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2024.05.17 09:52 Edwardthecrazyman Hiraeth or Where the Children Play: The Preparation for a Night of Demon Burning [13]
First/Previous
The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
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The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
First/Previous
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2024.05.17 03:08 No-Dragonfruit-6102 The Tenuous Watch
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Romuna Administrative Orbital Headquarters, United Confederation Occupied Territories of Earth (QUAL-ZANV)
May 8, 1945
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Commander Dunajski
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We were the watchful eyes over Earth. That was my job. The only thing second to that was the search for the missing pieces of my life.
As usual, however, that work was hard. After all, the past two years had been the same process. I get my human subordinates to find a list of names from anywhere: concentration camps, labour camps, ghettos, and all of those rotten places. Then, they'd hand me a report with the unimportant names blacked out and only the specific names I needed were left uncrossed. I had spent two years doing that process, every day on this station was spent doing that. Finding those two was the main goal of my life; It's what let me wake up every morning. The hope of a reunion.
But, until I got my hands on another report, I was keeping myself busy with monitoring my subordinates on the Romnua Space Headquarters as we orbited over Southern Africa. Something to help me take my mind off of everything was admiring our native Earth from my post. The golden deserts of Namibia and the green rainforests of the Congo dominated the view from the huge glass wall that separated us from the cold vacuum of space. Although I’ve been on this damn station for two years now, the sights never cease to get a gasp of amazement from me.
The Confederation used this station and 16 others to monitor and keep tabs on anything happening on Earth. We were the keen observers that protected Earth from any foreign incursion.
A bit ironic coming from the people who invaded us.
At least the Germans didn’t fill us with such lies.
The only reason why they chose me to run this joint human-Confederation sector was because I was an unwilling favourite of their high command. I was one of the best remaining generals in Poland. I served in the Great War and the Polish-Soviet War as a lowly troop, but I was a respected general by the time of the German invasion in 1939.
I defended my country for as long as I could. I resisted for a long time after our official surrender. When the Nazis got to me, they carted me off to a labour camp. Then I escaped and continued the fight on the British Isles, being airdropped and ferried out on multiple occasions. Once the Confederation arrived, my fight against the Nazis and their brutal occupation ended, but I was left without the sunshine of my life.
“Here’s the registered civilian report, sir,” a Lithuanian lieutenant saluted as he handed me a manila folder with a printed paper that had a list of names typed onto it. Even though Lithuania and Poland weren’t the greatest of chums before the war, occupation by the Soviet and Nazi barbarians created a sense of tragic camaraderie between our people.
“Did you file out the names?” I asked calmly, flipping open the folder. I kept my ears open for the response as I waded my hands across pages of paper with smooth flips.
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied as my eyes scanned the paper. The names were crossed out in black marker. I scanned it top-to-bottom and page after page. I began to lose hope even more, but then again, it’s not like there was much left of it anyway.
I had been searching for them for two long years. Two years of going against the rules of our hulky alien occupiers. I used their systems to find evidence and our tools to file them out into something comprehensible. I wouldn’t trust an “AI” to find the names I was looking for. The Germans kept well organised records of everything well-organised, so a good thorough search was probably the best thing I had. Still, however, it was an arduous process.
But, just as that thought appeared in my mind, it was my eyes that had fixed on the one name I had been anticipating for the last two years:
Katarzyna Kaminski. My love.
I must’ve jumped with joy. I’d done it! I found her! After what? Six long years of waiting and searching! Finally! First my wife, and then that would open the gate to finding my son too! After so long! I’d see them again! This day was something to be remembered forever!
“Oh, you did your job spectacularly!” I cheered to the lieutenant. However, his expression was more grim.
“Ne, pone,” he advised sombrely in Lithuanian, shaking his head. "The top of the page.”
I was so hooked in my search for any sign of my family that I forgot to even read the title of the page. Looking up, my eyes locked onto the print and read. In a moment, my hopes were stamped out and rage and suffering swallowed my heart like the deep blue ocean.
Registered List of All Prisoners Killed in Auschwitz Death Camp in the Year of Our Lord 1942
Everything went silent in an instant. I froze upright with my eyes glued to the paper. My ears began to ring like a shell had just hit nearby. My face bubbled red in embarrassment, rage, and most of all, misery. My legs felt just about ready to collapse inward and my hips were ready to explode outwards. My body pushed against itself, betraying my fundamental being as my eyes reread the name over and over, trying to make some worthless attempt to console my burning body of emission. None of it worked.
My Katarzyna. Gone. In one sentence. All my joy trampled in a second.
She died not even with a proper burial. She died leaving her son and not knowing if her fighting husband would even embrace her again. All of my searching, and the result was this. This.
It seems that the story of my search for my loved ones ended here. But upon reviewing the rest of the list in silence, I couldn’t find a single mention of a Jakub Dunajski. All my hope was gone to the extent that I held out no idea that Jakub survived the camps.
If his mother didn’t, then he didn’t either.
The final verdict of my search hit me like a train: I would never see my family again.
That depressing day I had to leave them in September of that fateful year was the last time I’d ever see my son and wife again. Our paths diverged with me toling in labour camps hoping to escape to find them once more. And while I was fighting onwards in England, they were shipped to Auschwitz to die. While I was toiling in captivity, they were being beaten and tortured daily. While the Confederation swept across Europe, they were gassed or gunned down in their cots.
After all this time, the thought that I had been suppressing for my entire search was now the dominant ruler of my brain. It was the fact that I had failed them.
I did not sob loudly, I did not scream. Nor did I stamp the floor or tear the page from the folder. I resisted them all. As I had for the past six years. The only response the Lithuanian got from me was a barely audible whimper and a tear.
The tear rolled from my eye down my shaved cheek, slowly dripping down and curving up to my chin in a swift motion. It hung there delicately as if it was absorbing all of my pain into it. Then, when the load became too much for it to bear, it fell. Quickly slipping off and dropping down before it slapped against the white page with a plop. A stain that looked like a crater in no man’s land now rested, ingrained into the paper that killed my hope.
The paper that essentially killed my wife.
Silence engulfed the room and ringing my ears as the words and black marker on the paper became no more than a blur, incomprehensible and unidentifiable. That’s what I wanted anyway, every glance at the page would just finalise the fact that it all was over. That I was alone.
“Legion-Commander Henix wants to see you,” an unforgiving feminine alien voice came from behind me. I jumped in response as my head flew back to meet the alien.
It was a Yetiayhu. And, as was apparently commonplace, they had the typical fangs and talons that all species other than us seemed to have, along with a giant tail that had a little ball of fur at the very end of it. Adding onto that, the Yetiayhu had large expansive cool-coloured frills that were interrupted by little blackish-blue dots here and there, like some Amazonian animal. Their bodies were slimmer than others but still pretty much buff tanks compared to me.
“For what purpose?” I replied with a brow raised in suspicion. My experience in the military and as a resistance head gave me a good tutorial on how to suppress the tears in one’s voice. After years upon years of endless trial and error, I had pretty much perfected it. But, in the case of my reddened eyes, I brought the brim of my military cap down to obscure my eyes.
“He didn’t tell me. Get moving,” the Yetiayhu hissed, her frills fluttering in annoyance.
I almost forgot that the aliens didn’t give a shit about any of our feelings. I’m sure showing too much emotion was an offence in the Confederation military. Could you imagine emotion being a punishable offence? What sort of dystopian fascist hellhole did that!?
Oh wait, I could think of one: Nazi Germany.
My eyes subtly fixed on the Yetiayhu with a bit of contempt that she came to me at my worst moment. I just found out that my wife was unceremoniously killed in a death camp, and she was just acting as pouty as a kid. Granted, she didn’t know of my suffering, but that attitude is deserving of a wrist-slap back on my world.
Too bad for me, the world I’m referring to was no longer even ours anymore.
“You better show some respect,” I huffed, containing my emotions in a little capsule of misery.
“Last time I checked, you were still a transpec,” she scoffed. “Get to his office. Now.”
I couldn’t say no. The first was because she was right about our species’ standing as a “Transitional Species”. But the other reason was because the females of these species were huge. It made sense since their system of governance was a matriarchy. But even then, this bitchy Yetiayhu was a good 2.3 metres tall, towering over me by quite a bit.
Why the hell were these species so damn demonic? Did nature really just shit on us for all of evolution? Every single alien species I had ever seen was some sort of superhuman being. Was there some galactic hierarchy that I didn’t know of? But whatever, there was nothing I could ever do about that fact. The most concerning thing on my platter now was finding the fate of my only child. Whatever Henix had would have to come second.
But either way, I obliged. Leaving my little command sector with a scowl. The doors hissed shut behind me and I turned to my left and began my journey. To prevent an emotional disaster, I tried to ease my haywire senses by inspecting the futuristic facility around me.
Around me was a circular walkway that wrapped around the edge of the station as the outer rim wrapped around the core. Now that I think about it, the station resembled more like a solar system than the bullseye some of the Hungarians compared it to. There was a huge spherical central command at the core of the structure, and then there were the rims. Those were essentially shorter tube structures that wrapped around the centre. Like an orbit.
But these “orbits” weren’t separated by any spaces at all and were all bunched together and connected. The only open space in this station was between the centre and the outer sectors, which was only punctuated by multiple pressurised walkways. The other sectors and posts were in a concentric batch of circular structures around the core. Where I was going, was into the core.
I strolled along the outskirt walkway before taking a right turn into the deeper sections of the station. The view changed from a large window of space to machines and tech beyond my comprehension as I made my way into the inner sectors. The closer it was to the core, the more important it was. These areas were exclusively for the Confederation members, so no human without permission or clearance could enter. But apparently, they were okay when I was there. Many of them gave parting glances before getting back to their work on their “holograms” and “holopads”.
That was something to note, the tech difference between our two civilisations was greater than we could even conceived of, following the Armistice. I watched as humanity went from pigeons and telegraphs to radios and enigma. Now these aliens had “networks” and “internets”. All the new tech was annoying and complex, I never knew what to do. That’s why my sector, the only sector with humans, used telegraphs, enigma, morse, paper, ink, pen, typewriters, and everything else that you would find in an earthly workplace.
I went through a workplace that was basically a science fiction book. It had bright white individual work pods, big glowing blue screens that weren’t even tangible, and so many other things that were too much for me to comprehend. This was stuff only a writer could come up with! Even if we had all of the guns, tanks, and planes our planet’s resources would’ve let us make, it still wouldn’t have even come close to the weapons of the Confederation and their sophistication.
After a long stroll through the labyrinth of connected stations and workplaces, I finally reached the connecting walkways. I entered a little middle chamber that hissed a little gas onto me and ran over me with a blue and red laser. The other doors then opened and I was let through into the lightless walkway.
Once again, only space shined through the top glass dome that ran across the whole upper section of the walkway. But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t even gaze at the stars due to the circumference of the spherical central command blocking half my vision. The outside cover of the sphere was white and hexagon padded, which just added to the already humongous gap between humanity and our Confederation conquerors.
But, even if I looked beyond that when no structures were blocking my view, I could see at least a hundred or more blocky slabs of black and grey.
And there it was, the Confederation Occupational Fleet. It was so menacing with all of their Vatican-sized ships. Except, those ships were only frigates. Their fleet had cruisers, frigates, destroyers, battleships, battle cruisers, carriers, supercarriers, and everything in between. All to monitor our little desolate rock of two billion.
Their supercarriers which were probably the size of Rome, were the prides of the enemy fleet. Those bulky beasts and their battleships were the literal symbols of their superiority. All of these ships had enough firepower to raze a good million or so Earths. Why they sent all of this to deal with a species that hadn’t done anything past grazing space with a V-2 rocket was beyond me.
Overkill, My mind ranted to itself. Ego just radiates off those ships like heat from the sun!
Speaking of the sun, in a good few months, there wouldn’t even be one.
Or, to be more specific, it would be pretty much enclosed in a megastructure to harness power from it. The Confederation called their mad project a “Hrana Complex”. Construction began even before they attacked Earth, and they were making progress. Whenever a human complained about it, the Confederation ilk always shot them down with either a patronisation of their primitive nature or a response that there would be a small window for Earth to receive light; As if that was better.
The sun was dimmer and dimmer by the day, the one light that all humans looked up to was fading. Blocked out by tech and machines from the occupying powers. That’s like if the Germans built a big space shield to block America from the sun and kill all of their crops or something.
The idea was so alien that not even I could come up with a relatable explanation for it!
After a long while of distracting myself with successful results, I finally reached the other side of the walkway, which was a large metal door. I now had to push the heavy metal door open with difficulty as it slowly hissed open. Upon entering, I was greeted by two Bwkas, who were basically supersized humanoid bears, but with deadly attributes tripled in their power and appearance. Of course, I was met with the average stare of contempt as I made my way up to them.
“And why are you here?” one of them growled with venom as it balanced its heavy rifle in its claws. Those “rifles” were the size of an anti-tank rifle or an Ami bazooka. The difference was that it was also automatic and powered by plasma. Just by seeing that, anyone could’ve already predicted it to you that humanity was doomed from the start of the war.
“Legion-Commander Henix wanted to speak with me?” I replied with a head tilt.
“Up the stairs and down the left hall to the right,” the other grumbled with a snarl of its fangs. He was talking as if I didn’t know where my own senior officer was.
I rolled my eyes secretly and trudged on. Scurrying off into the main lobby, I gazed up to see that the vertex of the roof was an absolutely stupendous 40 metres high! That just added a cavernous feeling to the multi-floored white chamber. It was a whole office building in space.
Not many of those were left in Warsaw anyway.
As I made my way toward the circulating stairwell, my gaze snapped to the circular stellar map that projected a huge three-dimensional view of the galaxy. I couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the glowing non-touchable lights every time I saw it. The map was of the whole known galaxy, the dark pink was the Confederation at the centre. It was huge, at least triple the size of the second largest power, whose name was in an alien tongue unknown to me. All the other colours were of the different species that were independent states and empires of their own.
Free from the forced “civilising” we were suffering through.
Annoyingly, my long black military boots slapped against the clean granite floor with loud audible clacks. This, of course, instantly drew attention from all the beasts around me. All of them looked at me with confusion before it morphed into what I assumed was judgment. These species didn’t think highly of us at all. I mean, according to them, we were uncivilised brutes. Dumb primates that just invented new ways of chucking rocks at one another.
Now, that wasn’t wrong per se. But, it wasn’t nice when that was their one sole opinion of our species.
From the beginning of my tenure here, they practically spat on me. They saw my use of our antiquated tech to be insubordination, and savage in nature. Whenever I did my Polish two-fingered salute, they saw it as disrespect and dishonour. Whenever I didn’t eat the same solely raw and carnivorous diet as them, I was a disgusting omnivore who was a greedy bastard wanting to steal from both sides.
Whatever that meant! Imagine being persecuted because of what you ate! On Earth, we were prosecuting each other over other stupid things like skin, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, how people looked, and everything else similar.
But!
Nobody was stupid enough to get mad at each other over food. Muslims didn’t kill Christians over eating pork. Jews didn’t kill Muslims over them eating dairy and meat on the same plate. Food was food. We all needed it to survive. Yet, the aliens saw it as just another thing to hate us for.
How could these things hate us but somehow still force themselves to occupy us? Why didn’t they just let us duke it out in the battlefields and on the high seas? Why were they just lamer Nazis? Death by slow assimilation and bigotry was worse than death by starvation, labour, or the firing squad.
Making my way up some circulating steps to the second floor, I took the turn and rushed down the hall before finding the door to Henix’s room. Pushing it open with a low drum, I was met with the dark room of Legion-Commander Henix. The only thing lighting the room was, of course, empty space. Since we were higher than the orbiting sectors, his window was actually able to see into the rest of outer space.
The dimming sun reflected off of the station’s concentric exterior and the stars shined bright through thick glass and into the little dark room. The floor was akin to an emerald-coloured rug and the walls were shelves for storage devices like their “pads” and “drives”.
“Greetings, sir,” I opened to the Kohaul with a two-fingered Polish salute.
The Kohaul were the typical humanoids, but they were practically copies of wolves. Light grey fur, a huge bushy tail, and a patch of dense hair around the pelvis area that acted as a sort of frontal tail. Hazel or blue eyes. And, obviously better than us in every way as usual with fangs, semi-venomous saliva, better hearing with their dog ears, the ability to run faster, especially on all fours, and all of that useless garbage that I was used to. Humanity was clearly always the weak link.
Ending my salute and looking to the right, it was then that I noticed at least three other foreign beasts. I quickly recognised them as superiors of different stations and fleets. Why they were here just added to my paranoia.
A Wenli, a Felshan, and a Geinna. Or the more simplified version being: a humanoid dragon, a blue lizard, and a literal Pacific folk beast.
If you were to continue simplifying it even more, you’d come to the definition that they were the three species assigned to resistance mop-up duty on Earth.
“Now, now,” Henix growled. “What is the way I taught you?”
Sighing deeply, I put my Polish general cap to my chest with my left hand before bowing slightly. They wanted us to purge all of the things that made us Polish soldiers and make us their soldiers. I wasn’t going to give up so easily. No matter how much they held me in high regard. They would have to acknowledge that Poland was for the Poles and I would never be anything else.
“Now, I know you are a good commander. You have served us well,” Henix began with a flick from his dog ear. “But, something has come up in recent days that has been of horrible concern to us.”
“And that is?” I asked with a raised brow, sitting at the open chair in front of Henix with a grunt.
“Wasting Confederation equipment and materials on something unsanctioned by any relevant superior on this station,” the Geinna replied for Henix with a hiss.
Oh, kurwa.
They had caught me red-handed. Was today just the day my luck ran dry from its coffers? I was now completely at their mercy. But, these aliens were brutes. So, I was sure that I’d be beheaded within the next hour.
I had tried my best to scrub all evidence of my operations. I put in false reports and fake alerts to give them the facade of me just doing my job. It appears that they saw through my ulterior actions quickly. I was using their tech to do it. Why did I not expect them to know!?
“Now, unless you would be so kind as to tell me why, maybe I’ll pardon your charges,” Henix warned with a composure that put me off.
“Charges of what?” I asked fearfully.
“Well, normally, that would just be a reprimand or demotion at the worst. But since you are a species that we are trying to integrate into the galactic community . . . the punishment is equivalent to treason.”
Henix must’ve seen my face go pallid as his expression softened from robotic seriousness to empathy in a moment. I didn’t despise Henix at all, and this was the exact reason why.
He could feel empathy.
Unlike most Germans.
And he showed reason.
Unlike most Germans.
“Oh, no, don’t worry,” he reassured me with a sombre grin. “I personally do not wish for that fate to befall you. You have served me well. I’ll defend you. But I can’t do that if you won’t even tell me why.”
I would’ve, but I couldn’t. I trusted Henix. Sure, he was as bigoted and cold as his shitty peers. But, I could trust in his word. He wasn’t a crook. But for his comrades present? For all I knew, this was a death trap to get me to confess and to justify a sudden execution. It's not like they would've cared much if I lived or died anyway. I was expendable.
“I know nothing of this,” I affirmed, straightening myself in the slick white chair. Since I was practically a master of all things cold and emotionless, I could just put off a face of resolute honesty without any weaknesses, barring the death of Katarzyna. They’d have to fuck off eventually for that reason, and I’d be more careful with my further searches.
But then again, Katarzyna was dead, and Jakub probably was too. There was nothing else to really risk my life for. Because I had no more life. The two I loved most were gone. I could’ve just let myself die here. I had nothing else. My parents were dead, my home was rubble, my country was occupied, my wife was dead too, and my son was too. I had nothing left to fight for.
“You are the only human in this position of power,” Henix hummed. “We chose you for a reason. You had talent and composure. But this we cannot tolerate. Don’t play coy and tell us.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I huffed with concern mounting in me and gnawing on my soul. “I do not know why you seem to want to frame me for such a crime.”
“Commander Dunajski,” the Felsha snarled. “We’re not stupid. Do not try and lie to us.”
“I am not lying,” I turned to the row of beasts with a scowl. “Whatever could I even use the equipment for? My subordinates only use human machines. Typewriters. Not ‘holographic display devices’ or any of that fancy tech. Why would I even?”
“Commander Duna—”
“No,” I cut off in a calm but harsh tone, “this will not continue.”
Henix looked between the beasts and then he zeroed in on me with his steely blue eyes that rivalled mine, “I know you’re lying, Commander. This will simply mount your charges.”
“In fact,” the Felshan admiral began with a sad smirk, “you could be helping resistance movements for all we know. That level of treason is something very few get and it’s for a good reason. Does that sound like something you’d want?”
“I didn’t do any of the deeds of which I am accused,” I held my ground with a growl. “I have nothing to gain!”
“Do you not?” Henix growled, now agitated. “I’ve noticed a lot of care in searching for a ‘Katarzyna’ and ‘Jakub’. Is there any reason why?”
The Geinna nodded, “Are these contacts or aliases? You know well what fate awaits you if we prove their origin to be that of a resistance cell.”
Oh, Bog. I was really stuck now. They knew their names too. I couldn’t just shrug this off. If I continued parrying their questions, I’d totally get beheaded. They wanted us to be as meek and docile as possible. Me standing up to their accusations instead of folding probably already probably fucked up my chances of clemency.
I looked up to Henix, and his blue eyes were unforgiving. He was waiting for my next move, like a brutal game of chess. I turned to look at the three bastards to my right, their eyes were filled with scorn and disgust at me, at my people.
Just like the Germans.
“I-I . . . I don’t . . . They aren’t . . . ” I began before letting out a deep sigh to empty my tight lungs. Silence enveloped the room for a good few seconds. I couldn’t fight on anymore. I’d lost. “You win.”
“As expected,” the Wenli grumbled. “I expected better of someone like you. But I guess the nature of such a volatile and insubordinate species like you would always dominate your actions.”
I didn’t mind that blatant patronisation of me and my kind as I just looked up at Henix with decimated dreams. Henix seemed to note that I wished to talk as he leaned and sat up straight in his chair. He’d listen. But not his ilk.
“Do you have a testimony, Commander Dunajski?” Henix purred with his head leaned in on his arm.
“Well,” I began with a wince, “i-it’s for a selfish reason to be fair.”
“Mhm,” Henix replied, pulling out one of his hologram pads to write down my testimony. Even if I trusted him, as of now, I couldn’t even trust him with writing my own testimony. For all I knew, he’d probably just warp it into something reminiscent of a last-second attempt at deception or just plain begging.
Then again, he was my best chance to prevent my fate from manifesting.
“I-I-I . . .” I stuttered, not finding the words to express my suffering. My throat burned and my eyes filled with tears. My face of composure was just as fragile as my mental health. All I knew was going to shit.
“You what?” Henix snarled. “I’m not here to take stutters as a testimony. Give me a comprehensible sentence or I can call the guards in to take you to the brigs.”
“I j-just want to find my family,” I blurted blindly. Clamping my eyes shut, I waited for my reasoning to be torn apart by the monsters before me. The monsters that were killing our homes and assimilating us.
Just like the . . . Oh, you know who!
After a little while of uncomfortable silence, I reopened my eyes and looked up at my prosecutors. Henix’s ears perched up in surprise at the confession, and I heard the slaps of tails and the rustle of scales from my side. I expected that to be an even greater reason to punish me. Using their tech just to find my family? Treason it was. I couldn’t even pull myself back together when a few tears rolled down my cheek as I looked to the floor once more in shame.
I fought and worked for Jakub and Katarzyna. Now both were gone. And even if Jakub was still alive, he would be without a father too in this new world. Nothing was happy about this unceremonious end. My story was over, and so were the stories of my family, friends, and parents.
“F-family?” Henix finally hummed with a hint of shock. He then attempted to hide it with his monotone voice. I slowly and quietly sobbed to myself, cursing my weakness. “Tell me more.”
The other beasts in the room shuffled their feet and locked their gazes on me with a bit of anticipation. I was a bit confused by the reaction. How was saying they were my loved ones a game-changer? But, I didn’t pay much attention anyway, my mind was filled to the brim with the stone-cold fact that had haunted me since the beginning of my searches:
I was now alone.
“Wife and son. I-I don’t know where they are. I was searching for them both. Using your systems, I . . . before you summoned me here, I got a report. In it, Katarzyna, my wife of twenty-two years, is dead. My son . . .” I gave a miserable chuckle, “only God Almighty knows where he is now.”
I should have never cried. I should have never shown emotion, especially on this damn station. Emotional control was the most important here. These beasts were very organised and very honour-driven. Crying itself was probably considered treason. At this point, it was just another thing to add on to my list of present offences.
Everything was collapsing in front of me in quick succession.
Instead of scolding me though, Henix just looked at me and watched me fail at controlling my sobs. It gave me an odd feeling that he was just tacitly judging me rather than chastising me verbally. The other beasts were the same, simply wagging their tails in thought or tilting their heads. It unnerved me a bit, but I was too busy internally cursing myself to care about it.
After what felt like my whole tour in Bolshevik Russia, Henix gave a low growl and a wag of his bushy back tail with the words of his sentencing response pushing against his fangs. The fate waiting for me was only a second away, and with that one growl, I’d be done for. What a fool I was to trust any of these pigs!
“I’m sorry about your predicament,” he spoke slowly. “When we saw the crimes of your ‘Nazis’ it became one of the major reasons why we intervened on this damn planet in the first place.”
What a lie. My brain cackled nonchalantly. They’re doing the same things as the Nazis; Although this time, it was all of us who were suffering from it.
Rolling my eyes, I saw through the bullshit. They were no different.
Scraping at his slick and futuristic desk in ponderous thinking, Henix refocused his pristine and steely blue eyes on me, “What you did was unprofessional and highly dishonourable. Anyone who did such an offence would’ve been discharged or demoted with the snap of a maw.
He shook his head in another short pause as he formulated his next response. I hated the silence, I just wanted a “yes” or a “no” if I was to be shot or not. The aliens had a knack to be blunt, but also verbose. It didn’t make sense, but that’s how they worked. And boy did I hate it!
“But, I cannot even attempt to grasp the gravity of the situation you are dealing with,” he began again, snapping me from my thoughts.
I scowled with agitation and furrowed my brows, “Am I still being shot?”
“No,” the other Wenli interrupted with a sigh and a lick of his fangs. “But, we aren’t leaving you here either.”
My mind went berserk As if that was better! Leaving me alive at this point was punishment enough! Without this station, I’d have to scan all of Europe manually. It’d take the rest of my whole pathetic life to cover even half of Poland! Damn these beasts and damn their posturing!
“Well,” Henix thought, “I have an idea. Akvu?”
The Felsha stepped up from the group of beasts and bowed slightly, “Yes?”
“How about we send Commander Dunajski to be a part of the clearance teams?”
The Felsha slapped its tail against the floor in disdain, “Isn’t he under suspicion of connections?”
“I never saw it in him,” Henix replied. “He was hiding something? Yes. But I never expected resistance affiliations. He isn’t that type of soldier. Besides, I used the accusation to crack him, not actually charge him.”
“W-what is my punishment?” I interrupted with mounting impatience as I tapped my jackboot in annoyance. Talking about how they broke me wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the moment. What was important was my quest for my old life. I wanted my wife back, my son, my home, my country.
“So, the idea is,” Henix began with his hands raised in illustrative explanation, “we send you to Earth to root out the resistance pockets. Some random places like Roosiya, Anghipt, Brazza, Mixka, Cooba, and much more. But! There is also an ongoing search for a resistance network in Eirope.”
“Where?” I shot back with rejuvenated hope.
“Central Eirope,” Henix hummed with a grin. “Former human nations like Polna, Cjermaña, Nodorla, Belja, and Cnzecka.”
It took me a good second to decipher those names. What a mess of pronunciation for all of them they were. Since they were busy trying to wipe our uniqueness from us, the aliens had their own names for our old nations, just the same as how they put my Poland in an occupation zone called “Foije”. A stupid name. Now, they were just coming up with mispronounced names for the defunct nations of old Earth.
I absolutely loathed the name “Polna” because “Polska” was better in every way. But they were our conquerors, and they were the bastards who just sentenced me to scouring Europe for my own kind.
“Who’s under my command?” I sighed.
“Oh, just two dozen of every species in the Confederation,” Henix smiled.
“288? That’s kind of small,” I chuckled. “My all-Pole regiment in Britain was at least 1,000 strong.”
“You really think there’s only a dozen species in the Confederation?” Henix snickered. “No, there’s a good seventy. You really thought we sent all of our power across the galaxy to fight some small plucky band of primates? How adorable.”
That ticked me off, but since I didn’t want to bite the hand that spared me from a beheading, I kept my mouth zipped tight. My composure returned and I wiped the tears off with my sleeve as Henix talked with his other peers in their garbled choking that they called a “language”. My goals had shifted from not crying to not snickering as they conversed in the throat cancer they revered as an actual tongue to be spoken by someone.
“For now, you are dismissed,” Henix sighed. “I hereby remove you from your post. You will report to the bays for a debrief.”
“Can I bring my personal belongings?”
“No,” he replied coldly.
“Why?”
Henix squinted his eyes in anger, “Get there and don’t ask any more questions. You are still a disgraced officer and you will not be shown any more mercy from us.”
How reassuring, I scoffed to myself once more. These aliens were as blunt as wood! They might rival my old camp Oberkommando. Hell, they might as well be him!
Sighing, I pressed my hands against the smooth chair and shakily brought myself up again. With another stupid bow, I left while trembling in every limb. I was in a precarious position now. Anything that went wrong under my command, I would take the hit.
But, if it still gave me a chance to at least try and piece my old life back together;
Then I’d throw myself into it with an intrepid Polish spirit.
