My child asked if there will be input/output mapping diagrams or linear functions on the 7th grade end of year exam. We use the Stanford exam. 7th grade spring would be Advanced 1 level. She’s curious, and I’d love to give her an answer, but I’m coming up blank. I can’t seem to figure this out without buying a prep book. Does anyone know? Thanks.

The Circle of Malius tapestry depicting Ultima Risen looking down upon seven of its elemental Eikons
“Have you learned nothing!? Damned is the slave who would turn the scourge upon his master.” -Ultima
Hello and welcome to my final post on the mythological inspirations for the Eikons of Final Fantasy XVI. If you would like to read any of my previous posts on the Eikons, you can find them here:

1.) Phoenix

2.) Ifrit

3.) Shiva

4.) Ramuh

5.) Garuda

6.) Titan

7.) Bahamut

8.) Odin

9.) Leviathan

With the conclusion of the Echoes of the Fallen and the Rising Tide expansions, our protagonist Clive Rosfield finally reunites the power of the Eikons and realizes his full potential as the conduit for Ultima’s ambitions; and thus attains a form of apotheosis through the reward of Ultima’s divine abilities. As such, I figured I should do one more post, this time on Ultima itself. Though it is mostly an original character, there are still a lot of real-world religious themes baked into Ultima’s character that makes for a thematically poignant villain. As always, I am no expert and if you feel like I may have said something incorrect or if you feel that I missed something; by all means please let me know in the comments as I would love to start a discussion with you on these topics. I would also like to give a shout out to who asked me to make a post on Ultima a while ago. I hope you all like it!
The main antagonist of Final Fantasy XVI, Ultima is a member of a race of extraterrestrial-like beings that share a single consciousness and identity. The Ultima collective were the first to discover the manipulation of aether, the quintessence of life, through magickal feats and with it, the Blight that would swallow their homeland. Driven by desperation, sixteen of the remaining Ultimas divested themselves of their deteriorating physical forms and embarked on a voyage to the land that would be known as Valisthea. Here, Ultima formed the Mothercrystals in order to siphon the realm’s aether for the purpose of weaving a spell that would resurrect its species and remake the world. Ultima also created mankind to act as stewards for its Mothercrystals, imbuing the members of the tribes that centralized around these glassy formations with elemental affinities; giving rise to what would eventually become the Dominants and Eikons. All of this was done in the hopes that successive generations of humans would produce a suitable body for Ultima to inhabit that could withstand the massive amount of aether required to cast the revivification spell; its perfect vessel, its Mythos. As the Mothercrystal Dzemekys resided in relatively close proximity to Origin, the metaphorical ark that ferried Ultima to possible salvation; the Children of Dzemekys, the Motes of Darkness that cultivated around this Mothercrystal regularly communed with their creator, starting a religion dedicated to Ultima called the Circle of Malius. One of the prominent beliefs of this faith was that of the Savior Myth, which prophesied that “...on some future day of reckoning, the incarnation of the lord would appear among mankind and remake the world; that the advent of this incarnation would be heralded by the emergence of several heavenly servants of great might; that the lord’s faithful should rally these servants together in order to bring the incarnation into being; and that for their loyalty, they would be rewarded with the greatest gladness”.
From this background information, as well as the names of many of Ultima’s attacks and Eikonic abilities, such as Holy, Voice of God, Aureoles, Proselytize, Purgatorium, Ascension, and Flames of Creation; we can start to see the parallels between Ultima and Mythos with the Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ, the earthly incarnation of God and the Messiah according to the followers of Christianity. With its status as the originator of the human race, it is quite clear that Ultima is based on the idea of a creator deity, an often primeval and beneficent god in monotheistic and polytheistic belief systems that functions as a creatio ex nihilo explanation for the formation of the universe, the planet, or the existence of human life. Some examples of creator gods include the Sumerian Enki, who fashioned humanity from clay to act as servants to the gods in the story Enki and Nimnah; the Shinto kami Izanagi and Izanami, who formed the islands of Japan (Kuniumi) by churning the Pacific Ocean with their heavenly spear according to the Kojiki; and the Norse sons of Borr, that being Odin, Vili, and Vé who not only formed the mortal realm of Midgard from the primordial giant Ymir’s body, but also created the first two humans Ask and Embla.
Bearing similarities to the creation myth presented in the Babylonian Enūma Eliš; the first of the five books of the Hebrew Torah, that being the Book of Genesis, states in verses 1:1-2:3 that Yahweh, or Elohim Adonai “God the Lord” is yet another creator deity, being the grand architect of existence that created the world and all life on it in the span of six days. The first two humans made by God on the sixth day of creation, Adam and Eve, resided in the Garden of Eden where they were instructed not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Tempted by a serpent into disobeying their promise to God, Eve and Adam ate from the tree; resulting in their expulsion from paradise and the advent of sin or the “fall of man”. The subsequent generations born from the first two humans tainted the world, and as such, God sought to rebuild what He made by washing away the corruption with a great flood, mirroring older Mesopotamian deluge myths such as the one alluded to in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Verses 11:1-9 in the Book of Genesis mention that in the time after the Flood, Nimrod, the great-grandson of the Flood survivor Noah, led the newly united human race into constructing a ziggurat tower in the land of Shinar that reached up to the sky. Viewing this act as an affront to His lordship, God dispersed the human race across the Earth and created numerous languages so that humanity could never again unite and elevate themselves to godhood; dubbing this monument to the disorganization of the human race as the Tower of Babel.
These themes of mortal hubris, impiety, and the divine retribution for these disrespectful acts is also present in Final Fantasy XVI. During the time of the Fallen, an ancient race of technologically-advanced humans, a vicious war was fought for control over the Mothercrystals called the War of the Magi. The Fallen conducted horrific experiments within a literal and metaphorical ivory tower called the Sagespire, transmuting organic matter into inorganic crystals in the hopes of creating their own Mothercrystal and attaining godhood. The Fallen also constructed airships as well as machines designed to combat the Ultima collective and those who would defend the Mothercrystals. These machines, called Eikonoklastes, are named after the term “iconoclast”, which means a person who destroys or attacks religious images or beliefs. One such Eikonklaste was the Omega-I model, which is not only a recurring superboss) in the Final Fantasy series, but also has several neat Christian references associated with it. For instance, during the fight with Omega Aionios, the hostile machine can do an attack called Pantokrator. This is referring to the Christ Pantokrator, a mostly Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic depiction of a stern but benevolent “Christ the Almighty” or “Christ the All-Powerful”; with the Western Christian equivalent being Christ in Majesty. Another religious reference comes from the trophy received by the player for creating the Omega Weapon, called My Reward is With Me; with this phrase originating from verses 22:12-13 in the Book of Revelation as spoken by Jesus Christ, saying; “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”. This is also referenced in the description of the Ultima Weapon that says “‘His word was the first, so shall it be the last.’ - Eikonomachy - Genesis 3:11”.
Much like the Greek story of Icarus flying too close to the Sun and falling to his death as a result, the rebellion against Ultima culminated in the Sins of Dzemekys; in which the Fallen invaded the eponymous Mothercrystal located in southern Storm to claim the giant formation as their own, but Ultima struck them down and destroyed the Mothercrystal, leaving a giant crater behind as a testament to the dangers of challenging the gods. This act not only echoes (pun intended) the Tower of Babel parable and the story of original sin as discussed by ProfNoctis and M. J. Gallagher in the video “Final Fantasy XVI Lecture Stream: A Conversation with MJ Gallagher on Faith, Fables, and the Fallen”; but the Sins of Dzemekys also inadvertently caused the forced emigration of the Children of Dzemekys to the continent outside of Valisthea in an unfortunate subversion of the Book of Exodus story of the Israelites, the chosen people of God, departing from Egypt in search of the Promised Land. This transgression committed by the Fallen against Ultima led the being to become what is known in comparative mythology as the deus otiosus, or the “idle god”. Ultima abandoned its creations, becoming dormant until Clive Rosfield awoke as the Dominant of the Infernal Eikon Ifrit and Ultima’s Mythos hundreds if not thousands of years later.
The fly in the ointment, however, is that Ultima never cared for its creations, its humanity, in the first place. The Savior Myth propagated by Ultima, the ancient Circle of Malius, and it's more modern offshoot Savior Cults in Waloed speak of “The Raise”, the ascension of the faithful into paradise for aiding the lord’s incarnation (Mythos) during the end of the world called the Arche (another term for Primogenesis). This idea is an obvious parallel to the evangelical Christian belief in the Rapture most likely originating from the verses 24:36-44 in the Gospel of Matthew and 4:15-17 in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, whereby during an end-time event either before or during the period of the Great Tribulation that will precede the Second Coming of Christ; the faithful, living and dead, will rise up into the sky and join God in the eternal paradise of Heaven. However, the myth surrounding the Raise is a farce; as the Raise is actually the spell that Ultima intends to cast using Mythos to remake the world. Having served their purpose, Ultima will no longer have need of the human race alongside its resurrected people, meaning that the birth of the new world also spells the death of humanity. Furthermore, the process of Primogenesis, as the name implies, is meant to revert mankind to a prior, “purer” state of being by stripping the wills and higher brain functions of man and beast alike through the metaphorical ritual cleansing of aether floods. Numerous times in the game, Ultima comments on the “threads of consciousness” to Clive and states how it must untangle him from these threads and empty the vessel if Clive is to become its Mythos. These “threads of consciousness” most likely refer to human willpower, a sense of self, and empathy. The greatest affront to Ultima, the reason why it abandoned mankind, was because of their unforeseen development of sentience and free will. These concepts are alien to Ultima, as its entire race shares a single mind, a single identity, a single goal. In fact, Ultima only refers to itself with plural self-descriptors such as “us”, “we”, or “our” and displays a jarringly flat affect up until the final battle, where all of the Ultimas combine into the singular, angelic form of Ultimalius.
Given its rejection of mankind’s autonomy, as well as the fact that the being itself and the majority of the confrontations with it are some sort of mental abstraction; through a metatextual viewpoint it could be argued that Ultima is a twisted manifestation of the Jungian concept of the Collective Unconscious; a pull towards maladaptive conformity and unity, thereby acting as the antithesis to one of FFXVI’s major themes regarding the importance of individuality and freedom. In stark contrast to the popularly held belief in the tabula rasa, the idea that people are born as “blank slates” that are then shaped by their sensory experiences, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and the adherents of analytical psychology proposed that the Collective Unconscious is an inherited instinctual framework for understanding the world beyond conscious awareness that is present in all humans from birth. Jung argued that the Collective Unconscious manifests as archetypes, recurring images and ideas that can be seen propagating in various distinct cultures, allowing for one to make sense of one’s environment through familiar motifs. Jung believed that the similarities between many of the world’s mythological figures and events correspond to these universal archetypes; such as the aformentioned deluge myth motif or the pattern of the king of the gods often being a senex sky father. We can actually see this idea in Final Fantasy XVI in the form of the Eikons, which like the Eidolons) of Final Fantasy IX, are reflections of a given culture’s shared beliefs and experiences manifesting as a centralized figure of veneration for said culture; acting as the godhead of Ultima and the Mothercrystals. For instance, the Motes of Water originally hailed from the coast of southern Ash near the Mothercrystal Drake’s Horn and the river called the Ceaseless Rill, and as such their Eikon embodies the aspects of the water they were constantly surrounded by; that being the sea serpent Leviathan.
Jung believed that individuation, the process by which an individual develops a sense of self, first starts by consciously confronting and integrating aspects of the unconscious such as the Persona), the individual’s perceived role in society; the dualistic gender dynamics within each individual known as the Anima and Animus; and the uncomfortable and reprehensible aspects of an individual’s psyche) called the Shadow). By denying this process through the use of Primogenesis, Ultima keeps humanity under its thumb as an unenlightened slave race complacent in their own self-destruction. We witness this self-realization process for Clive, this transformation into Logos and denial of Ultima’s conformist Mythos, begin when he confronts his Infernal Shadow and accepts the truth of his role in the calamity that transpired at Phoenix Gate; which I think is beautifully demonstrated by the fact that Clive’s inner demon is the literal demon Ifrit.
The words Mythos and Logos are both of Greek origin and roughly mean “myth/story” and “reason, discourse, or word”, respectively. The use of Logos in FFXVI is interesting in that this word also has a theological connotation to it. In the Christian Bible, such as in verse 1:1 of the Gospel of John, Logos) is used to refer to Jesus Christ as the “Word of God”, being the preeminent representative of God’s divine creative presence and a member of the Holy Trinity as God the Son. Similarly to Logos, the Greek word Rhema means “utterance” or “something said”, with the Septuagint, the Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, using both logos and rhema interchangeably when referring to the Word of God; which may explain why the crystals acquired from completing the circles of the Kairos Gate are called Rhema. To Ultima, Logos represents both the ruination of its divine vision of a new world for its own as well as the invictus) or “unconquerable” savior of mankind, with Clive ultimately sacrificing himself so that humanity may learn from their mistakes and build a better world where everyone can live on their own terms. Similarly, as discussed in the four gospels of the New Testament, Jesus was arrested, crucified, and resurrected; with this seen as a sacrifice on the Messiah’s part to serve as an example of how to achieve atonement and salvation for the misguided masses of Jerusalem.
In his video “Ultima - A Deconstruction of Villainy”, YouTuber FatBrett makes a very interesting comparison between Ultima and the protagonist of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. In her novel, Dr. Victor Frankenstein experiments with bringing life to dead tissue through galvanic and chemical processes. The scientist succeeds, essentially playing the part of God by creating a new form of life, but upon doing so is horrified and disgusted by the Creature, spurning his creation and eventually seeks out its destruction as it takes revenge for its abandonment. I bring this up because I would like to pay particular attention to the subtitle of Shelley’s novel, the Modern Prometheus, as this harkens back to the Greek story of the Titan Prometheus; who as a patron deity of humanity gifted mankind fire in defiance of the Olympian king Zeus, and as a result is eternally punished for his disobedience. In terms of the title of Mary Shelley’s novel, the Prometheus name, like the story of Icarus and FFXVI’s Fallen, is used to evoke the idea of a character that oversteps their bounds and is thusly punished for their arrogance. However, I would argue that this is only one aspect of the Prometheus myth. Through another lens, Prometheus could be seen as an example of the “nobel rebel” archetype, an individual who fights for an oppressed group in defiance of the injustices of a tyrannical system or individual, often in the hopes of making a positive change through their rebellion.
Prometheus’ theft of fire, while a sleight against the ruling pantheon that incurred a great cost, represents the gift of civilization and the boon of freedom that knowledge bestows; making it so that mankind would no longer solely rely on the gods for aid. We can also see a similar scenario play out in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. While humanity lost access to paradise on Earth, they gained freedom in the form of self-awareness and knowledge equatable to that of the divine. These sentiments are also shared by the Ophites, who viewed the serpent in the Genesis narrative as a liberator of mankind from the control of a malevolent creator. Several critical analyses of John Milton’s characterization of a sympathetic Satan in his 17th century epic poem Paradise Lost also somewhat align with these viewpoints. Likewise, our protagonist Clive Rosfield, our nobel rebel and Dominant of the demonic Eikon Ifrit, defies the slave-master hierarchy of Valisthea before setting his sights on the ultimate slaver; denying Ultima its Mythos, its fantasy, by gifting mankind with its champion of free will, equality, and compassion; its Logos. And as I see it, in the end Clive succeeds in his crusade against tyranny not by killing Ultima, but by removing magick from the world, since the use of magick was the root cause of humanity’s enslavement, both from themselves and from their God.
Ultima’s apathetic disposition towards its creations, like Dr. Frankenstein, mirrors the Gnostic beliefs regarding their Demiurge or “Creator” named Yaldabaoth. Gnosticism is a collection of various esoteric Jewish and Christian sects that started possibly around the 2nd Century AD or earlier, with one of the primary beliefs shared by these disparate groups being that material existence was born from a mistake, and as such it is an existence of suffering and wickedness that can only be alleviated by coming to terms with and understanding the essence of the material and the spiritual; a process of personal enlightenment called gnosis. To elaborate further, according to accounts such as those found from the Nag Hammadi Library and the theologian Valentinus), there exists a spiritual realm of light which encompasses the totality of the immutable Supreme Being; the Monad), Bythos, or “the One”. From this Plemora, this immaterial plane, arrived the first emanation of the One, that being the hermaphroditic Barbēlō from which further personified divine principles of the mind called Aeons) descended, with these principles often being in male-female pairings called syzygies. It is worth noting that the hierarchical structure of the Aeon lineage#/media/File:Aeons.png) bears some resemblance to the Jewish Kabbalist diagram of the Tree of Life), which consists of the ten emanations of the Ein Sof, the “infinite divinity”, called the Sefirot. The Kabbalist Tree of Life just so happens to also resemble the sword-like symbol that not only can be seen on the Arete Stone in the Hideaway, but also appears when the Ultimas converge into Ultimalius at the end of the game as shown here in this post by . Anyways, the final emanation of the Gnostic Monad is Sophia) (Wisdom) who has no partner, and as such, leaves the light of the Plemora in search of one; resulting in the inadvertent asexual birth of Yaldabaoth. Ignorant to the existence of the Plemora and the Monad, Yaldabaoth believes itself to be the Supreme Being and creates matter, the universe, and all life within it; becoming the Demiurge.
Given that Gnosticism derives from divergent Judeo-Christian ideals, it should come as no surprise that Yaldabaoth was considered synonymous with the Old Testament’s Yahweh. While the followers of the Valentinian version of Gnosticism viewed the Demiurge as ignorant and flawed, other Gnostic sects, such as the Ophite, Sethian, and Archontic systems viewed the Creator as more of a malevolent figure that not only demanded reverence, but also inadvertently denied humans access to the Plemora and Sophia through their flawed mortal existence. As such, the only way for an individual to escape this entrapment is by undergoing the transcendental process of gnosis, allowing the divine essence within each person’s soul to be released, becoming what is known as a Pneumatic). This is similar to the Hindu concept of attaining liberation (moksha or nirvana) from the reincarnation cycle of Saṃsāra through the process of acquiring jñāna, or an understanding of the true self (Ātman)); which I find interesting as the alternative name for the Ultima Weapon superboss) from the SNES version of Final Fantasy VI is the Atma Weapon). Like Yaldabaoth, Ultima’s use of Primogenesis in Final Fantasy XVI prevents mankind from undergoing gnosis, while Clive as Logos acts as the metaphorical shepherd that enlightens humanity and guides it back to the light of the Plemora, which the Gnostics believed was Jesus’ role as well.
I should also mention that Yaldabaoth was typically viewed as a zoomorphic serpentine entity with a lion’s head, as shown here, while Hippolytus of Rome claimed that Simon Magus, the supposed founder of Gnosticism, also attributed fiery properties to the Demiurge, parroting verse 12:29 from the Epistle to the Hebrews, “...for our God is a consuming fire”. I think it's no coincidence that Ultima’s original physical body is the fiery Ifrit Risen, which has a feline face and a reptilian body. Furthermore, Ifrit Risen is actually the combined form of the two Eikons of Fire; Ifrit and Phoenix. In my first post on the Phoenix, I mentioned that the logo artwork for FFXVI by artist Yoshitaka Amano, which depicts the pivotal moment where the two Eikons of Fire duke it out beneath Phoenix Gate, looks similar to the Chinese symbol of yin and yang, which represents complementary opposites that provide a state of equilibrium. Ifrit Risen, like the Gnostic Aeons and Carl Jung’s conception of the Anima and Animus, is a syzygic pairing, a union of opposites. I would propose that while not a literal divine hermaphrodite, this unbreakable bond between the brothers Clive and Joshua Rosfield, who are likened to the twins Prometheus and Epimetheus in the song “Away”, could be seen as something similar to the hermaphroditic metaphor for the end product of the alchemical Magnum Opus) (Great Work) called the Rebis.
If you would consider this alchemical perspective, then I would like to further suggest that perhaps that Ifrit Risen is an allusion to the final stage of the Magnum Opus called Rubedo (reddening); whereby the given alchemical material has already undergone the stages of Nigredo (putrefaction), Albedo) (purification), and Citrinitas (spiritual awakening/transformation) just as Ifrit Risen is the combination of the destructive and restorative aspects of fire that attains sacred wholeness through its union. It just so happens that the stage of Rubedo was also occasionally represented through the symbol of a phoenix) and Carl Jung himself likened the four stages of the Magnum Opus to the process of individuation. It is also possible that like the Prometheus story, fire as the element of the divine could be a symbol for knowledge, free will, rebellion, and human ingenuity; or as I have also mentioned in my post on the Phoenix, could be based on the idea of the Empyrean. In Dante Alighieri’s Paradiso#The_Empyrean), the Empyrean is the highest realm of Heaven consisting of sacred fire where the wills of man and God become one; achieving what the Gnostics would most likely call the Anima Mundi or “World Soul”. And just like the Plemora and the Empyrean, the Nexus of Ultima’s Origin is bathed in the light of the aether harvested from all across Valisthea, but like the name of the eponymous song, it is a far cry from Heaven.
Well, this is it. I’m sad to say that my posts on Final Fantasy XVI are most likely finally over, but like ProfNoctis and M. J. Gallagher said in their video on the Echoes of the Fallen DLC, the amount of research the team at Square Enix did for this game is absolutely astounding, and I can’t thank them enough for this gem of a game that allowed me to write so much in these essays.
If you would like to watch some more videos regarding Ultima, Mythos, and Logos; I would recommend “Final Fantasy XVI - LOGOS EXPLAINED” by C. J. Cala, “Final Fantasy XVI Lecture Stream: The True Meaning of Mythos and Logos” by ProfNoctis, and “The story of Ultima explained Final Fantasy 16 Lore” by Alleyway Jack. If you would like to research more about Jungian analytical psychology, I would suggest checking out “The Collected Works of C. G. Jung”. Or if you would like to play another game that deals with Jungian psychology, world mythologies, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and themes of rebellion and freedom; then look no further than the excellent Persona 5.
And I can’t thank you all enough for reading my posts. It means so much that you would allow me to indulge in this little passion project of mine and I sincerely hope that I was able to at least instill a little more appreciation of this game and our world in at least one person. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed and I hope you have a wonderful day!

