining colors in a particularly vivid manner.
Energy Bar Tool: This technique involves imagining a small intensely pulsating dot of light that the participant charges up. He or she then uses the sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy (formerly known as the dot) to channel forces from the universe to heal and revitalize the body.
Remote Viewing: A follow-on technique of the Energy Bar Tool where the dot is turned into a whirling vortex through which the individual sends their imagination in search of illuminating insights.
Living Body Map: A more organized use of the energy bar in which streams of different colors flow from the dot on to correspondingly-colored bodily systems.
Seven days of training have now occurred. Approximately 5 percent of participants get to this next level, according to the report.
Focus 15 - Travel Into the Past: Additional sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes includes more of the same, plus some subliminal suggestions to further expand the consciousness. The instructions are highly symbolic: time is a huge wheel, in which different spokes give access to the participant’s past.
Focus 21 - The Future: This is the last and most advanced state. Like Focus 15, this is a movement out of spacetime into the future.
Out-of-Body Movement: Only one tape of the many is devoted to out-of-body movement. This tape is devoted to facilitating an out-of-body state when the participant’s brain wave patterns and energy levels reach harmony with the surrounding electromagnetic environment. According to Bob Monroe, the participant has to be exposed to Beta signals of around 2877.3 cycles per second.
CONCLUSIONS
Wayne expresses concern about the fidelity of information brought back from out-of-body states using the Gateway technique. Practical applications are of particular concern because of the potential for “information distortion.”
The Monroe Institute also ran into a bunch of issues in which they had individuals travel from the West to the East Coast of the U.S. to read a series of numbers off of a computer screen. They never got them exactly right. Wayne chalks this up to the trouble of differentiating between physical entities and extra-time-space dimensions when in the out-of-body state.
Wayne swings back to support mode though, lending credence to the physics foundation of the report. He cites multiple belief systems that have established identical findings. These include the Tibetan Shoug, the Hindu heaven of Indra, the Hebrew mystical philosophy, and the Christian concept of the Trinity. Here he seems more interested in hammering home the theoretical underpinnings that make The Gateway Experience possible, rather than the practical possibilities promised by The Gateway Tapes.
Possibly with his CIA top brass audience in mind, Wayne then gives an A-type nod to The Gateway Experience for providing a faster, more efficient, less subservient, energy-saving route to expanded consciousness. This finishes with a series of recommendations to the CIA for how to exploit Gateway’s potential for national defense purposes.
The missing page
One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It’s a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads “And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the,” The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn’t just revealed the very secret of existence.
The gap has not gone unnoticed. There's a Change.org petition requesting its release. Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have demanded the same. In all cases, the CIA has said they never had the page to begin with. Here’s a 2019 response from Mark Lilly, the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, to one Bailey Stoner regarding these records:
One theory goes that that rascal Wayne M.-fricking-McDonnell left the page out on purpose. The theory contends that it was a litmus test—if anyone truly defies time-space dimensions, they’ll certainly be able to locate page 25.
[Cosmic shrug.]
Writing Credit Vice
CIA Declassified Report– The Gateway Experience
Here is a copy of the Missing Page 25
There will be a Gateway Help Post following within the next couple days. Thought you might be interested in a little history in the meantime. Cheers!
submitted by ShiftYourReality to ShiftYourReality [link] [comments]
The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience, which is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to alter consciousness and ultimately escape the restrictions of time and space.
The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time, including the theory of applications of remote viewing, which is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified and are available to view.
This is a comprehensive excavation of The Gateway Process report. The first section provides a timeline of the key historical developments that led to the CIA’s investigation and subsequent experimentations. The second section is a review of The Gateway Process report. It opens with a wall of theoretical context, on the other side of which lies enough understanding to begin to grasp the principles underlying the Gateway Experience training. The last section outlines the Gateway technique itself and the steps that go into achieving spacetime transcendence.
Let’s go.
THE TIMELINE
• 1950s - Robert Monroe, a radio broadcasting executive, begins producing evidence that specific sound patterns have identifiable effects on human capabilities. These include alertness, sleepiness, and expanded states of consciousness.
• 1956 - Monroe forms an R&D division inside his radio program production corporation RAM Enterprises. The goal is to study sound’s effect on human consciousness. He was obsessed with “Sleep-Learning," or hypnopedia, which exposes sleepers to sound recordings to boost memory of previously learned information.
• 1958 - While experimenting with Sleep-Learning, Monroe discovers an unusual phenomenon. He describes it as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by bright light. It allegedly happens nine times over the proceeding six weeks, and culminates in an out-of-body experience (OBE).
• 1962 - RAM Enterprises moves to Virginia, and renames itself Monroe Industries. It becomes active in radio station ownership, cable television, and later in the production and sale of audio cassettes. These cassettes contain applied learnings from the corporate research program, which is renamed The Monroe Institute.
• 1971 - Monroe publishes Journeys Out of the Body, a book that is credited with popularizing the term “out-of-body experience.”
• 1972 - A classified report circulates in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. It claims that the Soviet Union is pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis for espionage purposes.
• 1975 - Monroe registers the first of several patents concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres become synchronized. Monroe dubs the state "Hemi-Sync" (hemispheric synchronization), and claims it could be used to promote mental well-being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness.
• 1978 to 1984 - Army veteran Joseph McMoneagle contributes to 450 remote viewing missions under Project Stargate. He is known as “Remote View No. 1”.
• June 9th, 1983 - The CIA report "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" is produced. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind.
• 1989 - Remote viewer Angela Dellafiora Ford helps track down a former customs agent who has gone on the run. She pinpoints his location as “Lowell, Wyoming”. U.S. Customs apprehend him 100 miles west of a Wyoming town called Lovell.
• 2003 - The CIA approves declassification of the Gateway Process report.
• 2017 - The CIA declassifies 12 million pages of records revealing previously unknown details about the program, which would eventually become known as Project Stargate.
THE REPORT
Personnel
The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, hereon referred to simply as Wayne. There isn’t a tremendous amount of information available on the man, nor any photographs. In 1983, Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. Wayne partnered with a bunch of different folks to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable American-Israeli scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.
A scientific approach
From the outset of the report, Wayne states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:
• A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process.
• Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
• Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
• Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation).
Methodological frames of reference
Before diving into the Gateway Experience, Wayne develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies. He’s basically saying, there’s no way you’re going to get through The Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.
1) He begins with hypnosis. The language is extremely dense, but the basic gist is as follows: the left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data direct, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.
2) Wayne continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation. He distinguishes it from hypnotism. Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4 - 7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick. (David’s Lynch and other celebrities are committed adherents to transcendental meditation today.)
3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices. Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.
The Gateway mechanics
With that, Wayne takes a first stab at the Gateway process. He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”
What distinguishes the Gateway process from hypnosis, TM, and biofeedback, is that it requires achieving a state of consciousness in which the electrical brain patterns of both hemispheres are equal in amplitude and frequency. This is called Hemi-Sync. Lamentably, and perhaps conveniently, we cannot as humans achieve this state on our own. The audio techniques developed by Bob Monroe and his Institute (which are comprised as a series of tapes). claim to induce and sustain Hemi-Sync.
Wayne employs the analogy of a lamp versus a laser. Left to its own devices the human mind expends energy like a lamp, in a chaotic and incoherent way, achieving lots of diffusion but relatively little depth. Under Hemi-Sync though, the mind produces a “disciplined stream of light.” So, once the frequency and amplitude of the brain are rendered coherent it can then synchronize with the rarified energy levels of the universe. With this connection intact, the brain begins to receive symbols and display astonishing flashes of holistic intuition.
The Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a Frequency Following Response (FFR). It works like this: an external frequency emulating a recognized one will cause the brain to mimic it. So if a subject hears a frequency at the Theta level, it will shift from its resting Beta level. To achieve these unnatural levels, Hemi-Sync puts a single frequency in the left ear and a contrasting frequency in the right. The brain then experiences the Delta frequency, also known as the beat frequency. It’s more familiarly referred to these days as binaural beats. With the FFR and beat frequency phenomena firmly in place, The Gateway Process introduces a series of frequencies at marginally audible, subliminal levels. With the left brain relaxed and the body in a virtual sleep state, the conditions are ideal to promote brainwave outputs of higher and higher amplitude and frequency. Alongside subliminal suggestions from Bob Monroe (naturally), the subject can then alter their consciousness.
The Gateway system only works when the audio, which is introduced through headphones, is accompanied by a physical quietude comparable to other forms of meditation. This increases the subject’s internal resonance to the body’s sound frequencies, for example the heart. This eliminates the “bifurcation echo”, in which the heartbeat moves up and down the body seven times a second. By placing the body in a sleep-like state, The Gateway CD’s, like meditation, lessen the force and frequency of the heartbeat pushing blood into the aorta. The result is a rhythmic sine wave that in turn amplifies the sound volume of the heart three times. This then amplifies the frequency of brainwave output. The film surrounding the brain—the dura—and fluid between that film and the skull, eventually begin to move up and down, by .0005 and .010 millimeters.
The body, based on its own micro-motions, then functions as a tuned vibrational system. The report claims that the entire body eventually transfers energy at between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz, which matches Earth’s own energy (7 - 7.5 Hertz). The resulting wavelengths are long, about 40,000 kilometers, which also happens to be the perimeter of the planet. According to Bentov, the signal can move around the world’s electrostatic field in 1/7th of a second.
To recap, the Gateway Process goes like this:
• Induced state of calm
• Blood pressure lowers
• Circulatory system, skeleton and other organ systems begin to vibrate at 7 - 7.5 cycles per second
• Increased resonance is achieved
• The resulting sound waves matches the electrostatic field of the earth
• The body and earth and other similarly tuned minds become a single energy continuum.
We’ve gotten slightly ahead of ourselves here though. Back to the drawing board.