-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-
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submitted by No-Dragonfruit-6102 to HFY [link] [comments]
Romuna Administrative Orbital Headquarters, United Confederation Occupied Territories of Earth (QUAL-ZANV)
May 8, 1945
-------------------------------------------------------------
Commander Dunajski
- - - - - -
We were the watchful eyes over Earth. That was my job. The only thing second to that was the search for the missing pieces of my life.
As usual, however, that work was hard. After all, the past two years had been the same process. I get my human subordinates to find a list of names from anywhere: concentration camps, labour camps, ghettos, and all of those rotten places. Then, they'd hand me a report with the unimportant names blacked out and only the specific names I needed were left uncrossed. I had spent two years doing that process, every day on this station was spent doing that. Finding those two was the main goal of my life; It's what let me wake up every morning. The hope of a reunion.
But, until I got my hands on another report, I was keeping myself busy with monitoring my subordinates on the Romnua Space Headquarters as we orbited over Southern Africa. Something to help me take my mind off of everything was admiring our native Earth from my post. The golden deserts of Namibia and the green rainforests of the Congo dominated the view from the huge glass wall that separated us from the cold vacuum of space. Although I’ve been on this damn station for two years now, the sights never cease to get a gasp of amazement from me.
The Confederation used this station and 16 others to monitor and keep tabs on anything happening on Earth. We were the keen observers that protected Earth from any foreign incursion.
A bit ironic coming from the people who invaded us.
At least the Germans didn’t fill us with such lies.
The only reason why they chose me to run this joint human-Confederation sector was because I was an unwilling favourite of their high command. I was one of the best remaining generals in Poland. I served in the Great War and the Polish-Soviet War as a lowly troop, but I was a respected general by the time of the German invasion in 1939.
I defended my country for as long as I could. I resisted for a long time after our official surrender. When the Nazis got to me, they carted me off to a labour camp. Then I escaped and continued the fight on the British Isles, being airdropped and ferried out on multiple occasions. Once the Confederation arrived, my fight against the Nazis and their brutal occupation ended, but I was left without the sunshine of my life.
“Here’s the registered civilian report, sir,” a Lithuanian lieutenant saluted as he handed me a manila folder with a printed paper that had a list of names typed onto it. Even though Lithuania and Poland weren’t the greatest of chums before the war, occupation by the Soviet and Nazi barbarians created a sense of tragic camaraderie between our people.
“Did you file out the names?” I asked calmly, flipping open the folder. I kept my ears open for the response as I waded my hands across pages of paper with smooth flips.
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied as my eyes scanned the paper. The names were crossed out in black marker. I scanned it top-to-bottom and page after page. I began to lose hope even more, but then again, it’s not like there was much left of it anyway.
I had been searching for them for two long years. Two years of going against the rules of our hulky alien occupiers. I used their systems to find evidence and our tools to file them out into something comprehensible. I wouldn’t trust an “AI” to find the names I was looking for. The Germans kept well organised records of everything well-organised, so a good thorough search was probably the best thing I had. Still, however, it was an arduous process.
But, just as that thought appeared in my mind, it was my eyes that had fixed on the one name I had been anticipating for the last two years:
Katarzyna Kaminski. My love.
I must’ve jumped with joy. I’d done it! I found her! After what? Six long years of waiting and searching! Finally! First my wife, and then that would open the gate to finding my son too! After so long! I’d see them again! This day was something to be remembered forever!
“Oh, you did your job spectacularly!” I cheered to the lieutenant. However, his expression was more grim.
“Ne, pone,” he advised sombrely in Lithuanian, shaking his head. "The top of the page.”
I was so hooked in my search for any sign of my family that I forgot to even read the title of the page. Looking up, my eyes locked onto the print and read. In a moment, my hopes were stamped out and rage and suffering swallowed my heart like the deep blue ocean.
Registered List of All Prisoners Killed in Auschwitz Death Camp in the Year of Our Lord 1942
Everything went silent in an instant. I froze upright with my eyes glued to the paper. My ears began to ring like a shell had just hit nearby. My face bubbled red in embarrassment, rage, and most of all, misery. My legs felt just about ready to collapse inward and my hips were ready to explode outwards. My body pushed against itself, betraying my fundamental being as my eyes reread the name over and over, trying to make some worthless attempt to console my burning body of emission. None of it worked.
My Katarzyna. Gone. In one sentence. All my joy trampled in a second.
She died not even with a proper burial. She died leaving her son and not knowing if her fighting husband would even embrace her again. All of my searching, and the result was this. This.
It seems that the story of my search for my loved ones ended here. But upon reviewing the rest of the list in silence, I couldn’t find a single mention of a Jakub Dunajski. All my hope was gone to the extent that I held out no idea that Jakub survived the camps.
If his mother didn’t, then he didn’t either.
The final verdict of my search hit me like a train: I would never see my family again.
That depressing day I had to leave them in September of that fateful year was the last time I’d ever see my son and wife again. Our paths diverged with me toling in labour camps hoping to escape to find them once more. And while I was fighting onwards in England, they were shipped to Auschwitz to die. While I was toiling in captivity, they were being beaten and tortured daily. While the Confederation swept across Europe, they were gassed or gunned down in their cots.
After all this time, the thought that I had been suppressing for my entire search was now the dominant ruler of my brain. It was the fact that I had failed them.
I did not sob loudly, I did not scream. Nor did I stamp the floor or tear the page from the folder. I resisted them all. As I had for the past six years. The only response the Lithuanian got from me was a barely audible whimper and a tear.
The tear rolled from my eye down my shaved cheek, slowly dripping down and curving up to my chin in a swift motion. It hung there delicately as if it was absorbing all of my pain into it. Then, when the load became too much for it to bear, it fell. Quickly slipping off and dropping down before it slapped against the white page with a plop. A stain that looked like a crater in no man’s land now rested, ingrained into the paper that killed my hope.
The paper that essentially killed my wife.
Silence engulfed the room and ringing my ears as the words and black marker on the paper became no more than a blur, incomprehensible and unidentifiable. That’s what I wanted anyway, every glance at the page would just finalise the fact that it all was over. That I was alone.
“Legion-Commander Henix wants to see you,” an unforgiving feminine alien voice came from behind me. I jumped in response as my head flew back to meet the alien.
It was a Yetiayhu. And, as was apparently commonplace, they had the typical fangs and talons that all species other than us seemed to have, along with a giant tail that had a little ball of fur at the very end of it. Adding onto that, the Yetiayhu had large expansive cool-coloured frills that were interrupted by little blackish-blue dots here and there, like some Amazonian animal. Their bodies were slimmer than others but still pretty much buff tanks compared to me.
“For what purpose?” I replied with a brow raised in suspicion. My experience in the military and as a resistance head gave me a good tutorial on how to suppress the tears in one’s voice. After years upon years of endless trial and error, I had pretty much perfected it. But, in the case of my reddened eyes, I brought the brim of my military cap down to obscure my eyes.
“He didn’t tell me. Get moving,” the Yetiayhu hissed, her frills fluttering in annoyance.
I almost forgot that the aliens didn’t give a shit about any of our feelings. I’m sure showing too much emotion was an offence in the Confederation military. Could you imagine emotion being a punishable offence? What sort of dystopian fascist hellhole did that!?
Oh wait, I could think of one: Nazi Germany.
My eyes subtly fixed on the Yetiayhu with a bit of contempt that she came to me at my worst moment. I just found out that my wife was unceremoniously killed in a death camp, and she was just acting as pouty as a kid. Granted, she didn’t know of my suffering, but that attitude is deserving of a wrist-slap back on my world.
Too bad for me, the world I’m referring to was no longer even ours anymore.
“You better show some respect,” I huffed, containing my emotions in a little capsule of misery.
“Last time I checked, you were still a transpec,” she scoffed. “Get to his office. Now.”
I couldn’t say no. The first was because she was right about our species’ standing as a “Transitional Species”. But the other reason was because the females of these species were huge. It made sense since their system of governance was a matriarchy. But even then, this bitchy Yetiayhu was a good 2.3 metres tall, towering over me by quite a bit.
Why the hell were these species so damn demonic? Did nature really just shit on us for all of evolution? Every single alien species I had ever seen was some sort of superhuman being. Was there some galactic hierarchy that I didn’t know of? But whatever, there was nothing I could ever do about that fact. The most concerning thing on my platter now was finding the fate of my only child. Whatever Henix had would have to come second.
But either way, I obliged. Leaving my little command sector with a scowl. The doors hissed shut behind me and I turned to my left and began my journey. To prevent an emotional disaster, I tried to ease my haywire senses by inspecting the futuristic facility around me.
Around me was a circular walkway that wrapped around the edge of the station as the outer rim wrapped around the core. Now that I think about it, the station resembled more like a solar system than the bullseye some of the Hungarians compared it to. There was a huge spherical central command at the core of the structure, and then there were the rims. Those were essentially shorter tube structures that wrapped around the centre. Like an orbit.
But these “orbits” weren’t separated by any spaces at all and were all bunched together and connected. The only open space in this station was between the centre and the outer sectors, which was only punctuated by multiple pressurised walkways. The other sectors and posts were in a concentric batch of circular structures around the core. Where I was going, was into the core.
I strolled along the outskirt walkway before taking a right turn into the deeper sections of the station. The view changed from a large window of space to machines and tech beyond my comprehension as I made my way into the inner sectors. The closer it was to the core, the more important it was. These areas were exclusively for the Confederation members, so no human without permission or clearance could enter. But apparently, they were okay when I was there. Many of them gave parting glances before getting back to their work on their “holograms” and “holopads”.
That was something to note, the tech difference between our two civilisations was greater than we could even conceived of, following the Armistice. I watched as humanity went from pigeons and telegraphs to radios and enigma. Now these aliens had “networks” and “internets”. All the new tech was annoying and complex, I never knew what to do. That’s why my sector, the only sector with humans, used telegraphs, enigma, morse, paper, ink, pen, typewriters, and everything else that you would find in an earthly workplace.
I went through a workplace that was basically a science fiction book. It had bright white individual work pods, big glowing blue screens that weren’t even tangible, and so many other things that were too much for me to comprehend. This was stuff only a writer could come up with! Even if we had all of the guns, tanks, and planes our planet’s resources would’ve let us make, it still wouldn’t have even come close to the weapons of the Confederation and their sophistication.
After a long stroll through the labyrinth of connected stations and workplaces, I finally reached the connecting walkways. I entered a little middle chamber that hissed a little gas onto me and ran over me with a blue and red laser. The other doors then opened and I was let through into the lightless walkway.
Once again, only space shined through the top glass dome that ran across the whole upper section of the walkway. But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t even gaze at the stars due to the circumference of the spherical central command blocking half my vision. The outside cover of the sphere was white and hexagon padded, which just added to the already humongous gap between humanity and our Confederation conquerors.
But, even if I looked beyond that when no structures were blocking my view, I could see at least a hundred or more blocky slabs of black and grey.
And there it was, the Confederation Occupational Fleet. It was so menacing with all of their Vatican-sized ships. Except, those ships were only frigates. Their fleet had cruisers, frigates, destroyers, battleships, battle cruisers, carriers, supercarriers, and everything in between. All to monitor our little desolate rock of two billion.
Their supercarriers which were probably the size of Rome, were the prides of the enemy fleet. Those bulky beasts and their battleships were the literal symbols of their superiority. All of these ships had enough firepower to raze a good million or so Earths. Why they sent all of this to deal with a species that hadn’t done anything past grazing space with a V-2 rocket was beyond me.
Overkill, My mind ranted to itself. Ego just radiates off those ships like heat from the sun!
Speaking of the sun, in a good few months, there wouldn’t even be one.
Or, to be more specific, it would be pretty much enclosed in a megastructure to harness power from it. The Confederation called their mad project a “Hrana Complex”. Construction began even before they attacked Earth, and they were making progress. Whenever a human complained about it, the Confederation ilk always shot them down with either a patronisation of their primitive nature or a response that there would be a small window for Earth to receive light; As if that was better.
The sun was dimmer and dimmer by the day, the one light that all humans looked up to was fading. Blocked out by tech and machines from the occupying powers. That’s like if the Germans built a big space shield to block America from the sun and kill all of their crops or something.
The idea was so alien that not even I could come up with a relatable explanation for it!
After a long while of distracting myself with successful results, I finally reached the other side of the walkway, which was a large metal door. I now had to push the heavy metal door open with difficulty as it slowly hissed open. Upon entering, I was greeted by two Bwkas, who were basically supersized humanoid bears, but with deadly attributes tripled in their power and appearance. Of course, I was met with the average stare of contempt as I made my way up to them.
“And why are you here?” one of them growled with venom as it balanced its heavy rifle in its claws. Those “rifles” were the size of an anti-tank rifle or an Ami bazooka. The difference was that it was also automatic and powered by plasma. Just by seeing that, anyone could’ve already predicted it to you that humanity was doomed from the start of the war.
“Legion-Commander Henix wanted to speak with me?” I replied with a head tilt.
“Up the stairs and down the left hall to the right,” the other grumbled with a snarl of its fangs. He was talking as if I didn’t know where my own senior officer was.
I rolled my eyes secretly and trudged on. Scurrying off into the main lobby, I gazed up to see that the vertex of the roof was an absolutely stupendous 40 metres high! That just added a cavernous feeling to the multi-floored white chamber. It was a whole office building in space.
Not many of those were left in Warsaw anyway.
As I made my way toward the circulating stairwell, my gaze snapped to the circular stellar map that projected a huge three-dimensional view of the galaxy. I couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the glowing non-touchable lights every time I saw it. The map was of the whole known galaxy, the dark pink was the Confederation at the centre. It was huge, at least triple the size of the second largest power, whose name was in an alien tongue unknown to me. All the other colours were of the different species that were independent states and empires of their own.
Free from the forced “civilising” we were suffering through.
Annoyingly, my long black military boots slapped against the clean granite floor with loud audible clacks. This, of course, instantly drew attention from all the beasts around me. All of them looked at me with confusion before it morphed into what I assumed was judgment. These species didn’t think highly of us at all. I mean, according to them, we were uncivilised brutes. Dumb primates that just invented new ways of chucking rocks at one another.
Now, that wasn’t wrong per se. But, it wasn’t nice when that was their one sole opinion of our species.
From the beginning of my tenure here, they practically spat on me. They saw my use of our antiquated tech to be insubordination, and savage in nature. Whenever I did my Polish two-fingered salute, they saw it as disrespect and dishonour. Whenever I didn’t eat the same solely raw and carnivorous diet as them, I was a disgusting omnivore who was a greedy bastard wanting to steal from both sides.
Whatever that meant! Imagine being persecuted because of what you ate! On Earth, we were prosecuting each other over other stupid things like skin, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, how people looked, and everything else similar.
But!
Nobody was stupid enough to get mad at each other over food. Muslims didn’t kill Christians over eating pork. Jews didn’t kill Muslims over them eating dairy and meat on the same plate. Food was food. We all needed it to survive. Yet, the aliens saw it as just another thing to hate us for.
How could these things hate us but somehow still force themselves to occupy us? Why didn’t they just let us duke it out in the battlefields and on the high seas? Why were they just lamer Nazis? Death by slow assimilation and bigotry was worse than death by starvation, labour, or the firing squad.
Making my way up some circulating steps to the second floor, I took the turn and rushed down the hall before finding the door to Henix’s room. Pushing it open with a low drum, I was met with the dark room of Legion-Commander Henix. The only thing lighting the room was, of course, empty space. Since we were higher than the orbiting sectors, his window was actually able to see into the rest of outer space.
The dimming sun reflected off of the station’s concentric exterior and the stars shined bright through thick glass and into the little dark room. The floor was akin to an emerald-coloured rug and the walls were shelves for storage devices like their “pads” and “drives”.
“Greetings, sir,” I opened to the Kohaul with a two-fingered Polish salute.
The Kohaul were the typical humanoids, but they were practically copies of wolves. Light grey fur, a huge bushy tail, and a patch of dense hair around the pelvis area that acted as a sort of frontal tail. Hazel or blue eyes. And, obviously better than us in every way as usual with fangs, semi-venomous saliva, better hearing with their dog ears, the ability to run faster, especially on all fours, and all of that useless garbage that I was used to. Humanity was clearly always the weak link.
Ending my salute and looking to the right, it was then that I noticed at least three other foreign beasts. I quickly recognised them as superiors of different stations and fleets. Why they were here just added to my paranoia.
A Wenli, a Felshan, and a Geinna. Or the more simplified version being: a humanoid dragon, a blue lizard, and a literal Pacific folk beast.
If you were to continue simplifying it even more, you’d come to the definition that they were the three species assigned to resistance mop-up duty on Earth.
“Now, now,” Henix growled. “What is the way I taught you?”
Sighing deeply, I put my Polish general cap to my chest with my left hand before bowing slightly. They wanted us to purge all of the things that made us Polish soldiers and make us their soldiers. I wasn’t going to give up so easily. No matter how much they held me in high regard. They would have to acknowledge that Poland was for the Poles and I would never be anything else.
“Now, I know you are a good commander. You have served us well,” Henix began with a flick from his dog ear. “But, something has come up in recent days that has been of horrible concern to us.”
“And that is?” I asked with a raised brow, sitting at the open chair in front of Henix with a grunt.
“Wasting Confederation equipment and materials on something unsanctioned by any relevant superior on this station,” the Geinna replied for Henix with a hiss.
Oh, kurwa.
They had caught me red-handed. Was today just the day my luck ran dry from its coffers? I was now completely at their mercy. But, these aliens were brutes. So, I was sure that I’d be beheaded within the next hour.
I had tried my best to scrub all evidence of my operations. I put in false reports and fake alerts to give them the facade of me just doing my job. It appears that they saw through my ulterior actions quickly. I was using their tech to do it. Why did I not expect them to know!?
“Now, unless you would be so kind as to tell me why, maybe I’ll pardon your charges,” Henix warned with a composure that put me off.
“Charges of what?” I asked fearfully.
“Well, normally, that would just be a reprimand or demotion at the worst. But since you are a species that we are trying to integrate into the galactic community . . . the punishment is equivalent to treason.”
Henix must’ve seen my face go pallid as his expression softened from robotic seriousness to empathy in a moment. I didn’t despise Henix at all, and this was the exact reason why.
He could feel empathy.
Unlike most Germans.
And he showed reason.
Unlike most Germans.
“Oh, no, don’t worry,” he reassured me with a sombre grin. “I personally do not wish for that fate to befall you. You have served me well. I’ll defend you. But I can’t do that if you won’t even tell me why.”
I would’ve, but I couldn’t. I trusted Henix. Sure, he was as bigoted and cold as his shitty peers. But, I could trust in his word. He wasn’t a crook. But for his comrades present? For all I knew, this was a death trap to get me to confess and to justify a sudden execution. It's not like they would've cared much if I lived or died anyway. I was expendable.
“I know nothing of this,” I affirmed, straightening myself in the slick white chair. Since I was practically a master of all things cold and emotionless, I could just put off a face of resolute honesty without any weaknesses, barring the death of Katarzyna. They’d have to fuck off eventually for that reason, and I’d be more careful with my further searches.
But then again, Katarzyna was dead, and Jakub probably was too. There was nothing else to really risk my life for. Because I had no more life. The two I loved most were gone. I could’ve just let myself die here. I had nothing else. My parents were dead, my home was rubble, my country was occupied, my wife was dead too, and my son was too. I had nothing left to fight for.
“You are the only human in this position of power,” Henix hummed. “We chose you for a reason. You had talent and composure. But this we cannot tolerate. Don’t play coy and tell us.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I huffed with concern mounting in me and gnawing on my soul. “I do not know why you seem to want to frame me for such a crime.”
“Commander Dunajski,” the Felsha snarled. “We’re not stupid. Do not try and lie to us.”
“I am not lying,” I turned to the row of beasts with a scowl. “Whatever could I even use the equipment for? My subordinates only use human machines. Typewriters. Not ‘holographic display devices’ or any of that fancy tech. Why would I even?”
“Commander Duna—”
“No,” I cut off in a calm but harsh tone, “this will not continue.”
Henix looked between the beasts and then he zeroed in on me with his steely blue eyes that rivalled mine, “I know you’re lying, Commander. This will simply mount your charges.”
“In fact,” the Felshan admiral began with a sad smirk, “you could be helping resistance movements for all we know. That level of treason is something very few get and it’s for a good reason. Does that sound like something you’d want?”
“I didn’t do any of the deeds of which I am accused,” I held my ground with a growl. “I have nothing to gain!”
“Do you not?” Henix growled, now agitated. “I’ve noticed a lot of care in searching for a ‘Katarzyna’ and ‘Jakub’. Is there any reason why?”
The Geinna nodded, “Are these contacts or aliases? You know well what fate awaits you if we prove their origin to be that of a resistance cell.”
Oh, Bog. I was really stuck now. They knew their names too. I couldn’t just shrug this off. If I continued parrying their questions, I’d totally get beheaded. They wanted us to be as meek and docile as possible. Me standing up to their accusations instead of folding probably already probably fucked up my chances of clemency.
I looked up to Henix, and his blue eyes were unforgiving. He was waiting for my next move, like a brutal game of chess. I turned to look at the three bastards to my right, their eyes were filled with scorn and disgust at me, at my people.
Just like the Germans.
“I-I . . . I don’t . . . They aren’t . . . ” I began before letting out a deep sigh to empty my tight lungs. Silence enveloped the room for a good few seconds. I couldn’t fight on anymore. I’d lost. “You win.”
“As expected,” the Wenli grumbled. “I expected better of someone like you. But I guess the nature of such a volatile and insubordinate species like you would always dominate your actions.”
I didn’t mind that blatant patronisation of me and my kind as I just looked up at Henix with decimated dreams. Henix seemed to note that I wished to talk as he leaned and sat up straight in his chair. He’d listen. But not his ilk.
“Do you have a testimony, Commander Dunajski?” Henix purred with his head leaned in on his arm.
“Well,” I began with a wince, “i-it’s for a selfish reason to be fair.”
“Mhm,” Henix replied, pulling out one of his hologram pads to write down my testimony. Even if I trusted him, as of now, I couldn’t even trust him with writing my own testimony. For all I knew, he’d probably just warp it into something reminiscent of a last-second attempt at deception or just plain begging.
Then again, he was my best chance to prevent my fate from manifesting.
“I-I-I . . .” I stuttered, not finding the words to express my suffering. My throat burned and my eyes filled with tears. My face of composure was just as fragile as my mental health. All I knew was going to shit.
“You what?” Henix snarled. “I’m not here to take stutters as a testimony. Give me a comprehensible sentence or I can call the guards in to take you to the brigs.”
“I j-just want to find my family,” I blurted blindly. Clamping my eyes shut, I waited for my reasoning to be torn apart by the monsters before me. The monsters that were killing our homes and assimilating us.
Just like the . . . Oh, you know who!
After a little while of uncomfortable silence, I reopened my eyes and looked up at my prosecutors. Henix’s ears perched up in surprise at the confession, and I heard the slaps of tails and the rustle of scales from my side. I expected that to be an even greater reason to punish me. Using their tech just to find my family? Treason it was. I couldn’t even pull myself back together when a few tears rolled down my cheek as I looked to the floor once more in shame.
I fought and worked for Jakub and Katarzyna. Now both were gone. And even if Jakub was still alive, he would be without a father too in this new world. Nothing was happy about this unceremonious end. My story was over, and so were the stories of my family, friends, and parents.
“F-family?” Henix finally hummed with a hint of shock. He then attempted to hide it with his monotone voice. I slowly and quietly sobbed to myself, cursing my weakness. “Tell me more.”
The other beasts in the room shuffled their feet and locked their gazes on me with a bit of anticipation. I was a bit confused by the reaction. How was saying they were my loved ones a game-changer? But, I didn’t pay much attention anyway, my mind was filled to the brim with the stone-cold fact that had haunted me since the beginning of my searches:
I was now alone.
“Wife and son. I-I don’t know where they are. I was searching for them both. Using your systems, I . . . before you summoned me here, I got a report. In it, Katarzyna, my wife of twenty-two years, is dead. My son . . .” I gave a miserable chuckle, “only God Almighty knows where he is now.”
I should have never cried. I should have never shown emotion, especially on this damn station. Emotional control was the most important here. These beasts were very organised and very honour-driven. Crying itself was probably considered treason. At this point, it was just another thing to add on to my list of present offences.
Everything was collapsing in front of me in quick succession.
Instead of scolding me though, Henix just looked at me and watched me fail at controlling my sobs. It gave me an odd feeling that he was just tacitly judging me rather than chastising me verbally. The other beasts were the same, simply wagging their tails in thought or tilting their heads. It unnerved me a bit, but I was too busy internally cursing myself to care about it.
After what felt like my whole tour in Bolshevik Russia, Henix gave a low growl and a wag of his bushy back tail with the words of his sentencing response pushing against his fangs. The fate waiting for me was only a second away, and with that one growl, I’d be done for. What a fool I was to trust any of these pigs!
“I’m sorry about your predicament,” he spoke slowly. “When we saw the crimes of your ‘Nazis’ it became one of the major reasons why we intervened on this damn planet in the first place.”
What a lie. My brain cackled nonchalantly. They’re doing the same things as the Nazis; Although this time, it was all of us who were suffering from it.
Rolling my eyes, I saw through the bullshit. They were no different.
Scraping at his slick and futuristic desk in ponderous thinking, Henix refocused his pristine and steely blue eyes on me, “What you did was unprofessional and highly dishonourable. Anyone who did such an offence would’ve been discharged or demoted with the snap of a maw.
He shook his head in another short pause as he formulated his next response. I hated the silence, I just wanted a “yes” or a “no” if I was to be shot or not. The aliens had a knack to be blunt, but also verbose. It didn’t make sense, but that’s how they worked. And boy did I hate it!
“But, I cannot even attempt to grasp the gravity of the situation you are dealing with,” he began again, snapping me from my thoughts.
I scowled with agitation and furrowed my brows, “Am I still being shot?”
“No,” the other Wenli interrupted with a sigh and a lick of his fangs. “But, we aren’t leaving you here either.”
My mind went berserk As if that was better! Leaving me alive at this point was punishment enough! Without this station, I’d have to scan all of Europe manually. It’d take the rest of my whole pathetic life to cover even half of Poland! Damn these beasts and damn their posturing!
“Well,” Henix thought, “I have an idea. Akvu?”
The Felsha stepped up from the group of beasts and bowed slightly, “Yes?”
“How about we send Commander Dunajski to be a part of the clearance teams?”
The Felsha slapped its tail against the floor in disdain, “Isn’t he under suspicion of connections?”
“I never saw it in him,” Henix replied. “He was hiding something? Yes. But I never expected resistance affiliations. He isn’t that type of soldier. Besides, I used the accusation to crack him, not actually charge him.”
“W-what is my punishment?” I interrupted with mounting impatience as I tapped my jackboot in annoyance. Talking about how they broke me wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the moment. What was important was my quest for my old life. I wanted my wife back, my son, my home, my country.
“So, the idea is,” Henix began with his hands raised in illustrative explanation, “we send you to Earth to root out the resistance pockets. Some random places like Roosiya, Anghipt, Brazza, Mixka, Cooba, and much more. But! There is also an ongoing search for a resistance network in Eirope.”
“Where?” I shot back with rejuvenated hope.
“Central Eirope,” Henix hummed with a grin. “Former human nations like Polna, Cjermaña, Nodorla, Belja, and Cnzecka.”
It took me a good second to decipher those names. What a mess of pronunciation for all of them they were. Since they were busy trying to wipe our uniqueness from us, the aliens had their own names for our old nations, just the same as how they put my Poland in an occupation zone called “Foije”. A stupid name. Now, they were just coming up with mispronounced names for the defunct nations of old Earth.
I absolutely loathed the name “Polna” because “Polska” was better in every way. But they were our conquerors, and they were the bastards who just sentenced me to scouring Europe for my own kind.
“Who’s under my command?” I sighed.
“Oh, just two dozen of every species in the Confederation,” Henix smiled.
“288? That’s kind of small,” I chuckled. “My all-Pole regiment in Britain was at least 1,000 strong.”
“You really think there’s only a dozen species in the Confederation?” Henix snickered. “No, there’s a good seventy. You really thought we sent all of our power across the galaxy to fight some small plucky band of primates? How adorable.”
That ticked me off, but since I didn’t want to bite the hand that spared me from a beheading, I kept my mouth zipped tight. My composure returned and I wiped the tears off with my sleeve as Henix talked with his other peers in their garbled choking that they called a “language”. My goals had shifted from not crying to not snickering as they conversed in the throat cancer they revered as an actual tongue to be spoken by someone.
“For now, you are dismissed,” Henix sighed. “I hereby remove you from your post. You will report to the bays for a debrief.”
“Can I bring my personal belongings?”
“No,” he replied coldly.
“Why?”
Henix squinted his eyes in anger, “Get there and don’t ask any more questions. You are still a disgraced officer and you will not be shown any more mercy from us.”
How reassuring, I scoffed to myself once more. These aliens were as blunt as wood! They might rival my old camp Oberkommando. Hell, they might as well be him!
Sighing, I pressed my hands against the smooth chair and shakily brought myself up again. With another stupid bow, I left while trembling in every limb. I was in a precarious position now. Anything that went wrong under my command, I would take the hit.
But, if it still gave me a chance to at least try and piece my old life back together;
Then I’d throw myself into it with an intrepid Polish spirit.