"First, let me set the scene. I'm standing there in my office, cradling a steaming cup of coffee and staring blankly at a pile of complex diagrams, spreadsheets and technical documents for a project I'm supposed to lead. Now, I’m no dummy, but these things, they can be quite daunting to digest. Then, it hit me, bam -- the connectionist theory for perception.
In case you're not up on your cognitive psychology theories, allow me to break it down.
Connectionism is this psychological and cognitive theory suggesting that mental processes like learning, memory, and perception happen through interconnected networks of simple units. Think of it this way: the way information travels through the Internet, traversing through various servers and networks - that's connectionism, but in our brains.
So, back to my office. Here I am, faced with this mountain of information. In order to understand it, I thought about my brain as a network of interconnected nodes just like the internet. Each piece of information, every document and diagram, was a server in my mental network.
I started to break down the information, assigning each technical detail or data point to a 'node' in my network. I then tried to link related 'nodes' together. This document connects to that diagram; this data point underpins that technical detail. Slowly, as I made these connections, the grand scheme of the project began to materialize in my mind.
It was hard work, but oddly satisfying to see how the nodes connected and formed an understanding of the project within my mind. It was as if I could visualize the network of understanding getting dense, and the project’s big picture becoming clearer. Connectionist theory for perception in action, my friends.
P.S., Sure, I didn't actually “see” my brain's neural nodes or internet-like connections, but, tbh, it's a lot more fun to imagine it that way, right? And it helps in understanding complex info. Try it out next time you're perplexed, and remember, this was a hypothetical story. No actual neurons or office coffee mugs were harmed in the making of this tale. Happy brain networking!"

My story of building an app with gpt, along with some tips for anyone else wanting to try it and pitfalls to avoid.
It's currently 3am, I have been working on an app I am building with ChatGPT for the past 9 hours straight. I am ending today with about 50% of my core features working. I am prototyping, so I would estimate I am about 2 weeks out from end to end testing being feasible.
I'm about 200hrs into THIS project, however if you factor in all the roadblocks to get to a productive starting point.....
6 months. ouch.
Zero coding experience, well that's actually not true, I have a decade of experience doing web design and some experience in web hosting maintenance / tech support, however even having an extensive background in software design, managing devs, etc. I never wrote a line of javascript, never used a linux terminal etc. it's all very foreign to me, I had no clue what any of it meant.
PITFALLS: Stuff that wasted my time

1. Trying LLMs. I spent months upgrading my setup. I went AMD which was a huge mistake that i didnt detect until it was too late to return it. I'm cooking LLMs locally now but I literally just use ChatGPT its so much better my LLM box was a waste of time ( for this project, ill put it to work in the future)
   
2. I was on windows, which especially bad for AMD LLMs, but also lots of other headaches trying to develop out of an env i was already using for work. I ended up building a local linux ubuntu server and configuring it for LAN. I love WSL and Docker, very convenient but in the end having a linux machine isolated sped everything up and made the whole process 100 time easier. most of the repos in the AI space are substantially easier to spin up on linux.
   
3. not knowing basic linux command line/bash. chatgpt can help, and for whatever reason I blanked for a good while there on using gpt for help and was lost in stack overflow and doc google searches.
   
4. most agent/workflows git repos are a massive waste of time. i lost about 3 months messing with these. many youtubers film tutorials and applaud capabilities but the open source space still in it's infancy, many require you to be a seasoned developer to get any value out of. i tried lots of use cases and the only ones that work are the ultra simplistic ones they showcase. many of these repos arent just bad at doing something remotely complex, im talking they literally CANNOT do anything valuable (at least without hand coding your use case on top of it)
   
5. Just Use ChatGPT. there is value in other platforms, both API and LLM but ChatGPT is just so much further ahead right now for explaining and generating code.
   

HOW I FINALLY GOT STARTED: Tips to get somewhere coding with ChatGPT

1. Get a basic idea of what is required for software to operate. youll likely need a database, an API, and a front end/gui. If this is out of your wheel house, you probably shouldn't do this. or at least start extremely simple and understand the likelihood is quite high you wont get anywhere.
   
2. Plan out your concept. Don't lean on ChatGPT for this part, at least completely. Text gen AI is inference, it likes being predictable, it is very very bad at making decisions or concepting novel ideas. Get a workflow diagramming platform, a spreadsheet, list out steps, workflows, features and get very granular about what your software does and how it works. You want to begin your coding project with ChatGPT with a solid grasp on what you are setting out to do. You want to sniff out as much of the complexity and challenges you didn't factor into your idea from the get-go and make sure you work the kinks out. I can't overestimate how important this is, if you skip this step the likelihood your project will fall apart will be through the roof cause AI will be extremely bad at guiding you through it when your codebase falls apart.
   
3. Once your plan is ready begin discussing it with ChatGPT, instruct it NOT to generate code when starting. the reason why is it may not understand something you say and start coding things based on wrong assumptions, given you don't have much coding experience you don't want to spend 10 hours fiddling with a misunderstanding because you won't be able to notice it buried in the code. make sure you do not ask it to start generating code until everything has been discussed and the model is returning with a solid grasp of what you are instructing it to do. Best Practices: tell it you are prototyping locally, dont let it dump massive scale solutions on you out of the gate. if something is becoming too much hassle ask if theres easier alternatives and be willing to start over using the right languages/libraries.
   
4. Break down your idea into very small pieces and organize them in a logical order to build: environment, backend/database, functionality, front end. You want to shoot for the first thing you want to be able to test, don't think big picture, think very small, i.e. I can boot my backend, I can make something appear on my screen, think in those terms. Start very simple. If you plan to deal with a complex dataset, 10 tables with associations etc., start with 1 table with a few rows and start connecting pieces and extending it.
   
5. use python, node, etc. basic widely adopted languages and platforms. if you are just starting a project and its making a LOT of errors or it takes like 10 responses to just do something simple, ask for alternatives and start over. it is bad as certain things.
   
6. If any 1 file in your project is longer than 1 response to fully generate, ask the AI to take a modular approach and how to separate your files out into other files that reference each other. ChatGPT has memory limitations and a propensity to start producing errors longemore complex something becomes. Best Practices: a. have it comment the code to explain what a section is for. b. keep vast majority of files smaller than 1 full return prompt c. if its not feasable to keep a file that small ask it to just give you the edits within the commented sections one by one, then upload the file back to it when asking for other edits so it know what the whole file looks like.
   
7. Anything in the codebase that you name, make sure you use names that are unique abbreviations and arent easily confused. I made of giving a database column a name that was an unabbreviated word and when its functionality was extended and referred to with other words attached in the code, ChatGPT began to change its tense to be grammatically correct (but programmatically unusable). Another time I named a database table and won the lottery by having 2 API endpoints and a prominent word used in a core library scripting. I nearly lost my entire project as ChatGPT conflated them, tried fixing it by renaming it in other places without telling me it was doing that etc. If you notice ChatGPT generates stuff that has the same problem tell it to rename so that it cant be confused.
   
8. Save a backup of any file that undergoes any significant change. you never know when you're going to hit a memory break of some sort and its going to make a major error. I often use file.ext.BAK, if the AI breaks the file you can go back to your last working version easily.
   
9. Session context is very important. If the AI is doing well with a specific facet of your software, you risk losing the value of its context switching to a different feature or debugging where it could eventually lose a lot of its context. I have had the best luck having multiple individual chat sessions on the same project focused on different areas and switching between them.
   
10. Sometimes the AI will mix code from multiple files together, so pay attention if you notice files getting mixed together, especially when an update or debugging requires updating multiple files, instruct it to keep files separated modularly
    
11. Debugging is a hassle, the AI isn't very good at it most of the time. If you find yourself looping through a problem, be willing to google it and fix it yourself. I have also had great luck using other models to troubleshoot. sometimes feeding chatgpt info will help it but sometimes it literally will not be able to fix the problem and youll have to edit yourself or use code generated out of another platform. ChatGPT can quickly take a minor bug and break all of your code in its attempts at fixing it. Also be aware that looping through failure states can ruin sessions that otherwise are producing great code because you will kill the context with bad iterations of code. if your code becomes progressively worse during many debugging iterations without a solution, you are better off restoring from a previously better working state and asking it to take a different approach.
    
12. be wary of redundancy, over engineering solutions, etc. chatgpt will happily double your codebase for no reason, be its conscious ask it why its doing thing, make it stop generating code and explain what its doing. this can help it from being caught in a mode where its rewriting features that already exist because it forgot or didnt connect the dots.
    

My setup: Python, Anaconda for envs, Node with NVM, FAST API (it could not build a working REST API for me), LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), ChatGPT obv but also using GitHub Co-Pilot and Groq to help with debugging both have been very useful.
Best of luck to any of you crazy ppl willing to try this!

Hello everyone,
I'm designing a UML class diagram for a Snakes and Ladders game project and would appreciate some feedback. Here are the key requirements of the project:

• Players roll a dice and move their symbol to the corresponding cell.
• If a cell contains a ladder, the player climbs the ladder.
• If a cell contains a snake, the snake moves the player to its tail.
• The first player to reach the 100th cell wins.
• Rolling a six grants an extra turn.
• Rolling three consecutive sixes nullifies the player's score, resetting their position and losing their turn.
• Being swallowed by a snake results in losing the turn.
• Climbing a ladder grants an extra turn.
• Players can undo their last move once.