A psycho-quantum level deeper
Wayne then turns to the very nature of matter and energy. More materially (or less if you will), solid matter in the strict construction of the term, he explains, doesn’t exist. The atomic structure is composed of oscillating energy grids surrounded by other oscillating energy grids at tremendous speeds. These oscillation rates vary—the nucleus of an atom vibrates at 10 to the power of 22, a molecule vibrates at 10 to the power of 9, a human cell vibrates at 10 to the power of 3. The point is that the entire universe is one complex system of energy fields. States of matter in this conception then are merely variations in the state of energy.
The result of all these moving energies, bouncing off of energy at rest, projects a 3D mode, a pattern, called a hologram, A.K.A our reality as we experience it. It's best to think of it as a 3D photograph. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down here. Suffice it to say, the hologram that is our experience is incredibly good at depicting and recording all the various energies bouncing around creating matter. So good, in fact, that we buy into it hook, line, and sinker, going so far as to call it our "life."
Consciousness then can be envisaged as a 3D grid system superimposed over all energy patterns, Wayne writes. Using mathematics, each plane of the grid system can then reduce the data to a 2D form. Our binary (go/no go) minds can then process the data and compare it to other historical data saved in our memory. Our reality is then formed by comparisons. The right hemisphere of the brain acts as the primary matrix or receptor for this holographic input. The left hemisphere then compares it to other data, reducing it to its 2D form.
In keeping with our species' commitment to exceptionalism, as far as we know humans are uniquely capable of achieving this level of consciousness. Simply, humans not only know, but we know that we know. This bestows upon us the ability to duplicate aspects of our own hologram, project them out, perceive that projection, run it through a comparison with our own memory of the hologram, measure the differences using 3D geometry, then run it through our binary system to yield verbal cognition of the self.
The click-out phase
Wayne then shows his cards as a true punisher, issuing, "Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins." Shots fired, Wayne. What he's preparing the commander reading this heady report for is the reveal—how we can use the Gateway to transcend the dimension of spacetime.
Time is a measurement of energy or force in motion; it is a measurement of change. This is really important. For energy to be classified as in motion, it must be confined within a vibratory pattern that can contain its motion, keeping it still. Energy not contained like this is boundary-less, and moves without limit or dimension, to infinity. This disqualifies boundary-less energy from the dimension of time because it has no rate of change. Energy in infinity, also called "the absolute state," is completely at rest because nothing is accelerating or decelerating it—again, no change. It therefore does not contribute to our hologram, our physical experience. We cannot perceive it.
Now back to frequencies. Wave oscillation occurs because a wave is bouncing between two rigid points of rest. It's like a game of electromagnetic hot potato (the potato being the wave and the participants' hands being the boundaries of the wave). Without these limits, there would be no oscillation. When a wave hits one of those points of rest, just for a very brief instant, it "clicks out" of spacetime and joins infinity. For this to occur, the speed of the oscillation has to drop below 10 the power of -33 centimeters per second. For a moment, the wave enters into a new world. The potato simply disappears into a dimension we cannot perceive.
Theoretically speaking, if the human consciousness wave pattern reaches a high enough frequency, the “click-outs” can reach continuity. Put another way, if the frequency of human consciousness can dip below 10 to the power of 33 centimeters per second but above a state of total rest, it can transcend spacetime. The Gateway experience and associated Hemi-Sync technique is designed for humans to achieve this state and establish a coherent pattern of perception in the newly realized dimensions.
Passport to the hologram
In theory, we can achieve the above at any time. The entire process though is helped along if we can separate the consciousness from our body. It’s like an existential running head start where the click-out of a consciousness already separated from its body starts much closer to, and has more time to dialogue with, other dimensions.
This is where things get a little slippery; hold on as best you can. The universe is in on the whole hologram thing, too, Wayne writes. This super hologram is called a "torus" because it takes the shape of a fuck-off massive self-contained spiral. Like this:
Give yourself a moment to let the above motion sink in...
This pattern of the universe conspicuously mirrors the patterns of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Galaxies north of our own are moving away from us faster than the galaxies to the south; galaxies to the east and west of us are more distant. The energy that produced the matter that makes up the universe we presently enjoy, will turn back in on itself eventually. Its trajectory is ovoid, also known as the cosmic egg. As it curls back on itself it enters a black hole, goes through a densely packed energy nucleus then gets spat out the other side of a white hole and begins the process again. Springtime in the cosmos, baby!
And that is the context in which the Gateway Experience sits.
[Deep breaths.]
THE TECHNIQUE
The following is an outline of the key steps to reach focus levels necessary to defy the spacetime dimension. This is an involved and lengthy process best attempted in controlled settings. If you’re in a rush, you can apparently listen to enough Monroe Institute Gateway Tapes in 7 days to get there.
The Energy Conversion Box: The Gateway Process begins by teaching the subject to isolate any extraneous concerns using a visualization process called “the energy conversion box.”
Resonant Humming: The individual is introduced to resonant humming. Through the utterance of a protracted single tone, alongside a chorus on the tapes, the mind and body achieve a state of resonance.
The Gateway Affirmation: The participant is exposed to something close to a mantra called The Gateway Affirmation. They must repeat to themselves variations of, “I am merely a physical body and deeply desire to expand my consciousness.”
Hemi-Sync: The individual is finally exposed to the Hemi-Sync sound frequencies, and encouraged to develop a relationship with the feelings that emerge.
Additional Noise: Physical relaxation techniques are practiced while the Hemi-Sync frequencies are expanded to include “pink and white” noise. This puts the body in a state of virtual sleep, while calming the left hemisphere and raising the attentiveness of the right hemisphere.
The Energy Balloon: The individual is then encouraged to visualize the creation of an “energy balloon” beginning at the top of the head, extending down in all directions to the feet then back up again. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that this balloon will provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels that he or she may encounter when in the out-of-body state.
Focus 12: The practitioner can consistently achieve sufficient expanded awareness to begin interacting with dimensions beyond their physical reality. To achieve this state requires conscious efforts and more “pink and white noise” from the sound stream.
Tools: Once Focus 12 is achieved, the subject can then employ a series of tools to obtain feedback from alternate dimensions.
Problem Solving: The individual identifies fundamental problems, fills their expanded awareness with them, and then projects them out into the universe. These can include personal difficulties, as well as technical or practical problems.
Patterning: Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere.
Color Breathing: A healing technique that revitalizes the body’s energy flows by imagining colors in a particularly vivid manner.
Energy Bar Tool: This technique involves imagining a small intensely pulsating dot of light that the participant charges up. He or she then uses the sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy (formerly known as the dot) to channel forces from the universe to heal and revitalize the body.
Remote Viewing: A follow-on technique of the Energy Bar Tool where the dot is turned into a whirling vortex through which the individual sends their imagination in search of illuminating insights.
Living Body Map: A more organized use of the energy bar in which streams of different colors flow from the dot on to correspondingly-colored bodily systems.
Seven days of training have now occurred. Approximately 5 percent of participants get to this next level, according to the report.
Focus 15 - Travel Into the Past: Additional sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes includes more of the same, plus some subliminal suggestions to further expand the consciousness. The instructions are highly symbolic: time is a huge wheel, in which different spokes give access to the participant’s past.
Focus 21 - The Future: This is the last and most advanced state. Like Focus 15, this is a movement out of spacetime into the future.
Out-of-Body Movement: Only one tape of the many is devoted to out-of-body movement. This tape is devoted to facilitating an out-of-body state when the participant’s brain wave patterns and energy levels reach harmony with the surrounding electromagnetic environment. According to Bob Monroe, the participant has to be exposed to Beta signals of around 2877.3 cycles per second.
CONCLUSIONS
Wayne expresses concern about the fidelity of information brought back from out-of-body states using the Gateway technique. Practical applications are of particular concern because of the potential for “information distortion.”
The Monroe Institute also ran into a bunch of issues in which they had individuals travel from the West to the East Coast of the U.S. to read a series of numbers off of a computer screen. They never got them exactly right. Wayne chalks this up to the trouble of differentiating between physical entities and extra-time-space dimensions when in the out-of-body state.
Wayne swings back to support mode though, lending credence to the physics foundation of the report. He cites multiple belief systems that have established identical findings. These include the Tibetan Shoug, the Hindu heaven of Indra, the Hebrew mystical philosophy, and the Christian concept of the Trinity. Here he seems more interested in hammering home the theoretical underpinnings that make The Gateway Experience possible, rather than the practical possibilities promised by The Gateway Tapes.
Possibly with his CIA top brass audience in mind, Wayne then gives an A-type nod to The Gateway Experience for providing a faster, more efficient, less subservient, energy-saving route to expanded consciousness. This finishes with a series of recommendations to the CIA for how to exploit Gateway’s potential for national defense purposes.
The missing page
One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It’s a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads “And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the,” The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn’t just revealed the very secret of existence.
The gap has not gone unnoticed. There's a Change.org petition requesting its release. Multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have demanded the same. In all cases, the CIA has said they never had the page to begin with. Here’s a 2019 response from Mark Lilly, the CIA’s Information and Privacy Coordinator, to one Bailey Stoner regarding these records:
One theory goes that that rascal Wayne M.-fricking-McDonnell left the page out on purpose. The theory contends that it was a litmus test—if anyone truly defies time-space dimensions, they’ll certainly be able to locate page 25.
[Cosmic shrug.]
Writing Credit Vice
CIA Declassified Report– The Gateway Experience
Here is a copy of the Missing Page 25
There will be a Gateway Help Post following within the next couple days. Thought you might be interested in a little history in the meantime. Cheers!