-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-
[Prev]
2024.05.17 02:26 eddy_talon [WTS][BC] Some more gear and accessories
Epic spring cleaning. PayPal, e-Transfer, or cash. Local in Metro Vancouver-area for meetup, can also ship. Currently not open to trades, sorry.
submitted by eddy_talon to airsoftmarketcanada [link] [comments]
Gear and clothing:
- USGI UNICOR 1995 PASGT Helmet (Medium)($300):
- Genuine US military surplus - real Kevlar protection, supposedly stops 9mm
- Standard OD green shell, comes with M81 woodland camo cover, a cat-eyes reflective IFF band, and an NVG mount
- Here's a pic of the markings, or at least I tried to take it... difficult with the band permanently attached
- Working condition - this has definitely seen a deployment (not by me). No cracks or dents.
- USGI Safariland SPEAR ELCS Deployment Kit ($800):
- All in NEW unissued condition and in M81 woodland camo unless otherwise stated
- All pieces are genuine US military issue gear, all made in the USA, this is THE kit issued to US SOCOM right before and during the initial operations in Afghanistan 2001.... "rare" doesn't even begin to describe some of the pieces here
- 1x Storage Organization Device (OD green)
- 1x Load Bearing Panel Set, (1 Left, 1 Right)
- 1x H-Harness Panel Set, (1 Left, 1 Right)
- 1x Shoulder Pad Assembly
- 2x Pouch, General Purpose, Large
- 2x Pouch, Ammo, M60/SAW, 100 Round
- 4x Pouch, Ammo, M16/M4, 30 Round, Double
- 2x Pouch, Ammo, 40mm, Single
- 2x Pouch, Medical
- 1x Pouch, Flashbang
- 2x Cover, Canteen, 2 Quart
- 2x ALICE Attachment Adapter
- 1x Manual
- USGI American Apparel USMC MCCUU Coat (Small-Short)(MARPAT Woodland)($50):
- Genuine US military surplus, Marine issue with the EGA emblem and branch tape
- Excellent used condition
- USGI American Apparel USMC MCCUU Pants (Small-Short)(MARPAT Woodland)($50):
- Genuine US military surplus, Marine issue with the EGA emblem and branch tape
- Excellent used condition
- USGI Isratex Inc. Hot Weather BDU Combat Pants (X-Small, X-Short)(M81 Woodland)($20):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Excellent used condition
- USGI MOLLE II Rifleman Pack with Frame (M81 woodland)($50):
- Genuine US military surplus - part of the original overall MOLLE II infantry kit system of the late-1990s/early-2000s.
- Working condition - this has definitely seen a deployment (not by me), but has been taken care of as part of a Cold War display I had.
- USGI SDS MOLLE II Patrol Pack w/ stiffener (M81 woodland)($50):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Working condition - this has definitely seen a deployment (not by me)
- USGI SDS MOLLE II M16A2 6-Magazine Pouch Bandoleer (M81 Woodland)($20):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE I system - great as a backup/extra mag keeper in your backpack or trunk
- Good condition
- 3x USGI SDS MOLLE II M4 mag pouch (double)(M81 Woodland)($10 each):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- It is marked as "double" as in it can hold two mags in a single slot, but it's a tight fit and, realistically, it's better used as a single mag pouch unless you stretch it out
- Brand new condition
- 17x USGI SDS MOLLE II 40mm HE grenade pouch (single)(M81 Woodland)($5 each):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Brand new condition
- 2x USGI SDS MOLLE II 40mm HE grenade pouch (double)(M81 Woodland)($5 each):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Brand new condition
- 2x USGI SDS MOLLE II 40mm pyrotechnic pouch (double)(M81 Woodland)($5 each):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Brand new condition
- USGI SDS MOLLE II squad radio pouch (M81 Woodland)($10):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Good condition
- 2x USGI SDS MOLLE II sustainment pouch (M81 woodland)($10 each):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE I rucksack set (goes on the sides of the ruck)
- Fits 2 MREs and many other things - it's a large pouch
- Good condition
- USGI Handcuffs and SDS MOLLE pouch (M81 woodland)($20):
- Genuine US military surplus, add-on to the MOLLE II system
- Brand new condition
- USGI SDS MOLLE II USMC E-Tool Pouch (M81 Woodland)($10):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system, meant for the standard folding shovel/e-tool
- Good condition
- USGI SDS MOLLE II canteen/NVG/general purpose pouch (M81 Woodland)($10):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE II system
- Good condition
- USGI SDS MOLLE II Ka-Bar knife sheath adapter (OD green)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, meant as an add on to the MOLLE I package, fits the classic KA-BAR, M7/M9 bayonet, and issued machete scabbards/sheaths
- Good condition
- 2x USGI SDS ALICE adapter (OD green)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the MOLLE I system
- Good condition
- Free with the purchase of any MOLLE gear, just ask beforehand!
- USGI SDS RACK MOLLE Motorola SABER radio pouch (M81 woodland)($15):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the Ranger RACK system
- Adjustable and can fit many other walkie-talkie types
- Brand new condition
- USGI SDS RACK MOLLE AN/PRC-126 radio pouch (M81 woodland)($15):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the Ranger RACK system
- Adjustable and can fit many other walkie-talkie types
- Brand new condition
- USGI Point Blank Interceptor OTV throat protector (M81 Woodland) w/ ballistic insert ($50):
- Genuine US military surplus - meant to attach to an OTV (Outer Tactical Vest). It comes with the ballistic insert that is supposed to be real NIJ Level III protection.
- Good condition
- USGI Bijan's Elbowpads (Medium)(M81 Woodland)($20):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Brand new condition
- USGI Bijan's Kneepads (Small)(M81 Woodland)($20):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Brand new condition
- USGI 1 quart canteen (OD green)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Never used, but outside has some scratches due to storage
- Free if you buy the canteen pouch above! Just ask.
- USGI ALICE compass pouch (OD green)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, part of the old ALICE kit
- Brand new condition
- USGI ALICE AN/PVS-7 Night Vision Goggle pouch (OD Green)($30):
- Genuine US military surplus, has a removable but genuine 3rd Infantry Division tag
- Good, used condition
- 3x USGI Fireforce ALICE 9mm pistol magazine pouch (OD Green)($5 each):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Good, used condition
- USGI Bianchi M1415 Thumb Break Conversion (OD Green)($10):
- Genuine US military surplus, meant to replace the flap on the M12 holster with a simple quick-unsnap strap
- New
- USGI Camelbak Thermobak 3L (M81 Woodland)($25):
- Genuine US military surplus, sort of a late add on to MOLLE II, but it has no PALS webbing - it's designed to be loosely worn over chest rigs and plate carriers
- Good used condition
- USGI USMC Lightweight Helmet (LWH) helmet headband replacement (large)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, replacement part for the USMC LWH helmet, although it is backwards-compatible with PASGT
- Brand new condition
- USGI M183 Demolition Charge Assembly satchel bag (OD green)($40):
- Genuine US military surplus
- New condition, but from the 70s
- USGI PASGT Helmet liner band replacement (Medium)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, comes with 4 retaining clips
- New
- USGI IFAK Insert (OD Green)($5):
- Genuine US military surplus, meant to hold the standard medical kit but is also a great, durable waterproof case that can protect phones and such
- New
- Rothco Russian-contract Commando Sweater (OD green)(small) ($15):
- Used surplus. The NCB code in the NSN of this sweater (57) indicates that this is was built for a Russian Federation military contract - back when Russia and NATO were on friendlier terms (I would assume that would date this sweater to 90s, early 00s)
- Rothco Phillipines-contract V-neck Sweater (black)(small) ($15):
- Used surplus. The NCB code in the NSN of this sweater (46) indicates that this is was built for a Filipino military contract
- Rothco commercial V-neck Sweater (blue)(small)($5):
- Used surplus. This came under one of Rothco's commercial brands - Wildlands. Meant for private guards, civilian use
- Rothco DBDU desert chocolate-chip camo BDU shorts (Small-Regular)($5):
- Used, but fair condition
- Rothco police tactical short-sleve shirt (Medium)(Black)($10):
- Excellent used condition
- KA-BAR 1216S Kydex sheath for KA-BAR USMC (black)($10):
- Brand new condition
- USGI GS/FRP-2 Nomex Summer Flyer's Flight Gloves (Size: 8)(OD green)($15):
- Genuine US military surplus
- Size 8 which is small/medium more or less
- New condition
- Propper Patrol Cap (Medium)(Black)($5):
- New condition
- Propper undercover tactical short-sleeve shirt (tan)($15):
- Comes with hidden pockets and zippers - meant for law enforcement
- Lightly used condition
- Rothco moisture-wicking long-sleeve undershirt (OD green)($5):
- Lightly used condition
- Condor MOLLE shoulder stop (desert tan)($5):
- For those who like to put the buttstock of their long gun closer to their chest (popularized in the 2010s by some tactical training schools). Also works fine as a sort of grip pad for various uses.
- Brand new, no tags. Never gamed.
- Condor MOLLE Padded War Belt (desert tan) ($10):
- Fits all sizes. Brand new, no tags, Never gamed.
- Condor BinoculaLarge General Purpose MOLLE Pouch (black)($5):
- Excellent used condition
- 3x Condor 20rd M16 mag/Small General Purpose MOLLE Pouch (black)($5 each):
- Good used condition
- Warrior Cordura 1 qt. Canteen/NVG MOLLE pouch (DCU camo)($5):
- Brand new
- 2x Condor 20rd M16 mag/Small General Purpose MOLLE Pouch (grey)($5 each):
- Brand new
- Condor IFAK/Medium General Purpose MOLLE pouch (OD green)($5):
- Excellent used condition
- Condor Cellphone/Electronics MOLLE Pouch (OD Green)($5)
- Brand new
- Phoenix Industries Velcro Admin MOLLE Pouch (OD Green)($5):
- Brand new
- Condor 2x 30rd AK mag + pistol mag pouch (OD green)($5):
- Brand new
- 4x Condor MOLLE Mod straps (OD green) ($5):
- 2x 4" and 2x 6" pieces
- Attaches anything to your MOLLE panels
- Brand new
- Scabbard/sheath for 18" machetes ($5):
- Fits the standard US military 18" machete
- Lightly used
- Propper boonie hat (OD green, Size 7)($10):
- Brand new, no tags. Never gamed.
- Rothco MICH 2000/ACH Helmet Cover (M81 Woodland w/ Velcro)($5):
- Brand new, no tags. Never gamed. A bit folded from storage
- Uses C-cell batteries (included). Comes with 4 different coloured lenses. Decent brightness for it's design - it's a classic design dating back to the Vietnam-era. Incredibly long runtime.
- Excellent condition. Carried in games a few times but never used
- Grappling hook set w/ rope ($20):
- Comes with the foldable hook, 20m of rope, and a black MOLLE pouch
- Brand new
- VisionKing Illuminated 10x50 Binoculars ($30):
- Supposed to illuminate, but I can't find out what battery it uses after the old one ran out and I threw it away. It's like slightly larger than a hearing aid battery?
- Excellent condition
- Cold Steel Rubber M9 Bayonet ($10):
- Rubbeplastic construction, fits on the M4 and M16
- Made in the USA
- Great for close-in encounters on the field or martial arts training
- New, just used for wall-hanging decor
- Rothco US-made Nylon paracord (ranger green)($1)
- Made by the same contractor that does some US military stuff
- I used a bit, don't know how much, but most of it is still there
- Free if you buy something else from me, just ask!
Gun parts and airsoft-specific accessories:
- USGI Pistol Lanyard (OD green)($10):
- Genuine US military issue, meant for the lanyard loop on the bottom of most pistols' grips, also used for the MX-991/U flashlight, M2 compass, etc.
- Brand new, sealed
- High Ready Gear LiPo 11.1V battery ($20):
- Mini-Tamiya-wired, 1200 mAh, 20C, Graphene, fits in a buffer tube
- Brand new, sealed
- Tenergy LiPo 7.4V battery ($20):
- Mini-Tamiya-wired, 1000 mAh, 20C, definitely fits in a buffer tube and even a Crane stock battery compartment
- Used, but works great
- 2x Well Fire Airsoft Multi-Function Automatic Target System ($20 each):
- Great for indoor shooting, has a net for catching BBs, automatically resets targets, roughly the size of a microwave oven
- Brand new, never taken out of the box - I bought two of these and this was a spare. Willing to sell the other one, too - same condition, just taken out of the box
- NCStar 1911 clamp-on rail ($10):
- Full metal, fits onto any classic-style 1911 with no rail (i.e. Marui Series 70, M1911A1)
- Brand new, open box condition. never used. Does NOT fit KWC as the frame is too thick - this is why I never used it.
- Magpul PTS MOE M4 handguard ($20):
- Drop-in replacement for standard Marui-type M4 AEG handguard w/ delta ring and cap.
- Comes with 3 plastic rail sections - 2 sides and 1 bottom.
- Gamed once. Good condition.
- AGM pistol optic rail ($10):
- Full metal, allows for top, side and bottom rails on pistol - side rail is removable
- Fits any pistol with bottom RIS rail and any slide height, including Desert Eagle
- Never gamed, just used for display
- KJ Works M9 metal outer barrel ($5):
- Full metal. Theoretically should fit any V1 Marui-type M9s/M92s
- A bit of wear from taking it out of my M9, but still functional.
- E&C MK18 to M4/M4A1 outer barrel extension ($10):
- Full metal. 14mm negative threading. Turns a standard 10.3" MK18 barrel to the 14.5" M4/M4A1 barrel with a cut for the M203 front mount
- A bit of wear from mounting an M203, but still functional
- Raven Evolution outer barrel extension pack ($20):
- Full metal,14mm negative threading, includes a 1", 2", and 3" barrel extension
- Brand new, sealed
- Element tan grippod ($10):
- This one, if you get it, you have to slam the legs back up the grip with authority to keep it there like the real thing. Slam it hard. Fits RIS/RAS rails.
- New, out of package condition. Never gamed.
- A&K KAC-style grip and rail cover panel set ($10):
- 5 piece set - includes 1x standard vertical foregrip, 2x 11-rib rail cover panels, and 2x 2-rib rail cover panels. Fits RIS/RAS rails
- Brand new
- Docter-style mini reflex red dot sight (RIS-mounted)($25):
- Comes with a sight cover for storage
- Brand new, open box condition
- BCM-style vertical grip ($5):
- Fits RIS/RAS rails , a little ding on the screw from tightening, otherwise excellent condition
- UTG rail cover rubber grip panels ($5):
- Covers RIS/RAS rails, rubbePVC construction, Made in USA
- Used condition, needs cleaning, still works just fine. Free if you buy something else from me, just let me know if you want it!
- Element LaRue-licensed 30mm cantilever red dot sight mount($10):
- Full metal, made for all 30mm tubed sights, specifically the Aimpoint M68 CCO/CompM2, quick-detach mount
- Lightly used condition, never gamed
- Element QD 30mm magnifier twist mount ($10):
- Full metal, made for all 30mm tubed sights, specifically the Aimpoint and EOTech type magnifiers, quick-detach
- Lightly used condition, never gamed
2024.05.17 00:37 Galaxy_the_nightwing First Impressions part 76
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{Sorry for the late post. I had some trouble with my scheduled summer semester pop up so I wasn't able to write this out as much as I wanted last weekend. Anyways, enjoy the domestic fluff of Damian and his newly expanded flock :) }
-----Damian-----
"The next one's simple. Say their name then (sit). Like this: Braxton, (sit)." As Damian said the command he raised his hand to around shoulder height and snapped. The Great Dane in question slowly sat with his usual amount of sass. Ree cooed in awe and Scales' eyes sparkled. Damian smiled as he pats the large dog's head with praise.
"(Good boy). Ok, you two. Your turns. Make sure to say the commands in English. I haven't taught them Common yet." He motioned to the dogs Damian picked for the two to learn the commands with. It took Damian a bit of trial and error figuring out what commands each dog knew and what ones had different commands for the same motion. Then it took even longer to retrain them to all follow the same commands. He kept in mind the 'specialized' commands for a few of the dogs and didn't try teaching them to the whole group. Ree tried the command he was teaching them first, his dog being Diesel.
"Trii-cheiu, (sit)." Ree raised his wing-arm, though he couldn’t snap he still did the gesture. The boxer he was talking to blankly tilted his head. Damian chuckled and helped out the bird, knowing they all tend to have problems pronouncing new words without a chirp to them.
"You pronounced his name wrong, he doesn't know you're talking to him. It's more like 'Dee-sell'. The 's' is sharp enough it is almost pronounced as a 'z'." Ree practiced a few times as Scales took her try. She pronounced her dog's name a bit slow, but it was recognizable.
"D-ing-oh, (sit)." The stocky dog hesitated, glancing at Damian for a few seconds, but eventually plopped down then panted in a smile imitation. Scales' tail wagged violently, and she wordlessly cooed and trilled happily. Dingo didn't yet understand that was praise so Damian jumped in really quick to let her know she did good.
"Good girl, Dingo! Good girl!" He made sure to over exaggerate his excitement and made wide happy gestures before smothering the dog in pets and scratches. Dingo goes wild. She jumps up, bounces around a few times, then bolts into excited zoomies. A few of the other dogs joined in on the zoomies. Ree tried again on his command.
"Dee-zell, (sit)." The boxer's cropped ears perked and he promptly sat. Before Damian could, Ree copied his bigwing's previous praising and flared his wings. "Good! Good boy!" He praised, overly happy. Diesel's whole body perked up and he jumped up, landed in a playbow, then spun a few times before joining in on the zoomies with a butt-tuck run when Damian smooched at him. Damian laughed at the zooming dogs and shuffled over to be closer to his chicks, just in case the dogs tried to do fly-bys.
"Good job, you two. We're almost completely through the basic commands. I didn't think we'd get through them this quickly." His chicks cooed, trilled, and wiggled happily at the praise. Damian chuckled and rubbed their feathered heads, making a few bits of baby-fluff fall off as he drew back. He played with the few bits stuck to his fingers and watched his chicks play with the dogs as they started to wrestle. All of the dogs were bigger than them, if only slightly, but they were gentle when letting the chicks join in.
As they played he looked over them. They had changed a lot in the last month or so since the disaster of their first flying lesson. In that time, they had a few more lessons and were almost completely capable of flight, they still had a bit of supervision when they did though. They had lost almost all of their baby-fluff and their adult plumage was sported on the vast majority of their bodies. They still had to shed the last bits of fluff and a few of their baby-scales but that wouldn't take much longer. Damian was still taken with their coloring and patterns. And often found himself studying them over and over like he used to with their parents when he first got here.
Ree was a slightly grey-tinted shade of green with his scales slowly getting darker the higher they went. His stomach was a dirt brown color with a more red-ish clay spot on his chest. All his plumage was a light orage-ish brown color and he had speckles of more pastel green under his right eye and in a clump on his left jaw. His beak took the coloring of Blueberry's, a near-black color, but had the shape of Ruby's. His ears took after Violet's, long and pointed like a stretched fox's. His feathers and fur were more pressed down and made him look slimmer overall. His eyes changed from their baby brown-gold color to a beautiful sky blue.
Scales, on the other hand, had the coloring more towards a bumble bee (from what he remembered anyways). Her main coloring was a bright sunshine yellow that slowly grew more towards orange towards her underbelly and beak. On her chest was a splash-like clump of pink feathers. Her scales were less than her brother's and were a deep brown-ish color. The feathers and fur edging them were a deep enough brown to basically be black. Her plumage reminded him somewhat of Ruby and Sky's. It had a gradual fade towards the end like Sky but the pink-ish color of Ruby. She had near-neon yellow speckles too, like her brother, but the clumps were a bit larger. She had them ending on her wing-forearms like Violet's and a big clump scattered around the left side of her face. Her feathers weren't quite as fluffy as Sky's but was pretty close. Her beak had the shape of Violet's and the near-white tan color of Ruby's. Her eyes had a beautiful dual color in each eye. The top majority was a hot pink/magenta color while the bottom and inside edge was more of a petal/pastel pink.
Both were gorgeous and made Damian wonder how the genetics of their species worked to allow that vast difference in coloration and patterns when compared to all four of their parents, who tended to be different shades of the same color throughout. Ree had finally slowed his quite concerning growth rate and was starting to level out around Damian's upper thigh/lower hip, exceeding the taller of his fathers by quite the margin. All four of his parents telling him that Ree was probably one of the largest of their species in multiple generations. Scales was now barely a third of her brother's size, if that, having evened out just barely shorter than Damian's knee. Apparently that was a bit shorter than average for the species with Ruby being more towards the upper part of the average size and Sky being borderline short.
A demanding snort drew his attention away from his chicks and to the window he claimed as 'his spot' so long ago (was it really only just over one of his years since he was brought here?). There he found Casper lazily curled and dozing on the floor with Ares propped up against her where Damian had set him to nap while he taught his chicks. Said child was no longer asleep though. He was very much awake and staring Damian down with an expression demanding to know why he thought it was a good idea to even dare to set him down and walk away. Nevermind Damian wasn't even ten steps away. Ares snorted demandingly at him again and glared harder at the human's amused snort back. Damian did walk over though and picked up the child when he raised his arms at him. Ares had changed a bit too over the month Damian had him. He'd filled out to a more healthy-looking weight, though he was still a bit thin, and Damian had finally managed to memorize how to properly trim the toddler's hooves and brush out his fur.
Ares still had the bird-like plush and brought it nearly everywhere with him. Said plush was now being whacked into the side of Damian's head. Apparently, Ares decided being held wasn't good enough and wanted something else. Damian tried blocking the hits or holding the toy, but the little brat only started using his hooves in his growing tantrum. Getting tired of being hit with no explanation, Damian took the advice of one of the texts he'd read about taking care of a Grongri child and yanked Ares away from him by his scruff to hang in mid-air. The toddler wiggled and squirmed to try and hit him more but eventually the tantrum dimmed, and he went limp, a small pout on his face.
"You ready to tell me what's wrong now?" He asked the child before he cradled him again. He'd only made that mistake once. He still had the bruises to prove it. Ares glumly flicked his right ear down (which he's learned is a non-verbal yes), pout still present. Damian finally cradled the toddler to his chest again and let him sniffle and bury against him in self-comfort until he was ready to talk. Damian glanced back at his chicks to see them flopped on the ground with the other dogs, all panting and exhausted by the play. Damian chuckled at them, earning an irritated crow from Scales. Damian snorted in amusement but let them be. Ares was finally willing to tell him what was wrong.
"Want learn too." Ares' understanding of both Common and English has come a long way in the past month. He still can't string a proper sentence together, but Damian can't tell if that is because of a lack of knowledge or just because he's a toddler. He has adjusted to the flock a bit too. With it being so different from the usual Grongri Sounder structure it is understandable. He does have a few hiccups here and there but now he mostly just watches the chicks' reaction to things when he is unsure.
"'Learn too'? You wanna learn how to command the dogs too?" Damian questions, making sure he had the same idea. Ares' ear flicked again while he nodded. Damian hugged him a bit closer.
"You're a bit too small for the dogs to obey you immediately but I can introduce one to you and have you start trying. How about that? Will that work?" Ares was quiet for a bit longer but eventually agreed. Damian smiled and praised him with a few pets, receiving a few happy rumbles in response. Damian glanced around at the dogs, trying to pick one for Ares to start working on. He doesn't think any would follow the commands without his own help but if he worked on one long enough it would eventually cave. His eye landed on Casper, who was still in the same curled position as before. She was the most maternal of the group and was the one who took to the children the easiest and quickest.
"Ok, little piglet. Let's start easy." He said as he set the runt down on his hooves. As he did he got Casper's attention and called to her. "Casper. (Stand)." The large white wolfdog looked at him then crawled to her paws. He praised her softly then turned back to Ares.
"Ok. We'll start with (come). Say her name, Casper, and tell her to (come)." He said as he sat down next to where the toddler stood. Ares' little hooves stomped a bit in his excitement, but he tried. He tested out the new word before he did. What he settled on wasn't the right pronunciation, but it was close. He could mostly pronounce the command correctly too, though with a pretty heavy accent.
"Gas-prrrr. (Come)." Casper tilted her head at the child and sniffed at him. She looked at Damian and he looked to Ares then back. Casper followed and glanced, then back. Ares deflated eventually when she still didn't approach so Damian thought up something quickly.
"Maybe she doesn't understand your accent. Try this," He patted the ground, "when you say it. She knows that gesture." Ares perked back up again.
"Okie!" He turned back to Casper and tried again. "Gas-prrrr." He crouched down and clumsily patted the ground like only a toddler could. "(Come)." Casper's ears perked but she still hesitated for a second before slowly padding over and stopping right in front of the child. Ares squealed in excitement, tail going wild and hooves stomping. Damian made his chuff-imitation as praise for the child as he pets Casper to do the same. Child happier now, he figures he could take the kid away for lunch without protest. Scooping up the toddler he received no complaint.
Looking to his chicks he clicked his tongue. He learned that was a good way to gain their attention with zero hesitation, no matter what they were doing. He found out by complete accident, to be honest. He was clicking at the dogs from a habit that hasn't broken despite the years away from the farm he grew up on. Sure enough, just like every time before, both chick's heads immediately whip up to look at him. Both still looked groggy like they had just woken up. They probably had.
"C'mon, you two. Lunch time." The two groaned but climbed to their feet. Damian smiled and them and patted them as they passed. Once they were well on their way, he called the dogs and gathered them as he left behind his chicks. The dogs happily trailed after, excited after they heard the word 'hungry' when he asked. He entered the flock's kitchen, pack in tow, only a handful of minutes later. He had to take a slightly more roundabout way over since some of the dogs hadn’t quite figured out the ladder-like walkways and ramps yet and he didn't want them to fall through and get hurt. His birds greeted him with their usual trills and Untruthful with their latest attempt at teasing.
"So, the Pack Master finally decided to grace us with his presence!" Damian let them know it was a good one by sending a tease back.
"I see you haven't gotten any less spikey yet, walking pincushion." Untruthful's eyes slowly shut in a smile and Damian sent one of his own back, momentarily closing his eyes in an imitation of them. Untruthful looked surprised then they eye-close-smiled harder, spike-crest wiggling their excitement. Damian chuckled at them and set down Ares in his make-shift baby seat.
He chatted with Violet as he grabbed and rationed out the dogs' small lunch. He ignored the protesting whines, grunts, and half-barks urging him to 'go faster already'. Violet advised him to use one type of meat instead of another because of both better nutrients for the dogs and there being more of it. He thanked her and did as told. The dogs' lunch wasn't that big, more of a snack than anything, but it kept them from pouting and begging when everyone else ate. It also had helped him give them meds when they were still healing. They were mostly fine now, apparently Galactic Standard medicine works faster than the stuff he remembers. Finishing with the dogs' food he picks up the bowls, stacking a few to do so, and turns around. He walked past the dogs, chuckling at the excited spins, bounces, and tippy-taps they did as they followed him. He glanced back at them once he made it to the wall the flock had designated as their eating area.
He gave them a stern look and waited. They all eventually sat down, some more slow and reluctant than others. Once they did he placed down the bowls in the designated spots. Braxton and Casper had two stepstool-stand things he placed their bowls on because of how big they were. Once all the bowls were down he turned to look at the dogs. He waited in silence for a bit, snapping or humming warningly whenever one tried to shuffle forward. Once he deemed it long enough he gave the sort-of-command he was on the tail end of teaching them.
"(Ok)." When he said that all five dogs ran over to their bowls and started to eat. Damian strode back over to the counter and helped his birds move some plates to the table then settled cross-legged in his usual spot, Ares immediately crawling into his lap and Scales fluttering to perch on the shoulder opposite the side her brother sat on. The flock started to grab food and eat as they chatted with each other. Damian grabbed a little more than a double portion of fruits, beans (or maybe they were berries?), and a few crunchy finger foods he thinks may be cooked or specially prepared insects. He grabbed roughly more than a single portion (for someone his size anyways) of meats, the few root vegetables presented, and what he thinks may be foods made of bone pieces.
Once his plate was full he placed it down in front of him he reached over to grab a smaller plate and started making that one with tiny portions, letting his three kids have free pickings of his plate as he did. When he finished that plate he sat it in front of mini, receiving a grateful squeak before she dug in. He then propped his arms on the table, completely ignoring both his plate and the children stealing from it as he chattered on with his flock. By the time everyone finished his kids had their fill and were starting to fall asleep like usual after eating.
As his flock started gathering their dishes and the extra food on the table, Damian glanced at what was left of his plate. He made a mental note of how there weren’t as much leftovers as before and to grab bigger portions for dinner. As his flock started to disperse he looked to the dogs and said one of the first new commands he taught them.
"(Pups)." He got their attention. "(Take)." He ordered as he lifted up the half-asleep toddler on his lap. The dogs made whisper-boofs to show they heard and the largest three walked over to pick up the kids by their scruffs. Casper (the biggest, though not my much) grabbed Ree, Braxton grabbed Ares, and Dingo walked over to carefully lift Scales from his shoulder. Once they had a firm grip, they looked to Damian for further instruction.
"(To bed)" He directed as he pointed out the door they came from. The pack turned and left him alone in the room. He sighed to himself once he couldn't hear them anymore and looked back at the leftovers on the plate before him. It was maybe under half a portion for his size, probably less. He glanced at the counters and saw all the leftover food was already put up. He could go grab more but even half a portion for him would be nearly three or four large portions for his flock. No. It wasn’t worth it. He'll just grab more tonight.