Here's the UML class diagram: UML Link
I’m particularly looking for feedback on:

1. Correctness: Any mistakes or UML conventions I might have overlooked?
2. Clarity: Is the diagram clear and easy to understand?
3. Completeness: Did I miss any important elements or interactions based on the requirements?
4. Improvements: Any suggestions for making the diagram more accurate or informative?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Download Microsoft Visio to turn complex ideas into clear visuals. Create flowcharts, diagrams, org charts, and more with templates and shapes. Microsoft Visio revolutionizes the way you create and share diagrams. Create complex diagrams from prepared templates, or start from scratch with a blank canvas. Visio offers a wide variety of shapes and stencils to choose from, as well as customization options that allow you to tailor your diagrams to fit the specific needs of your project. Easily create charts, graphs, flowcharts, and even floor plans with detailed options for labeling and annotating your ideas.
Microsoft Visio

First
Barbara stared blankly at the screen. She had just finished a call with her supervisor, who had informed her that she was effectively on paid leave for the duration of her remaining two cycle contract, about six months roughly. She had already received a notification that her debts, while minor, had been paid off. The E-mail had been flashing "URGENT" on her communicator when she had woken up. Her GalNet bank account had been loaded with the entirety of her contract with Starlight FTL fund's (all of it, including the 20% she had already been paid!) Only a few moments later as she had just finished washing her face and trying to fully wake up when another alert had posted. Another large sum had been deposited and then her rooms monitor had pinged. That had been her supervisor again informing her that she had been approved for a "Salvage and Reclamation Permit " pursuant to section 21137A....and she had spaced the rest. She had listened to it, but after the spiral of numbers she had been lost trying to catch up. She hadn't filed for anything like a S&R permit. That is until her supervisor had brought her back to the here and now by saying, "Congratulations Ms. Thornton." And vanished, replaced with the traditional Sol Alliance insignia slowly spinning on a white and blue screen.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" She asked the empty room, shaking her head in disbelief at the recent events. She absently turned to look at her communicator which had just buzzed on her bunk. Two steps and she had it, the tag on the call read "Dad" and with a grimace she mentally prepared herself for the inevitable. She quickly composed herself, silently thanking her nanites for healing most of her wounds from the day prior. A bruise, and small at that was the only visible sign she had even gotten hurt. With a smile she pressed the green "Take Call" next to her father's wizened wrinkly face. "Hey dad, how's Mom and everyone else doing?" She asked as the screen flash to a live feed of him at his antique mahogany desk. The thing had cost her thrice removed grandfather a literal fortune to get shipped to Mars.
"Oh you know your mom's worried sick! You didn't call or anything! Have you seen the news feed?" When she shook her head"No" he continued, "Your picture has been posted along with your service record in the military scrolling down one side of the viewing screen." She let out a sigh only because she knew BOTH her parents were prone to over exaggerating the situation. Besides, she had served her mandatory six years in the United Sol Alliance Navy's O.D.T.'s and had even distinguished herself during the Omega Crisis. Her dad's voice brought her back to the present as he continued. "The media are calling you both a savior and a criminal! The government hasn't said anything except 'The President will release a statement in due time. Rest assured our citizens are safe "
He finally stopped and seeing the concern on his weathered, caring face she smiled to re assure him. "I'm fine Dad. Really. I can't say much more then that. I know, I know." She put her hand up as if to block something. " I need to visit more often. How about I pop in when I get to Mars Station Hub?"
"Are you sure?" He asked her even as she was beginning to nod, he continued, " Ok, I'll tell your mom to expect you?" She let the question linger for a moment before she replied.
"Three days. I think we should be in orbit by then." Barbara answered.
"Good. Your mother really is worried sick about you Barbara. Those news drones can't get very close to the station you where on,, but the debris field is quite large! I can't wait to hear that story!" He gave her his usual wry grin. "Whatever happened, I'm glad to see your alright. I'll tell your mom to expect a visit in a few days. Give your ol'man a call and I'll be there to pick you up from the rail station in town. Your not going to recognize the place without the dome!" He gave her his usual loving smile, his grey blue eyes both caring and mischievous. "That'll give me a reason to spool up the old sled and take her for a spin. And your mom won't even try to stop me!" He winked, then his face became serious again. "We love you Barbara, you take care of yourself." His smiling face disappeared, replaced by the same blue and white screen with the Sol Alliance insignia slowly rotating.
She had barely had time to comb her hair and braid it. She normally didn't, but since she was on a Navy ship she would follow proper protocol even though she was technically a civilian now. Warning Claxons wailed as the standardized "WARNING! Proximity Alert. Unidentified hostile ship detected." It repeated this every few seconds until someone on the bridge finally shut it off. As soon as the alarm shut down she immediately rushed to the outermost mess hall where a plasteal viewport would be located so she could possibly see what was happening. She was just in time to see four silver Sol Marine Corps boarding shuttles disable and board the much larger spider like ship. The Marines had attached three of the four boarding shuttles at random over the spider-like ships hull and if she had to make an educated guess, probably cut their way in with plasma cutters. All standard practices, or was while she had still been in the Navy.
It took nearly an hour before she could see an blue and white Alliance Military Tug fly into range and began tractoring the large black alien ship with three of the four shuttles still firmly attached. It slowly but surely began to move them towards the Phoenix and Titan 7 with the still undocked Marine Corps shuttle following close behind, weapons visibly trained on the alien ship, even at this distance.
"Well that's different. I don't remember seeing that ship exit the gate." She said to herself as she walked over to the"breakfast" line and went back to her quarters to eat her food in piece. Before long she could feel the ship moving again. Captain Gregory had personally debriefed her as soon as she was on his ship, had quarters assigned to her, and requested her presence on the command bridge as soon as she had rested and eaten something.
Which was why she found herself trying not to stare at what she could only describe as a humanoid cat! Well, except she didn't have a tail. Still, Barbara thought, it was a damn cat person! "Ahh, Captain Thornton, right on time!" Announced Captain Gregory as he noticed she had walked onto his bridge.
"Sargent, Sir." She corrected politely.
He let out a slight chuckle before standing and casually striding towards her, his hands clasp behind him. He stopped not 6 feet away from her and as he did, saluted her. She snapped to, glad after years of not using it in her civilian role her salute was crisp and clean. She heard others around the bridge standing and saluting too. As she stood there she could see the corner of his mouth turn upwards in a slight smirk. Then she heard a gravely voice, deep, and sounding more like two boulders grinding together then anything else she could think of.
"Of course Sargent Thornton. Well then, let me be the first to inform you of your impromptu promotion. Congratulations Captain Thornton." She finally got a look at the man speaking. He was only maybe five feet tall and that was being generous! He also looked very sticky, so probably a heavy grav worlder, probably a colony on Proxima Centauri itself, and he definitely had the stripes of a rear admiral. Her eyes reflexively snapped to his silver crossed sword and spear denoting he was from the O.D.T., the very same battle group she had been assigned to.
"Shit." Was all she could think! Lick a new recruit caught fucking off by the drill instructor back at the Academy. She composed herself before replying. "Umm, thanks Sir. I uhh..." She finally grasped one of the hundred or so thoughts racing through her mind. "But I'm just a civilian now so Sargent is more than is needed. Sir." Ahh, well at least that one would get her out of any press gang tactics the Navy might try to play. She had heard of worse tactics being used, though she had never really believed it herself.
"My name is Rear Admiral Zang." He said, now standing in front of her. Even being much shorter than her he seemed to somehow give her the impression he was looming over everyone else on the command bridge with his sheer presence. He held out his hand and Captain Gregory gave him a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to receiving hardcopy notes, he cleared his throat as he began to read. "President Owlan of the United Sol Alliance, here by gifts the newly salvaged U.S.S. Refuge to Sargent Thornton as per Article 719E, subsection 42, paragraph 3: As the sole officer on duty responsible for Gate B111 when the said vessel was abandoned you are now the owner of one Regent Class hull. Pursuant to subsection 57, paragraph 4 of the same Article of Salvage, you are automatically promoted to the rank of Captain, and if you so choose to serve in the U.S. Navy again, I can absolutely speak for the Centauri Battle Group, if not ALL of Fleet Command when I say it would be an honor to again serve alongside such a distinguished officer." He paused, looking into her eyes as he reached up and pinned a gold button with a relief of an eagle with two crossed anchor's. Before stepping back and giving her a salute.
She could tell his offer was sincere, but for some reason his crooked smile as he dropped his salute made her feel like the other shoe hadn't dropped yet. He held out his hand and she shook it, his grip was strong, and his palms were sweaty. That was NEVER a good sign from an admiral of any stripe. "Please follow me, Captain Gregory has agreed to let us use his office." As she turned to follow him she heard a soft round of applause being given as they walked, it continued until they were in Captain Gregory's office and the door had slid closed. Two other officers entered with them and Admiral Zang motioned for everyone to have a seat. Captain Gregory took a seat next to the Admiral and Barbara sat on the other side, the other two officers taking a seat on either side of her.
"Now then, I know this is a bit of a surprise Captain Thornton, but seeing as things are moving at a much faster pace than expected with the Orion refugees and the subsequent capture of the Broodling Swarm ship. The president in his capacity as figure head of our great Alliance is effectively being hamstrung by the Senate over the new foreign affairs policy we have been operating under technically without the Senates approval since the Orion's arrival." He paused to let her absorb the situation. "So instead of waiting months to get anything done he's used some 'executive' privileges." Admiral Zang said.
"Regardless of wether or not you decide to re join the Navy, your new ship contains tech that is of great value to our R & D department." He motioned to each of the officers either side of her and continued, "Captain Thornton please meet your new Command Master Chief Dillon Boutan and Command Master Engineer Erica Le'Fay." She nodded to each in turn and shook their hands as he introduced them.
"That's uh, great and all, but why am I being briefed like I'm about to receive an important mission?" Barbara asked. She kept wanting to pinch herself to make sure this wasn't some surreal dream. She had hit her head pretty hard on that console.
The Admiral didn't even blink or hesitate. "Because you are Captain Thornton." He paused, nodding to Captain Gregory who pushed at his communicator a few times and then swiped and a virtual blueprint was stationary in the middle of the table. It was the complete diagram of one of the Orion vessels ( the Regents Pride she noted). It was now tagged as the U.S.S. Refuge at 480 meters long and 200 meters at it's widest with four massive engines rated as roughly equivalent to a U.S. built counterpart. It was slightly longer and she sported almost double the energy weapons batteries but only a quarter of her U.S. counterparts number of missile tubes and storage capacity.
However, it looked like her ECM capabilities and targeting computers at least were noted as being much better than her U.S. counterparts. And what the hell was a Spinal Mounted Gauze cannon? The thing took up three weapons batteries itself and had two more on standby in case one of them failed during combat. Typical built-in Navy redundancy's. "How the hell do you expect us to operate that?" She found herself asking. she noticed both Dillon and Erica were staring just as intently as she was. They obviously hadn't been privy to the information prior to this briefing. And the big ass hole midship was disheartening to say the least!
"You'll have some help. You see, our Orion refugees have made a 'deal', or at least there military types. They will do most of the 'operating' until we can get some U.S.A. species trained up on the ships systems, that is unless you decide to keep our Orion refugees employed after this political mess is sorted out. And to facilitate this, the Orion Admiral Vahl Mub has ordered all Orion Military Personnel to join the Sol Military. This is to show that they are willing to join the U.S. Alliance. As such your Second in command will be..." He paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't know what a Junior Claw as rank means but she was designated the best candidate by our AI and was highly recommended by Admiral Vahl Mub to be your new Executive Officer. Hadarra of the Flowstone clan. And before you ask, I have no idea, SR (Sapient Resources) is burning the candle at both ends trying to compile a complete social and cultural overview of the Orion's." He looked at each of them in turn and sighed. "Let's just try not to cause any blood feud's or misunderstanding's that can't be easily resolved." He raised his communicator and said"Please send in XO Hadarra." The door slid open and the cat person walked in, saluted somewhat awkwardly and then Barbara could see her spine stiffen and she finally committed to it fully.
"Junior Claw Hadarra reporting for duty Second Fang!" She said while looking at Admiral Zang. Barbara could tell she was nervous. Hell who wouldn't be in the same situation these people found themselves in!
"It's just Admiral." He gently corrected. "And your rank in U.S. terms is an Executive Officer or XO for short. We have not been briefed on your culture XO so forgive us for any oversight we may have in our normal routines until we can figure any cultural quarks between our species out. Your Captain and and her other officers are being briefed currently. Please join us." He gestured to a chair and Barbara watched her carefully sit next to Dillon who offered her a friendly smile.

FIRST
Barbara stared blankly at the screen. She had just finished a call with her supervisor, who had informed her that she was effectively on paid leave for the duration of her remaining two cycle contract, about six months roughly. She had already received a notification that her debts, while minor, had been paid off. The E-mail had been flashing "URGENT" on her communicator when she had woken up. Her GalNet bank account had been loaded with the entirety of her contract with Starlight FTL fund's (all of it, including the 20% she had already been paid!) Only a few moments later as she had just finished washing her face and trying to fully wake up when another alert had posted. Another large sum had been deposited and then her rooms monitor had pinged. That had been her supervisor again informing her that she had been approved for a "Salvage and Reclamation Permit " pursuant to section 21137A....and she had spaced the rest. She had listened to it, but after the spiral of numbers she had been lost trying to catch up. She hadn't filed for anything like a S&R permit. That is until her supervisor had brought her back to the here and now by saying, "Congratulations Ms. Thornton." And vanished, replaced with the traditional Sol Alliance insignia slowly spinning on a white and blue screen.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" She asked the empty room, shaking her head in disbelief at the recent events. She absently turned to look at her communicator which had just buzzed on her bunk. Two steps and she had it, the tag on the call read "Dad" and with a grimace she mentally prepared herself for the inevitable. She quickly composed herself, silently thanking her nanites for healing most of her wounds from the day prior. A bruise, and small at that was the only visible sign she had even gotten hurt. With a smile she pressed the green "Take Call" next to her father's wizened wrinkly face. "Hey dad, how's Mom and everyone else doing?" She asked as the screen flash to a live feed of him at his antique mahogany desk. The thing had cost her thrice removed grandfather a literal fortune to get shipped to Mars.
"Oh you know your mom's worried sick! You didn't call or anything! Have you seen the news feed?" When she shook her head"No" he continued, "Your picture has been posted along with your service record in the military scrolling down one side of the viewing screen." She let out a sigh only because she knew BOTH her parents were prone to over exaggerating the situation. Besides, she had served her mandatory six years in the United Sol Alliance Navy's O.D.T.'s and had even distinguished herself during the Omega Crisis. Her dad's voice brought her back to the present as he continued. "The media are calling you both a savior and a criminal! The government hasn't said anything except 'The President will release a statement in due time. Rest assured our citizens are safe "
He finally stopped and seeing the concern on his weathered, caring face she smiled to re assure him. "I'm fine Dad. Really. I can't say much more then that. I know, I know." She put her hand up as if to block something. " I need to visit more often. How about I pop in when I get to Mars Station Hub?"
"Are you sure?" He asked her even as she was beginning to nod, he continued, " Ok, I'll tell your mom to expect you?" She let the question linger for a moment before she replied.
"Three days. I think we should be in orbit by then." Barbara answered.
"Good. Your mother really is worried sick about you Barbara. Those news drones can't get very close to the station you where on,, but the debris field is quite large! I can't wait to hear that story!" He gave her his usual wry grin. "Whatever happened, I'm glad to see your alright. I'll tell your mom to expect a visit in a few days. Give your ol'man a call and I'll be there to pick you up from the rail station in town. Your not going to recognize the place without the dome!" He gave her his usual loving smile, his grey blue eyes both caring and mischievous. "That'll give me a reason to spool up the old sled and take her for a spin. And your mom won't even try to stop me!" He winked, then his face became serious again. "We love you Barbara, you take care of yourself." His smiling face disappeared, replaced by the same blue and white screen with the Sol Alliance insignia slowly rotating.
She had barely had time to comb her hair and braid it. She normally didn't, but since she was on a Navy ship she would follow proper protocol even though she was technically a civilian now. Warning Claxons wailed as the standardized "WARNING! Proximity Alert. Unidentified hostile ship detected." It repeated this every few seconds until someone on the bridge finally shut it off. As soon as the alarm shut down she immediately rushed to the outermost mess hall where a plasteal viewport would be located so she could possibly see what was happening. She was just in time to see four silver Sol Marine Corps boarding shuttles disable and board the much larger spider like ship. The Marines had attached three of the four boarding shuttles at random over the spider-like ships hull and if she had to make an educated guess, probably cut their way in with plasma cutters. All standard practices, or was while she had still been in the Navy.
It took nearly an hour before she could see an blue and white Alliance Military Tug fly into range and began tractoring the large black alien ship with three of the four shuttles still firmly attached. It slowly but surely began to move them towards the Phoenix and Titan 7 with the still undocked Marine Corps shuttle following close behind, weapons visibly trained on the alien ship, even at this distance.
"Well that's different. I don't remember seeing that ship exit the gate." She said to herself as she walked over to the"breakfast" line and went back to her quarters to eat her food in piece. Before long she could feel the ship moving again. Captain Gregory had personally debriefed her as soon as she was on his ship, had quarters assigned to her, and requested her presence on the command bridge as soon as she had rested and eaten something.
Which was why she found herself trying not to stare at what she could only describe as a humanoid cat! Well, except she didn't have a tail. Still, Barbara thought, it was a damn cat person! "Ahh, Captain Thornton, right on time!" Announced Captain Gregory as he noticed she had walked onto his bridge.
"Sargent, Sir." She corrected politely.
He let out a slight chuckle before standing and casually striding towards her, his hands clasp behind him. He stopped not 6 feet away from her and as he did, saluted her. She snapped to, glad after years of not using it in her civilian role her salute was crisp and clean. She heard others around the bridge standing and saluting too. As she stood there she could see the corner of his mouth turn upwards in a slight smirk. Then she heard a gravely voice, deep, and sounding more like two boulders grinding together then anything else she could think of.
"Of course Sargent Thornton. Well then, let me be the first to inform you of your impromptu promotion. Congratulations Captain Thornton." She finally got a look at the man speaking. He was only maybe five feet tall and that was being generous! He also looked very stocky, so probably a heavy grav worlder, probably a colony on Proxima Centauri itself, and he definitely had the stripes of a rear admiral. Her eyes reflexively snapped to his silver crossed sword and spear denoting he was from the O.D.T., the very same battle group she had been assigned to.
"Shit." Was all she could think! Like a new recruit caught fucking off by the drill instructor back at the Academy. She composed herself before replying. "Umm, thanks Sir. I uhh..." She finally grasped one of the hundred or so thoughts racing through her mind. "But I'm just a civilian now so Sargent is more than is needed. Sir." Ahh, well at least that one would get her out of any press gang tactics the Navy might try to play. She had heard of worse tactics being used, though she had never really believed it herself.
"My name is Rear Admiral Zang." He said, now standing in front of her. Even being much shorter than her he seemed to somehow give her the impression he was looming over everyone else on the command bridge with his sheer presence. He held out his hand and Captain Gregory gave him a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to receiving hardcopy notes, he cleared his throat as he began to read. "President Owlan of the United Sol Alliance, here by gifts the newly salvaged U.S.S. Refuge to Sargent Thornton as per Article 719E, subsection 42, paragraph 3: As the sole officer on duty responsible for Gate B111 when the said vessel was abandoned you are now the owner of one Regent Class hull. Pursuant to subsection 57, paragraph 4 of the same Article of Salvage, you are automatically promoted to the rank of Captain, and if you so choose to serve in the U.S. Navy again, I can absolutely speak for the Centauri Battle Group, if not ALL of Fleet Command when I say it would be an honor to again serve alongside such a distinguished officer." He paused, looking into her eyes as he reached up and pinned a gold button with a relief of an eagle with two crossed anchor's. Before stepping back and giving her a salute.
She could tell his offer was sincere, but for some reason his crooked smile as he dropped his salute made her feel like the other shoe hadn't dropped yet. He held out his hand and she shook it, his grip was strong, and his palms were sweaty. That was NEVER a good sign from an admiral of any stripe. "Please follow me, Captain Gregory has agreed to let us use his office." As she turned to follow him she heard a soft round of applause being given as they walked, it continued until they were in Captain Gregory's office and the door had slid closed. Two other officers entered with them and Admiral Zang motioned for everyone to have a seat. Captain Gregory took a seat next to the Admiral and Barbara sat on the other side, the other two officers taking a seat on either side of her.
"Now then, I know this is a bit of a surprise Captain Thornton, but seeing as things are moving at a much faster pace than expected with the Orion refugees and the subsequent capture of the Broodling Swarm ship. The president in his capacity as figure head of our great Alliance is effectively being hamstrung by the Senate over the new foreign affairs policy we have been operating under technically without the Senates approval since the Orion's arrival." He paused to let her absorb the situation. "So instead of waiting months to get anything done he's used some 'executive' privileges." Admiral Zang said.
"Regardless of wether or not you decide to re join the Navy, your new ship contains tech that is of great value to our R & D department." He motioned to each of the officers either side of her and continued, "Captain Thornton please meet your new Command Master Chief Dillon Boutan and Command Master Engineer Erica Le'Fay." She nodded to each in turn and shook their hands as he introduced them.
"That's uh, great and all, but why am I being briefed like I'm about to receive an important mission?" Barbara asked. She kept wanting to pinch herself to make sure this wasn't some surreal dream. She had hit her head pretty hard on that console.
The Admiral didn't even blink or hesitate. "Because you are Captain Thornton." He paused, nodding to Captain Gregory who pushed at his communicator a few times and then swiped and a virtual blueprint was stationary in the middle of the table. It was the complete diagram of one of the Orion vessels ( the Regents Pride she noted). It was now tagged as the U.S.S. Refuge at 480 meters long and 200 meters at it's widest with four massive engines rated as roughly equivalent to a U.S. built counterpart. It was slightly longer and she sported almost double the energy weapons batteries but only a quarter of her U.S. counterparts number of missile tubes and storage capacity.
However, it looked like her ECM capabilities and targeting computers at least were noted as being much better than her U.S. counterparts. And what the hell was a Spinal Mounted Gauze cannon? The thing took up three weapons batteries itself and had two more on standby in case one of them failed during combat. Typical built-in Navy redundancy's. "How the hell do you expect us to operate that?" She found herself asking. she noticed both Dillon and Erica were staring just as intently as she was. They obviously hadn't been privy to the information prior to this briefing. And the big ass hole midship was disheartening to say the least!
"You'll have some help. You see, our Orion refugees have made a 'deal', or at least there military types. They will do most of the 'operating' until we can get some U.S.A. species trained up on the ships systems, that is unless you decide to keep our Orion refugees employed after this political mess is sorted out. And to facilitate this, the Orion Admiral Vahl Mub has ordered all Orion Military Personnel to join the Sol Military. This is to show that they are willing to join the U.S. Alliance. As such your Second in command will be..." He paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't know what a Junior Claw as rank means but she was designated the best candidate by our AI and was highly recommended by Admiral Vahl Mub to be your new Executive Officer. Hadarra of the Flowstone clan. And before you ask, I have no idea, SR (Sapient Resources) is burning the candle at both ends trying to compile a complete social and cultural overview of the Orion's." He looked at each of them in turn and sighed. "Let's just try not to cause any blood feud's or misunderstanding's that can't be easily resolved." He raised his communicator and said"Please send in XO Hadarra." The door slid open and the cat person walked in, saluted somewhat awkwardly and then Barbara could see her spine stiffen and she finally committed to it fully.
"Junior Claw Hadarra reporting for duty Second Fang!" She said while looking at Admiral Zang. Barbara could tell she was nervous. Hell who wouldn't be in the same situation these people found themselves in!
"It's just Admiral." He gently corrected. "And your rank in U.S. terms is an Executive Officer or XO for short. We have not been briefed on your culture XO so forgive us for any oversight we may have in our normal routines until we can figure any cultural quarks between our species out. Your Captain and and her other officers are being briefed currently. Please join us." He gestured to a chair and Barbara watched her carefully sit next to Dillon who offered her a friendly smile.
NEXT