2024.05.15 01:12 rrmdp 📢 General Dynamics Mission Systems, Inc is hiring a Software Engineer - Airspace and Aviation Mission Planning!
 | Company: General Dynamics Mission Systems, Inc submitted by rrmdp to jobboardsearch [link] [comments] Location: Fort Wayne, TX 📍 Salary: 90K - 100K 💰 Date Posted: May 14, 2024 📅 Apply & Description 👉 https://jobboardsearch.com/redirect?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=bot&utm_id=jobboarsearch&utm_term=echojobs.io&rurl=aHR0cHM6Ly9lY2hvam9icy5pby9qb2IvZ2VuZXJhbC1keW5hbWljcy1taXNzaW9uLXN5c3RlbXMtaW5jLXNvZnR3YXJlLWVuZ2luZWVyLWFpcnNwYWNlLWFuZC1hdmlhdGlvbi1taXNzaW9uLXBsYW5uaW5nLWpwOG5v |
2024.05.15 00:50 Grizl3y The AI can 100% see you through walls and it not fun in the slightest
At least at Fort Narith, just shot 2 at the hole in the wall and the AI began shooting at the exact point where i was behind the wall. Tested by moving every couple of minutes along the wall and the continued to shoot at exactly where i was. Eventually a few just spawned outside the wall and killed me. Hard AI is fun, AI basically cheating is not
submitted by Grizl3y to GrayZoneWarfare [link] [comments]
2024.05.15 00:30 FFAintheCity Fort Wayne Trails + Tourism
Do people really visit Fort Wayne to use the trails? I know that in Bentonville, Arkansas or Vail, Colorado mountain bikers will visit the city due to the trail system. But in Fort Wayne, I suspect that most people don't even care if they exist, let alone the visitors. Or, am I wrong?
submitted by FFAintheCity to fortwayne [link] [comments]
2024.05.14 23:44 LordIntenseCanni Back like I never left
Decided to jump on today after watching all the hype. Haven’t really played since maybe around Season 3, around when Pirates Life was introduced.
I mainly just played to tuck on ships and wait for them to start selling before spawncamping them and crashing the ship into the island to spawn a few holes down below and got to PL doing so.
Anywho, some poor dude was minding his own business on a Sea Fort when I sailed past him and decided to play the tuck game. Fortunately for me, he also had a lovely keg in the ol’ crows nest that came in handy.
About 45-ish minutes later, we finally arrive to Ancient Spire and I decided to introduce myself via the keg that I tucked myself under for the ride.
20 seconds later and it’s gg to that guy.
Loot was maybe 30k but at least he might learn to not keep the keg on the ship anymore.
submitted by LordIntenseCanni to Seaofthieves [link] [comments]
I mainly just played to tuck on ships and wait for them to start selling before spawncamping them and crashing the ship into the island to spawn a few holes down below and got to PL doing so.
Anywho, some poor dude was minding his own business on a Sea Fort when I sailed past him and decided to play the tuck game. Fortunately for me, he also had a lovely keg in the ol’ crows nest that came in handy.
About 45-ish minutes later, we finally arrive to Ancient Spire and I decided to introduce myself via the keg that I tucked myself under for the ride.
20 seconds later and it’s gg to that guy.
Loot was maybe 30k but at least he might learn to not keep the keg on the ship anymore.
2024.05.14 23:10 CasualNormalRedditor Today I learnt the FOTD key is shown on the map!
Was soloing fort of the damned and mid way through had a sloop come and fight me, scared them off and they didn't return. Once I finished it I saw another sloop coming so I hid the key and sailed out to battle.
They however, being good. Caught the wind, sped ahead of me so I lost my cannon angle then chain shot my mast down.
I sniped the cannoneer down and tried to rep mast but they quickly got it down again, one balled me and I spawned just as the ship sank.
A swim to the island and a disguise as a barrel and I hid hoping they wouldn't find my sneaky key. They proceeded to immediately find the key.
Some PvP and I come out on top. Take the key and just SWIM. My goals unknown even to myself but they quickly sail straight to me and take the precious.
Quite frankly at this point I'm stunned they found me and the key so fast twice!! Only when I spawned and started sailing back did I see this weird symbol on their boat (took till after the game to google it and find out theres a key symbol).
By the time I'm arrived back, the sloops on fire and a brig is spinning after them. They chain shot the brig and begin recovering by the time I sail in, ram, board and kill them both. Then let the water flood in and finish them off.
I proceeded to go for the brig that for some reason is crashed into the island?? Killed all 3 then used their cannon to shoot off back to my boat. My boat at that EXACT moment sinks from the holes the brig cheekily put in
Back to the brig, kill one, get killed and thank the guys for helping me in revenge.
I won no loot but I'm left satisfied that at least the sloop didn't get it. The sloop was personal. The brig was fun to me
Thus concludes my tale. Keys are shown on maps. Solo ship battles are my weakness and many hours can result in no loot. The pirates life
submitted by CasualNormalRedditor to Seaofthieves [link] [comments]
They however, being good. Caught the wind, sped ahead of me so I lost my cannon angle then chain shot my mast down.
I sniped the cannoneer down and tried to rep mast but they quickly got it down again, one balled me and I spawned just as the ship sank.
A swim to the island and a disguise as a barrel and I hid hoping they wouldn't find my sneaky key. They proceeded to immediately find the key.
Some PvP and I come out on top. Take the key and just SWIM. My goals unknown even to myself but they quickly sail straight to me and take the precious.
Quite frankly at this point I'm stunned they found me and the key so fast twice!! Only when I spawned and started sailing back did I see this weird symbol on their boat (took till after the game to google it and find out theres a key symbol).
By the time I'm arrived back, the sloops on fire and a brig is spinning after them. They chain shot the brig and begin recovering by the time I sail in, ram, board and kill them both. Then let the water flood in and finish them off.
I proceeded to go for the brig that for some reason is crashed into the island?? Killed all 3 then used their cannon to shoot off back to my boat. My boat at that EXACT moment sinks from the holes the brig cheekily put in
Back to the brig, kill one, get killed and thank the guys for helping me in revenge.
I won no loot but I'm left satisfied that at least the sloop didn't get it. The sloop was personal. The brig was fun to me
Thus concludes my tale. Keys are shown on maps. Solo ship battles are my weakness and many hours can result in no loot. The pirates life
2024.05.14 22:18 Adventurous_Cup7743 Batman vs urban renewal
I really felt the need to talk about the episode of Batman: The Animated Series I just watched, and my family does not care, so I will subject reddit to my rants! Put this in urbanplanning and it was getting plenty of upvotes and good conversation but then the mods deleted it for some reason, so hopefully this is appropriate for fuckcars since urban renewal and car dependency go hand in hand!
I recently finished reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs,* which is of course in large part a response to the "urban renewal" and slum clearing that occurred on a large scale in the mid 20th century that we are still dealing with today. I am also watching Batman: The Animated series for the first time since I was a child, and I was not expecting an episode to ALSO be a response to "urban renewal" and slum clearing!
For those who may not be familiar, Batman: TAS is an animated "kids'" television show that aired in the mid 90s. I put "kids'" in quotation marks, because many episodes feel very little like children's programing with their dark aesthetic, complex plots/character motivations, and mature themes. Case in point, my 7 year old daughter got through a couple episodes with me, but at the conclusion of the body-horror filled Clayface-starring 2-parter, she bravely said "Daddy, I don't think I can watch this anymore," which I agreed with and felt bad for subjecting her to it!
An actor transforming into a giant shape-shifting poop monster (Clayface) might be frightening to a 7 year old, but government bureaucracy is what's scary to adults, and a zoning board's denial of a massive "slum clearing" operation and subsequent redevelopment is the subject of the episode "Appointment in Crime Alley," loosely based on Detective Comics #457. Here, ruthless real estate developer Roland Daggett plans to secretly blow up a section of a crime-ridden but formerly upscale neighborhood, taking matters into his own hands after his board appeal to demolish and "revitalize" the neighborhood through legal means is rejected.
This neighborhood, formerly known as Park Row but now as the titular "Crime Alley," has its issues with crime and decay (and is in fact where Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered). But the writers make it clear that it is its diverse citizens' home, and is worth fighting for, especially through Park Row resident Leslie Thompkins (who was Wayne's mentor after his parents' death) and others who hold signs reading "Save Our Homes." Thompkins' support for her community as a longtime neighborhood resident mirrors Jacobs' for Greenwich Village in the face of its redevelopment threats.
Daggett is championed by the business community, being called a "force for progress." He gives a speech to the community prior to the planned explosion of the block where he says, "we cannot allow the underclass to hinder us from building a better tomorrow," which strikes me as one of those "quiet part out loud" moments. Batman senses his greedy intentions early, and accuses him of "running the people in the neighborhood out of their homes." He later comforts his mentor, Thompkins, at the end of the episode as she is expressing her disappointment in the state of her neighborhood as they walk down its streets, with Batman responding to her remark that "Good people used to live [in Crime Alley] once" with "Good people still live in Crime Alley," even as he lays a rose at the spot of his parent's death.
Ultimately, Daggett is successful in blowing up the neighborhood and in his cover-up (though Batman prevents the loss of life), and attempts to blame the neighborhood residents for the crime, saying to a news reporter, "you have to expect violence in Crime Alley. These people don't value human life like we do," which was an especially chilling line that rings true to the dehumanization that has occurred against minorities and marginalized communities in the US. Will Batman take him down later in the series? I guess we'll see!
I was just really impressed with the compassion that this episode showed towards the people of this run-down neighborhood, all while still being honest about the poor state of things and the need for improvement. Jacobs' chapter on "Slumming and Unslumming" felt very relevant here, as the neighborhood still had potential that needed to be gradually coaxed out and nourished, rather than taking it to the extreme of demolishing the neighborhood and displacing its people. TL;DR, watch this show, it's good!
*Wow it's incredible, I also desperately feel the need to talk about it book club style, because I know this is a very famous book but I don't see many people talking about it past "Jacobs was very important and she rallied against Robert Moses." I can't imagine reading this book in the 60's and seeing over and over again for decades that she was right about so much, as we continue to dig deeper into the hole. Also, the people that say her theories lead to gentrification clearly didn't read the chapter "Self-destruction of Diversity."
submitted by Adventurous_Cup7743 to fuckcars [link] [comments]
I recently finished reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs,* which is of course in large part a response to the "urban renewal" and slum clearing that occurred on a large scale in the mid 20th century that we are still dealing with today. I am also watching Batman: The Animated series for the first time since I was a child, and I was not expecting an episode to ALSO be a response to "urban renewal" and slum clearing!