He ate the leftovers in silence. Since he's got the dogs his head has been a bit quieter, though not silent. Apparently he was still enough for the building to register the room as empty, and the lights cut out. He blinked and paused at the sudden darkness but there was barely a second of blindness before some of his voices put their hands on his mental controls, giving his eyes a boost of minor night vision. It wasn’t much better than his natural amount of it but it helped. He decided not to go turn on the lights again and continued to eat his food as he peacefully listened to the soft chattering of his voices.
submitted by Galaxy_the_nightwing to humansarespaceorcs [link] [comments]
{Sorry for the late post. I had some trouble with my scheduled summer semester pop up so I wasn't able to write this out as much as I wanted last weekend. Anyways, enjoy the domestic fluff of Damian and his newly expanded flock :) }
-----Damian-----
"The next one's simple. Say their name then (sit). Like this: Braxton, (sit)." As Damian said the command he raised his hand to around shoulder height and snapped. The Great Dane in question slowly sat with his usual amount of sass. Ree cooed in awe and Scales' eyes sparkled. Damian smiled as he pats the large dog's head with praise.
"(Good boy). Ok, you two. Your turns. Make sure to say the commands in English. I haven't taught them Common yet." He motioned to the dogs Damian picked for the two to learn the commands with. It took Damian a bit of trial and error figuring out what commands each dog knew and what ones had different commands for the same motion. Then it took even longer to retrain them to all follow the same commands. He kept in mind the 'specialized' commands for a few of the dogs and didn't try teaching them to the whole group. Ree tried the command he was teaching them first, his dog being Diesel.
"Trii-cheiu, (sit)." Ree raised his wing-arm, though he couldn’t snap he still did the gesture. The boxer he was talking to blankly tilted his head. Damian chuckled and helped out the bird, knowing they all tend to have problems pronouncing new words without a chirp to them.
"You pronounced his name wrong, he doesn't know you're talking to him. It's more like 'Dee-sell'. The 's' is sharp enough it is almost pronounced as a 'z'." Ree practiced a few times as Scales took her try. She pronounced her dog's name a bit slow, but it was recognizable.
"D-ing-oh, (sit)." The stocky dog hesitated, glancing at Damian for a few seconds, but eventually plopped down then panted in a smile imitation. Scales' tail wagged violently, and she wordlessly cooed and trilled happily. Dingo didn't yet understand that was praise so Damian jumped in really quick to let her know she did good.
"Good girl, Dingo! Good girl!" He made sure to over exaggerate his excitement and made wide happy gestures before smothering the dog in pets and scratches. Dingo goes wild. She jumps up, bounces around a few times, then bolts into excited zoomies. A few of the other dogs joined in on the zoomies. Ree tried again on his command.
"Dee-zell, (sit)." The boxer's cropped ears perked and he promptly sat. Before Damian could, Ree copied his bigwing's previous praising and flared his wings. "Good! Good boy!" He praised, overly happy. Diesel's whole body perked up and he jumped up, landed in a playbow, then spun a few times before joining in on the zoomies with a butt-tuck run when Damian smooched at him. Damian laughed at the zooming dogs and shuffled over to be closer to his chicks, just in case the dogs tried to do fly-bys.
"Good job, you two. We're almost completely through the basic commands. I didn't think we'd get through them this quickly." His chicks cooed, trilled, and wiggled happily at the praise. Damian chuckled and rubbed their feathered heads, making a few bits of baby-fluff fall off as he drew back. He played with the few bits stuck to his fingers and watched his chicks play with the dogs as they started to wrestle. All of the dogs were bigger than them, if only slightly, but they were gentle when letting the chicks join in.
As they played he looked over them. They had changed a lot in the last month or so since the disaster of their first flying lesson. In that time, they had a few more lessons and were almost completely capable of flight, they still had a bit of supervision when they did though. They had lost almost all of their baby-fluff and their adult plumage was sported on the vast majority of their bodies. They still had to shed the last bits of fluff and a few of their baby-scales but that wouldn't take much longer. Damian was still taken with their coloring and patterns. And often found himself studying them over and over like he used to with their parents when he first got here.
Ree was a slightly grey-tinted shade of green with his scales slowly getting darker the higher they went. His stomach was a dirt brown color with a more red-ish clay spot on his chest. All his plumage was a light orage-ish brown color and he had speckles of more pastel green under his right eye and in a clump on his left jaw. His beak took the coloring of Blueberry's, a near-black color, but had the shape of Ruby's. His ears took after Violet's, long and pointed like a stretched fox's. His feathers and fur were more pressed down and made him look slimmer overall. His eyes changed from their baby brown-gold color to a beautiful sky blue.
Scales, on the other hand, had the coloring more towards a bumble bee (from what he remembered anyways). Her main coloring was a bright sunshine yellow that slowly grew more towards orange towards her underbelly and beak. On her chest was a splash-like clump of pink feathers. Her scales were less than her brother's and were a deep brown-ish color. The feathers and fur edging them were a deep enough brown to basically be black. Her plumage reminded him somewhat of Ruby and Sky's. It had a gradual fade towards the end like Sky but the pink-ish color of Ruby. She had near-neon yellow speckles too, like her brother, but the clumps were a bit larger. She had them ending on her wing-forearms like Violet's and a big clump scattered around the left side of her face. Her feathers weren't quite as fluffy as Sky's but was pretty close. Her beak had the shape of Violet's and the near-white tan color of Ruby's. Her eyes had a beautiful dual color in each eye. The top majority was a hot pink/magenta color while the bottom and inside edge was more of a petal/pastel pink.
Both were gorgeous and made Damian wonder how the genetics of their species worked to allow that vast difference in coloration and patterns when compared to all four of their parents, who tended to be different shades of the same color throughout. Ree had finally slowed his quite concerning growth rate and was starting to level out around Damian's upper thigh/lower hip, exceeding the taller of his fathers by quite the margin. All four of his parents telling him that Ree was probably one of the largest of their species in multiple generations. Scales was now barely a third of her brother's size, if that, having evened out just barely shorter than Damian's knee. Apparently that was a bit shorter than average for the species with Ruby being more towards the upper part of the average size and Sky being borderline short.
A demanding snort drew his attention away from his chicks and to the window he claimed as 'his spot' so long ago (was it really only just over one of his years since he was brought here?). There he found Casper lazily curled and dozing on the floor with Ares propped up against her where Damian had set him to nap while he taught his chicks. Said child was no longer asleep though. He was very much awake and staring Damian down with an expression demanding to know why he thought it was a good idea to even dare to set him down and walk away. Nevermind Damian wasn't even ten steps away. Ares snorted demandingly at him again and glared harder at the human's amused snort back. Damian did walk over though and picked up the child when he raised his arms at him. Ares had changed a bit too over the month Damian had him. He'd filled out to a more healthy-looking weight, though he was still a bit thin, and Damian had finally managed to memorize how to properly trim the toddler's hooves and brush out his fur.
Ares still had the bird-like plush and brought it nearly everywhere with him. Said plush was now being whacked into the side of Damian's head. Apparently, Ares decided being held wasn't good enough and wanted something else. Damian tried blocking the hits or holding the toy, but the little brat only started using his hooves in his growing tantrum. Getting tired of being hit with no explanation, Damian took the advice of one of the texts he'd read about taking care of a Grongri child and yanked Ares away from him by his scruff to hang in mid-air. The toddler wiggled and squirmed to try and hit him more but eventually the tantrum dimmed, and he went limp, a small pout on his face.
"You ready to tell me what's wrong now?" He asked the child before he cradled him again. He'd only made that mistake once. He still had the bruises to prove it. Ares glumly flicked his right ear down (which he's learned is a non-verbal yes), pout still present. Damian finally cradled the toddler to his chest again and let him sniffle and bury against him in self-comfort until he was ready to talk. Damian glanced back at his chicks to see them flopped on the ground with the other dogs, all panting and exhausted by the play. Damian chuckled at them, earning an irritated crow from Scales. Damian snorted in amusement but let them be. Ares was finally willing to tell him what was wrong.
"Want learn too." Ares' understanding of both Common and English has come a long way in the past month. He still can't string a proper sentence together, but Damian can't tell if that is because of a lack of knowledge or just because he's a toddler. He has adjusted to the flock a bit too. With it being so different from the usual Grongri Sounder structure it is understandable. He does have a few hiccups here and there but now he mostly just watches the chicks' reaction to things when he is unsure.
"'Learn too'? You wanna learn how to command the dogs too?" Damian questions, making sure he had the same idea. Ares' ear flicked again while he nodded. Damian hugged him a bit closer.
"You're a bit too small for the dogs to obey you immediately but I can introduce one to you and have you start trying. How about that? Will that work?" Ares was quiet for a bit longer but eventually agreed. Damian smiled and praised him with a few pets, receiving a few happy rumbles in response. Damian glanced around at the dogs, trying to pick one for Ares to start working on. He doesn't think any would follow the commands without his own help but if he worked on one long enough it would eventually cave. His eye landed on Casper, who was still in the same curled position as before. She was the most maternal of the group and was the one who took to the children the easiest and quickest.
"Ok, little piglet. Let's start easy." He said as he set the runt down on his hooves. As he did he got Casper's attention and called to her. "Casper. (Stand)." The large white wolfdog looked at him then crawled to her paws. He praised her softly then turned back to Ares.
"Ok. We'll start with (come). Say her name, Casper, and tell her to (come)." He said as he sat down next to where the toddler stood. Ares' little hooves stomped a bit in his excitement, but he tried. He tested out the new word before he did. What he settled on wasn't the right pronunciation, but it was close. He could mostly pronounce the command correctly too, though with a pretty heavy accent.
"Gas-prrrr. (Come)." Casper tilted her head at the child and sniffed at him. She looked at Damian and he looked to Ares then back. Casper followed and glanced, then back. Ares deflated eventually when she still didn't approach so Damian thought up something quickly.
"Maybe she doesn't understand your accent. Try this," He patted the ground, "when you say it. She knows that gesture." Ares perked back up again.
"Okie!" He turned back to Casper and tried again. "Gas-prrrr." He crouched down and clumsily patted the ground like only a toddler could. "(Come)." Casper's ears perked but she still hesitated for a second before slowly padding over and stopping right in front of the child. Ares squealed in excitement, tail going wild and hooves stomping. Damian made his chuff-imitation as praise for the child as he pets Casper to do the same. Child happier now, he figures he could take the kid away for lunch without protest. Scooping up the toddler he received no complaint.
Looking to his chicks he clicked his tongue. He learned that was a good way to gain their attention with zero hesitation, no matter what they were doing. He found out by complete accident, to be honest. He was clicking at the dogs from a habit that hasn't broken despite the years away from the farm he grew up on. Sure enough, just like every time before, both chick's heads immediately whip up to look at him. Both still looked groggy like they had just woken up. They probably had.
"C'mon, you two. Lunch time." The two groaned but climbed to their feet. Damian smiled and them and patted them as they passed. Once they were well on their way, he called the dogs and gathered them as he left behind his chicks. The dogs happily trailed after, excited after they heard the word 'hungry' when he asked. He entered the flock's kitchen, pack in tow, only a handful of minutes later. He had to take a slightly more roundabout way over since some of the dogs hadn’t quite figured out the ladder-like walkways and ramps yet and he didn't want them to fall through and get hurt. His birds greeted him with their usual trills and Untruthful with their latest attempt at teasing.
"So, the Pack Master finally decided to grace us with his presence!" Damian let them know it was a good one by sending a tease back.
"I see you haven't gotten any less spikey yet, walking pincushion." Untruthful's eyes slowly shut in a smile and Damian sent one of his own back, momentarily closing his eyes in an imitation of them. Untruthful looked surprised then they eye-close-smiled harder, spike-crest wiggling their excitement. Damian chuckled at them and set down Ares in his make-shift baby seat.
He chatted with Violet as he grabbed and rationed out the dogs' small lunch. He ignored the protesting whines, grunts, and half-barks urging him to 'go faster already'. Violet advised him to use one type of meat instead of another because of both better nutrients for the dogs and there being more of it. He thanked her and did as told. The dogs' lunch wasn't that big, more of a snack than anything, but it kept them from pouting and begging when everyone else ate. It also had helped him give them meds when they were still healing. They were mostly fine now, apparently Galactic Standard medicine works faster than the stuff he remembers. Finishing with the dogs' food he picks up the bowls, stacking a few to do so, and turns around. He walked past the dogs, chuckling at the excited spins, bounces, and tippy-taps they did as they followed him. He glanced back at them once he made it to the wall the flock had designated as their eating area.
He gave them a stern look and waited. They all eventually sat down, some more slow and reluctant than others. Once they did he placed down the bowls in the designated spots. Braxton and Casper had two stepstool-stand things he placed their bowls on because of how big they were. Once all the bowls were down he turned to look at the dogs. He waited in silence for a bit, snapping or humming warningly whenever one tried to shuffle forward. Once he deemed it long enough he gave the sort-of-command he was on the tail end of teaching them.
"(Ok)." When he said that all five dogs ran over to their bowls and started to eat. Damian strode back over to the counter and helped his birds move some plates to the table then settled cross-legged in his usual spot, Ares immediately crawling into his lap and Scales fluttering to perch on the shoulder opposite the side her brother sat on. The flock started to grab food and eat as they chatted with each other. Damian grabbed a little more than a double portion of fruits, beans (or maybe they were berries?), and a few crunchy finger foods he thinks may be cooked or specially prepared insects. He grabbed roughly more than a single portion (for someone his size anyways) of meats, the few root vegetables presented, and what he thinks may be foods made of bone pieces.
Once his plate was full he placed it down in front of him he reached over to grab a smaller plate and started making that one with tiny portions, letting his three kids have free pickings of his plate as he did. When he finished that plate he sat it in front of mini, receiving a grateful squeak before she dug in. He then propped his arms on the table, completely ignoring both his plate and the children stealing from it as he chattered on with his flock. By the time everyone finished his kids had their fill and were starting to fall asleep like usual after eating.
As his flock started gathering their dishes and the extra food on the table, Damian glanced at what was left of his plate. He made a mental note of how there weren’t as much leftovers as before and to grab bigger portions for dinner. As his flock started to disperse he looked to the dogs and said one of the first new commands he taught them.
"(Pups)." He got their attention. "(Take)." He ordered as he lifted up the half-asleep toddler on his lap. The dogs made whisper-boofs to show they heard and the largest three walked over to pick up the kids by their scruffs. Casper (the biggest, though not my much) grabbed Ree, Braxton grabbed Ares, and Dingo walked over to carefully lift Scales from his shoulder. Once they had a firm grip, they looked to Damian for further instruction.
"(To bed)" He directed as he pointed out the door they came from. The pack turned and left him alone in the room. He sighed to himself once he couldn't hear them anymore and looked back at the leftovers on the plate before him. It was maybe under half a portion for his size, probably less. He glanced at the counters and saw all the leftover food was already put up. He could go grab more but even half a portion for him would be nearly three or four large portions for his flock. No. It wasn’t worth it. He'll just grab more tonight.
He ate the leftovers in silence. Since he's got the dogs his head has been a bit quieter, though not silent. Apparently he was still enough for the building to register the room as empty, and the lights cut out. He blinked and paused at the sudden darkness but there was barely a second of blindness before some of his voices put their hands on his mental controls, giving his eyes a boost of minor night vision. It wasn’t much better than his natural amount of it but it helped. He decided not to go turn on the lights again and continued to eat his food as he peacefully listened to the soft chattering of his voices.
2024.05.17 00:00 Ultim8_Lifeform Respect Clover! (Undertale Yellow)
Clover
Five humans, missing...
Undertale Yellow is a fan-made prequel to the hit indie game Undertale. While Undertale follows the story of Frisk, the seventh human child to fall into the monster ruled Underground, Undertale Yellow follows the story of their immediate predecessor. Meet Clover, the sixth human. Unlike the humans that fell before, this gun-toting cowboy is unique in the sense that their journey to the Underground was no accident. Clover entered the Underground voluntarily in order to investigate the disappearances of the previous five humans and, if it turned out they perished at some point after their fall, hoped to avenge their deaths. See, while Frisk possessed a red SOUL that embodied Determination, Clover's SOUL is yellow for the trait of Justice. Clover's journey would lead them all throughout the Underground, meeting some monsters that will be familiar to those who have played Undertale and some brand new faces as well.
Like Undertale before it, Undertale Yellow's story can be altered significantly depending on the player's actions. Perhaps Clover befriends the monsters they meet and determines they were unfairly trapped underground, deciding to sacrifice themselves to bring monster kind closer to freedom. Or maybe Clover will blame the monsters for the deaths of the previous human children, avenging them with swift cruelty. Either way, Clover will act in the way they believe they can best embody Justice.
So How Do the Fights Work Anyway?
Like its predecessor, Undertale Yellow tends to treat RPG mechanics as literal aspects of the game's world. Due to the abstract nature of fights in both Undertale and Undertale Yellow, with enemy monsters targeting Clover's SOUL rather than their physical body, it's understandable that there may be some confusion about how Clover actually scales to certain monsters. Luckily, this is a bit more clear in Undertale Yellow than it was in the original game, as the reveal trailer shows that the attacks of monster are things that Clover physically has to react to and dodge (we even see this same attack utilized in game) even though the battle menu only shows their SOUL.But this is just for when encounters have already begun, what about before that? And what triggers encounters anyway? There's an area in the Wild East where boulders are falling onto the path that Clover needs to dodge. If they fail to avoid them, this begins an encounter too, where Clover is given the opportunity to avoid the "attacks" in the battle menu to negate damage. Other examples include Clover escaping damage from hot steam after touching it and avoiding damage from Axis' energy balls after they hit them. What this means for standard versus fights is a little vague, but it likely means that any attack that would deal meaningful damage starts an encounter and that it would be impossible to simply kill Clover with a sneak attack. Even if it hit them, Clover would still get the opportunity to dodge before the proper fight begins. That said, there is one example of Clover dying without triggering an encounter at the end of the Neutral Route. It's possible this is because it was an unescapable situation but the mechanics of it are still vague and unclear.
As seen with the previous examples such as the falling boulders and steam, it seems that attacks that hit Clover's SOUL and their physical body are more or less interchangeable. Or rather, it isn't possible to circumvent the SOUL to only hit the physical body because even attacks that hit Clover's physical body will trigger an encounter that can then be dodged or endured by the SOUL.
Finally, it's worth noting that the sizes of objects can vary from their appearances in the battle to what they look like in the overworld. We see Clover's SOUL alongside their physical body a few times throughout the game and it's pretty consistently a little larger than their torso. So this thread will describe feats with that scale in mind.
Other Things To Note
- At the end of certain routes, Clover acquires certain abilities/powerups that don't necessarily apply to the rest of the game. Feats or items that are limited to those routes will be marked with the corresponding route.
- [Pacifist] Feat
- Like your standard RPG's, Undertale Yellow possesses a leveling system that will increase the more enemies that Clover kills, with certain abilities being unlocked after certain levels are achieved. However, in the Genocide route Clover showed off the ability to level up rapidly simply by being filled with enough righteous fury. Abilities that are locked behind certain levels will also be marked accordingly.
- FeatLV 19
- The majority of feats will come from Undertale Yellow, but occasionally clips from trailers and other promotional material on the director of the game's Youtube channel will be used, which will be labeled with a T like so:
- FeatT
Physicals
Strength- Breaks a piece of wood that had jammed an elevator door with a pickaxe, which broke the pickaxe despite it being described as sturdy previously
- Pushes aside a cabinet
- While physically holding the lid of a trash can Clover is able to deflect Axis' energy attacks back at him which destroyed portable generators about as tall as Axis himself
- [Anti-Feat] Needs Martlet's help moving a table
- Runs roughly 2/3rds faster than they walk, traveling the same distance in 1.5 seconds that it took them 2.5 seconds to walk
- Climbs a good distance up a rope, though Flowey resets the timeline before they reach the top
- While fighting Decibat they react and move relatively to various attacks that appear to be sound-based
- Note that blue attacks don't harm you if you're standing still and orange attacks don't if you're moving
- Passes over a bridge when the boards were constantly elevating and lowering
- Moves out of the way of Dunebud's arrows
- Avoids the soundwaves produced by Starlo's bell attack
- Escapes Axis during their chase
- Jukes the hell out of Axis
- Moves relatively to the arrows and flintlock pistol shots of a pair of mini robots
- Climbs a laundry chute
Blunt
- A tumbleweed knocks them onto a lower platform and they don't even flinch
- Even while using the Patch, Clover's starting accessory that offers no extra defense, Clover can withstand several giant boulders smashing into them
- Takes several blows from Ed that launch massive boulders into the air
- Withstands the Guardener's attacks which could smash giant gears that are larger than Clover
- [Genocide] Gets hit by large meteors summoned by Zenith Martlet
- Jumps down a hole into the Underground and lands on a bed of flowers
- Falls through the floor of the Ruins and lands in a bed of flowers in the Dark Ruins, quickly jumping to their feet afterwards
- Crashes a speeding boat over a ledge, sending them over and into the mines
- Falls down a trap door
- Survives in the Steamworks with no issue, which was hot enough to light Moe's clothes and stand on fire over the course of their conversation
- Withstands multiple fire attacks from Asgore before eventually succumbing to them (with Asgore being the strongest non-final boss monster in the original Undertale)
- Gets shocked repeatedly by Dalv's electrical attacks, enduring four before eventually succumbing
- A giant fan produces a sandstorm that pushes them back a considerable distance
- Gets hit by dynamite thrown by Starlo
- Survives multiple shots from Starlo's revolver
- Withstands hits from Axis' energy balls which later destroy Axis' portal generators
- With the highest defensive accessory they take negligible damage from Ceroba's attacks which shatter stone pillars (they also take a glancing blow from these attacks in a cutscene without damage, though it takes them some time to return to their feet)
- [Pacifist] Endures for a little over a minute after their soul had been extracted from their body (though they were too weak to do anything but crawl)
- [Genocide] Gets crushed by blocks with enough force to shatter them which are not affected by their SOUL's energy beams
- [Genocide] Here is the top of UG Apartments before Clover's battle with Zenith Martlet compared to after, which assuming Martlet's attacks were responsible for any of this damage means that Clover would scale to it
- [Genocide] Clover grows so powerful that Asgore's trident shatters against their SOULLV 20
Skill
- Shoots a hat off a dummy
- Beats Starlo in a quickdraw contest
- After being fully lasso'd by Starlo, Clover is still able to effectively avoid his attacks and even tricks him into shooting his own lasso twice
- Can shoot something as small as a micro froggit
- Opens a door by shooting its control panel
- Plays a mean harmonicaT
- Holy shit they're so sick with itT
Justice SOUL
- Flowey talks about how Boss Monsters are stronger than others and that a human SOUL is even more powerful than them
- [Pacifist] During the final boss, Clover is powered up and given a plethora of different abilities (the reason for this isn't explicitly stated, but it's likely because they felt their cause was just, more so than they ever had in the rest of the game)LV 1
- [Pacifist] Endures repeated enraged attacks from Ceroba that should have killed them before returning to full HP as the next phase of the boss startsLV 1
- [Pacifist] Can fire energy blasts from their SOUL which are strong enough to overpower Ceroba's own charged blastsLV 1
- [Pacifist] Is able to phase through attacks, including otherwise unavoidable AOE attacksLV 1
- [Pacifist] Clover is able to Hope, allowing them to take an extra hit without damageLV 1
- [Pacifist] Clover is able to Endure, regenerating health from a range of 5HP to 10HPLV 1
- [Pacifist] Clover is able to Remember, granting them a speed buff over the course of that turnLV 1
- [Pacifist] After cracking Ceroba's Kitsune mask, Clover is able to see a memory of her past talking to her dying husbandLV 1
- [Genocide] After hearing that Axis, the penultimate boss, killed a human child, Clover is filled with such rage and a desire for justice that they automatically leveled up and developed the ability to shoot energy blasts from their SOUL. The first blast obliterated the trash can lid Axis was using as a shield and after further leveling up they fired a massive beam that obliterated Axis entirely. Clover also gained an assortment of other abilities at this pointLV 15/19
- [Genocide] Smaller shots can be rapid fired and a brief charge allows Clover to fire the beamLV 19
- [Genocide] It required two small shots to destroy the meteors Zenith Martlet summons and they're completely obliterated by the beamLV 19
- [Genocide] With enough shots Clover destroys Martlet's armor that their gun was completely useless against (based on the fact that the Fight button is locked during the phase of the fight that she's wearing the armor)LV 19
- [Genocide] Clover's beam is strong enough to completely obliterate Asgore as well as his throne and the wall behind himLV 20
- [Genocide] Like in the Pacifist ending, Clover is able to dash which smashes blocks that their shots and beams couldn't break and allows them to phase through otherwise unavoidable attacks without damageLV 19
- [Genocide] After destroying Martlet's armor, Clover is able to see into mind and witness her backstoryLV 19
- [Genocide] Clover is able to Endure, automatically recovering anywhere from 20HP to 25HPLV 19
- [Genocide] Here is the top of UG Apartments before Clover's battle with Zenith Martlet compared to after, with Clover presumably being responsible for at least some of the damageLV 19
- [Genocide] Smaller shots can be rapid fired and a brief charge allows Clover to fire the beamLV 19
- [Genocide] Throughout the game, Clover is able to undo mistakes thanks to the SAVE function. Primarily, this is thanks to Flowey doing so for you, becoming an in-universe stand-in for standard RPG Saving and Loading and ultimately allowing them to revive at the latest SAVE point for standard enemies or directly back into the battle for Boss encounters. However, at the end of the Genocide route Clover levels up enough to steal Flowey's control of the timeline, ultimately taking the SAVE ability for themselves which they can use to SAVE and LOAD in the middle of battleLV 20
Gear
Note that while Clover can store excess items in boxes they find around the Underground, they can only carry eight items in their inventory not including their current Weapon, Ammo, Armor, and Accessory. Later in the game they discovered the Dimensional Satchel which allows them to access the boxes from anywhere, but they still only have eight slots to bring into an encounter.Weapons
Guns
- Toy Gun - Clover's default weapon is a simple toy gun
- Wild Revolver - A gift from Starlo, purchased from Blackjack's shop
- While the Toy Gun only fires once per turn, the Wild Revolver is fired six times in a row
- While the Wild Revolver looks and functions like a typical revolver, note that Blackjack does say that he made it so as not to be lethal (though the following line about how anything could be lethal if used enough times consecutively makes this seem more like a meta joke about RPG fight mechanics, even going so far as to mention the ballet shoes that are a weapon in the original Undertale)
Note that cutscenes will always play out the same regardless of whether the Toy Gun or Wild Revolver is being used, so while the Revolver is obviously the more powerful of the two the Toy Gun is much more powerful than it's name would suggest and the following feats apply to both weapons.