A yandere sees everyone surrounding the guy as if they're going after the guy, be it male or female, and she will actually attack people to get what she wants, in some cases gorily so, in other cases just name-calling or hiding their possessions somewhere or whatever.
Many yandere are introduced as looking normal and cute. Lovable. Extremely sympathetic. But that's often because they're only shown interacting with their love interest. Once a third characters gets into the equation she starts showing her true colors. That is, an yandere character starts crazy, she doesn't go crazy, she was crazy from the beginning but nobody knew.
Note that the above isn't necessarily true. Some yandere are undeniably nuts from the start. Why a yandere has become insane can vary: she might be a broken victim of some horrible event, or she might simply have a natural inclination to become a serial killer. In any case, as long as she has a mentally sick kind of love she's a yandere.
(the most common type of yandere is violent and jealous, but there are other types of yandere written further below)

Yandere Word Meaning

The yan in the word yandere ヤンデレ comes from the verb yanderu 病んでる which means "to be sick (mentally)." This is slightly different from the verb yamu 病む which means "to be sick (generally)," despite yanderu 病んでる being also considered a contraction of the verb yamu in the te-iru form yandeiru 病んでいる.
A somewhat related word is the word koiyamai 恋病, meaning "lovesick" and written with the kanji for love (koi 恋) and sickness (yamai 病)Word Meaning

Yangire ヤンギレ

A yangire ヤンギレ character is an yandere devoid of love and filled with rage. Which is some pretty bad combination considering the yan of yandere means "mentally sick." So now you have someone who is mentally sick and that has snapped.
A common type of yangire character is the one that has gone through some sort of trauma and then snaps and goes on a killing spree after getting triggered. Generally speaking, yangire characters have no faith left for the world so they don't care much about killing or getting killed. They just want to watch the world burn.
As one would expect, a yangire character doesn't necessarily have a romantic interest (Please Remember that they doesn't necessarily involves love and romance means that IT IS JUST OPTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS because Yangires could have things to do with love or romance at all. This is a notes from me).
A yandere would have one, and would go around killing everyone around her lover in a very jelly genocide, but a yangire is a strong independent character who needs no romantic interest in order to start a massacre. Anyway, yangire characters are pretty much crazy and crazy violent. All you need to know is that they are crazier than yandere characters and that ought to say a lot.

Types of Yandere

In the west, yandere is basically always associated with the jealous, violent type of yandere, which is the most common. However, given that the word just means "mentally sick and in love," there are other types of yandere which would be recognized only in the Japanese speaking community.
Because they're just Japanese nouns followed by the suffix gata 型, meaning "model," as in "[car] model." So where one would say "a XXX-ing yandere" in English to say what the yandere does, in Japanese there's a noun for that, so it becomes XXX-gata yandere, "yandere of type XXX."
A single yandere can (and normally will) fit in multiple of these types at a time. In particular, Yuno Gasai fits a dozen of them, which is why she's an ideal example of yandere.
All types of yandere can be male or female, straight, gay, lesbian, etc. but the descriptions below assume a female yandere and that "you" are their male victim love interest;
Anyway, here's the list: (sorted by degree of insanity, ascending, see diagram)

mugai-gata 無害型

Harmless type.
"As long as he's happy, I'm happy."
The most harmless type of yandere, the one where she's fallen in love in an unhealthy, obsessive way, but she doesn't do anything insane about it. She'll try hard to become your girl, but won't harm anybody in the way. If you get a girlfriend, she won't attack you two, she'll be happy you found happiness, and maybe still have hope that you choose her in the end.

kanchigai-gata 勘違い型

Wrong idea type.
"He gave me an eraser... this must mean he loves me!"
She gets the wrong idea when you do something in order to match her expectations. If you say you don't love her, she'll think you're lying because of you don't want to hurt her or something. If you do something out of kindness to her, she'll think it's out of love. And so on.

shuuchaku-gata 執着型

Obsession type.
"I sent you 50 messages, why didn't you answer? Where were you? What were you doing?"
Tries to learn everything about you. Personal info, hobbies, routine, etc. Sends regular messages to check on you, asks why you haven't answered if you didn't, wants to know what you're doing always. All the time. And, if possible, walks around with you all the time too.
The obsession type doesn't necessarily want to monopolize you. She'll let you hang around with friends, etc. but wants to know everything you do. She probably wants to go with you, too. If she can't go somewhere with you, she might stalk you.
If she learns a girl is too close to you, she might attack.

sutookaa-gata ストーカー型

Stalker type.
Follows you around, often without you knowing. May be in broad daylight or at night, when you're walking alone on the streets. Maybe even online. A girl of this type is also often of the obsessive type.

dokusen-gata 独占型

Monopoly type. (This is the most common type.)
"Who is that person you were talking to?"
She wants to monopolize you. Will ask who you talk to and hang with, in extreme cases won't let you be with anyone else, not even your friends. This type of behavior is unfortunately common in real life. It displays insecurities and lack of trust in the relationship which might develop into much worse yandere behavior.

ison-gata 依存型

Dependence type. ("dependence" as in addiction, alcohol dependence, chemical, etc.)
"No, don't leave me! Please! I can't live without you!"
Can't live without you. Begs you to not leave hethrow her away. Says she will die if you go away. May lose will to do anything if you aren't watching. If you do leave, she might go full crazy and end up doing something crazy like going on a murderous rampage or something.

touei-gata 投影型

Projection type.
"You're just like him"
After her former love turned out to be a completely different person than she loved, or got a girlfriend, or died, or something like that, and she can no longer stay with him, she searched for someone who was just like what her love was, and she found you.
This type of of yandere is very innocent at first, but if she's given power to dominate her new beloved, she might end up trying to make him more and more like what her old interest was. For example, wearing the same things, doing the same things, etc.
Sometimes, she might project her ideal lover not on someone else but on same guy. That is, she might say "you are not him, he does this," to you even though you actually are him and you don't do "this."

shoushitsu-gata 消失型

Disappearance type. (This has nothing to do with Haruhi Suzumiya)
"He will never love someone like me... why exist?"
She loves you, maybe you know that, maybe you don't, but unknown this gives her a crushing depression. She think you'll never love her and she has no chance, but she can't stop her unhealthy feelings of love. She thinks you're too good for her, or that she's too worthless for you. This makes her slowly fade away, disappear from your life. Until she completely disappears forever (kills herself).
This is an atypical yandere since it has so little effect on other characters' lives.

shuumatsu-gata 終末型

Final type. ("final" as in "the end," not as in "final form" or "final fantasy" whatever that final means)
"I don't need a world where he doesn't exist."
After learning you died, she loses purposes in life. The world for her was you, and you're now gone. What this results vary. Most of the time, she becomes broken emotionally, as expected. She might also kill herself. Or, sometimes, she might become a terrorist and destroy the world that let you die, or just go on revenge serial killing or something."

DV-gata DV型

Domestic Violence type.
"It hurts? That's your fault! Next time learn your lesson and stop looking at other girls!"
When jealous, feeling ignored, etc. uses violence against you. She'll beat you and say it's your fault. This can be either discharging pent-up rage through violence and you just happen to be her favorite punching bag, or deliberately punishing you for doing something she didn't like.
Both cases, unfortunately, are also common in real life.

bouryoku-gata 暴力型

Violence type.
Another name for the "domestic violence" type above. She "uses violence" (bouryoku wo furu 暴力をふる) toward you.

sokubaku-gata 束縛型

Restraints type.
"Let`s stay together forever! You'll never leave my side, not ever again!"
She wants to be with you always, and always, and always, AND ALWAYS, AND ALWAYS. And that means she'll probably kidnap you and lock you into her house so you're forced to stay with her.
There are variations, some lighter, some worse, but the general idea is that she wants you two to be inseparable.

mousou-gata 妄想型

Delusion type.
Similar to the "wrong idea" type above, but far worse. When her insane love is unrequited (for obvious reasons), and you start literally running away from the crazy bitch, she'll think it's because you're embarrassed, and not because you don't want her. Her love distorts the reality she perceives. She sees a bunch of delusions instead.
The delusion type may also be in denial something unpleasant happened. She'll just forget it happened. Her memories may also be replaced with delusions: she'll remember you being extremely nice to her when you were indifferent, you saying you liked her before you even met, or other girls rubbing themselves on you like cheap sluts when all they did was saying "good morning.

jishou-gata 自傷型

Self-harm type.
"Hey... look at me... look at me... look, there's so much blood coming out..."
She harms herself, cutting wrists, etc. in order to get your attention. This often happens when she's ignored. The "dependence" type might evolve into this if she is abandoned.
There are two sub-types to this.
First, the one where she harms herself in secret and has you notice her injuries, then she says "it's nothing to worry about" hoping you worry about it more. This is usually something light like a knee bruise, etc.
Second, the one where she harms herself in your face as a way to say "I'll kill myself if you leave me," forcing you to stay by her side by guilt.

haijo-gata 排除型

Removal type.
"You don't need other people. You have me."
She will remove from your life everyone she thinks you don't need. Which means everyone else. This can include things like excluding your contacts and messages to even murdering everybody who approaches.
This type of yandere has two sub-types:
First, the one that removes people secretly. She sees you hanging with a girl, the next day that girl has mysteriously disappeared. You, a main character, are probably as clueless as a sheet of sudoku in blank about this incident, and the next several incidents like it.
Second, the one that removes people openly. This also ranges from removing messages to killing people. She might be expecting you agree with her, "yeah, you're right, I don't need other people," or she might just want to show you what she's capable of.

shinjuu-gata 心中型

Double Suicide Type
"Let's die together!"
Why be always together in life if you can be forever together for all eternity? This type of yandere will propose what no sane person would: let's die!
Sadly, suicide pacts are a thing. Double suicide, lovers' suicide, too, is a thing. One of the most famous pieces ever, Romeo & Juliet, (spoilers) sort of ended up in a double suicide.
One thing different in an yandere double suicide is that, often, you don't really want to suicide. It's more like she wants you both dead and she'll kill you then herself. Although there are also actual consensual attempted double suicides involving yandere.

jiko-gisei-gata 自己犠牲型

Self-Sacrifice type.
"If it's for you I wouldn't mind dying!"
She'd make any sacrifice for you, as long as it means getting you to love her. She doesn't even mind dying for you or fighting bloody battles, sustaining multiple injuries, etc. as long as it means staying with you.
Unlike the self-harm type, the self-sacrifice type isn't seeking attention with her suicidal behavior. Instead, she wants to make herself useful and support the one she loves.
This is easier to visualize in anime where fighting monsters, etc. is normal. However, this kind of sickness also exists in real life. Some people do sacrifice themselves for a beloved one in an extremely unhealthy and unrewarding way, just because they "love" them.

suuhai-gata 崇拝型

Worship type.
"I'll do anything for you! I'll even kill for you! Please use me however you want!"
She worships you and will do anything for you. Sometimes even without you asking. And more: she doesn't even mind if you love her or not, or what will happen to her. Killing, dying, committing crimes, losing respect of others, she'll do anything it means providing support to your infinite greatness.
This is one of the least-harmful type of yandere since she would never do anything to harm you and will never be in your way. Nonetheless, it's also one of the most depressing types; it makes you feel sorry for the yandere, who thinks of herself less like a person and more like a tool who might get thrown away if she's not useful enough.
The difference between the "worship" type and the "self-sacrifice" type is that the "worship" type is also like the "disappearance" type. The "self-sacrifice" type wants to be useful so she can be loved, the "worship" type doesn't mind if she is not loved back, in fact, she probably thinks she is not worth being loved by the delusive greatness she considers you.
She wouldn't, for example, attack your girlfriend or other girls out of jealousy, but she might attack a girl approaching you because she thinks the girl is stepping out of her boundaries and being presumptuous by daring talk to your greatness without proper respect.

choukyou-gata 調教型

Training type.
"Say you love me... come on, say it. Say you love me. SAY YOU LOVE ME! Good boy! Here's your reward."
(the word choukyou was once only about "training [animals]" or "breaking [animals]." In modern times, it's also used in BDSM contexts, "[master] training [slave]." It has nothing to do with training for sports.)
She'll break you into loving her. Sometimes using torture, a punishment/reward system, brainwashing, etc. This probably involves you getting kidnapped and forced into it, although there might be more subtle ways to accomplish this.

koritsu yuudou-gata 孤立誘導型

Loneliness Induction type.
"Shhh... it's ok. I'm here. You don't need anyone else. You can just count on me."
She will make, induce, you to feel or be alone. By spreading malicious rumors about you that make others alienate you, by murdering your friends and family, etc. Then she'll jump in and present herself as the only one you can count on when you're most fragile mentally and in need of company.
Inducing things that don't make you feel lonely but give some sort of mental damage, trauma, also count as this type. Conversely, if your friends and family get killed on their own and you're alone but she had nothing to do with it, it's not the same thing since she didn't induce it, although an yandere might abuse your condition to get closer to you.
This type is similar to the "dependence" type, except it's not the yandere that's to become dependent on you, it's you that's to become dependent on the yandere.

kyouki-gata 猟奇型

Bizarre-Seeking Type.
"I love you, so... can you give me your fingernails? I want them so I can always have a part of you with me!"
Undeniably the worst type of yandere, she will murder you, and not by accident, not by jealousy, not by revenge. She will murder you because she loves you. And then she'll keep your rotting corpse on bed or preserved inside a glass because there's no way she'd throw you away.
In a sense sane people are better off not even trying to understand, the bizarre-seeking type of yandere is purely insane, mad way beyond explanation.
The word kyouki, used in the type's name, is normally associated with disturbing imagery involving gore, blood and worse stuff. It's also related to "grotesque" art, guro グロ, which's dubbed "pornography involving gore" despite the fact nobody in their sane mind can figure out how the fuck can someone even "fap to this."
Likewise, nobody in their sane mind can relate to the grotesque love of bizarre-seeking yandere. Ranging from murder, mutilation, and maybe something ever worse us mere mortals can't even begin to imagine, their bizarre displays of love can only be summed up by: "what the actual fuck?"