For those who may not be familiar, Batman: TAS is an animated "kids'" television show that aired in the mid 90s. I put "kids'" in quotation marks, because many episodes feel very little like children's programing with their dark aesthetic, complex plots/character motivations, and mature themes. Case in point, my 7 year old daughter got through a couple episodes with me, but at the conclusion of the body-horror filled Clayface-starring 2-parter, she bravely said "Daddy, I don't think I can watch this anymore," which I agreed with and felt bad for subjecting her to it!
An actor transforming into a giant shape-shifting poop monster (Clayface) might be frightening to a 7 year old, but government bureaucracy is what's scary to adults, and a zoning board's denial of a massive "slum clearing" operation and subsequent redevelopment is the subject of the episode "Appointment in Crime Alley," loosely based on Detective Comics #457. Here, ruthless real estate developer Roland Daggett plans to secretly blow up a section of a crime-ridden but formerly upscale neighborhood, taking matters into his own hands after his board appeal to demolish and "revitalize" the neighborhood through legal means is rejected.
This neighborhood, formerly known as Park Row but now as the titular "Crime Alley," has its issues with crime and decay (and is in fact where Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered). But the writers make it clear that it is its diverse citizens' home, and is worth fighting for, especially through Park Row resident Leslie Thompkins (who was Wayne's mentor after his parents' death) and others who hold signs reading "Save Our Homes." Thompkins' support for her community as a longtime neighborhood resident mirrors Jacobs' for Greenwich Village in the face of its redevelopment threats.
Daggett is championed by the business community, being called a "force for progress." He gives a speech to the community prior to the planned explosion of the block where he says, "we cannot allow the underclass to hinder us from building a better tomorrow," which strikes me as one of those "quiet part out loud" moments. Batman senses his greedy intentions early, and accuses him of "running the people in the neighborhood out of their homes." He later comforts his mentor, Thompkins, at the end of the episode as she is expressing her disappointment in the state of her neighborhood as they walk down its streets, with Batman responding to her remark that "Good people used to live [in Crime Alley] once" with "Good people still live in Crime Alley," even as he lays a rose at the spot of his parent's death.
Ultimately, Daggett is successful in blowing up the neighborhood and in his cover-up (though Batman prevents the loss of life), and attempts to blame the neighborhood residents for the crime, saying to a news reporter, "you have to expect violence in Crime Alley. These people don't value human life like we do," which was an especially chilling line that rings true to the dehumanization that has occurred against minorities and marginalized communities in the US. Will Batman take him down later in the series? I guess we'll see!
I was just really impressed with the compassion that this episode showed towards the people of this run-down neighborhood, all while still being honest about the poor state of things and the need for improvement. Jacobs' chapter on "Slumming and Unslumming" felt very relevant here, as the neighborhood still had potential that needed to be gradually coaxed out and nourished, rather than taking it to the extreme of demolishing the neighborhood and displacing its people. TL;DR, watch this show, it's good!
*Wow it's incredible, I also desperately feel the need to talk about it book club style, because I know this is a very famous book but I don't see many people talking about it past "Jacobs was very important and she rallied against Robert Moses." I can't imagine reading this book in the 60's and seeing over and over again for decades that she was right about so much, as we continue to dig deeper into the hole. Also, the people that say her theories lead to gentrification clearly didn't read the chapter "Self-destruction of Diversity."
2024.05.14 22:01 niceshootintex Transcontinental Glory Hole
submitted by niceshootintex to Bandnames [link] [comments]
2024.05.14 21:21 FlatwormOk5725 No toilet shenanigans
Like everyone else I'm replaying , probably 3 or 4 years since my last run.
Still love it for all the same reasons, even messed around with logic gates for the first time....buuttt what really struck me this time is the lack of toilet shenanigans.
It has been drummed into me by every 90s 00s game to check every toilet (restroom ?). It's where the designers can have a giggle: guard struggling with diarrhea, glory holes, random graffiti, pentagram with teddy bear satanic worship etc etc basically stuff that makes you go "wtf happend here"
This play through of 60 hours or so I have checked every toilet stall and the best I've found is nuka cola in bowl and a stall with 8 plungers stuck to the wall
submitted by FlatwormOk5725 to Fallout [link] [comments]
Still love it for all the same reasons, even messed around with logic gates for the first time....buuttt what really struck me this time is the lack of toilet shenanigans.
It has been drummed into me by every 90s 00s game to check every toilet (restroom ?). It's where the designers can have a giggle: guard struggling with diarrhea, glory holes, random graffiti, pentagram with teddy bear satanic worship etc etc basically stuff that makes you go "wtf happend here"
This play through of 60 hours or so I have checked every toilet stall and the best I've found is nuka cola in bowl and a stall with 8 plungers stuck to the wall
2024.05.14 21:15 minhanha [H] Past Months Humble Choices and other Humble and Fanatical bundles leftovers [W] Ghost Song, Islets, 9 Years of Shadows, Hi-Fi Rush, Yakuza 7, Megaman Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, Endling, Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, Sprawl, OPUS: Echo of Starsong, Before Your Eyes, Anno Mutationem/ Offers
IGSRep Page 9
IGSRep Page 10
List of games I have for trading (all are Steam keys unless specified):
Aces & Adventures (might keep)
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
AI War: Fleet Command
Archvale
Blackguards
Boreal Blade
Calico
Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel
Demon Turf
Dodgeball Academia (might keep)
Evan's Remains
Expeditions: Rome (might keep)
Fae Tactics
Foretales (might keep)
Fort Triumph
Fractured Lands
From Space
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hot Brass
Hotshot Racing
Ikenfell
Infinite Air with Mark McMorris
Just Cause 3 XXL Edition (might keep)
Kraken Academy!!
Last Call BBS
Lethal League
Meeple Station
Millennium: A New Hope
Othercide
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim
Patch Quest (might keep)
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Per Aspera
Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
Poker Night 2
Police Stories
Railroad Corporation
Rapture Rejects + Humble Exclusive "Safari Outfit" DLC
Regular Human Basketball
Resident Evil HD REMASTER
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
Revita
Ring of Pain
Rollerdrome (EU key)
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
SimpleRockets 2
Size Matters
Souldiers
Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo
Swag and Sorcery
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
Telltale Texas Hold'Em
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Pale Beyond
Tin Can
Turbo Golf Racing
Vane
Void Bastards
We Happy Few
Low tier (all are Steam keys)
Arson and Plunder: Unleashed
Corporate Lifestyle Simulator
Gun Monkeys (not on Steam anymore)
Huntsman: The Orphanage
Puzzle Chronicles
Rush for Glory
Russian Superhero Dead Ivan
Shiplord
Skilltree Saga
Three Dead Zed
submitted by minhanha to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
IGSRep Page 10
List of games I have for trading (all are Steam keys unless specified):
Aces & Adventures (might keep)
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
AI War: Fleet Command
Archvale
Blackguards
Boreal Blade
Calico
Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel
Demon Turf
Dodgeball Academia (might keep)
Evan's Remains
Expeditions: Rome (might keep)
Fae Tactics
Foretales (might keep)
Fort Triumph
Fractured Lands
From Space
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hot Brass
Hotshot Racing
Ikenfell
Infinite Air with Mark McMorris
Just Cause 3 XXL Edition (might keep)
Kraken Academy!!