- Damages machinery
- Critically damages Axis who could withstand his own energy balls being reflected back at him with no physical damage, merely draining his power instead
- Destroys robots with repeated shots
- Executes undamaged monsters in cutscenes/scripted fights in both the Pacifist and Genocide routes
- [Anti-Feat] Was unable to destroy the trash can lid Axis was using as a shield
Rather amusingly, Clover will jam whatever odd materials they can find into their weapon which somehow works perfectlyT
- Rubber Ammo (AT 0) - The default ammo that Clover started their journey with
- Pebble Ammo (AT 3) - Small rocks that Clover discovered in the Dark Ruins
- Ice Ammo (AT 6) - Discovered near the start of Snowdin, these fragments of a shattered ice crystal don't melt and cool Clover's gun upon being loaded
- Coffee Ammo (AT 4 + 1 SPEED after perfect attack) - Found in a barrel near the exit of Snowdin
- Toy Gun Wild Revolver
- Compare the increased speed to Clover's normal battle speed
- Flint Ammo (AT 9) - Salvaged from an ore deposit outside the East Mines
- Toy Gun Wild Revolver
- Note that the shots make small explosions upon impact
- Toy Gun Wild Revolver
- Glass Ammo (AT 5 + 2HP) - Taken from a shattered glass in the Dunes Gift Shop
- Silver Ammo (AT 3 + Bonus Damage for Perfect Shot) - Purchased from Blackjack's shop
- Nails (AT 10) - Found in a box in the Steamworks greenhouse
- [Neutral/Genocide] Friendliness Pellets (AT 11) - A gift from Flowey, acquired outside of the Steamworks
- Warn Hat - The default armor that Clover started their journey with
- [Pacifist/Neutral] Nice Hat - Visually identical to Clover's old one and offers no extra defense or benefits, but it is a pretty nice hat
- Patch (Armor DF 0) - The default accessory that Clover started their journey with
- Feather (Armor DF 2) - A stray feather located in the tunnels near Dalv's house
- Honeydew Pin (Armor DF 4) - Purchased at the Honeydew Resort shop
- Band Merch Pin (Armor DF 5) - A pin given to Clover by a band's super fan in Honeydew Resort
- Steel Buckle (Armor DF 7) - Found inside a cubby in the East Mines
- Safety Jacket (Armor DF 6) - Found on a hook in the East Mines
- Fancy Holster (Armor DF 8) - Purchased from Blackjack's shop
- Safety Goggles (Armor DF 9) - Acquired from Vendy in the Steamworks
- Silver Scarf (Armor DF 6 and +2HP Every Turn) - Given to Clover by Slurpy in Snowdin after freeing his tongue from a frozen pole
- Delta Run Patch (Armor DF 10) - Purchased from Bits and Bites at UG Apartments
- Golden Bandana (Armor DF 12) - Found in a chest in the Steamworks
Note that at their weakest (LV 1), Clover has 20HP and at their strongest (LV20), Clover has 100HP
Single Use
- Lemonade - 7HP
- Lukewarm Pop - 8HP
- Candy Corn - 9HP
- Packing Peanuts - 10HP
- Sea Tea - 10HP (+ Temporary Speed Increase)
- Monster Candy - 10HP
- Corn Dog - 12HP
- Cold Pop - 12 HP
- Sponge Cake - 14HP
- Hot Pop -14 HP
- Trail Mix - 14HP
- Corn Chowder - 15HP
- Moss Salad - 17HP
- Ice Tea - 20HP
- Green Tea - 21HP
- Flower Stew - 20HP
- Hot Dog - 20HP
- Fruitcake -25HP
- [Pacifist/Genocide] Adult Soda - ???HP
- [Genocide] Oasis Latte - 25HP
- [Neutral] Cake - 30HP
- [Genocide] Cinnamon Cookie - 35HP
- Golden Pear - Invulnerability for two hits
- Golden Coffee - Increases Clover's speed for 3 turns
- Here is the G. Coffee in use (also note that this buff carries on to future encounters if the three turns aren't used)
- Golden Cactus - 15HP for 3 turns (Lose 5HP after first bite)
Unlimited Supply
- Spider Donut - 12HP
- Popato Chisps - 13HP
- Honeydew Coffee - 14HP
- Honeydew Pancake - 16HP
- Ice Water - 15HP
- Monster Candy+ - 15HP
- Root Beer - 18HP
- G.B. Bear - 20HP
- Dihydrogen Monoxide - 20HP
- Feisty Slider - 30HP
- Gravity Granola - 30HP
- Cinnamon Butterscotch Strudel - 30HP
- Floral Cupcake - 50HP
- Gun Powder - ???HP
- Completely maxes out Clover's HP
- Note that Clover can only acquire one of these on the Genocide Route
Misc
- Solves Martlet's extremely complicated lava rock puzzle
- Beats the infamous Shuffler gang at their own game
- Uses flint and a steel buckle to burn a thick stick that was jamming an elevator
- Keeps up with El Bailador during their dance off, who was out of breath after the fact
- [Pacifist/Neutral] The Doc in the Wild East can overcharge Clover's health with a one time extra 15HP (nearly double their health at LV 1)
- Stealthily creeps around the Steamworks factory, figuring out a passcode while staying out of Axis' view
- Clover has incredible willpower, since even after Flowey kills them and attempts to absorb their SOUL, Clover is able to resist him for the entirety of the ensuing boss fight which ends when Flowey realizes they'd be fighting for all eternity if they continued and opts to simply reset the timeline instead
- Breaks it down
Somebody calls for help
You answer the call
2024.05.16 23:51 mr_boizoff Truthear x Crinacle ZERO: RED Earphones Review
 | A job change and all sorts of other adventures made me take some time off from the reviews. But, as the saying is, "Don't count on it!" — there will be a lot of them in the short run, and they will be interesting, well balanced and spot on! submitted by mr_boizoff to headphones [link] [comments] In short, let's talk today about the in-ear wired earphones Truthear x Crinacle ZERO: RED (or just RED later on), which I purchased for about $55 you know where. https://preview.redd.it/9ywolwakyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57da9791a73200cc6d3c99ce8a3c061657ae7bb8 By the way, my old camera broke down, so I bought a new one, that's why the pictures will be even more unbelievably brilliant now. Come on and get a look, all the pictures are clickable, as always. Truthear in a nutshellTruthear, a Chinese company, has just turned 2 years old, but they have already released 5 models of earphones and one portable DAC. The company was allegedly founded by one or more Moondrop people. With all the trimmings of modern Chinese fashion, Truthear has a mascot, which is an anime girl named Shiroi, weighing 45 kg, 170 cm tall and... I have no idea why I say all this.Their partner in the field of 3D printing technology is HeyGears, whose equipment or capacities, I believe, Truthear uses to produce its devices (at least, earphones). What's includedThe proud owner of this top-quality cardboard box will find in it as follows:https://preview.redd.it/ea3yvoxpyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd5ea91ac6fdb1ec11c76dd3f8c77c81b7b7b7e9 1. the earphones themselves; 2. a cable with a 3.5 TRS connector; 3. an adapter with an additional load of 10 Ohms (I'll tell you why we need it later); 4. a set of 7 pairs of eartips; 5. a fair-to-middling cover made of faux leather; 6. a pile of papers with the image of Shiroi. The box, I will repeat myself, is perfectly made, I've never seen anything like this. I'm totally cool with the set, it's a good one. Technological features, build qualityRED use a less common structure 'a larger dynamic driver + a second smaller dynamic driver'. The first one is responsible for the subbass and bass up to 200 Hz and has a diameter of 10 mm, and the second one plays the rest of the range and has a diameter of 7.5 mm.The manufacturer talks about the 'CCAW voice coil', that is, about the fact that the driver coil is made of copper-plated aluminum wire. Usually, when it applies to headphones, this is made to reduce the weight of the driver's mobile system. This technology is not new: for example, it is also used in Moondrop Aria Snow. Besides, 'DLP', or 'Digital light processing', 3D printing technology is mentioned. This is a three-dimensional printing process, characterized by high accuracy and the ability to correctly reproduce extremely small details. And the last but not the least, the earphones are optimized for use at high volume (over 94 dB) and configured in accordance with the 'IEF Neutral 2023' curve by Corin Ako (better known as Crinacle), but with some adjustments in the bass and subbass sections, giving the sound of RED more weight and physicality. So, RED are earphones printed on an industrial 3D printer, based on a 2-driver scheme. And Crinacle, a well-known reviewer and owner of the largest IEM measurement database, is responsible for tuning RED. The earphones have a simple but distinctive design. The enclosures are completely glossy and slightly transparent on the inside. On the outside, there are mildly glaring red inserts under a coat of varnish. https://preview.redd.it/5og1uxwsyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0403d22e9fcb489cf8da789149869145fcf8349 You can discern bass speakers inside at a definite angle. https://preview.redd.it/9v2r688uyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=846183aa032e50b66ae4344c5af8fe6109e1cc26 The grids of the sound ducts are neat, inserted smoothly. https://preview.redd.it/6b569ycvyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a2a9a4c28e277808efd6e80c2b767457ee7e640 There is one compensation hole per each earphone, located in close proximity to a 2-pin connector. L and R are marked in bright golden letters. Small edgings for fixing the eartips were made, too. Overall, they are quite good and even stylish. The only issue is microscratching that affects the enclosure right off the bat. But it's not really perceptible to the eye. On top of that, the earphones act as a magnet to fingerprints. The cable is just decent. It doesn't get too tangled, and the earholders are made at the right angle. The metal splitter is solid black, with the company logo printed on it. https://preview.redd.it/c7331knwyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d66836329928887b3fc396b7bb6596bf486eae20 The very same cable comes with Truthear HEXA and Zero earphones. The case is made decently, too, but it does not have any internal compartments or partitions. I already wrote about how an adequate case should be designed 5 years ago – no one has released anything alike yet. https://preview.redd.it/3rbvma2zyu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc21b72be8af06e6cd816a5903135b0e1255c46a ErgonomicsThe geometry of the RED enclosures turned out to be perfectly compatible with my ears. They don’t have any strange concavities, bulges, or sharp edges, the sound ducts are positioned at a natural angle, the dimensions of the enclosures are... ordinary, only a little thick. Just put them in and listen to music. And they don't have much weight at all.I'll assume that the sound ducts may turn out to be uncomfortably large for owners of small ears, because, let's be honest, these are not sound ducts, they are simply muzzles. Probably, when you get a first taste of these earphones, you will want to change your favorite eartips for the same, but smaller ones. The flipside is the noise insulation — RED's one is above average because the earphones fit in tightly. As for the 10-Ohm adapter, it is not convenient to use it on the go: a few centimeters long, thin rigid structure will stick out of the player audio output, which can easily damage the connector if stressed accidentally. Quick specifications overview
Subjective sound impressionRED sound great: balanced and new at the same time. Imagine that a 'top-up' of a very weighty and fast subbass was added to neutral sound delivery, which never overlaps the bass for a moment, not a iota, let alone the mid-frequency range. What's more, a lot of well-articulated high frequencies were poured in (we're talking about the 3-10 kHz range), but not those that get sandy, filled with sibilants that grate on the ear. They are just heard very well. This is, you know, sort of 'a joy of a HF-phobe who still wants a lot of HF'. With this in mind, the middle range is perceived to the utmost, there are no dips and curbs there, and it is just excellent.The result is a 'smooth', but vibrant and simultaneously informative sound delivery with a stable low-frequency basis, perceived as 'dynamic' and 'detailed'. It is ten kinds of cool, simply brilliant tuning that retains its uniqueness and accuracy far beyond the price category of these earphones. Against the background of the high frequencies delivered in this fashion, RED have a clear and wide virtual sound stage with a clear localization of instruments. It could be better, but in a very, very different price bracket. Why the RED sound might not work for someone:
MeasurementsThe earphones were connected to the RME ADI-2 DAC (IEM output). A measuring rig conforms to the IEC60318-4 standard. The provided eartips were used for measurements. The smoothing is indicated on the graphs. For the info about rigs, graphs and headphones measurements, refer to my article.Frequency response: https://preview.redd.it/eri2gsdezu0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=290174f139b73f2f312471e985e624548293bc9b Keep your eye out for the dashed green line – this is the target curve conventionally named Crinacle Neutral Target 2023. This target curve was proposed by Ako in April 2023 as an alternative to the Harman curve, which is appreciated by far from everyone. The diffuse field curve measured at the Type 5128 rig manufactured by Brüel & Kjær was used as a basis, which was then transferred to the IEC711 rig and 'tilted' clockwise. Why it was done and why this way – I will try to answer these questions in detail in another article on the theoretical part of measurements, but I won't go deep at the moment. What matters is that this is not just a tuning. This is a very specific tuning that has been contemplated on for quite a while. To put this in perspective and see something more common, here is the frequency response of RED and the most current Harman curve: https://preview.redd.it/hi0j1bkuzu0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8fd9854f18d81798fc43e769f6eca16027dbb144 And the situation here is very interesting:
As a reminder, there is a 10-Ohm attenuator included. https://preview.redd.it/gna9eigwzu0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb2c1b9ed0b29c76a2e156215626383ff72c6ca4 When it is connected, the left part of the frequency response graph rises predictably, and the sound becomes more 'common': https://preview.redd.it/n5egvhryzu0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b3d26d901780a7eca911071bd68f838b2ce6b88 The left/right volume balance is not ideal, but acceptable: https://preview.redd.it/iwsc9mh00v0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7fb32e88c180e2183a53c7747464d5ab8382ef5 Nonlinear distortions (these are measurements that should not be 100% trusted because my equipment is far from perfect): https://preview.redd.it/m8ozge320v0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b47fde9e64b1857e633b8adebc82a2f182f5da6 Sound source choiceFor my listening tests, I've connected the earphones to the following devices.
With Hiby R6, the earphones' sound is a little more bassy and solid. I didn't hear any other difference in the sound of RED when using various sources. Eartip choiceI didn't like the eartips provided.https://preview.redd.it/ibe7nc860v0d1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbd68bf567e714ad6809423295c8e0b049af3048 Three left pairs have a clearly smaller diameter compared to one of the sound duct and are just difficult to pull on. The right pairs fit the sound ducts easier, but just like the left ones, they're not really soundproof. As for foam eartips, I just don't like them. In short, I tested RED with TRI Clarion, and the same I recommend to you. The fit is comfortable, deep and tight enough. ComparisonsPLEASE NOTE: everything I say below is only applicable to the earphones from the point of view of comparison to other models, nothing more!RED vs. Truthear HEXAThe Truthear x Crinacle ZERO: RED and Truthear HEXA frequency response graphs compared:https://preview.redd.it/690dctkb0v0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=901456e8b5ae27dfe60ab024099b82a41dd4f49a Subjective difference in sounding
RED vs. Moondrop MayI'd like to note that comparing RED earphones and, in fact, DAP+earphones, which is what May is, is incorrect. Therefore, below we will talk only about the sound. May were connected via their standard DSP cable, and the equalizer was set to 'Standard'.The Truthear x Crinacle ZERO: RED and Moondrop May frequency response graphs compared: https://preview.redd.it/up1nlade0v0d1.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10b015a8032de6440aefc8033fde02c579d72268 Subjective difference in sounding
SummaryThe Chinese economic ramp-up, the development of manufacturing technologies for drivers and enclosures, as well as the development of knowledge about sound in in-ear headphones let us buy a product for $55 in 2024, for which sound they would have charged us good $550 without batting an eyelid and turning a hair 10 years ago, although it seems questionable to me that someone would have been up to such tuning at that time.And I'm quite agreeable to give credit to Crinacle: while I honestly wrote in the KZ Zex Pro review that the earphones were frankly poorly tuned (whether through Crinacle's fault or not, I have no idea), RED is a completely different story. This is just an example of how to proceed from competence in the field of headphone measurements to successful headphone production. I am not inclined to believe, of course, that this was a sole effort of Crinacle — everyone sang in harmony, both him and Truthear as the immediate manufacturer. In general, everything is both clear and complicated about RED at the same time: these are earphones with a universal fit and eminently calibrated tuning, combining neutrality, detail, weight, dynamics and lack of listening fatigue in equal measure. Top it off, there is a 10-Ohm attenuator included for those who 'starve for the lower section'. To buy or not to buy: to buy, at least just for the fun of learning what kind of tuning is this! |
2024.05.16 23:09 Agitated-Solution654 Meepo Battery/ESC issues?
Hi all,
I recently got a Meepo v5 longboard off ebay refurb. I immediately rode it after a rainy day and the battery's sticker turned red. I ordered a new battery, waited for the long shipment from china, and everything was good. That is until I rode to work today without realizing the battery was nearly dead. I slowed down to a whisper while I kick-pushed the rest of the way. Now I have it on the charger. The charger goes from green to red when plugged in. However the esc's battery indicator shows the first light, furthest from the power button, blinking. I'm sure this is some sort of battery code since it would otherwise be showing a single solid light at the bottom next to the button instead of the "top." I've checked the instruction manual, but no luck. Does anyone know what this means?
submitted by Agitated-Solution654 to ElectricSkateboarding [link] [comments]
I recently got a Meepo v5 longboard off ebay refurb. I immediately rode it after a rainy day and the battery's sticker turned red. I ordered a new battery, waited for the long shipment from china, and everything was good. That is until I rode to work today without realizing the battery was nearly dead. I slowed down to a whisper while I kick-pushed the rest of the way. Now I have it on the charger. The charger goes from green to red when plugged in. However the esc's battery indicator shows the first light, furthest from the power button, blinking. I'm sure this is some sort of battery code since it would otherwise be showing a single solid light at the bottom next to the button instead of the "top." I've checked the instruction manual, but no luck. Does anyone know what this means?
2024.05.16 21:57 hoggersbridge Engines of Arachnea: The Bug World (Chapter 20: The God Speaks)
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
submitted by hoggersbridge to HFY [link] [comments]
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
2024.05.16 20:03 Maleficent_Hold_9576 The Nature of Rain Chapter 9
Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for the Nature of Predators universe. Rain World is a video game developed by and property of Videocult. I claim no ownership over either.
Sorry for the wait. Life happened but I just finished my semester, so I’m hoping the next chapter will be finished sooner rather than later. Please let me know if I missed any typos or made any editing mistakes. It’s greatly appreciated.
–
Memory Transcript: Sefril, Farsul First Contact Officer
Date [Standardized Human Time]: July 15, 2136
When I came to, I just laid still. I wasn’t sure what had happened though what was certain was that I was both still alive and still in this dingy box of a room. The predators were you of sight in one of my few blindspots. Jinsul and Dornucl were still alive, with Dornucl understandably agitated and Jinsul seemingly lost in thought.
Stranger yet, no one seemed to be hurt. Maybe Jinsul had gotten them?
Careful, I sat up, only to be greeted by the predators grooming each other. They stared back at me as I froze once again.
“Finally,” Jinsul said, causing me to jump, “I need to ask you something.”
“Oh not this again,” Dornucl said, annoyed. “Ignore him, he’s gone mad.”
“What?” was my only response. The predators seemed to perk up, shifting their reclining posture slightly, ears standing on end.
“You’re supposed to be a scientist, and as such you understand the meaning of overwhelming evidence, yes?” Jinsul said.
“What you’re suggesting is not only the most unscientific conclusion I’ve heard but is also something I’d expect to come out of someone with terminal predator disease,” Dornucl interjected.
I glanced back terrified at the predators, who had not yet chosen to strike and instead decided to lay there. Menacingly.
I pressed myself against the back wall, hoping to fall straight through and away from them.
“Why haven’t you done anything about…them?” I said waving my tail toward the predators. “You’re an exterminator, so…exterminate.”
“With what?” Jinsul shot back and began waving his pistol with one paw while shaking the flamer laying beside with the other, “The handgun that won’t fire with damp ammunition or the flamer that will kill us all in this tight space? Besides, they won’t attack us.”
Dornucl groaned and rubbed his tentacles into his face, while my mouth was agape in shock.
“What do you mean ‘they won’t attack’?! Their bleating predators!”
“Gods, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Jinsul practically screamed in frustration. He took a breath, “OK, sorry, just listen alright? Have you been having weird dreams?”
I stiffened, “I had a dream last night where I almost drowned, but I don’t see what that has to–”
“So, you're telling me you didn’t almost drown?” he said with a knowing look.
I considered it with dawning horror, “But that’s–”
“Impossible,” Dornucl spat out, “And ludicrous.” He turned to me, “As I said, he’s snapped.”
“Then how else do you explain it? My brothers and sisters in arms have confided in me the same: dreams, visions, and inescapable feelings of familiarity in the unfamiliar. Those who heed them escape danger, while those who don’t, don’t.”
As Jinsul spoke, a true zealotry was imbued in his voice.
“I’ll give you this, by all means, these visions should be impossible and unexplainable by science.” Fervor glinted in his eyes. “But when science fails, we must turn to faith to guide us.”
A knot formed in my stomach as I got a sneaking suspicion of where he was going.
“It is my belief and that of my lieutenants and clergy that the gods have sent us these visions.” He announced this without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. “They’ve been guiding us from the moment we’ve entered the orbit. The delusions the crew had in orbit? Also the visions.”
It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s right on one thing. These premonitions are impossible, yet they happen and help us avoid danger. However, there has to be a more rational explanation. There just has to be.
“But why?” I ask. “To what end? If your gods are doing this, to what end? If they are behind everything, the visions and maybe the crash, then why what would justify so much suffering? It just doesn't make any sense.”
“That’s the nature of the divine,” he said somberly, “We can speculate why they would send the visions and make us…feel them and their pain all we want, but we are imperfect creatures, and they are things of perfection. We simply need to trust they are leading us to where we need to go.”
As I considered his words, Dornucl once again spoke up condescendingly.
“I can’t believe you even have to CONTEMPLATE what he’s saying!” He slumped down and motioned towards the predators. “Fine then, what do they have to do with your ‘gods’ plan’? Your duty as an exterminator is baked into your religion? What do you have to say to that?”
Jinsul involuntarily flicked his ears, betraying a rising irritation. “I don’t know, I don’t like it, and I don’t have to. They haven’t given us visions of them attacking us and they’ve decided to disable our best weapons. I don’t need to understand why, all I need to know is that there is a reason they would do so. Besides, they haven’t even tried to attack us. You're a biologist, do you consider that normal?”
“Do you even hear yourself? You sound like a lunatic! I could have you put away for this!”
Unlike his normally cool, level-headed, and almost jolly demeanor, Dornucl’s features were twisted in barely veiled rage. It was terrifying to see him on the verge of doing something awful. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the predators.
The one with the grey fur was still lying down, but the other with the dark green fur had stood up and began stomping around in exaggerated and dramatic steps. All while growling and barking.
It was terrifying. However, it was dulled by the sheer surrealness of the situation. Its entire demeanor was less intentionally threatening and more childish mocking, right down to flailing its limbs in much the same way Dornucl did unconsciously to emphasize his point. It may even be funny if we could understand what they were saying.
Wait a minute…
I paused to think about that absent-minded thought, the gears and pistons finally shaking off the shock and beginning to fire and spin. I listened closely to its vocalizations and began to pick out a form of structure in how they were articulated and gestated. I recalled the predators' behavior and came to a grim conclusion.
“We have a problem,” I said so quietly it could barely be considered a whisper.
“Oh, what tipped you off genius?” Dornucl responded sarcastically.
I stumbled a little at the insult but continued.
“No, I mean a bigger problem,” I took a deep breath, “I think they’re sapient.”
The silence was deafening. Even the predator had stopped its mockery and began exchanging words with the other grey-furred one.
Dornucl glanced at the and sighed. “In hindsight, that does explain their behavior.”
Somehow, despite this revelation, Dornucl regained his composure and his cool demeanor.
“Well, in a certain sense, this simplifies things somewhat. We just have to wait for the translators to complete processing their language, then we can hopefully negotiate with them.”
I gawked at what he just said, while Jinsul broke down into laughter.
“And I’m the crazy one!” Jinsul managed to get out between the cackles, “Do you even hear yourself? Mindless animals are one thing, but this? We have the next the Arxur right before us!”
It was at this point that Plako decided to wake up. One can only imagine what was going through his head when he was greeted by 2 predators, a hysterical exterminator, a biologist trying not to show his frustration, and an anthropologist doing her best to fall through the wall.
He began to stammer. “Wh-what h-happened? Why haven’t they eaten us?”
Dornucl leaned over to him and deadpanned. “The predators are sapient.”
Plako froze after he processed this information.
Jinsul calmed down enough to speak more coherently, “Gods, it all makes sense. They must’ve bombed themselves back in the stone age, and have only recently been reclaiming their former technology.”
I spoke up. “I don’t think that’s the case. Remember, the worm showed us an image of that other creature. These predators likely evolved sometime after the civilization's collapse.”
“Well,” Jinsul said while deep in thought, “Now I can say for certain the gods must be involved.”
“Wh-what?” Plako asked trambling.
“Think about it. This whole situation is so astronomically unlikely, from being in an uncharted system in the middle of nowhere at the same time as a single Arxur ship to surviving the crash, and then meeting these predators, and them not attacking us. The gods’ intend for us to purge these creatures before they can spread and save the remnants of this civilization from–”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was laughing at you, not with you.” A masculine said from the back of the chamber.
“Fine, but I think I’m finally getting somewhere.” A feminine voice responded.
Jinsul went quiet as our gazes fell upon the predators. The translators finished translating. No one knew what to do, so we ended up just staring.
They both stared back with their unnerving abyssal eyes.
“I do wish they’d stop staring though. It’s starting to get weird.” The female said with a tone of unease.
“Let’s bring them to the village and have Oracle translate. It’s probably just a misunderstanding,” the male responded.
“Right, there's nothing we can do about it now.” She plopped beside the male and both began to get ready to sleep the best one could on the hard floor.
I felt something poke into my side, causing me to jump. Dornucl had crawled over to me and began to speak in a whisper. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.
His frustrated look returned. “You're the first contact specialist, go first contact.”
“And their predators!” I said, raising my voice a little louder, “They’ll eat me!”
He groaned and put on a forced calm. “While I disagree with Jinsul’s reasoning, they haven’t eaten us yet and we all want it to stay that way. Now if they decide they do want to eat us, we don’t have any weapons that wouldn’t be suicidal to use. If we want to get out of this alive and well, we’ll have to at least communicate with them.”
Jinsul, who had been effortlessly eavesdropping on us, muttered something under his breath. Dornucl ignored him as he continued, “So please at least try. Even if you fail, we’re likely doomed anyway.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I just wish it wasn’t me who had to do it or that I was the only one remotely qualified to do so. Haf was still unconscious, Plako looked on the brink of tears, Dornucl was just a scientist, and Jinsul wasn’t in the mood.
I gathered my strength and began running through what I could say. After a minute of idle thought, I came up with the only thing I could say. I stood up on quivering legs, took a brave step forward, and called upon the translator’s imparted knowledge.
“J-just so yo-you know, we’re not very tasty…and we’ll give you in-indigestion, so you shouldn’t eat us.” I felt like I was about to throw up.
The predators just stared at me, jaws agape and revealing menacing fangs. Jinsul nearly collapsed in renewed laughter. Dornucl buried his eyes into his tentacles and muttered something to himself.
“What was I supposed to say?” I said to Dornucl.
“ANYTHING BUT THAT!” he shot back.
Before I could snap back in frustration, the grey predator spoke.
“You speak our tongue the entire time? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
We paused, and even Jinsul stopped laughing like a madman. Wordlessly, Dornucl shoved me forward.
“N-no…” I stammered, “We have an implant in our heads that translates languages in real-time while allowing us to speak stored languages. It only just figured out your language just now.”
“So it’s a Mark of Communication?” It asked.
“I don’t–”
“No no,” the green one interrupted, “If they had one, then we wouldn’t be able to understand them.”
The grey one nodded sagely.
I had been expecting an equally long-winded and terrifying conversation about the plausibility of a universal translator and whether or not it was magic, not such a matter-of-fact statement. Before I could shake off the confusion, Dornucl suddenly spoke up, “What’s a mark of communication?"
“Definitely from beyond the wall,” the green one said to the grey.
The grey one nodded and turned back to us.
“A mark is a special gift, given only to one who reaches the top of Pebbles and meets with him, wherein he provides the mark and the knowledge necessary to complete the Pilgrimage. Did you receive your ‘translator’ from another like him?” They both seemed oddly interested in the answer.
“We made them,” I said, then quickly added, “The Federation did. We didn’t build them personally. Just to reiterate, you're not going to eat us, right?”
“Of course not.” The green one said, its voice rife with disgust. “Why do you–”
Jinsul swiftly cut it off.
“Do you think you win us over with such obvious deceptions?” Jinsul stood and sized up the predators, “I know this game. You’re just keeping us around till you get hungry. When I get off this rock, I’ll ensure the god’s wishes are seen through and this entire planet is burned from orbit!”
The predators seemed confused about what was said. The green one stepped too close to me, with nowhere to go, I froze and closed my eyes.
This is it Sefril. You knew this was coming. Don’t resist and maybe it will be–
“Is he okay?” it asked, feigning concern and pointing to a still-ranting Jinsul, “In, y’know…” it said as it tapped its claw against its head.
Jinsul paused momentarily as he took in what was just said, then began fuming again. “I DON’T HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE!” he shrieked.
It took a step back at the outburst. It put its arms out, but instead of lunging toward him, it seemed as though it was trying to shield itself from him, or at the very least keep him at a comfortable distance.
“I didn’t mean to offend,” It said, the translator framing it apologetically to my confusion, “I have a cousin who fell off a pole as a pup and landed on his head. You sorta act like him.”
Jinsul reached a new, as of yet unknown level of hate. He stood there for a second, simmering not unlike a faulty water boiler. Dornucl stepped behind him, raised some robust science thingy above his head, and brought it down on Jinsul’s.
Jinsul flopped to bring like a rag doll beside Haf. Everyone, including the predators, was speechless. Everyone except Dornucl.
“Everyone shut up!”, he said in a practical growl, “This is confusing for all of us, and antagonizing each other isn’t going to make this situation any better. Here’s how this will go: We’ll have a polite conversation, get to know each other, and then figure out what to do.”
He turns to the predators. “My name is Dornucl, and this is Sefril, Plako, Jinsul, and Haf. What’s your’s?”
“My name is Stone,” The grey-furred one responded, “And this is Light.” He said pointing to the green one.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Light said, not skipping a beat, “Where are you from?”
Oh boy, getting right into it.
“So…” I began, but Plako jabbed me.
“You can’t,” he whispered in a panic, “There are predators, if they find out about the federation it’ll be the Arxur all over again.”
I look nervously at Dornucl, who nods reassuringly. I take a deep breath. “I know, but they’ll find out sooner or later. Besides, they may be predators, but they are also primitives. We have a natural advantage, if not physically than technologically and intellectually.”
I returned my attention to ‘Light’ and ‘Stone’, who did their best not to look like they were eavesdropping. “As I was saying…this is a little complicated. You know the stars, right?”
They nodd.
“We are from the stars.”
They blinked at us. They glanced around at us, trying to read our expressions.
“What do you mean?” Stone asked hesitantly.
I took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. “You know how we are currently in this world? There are others like, very, very far away. So far away that if you spent your entire life running as fast as you could you’d never even glimpse it.”
“Then how did you come here?” Light asked, “Did you use magic like the Ancients did?”
I took a mental note to inquire more about these Ancients, then resumed. “No, we, and the Federation as a whole, use large machines called ‘spaceships’. Each is equipped with a device called a subspace drive, which allows for faster-than-light travel. With this, we can travel between stars in days, weeks, or months depending on the distance between the stars.”
“Hey, I’m pretty fast, but I don’t think that going faster than me would make much of a difference if it’s that far away.”
Stone let out a good-natured snicker. “I think she meant light from a lantern or the sun.”
“Ah,” she remarked, ears pressed back in mild embarrassment. She tilted her head in confusion, “But that sounds like magic to me.”
“It’s not, ok? It’s just science.” I say with a sigh. Surprisingly, the word science seemed to translate without much of a fuss and they even nodded along. Something else to look into.
Stone asked the dreaded question: “Then how does it work?”
“I don’t know but I’m sure Plako could give you a basic…” I began to say when Plako started to make wild motions, trying to communicate he had no idea how it worked without drawing attention. He succeeded in trying to tell me that while failing to stay incognito. The predators turn their piercing eyes on him.
“Don’t worry about him,” I say hastily before they can speak, “It’s not his specialty.”