References : https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/tsundere-kuudere-yandere-meaning.html

What is ZenUML?

ZenUML is one of the best Sequence Diagram as Code solution in the industry.
It's considered "unique" because, unlike Mermaid or PlantUML, which are essentially Text2Diagram tools, Code2Diagram is not just text, but "logical text" with a domain-specific language syntax.
A diagram is a visualization of logic.
In the realm of sequence diagrams, we believe ZenUML is currently one-of-a-kind.

What Can Sequence Diagrams Do?

"Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to software development"
This article, written by the founder and CTO of Mermaid, resonates deeply with me. In reality, no matter how complex the logic, when implemented in a program, it ultimately follows a sequence; no matter how intricate the business, when broken down into processes, it also has an order.
Therefore, over the past decade, the only diagramming habit I've maintained is creating sequence diagrams. In fact, sequence diagrams go far beyond just software component design.

• Business process modeling, as a replacement for BPMN
• Organizing key business knowledge and describing core business relationships
• Design and analysis of system event-driven architectures

These are so many "best practices" I've accumulated, and I hope to have the opportunity to share them.
Example of Sequence Diagram on ZenUML: https://cdn.sa.net/2024/05/29/9ThQJOBoUgZbFDC.png

The Lifecycle of a Diagram

In reality, there are two types of diagrams.
One type is drawn for a one-time presentation: we should use tools like Excalidraw as freely as possible because they create visually appealing diagrams.
The other type is drawn for maintenance. These diagrams become part of our knowledge base, serving as carriers of knowledge or even knowledge itself. Their purpose is not for people to simply look at—their purpose is to help people understand knowledge faster.
In businesses, I've seen countless vsdx files that no one is willing to maintain anymore because once the visualization becomes disconnected from the underlying logical knowledge, the mental burden of picking it up again is immense.
I do believe that 'Diagram as code' is the only solution. If you need diagrams to assist your knowledge over the long term, evolving alongside your designs and knowledge, then don't let everything start with a blank canvas.

New Pricing Model and My Vision

We have made pretty a lot large clients on Atlassian Platform. The value of sequence diagrams and ZenUML is recognized in many ways in industry, however our very first SaaS product has less than 10 users in past 8 years. We didn't promote enough of course is one of the reasons, however we are also not considering our SaaS product has to be profitable.
As long as we believe the product and the best practise along with it can value more and more people, we decide to make a significant price reduction from this month.
With the launch of new features and a new UI, we've introduced annual subscriptions and significantly reduced the price of annual subscriptions. This is not because we believe the tool is not valuable, but because we want more people to get used to the idea that "diagrams" are a language and a form of expression, a way of life that should be a permanent part of your valuable logic and knowledge.
Original , 4.99 or 7.99 monthly -> https://cdn.sa.net/2024/05/29/ZacymoQBxJL2qO1.png
New Pricing, 0.87 or 1.25 montly when annual billing -> https://cdn.sa.net/2024/05/29/f85nWTjJuCroiaQ.png
This shouldn't be the kind of diagramming tool that you use to create a single image for social media. It should be an integral part of your knowledge, capable of evolving alongside your design and remaining perpetually up-to-date.

Upcoming New Features

In the future, we will also introduce a series of AI-powered features under diagramly, and ultimately they will be integrated into the same ecosystem as a whole. Many features are still in testing, but I personally have already heavily reliant on them and can't live without them.

Finally

Welcome aboard and check it out! Feel free to DM me with any feedback or suggestions for features. ZenUML

I don't know if this is the correct place to ask, but I have been looking into notebooks that have Cornell-style note-taking. But every notebook I looked are always ruled/have lines for ease of writing. But I want mostly blank pages to facilitate easier drawings and understanding of diagrams. Is there any notebooks like this?