Last Call BBS
Lethal League
Meeple Station
Millennium: A New Hope
Othercide
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim
Patch Quest (might keep)
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
Per Aspera
Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
Poker Night 2
Police Stories
Railroad Corporation
Rapture Rejects + Humble Exclusive "Safari Outfit" DLC
Regular Human Basketball
Resident Evil HD REMASTER
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
Revita
Ring of Pain
Rollerdrome (EU key)
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
SimpleRockets 2
Size Matters
Souldiers
Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo
Swag and Sorcery
S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
Telltale Texas Hold'Em
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
The Pale Beyond
Tin Can
Turbo Golf Racing
Vane
Void Bastards
We Happy Few
Low tier (all are Steam keys)
Arson and Plunder: Unleashed
Corporate Lifestyle Simulator
Gun Monkeys (not on Steam anymore)
Huntsman: The Orphanage
Puzzle Chronicles
Rush for Glory
Russian Superhero Dead Ivan
Shiplord
Skilltree Saga
Three Dead Zed
2024.05.14 21:13 Yurii_S_Kh Dachau 1945: The Souls of All Are Aflame
 | by Douglas Cramer submitted by Yurii_S_Kh to SophiaWisdomOfGod [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/8ij0zm5txf0d1.png?width=300&format=png&auto=webp&s=eea54710e6a5b2cbd7901d2547cd7938334e74e9 The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at Dachau were Christians, including Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox clergy and lay people. Countless prisoners died at Dachau, and hundreds were forced to participate in the cruel medical experiments conducted by Dr. Sigmund Rascher. When prisoners arrived at the camp they were beaten, insulted, shorn of their hair, and had all their belongings taken from them. The SS guards could kill whenever they thought it was appropriate. Punishments included being hung on hooks for hours, high enough that heels did not touch the ground; being stretched on trestles; being whipped with soaked leather whips; and being placed in solitary confinement for days on end in rooms too small to lie down in. The abuse of the prisoners reached its end in the spring of 1945. The events of that Holy Week were later recorded by one of the prisoners, Gleb Rahr. Rahr grew up in Latvia and fled with his family to Nazi Germany when the Russians invaded. He was arrested by the Gestapo because of his membership in an organization that opposed both fascism and communism. Originally imprisoned in Buchenwald, he was transported to Dachau near the end of the war. In fact, Rahr was one of the survivors of the infamous “death trains,” as they were called by the American G.I.’s who discovered them. Thousands of prisoners from different camps had been sent to Dachau in open rail cars. The vast majority of them died horrific deaths from starvation, dehydration, exposure, sickness, and execution. In a letter to his parents the day after the liberation, G.I. William Cowling wrote, “As we crossed the track and looked back into the cars the most horrible sight I have ever seen met my eyes. The cars were loaded with dead bodies. Most of them were naked and all of them skin and bones. Honest their legs and arms were only a couple of inches around and they had no buttocks at all. Many of the bodies had bullet holes in the back of their heads.” Marcus Smith, one of the US Army personnel assigned to Dachau, also described the scene in his 1972 book, The Harrowing of Hell. Refuse and excrement are spread over the cars and grounds. More of the dead lie near piles of clothing, shoes, and trash. Apparently some had crawled or fallen out of the cars when the doors were opened, and died on the grounds. One of our men counts the boxcars and says that there are thirty-nine. Later I hear that there were fifty, that the train had arrived at the camp during the evening of April 27, by which time all of the passengers were supposed to be dead so that the bodies could be disposed of in the camp crematorium. But this could not be done because there was no more coal to stoke the furnaces. Mutilated bodies of German soldiers are also on the ground, and occasionally we see an inmate scream at the body of his former tormentor and kick it. Retribution! Gates of Dachau Concentration Camp Rahr was one of the over 4,000 Russian prisoners at Dachau at the time of the liberation. The liberated prisoners also included over 1,200 Christian clergymen. After the war, Rahr immigrated to the United States, where he taught Russian History at the University of Maryland. He later worked for Radio Free Europe. His account of the events at Dachau in 1945 begins with his arrival at the camp: April 27th: The last transport of prisoners arrives from Buchenwald. Of the 5,000 originally destined for Dachau, I was among the 1,300 who had survived the trip. Many were shot, some starved to death, while others died of typhus. . . . April 28th: I and my fellow prisoners can hear the bombardment of Munich taking place some 30 km from our concentration camp. As the sound of artillery approaches ever nearer from the west and the north, orders are given proscribing prisoners from leaving their barracks under any circumstances. SS-soldiers patrol the camp on motorcycles as machine guns are directed at us from the watch-towers, which surround the camp. April 29th: The booming sound of artillery has been joined by the staccato bursts of machine gun fire. Shells whistle over the camp from all directions. Suddenly white flags appear on the towers—a sign of hope that the SS would surrender rather than shoot all prisoners and fight to the last man. Then, at about 6:00 p.m., a strange sound can be detected emanating from somewhere near the camp gate which swiftly increases in volume. . . . The sound came from the dawning recognition of freedom. Lt. Col. Walter Fellenz of the US Seventh Army described the greeting from his point of view: Several hundred yards inside the main gate, we encountered the concentration enclosure, itself. There before us, behind an electrically charged, barbed wire fence, stood a mass of cheering, half-mad men, women and children, waving and shouting with happiness—their liberators had come! The noise was beyond comprehension! Every individual (over 32,000) who could utter a sound, was cheering. Our hearts wept as we saw the tears of happiness fall from their cheeks. Rahr’s account continues: Finally all 32,600 prisoners join in the cry as the first American soldiers appear just behind the wire fence of the camp. After a short while electric power is turned off, the gates open and the American G.I.’s make their entrance. As they stare wide-eyed at our lot, half-starved as we are and suffering from typhus and dysentery, they appear more like fifteen-year-old boys than battle-weary soldiers. . . . An international committee of prisoners is formed to take over the administration of the camp. Food from SS stores is put at the disposal of the camp kitchen. A US military unit also contributes some provision, thereby providing me with my first opportunity to taste American corn. By order of an American officer radio-receivers are confiscated from prominent Nazis in the town of Dachau and distributed to the various national groups of prisoners. The news comes in: Hitler has committed suicide, the Russians have taken Berlin, and German troops have surrendered in the South and in the North. But the fighting still rages in Austria and Czechoslovakia. . . . Naturally, I was ever cognizant of the fact that these momentous events were unfolding during Holy Week. But how could we mark it, other than through our silent, individual prayers? A fellow-prisoner and chief interpreter of the International Prisoner's Committee, Boris F., paid a visit to my typhus-infested barrack—“Block 27”—to inform me that efforts were underway in conjunction with the Yugoslav and Greek National Prisoner's Committees to arrange an Orthodox service for Easter day, May 6th. There were Orthodox priests, deacons, and a group of monks from Mount Athos among the prisoners. But there were no vestments, no books whatsoever, no icons, no candles, no prosphoras, no wine. . . . Efforts to acquire all these items from the Russian church in Munich failed, as the Americans just could not locate anyone from that parish in the devastated city. Nevertheless, some of the problems could be solved. The approximately four hundred Catholic priests detained in Dachau had been allowed to remain together in one barrack and recite mass every morning before going to work. They offered us Orthodox the use of their prayer room in “Block 26,” which was just across the road from my own “block.” The chapel was bare, save for a wooden table and a Czenstochowa icon of the Theotokos hanging on the wall above the table—an icon which had originated in Constantinople and was later brought to Belz in Galicia, where it was subsequently taken from the Orthodox by a Polish king. When the Russian Army drove Napoleon's troops from Czenstochowa, however, the abbot of the Czenstochowa Monastery gave a copy of the icon to czar Alexander I, who placed it in the Kazan Cathedral in Saint-Petersburg where it was venerated until the Bolshevik seizure of power. A creative solution to the problem of the vestments was also found. New linen towels were taken from the hospital of our former SS-guards. When sewn together lengthwise, two towels formed an epitrachilion and when sewn together at the ends they became an orarion. Red crosses, originally intended to be worn by the medical personnel of the SS guards, were put on the towel-vestments. On Easter Sunday, May 6th (April 23rd according to the Church calendar)—which ominously fell that year on Saint George the Victory-Bearer's Day—Serbs, Greeks and Russians gathered at the Catholic priests’ barracks. Although Russians comprised about 40 percent of the Dachau inmates, only a few managed to attend the service. By that time “repatriation officers” of the special Smersh units had arrived in Dachau by American military planes, and begun the process of erecting new lines of barbed wire for the purpose of isolating Soviet citizens from the rest of the prisoners, which was the first step in preparing them for their eventual forced repatriation. In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in 1945. Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon wore the make-shift “vestments” over their blue and gray-striped prisoner’s uniforms. Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavonic, and then back again to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras—everything was recited from memory. The Gospel—“In the beginning was the Word”—also from memory. And finally, the Homily of Saint John Chrysostom—also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live. Saint John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well! Eighteen Orthodox priests and one deacon—most of whom were Serbs—participated in this unforgettable service. Like the sick man who had been lowered through the roof of a house and placed in front of the feet of Christ the Savior, the Greek Archimandrite Meletios was carried on a stretcher into the chapel, where he remained prostrate for the duration of the service. Other prisoners at Dachau included the recently canonized Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich, who later became the first administrator of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the US and Canada; and the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dionysios, who after the war was made Metropolitan of Trikkis and Stagnon in Greece. Fr. Dionysios had been arrested in 1942 for giving asylum to an English officer fleeing the Nazis. He was tortured for not revealing the names of others involved in aiding Allied soldiers and was then imprisoned for eighteen months in Thessalonica before being transferred to Dachau. During his two years at Dachau, he witnessed Nazi atrocities and suffered greatly himself. He recorded many harrowing experiences in his book Ieroi Palmoi. Among these were regular marches to the firing squad, where he would be spared at the last moment, ridiculed, and then returned to the destitution of the prisoners’ block. After the liberation, Fr. Dionysios helped the Allies to relocate former Dachau inmates and to bring some normalcy to their disrupted lives. Before his death, Metropolitan Dionysios returned to Dachau from Greece and celebrated the first peacetime Orthodox Liturgy there. Writing in 1949, Fr. Dionysios remembered Pascha 1945 in these words: In the open air, behind the shanty, the Orthodox gather together, Greeks and Serbs. In the center, both priests, the Serb and the Greek. They aren't wearing golden vestments. They don't even have cassocks. No tapers, no service books in their hands. But now they don't need external, material lights to hymn the joy. The souls of all are aflame, swimming in light. Blessed is our God. My little paper-bound New Testament has come into its glory. We chant “Christ is Risen” many times, and its echo reverberates everywhere and sanctifies this place. Hitler's Germany, the tragic symbol of the world without Christ, no longer exists. And the hymn of the life of faith was going up from all the souls; the life that proceeds buoyantly toward the Crucified One of the verdant hill of Stein. On April 29, 1995—the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Dachau—the Russian Orthodox Memorial Chapel of Dachau was consecrated. Dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ, the chapel holds an icon depicting angels opening the gates of the concentration camp and Christ Himself leading the prisoners to freedom. The simple wooden block conical architecture of the chapel is representative of the traditional funeral chapels of the Russian North. The sections of the chapel were constructed by experienced craftsmen in the Vladimir region of Russia, and assembled in Dachau by veterans of the Western Group of Russian Forces just before their departure from Germany in 1994. The priests who participated in the 1945 Paschal Liturgy are commemorated at every service held in the chapel, along with all Orthodox Christians who lost their lives “at this place, or at another place of torture.” |
2024.05.14 21:05 EJC28 Bills 2024 Draft Analysis Compilation
Round 2, Pick 33 - Keon Coleman, WR, Florida State:
NFL: After trading back twice on Thursday, the Bills stick at 33 and take a big, physical and athletically gifted target. Coleman isn't fast and isn't a deep threat, but he can win in a variety of ways. But who will Josh Allen's deep threat be? Stay tuned.
CBS Sports: C-. “X” receiver for a WR-needy team. Plays faster than his combine speed but doesn’t separate consistently and isn’t as good of a contested-catch wideout as his size and highlight-reel would indicate. Young though.