“What’s his specialty?” Stone asked. Plako visibly cringed, but this time Dornucl saved him.
“Let’s save the more technical discussions for tomorrow. It’s late, and we’re all tired.”
Light gave Stone a look before turning back to us. “Agreed. We both had a rough cycle. We even died a few times.”
They settled down while we were left to ponder the absolute bombshell they had dropped on us. Plako seemed checked, while Dornucl and I just shared a look. I recalled what Jinsul had come up with and felt a pit form in my stomach.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked dumbfounded.
Stone looked up from where she was cuddling up next to Light. “What do you mean? Was it something I said?”
“Yes, it was something you said,” I said while trying not to hyperventilate, “You said you died. What do you mean by that?”
Both predators looked confused. “You know, the Cycle. Wake up, Die, wake up. Don’t you have the Cycle where you’re from?”
“...no…” I say in an empty voice. “By any chance, you wouldn’t happen to remember these deaths as dreams?”
The predators gave me a look of confusion, before Light nodded. I stared for an eternity, and this time the predators were the ones to give us uncomfortable looks. They whispered between themselves, occasionally shooting glances back towards us though taking no other action.
Unfortunately, our solace from their gazes didn’t last, as Stone turned back to us. “I can see that there are certainly…things that need to be sorted out between us, but I think Door-Knuckle had the right idea.”
I nodded, barely registering what he was saying. The others muttered in half-hearted agreement. Satisfied, the predators continued to snuggle up beside each other. Within moments, they were fast asleep.
We stayed quiet for a long while. Plako crawled closer to Dornucl and me. “They’re lying, right? I mean, they have to be. It’s what predators do.”
I couldn’t muster myself to answer him. Dornucl seemed flustered.
“Say something…please…” Plako pleaded, raising his voice above the whisper he had it at before. Thankfully the predators didn’t wake. We just sat there, letting it all sink in.
“It’s…let’s…” Dornucl started to say, before settling on “Damn it.”
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submitted by Maleficent_Hold_9576 to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]
Sorry for the wait. Life happened but I just finished my semester, so I’m hoping the next chapter will be finished sooner rather than later. Please let me know if I missed any typos or made any editing mistakes. It’s greatly appreciated.
–
Memory Transcript: Sefril, Farsul First Contact Officer
Date [Standardized Human Time]: July 15, 2136
When I came to, I just laid still. I wasn’t sure what had happened though what was certain was that I was both still alive and still in this dingy box of a room. The predators were you of sight in one of my few blindspots. Jinsul and Dornucl were still alive, with Dornucl understandably agitated and Jinsul seemingly lost in thought.
Stranger yet, no one seemed to be hurt. Maybe Jinsul had gotten them?
Careful, I sat up, only to be greeted by the predators grooming each other. They stared back at me as I froze once again.
“Finally,” Jinsul said, causing me to jump, “I need to ask you something.”
“Oh not this again,” Dornucl said, annoyed. “Ignore him, he’s gone mad.”
“What?” was my only response. The predators seemed to perk up, shifting their reclining posture slightly, ears standing on end.
“You’re supposed to be a scientist, and as such you understand the meaning of overwhelming evidence, yes?” Jinsul said.
“What you’re suggesting is not only the most unscientific conclusion I’ve heard but is also something I’d expect to come out of someone with terminal predator disease,” Dornucl interjected.
I glanced back terrified at the predators, who had not yet chosen to strike and instead decided to lay there. Menacingly.
I pressed myself against the back wall, hoping to fall straight through and away from them.
“Why haven’t you done anything about…them?” I said waving my tail toward the predators. “You’re an exterminator, so…exterminate.”
“With what?” Jinsul shot back and began waving his pistol with one paw while shaking the flamer laying beside with the other, “The handgun that won’t fire with damp ammunition or the flamer that will kill us all in this tight space? Besides, they won’t attack us.”
Dornucl groaned and rubbed his tentacles into his face, while my mouth was agape in shock.
“What do you mean ‘they won’t attack’?! Their bleating predators!”
“Gods, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Jinsul practically screamed in frustration. He took a breath, “OK, sorry, just listen alright? Have you been having weird dreams?”
I stiffened, “I had a dream last night where I almost drowned, but I don’t see what that has to–”
“So, you're telling me you didn’t almost drown?” he said with a knowing look.
I considered it with dawning horror, “But that’s–”
“Impossible,” Dornucl spat out, “And ludicrous.” He turned to me, “As I said, he’s snapped.”
“Then how else do you explain it? My brothers and sisters in arms have confided in me the same: dreams, visions, and inescapable feelings of familiarity in the unfamiliar. Those who heed them escape danger, while those who don’t, don’t.”
As Jinsul spoke, a true zealotry was imbued in his voice.
“I’ll give you this, by all means, these visions should be impossible and unexplainable by science.” Fervor glinted in his eyes. “But when science fails, we must turn to faith to guide us.”
A knot formed in my stomach as I got a sneaking suspicion of where he was going.
“It is my belief and that of my lieutenants and clergy that the gods have sent us these visions.” He announced this without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. “They’ve been guiding us from the moment we’ve entered the orbit. The delusions the crew had in orbit? Also the visions.”
It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s right on one thing. These premonitions are impossible, yet they happen and help us avoid danger. However, there has to be a more rational explanation. There just has to be.
“But why?” I ask. “To what end? If your gods are doing this, to what end? If they are behind everything, the visions and maybe the crash, then why what would justify so much suffering? It just doesn't make any sense.”
“That’s the nature of the divine,” he said somberly, “We can speculate why they would send the visions and make us…feel them and their pain all we want, but we are imperfect creatures, and they are things of perfection. We simply need to trust they are leading us to where we need to go.”
As I considered his words, Dornucl once again spoke up condescendingly.
“I can’t believe you even have to CONTEMPLATE what he’s saying!” He slumped down and motioned towards the predators. “Fine then, what do they have to do with your ‘gods’ plan’? Your duty as an exterminator is baked into your religion? What do you have to say to that?”
Jinsul involuntarily flicked his ears, betraying a rising irritation. “I don’t know, I don’t like it, and I don’t have to. They haven’t given us visions of them attacking us and they’ve decided to disable our best weapons. I don’t need to understand why, all I need to know is that there is a reason they would do so. Besides, they haven’t even tried to attack us. You're a biologist, do you consider that normal?”
“Do you even hear yourself? You sound like a lunatic! I could have you put away for this!”
Unlike his normally cool, level-headed, and almost jolly demeanor, Dornucl’s features were twisted in barely veiled rage. It was terrifying to see him on the verge of doing something awful. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the predators.
The one with the grey fur was still lying down, but the other with the dark green fur had stood up and began stomping around in exaggerated and dramatic steps. All while growling and barking.
It was terrifying. However, it was dulled by the sheer surrealness of the situation. Its entire demeanor was less intentionally threatening and more childish mocking, right down to flailing its limbs in much the same way Dornucl did unconsciously to emphasize his point. It may even be funny if we could understand what they were saying.
Wait a minute…
I paused to think about that absent-minded thought, the gears and pistons finally shaking off the shock and beginning to fire and spin. I listened closely to its vocalizations and began to pick out a form of structure in how they were articulated and gestated. I recalled the predators' behavior and came to a grim conclusion.
“We have a problem,” I said so quietly it could barely be considered a whisper.
“Oh, what tipped you off genius?” Dornucl responded sarcastically.
I stumbled a little at the insult but continued.
“No, I mean a bigger problem,” I took a deep breath, “I think they’re sapient.”
The silence was deafening. Even the predator had stopped its mockery and began exchanging words with the other grey-furred one.
Dornucl glanced at the and sighed. “In hindsight, that does explain their behavior.”
Somehow, despite this revelation, Dornucl regained his composure and his cool demeanor.
“Well, in a certain sense, this simplifies things somewhat. We just have to wait for the translators to complete processing their language, then we can hopefully negotiate with them.”
I gawked at what he just said, while Jinsul broke down into laughter.
“And I’m the crazy one!” Jinsul managed to get out between the cackles, “Do you even hear yourself? Mindless animals are one thing, but this? We have the next the Arxur right before us!”
It was at this point that Plako decided to wake up. One can only imagine what was going through his head when he was greeted by 2 predators, a hysterical exterminator, a biologist trying not to show his frustration, and an anthropologist doing her best to fall through the wall.
He began to stammer. “Wh-what h-happened? Why haven’t they eaten us?”
Dornucl leaned over to him and deadpanned. “The predators are sapient.”
Plako froze after he processed this information.
Jinsul calmed down enough to speak more coherently, “Gods, it all makes sense. They must’ve bombed themselves back in the stone age, and have only recently been reclaiming their former technology.”
I spoke up. “I don’t think that’s the case. Remember, the worm showed us an image of that other creature. These predators likely evolved sometime after the civilization's collapse.”
“Well,” Jinsul said while deep in thought, “Now I can say for certain the gods must be involved.”
“Wh-what?” Plako asked trambling.
“Think about it. This whole situation is so astronomically unlikely, from being in an uncharted system in the middle of nowhere at the same time as a single Arxur ship to surviving the crash, and then meeting these predators, and them not attacking us. The gods’ intend for us to purge these creatures before they can spread and save the remnants of this civilization from–”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was laughing at you, not with you.” A masculine said from the back of the chamber.
“Fine, but I think I’m finally getting somewhere.” A feminine voice responded.
Jinsul went quiet as our gazes fell upon the predators. The translators finished translating. No one knew what to do, so we ended up just staring.
They both stared back with their unnerving abyssal eyes.
“I do wish they’d stop staring though. It’s starting to get weird.” The female said with a tone of unease.
“Let’s bring them to the village and have Oracle translate. It’s probably just a misunderstanding,” the male responded.
“Right, there's nothing we can do about it now.” She plopped beside the male and both began to get ready to sleep the best one could on the hard floor.
I felt something poke into my side, causing me to jump. Dornucl had crawled over to me and began to speak in a whisper. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.
His frustrated look returned. “You're the first contact specialist, go first contact.”
“And their predators!” I said, raising my voice a little louder, “They’ll eat me!”
He groaned and put on a forced calm. “While I disagree with Jinsul’s reasoning, they haven’t eaten us yet and we all want it to stay that way. Now if they decide they do want to eat us, we don’t have any weapons that wouldn’t be suicidal to use. If we want to get out of this alive and well, we’ll have to at least communicate with them.”
Jinsul, who had been effortlessly eavesdropping on us, muttered something under his breath. Dornucl ignored him as he continued, “So please at least try. Even if you fail, we’re likely doomed anyway.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I just wish it wasn’t me who had to do it or that I was the only one remotely qualified to do so. Haf was still unconscious, Plako looked on the brink of tears, Dornucl was just a scientist, and Jinsul wasn’t in the mood.
I gathered my strength and began running through what I could say. After a minute of idle thought, I came up with the only thing I could say. I stood up on quivering legs, took a brave step forward, and called upon the translator’s imparted knowledge.
“J-just so yo-you know, we’re not very tasty…and we’ll give you in-indigestion, so you shouldn’t eat us.” I felt like I was about to throw up.
The predators just stared at me, jaws agape and revealing menacing fangs. Jinsul nearly collapsed in renewed laughter. Dornucl buried his eyes into his tentacles and muttered something to himself.
“What was I supposed to say?” I said to Dornucl.
“ANYTHING BUT THAT!” he shot back.
Before I could snap back in frustration, the grey predator spoke.
“You speak our tongue the entire time? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
We paused, and even Jinsul stopped laughing like a madman. Wordlessly, Dornucl shoved me forward.
“N-no…” I stammered, “We have an implant in our heads that translates languages in real-time while allowing us to speak stored languages. It only just figured out your language just now.”
“So it’s a Mark of Communication?” It asked.
“I don’t–”
“No no,” the green one interrupted, “If they had one, then we wouldn’t be able to understand them.”
The grey one nodded sagely.
I had been expecting an equally long-winded and terrifying conversation about the plausibility of a universal translator and whether or not it was magic, not such a matter-of-fact statement. Before I could shake off the confusion, Dornucl suddenly spoke up, “What’s a mark of communication?"
“Definitely from beyond the wall,” the green one said to the grey.
The grey one nodded and turned back to us.
“A mark is a special gift, given only to one who reaches the top of Pebbles and meets with him, wherein he provides the mark and the knowledge necessary to complete the Pilgrimage. Did you receive your ‘translator’ from another like him?” They both seemed oddly interested in the answer.
“We made them,” I said, then quickly added, “The Federation did. We didn’t build them personally. Just to reiterate, you're not going to eat us, right?”
“Of course not.” The green one said, its voice rife with disgust. “Why do you–”
Jinsul swiftly cut it off.
“Do you think you win us over with such obvious deceptions?” Jinsul stood and sized up the predators, “I know this game. You’re just keeping us around till you get hungry. When I get off this rock, I’ll ensure the god’s wishes are seen through and this entire planet is burned from orbit!”
The predators seemed confused about what was said. The green one stepped too close to me, with nowhere to go, I froze and closed my eyes.
This is it Sefril. You knew this was coming. Don’t resist and maybe it will be–
“Is he okay?” it asked, feigning concern and pointing to a still-ranting Jinsul, “In, y’know…” it said as it tapped its claw against its head.
Jinsul paused momentarily as he took in what was just said, then began fuming again. “I DON’T HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE!” he shrieked.
It took a step back at the outburst. It put its arms out, but instead of lunging toward him, it seemed as though it was trying to shield itself from him, or at the very least keep him at a comfortable distance.
“I didn’t mean to offend,” It said, the translator framing it apologetically to my confusion, “I have a cousin who fell off a pole as a pup and landed on his head. You sorta act like him.”
Jinsul reached a new, as of yet unknown level of hate. He stood there for a second, simmering not unlike a faulty water boiler. Dornucl stepped behind him, raised some robust science thingy above his head, and brought it down on Jinsul’s.
Jinsul flopped to bring like a rag doll beside Haf. Everyone, including the predators, was speechless. Everyone except Dornucl.
“Everyone shut up!”, he said in a practical growl, “This is confusing for all of us, and antagonizing each other isn’t going to make this situation any better. Here’s how this will go: We’ll have a polite conversation, get to know each other, and then figure out what to do.”
He turns to the predators. “My name is Dornucl, and this is Sefril, Plako, Jinsul, and Haf. What’s your’s?”
“My name is Stone,” The grey-furred one responded, “And this is Light.” He said pointing to the green one.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Light said, not skipping a beat, “Where are you from?”
Oh boy, getting right into it.
“So…” I began, but Plako jabbed me.
“You can’t,” he whispered in a panic, “There are predators, if they find out about the federation it’ll be the Arxur all over again.”
I look nervously at Dornucl, who nods reassuringly. I take a deep breath. “I know, but they’ll find out sooner or later. Besides, they may be predators, but they are also primitives. We have a natural advantage, if not physically than technologically and intellectually.”
I returned my attention to ‘Light’ and ‘Stone’, who did their best not to look like they were eavesdropping. “As I was saying…this is a little complicated. You know the stars, right?”
They nodd.
“We are from the stars.”
They blinked at us. They glanced around at us, trying to read our expressions.
“What do you mean?” Stone asked hesitantly.
I took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. “You know how we are currently in this world? There are others like, very, very far away. So far away that if you spent your entire life running as fast as you could you’d never even glimpse it.”
“Then how did you come here?” Light asked, “Did you use magic like the Ancients did?”
I took a mental note to inquire more about these Ancients, then resumed. “No, we, and the Federation as a whole, use large machines called ‘spaceships’. Each is equipped with a device called a subspace drive, which allows for faster-than-light travel. With this, we can travel between stars in days, weeks, or months depending on the distance between the stars.”
“Hey, I’m pretty fast, but I don’t think that going faster than me would make much of a difference if it’s that far away.”
Stone let out a good-natured snicker. “I think she meant light from a lantern or the sun.”
“Ah,” she remarked, ears pressed back in mild embarrassment. She tilted her head in confusion, “But that sounds like magic to me.”
“It’s not, ok? It’s just science.” I say with a sigh. Surprisingly, the word science seemed to translate without much of a fuss and they even nodded along. Something else to look into.
Stone asked the dreaded question: “Then how does it work?”
“I don’t know but I’m sure Plako could give you a basic…” I began to say when Plako started to make wild motions, trying to communicate he had no idea how it worked without drawing attention. He succeeded in trying to tell me that while failing to stay incognito. The predators turn their piercing eyes on him.
“Don’t worry about him,” I say hastily before they can speak, “It’s not his specialty.”
“What’s his specialty?” Stone asked. Plako visibly cringed, but this time Dornucl saved him.
“Let’s save the more technical discussions for tomorrow. It’s late, and we’re all tired.”
Light gave Stone a look before turning back to us. “Agreed. We both had a rough cycle. We even died a few times.”
They settled down while we were left to ponder the absolute bombshell they had dropped on us. Plako seemed checked, while Dornucl and I just shared a look. I recalled what Jinsul had come up with and felt a pit form in my stomach.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked dumbfounded.
Stone looked up from where she was cuddling up next to Light. “What do you mean? Was it something I said?”
“Yes, it was something you said,” I said while trying not to hyperventilate, “You said you died. What do you mean by that?”
Both predators looked confused. “You know, the Cycle. Wake up, Die, wake up. Don’t you have the Cycle where you’re from?”
“...no…” I say in an empty voice. “By any chance, you wouldn’t happen to remember these deaths as dreams?”
The predators gave me a look of confusion, before Light nodded. I stared for an eternity, and this time the predators were the ones to give us uncomfortable looks. They whispered between themselves, occasionally shooting glances back towards us though taking no other action.
Unfortunately, our solace from their gazes didn’t last, as Stone turned back to us. “I can see that there are certainly…things that need to be sorted out between us, but I think Door-Knuckle had the right idea.”
I nodded, barely registering what he was saying. The others muttered in half-hearted agreement. Satisfied, the predators continued to snuggle up beside each other. Within moments, they were fast asleep.
We stayed quiet for a long while. Plako crawled closer to Dornucl and me. “They’re lying, right? I mean, they have to be. It’s what predators do.”
I couldn’t muster myself to answer him. Dornucl seemed flustered.
“Say something…please…” Plako pleaded, raising his voice above the whisper he had it at before. Thankfully the predators didn’t wake. We just sat there, letting it all sink in.
“It’s…let’s…” Dornucl started to say, before settling on “Damn it.”
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2024.05.16 19:47 CaterineVauban Whether or not the mask ban is ultimately codified, we're leaving NC but unsure about logisitcs.
Spouse and I are in NC. I am immunocompromised. Despite being in the South, I haven't had too much friction with medical providers around my COVID precautions, although it's at the point where no one will wear a mask with me anymore. It's been tough at times to not be able to be in the world anymore, but given our circumstances and knowing just how hellish things can get/are for the COVID conscious, we're grateful we've been able to keep safe so far.
My aging parents (mid-70s) live only 5 minutes away but I have not spent time with them except for occasional masked visits outside at their place. I got them to be extremely careful for the first 3 years, but they are now back to taking no precautions and living life as before.
We planned on relocating to a blue state with high quality of life indicators (access/cost/quality of healthcare, strong (by American standards I guess) social safety nets, less vulnerable to climate change, progressive policies (enshrined abortion rights, LQBTQIA+, empirical vs. religiously-informed decision-making), green spaces, etc.) after my parents' demise. I'm an only child and had long-decided to be around to help coordinate their needs. The pandemic threw a wrench in that, though, because a lot of elder care involves being in person. We're not at that stage yet, but are starting to get there.
Aaaand then the mask ban. I feel rage and panic. Even if it doesn't pass the House or it does but the Gov vetos it, we cannot live here anymore. We had our sights set on MN or MA (next 5-10 years), but the former appears to be facing increasing air quality issues due to Canadian wildfires (3rd year in a row) and the latter is so expensive and apparently tough to access care unless you're in Boston (which is not in a million years financially feasible).
We know there's no utopia... so then what? How did those of you who escaped especially fascist pockets of the country decide where to go? Did you leave behind your family? Aging parents? Were there tradeoffs you didn't anticipate in your new state/community? I'm stuck in a feedback loop of research and indecision and would love to hear what similarly cautious folks have done. Thanks!
submitted by CaterineVauban to ZeroCovidCommunity [link] [comments]
My aging parents (mid-70s) live only 5 minutes away but I have not spent time with them except for occasional masked visits outside at their place. I got them to be extremely careful for the first 3 years, but they are now back to taking no precautions and living life as before.
We planned on relocating to a blue state with high quality of life indicators (access/cost/quality of healthcare, strong (by American standards I guess) social safety nets, less vulnerable to climate change, progressive policies (enshrined abortion rights, LQBTQIA+, empirical vs. religiously-informed decision-making), green spaces, etc.) after my parents' demise. I'm an only child and had long-decided to be around to help coordinate their needs. The pandemic threw a wrench in that, though, because a lot of elder care involves being in person. We're not at that stage yet, but are starting to get there.
Aaaand then the mask ban. I feel rage and panic. Even if it doesn't pass the House or it does but the Gov vetos it, we cannot live here anymore. We had our sights set on MN or MA (next 5-10 years), but the former appears to be facing increasing air quality issues due to Canadian wildfires (3rd year in a row) and the latter is so expensive and apparently tough to access care unless you're in Boston (which is not in a million years financially feasible).
We know there's no utopia... so then what? How did those of you who escaped especially fascist pockets of the country decide where to go? Did you leave behind your family? Aging parents? Were there tradeoffs you didn't anticipate in your new state/community? I'm stuck in a feedback loop of research and indecision and would love to hear what similarly cautious folks have done. Thanks!
2024.05.16 19:19 Odd-Studio-9861 Cannot switch framebuffers
I am trying to implement multi pass rendering using the OpenTK bindings for OpenGL. My approach is to render to a intermediate framebuffer and then using use that result to render the second pass. So far I have been following this tutorial on framebuffers. I have run into some issues while following the tutorial:
This is my code to render to the screen with one shader, which works fine:
submitted by Odd-Studio-9861 to opengl [link] [comments]
This is my code to render to the screen with one shader, which works fine:
GL.ClearColor(0.2f, 0.3f, 0.3f, 1.0f); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); _texture.Use(TextureUnit.Texture0); _shader1.Use(); GL.BindVertexArray(_vertexArrayObject); GL.DrawElements(PrimitiveType.Triangles, _indices.Length, DrawElementsType.UnsignedInt, 0);My approach to implement a second rendering pass following the tutorial:
// Pass 1 GL.BindFramebuffer(FramebufferTarget.Framebuffer, _framebuffer.Handle); GL.ClearColor(0.2f, 0.3f, 0.3f, 1.0f); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); _texture.Use(TextureUnit.Texture0); _shader1.Use(); GL.BindVertexArray(_vertexArrayObject); GL.DrawElements(PrimitiveType.Triangles, _indices.Length, DrawElementsType.UnsignedInt, 0); // Pass 2 GL.BindFramebuffer(FramebufferTarget.Framebuffer, 0); GL.ClearColor(0.2f, 0.3f, 0.3f, 1.0f); GL.Clear(ClearBufferMask.ColorBufferBit); _framebuffer.IntermediateTexture.Use(TextureUnit.Texture0); _shader2.Use(); GL.BindVertexArray(_vertexArrayObject); GL.DrawElements(PrimitiveType.Triangles, _indices.Length, DrawElementsType.UnsignedInt, 0);The above code results in a blackscreen. Testing the everything individually yields the expected results. When I change the FramebufferTarget parameter of the firstGL.BindFramebuffer call to FramebufferTarget.ReadFramebuffer I get the output with ONLY the first shader applied. Anything else results again in a blackscreen. Why does this happen, what is my mistake here? If anything, shouldn't one expect the output in the above scenario be the combination of both shader passes? I am using shaders 'NoRed' and 'NoGreen', which when tested individually do what expected, so I think I am not misinterpreting the output. I don't often write community posts, and this might be a really stupid question, but even so I would really appreciate an answer.
2024.05.16 18:32 nemmoph Husband Wanted.
I’m aware that this is unconventional. Believe me, I’ve tried conventional – it didn’t end well for anyone. I require a certain open mindedness that I’m hoping I might find here, but more importantly, I need my future husband to know the rules. Meet-cutes are well and good on the screen, but they don’t guarantee a partner’s ability to follow basic instructions. That was my mistake the first time.
So, begging your pardon for my bluntness, I’m going to be clear about my requirements. Please read carefully – if you can’t meet them, there’s no point in going any further.
A sanctuary has stood in this spot in one form or another since before the ley lines. During its tenure, it has been flooded, put to the flame, and pounded into dust. Time and again, it has been reimagined and rebuilt. Most of the current building dates back to Victoria’s reign, though the oldest parts were constructed in the 13th century. At the very bottom of the garden, cut into the surrounding hills, there is a cave bearing handprints of red ochre.
There has always been an Edwards at the hotel, though of course we haven’t always gone by that name. You would think a family so tied to one place would do a better job of keeping records, but no one is certain of our origins. Perhaps it was a cosmic bargain, or perhaps mere luck – whether good or bad, I have never been able to decide. Either way, our presence is required. Throughout our spotty past, there’s a story here and there of an Edwards deserting their post, and it always coincides with a particularly brutal period of history.
I inherited the position five years ago. At midnight on my eighteenth birthday, my parents took their already-packed suitcases and left. I don’t blame them for their abandonment; I intend to one day do the same thing to my – or, hopefully, our – child.
They send me postcards and photos from time-to-time, always smiling on sunny beaches. Money isn’t a concern for them. That’s part of whatever mysterious deal our ancestors made – when a caretaker leaves in good-standing, they will never want for anything again. They could travel the world for the rest of their lives, always sleeping in the softest sheets and dining in the finest restaurants, and never find their pockets empty.
Keep this point in mind, for if you can meet my requirements, you will share my good fortune.
And what must we do in return? I can all but hear you scream the question. Why, very little. The presence of an Edwards ensures that the guests can’t stray from the hotel grounds. Most of our guests are live-in residents, though we do get the occasional walk-in. Where they come from, I don’t know, for we are not visible to most people who stumble upon our lonely corner of the world. I’ve come to believe the hotel chooses to reveal itself when its lacking entertainment, or to fill a need.
Jimmy, my first husband, was one such guest.
For the most part, the guests are harmless. They’ll give you a little fright from time-to-time, popping out from a wall or turning your bathwater into blood, but I find it hard to hold it against them. I’ve found twenty-three years here dreary; I can’t imagine how bored I would be after five hundred.
There are a few exceptions you should be aware of:
However, there are some rules so critical for your survival that I feel compelled to list them here:
She doted on him. I think he reminded her of her long-dead son, for she pampered him as if he were one of her own. Each morning, she had breakfast ready for him before I had so much as opened my eyes, and she developed a habit of trailing along after him, complimenting his skill as he oiled rusted hinges or set a crooked picture straight.
At first, Jimmy basked in the attention. But by the end of his second month, he was growing bored of Mrs Jones, me, and the hotel itself. We pride ourselves on our facilities. If you need more activity than a turn around the garden, we have a lovely indoor pool – it freezes over every now and then, but most of the time it’s perfectly usable. Our library is unmatched. Although the room is cramped, it has every book imaginable; you only need to think of a particular title, and it will appear on one of the shelves. And now that I’ve dragged us kicking and screaming into the 21st century, we have a wide array of streaming services.
It wasn’t enough for Jimmy. He wanted to go out – eat in a restaurant, watch a film in the cinema, see any faces other than the ones he was surrounded by every day. He began having a drink each evening. One drink turned into several, and after a few weeks, the bar became his permanent residence between dusk and midnight.
He wasn’t the only one getting bored. I had been thrilled when he first arrived; ecstatic when he agreed to stay. How marvellous to feel real flesh beneath my fingers after five years of only the dead for company. What a relief to have some assistance in the many tasks required to keep the hotel running as it should.
The more he drank, the less inclined he was to help – or even spend time in my company. He no longer visited my bed, choosing a room for himself on the opposite end of the floor. When our paths did cross, at best he would ignore me. At worst, he would nitpick or outright rail against me, blaming me for his captivity.
Still, I made an effort to be present whenever he frequented the bar. As lovely as Mrs Jones can be, she does have a tendency to nag. Before and after her death, she was close to teetotal, only consenting to take a single sherry at Christmas, and drinking outside of special occasions is something of a bugbear of hers.
“Think of your health, dear,” she would tell Jimmy brusquely. “You’ll miss it when it’s gone.”
Or, “How about we switch to a nice apple juice now? You’ve had quite enough to drink for one night.”
Most of the time, Jimmy managed to pull himself together enough to flash a charming smile and distract her with a compliment about her latest meal. But after one drink too many, I’d noticed him gritting his teeth and just barely managing to hold his tongue.
It was better if I was present. Playing the doting wife, I insisted on pouring his drinks, watering them down out of his sight. When Mrs Jones’s nagging bordered on relentless, I could always distract her with a game of gin rummy.
On his final day, I was running behind. The ghoul on the second floor – usually the least demanding of our guests – had come down with some dreadful illness, or else decided he wanted to inconvenience me. Either way, I had woken that morning to the foulest stench I had ever experienced. I followed it to his room and found every surface covered in putrid green-blank gunge, its consistency somewhere between mucus and vomit.
All day I scrubbed, taking only brief breaks to step outside before I fainted. By the time the room was restored to a passable state, and I had filled several bin bags to bursting with filthy rags, it was already deep into the night. Mindful of the time, I paused only long enough to wash the streaks of muck from my arms and face before racing to the bar.