“Questioning elicited the information that he feels almost as if there is a veil between him and other people through which they cannot reach him, but he prefers this veil to remain intact.”
—
Sometimes he looks around him, horrified by the weight of it all, the career of paper. He sits in the data-spew of hundreds of lives. There’s no end in sight. When he needs something, a report or transcript, anything, any level of difficulty, he simply has to ask. The Curator is quick to respond, firm in his insistence on forwarding precisely the right document in an area of research marked by ambiguity and error, by political bias, systematic fantasy. But not just the right document, not just an obscure footnote from an open source. The Curator sends him material not seen by anyone outside the headquarters complex at Langley, material that includes the results of internal investigations, confidential files from the Agency’s own Office of Security.
—
Knowledge was a danger, ignorance a cherished asset. In many cases the DCI, the Director of Central Intelligence, was not to know important things. The less he knew, the more decisively he could function. It would impair his ability to tell the truth at an inquiry or a hearing, or in an Oval Office chat with the President, if he knew what they were doing in Leader 4, or even what they were talking about, or muttering in their sleep. The Joint Chiefs were not to know. The operational horrors were not for their ears. Details were a form of contamination. The Secretaries were to be insulated from knowing. They were happier not knowing, or knowing too late. The Deputy Secretaries were interested in drifts and tendencies. They expected to be misled. They counted on it. The Attorney General wasn’t to know the queasy details. Just get results. Each level of the committee was designed to protect a higher level. There were complexities of speech. A man needed special experience and insight to work true meanings out of certain murky remarks. There were pauses and blank looks. Brilliant riddles floated up and down the echelons, to be pondered, solved, ignored.
The members of the committee would allow only generalities to carry upward. It was the President, of course, who was the final object of their protective instincts. … The White House was to be the summit of unknowing. It was as if an unsullied leader redeemed some ancient truth which the others were forced to admire only in the abstract, owing to their mission in the convoluted world.
But there were even deeper shadows, strange and grave silences surrounding plans to invade the island. The President knew about this, of course—knew the broad contours, had a sense of the promised outcome. But the system still operated as an insulating muse. Let him see the softer tones. Shield him from responsibility. Secrets build their own networks, Win believed. The system would perpetuate itself in all its curious and obsessive webbings, its equivocations and patient riddles and levels of delusional thought …
—
“The invasion failed because high officials didn’t examine the basic assumptions. They got caught up in a spirit of compelling action. They were eager to accept other men’s perceptions. There was safety in this. The plan was never clear. No one was ever responsible. Some of them knew a disaster was in the works. They let it ride. They put themselves out of reach. They wanted it over and done.”
—
“Some things we wait for all our lives without knowing it. Then it happens and we recognize at once who we are and how we are meant to proceed. This is the idea I’ve always wanted. I believe you’ll sense it is right. It’s the high risk we need. We need an electrifying event. You’ve been waiting for this every bit as much as I have. I believe that or I wouldn’t have asked you to come here. We want to set up an attempt on the life of the President. We plan every step, design every incident leading up to the event. We put together a team, leave a dim trail. The evidence is ambiguous. But it points to the Cuban Intelligence Directorate. Inherent in the plan is a second set of clues, even more unclear, more intriguing. These point to the Agency’s attempts to assassinate Castro. I am designing a plan that includes elements of both the American provocation and the Cuban reply. We do the whole thing with paper. Passports, drivers’ licenses, address books. Our team of shooters disappears but the police find a trail. Mail-order forms, change-of-address cards, photographs. We script a person or persons out of ordinary pocket litter. Shots ring out, the country is shocked, aroused. The paper trail leads to paid agents who have disappeared in Venezuela, in Mexico. I am convinced this is what we have to do to get Cuba back. This plan has levels and variations I’ve only begun to explore but it is already, essentially, right. I feel its rightness. I know what scientists mean when they talk about elegant solutions. This plan speaks to something deep inside me. It has a powerful logic. I’ve felt it unfolding for weeks, like a dream whose meaning slowly becomes apparent. This is the condition we’ve always wanted to reach. It’s the life-insight, the life-secret, and we have to extend it, guard it carefully, right up to the time we have shooters stationed on a rooftop or railroad bridge.”
—
Historic names, pen names, names of war, party names, revolutionary names. These were men who lived in isolation for long periods, lived close to death through long winters in exile or prison, feeling history in the room, waiting for the moment when it would surge through the walls, taking them with it. History was a force to these men, a presence in the room. They felt it and waited.
The books were struggles. He had to fight to make some elementary sense of what he read. But the books had come out of struggle. They had been struggles to write, struggles to live. It seemed fitting to Lee that the texts were often masses of dense theory, unyielding. The tougher the books, the more firmly he fixed a distance between himself and others.
He found enough that he could understand. He could see the capitalists, he could see the masses. They were right here, all around him, every day.
—
Pocket litter. Win Everett was at work devising a general shape, a life. He would script a gunman out of ordinary dog-eared paper, the contents of a wallet. … They wanted a name, a face, a bodily frame they might use to extend their fiction into the world. Everett had decided he wanted one figure to be slightly more visible than the others, a man the investigation might center on, someone who would be trailed and possibly apprehended. Three or four shooters would vanish completely, leaving scant traces of their affiliation. … Then one other figure, one slightly clearer image, perhaps abandoned in his sniper’s perch to find his own way out, to be trailed, found, possibly killed by the Secret Service, FBI or local police. Whatever protocol demands. This kind of man, a marksman, near anonymous, with minimal known history, the kind of man who surfaces in murky places, disappears, is arrested for some violent act, is released to drift again, to surface, to disappear. Mackey would find this man for Everett. They needed fingerprints, a handwriting sample, a photograph. Mackey would find the other shooters as well. We don’t hit the President. We miss him. We want a spectacular miss.
—
It was all so curiously funny. It was rich, that’s what it was. Everyone was a spook or dupe or asset, a double, courier, cutout or defector, or was related to one. We were all linked in a vast and rhythmic coincidence, a daisy chain of rumor, suspicion and secret wish.
—
Somewhere in his room of theories, in some notebook or folder, Nicholas Branch has a roster of the dead. A printout of the names of witnesses, informers, investigators, people linked to Lee H. Oswald, people linked to Jack Ruby, all conveniently and suggestively dead. In 1979 a House select committee determined there was nothing statistically abnormal about the death rate among those who were connected in some way to the events of November 22. Branch accepts this as an actuarial fact. He is writing a history, not a study of the ways in which people succumb to paranoia. There is endless suggestiveness. Branch concedes this. There is the language of the manner of death. Shot in back of head. Died of cut throat. Shot in police station. Shot in motel. Shot by husband after one month marriage. Found hanging by toreador pants in jail cell. Killed by karate chop. It is the neon epic of Saturday night. And Branch wants to believe that’s all it is. There is enough mystery in the facts as we know them, enough of conspiracy, coincidence, loose ends, dead ends, multiple interpretations. There is no need, he thinks, to invent the grand and masterful scheme, the plot that reaches flawlessly in a dozen directions.
Still, the cases do resonate, don’t they? Mostly anonymous dead. Exotic dancers, taxi drivers, cigarette girls, lawyers of the shopworn sort with dandruff on their lapels. But through the years the violence has reached others as well, and with each new series of misadventures Branch sees again how the assassination sheds a powerful and lasting light, exposing patterns and links, revealing this man to have known that one, this death to have occurred in curious juxtaposition to that.
—
“U-2 planes. The planes that spotted the missiles the Soviets were putting into Cuba. We used to call the photos pornography. The photo interpreters would gather to interpret. ‘Let’s see what kind of pornography we pulled in today.’ Kennedy looked at the pictures in his bedroom as a matter of fact. … Spy planes, drone aircraft, satellites with cameras that can see from three hundred miles what you can see from a hundred feet. They see and they hear. Like ancient monks, you know, who recorded knowledge, wrote it painstakingly down. These systems collect and process. All the secret knowledge of the world. … I’ll tell you what it means, these orbiting sensors that can hear us in our beds. It means the end of loyalty. The more complex the systems, the less conviction in people. Conviction will be drained out of us. Devices will drain us, make us vague and pliant.”
—
He would put someone together, build an identity, a skein of persuasion and habit, ever so subtle. He wanted a man with believable quirks. He would create a shadowed room, the gunman’s room, which investigators would eventually find, exposing each fact to relentless scrutiny, following each friend, relative, casual acquaintance into his own roomful of shadows. We lead more interesting lives than we think. We are characters in plots, without the compression and numinous sheen. Our lives, examined carefully in all their affinities and links, abound with suggestive meaning, with themes and involute turnings we have not allowed ourselves to see completely. He would show the secret symmetries in a nondescript life.
An address book with ambiguous leads. Photographs expertly altered (or crudely altered). Letters, travel documents, counterfeit signatures, a history of false names. It would all require a massive decipherment, a conversion to plain text. He envisioned teams of linguists, photo analysts, fingerprint experts, handwriting experts, experts in hairs and fibers, smudges and blurs. Investigators building up chronologies. He would give them the makings of deep chronos, lead them to basement rooms in windy industrial slums, to lost towns in the Tropics.
—
Life is hostile, he believed. The struggle is to merge your life with the greater tide of history.
—
Maybe what has to happen is that the individual must allow himself to be swept along, must find himself in the stream of no-choice, the single direction. This is what makes things inevitable. You use the restrictions and penalties they invent to make yourself stronger. History means to merge. The purpose of history is to climb out of your own skin. He knew what Trotsky had written, that revolution leads us out of the dark night of the isolated self. We live forever in history, outside ego and id.
—
Two weeks later he followed directions to a house in the Sanya district of Tokyo. He made his way through a ragpickers’ village built with material scavenged from other parts of the city. Old women jogged through the alleys carrying empty bottles, broken chair legs, pieces of indefinable junk. Houses were shoulder-high, made of old packing crates and strips of sheet metal, the walls stuffed with cardboard and rags. There were lines of people selling blood at mobile units, people who seemed hollow-bodied, so small, in such collapse. It would never bottom out. No matter how far down you went into the world, there were distances still to go, worse things to see and experience. He made it a point not to hurry through the area. He wanted to see what was here.
—
It produced a sensation of the eeriest panic, gave him a glimpse of the fiction he’d been devising, a fiction living prematurely in the world.
—
Nicholas Branch has unpublished state documents, polygraph reports, Dictabelt recordings from the police radio net on November 22. He has photo enhancements, floor plans, home movies, biographies, bibliographies, letters, rumors, mirages, dreams. This is the room of dreams, the room where it has taken him all these years to learn that his subject is not politics or violent crime but men in small rooms.
Is he one of them now? Frustrated, stuck, self-watching, looking for a means of connection, a way to break out. After Oswald, men in America are no longer required to lead lives of quiet desperation. You apply for a credit card, buy a handgun, travel through cities, suburbs and shopping malls, anonymous, anonymous, looking for a chance to take a shot at the first puffy empty famous face, just to let people know there is someone out there who reads the papers.
Branch is stuck all right. He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century. He has his forensic pathology rundown, his neutron activation analysis. There is also the Warren Report, of course, with its twenty-six accompanying volumes of testimony and exhibits, its millions of words. Branch thinks this is the megaton novel James Joyce would have written if he’d moved to Iowa City and lived to be a hundred.
Everything is here. Baptismal records, report cards, postcards, divorce petitions, canceled checks, daily timesheets, tax returns, property lists, postoperative x-rays, photos of knotted string, thousands of pages of testimony, of voices droning in hearing rooms in old courthouse buildings, an incredible haul of human utterance. It lies so flat on the page, hangs so still in the lazy air, lost to syntax and other arrangement, that it resembles a kind of mind-spatter, a poetry of lives muddied and dripping in language.
Branch doesn’t know how to approach this kind of data. … It is vital to his sense of responsible obsession that everything in his room warrants careful study. Everything belongs, everything adheres, the mutter of obscure witnesses, the photos of illegible documents and odd sad personal debris, things gathered up at a dying—old shoes, pajama tops, letters from Russia. It is all one thing, a ruined city of trivia where people feel real pain. This is the Joycean Book of America, remember—the novel in which nothing is left out.
Branch has long since forgiven the Warren Report for its failures. It is too valuable a document of human heartbreak and muddle to be scorned or dismissed. The twenty-six volumes haunt him. Men and women surface in FBI memos, are tracked for several pages, then disappear—waitresses, prostitutes, mind readers, motel managers, owners of rifle ranges. Their stories hang in time, spare, perfect in their way, unfinished.
Photographs. Many are overexposed, light-blasted, with a faded quality beyond their age, suggesting things barely glimpsed despite the simple nature of the objects and the spare captions. ... But Branch feels there is a loneliness, a strange desolation trapped here. Why do these photographs have a power to disturb him, make him sad? Flat, pale, washed in time, suspended outside the particularized gist of this or that era, arguing nothing, clarifying nothing, lonely. Can a photograph be lonely?
This sadness has him fixed to his chair, staring. He feels the souls of empty places, finds himself returning again and again to the pictures of the second-floor lunchroom in the Texas School Book Depository. Rooms, garages, streets were emptied out for the making of official pictures. Empty forever now, stuck in some picture limbo. He feels the souls of those who were there and left. He feels sadness in objects, in warehouse cartons and blood-soaked clothes. He breathes in loneliness. He feels the dead in his room.
—
It was his goodbye to Russia. It signified the official end of a major era in his life. It validated the experience, as the writing of any history brings a persuasion and form to events.
Even as he printed the words, he imagined people reading them, people moved by his loneliness and disappointment, even by his wretched spelling, the childish mess of composition. Let them see the struggle and humiliation, the effort he had to exert to write a simple sentence. The pages were crowded, smudged, urgent, a true picture of his state of mind, of his rage and frustration, knowing a thing but not able to record it properly.
Always the pain, the chaos of composition. He could not find order in the field of little symbols. They were in the hazy distance. He could not clearly see the picture that is called a word. A word is also a picture of a word. He saw spaces, incomplete features, and tried to guess at the rest.
He made wild tries at phonetic spelling. But the language tricked him with its inconsistencies. He watched sentences deteriorate, powerless to make them right. The nature of things was to be elusive. Things slipped through his perceptions. He could not get a grip on the runaway world.
Limits everywhere. In every direction he came up against his own incompleteness. Cramped, fumbling, deficient. He knew things. It wasn’t that he didn’t know.
Even in the rush of filling these pages, he was careful to leave out certain things that could be used in legal argument against his return to the U.S. Yes, the diary was self-serving to a degree but still the basic truth, he believed. The panic was real, the voice of disappointment and loss.
He knew there were discrepancies, messed-up dates. No one could expect him to get the dates right after all this time, no one cared about the dates, no one is reading this for names and dates and spellings.
Let them see the struggle.
He believed religiously that his life would turn in such a way that people would one day study the Historic Diary for clues to the heart and mind of the man who wrote it.
—
Plots carry their own logic. There is a tendency of plots to move toward death. He believed that the idea of death is woven into the nature of every plot. A narrative plot no less than a conspiracy of armed men. The tighter the plot of a story, the more likely it will come to death. A plot in fiction, he believed, is the way we localize the force of the death outside the book, play it off, contain it. The ancients staged mock battles to parallel the tempests in nature and reduce their fear of gods who warred across the sky. He worried about the deathward logic of his plot. He’d already made it clear that he wanted the shooters to hit a Secret Service man, wound him superficially. But it wasn’t a misdirected round, an accidental killing, that made him afraid. There was something more insidious. He had a foreboding that the plot would move to a limit, develop a logical end.
—
He thought the only end to isolation was to reach the point where he was no longer separated from the true struggles that went on around him. The name we give this point is history.
—
“It’s the job of an intelligence service to resolve a nation’s obsessions. Cuba is a fixed idea. It is prickly in a way Russia is not. More unresolved. More damaging to the psyche. And this is our job, to remove the psychic threat, to learn so much about Castro, decipher his intentions, undermine his institutions to such a degree that he loses the power to shape the way we think, to shape the way we sleep at night.”
—
It was remarkable how often he talked to her about these things. The Agency was the one subject in his life that could never be exhausted. Central Intelligence. Beryl saw it as the best organized church in the Christian world, a mission to collect and store everything that everyone has ever said and then reduce it to a microdot and call it God. She needed to live in small dusty rooms, layered safely in, out of the reach of dizzying things, of heat and light and strange spaces, and Larry needed the great sheltering nave of the Agency. He believed that nothing can be finally known that involves human motive and need. There is always another level, another secret, a way in which the heart breeds a deception so mysterious and complex it can only be taken for a deeper kind of truth.
—
He’d stopped commenting on this oddness of hers. She said the news clippings she sent to friends were a perfectly reasonable way to correspond. There were a thousand things to clip and they all said something about the way she felt. He watched her read and cut. She wore half-glasses and worked the scissors grimly. She believed these were personal forms of expression. She believed no message she could send a friend was more intimate and telling than a story in the paper … Because these are the things that tell us how we live.
—
In the Old Senate Caucus Room they asked him to name the members of the Real Control Apparatus. This is like naming particles in the air, naming molecules or cells. The Apparatus is precisely what we can’t see or name. We can’t measure it, gentlemen, or take its photograph. It is the mystery we can’t get hold of, the plot we can’t uncover. This doesn’t mean there are no plotters. They are elected officials of our government, Cabinet members, philanthropists, men who know each other by secret signs, who work in the shadows to control our lives.
—
On his fourth day with Castro he shot a government scout, aiming through a telescopic sight. It was uncanny. You press a button and a man drops dead a hundred meters away. It seemed hollow and remote, falsifying everything. It was a trick of the lenses. The man is an accurate picture. Then he is upside down. Then he is right side up. You shoot at a series of images conveyed to you through a metal tube. The force of a death should be enormous but how can you know what kind of man you’ve killed or who was the braver and stronger if you have to peer through layers of glass that deliver the image but obscure the meaning of the act? War has a conscience or it’s ordinary murder.
—
The Curator sends the results of ballistics tests carried out on human skulls and goat carcasses, on blocks of gelatin mixed with horsemeat. There are photographs of skulls with the right cranial portion blown away. There are bullet-shattered goat heads in close-up. Branch studies a picture of a gelatin-tissue model “dressed” like the President. It is pure modernist sculpture, a block of gelatin layered in suit and shirt material with a strip of undershirt showing, bullet-smoked. There are documents concerning exit velocities. There is a picture of a human skull filled with gelatin and covered with goatskin to simulate a scalp.
—
He sends an actual warped bullet that has been fired for test purposes through the wrist of a seated cadaver. We are on another level here, Branch thinks. Beyond documents now. They want me to touch and smell.
—
The Oswald shadings, the multiple images, the split perceptions—eye color, weapons caliber—these seem a foreboding of what is to come. The endless fact-rubble of the investigations. How many shots, how many gunmen, how many directions? Powerful events breed their own network of inconsistencies. The simple facts elude authentication. How many wounds on the President’s body? What is the size and shape of the wounds? … [Branch] concedes everything. He questions everything, including the basic suppositions we make about our world of light and shadow, solid objects and ordinary sounds, and our ability to measure such things, to determine weight, mass and direction, to see things as they are, recall them clearly, be able to say what happened.
He takes refuge in his notes. The notes are becoming an end in themselves. Branch has decided it is premature to make a serious effort to turn these notes into coherent history. Maybe it will always be premature. Because the data keeps coming. Because new lives enter the record all the time. The past is changing as he writes.
—
“Signs that you exist. Evidence that Lee Oswald matches the cardboard cutout they’ve been shaping all along. You’re a quirk of history. You’re a coincidence. They devise a plan, you fit it perfectly. They lose you, here you are. There’s a pattern in things. Something in us has an effect on independent events. We make things happen. The conscious mind gives one side only. We’re deeper than that. We extend into time. Some of us can almost predict the time and place and nature of our own death. We know it on some deeper plane.”
—
“Think of two parallel lines,” he said. “One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self. It’s not generated by cause and effect like the other two lines. It’s a line that cuts across causality, cuts across time. It has no history that we can recognize or understand. But it forces a connection. It puts a man on the path of his destiny.”
—
The Agency forgives. There wasn’t a man in the upper ranks of the four directorates who didn’t understand the perils of clandestine work. They would be pleased by his willingness to cooperate. What’s more, they would admire the complexity of his plan, incomplete as it was. It had art and memory. It had a sense of responsibility, of moral force. And it was a picture in the world of their own guilty wishes. He was never more surely an Agency man than in the first breathless days of dreaming up this plot.
—
To Nicholas Branch, more frequently of late, “Lee H. Oswald” seems a technical diagram, part of some exercise in the secret manipulation of history.
—
Street by street the crowd began to understand why it was here. The message jumped the open space from one press of bodies to the next. A contagion had brought them here, some mystery of common impulse, hundreds of thousands come from so many histories and systems of being, come from some experience of the night before, a convergence of dreams, to stand together shouting as the Lincoln passed. … They were here to surround the brittle body of one man and claim his smile, receive some token of the bounty of his soul.
—
The media crowds collected and rocked in the corridors. They were waiting for the prisoner to come down to the interrogation room here on the third floor of the Police and Courts Building. TV cameras sat on dollies and there were cables slung over windowsills, trailing through the offices of deputy chiefs. Nobody checked credentials. Reporters took over the phones and pushed into toilets after police officials. Total unknowns walked the halls, defendants from other parts of the building, witnesses to other crimes, tourists, muttering men, drunks in torn shirts. It was a roughhouse, a confoundment. Every rumor flew. Disk jockeys arrived to fill in, blinking, flinching, wary. A reporter wrote notes on a pad he balanced on the back of the chief of police.
Hours going by. Blank faces arrayed against corridor walls. Men crouched near the elevators waiting. They sensed the incompleteness out there, gaps, spaces, vacant seats, lobbies emptied out, disconnections, dark cities, stopped lives. People were lonely for news. Only news could make them whole again, restore sensation. Three hundred reporters in a compact space, all pushing to extract a word. A word is a magic wish. A word from anyone. With a word they could begin to grid the world, make an instant surface that people can see and touch together.
—
Whenever they took him down, he heard his name on the radios and TVs. Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded extremely strange. He didn’t recognize himself in the full intonation of the name. The only time he used his middle name was to write it on a form that had a space for that purpose. No one called him by that name. Now it was everywhere. He heard it coming from the walls. Reporters called it out. Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald. It sounded odd and dumb and made up. They were talking about somebody else.
—
They took him back to the cell. He stripped to his underwear and sat on the bunk, thinking, feeling the noise of the assembly room still resonating in his body. A cell is the basic state, the crude truth of the world.
He could play it either way, depending on what they could prove or couldn’t prove. He wasn’t on the sixth floor at all. He was in the lunchroom eating lunch. The victim of a total frame. They’d been rigging the thing for years, watching him, using him, creating a chain of evidence with the innocent facts of his life. Or he could say he was only partly guilty, set up to take the blame for the real conspirators. Okay, he fired some shots from the window. But he didn’t kill anyone. He never meant to fire a fatal shot. It was never his intention to cause an actual fatality. He was only trying to make a political point. Other people were responsible for the actual killing. They fixed it so he would seem the lone gunman. They superimposed his head on someone else’s body. Forged his name on documents. Made him a dupe of history. He would name every name if he had to.
—
Lee Harvey Oswald was awake in his cell. It was beginning to occur to him that he’d found his life’s work. After the crime comes the reconstruction. He will have motives to analyze, the whole rich question of truth and guilt. Time to reflect, time to turn this thing in his mind. Here is a crime that clearly yields material for deep interpretation. He will be able to bend the light of that heightened moment, shadows fixed on the lawn, the limousine shimmering and still. Time to grow in self-knowledge, to explore the meaning of what he’s done. He will vary the act a hundred ways, speed it up and slow it down, shift emphasis, find shadings, see his whole life change.
This was the true beginning.
They will, give him writing paper and books. He will fill his cell with books about the case. He will have time to educate himself in criminal law, ballistics, acoustics, photography. Whatever pertains to the case he will examine and consume. People will come to see him, the lawyers first, then psychologists, historians, biographers. His life had a single clear subject now, called Lee Harvey Oswald.
He and Kennedy were partners. The figure of the gunman in the window was inextricable from the victim and his history. This sustained Oswald in his cell. It gave him what he needed to live.
—
If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It’s the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.
But maybe not. Nicholas Branch thinks he knows better. He has learned enough about the days and months preceding November 22, and enough about the twenty-second itself, to reach a determination that the conspiracy against the President was a rambling affair that succeeded in the short term due mainly to chance. Deft men and fools, ambivalence and fixed will and what the weather was like.
The stuff keeps coming. The Curator sends FBI surveillance logs. He sends a thirty-five-hour film chronology of unedited network footage shot during the weekend of November 22. He sends a computer-enhanced version of the Zapruder film, the 8mm home movie made by a dress manufacturer who stood on a concrete abutment above Elm Street as the shots were fired. Experts have scrutinized every murky nuance of the Zapruder film. It is the basic timing device of the assassination and a major emblem of uncertainty and chaos. There is the powerful moment of death, the surrounding blurs, patches and shadows.
(Branch’s analysis of the film and other evidence leads him to believe the first shot came much sooner than most theories would allow, probably at Zapruder frame 186. Governor Connally was hit two point six seconds later, at Zapruder 234. The shot that killed the President, crushingly, came four point three seconds after that. Even though he has reached firm conclusions in this area, Branch will study the computerized version of Zapruder. He is in too deep to stop now.)
The Curator sends a special FBI report that includes detailed descriptions of the dreams of eyewitnesses following the assassination of Kennedy and the murder of Oswald.
There are worrisome omissions, occasional gaps in the record. Of course Branch understands that the Agency is a closed system. He knows they will not reveal what they’ve learned to other agencies, much less the public. This is why the history he has contracted to write is a secret one, meant for CIA’s own closed collection. But why are they withholding material from him as well? There’s something they aren’t telling him. The Curator delays, lately, in filling certain requests for information, seems to ignore other requests completely. What are they holding back? How much more is there? Branch wonders if there is some limit inherent in the yielding of information gathered in secret. They can’t give it all away, even to one of their own, someone pledged to confidentiality. Before his retirement, Branch analyzed intelligence, sought patterns in random scads of data. He believed secrets were childish things. He was not generally impressed by the accomplishments of men in the clandestine service, the spy handlers, the covert-action staff. He thought they’d built a vast theology, a formal coded body of knowledge that was basically play material, secret-keeping, one of the keener pleasures and conflicts of childhood. Now he wonders if the Agency is protecting something very much like its identity—protecting its own truth, its theology of secrets.
The Curator begins to send fiction, twenty-five years of novels and plays about the assassination. He sends feature films and documentaries. He sends transcripts of panel discussions and radio debates. Branch has no choice but to study this material. There are important things he has yet to learn. There are lives he must examine. It is essential to master the data.
—
He believes people are distorting his words even as he speaks them. There is a process that takes place between the saying of a word and when they pretend to hear it correctly but actually change it to mean what they want.
—
He is miscast, or cast as someone else, as Oswald. They are part of the same crime now. They are in it together and forever and together.
—
The camera doesn’t catch all of it. There seem to be missing frames, lost levels of information. Brief and simple as the shooting is, it is too much to take in, too mingled in jumped-up energies.
—
There was something in Oswald’s face, a glance at the camera before he was shot, that put him here in the audience, among the rest of us, sleepless in our homes—a glance, a way of telling us that he knows who we are and how we feel, that he has brought our perceptions and interpretations into his sense of the crime. Something in the look, some sly intelligence, exceedingly brief but far-reaching, a connection all but bleached away by glare, tells us that he is outside the moment, watching with the rest of us.