ESPN: After trading back twice, the Bills addressed the team's most significant position of need with Coleman, a big outside receiver with the ability to make splash plays -- 12 receiving touchdowns on contested catches since the start of 2022, second-most in the FBS, however, only a 31.7% contested catch percentage in 2023 -- to create separation and a release that general manager Brandon Beane described as "about as good as any." Beane acknowledged that while he's "probably not" going to run away from defenders, Buffalo feels his play speed is faster than the speed he showed at the combine -- 4.61 40-yard dash -- also noting that they liked his athletic ability that came from playing basketball. The Bills needed starting-level talent at outside receiver and Coleman, who turns 21 in May, fits into what Buffalo was looking for, while the team was still able to move back and add picks.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Believes that knitting is the original “Netflix and chill”.
Round 2, Pick 60 - Cole Bishop, S, Utah:
NFL: Safety was a big need for the Bills, and they go back to the Utes for help after taking Dalton Kincaid in Round 1 a year ago. Bishop is a very good athlete and field general who can play the post safety spot and cover a lot of ground. He played like the QB of the Utes' defense the past two years and could be a rookie starter for Buffalo.
CBS Sports: A-. Large, intimidating safety with magnificent movement skill. The QB of the defense. Aligns everywhere. Can wear many hats. Excelled as slot defender and vs. TEs in coverage and runs the alley on outside runs as well as any safety in the class. Ball skills and tackling must improve. Short arms. Need filled.
ESPN: Another pick for the Bills in the second round, another big need addressed. Drafting Bishop adds someone who can compete for a starting role this season, in addition to being a potential answer in the secondary after moving on from Jordan Poyer this offseason while Micah Hyde continues to contemplate retirement. Bishop has the ability to move all over the field, along with speed -- 4.45 40-yard dash -- and many of the qualities and instincts the Bills look for at the position.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He always weebles and wobbles, but he won’t ever fall down.
Round 3, Pick 95 - DeWayne Carter, DT, Duke:
NFL: When I first watched Carter at the Senior Bowl, I wrote in my notes: "rolling ball of knives." Carter's game doesn't have a lot of pretty to it, but he's a scheme disruptor with his low center of gravity, ferocious style and nasty demeanor.
CBS Sports: B+. Active, high-energy interior rusher who’s on the ground a bit more than what’s desired because of his frenetic style. But it also gets him to the football more often than most DTs. Flashes of swim move and spin just needs to utilize them more. Length is a plus and he works hard vs. run. Some power too. Fills niche need on Buffalo’s defensive front. Needs to use his length better on passing downs.
ESPN: Using the pick acquired via the trade with the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, the Bills addressed another hole with Carter bringing depth at defensive tackle. The three-technique tackle will have the opportunity to continue to develop -- potentially as Ed Oliver's backup -- adding to a defensive tackle room that has limited young talent. The Bills didn't draft a defensive tackle last year due to the way the board fell, but the team was able to add to the rotation early this year.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Still says ‘weeeeeeeeeee’ when on a playground swing.
Round 4, Pick 128 - Ray Davis, RB, Kentucky:
NFL: Davis has overcome a lot to reach this level, and though he lacks long speed, he can be a Zack Moss-like player for the Bills. Davis' vision and wicked spin move have left a few defenders in a blender.
CBS Sports: C. Compact, older RB with plus stop-start ability, married to his feet well. Can deploy multiple cuts in a run to make defenders miss. Good, not amazing overall elusiveness though. Quicker than fast too. Will work hard to fight through contact. Has the skills to be fine complementary RB in NFL.
ESPN: With Davis, the Bills add a needed bigger back -- 5-foot-8, 211-pounds -- to pair with James Cook, but also someone who has the ability to catch the football (seven touchdown catches in 2023, tied with Najee Harris for the most by any SEC running back in a season in the last 25 years). Buffalo had a variety of veterans complimenting Cook last season, but Davis, 24, will give Buffalo a power runner and another younger presence in the room, albeit with plenty of collegiate experience from two seasons at Temple, two at Vanderbilt and one at Kentucky.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: This divorce is taking forever Erica why are you doing this?
Round 5, Pick 141 - Sedrick Van Pran-Granger, C, Georgia:
NFL: He's a tough, durable competitor with good anchor strength and three years starting experience for an SEC power, although SVP's lack of athleticism and smaller frame might make him a center-only projection.
CBS Sports: A-. Multi-year starter in the SEC with wrestler’s mentality. Battles through the whistle every snap. Mobility stands out. Explosive short-area quicks. Doesn’t have supreme length and clearly has to add weight/strength to his game. Methodically carries out run-game duties with ease. Second-level climbs etc. Older prospect but comes with high floor.
ESPN: This offseason, the Bills moved on from the team's starting center, Mitch Morse, and backup Ryan Bates. Last year's left guard Connor McGovern is set to slide over to the starting role. Adding Van Pran-Granger brings depth at center -- he allowed one sack his entire career in 1,337 pass-blocking plays, according to Sports Info Solutions -- and a strong candidate for the future at the position with significant starting experience (he started the last three seasons at center for Georgia).
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Is constantly telling people how different things are on Linux.
Round 5, Pick 160 - Edefuan Ulofoshio, LB, Washington:
NFL: In recent years, Buffalo has taken some interesting shots on linebackers in Rounds 3-7, and Ulofoshio continues that trend. He was one of the final players in my top 100 prospect list with his excellent speed, intense style and special teams experience, even if injuries have clouded his projection.
CBS Sports: A-. Six-year LB who starred for a long time as a full-time player in Washington’s program. Big-time tester and it shows on the field. Just takes a second to diagnose. Keen block-avoider as he’s sifting through traffic. Smooth athlete all around but doesn’t quite play to his workout. Reliable tackler who also flashed coverage skill down the seam. High-floor pick here. Crowded LB room.
ESPN: The Bills lost major special teams contributors this offseason, including linebacker Tyrel Dodson and defensive back Siran Neal, while captain linebacker Tyler Matakevich remains a free agent. Ulofoshio adds depth to the linebacker room, but perhaps more importantly, he can find a role on this roster as someone who can make an impact on special teams, an area of priority for the Bills. He has experience from playing six years at Washington, and while he dealt with multiple significant injuries in 2021 and 2022, he played every game in 2023 and earned Washington's Guy Flaherty Most Inspirational Award, the program's oldest and most prestigious honor.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: DROP TABLE card_facts; [please crash your pc, reader].
Round 5, Pick 168 - Javon Solomon, DE, Troy:
NFL: Solomon was a highly productive rusher the past few years in an unusual frame. He's short and undersized at 6-foot-1 and 247 pounds but with nearly 34-inch arms and huge hands. That extra length helps Solomon get to the quarterback, along with his quick burst and non-stop motor. An interesting study for sure.
CBS Sports: A. Burst, bend, speed predicated outside EDGE. Small frame but serious length. Unique build. Doesn’t get engulfed by bigger blockers as much as expected because of his speed-to-power conversion. Hand work is good, not amazing and can flatten to the QB. Motor hums on every play. Bills needed this type of quick winner on the outside.
ESPN: Solomon provides depth at edge rusher, another position of need for Buffalo. He led the FBS with 16 sacks last season and totaled 31.5 sacks since the start of 2021 (also most in the FBS), in addition to 49 career tackles for loss (third in Sun Belt history). Being a Day 3 selection, finding a special teams role will be important for Solomon. He'll also have the opportunity to develop behind the likes of Greg Rousseau, Von Miller -- someone that Solomon has modeled his game after -- and AJ Epenesa.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He once painted the walls of a Buccees stall, hasn’t been back since.
Round 6, Pick 204 - Tylan Grable, OT, UCF:
NFL: He's a converted Jacksonville State tight end who became a solid left tackle the past two years at UCF. Grable is a quality athlete with great length and potential to be groomed at center, even if he's still learning how to play O-line.
CBS Sports: B. Height and length type at OT who probably plays guard at the next level. Smooth athleticism and can sustain speed throughout the play. Not just quick. Hands are more active and heavy than they are accurate. Good depth add here with positional versatility. Can grow into his frame.
ESPN: Grable started his collegiate career as a walk-on tight end at Jacksonville State, but transitioned to offensive line starting in 2019 and then started 27 games at left tackle while at UCF. He will compete for a roster spot in an offensive line room with veteran players, and said he's prepared to make a switch to a different position if needed. General manager Brandon Beane said that Grable is "gonna have to continue to work on his lower body strength, his power to move guys in the run game, but has great feet you know for pass pro."
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Still refers to Google DUO as Google MEET.
Round 6, Pick 219 - Daequan Hardy, CB, Penn State:
NFL: His return skills might be what keeps him in the league, as Hardy lacks the mass and strength to hold up full time on defense, but sub-4.4 speed is always appealing in a DB.
CBS Sports: A-. Case for most sudden, twitch-up athlete at CB in the class. Super speedy too. Plus recovery talent. Explosiveness in every movement. Not always sticky in coverage but does have high-caliber reps. Check Ohio State game. Erratic tackling and hard to get off blockers because of his size. Chippy in trying to make plays on screens.
ESPN: Hardy brings depth at the cornerback position and skills as a returner. In 2023, he tied the Penn State record for most punt return touchdowns in a season (two) and finished seventh in punt return average (14.6) in school history. Beane noted that if not for the new return rules, he's not sure if they would have picked Hardy, but "this guy can play one of the backup corner spots, but also he's a really nice returner." Buffalo lost multiple players at the returner spot in free agency, and with more focus on it going into this season, Hardy will have the opportunity to compete for the role.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Owns the complete N64 collection including a CIB Conkers.
Round 7, Pick 221 - Travis Clayton, OT, England:
NFL: The Brit, who is 6-foot-7 and 301 pounds with 35-inch arms, ran a 4.81-second 40-yard dash at South Florida's pro day and immediately put himself on scouts' radars late in the process. He's a total project but might be a terrific find with some seasoning, thanks to those unusual athletic traits.
CBS Sports: C+. At 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds with 35-inch arms and a sub 5.00 40-yard dash, this is a ridiculous athlete who is new to football from London.