I arrived just in time to hear Jimmy’s last words. After he spat them at Mrs Jones, she only stared for a small eternity, her mouth frozen in the motherly smile she wore whenever she scolded him.
Then, like melted wax, her face began to shift.
I shouted at Jimmy to run, but he didn’t need to be told. Before the words left my mouth, he leapt from his barstool and streaked through the door. Mrs Jones followed him seconds later. Her lips were already peeling back to reveal rows upon rows of long, wickedly sharp fangs, while claws sprouted from beneath her lace-edged cuffs.
I sprinted after them, but Jimmy was fuelled by fear and Mrs Jones by whatever force propels the Mrs Joneses of the world. I followed the screeching to the lobby. Breathless, I arrived to see he had arrived within mere feet of the entrance before Mrs Jones grabbed him.
Claws wrapped around his throat, she lifted him into the air. As I watched, her jaw unhinged, the lower part dropping so that it was nearly level with her chest.
That sight drove all the sense out of my head. Forgetting every rule my parents had ever drilled into me, I lunged at her.
She batted me away as though I weighed no more than a fly.
I crashed into the reception desk, the breath bursting from my lungs in a great woosh. I was certain that I would die, for no amount of effort seemed to force air back into my aching chest. At last, as my vision began to dim, I managed to take a small gulp – then another, and another, until I was able to draw myself together enough to regain my feet.
By that time, Mrs Jones had nearly finished her dinner. Jimmy’s chest was splayed open, muscle and shattered ribs protruding every which way from his flesh, and she was devouring the last few bites of his heart.
His head was angled towards me. The light had winked out from his eyes, but they still held his final terror – and an accusation which, I was quite certain, was directed at me. I would like to say I felt only horror, but I couldn’t help my sudden jolt of irritation. How may times had I told him to mind his manners?
Mrs Jones gulped, the sound thick and wet in her gullet, and dropped what remained of Jimmy to the floor.
Then she turned to me.
Here’s another rule for you, one which I hope you never have cause to use: never interfere with a kill.
The Mrs Jones who used to kiss my grazed knees, who argued with my mother for the right to read me bedtime stories, was no longer at the wheel. No amount of pleading or reasoning would move her.
I could only run.
Spinning around, I vaulted over the reception desk and raced for the office behind it. If Jimmy had not been out of his mind with fear and booze, he might have remembered the rules and survived; it was one of several staff-only rooms throughout the hotel warded to keep out unwanted guests.
Just ten steps from desk to door, yet it was the longest journey of my life. My hard-won breath burned my throat; my heart pounded in my ears, deafening me to all other sounds than Mrs Jones’s heavy, pounding footsteps.
Grasping the handle, her hot, copper-tanged breath was on my neck. Fire exploded in my flesh as she raked her claws down my back. A step further away, and I wouldn’t have made it; the pain would have been too great. But I managed to throw myself into the office and slam the door before crumpling to the ground.
Before I passed out, I heard her grunting and shrieking outside, furious that she couldn’t get in.
Three days I spent in the office, emerging only to feed The Thing in the Cellar before scurrying back to my hiding place. Whenever I left, I tried not to look at the mangled heap that used to be Jimmy. There was no avoiding the smell, though.
With no small difficulty, and the help of a first aid kit, I managed to treat and bandage the wounds on my back. They bled sluggishly all throughout the first day, but thankfully didn’t fester.
On the morning of the fourth day, there was a tentative knock on the door followed by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps. I waited until they had disappeared down the corridor before cracking the door open. On the floor was a freshly baked Victoria sponge and a beautifully written note of apology.
It took every ounce of courage I possessed, but that evening I forced myself to go to the dining room. Mrs Jones was waiting for me, her eyes red-rimmed, a steaming cottage pie on the table. I tried not to flinch as she took my hand, re-iterating the apology she had already delivered in writing.
The next morning, she helped me clean Jimmy up.
We treated each other cautiously for a while, but eventually we got back to playing gin rummy again. When the scars on my back twinge, as they sometimes do, she helps me rub a soothing ointment into them. Even though I’ve told her it’s not necessary, she apologises every time.
So, you’ve heard my story and you have my proposal. If you think you could be the man for me, I invite you to visit. You will need to drink a cup of ram’s blood (a pinch of nutmeg makes it a little more tolerable) and light a black candle before bedtime. When you next wake, you will find yourself at our gates. As travel arrangements go, it’s hardly the Orient Express, but it beats the airfare.
If you have read this without flinching, if you can stomach the journey to get here, if you walk up to our door and find the nerve to open it, I have one more instruction for you.
Just as you enter, look to your right. You will see a deep brown stain on the lobby carpet. I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed but it just won’t come out. Perhaps that’s for the best. It’s a good reminder of what will happen to you should you call Mrs Jones a “nosy old bat”.
And when you run into Jimmy – as you will, for he still likes hanging around the bar in the evening, his silvery wounds glistening as though they had just been inflicted – don’t let him convince you he was some sort of victim.
He knew the rules.
submitted by nemmoph to nosleep [link] [comments]
So, begging your pardon for my bluntness, I’m going to be clear about my requirements. Please read carefully – if you can’t meet them, there’s no point in going any further.
- Must want children. At least one child, anyway. I’m open to the idea of more, but one is an absolute must.
- Must be in it for the long haul. Until our child turns eighteen, to be precise. I understand that level of commitment is a daunting prospect, particularly when we have not yet met. After our child is born, you are welcome to ignore me, if you please, or take your pleasure elsewhere – though I will warn you that it might be difficult to come by. But you will live under my roof until our child is an adult.
- Homebody preferred. It will make the next two decades easier on you.
- Must have impeccable manners. I will provide a manual outlining the required etiquette, but you must at least have a grasp of basic courtesy to begin with. If you let your tongue run away with you, or don’t bother to wish your neighbours a good morning when you pass them in the street, stop reading – this is not the opportunity for you. Seriously.
A sanctuary has stood in this spot in one form or another since before the ley lines. During its tenure, it has been flooded, put to the flame, and pounded into dust. Time and again, it has been reimagined and rebuilt. Most of the current building dates back to Victoria’s reign, though the oldest parts were constructed in the 13th century. At the very bottom of the garden, cut into the surrounding hills, there is a cave bearing handprints of red ochre.
There has always been an Edwards at the hotel, though of course we haven’t always gone by that name. You would think a family so tied to one place would do a better job of keeping records, but no one is certain of our origins. Perhaps it was a cosmic bargain, or perhaps mere luck – whether good or bad, I have never been able to decide. Either way, our presence is required. Throughout our spotty past, there’s a story here and there of an Edwards deserting their post, and it always coincides with a particularly brutal period of history.
I inherited the position five years ago. At midnight on my eighteenth birthday, my parents took their already-packed suitcases and left. I don’t blame them for their abandonment; I intend to one day do the same thing to my – or, hopefully, our – child.
They send me postcards and photos from time-to-time, always smiling on sunny beaches. Money isn’t a concern for them. That’s part of whatever mysterious deal our ancestors made – when a caretaker leaves in good-standing, they will never want for anything again. They could travel the world for the rest of their lives, always sleeping in the softest sheets and dining in the finest restaurants, and never find their pockets empty.
Keep this point in mind, for if you can meet my requirements, you will share my good fortune.
And what must we do in return? I can all but hear you scream the question. Why, very little. The presence of an Edwards ensures that the guests can’t stray from the hotel grounds. Most of our guests are live-in residents, though we do get the occasional walk-in. Where they come from, I don’t know, for we are not visible to most people who stumble upon our lonely corner of the world. I’ve come to believe the hotel chooses to reveal itself when its lacking entertainment, or to fill a need.
Jimmy, my first husband, was one such guest.
For the most part, the guests are harmless. They’ll give you a little fright from time-to-time, popping out from a wall or turning your bathwater into blood, but I find it hard to hold it against them. I’ve found twenty-three years here dreary; I can’t imagine how bored I would be after five hundred.
There are a few exceptions you should be aware of:
- Eric. Our resident serial murderer. He claims to have been Jack the Ripper while he still drew breath, but I think he’s just a blowhard. He knows better than to harm an Edwards, but I’m afraid spouses are fair game. Years ago, my grandmother managed to confine him to the fourth floor, so you will be perfectly safe from him as long as you never set foot there. Occasionally, the lift will stop on that floor even though you haven’t pressed the button for it. Do not get out. Even if the lift appears to be on fire or starts filling with murky water. Wait for the doors to close again, then go to another floor. It should only take a few hours.
- The Thing in the Cellar. I don’t know what It is; no one ever has. We only know It eats rats and must be fed once a day. If I’m ever ill or incapacitated, this task will fall to you. Harvest the rats from the traps in the garden, then stand at the cellar door and throw them down the stairs. Do not walk down the stairs and do not forget to feed It. You don’t want to be the first person to see Its’ face.
- Mrs Jones. Old fashioned and a stickler for manners, she’s the reason I’m advertising for a husband rather than a boyfriend. She won’t abide a couple living in sin under the same roof as her. Really, though, she’s a sweet old thing. Full of stories about the war and always ready to help if I get stuck on a recipe. I don’t blame her for what happened with Jimmy at all. I’d warned him enough times.
However, there are some rules so critical for your survival that I feel compelled to list them here:
- With the exception of the fourth floor, you are welcome to roam the hotel and its grounds as you please. But you must never set foot outside of our land – not until our child is old enough to fulfil their duties. If I were to do so, it would unleash pandemonium – plague, peril, perhaps another world war. I’m afraid you would be less crucial to the fate of the world, but it would certainly be a personal disaster.
- Never look in the mirrors in room 33.
- I’ve touched this point already, but it bears repeating: never be rude to Mrs Jones.
She doted on him. I think he reminded her of her long-dead son, for she pampered him as if he were one of her own. Each morning, she had breakfast ready for him before I had so much as opened my eyes, and she developed a habit of trailing along after him, complimenting his skill as he oiled rusted hinges or set a crooked picture straight.
At first, Jimmy basked in the attention. But by the end of his second month, he was growing bored of Mrs Jones, me, and the hotel itself. We pride ourselves on our facilities. If you need more activity than a turn around the garden, we have a lovely indoor pool – it freezes over every now and then, but most of the time it’s perfectly usable. Our library is unmatched. Although the room is cramped, it has every book imaginable; you only need to think of a particular title, and it will appear on one of the shelves. And now that I’ve dragged us kicking and screaming into the 21st century, we have a wide array of streaming services.
It wasn’t enough for Jimmy. He wanted to go out – eat in a restaurant, watch a film in the cinema, see any faces other than the ones he was surrounded by every day. He began having a drink each evening. One drink turned into several, and after a few weeks, the bar became his permanent residence between dusk and midnight.
He wasn’t the only one getting bored. I had been thrilled when he first arrived; ecstatic when he agreed to stay. How marvellous to feel real flesh beneath my fingers after five years of only the dead for company. What a relief to have some assistance in the many tasks required to keep the hotel running as it should.
The more he drank, the less inclined he was to help – or even spend time in my company. He no longer visited my bed, choosing a room for himself on the opposite end of the floor. When our paths did cross, at best he would ignore me. At worst, he would nitpick or outright rail against me, blaming me for his captivity.
Still, I made an effort to be present whenever he frequented the bar. As lovely as Mrs Jones can be, she does have a tendency to nag. Before and after her death, she was close to teetotal, only consenting to take a single sherry at Christmas, and drinking outside of special occasions is something of a bugbear of hers.
“Think of your health, dear,” she would tell Jimmy brusquely. “You’ll miss it when it’s gone.”
Or, “How about we switch to a nice apple juice now? You’ve had quite enough to drink for one night.”
Most of the time, Jimmy managed to pull himself together enough to flash a charming smile and distract her with a compliment about her latest meal. But after one drink too many, I’d noticed him gritting his teeth and just barely managing to hold his tongue.
It was better if I was present. Playing the doting wife, I insisted on pouring his drinks, watering them down out of his sight. When Mrs Jones’s nagging bordered on relentless, I could always distract her with a game of gin rummy.
On his final day, I was running behind. The ghoul on the second floor – usually the least demanding of our guests – had come down with some dreadful illness, or else decided he wanted to inconvenience me. Either way, I had woken that morning to the foulest stench I had ever experienced. I followed it to his room and found every surface covered in putrid green-blank gunge, its consistency somewhere between mucus and vomit.
All day I scrubbed, taking only brief breaks to step outside before I fainted. By the time the room was restored to a passable state, and I had filled several bin bags to bursting with filthy rags, it was already deep into the night. Mindful of the time, I paused only long enough to wash the streaks of muck from my arms and face before racing to the bar.
I arrived just in time to hear Jimmy’s last words. After he spat them at Mrs Jones, she only stared for a small eternity, her mouth frozen in the motherly smile she wore whenever she scolded him.
Then, like melted wax, her face began to shift.
I shouted at Jimmy to run, but he didn’t need to be told. Before the words left my mouth, he leapt from his barstool and streaked through the door. Mrs Jones followed him seconds later. Her lips were already peeling back to reveal rows upon rows of long, wickedly sharp fangs, while claws sprouted from beneath her lace-edged cuffs.
I sprinted after them, but Jimmy was fuelled by fear and Mrs Jones by whatever force propels the Mrs Joneses of the world. I followed the screeching to the lobby. Breathless, I arrived to see he had arrived within mere feet of the entrance before Mrs Jones grabbed him.
Claws wrapped around his throat, she lifted him into the air. As I watched, her jaw unhinged, the lower part dropping so that it was nearly level with her chest.
That sight drove all the sense out of my head. Forgetting every rule my parents had ever drilled into me, I lunged at her.
She batted me away as though I weighed no more than a fly.
I crashed into the reception desk, the breath bursting from my lungs in a great woosh. I was certain that I would die, for no amount of effort seemed to force air back into my aching chest. At last, as my vision began to dim, I managed to take a small gulp – then another, and another, until I was able to draw myself together enough to regain my feet.
By that time, Mrs Jones had nearly finished her dinner. Jimmy’s chest was splayed open, muscle and shattered ribs protruding every which way from his flesh, and she was devouring the last few bites of his heart.
His head was angled towards me. The light had winked out from his eyes, but they still held his final terror – and an accusation which, I was quite certain, was directed at me. I would like to say I felt only horror, but I couldn’t help my sudden jolt of irritation. How may times had I told him to mind his manners?
Mrs Jones gulped, the sound thick and wet in her gullet, and dropped what remained of Jimmy to the floor.
Then she turned to me.
Here’s another rule for you, one which I hope you never have cause to use: never interfere with a kill.
The Mrs Jones who used to kiss my grazed knees, who argued with my mother for the right to read me bedtime stories, was no longer at the wheel. No amount of pleading or reasoning would move her.
I could only run.
Spinning around, I vaulted over the reception desk and raced for the office behind it. If Jimmy had not been out of his mind with fear and booze, he might have remembered the rules and survived; it was one of several staff-only rooms throughout the hotel warded to keep out unwanted guests.
Just ten steps from desk to door, yet it was the longest journey of my life. My hard-won breath burned my throat; my heart pounded in my ears, deafening me to all other sounds than Mrs Jones’s heavy, pounding footsteps.
Grasping the handle, her hot, copper-tanged breath was on my neck. Fire exploded in my flesh as she raked her claws down my back. A step further away, and I wouldn’t have made it; the pain would have been too great. But I managed to throw myself into the office and slam the door before crumpling to the ground.
Before I passed out, I heard her grunting and shrieking outside, furious that she couldn’t get in.
Three days I spent in the office, emerging only to feed The Thing in the Cellar before scurrying back to my hiding place. Whenever I left, I tried not to look at the mangled heap that used to be Jimmy. There was no avoiding the smell, though.
With no small difficulty, and the help of a first aid kit, I managed to treat and bandage the wounds on my back. They bled sluggishly all throughout the first day, but thankfully didn’t fester.
On the morning of the fourth day, there was a tentative knock on the door followed by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps. I waited until they had disappeared down the corridor before cracking the door open. On the floor was a freshly baked Victoria sponge and a beautifully written note of apology.
It took every ounce of courage I possessed, but that evening I forced myself to go to the dining room. Mrs Jones was waiting for me, her eyes red-rimmed, a steaming cottage pie on the table. I tried not to flinch as she took my hand, re-iterating the apology she had already delivered in writing.
The next morning, she helped me clean Jimmy up.
We treated each other cautiously for a while, but eventually we got back to playing gin rummy again. When the scars on my back twinge, as they sometimes do, she helps me rub a soothing ointment into them. Even though I’ve told her it’s not necessary, she apologises every time.
So, you’ve heard my story and you have my proposal. If you think you could be the man for me, I invite you to visit. You will need to drink a cup of ram’s blood (a pinch of nutmeg makes it a little more tolerable) and light a black candle before bedtime. When you next wake, you will find yourself at our gates. As travel arrangements go, it’s hardly the Orient Express, but it beats the airfare.
If you have read this without flinching, if you can stomach the journey to get here, if you walk up to our door and find the nerve to open it, I have one more instruction for you.
Just as you enter, look to your right. You will see a deep brown stain on the lobby carpet. I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed but it just won’t come out. Perhaps that’s for the best. It’s a good reminder of what will happen to you should you call Mrs Jones a “nosy old bat”.
And when you run into Jimmy – as you will, for he still likes hanging around the bar in the evening, his silvery wounds glistening as though they had just been inflicted – don’t let him convince you he was some sort of victim.
He knew the rules.
2024.05.16 16:02 commissarroach Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #117 - The UX of Sphere of Influence
 | For all of you out there that still use Old Reddit here is a link to this Dev Diary on our forum. submitted by commissarroach to victoria3 [link] [comments] https://pdxint.at/3UMAmjw Hi, Aron here. I’m one of the User Experience (UX) designers on Vicky 3 and I would like to give you an overview of our UX focus we have had in the Sphere of Influence expansion and the accompanying free update. I will start with the UX focus for our new features followed by the more general improvements. Subject ImprovementsIn this feature we have broadened the agency you have over your Subjects as an Overlord significantly. You can read more in-depth about the feature here. Naturally, we have put the majority of the interactions under the Diplomacy panel to have a clear central place to look for them, but also to make this panel more interactable. Previously, it has been more of an informational panel than a place where you interact, but that we are here to change!https://preview.redd.it/8z101h0fls0d1.png?width=1910&format=png&auto=webp&s=7677e585b8b9136f939085f806550f91b32482d8 However, many of these actions are things you want to be able to do on the go which led us to work a lot with our context menus such as our right-click menus. One of the most used right-click menus in the game is the Country & State right-click menu, but it is also one of the largest. Unsurprisingly enough, it is the right-click menu we wanted to put even more things into now as we have added ways for you to interact with your Subject and your Overlord. This sparked some rethinking of how we can make the right-click menus more compact while still retaining the intuitivity. End result,
After: Right-clicking Hannover as Great Britain now gives a heavily compacted right-click menu with your Overlord Actions and Diplomatic Actions neatly grouped under their respective drop-down menu. Opening the Overlord Actions drop-down gives you the full list of potential actions. Similarly, right-clicking one of your own States neatly stores all Decrees under its own drop-down menu. Also notice the smaller round buttons for go-to, zoom-to and pin/unpin next to the Country and State headers. This might be more of a technical improvement on the development side of things, but it definitely benefits us all in the end. The Subject, Overlord, and Bloc Member Actions all fall under the same umbrella as Diplomatic Actions and it was clear early on during development of this expansion that we were in dire need to get their tooltips sorted out with a clear pattern with all of these new actions coming in. Both to make it easier to work with them and to benefit the end result for us players. We have two versions of tooltips, fancy custom tooltips (Cooltips) and regular tooltips, that might not be obvious to you as a player, but if you are implementing them, there is a very clear difference in what you can do with them. The regular tooltip gives us very little flexibility to what you can do since it is basically only a long text string that we build with line breaks while the Cooltip essentially is another UI panel where we have full flexibility to do whatever the GUI system can do (everything!). In other words, me as a UX designer can do a lot of cool changes directly in a Cooltip without much of a hassle while it is much more of a struggle editing regular tooltips, generally speaking. You would mainly see the difference in-game by looking at the tooltip headers and the structure of the tooltip. Most of the time, a Cooltip has an icon in the top left corner with a larger header and a type concept in the top right corner, while the regular tooltip has no icon and only a regular text header. If the tooltip feels a bit nicer and a bit more structured, it is most likely a Cooltip, even though we do have some nice regular tooltips out there as well of course. We took the time to move all of the above Diplomatic Actions over to a Cooltip, meaning we (especially I) get more direct agency over these tooltips, what they contain and how they are structured. The Diplomatic Actions are still very text heavy tooltips, but I will bring this up again later when we talk about Power Blocs and you will see more of the neat power of Cooltips. The “Guarantee Independence” Diplomatic Action as a typical regular tooltip with a normal header, a breaking line followed by the rest of the tooltip content. In this case, most of it is coming from code making it difficult for me as a UX designer to change anything on the go. The same action as a typical Cooltip with an icon and a larger header that easily can be made contextual. In this case, we are hovering the button for an ongoing “Guaranteeing Independence” action and it gives us the action prompt of “Stop doing this” rather than just the name of the action. In the Cooltip, I can be the one adding this contextual header, while in a regular tooltip I could not and I would have to steal precious time from one of our programmers. This goes for all you modders out there as well, go crazy! In a similar fashion, we have worked on the confirmation popups for the Diplomatic Actions to be consistent with the tooltips and clearly show the difference of starting and stopping an action. The confirmation popup for “Stop Guarantee Independence”. LobbiesPolitical Lobbies are a quite straightforward feature from a UX perspective (read more about Lobbies here).While you probably will encounter Lobbies more often in Events and Journal entries, or by seeing their reactions to various diplomatic actions, they also have an info panel when selected. The new Lobby info panel.. In the Lobby info panel, you can see each Interest Group that supports the Lobby along with their Approval (since it is directly impacted by the Lobby’s overall Appeasement). Most importantly, you can also see all actions that would affect this Lobby’s Appeasement. While the Lobbies that are in the game currently are somewhat straightforward (Pro-Lobbies encourage you to do friendly actions towards their favored Country). This is something we have the potential to greatly expand upon in the future and make it more involved. An Interest Groups’ support of this Lobby. You can also see why a certain Interest Group is supporting this Lobby. While it might be unlikely that you can force an Interest Group out of a Lobby due to their reasons, it does mean it is easier to tell why Lobbies form in the first place. We also wanted players to be able to see Lobbies outside their own Country. While this may not affect your decisions as often as your own Lobbies, it is still nice to see the people of other Countries reacting to your benevolent power projection. As such we use the map mode in the Political Lens to show your Lobbies, along with any Lobbies from other Countries that concern your Country. Map markers for your Lobbies targeting other countries and other countries Lobbies targeting you in either a pro or anti way. Lobbies in Foreign Countries appear in their respective Countries’ Info Panel. Building Ownership Revision & Foreign InvestmentWhen we started development of the Building Ownership Revision & Foreign investment (read more about the feature specifics here), we had to create several early prototypes to see if this is feasible to communicate in a good and intuitive way before giving this feature the green light. Buildings are such a fundamental piece of our game and making any major changes to them must be made with care. The prototypes showed that the struggle will definitely be to illustrate who owns what of a specific building and how much, but also the opposite perspective, when looking at a Financial District for example, which buildings the Financial District owns and how much of each building, from which country, and so on. This is also where we have spent the most time to ensure it is properly communicated to the player.We ended up with a combination of ways of illustrating this division of a building’s ownership. Some more clear than others, but our hope is that the combination of all of them will make it intuitive. To visually represent the combination of ownership of a specific building, we used a horizontal bar divided by ownership:
Similarly, we use the same kind of horizontal bar for Financial Districts and Manor Houses that owns other buildings, but then it is divided by the buildings it owns:
These specific patterns might not be intuitive to start with when you do not know them and have no one explaining them to you, but the intention is for it to become a subconscious thing that you learn as you play. In the end, you will probably not notice when and how this helps you see the different ownerships since you have been exposed to them through the whole game and gradually learnt them, all the while you now only glance at the bar and instantly know what owns what (insert Praying Patrick meme here). We have also experimented with putting some visualization of ownership on the map, working with arrows pointing from the owned building to the owning building. While doing so, we ended up adding visualization to input and output of Goods to a building as well. It all resulted in a big mix of arrows pointing and animating in all kinds of directions on the map. It felt a tad bit overwhelming at first, so we tweaked and toned it down slightly, and after playing with it for a while many of us felt we could not play without it. https://preview.redd.it/dbql95ncms0d1.png?width=1956&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f3288bde67e61e799a6c263340de956a80d8daa In the example of looking at the Tooling Workshop in Burgundy above you can see all of the following on the map:
Arrows for Input and Output of Goods animating to or out from the selected building, and oh yes, you can cycle through the associated buildings more easily now as all buildings that have anything to do with the selected building show up as map markers on the map and you can click them. This Financial District owns a whole bunch of stuff for sure! Indicated by all the animated arrows going to this Financial District. The specific number of building levels owned by this Financial District are shown as a number on each of the owned buildings on the map with the accumulated total being the total level of the Financial District (25 in this case). Power BlocsOne new left side menu button, a whole new panel, several new popups, and several new large scale visualizations on the map. This feature is grand. Trying to tie it all together UX wise has been a lovely challenge. You can read the specifics about Power Blocs here, but also a shout out to the awesome Art we have seen from the Art team especially for this feature as Max is telling you all about in the Art of Sphere of Influence.Being in a Power Bloc is a grand thing. We want you to experience that and clearly feel how it is affecting you in all its pros and cons (mostly pros). Since Power Blocs are such grand things, we have worked a lot with the visual representation of them on the map, giving you full customizability of your Power Bloc if you happen to form one or be the leader of one, to give each Power Bloc its true unique feeling and look. This is of course mirrored in the mechanics as the different Central Identity Pillars are profoundly different from each other in what they do and unlock. Add the Principles to the mix and the options are quite varied, and I need to make tooltips that fits all this variation! As you may imagine, all the possible versions of a Power Bloc have been a challenge to present in a way that does not mean custom solutions for each version. One way we have tackled this is early structuring of game concepts and being consistent in the use of them. An example of this is the way we have structured the Central Identity Pillar’s cooltip into segments based on the game concepts of: Power Bloc, All Bloc Members, Bloc Leader, and Non-leader Bloc Members. This structure is then reused in all other identities’ cooltips with a segment potentially being removed if there are no effects for that specific game concept / group in that Identity. The cooltip for the Central Identity Pillar “Military Treaty”. This Dev Dairy had so many great showcases of the UX improvements and changes coming to Sphere of Influence that we ran into the reddit limit for images in a single post! check out the rest on our forum post here! |
2024.05.16 15:49 haygurlhay123 “This Time, I Will Never Let You Go”: Cloud’s Mission and the Hidden Purpose of the Remake Trilogy - Literary and Musical Analysis of FFVII - Part 4
(continuation of part 3)
Since Fatal Calling is all about Cloud facing his past and his origins, Tifa’s musical theme is most appropriate for the ending cutscene. For all of these reasons, Tifa’s theme is absolutely appropriate for the conclusion of Fatal Calling. It makes a lot of sense then that once Cloud has finished revisiting the past and vanishes with the crystal to find his Promised Land, Tifa’s theme stops and Aerith’s theme begins.
There’s a lot to be said about Sephiroth in Fatal Calling. Sephiroth feeds off of despair, and deems Palamecia’s suffering inadequate: he seeks a much greater source of power than this realm. He states that Palamecia isn’t “the world that was promised to [him]”, referencing his desire to become the god of his core world of FFVII:
However, he isn’t the only one returning. Now that Cloud has revisited his past in Fatal Calling, he’s ready to reach his Promised Land. After Sephiroth’s after-credits scene, the OG FFVII title and logo turn into the FFVII Remake title and logo, indicating a shift: we are now officially in the Remakeera or world. Cloud and Sephiroth disappeared at the end of Fatal Calling, and now the game is telling us where they’ve gone. Combined with Hamaguchi’s recommendation that players complete the collaboration event before playing Remake, I think this is a solid indication that the Cloud and Sephiroth we see in this collaboration event are those we encounter in the Remake world. Once the switch to Remake occurs, Aerith’s theme returns. This communicates that she is indeed —as we’ve proven countless times already— Cloud’s Promised Land. But it also conveys her importance to the story of Remake. Scenario writer Nojima confirmed this:
That was the collaboration! Before we move on from MFF x FFVII Remake entirely though, let’s glean some more relevant information from some of the collaboration’s promotional material and special features.
III. e) iii. Promotional Material and Special Features
Two particular pieces of promotional material for this collaboration stick out to me as extremely relevant. The first is a promotion for a new summons batch in the Mobius FF game, created in honor of the collaboration.
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Batch Cloud Promo
The summons batch contains three FFVII Remake-themed cards, including a Cloud card. As you can see, this promo reads “Who awaits in the Promised Land?” under Cloud’s picture.
The second is a promotion of an Aerith and summons and an Aerith Job Card (in MFF, Job Cards allow a character to embody an archetype or another character, giving them certain physical traits, clothing, weapons and abilities):
MFF x FFVII Remake Aerith Summons and Job Card Promo
I couldn’t find this picture in English, but the text relevant to us translates to:
MFF x FFVII Remake \"Flower Girl of Midgar\" Job Card
There’s even an Aerith outfit you can have Echo wear, and it appears with Wol’s Cloud outfit in the promotional picture:
MFF x FFVII Remake Echo's Aerith Outfit and Wol's Cloud Outfit
To be fair, Tifa also appears in one of these summons promos. However, unlike Aerith’s, her appearance doesn’t reference the Promised Land or her version of the gondola date. She is not presented in connection to Cloud at all. On top of that, while the Aerith and Cloud outfits are promoted together, Tifa is paired with Vincent in the promotional image:
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Promo Tifa and Vincent
This is hardly indicative of Cloti content in the event collaboration or in Remake.