Introductory Guide to the Seven Principles of Pure Madra
1) Spirituality: Pure madra is purely spiritual and does not exert any force upon the physical world under normal circumstances.
It would be more accurate to say that Pure madra is the base spiritual material from which all spiritual existences are derived. All other madra aspects are a mixture of the energy of the physical world, that is to say Vital Aura, mixing with Pure madra.
2) Fluidity: Pure madra occurs naturally in a fluid state. It is one of the Five Fluids alongside Water, Life, Blood and Shadow. It occupies the centre of the diagram as the most stable fluid madra. Water becomes vapour and freezes solid as Ice, Life condenses to fuel life, Blood congeals to give shape to flesh, and Shadow overlaps with the immaterial / energy aspects.
The other characteristic of fluidity is the capacity to dissolve. Pure madra can be mixed with other aspects in order to increase their quantity, in exchange for diluting them. This characteristic is alternatively classified under "Hollowness" by Hyacinth Arelius and "Emptiness" by the Script Lord.
3) Humanity: Pure madra only exists naturally in humanity. Sacred Beasts and trees are not born with Pure madra but instead their racial madra aspects. Only humans are born with Pure madra.
There are some natural spirits that are born with Pure madra without needing human intervention, such as Sylvans - but they don't possess the same degree of... Purity. And the mechanisms of their birth can be explained by another principle.
4) Clarity: Pure madra is pure, that is to say it possesses an unmarred clarity - untainted by the physical world. It has no Vital Aura counterpart. It is, in essence, "unaspected" and "unalloyed" madra.
5) Supremacy: Pure madra is spiritually dominant. This is most clearly expressed with Royal madra, with its ability to take over madra constructs as well as the spirit of their opponent.
The foundation of your spirit is Pure. You are Pure. You take in the Vital Aura of the world, but that energy is of the world, not you. How do you manipulate it? Generally speaking, you don't. You manipulate your spirit, the foundation of which is Pure, now mixed with the world's energy. Aspected madra can be manipulated because it was once Pure madra, with aspects of Vital Aura dissolved in it, changing its flavour.
Pure madra is the purest vessel of Willpower. Allowing you to exert to your will upon the spiritual, and through it, the physical reality.
6) Emptiness: Pure madra is blank, but it can "imitate" other aspects of madra when mixed with them. Pure madra, when mixed with other aspects, diluted them, effectively emptying them out and taking their place.
7) Encompassing: Pure madra is all other aspects combined together. Myriad colours of the rainbow converging into light. It is how Sylvan Riverseeds are born in places with balanced auras.
Pure madra is the same as Soulfire, a unity of all Vital Aura aspects. It is why Soulfire can be used to manipulate Vital Aura. It is why Pure madra can be used to manipulate other aspects of madra.

Hi all, needing help with car not starting. 2001 Toyota Altezza (JDM) SXE10. Symptoms are:

• No cranking at all when key turned to start position
• Car is an auto, and one side of starting relay coil was confirmed to be connected to ground. I don't get 12V on the other side of the coil when key turned to start position.
• I tried jumpering the starting relay and it cranks, but engine still won't fire. I believe this means there is no issue with transmission parking switch.
• Checked some key fuses (EFI, Ignition, etc), all intact.
• New battery
• Happened seemingly without any warning signs prior

At this point, I'm thinking there's something that is causing ECU to block start, or ECU is dead (I hope this is very unlikely).
I've trawled the internet for a complete wiring diagram but surprised to come up blank.. If anyone can point me to a wiring diagram or have some suggestions, it would be much appreciated!

Wan show, 2:20:00 ish, they start to talk about working on remastering it. YAS!
Edit: Linus really likes it, apparently and think it has an important place in the history of technology. More importantly, he told.... the person in charge of the project that they have a blank check. Linus, getting the update while reading the doc was like: O_O;; Welp, that check was blanker than I was expecting...
Edit 2 (the info we all wanted!)
Here's what we're looking for:
Manuals for DCR-300 and DCR-500:
We are missing a few manuals:

 - Operator’s Manual - Circuit Diagrams Part 1 - BTS’s internal service manuals 

Specialized Tools:

Extender Board 1409 for tape deck Adjustment tape DR5 Any additional calibration tapes 

Any leads should reach out to saboooom
Oh, and the main error is "servo reference v-pulse frequency too high" in the MCU. We have replaced a ton of discrete components, verified nothing was leaking, changed the batteries and properly refurbished the motion components (not as simple as just relubricating. If you know, you know).