ESPN: Despite the Bills never seeing Clayton play football, he's an intriguing addition to develop. The initial projection is as an offensive tackle for the 6-foot-7, 303-pound boxer and former rugby player from England after offensive line coach Aaron Kromer came away from watching tape of his workouts. Notably, he ran a 4.79 40-yard dash, faster than all offensive linemen who competed at the combine in the last 10 years. He'll have an opportunity to show the Bills exactly how his skills will translate and what he may be capable of in the NFL, especially as he does not count for a roster spot as part of the International Player Pathway program.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Just like a fantasy draft, the true sleepers can be found in round seven.
submitted by EJC28 to buffalobills [link] [comments]
NFL: After trading back twice on Thursday, the Bills stick at 33 and take a big, physical and athletically gifted target. Coleman isn't fast and isn't a deep threat, but he can win in a variety of ways. But who will Josh Allen's deep threat be? Stay tuned.
CBS Sports: C-. “X” receiver for a WR-needy team. Plays faster than his combine speed but doesn’t separate consistently and isn’t as good of a contested-catch wideout as his size and highlight-reel would indicate. Young though.
ESPN: After trading back twice, the Bills addressed the team's most significant position of need with Coleman, a big outside receiver with the ability to make splash plays -- 12 receiving touchdowns on contested catches since the start of 2022, second-most in the FBS, however, only a 31.7% contested catch percentage in 2023 -- to create separation and a release that general manager Brandon Beane described as "about as good as any." Beane acknowledged that while he's "probably not" going to run away from defenders, Buffalo feels his play speed is faster than the speed he showed at the combine -- 4.61 40-yard dash -- also noting that they liked his athletic ability that came from playing basketball. The Bills needed starting-level talent at outside receiver and Coleman, who turns 21 in May, fits into what Buffalo was looking for, while the team was still able to move back and add picks.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Believes that knitting is the original “Netflix and chill”.
Round 2, Pick 60 - Cole Bishop, S, Utah:
NFL: Safety was a big need for the Bills, and they go back to the Utes for help after taking Dalton Kincaid in Round 1 a year ago. Bishop is a very good athlete and field general who can play the post safety spot and cover a lot of ground. He played like the QB of the Utes' defense the past two years and could be a rookie starter for Buffalo.
CBS Sports: A-. Large, intimidating safety with magnificent movement skill. The QB of the defense. Aligns everywhere. Can wear many hats. Excelled as slot defender and vs. TEs in coverage and runs the alley on outside runs as well as any safety in the class. Ball skills and tackling must improve. Short arms. Need filled.
ESPN: Another pick for the Bills in the second round, another big need addressed. Drafting Bishop adds someone who can compete for a starting role this season, in addition to being a potential answer in the secondary after moving on from Jordan Poyer this offseason while Micah Hyde continues to contemplate retirement. Bishop has the ability to move all over the field, along with speed -- 4.45 40-yard dash -- and many of the qualities and instincts the Bills look for at the position.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He always weebles and wobbles, but he won’t ever fall down.
Round 3, Pick 95 - DeWayne Carter, DT, Duke:
NFL: When I first watched Carter at the Senior Bowl, I wrote in my notes: "rolling ball of knives." Carter's game doesn't have a lot of pretty to it, but he's a scheme disruptor with his low center of gravity, ferocious style and nasty demeanor.
CBS Sports: B+. Active, high-energy interior rusher who’s on the ground a bit more than what’s desired because of his frenetic style. But it also gets him to the football more often than most DTs. Flashes of swim move and spin just needs to utilize them more. Length is a plus and he works hard vs. run. Some power too. Fills niche need on Buffalo’s defensive front. Needs to use his length better on passing downs.
ESPN: Using the pick acquired via the trade with the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, the Bills addressed another hole with Carter bringing depth at defensive tackle. The three-technique tackle will have the opportunity to continue to develop -- potentially as Ed Oliver's backup -- adding to a defensive tackle room that has limited young talent. The Bills didn't draft a defensive tackle last year due to the way the board fell, but the team was able to add to the rotation early this year.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Still says ‘weeeeeeeeeee’ when on a playground swing.
Round 4, Pick 128 - Ray Davis, RB, Kentucky:
NFL: Davis has overcome a lot to reach this level, and though he lacks long speed, he can be a Zack Moss-like player for the Bills. Davis' vision and wicked spin move have left a few defenders in a blender.
CBS Sports: C. Compact, older RB with plus stop-start ability, married to his feet well. Can deploy multiple cuts in a run to make defenders miss. Good, not amazing overall elusiveness though. Quicker than fast too. Will work hard to fight through contact. Has the skills to be fine complementary RB in NFL.
ESPN: With Davis, the Bills add a needed bigger back -- 5-foot-8, 211-pounds -- to pair with James Cook, but also someone who has the ability to catch the football (seven touchdown catches in 2023, tied with Najee Harris for the most by any SEC running back in a season in the last 25 years). Buffalo had a variety of veterans complimenting Cook last season, but Davis, 24, will give Buffalo a power runner and another younger presence in the room, albeit with plenty of collegiate experience from two seasons at Temple, two at Vanderbilt and one at Kentucky.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: This divorce is taking forever Erica why are you doing this?
Round 5, Pick 141 - Sedrick Van Pran-Granger, C, Georgia:
NFL: He's a tough, durable competitor with good anchor strength and three years starting experience for an SEC power, although SVP's lack of athleticism and smaller frame might make him a center-only projection.
CBS Sports: A-. Multi-year starter in the SEC with wrestler’s mentality. Battles through the whistle every snap. Mobility stands out. Explosive short-area quicks. Doesn’t have supreme length and clearly has to add weight/strength to his game. Methodically carries out run-game duties with ease. Second-level climbs etc. Older prospect but comes with high floor.
ESPN: This offseason, the Bills moved on from the team's starting center, Mitch Morse, and backup Ryan Bates. Last year's left guard Connor McGovern is set to slide over to the starting role. Adding Van Pran-Granger brings depth at center -- he allowed one sack his entire career in 1,337 pass-blocking plays, according to Sports Info Solutions -- and a strong candidate for the future at the position with significant starting experience (he started the last three seasons at center for Georgia).
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Is constantly telling people how different things are on Linux.
Round 5, Pick 160 - Edefuan Ulofoshio, LB, Washington:
NFL: In recent years, Buffalo has taken some interesting shots on linebackers in Rounds 3-7, and Ulofoshio continues that trend. He was one of the final players in my top 100 prospect list with his excellent speed, intense style and special teams experience, even if injuries have clouded his projection.
CBS Sports: A-. Six-year LB who starred for a long time as a full-time player in Washington’s program. Big-time tester and it shows on the field. Just takes a second to diagnose. Keen block-avoider as he’s sifting through traffic. Smooth athlete all around but doesn’t quite play to his workout. Reliable tackler who also flashed coverage skill down the seam. High-floor pick here. Crowded LB room.
ESPN: The Bills lost major special teams contributors this offseason, including linebacker Tyrel Dodson and defensive back Siran Neal, while captain linebacker Tyler Matakevich remains a free agent. Ulofoshio adds depth to the linebacker room, but perhaps more importantly, he can find a role on this roster as someone who can make an impact on special teams, an area of priority for the Bills. He has experience from playing six years at Washington, and while he dealt with multiple significant injuries in 2021 and 2022, he played every game in 2023 and earned Washington's Guy Flaherty Most Inspirational Award, the program's oldest and most prestigious honor.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: DROP TABLE card_facts; [please crash your pc, reader].
Round 5, Pick 168 - Javon Solomon, DE, Troy:
NFL: Solomon was a highly productive rusher the past few years in an unusual frame. He's short and undersized at 6-foot-1 and 247 pounds but with nearly 34-inch arms and huge hands. That extra length helps Solomon get to the quarterback, along with his quick burst and non-stop motor. An interesting study for sure.
CBS Sports: A. Burst, bend, speed predicated outside EDGE. Small frame but serious length. Unique build. Doesn’t get engulfed by bigger blockers as much as expected because of his speed-to-power conversion. Hand work is good, not amazing and can flatten to the QB. Motor hums on every play. Bills needed this type of quick winner on the outside.
ESPN: Solomon provides depth at edge rusher, another position of need for Buffalo. He led the FBS with 16 sacks last season and totaled 31.5 sacks since the start of 2021 (also most in the FBS), in addition to 49 career tackles for loss (third in Sun Belt history). Being a Day 3 selection, finding a special teams role will be important for Solomon. He'll also have the opportunity to develop behind the likes of Greg Rousseau, Von Miller -- someone that Solomon has modeled his game after -- and AJ Epenesa.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: He once painted the walls of a Buccees stall, hasn’t been back since.
Round 6, Pick 204 - Tylan Grable, OT, UCF:
NFL: He's a converted Jacksonville State tight end who became a solid left tackle the past two years at UCF. Grable is a quality athlete with great length and potential to be groomed at center, even if he's still learning how to play O-line.
CBS Sports: B. Height and length type at OT who probably plays guard at the next level. Smooth athleticism and can sustain speed throughout the play. Not just quick. Hands are more active and heavy than they are accurate. Good depth add here with positional versatility. Can grow into his frame.
ESPN: Grable started his collegiate career as a walk-on tight end at Jacksonville State, but transitioned to offensive line starting in 2019 and then started 27 games at left tackle while at UCF. He will compete for a roster spot in an offensive line room with veteran players, and said he's prepared to make a switch to a different position if needed. General manager Brandon Beane said that Grable is "gonna have to continue to work on his lower body strength, his power to move guys in the run game, but has great feet you know for pass pro."
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Still refers to Google DUO as Google MEET.
Round 6, Pick 219 - Daequan Hardy, CB, Penn State:
NFL: His return skills might be what keeps him in the league, as Hardy lacks the mass and strength to hold up full time on defense, but sub-4.4 speed is always appealing in a DB.
CBS Sports: A-. Case for most sudden, twitch-up athlete at CB in the class. Super speedy too. Plus recovery talent. Explosiveness in every movement. Not always sticky in coverage but does have high-caliber reps. Check Ohio State game. Erratic tackling and hard to get off blockers because of his size. Chippy in trying to make plays on screens.
ESPN: Hardy brings depth at the cornerback position and skills as a returner. In 2023, he tied the Penn State record for most punt return touchdowns in a season (two) and finished seventh in punt return average (14.6) in school history. Beane noted that if not for the new return rules, he's not sure if they would have picked Hardy, but "this guy can play one of the backup corner spots, but also he's a really nice returner." Buffalo lost multiple players at the returner spot in free agency, and with more focus on it going into this season, Hardy will have the opportunity to compete for the role.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Owns the complete N64 collection including a CIB Conkers.
Round 7, Pick 221 - Travis Clayton, OT, England:
NFL: The Brit, who is 6-foot-7 and 301 pounds with 35-inch arms, ran a 4.81-second 40-yard dash at South Florida's pro day and immediately put himself on scouts' radars late in the process. He's a total project but might be a terrific find with some seasoning, thanks to those unusual athletic traits.
CBS Sports: C+. At 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds with 35-inch arms and a sub 5.00 40-yard dash, this is a ridiculous athlete who is new to football from London.
ESPN: Despite the Bills never seeing Clayton play football, he's an intriguing addition to develop. The initial projection is as an offensive tackle for the 6-foot-7, 303-pound boxer and former rugby player from England after offensive line coach Aaron Kromer came away from watching tape of his workouts. Notably, he ran a 4.79 40-yard dash, faster than all offensive linemen who competed at the combine in the last 10 years. He'll have an opportunity to show the Bills exactly how his skills will translate and what he may be capable of in the NFL, especially as he does not count for a roster spot as part of the International Player Pathway program.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Just like a fantasy draft, the true sleepers can be found in round seven.
2024.05.14 20:54 joebeen139 The Last Glory Hole
Stoked to watch the pga this week. Solys grin when he slipped in his 'glory's last hole' joke really got me chucking this morning. Can't wait for more quality content.
submitted by joebeen139 to NoLayingUp [link] [comments]
2024.05.14 20:47 iampfox Things I've learned in 3 years of having a frame pool
 | In no particular order of importance, but all stuff I wish I would have known! submitted by iampfox to AboveGroundPools [link] [comments]
Pool pic tax (this is my second pool, my third season, its second season. The first bit the dust after I tried to stash it and it ended up with holes at the creases). Edit: Doesn't appear to be showing up, so I'll post it separately! https://preview.redd.it/sul39mrqsf0d1.jpg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be227dcf9887f346b6186e833d5fb3a7d58ecc5b |
2024.05.14 19:51 DONT_READ_THIS_OKAY THE WESTERN RAM IS BATTERING ITS DEMENTED HEAD AGAINST A RUSSIAN WALL
 | https://preview.redd.it/vg2btat8kf0d1.jpg?width=748&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75a78fded339323c864661a38a969b6d9ca22363 submitted by DONT_READ_THIS_OKAY to u/DONT_READ_THIS_OKAY [link] [comments] As Russia survived the West's sanctions coming out smiling the western elites should have conceded failure. Instead they plowed on to certain defeat, upping a reckless ante, always doubling down. Why? What is it with the British political elite and Ukraine? Is it some futile effort to recall the UK’s glory days when it was a great power? Are we merely seeing the lingering death throes of an empire long gone and now completely irrelevant? How many more Ukrainians must lose their lives for the sake of this gruesome activity by the Brits? Hugely disliked in Britain Richie Sunak and his government may also be hoping for a much needed uptick in popularity by using their present breast-beating, war-mongering tactic in Ukraine to ultra-cynically bring it about. An earlier prime minister, Margaret Thatcher achieved just such a surge in popularity by going to war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands when her poll ratings were falling to dangerous levels. Thatcher succeeded where Sunak appears to be failing abysmally to achieve the same cynical maneuver. Or is something else at work here? Do the western powers see their long-held ability to manipulate events globally fast slipping away? Could this be the true reason for their reckless strategy of endlessly supporting the Ukrainian regime despite every indicator that it is doomed to be utterly defeated by Russia? Might this be the most fundamental of all reasons for the hopeless endeavour to defeat a Russia that sees an existential threat in NATO’s ambition to put missiles on its border in Ukraine. This task was hopeless from the start as Russia simply cannot have such a circumstance and no amount of weaponry from the West will change this fact. The political and media elites are clearly aligned as tight as can be in a unified war to maintain the status and power they have become so very used to till now. The thought of losing all the many perks that come with such a power brings them to a state of such utter agitation that we can expect almost any reckless action from them now. Even the prospect of nuclear war does not seem to faze the most zealot amongst them. It appears that no world at all is preferable to such convinced neocons than a world they can no longer control. The British in their “wisdom” have told the Kiev regime that they are quite at liberty to fire the UK-supplied missiles at targets in Russia. The Russian high command has responded by saying that if this takes place they will then be at liberty to attack UK bases in Ukraine… and beyond. Yet even this statement does not appear to give the British pause, they continue their belligerent rhetoric, upping the ante even more. Now we hear that British special forces are at work in Ukraine. Another sign that sooner or later Russia will be bound to cause British blood to run in Ukraine, and quite possibly elsewhere. What variety of madness has the western powers in its grip? Ukraine is of no special strategic interest to them? Yet they are clearly willing to see millions die to defend it in a struggle that was lost as soon as Russia survived all the West’s sanctions and came out the other side with the strongest economy in Europe. The madness involved breed mutually assured destruction and the deaths of millions. Does this prospect deter those in the West from their futile actions that has seen half a million Ukrainians die or be grievously wounded? Not a bit it seems. The juggernaut of western irresponsible warmongering goes on regardless. Like the ram in the popular song of the late Fifties, ‘High Hopes’, but without its success, battering its head against an immovable dam, the bone-headed political and media elites of the West appear unable to halt their compulsively disastrous acts of sheer, reckless folly. Wikipedia: The song describes two scenarios where animals do seemingly impossible acts. First, an ant moves a rubber tree plant all by himself, then a ram single-handedly puts a hole in a "billion-kilowatt dam." The desires of these animals are described by the chorus as "high, apple pie in the sky, hopes.” https://preview.redd.it/pwken32akf0d1.jpg?width=1344&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b0a257f3dbcc2cf51ca977f27d7d474520c64de |
2024.05.14 18:34 Jimithyashford Re-upping my Metal Detecting Permissions
For those that have seen this request before, don't mind me.
Howdy all! I am out of in town permissions at the moment. I've got a few out of towner permissions that I need to set up weekend dates for, but nothing in town for after work regular week day detection. It's been curb strip and public park detecting for a few weeks now and it's been slow going.
Anyway! Just in case there are any new folks about that I haven't asked before, if you own an old home, or a home on an old lot, I'd leap at the chance to come metal detect the yard. Springfield has a lot of wonderful old Victorian homes and was the site of one of the few urban civil war battles, so there is all kinds of opportunity to find awesome things.
You can learn a bit about the history of your home, and I give home owners first dibs on any neat item they'd like to keep.
Possible Concern: What about my Lawn? The process involves digging a series of earth plugs, think small round holes that range in size from half the size of a softball up to about half the size of a cantaloupe. These sod plugs are flipped over, the object is located, then they are flipped back and stomped flat. The grass sod is left in tack most of the time and goes right back into it's own footprint. Usually by the time of the next rain you can't tell where the digging was even done.
There are sometimes really neat "large" targets in the ground that might require digging a larger hole to get out. Think like an old double bit axe head or a cannon ball or a big old cast iron door lock plate, etc, but I don't dig for big targets in people's yards, unless they really want me to, cause it's a lot of work and can get a bit messy.
So! shoot me a message and let me know! I am always enormously appreciative.
If you have a house built prior to 1950, that's great. If you have a house built in the 1800s then amazing, yes please, and if you have a house built in the 1800s and located between College street in the north, Jefferson in the east, Fort in the West, and Grand in the South, then that' a pretty rough footprint of where the battle of Springfield took place, and that's even better!
Thanks all
submitted by Jimithyashford to springfieldMO [link] [comments]
Howdy all! I am out of in town permissions at the moment. I've got a few out of towner permissions that I need to set up weekend dates for, but nothing in town for after work regular week day detection. It's been curb strip and public park detecting for a few weeks now and it's been slow going.
Anyway! Just in case there are any new folks about that I haven't asked before, if you own an old home, or a home on an old lot, I'd leap at the chance to come metal detect the yard. Springfield has a lot of wonderful old Victorian homes and was the site of one of the few urban civil war battles, so there is all kinds of opportunity to find awesome things.
You can learn a bit about the history of your home, and I give home owners first dibs on any neat item they'd like to keep.
Possible Concern: What about my Lawn? The process involves digging a series of earth plugs, think small round holes that range in size from half the size of a softball up to about half the size of a cantaloupe. These sod plugs are flipped over, the object is located, then they are flipped back and stomped flat. The grass sod is left in tack most of the time and goes right back into it's own footprint. Usually by the time of the next rain you can't tell where the digging was even done.
There are sometimes really neat "large" targets in the ground that might require digging a larger hole to get out. Think like an old double bit axe head or a cannon ball or a big old cast iron door lock plate, etc, but I don't dig for big targets in people's yards, unless they really want me to, cause it's a lot of work and can get a bit messy.
So! shoot me a message and let me know! I am always enormously appreciative.
If you have a house built prior to 1950, that's great. If you have a house built in the 1800s then amazing, yes please, and if you have a house built in the 1800s and located between College street in the north, Jefferson in the east, Fort in the West, and Grand in the South, then that' a pretty rough footprint of where the battle of Springfield took place, and that's even better!
Thanks all