Chapter 27 - Return to Farscope
Previous Chapter
“Alright, Matriarch. This is farewell for now. If everything goes perfect, we’ll be back in roughly 40 or so days. When we get to JR692 we’ll send you guys a broadcast over the relay links. If you need to send us a message, prefix the message with ISCA. We’ll be monitoring the relay out there just in case.”
“Understood, Captain.” Kyshe’s face was stern on the screen in front of him. “We look forward to hearing back from you.”
“Trix, anything you’d like to say to the Matriarch before we leave the system?”
“Ma’am. Thank you for agreeing to give me this opportunity.”
“Of course, Trksehn. Good luck among the stars. And Captain…”
“Yes, Matriarch?”
“If you do well on this mission, Captain, I shall be sure to send you a list of your admirers here on the planet. There are a number I am told who think you far better looking than I myself do…”
Alex squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. This was the second conversation he’d had with Kyshe after Trix had revealed his appreciation of their species’ beauty, and Kyshe was thoroughly enjoying teasing the shit out of him over it. “Thank you very much for the offer, Matriarch, but I think that perhaps it’s extremely unnecessary.”
“A pity. But Captain…” Kyshe’s tone warmed up significantly. “I have been speaking at length with the other Matriarchs. Myself and the rest of the Avekin here look forward to your return.”
“Avek… ah. Ah.” Alex couldn’t help but grin at that. “As the self-appointed representative of Proxima and as a representative of all of Humanity, I swear we will do our utmost not to let you down. Farewell for now, Matriarch.”
“Farewell, Captain.”
The screen went blank and Alex let out an explosive sigh. He punched a button on his armrest and the all-hands signal sounded throughout the ship. “Alright everyone. Good job with everything on the planet. We’ve said our farewells and we’re officially heading back to JR692. Prep for Euler activation in, I dunno. Few hours. You all know the drill.”
Trix glanced over her shoulder at Josh. “He sounds weird. Is he OK?”
“Yeah. He was on his best behavior on the trip and whenever talking to the Matriarch. He’s not normally all formal and mild so now that we’re done being diplomatic and nice expect him to be a lot more…” Josh struggled for just the right word. “Informal?”
Par interjected over the intercom, “The word you’re looking for, Joshua, is ‘Immature’.”
Trix stifled a laugh as she turned back to her console. The autopilot systems were nearly identical to those of the shuttle, meaning that she could rely on them while she’d learn how to maneuver manually. “Where to, Captain?”
“Go ahead and put roughly two-fifty thousand clicks from the planet and we’ll open the gateway out there.”
“Uh…” She glanced over her shoulder at Josh. The command didn’t have any actual details, such as a heading. ‘Informal’ was apt right now.
“Just pick a course to an empty spot two hundred fifty thousand kilometers from the planet.”
Trix pulled up the navmap and picked a spot at random. Quite far from anything else. She punched in the autopilot and set accel to maximum, and the ship began smoothly gliding into the stars.
“Course laid in. What do we do when we get there?”
“Fire up the Euler cannon to open up a gateway into d-space so we can surpass the speed of light, obviously!” Alex gave her a grin as he slouched in his chair.
“Oh, sure. Obvious, is it?” Trix snorted at that.
“Sorry, just feels good not to watch every damn word I say.” The captain punched up the main display, and odd looking concentric rings appeared. “Okay, so we use a device called the Euler cannon to open up gateways in space. The cannon creates two polar opposite gravitic fields. A central anti-grav field, surrounded by a ring of hypergravity. The stresses these produce damage spacetime itself, and that damage manifests in the form of a tear. We call those tears gateways. They lead to d-space”
“So we’re destroying space itself. That seems incredibly safe. And what exactly is ‘D-Space’?” Trix glanced over at Josh who just shrugged and nodded.
Alex blanked out the display. “D-space is, uh, complicated. But basically think of it as a shortcut through space. If we travel a few thousand kilometers in d-space, we move tens of millions in real space. If you want to know the Whys and the Hows of it, Par can actually go into a fairly in depth explanation that relies heavily on a background of dimensional physics to make even the slightest bit of sense.”
Trix listened intently to Alex’s explanation, then yet again turned to Josh. “Any way you can translate all that for me?”
“Sadly, the captain’s basically dumbed it down as much as we can. We use alternating bands of gravity to distort space so far it breaks. That opens the ‘gateway’ to d-space. We don’t fully know what d-space is, but the theory all the scientists are going on is that it’s a dark-matter dimension that exists in congruence with our own. As the captain said, moving through d-space means traveling faster in real space.”
Josh pulled up a diagram on her screen. A small profile of the Arcadia moved along a line. A new line appeared, helpfully labelled ‘D-Space’. As the ship moved to the second line, an outline was left behind on the original. As the ship moved slowly through d-space the outline moved rapidly along the original line, until the ship moved back to its original line, far ahead of where it started.
Trix leaned back slightly as she watched the animation, and let her wingtips rest on the ground to either side of her. “So we rip open a hole in the universe, we go through, and we exit somewhere else. Do we have to, like, close the hole somehow?”
Alex shook his head. “Nah, they self mend fairly quickly. We have roughly 73 seconds to make it through the gateway before it closes itself. Plenty of time really, the gateway doesn’t appear too far from the ship and we’ll be moving fairly quickly so there’s little to no risk to the ship.”
Trix bit her lip. The way they phrased it, ‘tearing open’ space and letting it ‘mend’ behind them didn’t sound particularly safe. Still, she was the outsider and they knew their own tech so she simply went along with it. “Okay. So once we get to our destination, how will we know where we should exit?”
Josh glanced up at Alex, who just made a gesture back to him to do the explaining. “D-space and N-space interact in a single specific way, through gravity. We have gravitic sensors which we use to identify systems from a distance, and from up close we can match up the individual gravity sources like stars and planets. Even particularly huge asteroids. No two systems ever have the exact same gravitic configuration, so once we’ve been to a system we can always identify it afterwards.”
“Okay. If I’m understanding it right, we use a gravity cannon to rip a hole in space, travel through a separate dimension while looking for a place we recognize, then we return to normal space?” Trix didn’t fully understand the explanations they’d given to her, but it WAS her first day on the job so she tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice as much as she could.
Alex laughed. He could see the point she was making, and on its surface that did seem to be rather ridiculous. Still, reality is stranger than fiction. “Bingo. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do. Now, how long until we reach appropriate distance for gateway activation?”
Trix shrugged, and tapped at the controls on her console. “Looks like, at just under 10 ‘gees’ of acceleration, whatever a gee is, we’ll get there in just under 40 minutes.”
Josh jumped in before Alex could respond. “A gee is a measurement of acceleration. It’s equivalent to the amount of acceleration that our homeworld causes due to its gravity. Our top speed is ridiculously fast, but our acceleration is limited based on our gravitic inertial dampeners. We normally cruise around at 10g acceleration, but if we have to we can boost that up. Doing so gets VERY unpleasant as the ship’s gravity fights with its acceleration, so we avoid it outside of emergencies. And kudos to your math skills, Al. Even accounting for decel to transit speeds, we’re talking an hour at most. Where’d you get ‘a few hours’ from?”
“I dunno. Pulled it out of my ass?”
Trix and Josh shared a look, before Trix returned her attention to the console. “So what do I do in the meantime?”
Josh gestured to the proximity display. “Keep an eye on the surroundings of the ship. Anything shows up within Radar or Lidar on that screen. Anything smaller than one centimeter will be instantly vaporized by the particle shields. Anything larger than that, but smaller than ten centimeters will just be shoved out of the way. Anything bigger than ten centimeters the ship will automatically move to dodge. If it looks like we’re not moving quickly enough to avoid collision, engage the attitude thrusters to give it a boost.”
Trix went over each of the controls in turn, and nodded. “Easy enough.”
Alex snorted at that. “Well, we didn’t want to throw you into anything too difficult on day one. Once we’re into D-Space, we’re going to start you in on the book training for manual flight without computer assistance. Until then, enjoy the cakewalk.”
—--
Zelineth carefully watched the human’s ship as it left the planet’s vicinity. She fought to keep her temper under control - she had to do that often these days - and this time, thankfully, she succeeded.
It just made absolutely no sense. Starships were just inorganic machines in the sky. They came and went all the time. She could ‘see’ the occupants onboard (though often not entirely clearly, obscured by distance) yet the ships themselves were practically invisible to her. Until the Humans’ ship had arrived.
Unlike every other ship she ever saw, the Humans’ ship blazed in the heavens like a star. When she’d first announced the sight of a new star in the sky she’d taken all of her assistants entirely by surprise. Her insistence on looking for it caused massive confusion - astronomers and scientists turned their instruments to the sky, but they found nothing. They were looking for a ‘star’, not a ‘ship’. Compounding that confusion was the Matriarch’s ignorance of the humans’ arrival. With every other species in the galaxy she’d ‘seen’ their arrival, yet the humans had caught her entirely off guard.
It was a mistake that had cost her a great amount of faith both from her assistants, as well as the other Matriarchs. Coupled with her predecessor’s failure to warn of the Bunters’ treachery, it had brought the power that seers like her would normally enjoy to a distinct low.
The thought riled up her temper once more, and she cursed under her breath. The Sight had been used for ages by those who came before her to perform miracles. A seer made a timid young girl an Empress of a dynasty that lasted five hundred years. A seer unified warring factions to cease a thousand year feud and join them together. Seers were always present whenever the ages changed, whenever old kingdoms would crumble and new ones would ascend in their place.
But those days were ancient stories and myths now. The Bunters had gotten away with robbery under her predecessor’s nose. The Presh rat that leaked the details of the deed to the world had never been found. The Humans had appeared and she had exposed the secret of her existence to them. Each incident, by itself, would have been a blow. Together they formed a disturbing pattern that seemed to lead to a specific conclusion - that the Seers power was waning.
She’d been warned about the problems when her power first manifested, and she’d worked hard not to allow things to get worse while she herself was in power. Yet her blunder with the Humans proved that hard work wasn’t enough, and that particular incident stung. It should never have happened; but because she let her temper rule her she’d slipped up badly. A small part of her mind did point out that it was an unfamiliar situation - she’d never been surprised and caught off guard like that. How was she to be expected to respond?
She shook her head ruefully, and continued to watch the ship. First by the telescopes and satellites that watched it, and second by her sight. A ship that could be ‘seen’ by the Sight of Prophecy. Flown by a species that was all but invisible to that same Sight. Both were significant in their own right, and pieces of a much larger puzzle - of that she was sure. But with so little to go on, she knew that solving that puzzle would be impossible. She could not leave the gilded cage she resided in to seek out the other pieces, so she simply did what she did best. Sat there, watching, seeing as much as she could while waiting for the divine sight to show her what would be.
—--
“Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Kilometers reached, Captain.” Trix announced the moment the display ticked over. The past forty minutes weren’t exactly thrilling but it went fairly quickly.
Alex raised his seat back up to normal. “Okay. Decel to four-hundred fifty thousand kph. Josh, status on the Euler Cannon?”
Josh pulled up the diagnostic on his console. “Cannon shows green. Particle Shields are nominal. Thirty-Fifth gateway initialization beginning.”
“So explain to me what’s going on here while we’re doing it.” Trix said aloud, to either of the other bridge members present.
“Sure.” Alex pulled a pouch of gummy treats out from a pocket and opened it. “Transit velocity through a gateway is speed limited. We can’t travel slower than 300k kph or it'll close on us. We can’t travel faster than 500k kph because the particle shields can't handle the density. No reason to make a transit at the edge of the possible speed envelope, we give ourselves a fair amount of leeway. The cannon has to look good to make transit. Normally the Keplite core is good for around seventy-five uses before it needs replacement, so we track the number of uses. And the particle shields are checked thoroughly before we enter d-space because without them the ship would be incinerated in minutes.”
“Thanks. That’s very reassuring.” Trix monitored the velocity readout. It was ticking down steadily.
“Don’t worry, pilot. Yes, the consequences of a failure are dire. But we check and re-check the emitters constantly. We watch for fluctuations in the Keplite core and the tiniest variants are logged and checked by Ji and Min. Space is the most hostile environment imaginable but Humanity has spent hundreds of years designing ways to not just survive in it, but thrive with comfort. And spent hundreds MORE refining our technology to be safer, more convenient, easier to use. I won’t say not to worry about the details, because collectively it’s our job to worry about the details. Instead I’m just gonna say, trust in the systems that brought us here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Four-Fifty thousand kph reached.” Trix turned to face the main display.
“Alright. Josh, if you’ll do the honors.”
“Euler Cannon engaging.” A bright spear of blue-white light burst forward from the front of the ship, and Trix stared at the screen trying to watch and see ‘space being torn apart’. The tear was instant, however. One moment just a bright beam firing ahead and the next moment a gaping hole in nothingness opened up. She didn’t know what to expect - how do you have a ‘hole’ in emptiness? But the ‘hole’ that opened up was anything BUT empty. It was a bright, shining realm full of swirling patterns and chaotic movement. As the ship slipped through the opening she stared around her as the brilliant swirls of light surrounded the ship. As she stared at the edge of the display, she could faintly see the outline of the ship’s hull, and an odd almost rainbow-like effect where the particles impacted the shielding.
She was on her feet staring at the bright pulsing opening as both Josh and Alex watched her, smiling. “D-Space is incredible, isn’t it? I still remember the first time I saw this sight myself.” Alex shifted his gaze from the avian to the brightly swirling particles that lit every corner of the bridge. Showing someone the sight of the d-space transition for the first time often made Alex look at it from a fresh perspective, the old becoming new again.
“It’s incredible. I’ve never seen, or heard, or anything like this before.” Trix was awestruck at the sight, and Josh watched the readings on his display carefully as they left reality behind them. “That’s because only Humans have this capability. The FTL that you guys use is radically different.”
“Yeah, from what I understand there’s no ‘moving through another space’. It’s just instant. Here to there.” Trix sat back down, her eyes dancing around as she watched the lights of D-Space. “But I don’t know many details there either.”
Josh blanked his display and stood up. “We’ve spoken with a number of people on other ships and on Farscope station. They charge up an FTL drive, ‘jump’ instantly to another location, then charge it up again. The charging time takes a long while but the transfer is instant. How it works is a mystery to us, for now. A mystery we’re going to solve with your people’s help.”
“Speaking of Farscope station…” Alex gestured to Trix. “Change course to head there. Should be our previous departure point. It’s only about three earth days away.”
Trix shook herself out of her reverie, and her fingers moved rapidly over the console. “Course laid in. What are we doing at the station?”
“Just checking in on a friend.” Alex chuckled to himself. “Nevermind. So here’s the plan. I want you to spend six hours studying Piloting. After that, six hours up here on the bridge doing a shift of monitor duty. Then four hours of rec time, and eight of sleep. We run on terran clocks, so that’s a 24-hour day.”
The time display was easily visible on the corner of the flight console, making that easy enough to follow. “Does that start today?”
“Today we already did two hours on bridge so I’ll walk you through monitor duty and have you spend four more hours here to complete your shift, then you’re going to be studying piloting in your room. Par’s smarter than the rest of us combined and so he’ll be your teacher during those six hour study sessions. Tomorrow we’ll flip those so study first, monitor second. Monitor duty’s important but fairly relaxed so it’ll be a good rest period after.”
“Can I study while doing monitor duty?”
“Sure, so long as you don’t slack off. Just don’t get too burnt out. Inattention can be deadly out in space. Now, come over here and I’ll show you the duty monitor. While you’re on the bridge you can check this console to…”
—--
The pace the Humans had set for her training was grueling, to be sure. What helped is that nearly everyone had their specialities and were offering to aid her in her pursuit of learning to fly a multi-ton spacecraft.
Initially it was just herself and Par, and the digital being was incredible at cutting through the difficult language used to describe zero gravity maneuvering and rephrase the stilted, arcane language used by the training programs into her own native tongue. That alone made him invaluable as a teacher, but whenever they encountered a system or subject where another crew member had expertise, they were brought in to add their own personal touches to her education.
All the same the past three days were a tremendous mental strain, and when the captain said that there’d be no studying at all during the Farscope trip she’d breathed a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to run you ragged.” He patted her shoulder gently as he saw the strain. “Once we get out to JR692 the monitor duty will be so much simpler you’ll be downright bored. Since the ship’s not in danger of immolation in n-space, you’ll just be watching for stray meteorites and debris. If anything gets too close, you’ll be able to vaporize it with the ship’s laser point defense turrets. That always eases stress.”
She gave him a glare and he backed off. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to be too touchy. Personal space.”
“No, no, it’s not that.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I didn’t mind being touched. I’m just really frustrated because I thought that it’d be much easier to learn to fly out in space. Back on Kiveyt it came so naturally I never really thought about how much time and effort has to be put into learning the actual ins and outs of thrust, vectors, counter forces, rotational forces…”
Alex sat down, not in his normal command chair, but in the empty chair next to hers. “Makes sense. Back in atmosphere you’re fighting friction, gravity, and wind resistance. Out here you don’t have to fight ANY of that, you're fighting against your own movements. On planet if you cut thrusters then you lose momentum and come to a stop. Here? You drift on.”
“Yeah. And, I knew that. I knew that space was frictionless and that we wouldn’t be deep enough in a gravity well for it to matter. But knowing it, and then actually EXPERIENCING it are so different. I thought I’d pick it up as fast as I did the shuttle.”
“That’s not uncommon. From what I’ve seen, you’re a born pilot in the air. You’ve got natural talent by the bucket, enough for me to feel pretty jealous. But that won’t help you when you leave the atmosphere. What will help is training, learning, education, and plenty of practical experience.”
Trix pushed her wings against the back of the console behind her, leaning back against it. “I guess I’m a bit worried I won’t be good enough at space flight. When you told me I could learn I thought I’d just pick it up instantly and be amazing. But really I can’t do much more than just watch monitors and program in an autopilot course.”
“Maybe you won’t be great at it. Maybe you will. The point of bringing you along was to find out if this is a fit for you, and if it’s not then no pressure. We’ll drop you back off at Kiveyt with a pocketful of silver.” He grinned and tapped the console with his foot. “Between the aircar race and the story of going into space with us, I bet you’d have the guys lining up outside the Hab waiting for a chance to meet you.”
Trix smiled at the thought, and reached over to lightly tap the captain’s arm with a closed fist. “I’d have to have a raffle to let them in!”
“Or hire an assistant to help you screen out all potential applicants.” He lifted his hands above his head, as if holding up an invisible frame. “Seeking adrenaline junkie suitor for best pilot on the planet. Must be well hung and willing to worship me day and night. Inquire within. ”
“Well hung?”
“Shit. Sorry, human expression. Uh…” Alex fought to think of what to respond with that. “Kind of an off color remark. Ignore it and replace with just ‘attractive’ I guess. Anyway, point is, no matter what happens you’ve got lifelong friends here. Still, it’s only been a few days, so let’s give it a bit longer before we make any definite judgements?”
Trix nodded and pushed back forward, away from the console behind her. “Alright. Thanks again, Captain.” She tilted her head as she looked over at him. “I don’t know much about starships but how often is ‘cheering up the crew’ a Captain’s official duty?”
“It’s not. But this isn’t a typical ship, and I’m not a typical captain.” Alex stood up and walked a bit closer to Trix. “I’m not really an expert with anything around here like the rest of the crew. I can’t fly without using the autopilot, I can’t run any of the med systems manually. Par and Ma’et use the computer systems as a literal playground and to me they’re an incomprehensibly complex mess. Everyone around me has been hired to perform specific duties because I’m mediocre at them. So what CAN I do?”
Trix hesitated at this. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Was she supposed to comfort him now? Luckily he just kept talking.
“What I can do is ensure that everyone here has everything they need to perform at their peak. Your job may be to fly the ship, but my job is to do everything in my power to make your job as comfortable and easy as possible.” He turned around and walked up to the Captain’s Chair on the bridge. “Since I can’t out-fly, out-fight, or outdo anyone else my job is to make theirs easier to do by making sure they have the support they need to do it well. So if you need any support or if there’s any way I can help you out, don’t hesitate to speak up. That’s what I’m here for and I promise you if there’s anything within my power to help you, I will.”
Trix gazed up to the captain on the Dais, and nodded. “Will do. Thanks, Alex.”
—--
The gateway opening up 300,000km from Farscope was a surprise to those monitoring the area around, and immediately the command center erupted into a bustle of activity. The moment they realized that the Humans had returned the mood in the command center dropped, and Bunters and Cetari alike scurried around frantically as orders and updates flew around.
In a way it was worse than the panic and chaos from the Humans’ first visit. The fact that they now knew what the gateway was and what it meant eliminated the terror of the unknown. But that fear was replaced with confusion and uncertainty - which had just as horrible effects on the workers. The fighter wings were scrambled into space at nearly the drop of a hat, and they flew hastily to take up a position between the station and the incoming ship.
The ship in question was filled with just as much confusion at the hostile response.
“The fighters are lining up in a defensive formation between us and the station.” Josh remarked.
Trix gazed up at the screen at the near perfect line of fighters. “Did you do something to make them upset with you when you were here before?”
Alex nodded at that. “I mean technically we did kill like, forty people. In self defense of course. They stabbed Josh in the back, literally, and were trying to do the same to Ma’et, Ji, and Me. We took offense to that.”
“You were OK?” Trix mentioned to Josh, who nodded. “Got rapid treatment on-site and rushed to the medbay here. I got fully patched up. Would not recommend the experience though.”
“Still, though, we acted in defense only. They were investigating it but I am sure we did nothing that warrants a response like this. If we did, they'd have said something about it.” Alex mused. “They’re still not responding to the comm request?”
“Nope. After they wouldn’t respond to the comms, we tried Radio again but they’re not listening in to that either.” Ma’et’s digital voice came from an overhead console. It was still jarring for Trix to hear her speaking through the ship. At first Trix thought she was just using a communicator to speak remotely, until a digital avatar had appeared on her console. That was when Trix learned about ‘Neural Interfacing’ and the ability for Humans to actually interface their brains directly with the ship itself. The thought was anything but comfortable.
“Pilot, bring us to two hundred thousand kilometers and reduce speed for station keeping.”
“Yes, Captain.” Trix punched in the commands and watched apprehensively the fighters that floated silently in space.
“Incoming from the station, Captain.” Ma’et brought up a large square in the center of the main display screen.
“Incoming Human Ship. Halt all movement and state your intentions.”
A decidedly gruff Cetari spoke in universal on the screen. Alex glanced at the others on the bridge with him, then pressed the audio button on his console. “Farscope Station, this is the ISC Arcadia. Our intentions are to dock with the station for a personal visit.”
“Just to dock? That’s all? Nothing more?” The voice had an odd, incredulous sound. “After what you did before?”
Alex crossed his arms and idly tapped a finger against his bicep. “That was just self defense, Farscope. We only fought back after we attacked first. We weren’t here to start a fight then, and we’re not here to start a fight now.”
The Cetari glared back at this. “Thousands have perished and you claim you aren’t here…” he cut off, glaring angrily off to the side. “No, don’t read me the regulations, you…” the audio cut off as he began yelling silently at someone else in the room with him. Finally he began swaying left and right while making silent motions with his mouth, before the audio cut back in.
“Arcadia. How long will you be staying.”
“Not long. A few hours at most. We’re here for personal business. We’ll be out of your hair quickly and out of the system within a day.”
“Fine. Permission to dock granted. You have six hours on the station. Then I want you back aboard your ship and headed outsystem.”
The audio and video both cut away and the bridge crew looked back and forth at one another. “What the hell was all THAT about?” Alex commented.
“He said thousands died. Maybe we missed a pathogen in our scans?” Josh bit his lip. If that was the case, it was on him. He was the one who did the screening, he was the one who proclaimed them safe to be around others. If he’d missed something, then every single one of those thousands of lives were gone because of him.
“They wouldn’t have let us board again if that was the case.” Alex shook his head. “Something’s screwy here. Let’s move fast. Trix, bring the ship in to twenty-five thousand kilometers of the station, and put us in station keeping. Then come down to the hangar bay. You’re gonna pilot the shuttle over there. Josh, full med loadup on the shuttle, and load up the weapons rack while we’re at it. Let’s be ready for anything. ”
—--
Trix gazed out of the shuttle’s pilot screen at the fighters that were ‘escorting’ them to the station. She wished she knew more about their capabilities. She was learning by the day how formidable the ship she was on was, though the Captain went to great lengths to assure her that fighting was the last resort for them. He often called them a ‘glass cannon’ which seemed an odd simile.
Being surrounded by those armed and armored ships was nerve wracking, but it was the docking maneuver itself that had her the most intimidated. One thing that she loved about the Humans’ ship was the artificial gravity. Unlike other ships out there, it didn’t require a spin in order to allow her to walk normally. It could be adjusted up or down (though down could be dangerous as none of the corridors or quarters had particularly high ceilings) at will and made working and living incredibly comfortable. The station, however, lacked that artificial gravity and required a constant spin instead. So the simple docking maneuver was actually lining up the shuttle to a relative halt to a constantly-moving object as a frame of reference.
“C’mon, feathers. You’ve got less than a week on the job and this is a tricky maneuver. There’s no shame in letting the computer handle it.” Ma’et had been supportive as usual, but Trix still hated having to use the automatic systems as a crutch.
The systems brought them in and Ma’et darkened the screen before the dock came into view. Trix looked over at her questioningly, but the smaller woman just shook her head. “Captain’s orders.”
Trix just nodded and watched as the computer took full control, leading the shuttle up onto the landing pad and touching down. She was about to stand up and move to the back when Ma’et stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. As the onboard gravity disabled she felt a brief vertigo sensation as her body transitioned from ‘artificial gravity’ to ‘rotational’. The transition didn’t take long, and Trix took a deep breath. “Thanks.”
“No worries. Al nearly toppled over when we landed here the first time. It’s a weird sensation.” Ma’et stood up and the two walked out of the cockpit into the shuttle interior.
“Okay, everyone. No fun music display this time. Let’s just get out there and check in with security.” Alex clapped his hands and then admonished Trix. “Stop playing with it. It’s a highly sensitive piece of equipment.”
Trix was trying to adjust the transparent breath mask, and ignored the captain entirely. “It was made for a species with a massive nose. I don’t HAVE a massive nose, so it sits weird on my face.”
Ji nodded. “It’s also made of high-grade reinforced polycarbonate and it’d take more strength than she has to break it.”
Trix made another adjustment, and sighed. “It’s uncomfortable.”
“Well without it, we’re gonna be almost the only ones who understand you. Remember, most of the population here are Bunters, Cetari, and Fwenth.” Amanda clicked her tongue at the younger avian woman. “Best not to appear rude after the welcome we were given outside.”
Alex reached over and punched the hatch open. With no pomp and circumstance, it opened rapidly and the shuttle ramp extended down fast and silent. Given their welcome to the system he wasn’t very surprised to find that security had surrounded the shuttle. With guns out. Thankfully none were actively aimed at the passengers, and he confidently stepped out of the shuttle while glancing around for the person he’d known would be meeting him here.
He noticed her more or less immediately. The bright white of her feathers stood out quite starkly in the hangar bay, and the moment his feet touched the deck plating of the docking bay he turned to greet her with a massive smile and a raised hand. “Hey there, Sophie. Long time no-”
“Auntie? Auntie Sffffheeno?”
Trix immediately bounded forward, startling literally everyone in the docking bay. Half of security were reaching for their weapons as the young lady burst forward directly to the chief, but the chief’s eyes widened at the sight. “Trksehn??”
The two ran together and embraced tightly. The security agents froze in place, watching the two avians holding one another close. “Trksehn! It’s been ages! What on earth are you doing here? Why are you with the humans?”
“Auntie, I’m their pilot! We met back on Kiveyt and they came to the Noarala and I was assigned to be their guide, and I started talking to them about the aircar and…” Trix’s words were stumbling over one another as the rest of the crew joined them.
“Calm down, feathers. Let your aunt breathe a little.” Ma’et had a massive smile across her face as she reached out to pinch one of Trix’s wings. It had the desired effect as the young woman clamped her mouth shut immediately, before mumbling an apology.
“Well. I assumed you two would know each other, same Teff and all. I can’t say that I expected THAT energetic response though.” Alex chuckled and extended a hand to the security chief.
Sophie grasped the hand and squeezed it warmly. “Your time on Kiveyt went well, Captain? Well enough that you’ve absconded with one of our most promising youths?”
Alex squeezed back and nodded. “Went extremely well, though it was also incredibly eventful. Unfortunately while we made quite a few friends, let’s just say that Kyshe is still rather wary about us.”
Sophie’s face fell. “Ah. I should have expected, after her mother…” She shook her head, and her wings. “We should speak. In depth. But not in the middle of a docking bay surrounded by armed guards.”
Josh glanced around at the security. “What happened here? That Cetari on the comms said thousands died?”
Sophie’s expression turned grim, and she shook her head. “It’s a very long story. Let’s get off the pad first. There’s a VIP lounge here in the docking ring we can use for privacy.” She gestured to several of the guards, who immediately ran ahead to prepare the room. “I’ll only keep a few of the guards inside, the rest will have to stay nearby for protection.”
“Protection.” Alex mused. “Ours or yours?”
—--
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