III. e) iv. Cloud’s Promised Land
All in all, the collaboration tells the story of Cloud searching for his Promised Land, just as post-OG Cloud has been shown doing for years and years of canon SE content. Cloud is searching for Aerith in the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration, just like he was in FFT and DFF, and just like he was shown doing in the 30th FF Anniversary Exposition. This is nothing new. However, the collaboration informs us that this mission to be reunited with Aerith is what leads Cloud to enter the world of Remake.
Echo noted that people obtain the Promised Land they deserve rather than the one they want. What does Cloud deserve? I believe the answer is: another chance at saving Aerith.
Cloud needs to start over, from the top. He needs to go back to the very moment he and Avalanche arrived at mako reactor 1 to bomb it. He needs to return to the beginning of the OG game. He needs a redo, a fix-it, another shot at happiness; a remake.
Here lies the heart of my theory. My dear Cleriths, Sephiroth isn’t the only one who travelled back in time to undo destiny and create a reality where things go his way: Remake is also —I would even say primarily— Cloud’s chance to free Aerith from her fate, save her life and secure his shot at happiness with her. That’s why he experiences MOTFs in Remake: he’s done FFVII before and now he’s back, although with only fragments of his memories from OG, to save Aerith. That’s why his triggers all involve Aerith: he doesn’t consciously remember anything from OG, but his grief over Aerith is so strong that it rises from his subconsciousness at the slightest trigger.
In Remake, Cloud remembers some but not all elements of the OG timeline (MOTFs), and it appears he only remembers the most important things: all his MOTFs revolve around Aerith and her fate. Our theory explains why Aerith triggers Cloud’s MOTFs in Remake quite perfectly: he traveled back in time to prevent Aerith’s death from happening. Remake Cloud remembers Aerith because, well, he knows her from OG. Post-OG Cloud has returned to the past to save Aerith, resulting in Remake. This is why seeing her in Remake triggers visions and memories of things that haven’t happened yet in Remake, but have already happened to post-OG Cloud. He recognizes her face on Loveless in Remake because seeing her face again is the whole reason he entered Remake in the first place. His visions of her death when they meet once more at the church, the spike of anxiety and grief as he watches her walk away from him, the constriction in his chest when she talks about doing everything in her power to help the planet… all of it, it’s all his memories of OG being jogged by things related to her death. What he’s forgotten from the OG timeline emerges in flashes of pain, images, memory and emotion. Remember that the language the devs used to describe these instances where Cloud reacts to Aerith in this way is always about “remembering” or “recognizing”; Cloud has to have seen Aerith, known Aerith, loved Aerith, lost Aerith and felt the pain of living without Aerith before in order to recognize and remember these feelings. Think about it: this is the only thing that can explain Cloud’s extremely selective MOTFs and the fact that he has MOTFs at all.
The Remake trilogy is all about Cloud and Sephiroth stepping into the ring one more time, both ready to risk it all to get what they lost in the OG timeline. Sephiroth is hungry for destruction and godhood, while Cloud stands determined to save the love of his life. Fighting for their respective goals, the fated enemies enter a new battle in Remake, one to end the war, both needing to win this time after losing so horribly in OG. Now, it’s all or nothing. Sephiroth vying for the planet, and Cloud reaching out for Aerith.
Cloud’s back with a quest, one he can’t fail— it’s the most secret and important plot point of all. I call this the “Mission Theory”.
IV. b) Mission Theory Logistics
There are a few things that remain vague, so I’m going to use this section of the analysis to speculate on the logistics of my theory. We know very little about the hows of the timeline and multiverse shenanigans, so I’m going to hypothesize. However, this analysis is about the whys: so if you’re not interested in mechanical speculation on the logistics of time travel and multiverses, you can totally disregard this section and skip to section “V.”.
IV. b) i. Cloud the Time-Traveler?
It’s unclear whether Remake is the result of post-OG Cloud going back in time to try his hand at the OG timeline again, or the result of post-OG Cloud somehow informing OG Cloud that he must save Aerith this time around. It’s vague in the same way that we aren’t sure if Remake Aerith is post-OG Aerith or if she’s been informed by post-OG Aerith via her connection to the Lifestream as a Cetra. Though it doesn’t much matter how Cloud has memories of Aerith’s death in Remake, I personally think that Remake Cloud is a time-traveling post-OG Cloud. My explanation as to why might be a little confusing, so again, feel free to skip to section “V.”.
One must be able to communicate with the Lifestream in order to obtain knowledge of the future. This access can only be granted to the Cetra or to the souls of the deceased that compose the Lifestream itself. Since Cloud is not a Cetra, he cannot commune with the Lifestream while he is alive, meaning a deceased post-OG Cloud would not have been able to communicate his memories of the OG plot-line with a living OG Cloud. Therefore, the only way Remake Cloud could have knowledge of the future (manifested as MOTFs) would be that Remake Cloud is inhabited by his post-OG consciousness. Effectively, this is time-traveling.
Then comes the question of how Cloud was able to time-travel at all. I have what I consider a pretty solid hypothesis. The most interesting thing about the realm of Palamecia is that every FF character that’s ever appeared in the realm for a cameo died in their core world beforehand (spoilers for FFI, FFV, FFVI, FFX, FFXII, FFXIII, FFXV incoming). These characters include Tidus (FFX), Lightning (FFXIII), Garland (FFI), Sephiroth (FFVII), Gilgamesh (FFV), Vargas (FFVI), Gabranth (FFXII) and Ultros (FFXV). My interpretation of Palamecia serves at least partly as a directory for deceased souls that can’t simply fade. For instance, FFX’s Tidus actually came back to life to be with his love>! Yuna !! FFX!<. Of course, MFF x>! FFX !!FFX!< and FFX-2, just like MFF x FFVII Remake came out between FFVII OG and FFVII. And similarly to Fatal Calling, the ending cutscene of MFF x>! FFX !!Next thing you know, FFX-2 comes out and shows Tidus returning to Yuna and their core world in an optional cutscene.!< The MFF x>! FFX !! Tidus !Remake.
IV. b) ii. Post-OG Cloud’s Amnesia
If we consider that Remake Cloud is a time-travelling post-OG Cloud who’s returned to the start of the OG timeline, we encounter another logistical problem: why doesn’t Cloud remember everything or most things from the OG plot-line in Remake, like Sephiroth and Remake Aerith do? After all, aren’t the three of them in the same time-travelling boat? Why isn’t Cloud as lucid on the matter as the two others? Didn’t the post-OG Cloud in Fatal Calling face his past and origins? Shouldn’t that mean Cloud would remember all that stuff in Remake from the start?
In OG, the true Cloud’s memories are repressed by both his false persona and Jenova. The latter’s memetic abilities are able to block Cloud’s memories of the past from emerging and conflicting with his SOLDIER persona. For instance, in both OG and Remake, Cloud is unable to hear Aerith tell him Zack’s name in Evergreen Park: Jenova blocks it out. I think this is a similar situation: post-OG Cloud’s consciousness carries memories things that Jenova doesn’t want Cloud to know, so she pushes down on them. On top of that, after travelling through different worlds and back through the Lifestream for who knows how long, post-OG Cloud’s consciousness must be quite weak. We know how good Cloud is at repressing, so it makes total sense to me that post-OG Cloud’s consciousness would be trapped or suppressed somewhere deep in Remake Cloud’s subconsciousness. After all, it’s not like this whole time-travelling-consciousness thing is normal for a mind to experience. It’s no wonder Remake Cloud doesn’t consciously remember how things go in OG. However, post-OG Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith are so strong that memories related to her can occasionally pierce through to his Remake consciousness and Jenova’s barriers, resulting in his MOTFs. His pain and love for her are definitely permanent and strong enough:
So you see, Remake Cloud’s mind is a little more complicated than OG Cloud’s mind. Everything is still the same in Remake as in OG, but with the added complication that his future self is hidden in his subconscious mind, probably trying to get out.
There is actually pretty good evidence of this. I’m sure you’re aware that whenever Jenova is trying to hide something from Cloud or altering his memory and/or perception, the screen glitches green with an audio cue (34:15-34:29, 1:15:30-1:15:41 and 1:17:14-1:17:29). Guess what? These Jenova audiovisual cues also occur during the MOTFs (ie: MOTF 3 2:58-3:07 and MOTF 4 0:29-0:42). Whenever post-OG Cloud’s consciousness encounters anything that reminds it of losing Aerith, the strength of its pain helps it push memories of Aerith to the surface so that RemakeCloud can consciously see them. Remake Cloud then experiences sensations and/or visions, all from his future self’s memories as they rise to the surface, propelled by grief. Jenova can’t allow Remake Cloud to fully recover his post-OG memory, so in order to shut down the process, its cells jump in to repress the MOTFs: this results in the classic Jenova audiovisual cues. The only time Jenova doesn’t bother to fight against a MOTF is the sixth, as it is quite weak: no visions occur, only a tight sensation in his chest.
IV. b) iii. Eclipse Contact and Cloud’s Memories of Reactor 1
There is one problem I have trouble decoding. In Eclipse Contact, Cloud tells Wol and Echo that the last thing he remembers is the run-up to his arrival at mako reactor 1 (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 1). Recall that usually, people summoned to Palamecia have no memories of their world of origin and lives before that point at all. So then why is it that upon being summoned to Palamecia, Cloud recalls the events that took place right before the start of the OG game? This strikes me as highly relevant since this is the exact point in time where post-OG Cloud’s consciousness needs to be transported to in order for Remake to begin, but I haven’t been able to figure out a solid hypothesis on what it could mean. My best guess is that this is the devs’ way of signalling to us that the events of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration occur before the very beginning of post-OG Cloud’s second try at the OG timeline (Remake).
Now that I’ve shown you how I’ve come to form my Mission Theory and we’ve done some pesky housekeeping, let’s connect some dots, shall we? It’s time to really get into it and see if any of my wild speculation tracks with content from the Remake trilogy so far.
As a preface to my musical evidence analysis, I want to insist on something: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything. In a high-quality production such as Remake, people who make music for audiovisual media are told everything in advance. They need to know the secrets of every little scene, because their job is to depict whatever is happening through music.
Therefore, if the Mission Theory is true, then there has to be musical evidence for it.
V. a) Preface: The Basics of the FFVII OST
There’s a lot of evidence in the music of the Remake trilogy that we have to address, but before we get into it, I do have to give you the basics of the FFVII soundscape! For the easiest experience, I suggest you keep a tab open for every link I provide for you until the music analysis is over, because we will be hopping from one musical theme to another and then back again.
V. a) i. The World Theme: Cloud’s Troubled Identity
The world theme of FFVII is a perfect example of how musicians working on an OST have to know the secrets of a story as they compose for it. On top of representing the FFVII world as a whole, it doubles as Cloud’s character theme… except that isn’t exactly right. You see, this piece does indeed contain Cloud’s true theme, but Sephiroth and Jenova’s musical motifs also contaminate it. This, of course, symbolizes how Cloud experiences identity sabotage because of these two antagonists. The result is that globally, the world theme does indeed represent Cloud’s character, but it isn’t exclusively Cloud’s in the same way that Cloud’s mind isn’t exclusively his. It’s brilliant storytelling through musical motifs, and evidently requires Uematsu to know in advance that Sephiroth manipulates Cloud’s identity in the story.
For future reference, let’s isolate Cloud’s true theme from Jenova and Sephiroth’s influence.
V. a) i. 1) Sephiroth: Dissonance and Semi-Tone Motif
I’m sure you know Sephiroth’s infamous theme: “One-Winged Angel”. The first motif we need to know is Sephiroth’s threatening, repetitive dissonance motif, which plays all throughout the piece (plays solo at 0:00 to 0:04). The second motif is what I call the semi-tone motif. “One-Winged Angel” has a ton of minor 2nd intervals, which is what we call the relationship between two notes that are only a semi-tone apart. You might recognize the minor 2nd interval in the foreboding Jaws theme. Just like in Jaws, the minor 2nd interval or semi-tone is commonly used to indicate an impending, life-threatening danger, a monster, predator, evil, or insanity; suits Sephiroth quite nicely!
V. a) i. 2) Jenova: Parasite Motif
The track “J-E-N-O-V-A” contains many competing melodies and has generated many variations of those melodies —almost like clones— that all represent aspects of the alien’s character. The main Jenova motif is simply a descending, two-octaves-long, arpeggiated mb6 chord (eight notes total). I’ve played it for you here. Sometimes, this motif is altered to form variations. For instance, in “Listen to the Cries of the Planet”, a variation of Jenova’s main motif is created by changing the order of the notes and reducing the number of notes to only six (0:00-0:03), however, it remains an arpeggiated mb6 chord. Regardless of the alteration, if you hear an arpeggiated mb6 chord, it means Jenova is creeping close by or that its influence is at work.
The variation of the mb6 arpeggiated chord that concerns us alters Jenova’s main theme so it ascends from the tonic to the b6 note and descends back to the tonic, then ending on the lower dominant for a total of eight notes. I’ve played it for you here. I call this variation the “parasite motif”, because it is often heard when Cloud is being controlled by Jenova. For instance, it plays when Cloud loses himself and becomes unusually violent in Rebirth’s chapter 13 (17:25-18:34), signalling to us that Jenova is in control. It is also the main motif of the track “Who… Am I?”, which evidently symbolizes Jenova’s fuelling of Cloud’s identity crisis— though here, the parasite motif is shortened to its six first notes.
V. a) i. 3) Cloud’s True Self
Now that we can recognize Sephiroth and Jenova’s motifs, let’s return to the world theme to isolate Cloud’s true self. Cloud’s true theme can be heard from 0:51 to 3:48. It consists of a section A (0:51-1:54), followed by a section B (1:54-2:41), and then returns to section A (2:41-3:48).
After Cloud’s true theme concludes however, it seems he experiences a psychic interference: doubt and confusion weave through the world theme (3:48-4:09), representing an instability in his identity. I call this interruption of Cloud’s true theme the “interference section”. It symbolizes a moment of psychic interference or weakness within Cloud that Sephiroth and Jenova take advantage of to take control of Cloud.
The end of the interference section introduces Jenova’s parasite motif. It slithers in (4:09), later joined by Sephiroth’s dissonance motif (4:16): Cloud’s mind and identity are being hijacked by the two antagonists in service of their evil plans.
They torment Cloud, dominating his mind until he manages to free himself: section A of Cloud’s true theme begins playing again (6:06), closing the loop of the theme.
Based on this musical storytelling, if you already knew the character motifs going into OG, you might’ve suspected something odd was going on with Cloud’s identity, and that Jenova and Sephiroth were involved. All this to say that whatever music is playing at any given time can give us hints as to what is going on. That’s the power and significance of a good soundtrack. Trust me when I say that with Uematsu and his team, we’re in excellent hands. And remember: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything.
V. a) ii. Aerith’s Theme
Another base we have to cover before checking out the Remake soundtrack is Aerith’s theme. I’m sure everyone here is familiar with it, but I insist that you refresh your memory. It consists of a section A (0:00-0:34), a section B (0:34-1:13) and a section C (1:13-2:00), concluding with a repeat of section A.
V. a) iii. Motifs and Timing in FFVII OSTs
I’m going to analyze pieces in great detail, which people who haven’t studied or paid attention to soundtracks may find strange. To prevent anyone from making the mistake of thinking that I’m reading too much into things, I want to emphasize that the music that plays during the Remaketrilogy’s cutscenes is carefully timed, composed and arranged to match the events in the cutscenes, as they are provided in advance to the musicians. Composers pay lots of attention to whatever is going on onscreen so they can include the corresponding musical motifs as accompaniment at the exact right moments, always striving to get the timing perfect. I’m not exaggerating the effort and minutia involved in soundtrack composition and arrangement. Here are just a few sound staff comments from the “Material 4: Soundtrack” section of the FFVII Remake Material Ultimania to prove it:
Now that you’re ready, it’s time to verify the Mission Theory’s validity with Remake’s music.
V. b) i. MOTF 6 Music
We were able to explain Remake Cloud’s MOTFs with the Mission Theory, and it just so happens that the music that plays during the scene of MOTF 6 is unique to Remake. This gives us the perfect opportunity: we should analyze the piece that plays as it occurs to evaluate the legitimacy of our theory on the Remake trilogy, using all the motifs we uncovered in section “V. a)”.
First, a refresher on the scene and on our theory’s interpretation of it. The party is gathered in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. Here is how the scene is described by the VA script notes:
The piece that plays during this scene is called “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”. It is one of many variations of Aerith’s iconic theme arranged for Remake. However, Cloud’s theme is just as prominent in the piece— if not, more.
V. b) i. 1) The Fate Motif
Before we interpret “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”, I need to introduce you to one more motif that crops up in the piece. There is a windy motif that appears (from 1:45 onwards) and it is unaccounted for, despite how it’s clearly meant to represent something. I’ve become certain that this wind noise symbolizes fate, and I’ll tell you why.
In the MOTF 6 scene, just after Nanaki explains how he gained knowledge of the Whispers via contact with Aerith (7:23), they emerge and begin swirling aggressively around Aerith (7:26). Her hair and dress blow and ripple in the resulting wind. From this very moment onward “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (3:00), a string section (bowed instruments in the violin family) that deliberately emphasizes the airy sound of the bow crossing the strings enters, creating a windy effect that adds to the already present wind noise (that started at 1:45). As the Whispers progressively become even more aggressive onscreen, both the wind SFX of the cutscene and the wind noise in the piece get louder and louder. Because of the timing of its appearance and crescendo in the cutscene, I’m certain the wind noise is meant to represent the restrictive flow of fate; it only makes sense, given that destiny is a current —or a wind— that cannot be broken, and Aerith is like a helpless petal in fate’s carefully planned storm. Of course, it’s also quite significant that the Whispers make a windy noise as they fly. You can hear it every time they’re onscreen, like when they first appear to Cloud in chapter 2 of Remake (17:45-18:20), or when the White Whispers hold Cloud back from chasing after Aerith during Rebirth’s Sleeping Forest scene in chapter 14 (28:43-29:45). You can also hear the wind sounds in other Whisper-related tracks, such as “Whorl of Whispers” (clearly audible at 2:50-3:05), as well as “A Death Not Ordained by Fate” (clearly audible at 2:56-3:18). Therefore, I’ll call these wind noises the “fate motif”.
V. b) ii. 2) Interpreting “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”
In part 1 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (0:00-1:45), Aerith’s theme and Cloud’s true theme play simultaneously, their respective phrases fitting perfectly together, interweaving peacefully and softly. It sounds like the two of them are chatting, dancing bashfully yet contently and in perfect sync, glad to be exactly where they’re meant to be as their themes sing together in harmony (soft piano). Part 1 of this piece is about Cloud and Aerith becoming important to one another as they discover their soulmate bond.
Unfortunately that contentment doesn’t last. In part 2 (1:45-3:00), Cloud experiences a moment of psychic vulnerability (world theme’s interference section). Fate lurks (fate motif enters quietly). His instability forces our couple’s sweet dance to a halt, and Aerith’s theme must retreat as Cloud’s confusion takes center stage. Sephiroth torments and taunts him (semi-tone played by strings, 2:03-2:10), taking advantage of Cloud’s psychic interference to plunge him into darkness (world theme’s interference section ends, low cello enters, 2:18): Cloud temporarily becomes a darker version of himself as evil corrupts him (piano plays section A phrases 1 and 2 of Cloud’s true theme in minor, 2:18-2:53). Jenova finally reveals itself and promptly exits, releasing Cloud’s mind from its grasp (seven first notes of parasite motif played twice on piano 2:53-3:00). Cloud is free, but the damage has been done: his dance with Aerith has long been interrupted, and she is gone. Part 2 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud being manipulated in service of Sephiroth and Jenova’s evil plan, interrupting his interaction with Aerith.
Part 3 (3:00-3:33) kicks off the mechanisms of a tragic fate (strings section joins fate motif, 3:00). Both anxious that she’s disappeared from his side and terrified of the darkness he just discovered inside him (in part 2), Cloud fearfully calls out for Aerith (phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A, timid and hesitant piano, 3:04-3:15). Before his psychic interference began (start of part 2), Cloud’s voice was accompanied by Aerith’s as they grew closer and closer (their character themes mingling in part 1)… but now, Aerith isn’t answering his call, and he cannot find her (Aerith’s theme doesn’t to join Cloud’s anymore).
Anxious, Cloud tries calling out for Aerith a second time (section A phrase 2 of Cloud’s true theme’s, 3:19-3:31), searching for her in the hopes that they can continue their dance, but even now, Aerith does not respond. She’s gone (Aerith’s theme remains absent). Destiny keeps Aerith away from Cloud (fate motif gently crescendos). Part 3 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud’s separation from Aerith, his search for her, and the fear and anxiousness he feels when he realizes he cannot find her.
And then, part 4 begins with a sweet, gentle voice, calling out from the blackened horizon: it’s Aerith (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, soft piano, 3:33-3:45). Cloud finally hears her respond to his pleas: he’s found her. Fate begins howling in protest, doubling its efforts to keep Cloud and Aerith apart (fate motif crescendos noticeably in reaction to Aerith’s theme, 3:45). You can just picture Cloud running toward Aerith, struggling against the current of destiny to try and close the distance between them. Aerith tries calling out for Cloud a second time, (section B phrase 2 of Aerith’s theme, 3:40-3:43), but the Whispers only swirl around her more ferociously, taking her away in the uncompromising current of fate (fate motif continues to crescendo). Aerith tries again (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, 3:47-3:49). It sounds like she’s saying “Cloud, I’m over here, come find me!”
Fate doesn’t take too kindly to her defying it. Cloud and Aerith are not supposed to be together; it can’t be, it won’t. She’s destined to die to save the planet, and he’s destined to remain hollow forevermore. I can picture Cloud breaking into a sprint at the sound of her voice, running countercurrent to the flow of destiny— but the winds are so loud, fate’s demands are so strong, and the Whispers are shrieking in defense of destiny now. Aerith’s voice emerges for the fourth time (first three notes of section B phrase 3 of Aerith’s theme, 3:54 to 3:56). Fate screams louder, louder (steep crescendo of fate motif, 3:59-4:02). In a desperate hail Mary, Aerith shouts out one more time, as though throwing her hand out toward Cloud’s extended fingers (section C phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, louder and more insistent, cutting through the fate motif as it crescendos sharply, 4:00-4:06). Part 4 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud and Aerith desperately trying to defy fate in order to be together. And then, it all stops: fate has seemingly quieted Aerith (4:04-4:08)…
Part 5 (4:08-4:27) begins with Cloud jumping, launching himself off the ground with all his strength (Cloud’s true theme section A phrase 2, first 5 notes, melody starting on the note E5 and ascending) as Aerith plummets toward the ground in a fatal fall (Aerith’s theme section C phrase 1, melody starting on the note E6 and descending, the last note altered)— he successfully catches her in mid-air (both Cloud’s ascending melody and Aerith’s descending melody meet in the middle of the octave, first uniting on B5, and then ending on A5). I’ve recreated the melodies for you here so you can hear this reunion more clearly. If you consider that the airy strings in this piece represent fate, which I do, the fact that they follow Cloud and Aerith’s themes in part 5 signifies that they are now in control of their own destinies, and successfully making it their fate to reunite.
To be completely frank, I did not realize until right now writing this that Cloud unites with Aerith in part 5, even though his theme is right there. I’m so excited to share this part with you.
We hear Aerith once more, her voice quietly trailing off into the silence (phrase 4 of section C of Aerith’s theme) with no conclusion (phrase 5 normally follows phrase 4 to conclude Aerith’s theme, but is absent here). Part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” suggests that Cloud will save Aerith and that the couple will change their fate, but also conveys an uncertain and open-ended quality.
(continued in part 5)
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Since Fatal Calling is all about Cloud facing his past and his origins, Tifa’s musical theme is most appropriate for the ending cutscene. For all of these reasons, Tifa’s theme is absolutely appropriate for the conclusion of Fatal Calling. It makes a lot of sense then that once Cloud has finished revisiting the past and vanishes with the crystal to find his Promised Land, Tifa’s theme stops and Aerith’s theme begins.
There’s a lot to be said about Sephiroth in Fatal Calling. Sephiroth feeds off of despair, and deems Palamecia’s suffering inadequate: he seeks a much greater source of power than this realm. He states that Palamecia isn’t “the world that was promised to [him]”, referencing his desire to become the god of his core world of FFVII:
“Sephiroth: Melding with the planet, I will cease to exist as I am now only to be reborn as a ‘god’ to rule over every soul” (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 25).Sephiroth’s line “Now, let us return [Cloud]. Back to the Promised Land” reveals he wants to return to their shared core world of FFVII, like we established in our review of the Remake timelines theory (see section “I. a) vii.”). Sephiroth wants to go back to FFVII and modify the OG timeline to achieve his evil goals. This is his ideal scenario, his place of complete happiness: his desired Promised Land. Fatal Calling is setting up Sephiroth’s plans for Remake. In fact, the after-credits scene wherein Sephiroth stands in Nibelheim as it burns confirms his return to the FFVII OG timeline.
However, he isn’t the only one returning. Now that Cloud has revisited his past in Fatal Calling, he’s ready to reach his Promised Land. After Sephiroth’s after-credits scene, the OG FFVII title and logo turn into the FFVII Remake title and logo, indicating a shift: we are now officially in the Remakeera or world. Cloud and Sephiroth disappeared at the end of Fatal Calling, and now the game is telling us where they’ve gone. Combined with Hamaguchi’s recommendation that players complete the collaboration event before playing Remake, I think this is a solid indication that the Cloud and Sephiroth we see in this collaboration event are those we encounter in the Remake world. Once the switch to Remake occurs, Aerith’s theme returns. This communicates that she is indeed —as we’ve proven countless times already— Cloud’s Promised Land. But it also conveys her importance to the story of Remake. Scenario writer Nojima confirmed this:
“Aerith's the most important character in the remake so we paid special attention to her lines” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Development Staff Interviews, Part 2: Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima”, page 744).Aerith was already important to OG, so what could’ve motivated Nojima to state her importance to Remake? Could it be that she’s even more important in the latter than she was in the former? In what way?
That was the collaboration! Before we move on from MFF x FFVII Remake entirely though, let’s glean some more relevant information from some of the collaboration’s promotional material and special features.
III. e) iii. Promotional Material and Special Features
Two particular pieces of promotional material for this collaboration stick out to me as extremely relevant. The first is a promotion for a new summons batch in the Mobius FF game, created in honor of the collaboration.
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Batch Cloud Promo
The summons batch contains three FFVII Remake-themed cards, including a Cloud card. As you can see, this promo reads “Who awaits in the Promised Land?” under Cloud’s picture.
The second is a promotion of an Aerith and summons and an Aerith Job Card (in MFF, Job Cards allow a character to embody an archetype or another character, giving them certain physical traits, clothing, weapons and abilities):
MFF x FFVII Remake Aerith Summons and Job Card Promo
I couldn’t find this picture in English, but the text relevant to us translates to:
“Midgar's Flower Vendor SummonsA few things here. First, Aerith is referenced by name, and we see a picture of her in her famous praying pose. Secondly, both Cloud and Aerith’s images are attached to the notion of the Promised Land. Cloud’s card asks who awaits there, and Aerith’s evokes a guiding role, as though in response. Thirdly, both Cloud and Aerith are attached to the notion of searching: Cloud searches for the Promised Land and whomever awaits there, and Aerith searches for Cloud’s true self. Speaking of which, the promo also includes parts of Aerith’s famous gondola date quote from OG:
‘I'm searching for you. I want to meet… you.’
The witch protects the planet, imbues it with power, and leads to the Promised Land.”
“Aeris: I'm searching for you.In case you’re wondering about the lady in Aerith’s clothes on the left-hand side, that’s Meia, a character in MFF. She is the “witch” being referred to in the promotional material. She’s often called the Azure Witch. Meia is wearing Aerith’s clothes because a Meia-type Job Card called “Flower Girl of Midgar” was created in honor of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration:
Cloud: …?
Aeris: I want to meet you.
Cloud: But I'm right here.
Aeris: I know, I know... what I mean is... I want to meet... you” (disk 1 chapter 24).
MFF x FFVII Remake \"Flower Girl of Midgar\" Job Card
There’s even an Aerith outfit you can have Echo wear, and it appears with Wol’s Cloud outfit in the promotional picture:
MFF x FFVII Remake Echo's Aerith Outfit and Wol's Cloud Outfit
To be fair, Tifa also appears in one of these summons promos. However, unlike Aerith’s, her appearance doesn’t reference the Promised Land or her version of the gondola date. She is not presented in connection to Cloud at all. On top of that, while the Aerith and Cloud outfits are promoted together, Tifa is paired with Vincent in the promotional image:
MFF x FFVII Remake Summons Promo Tifa and Vincent
This is hardly indicative of Cloti content in the event collaboration or in Remake.
III. e) iv. Cloud’s Promised Land
All in all, the collaboration tells the story of Cloud searching for his Promised Land, just as post-OG Cloud has been shown doing for years and years of canon SE content. Cloud is searching for Aerith in the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration, just like he was in FFT and DFF, and just like he was shown doing in the 30th FF Anniversary Exposition. This is nothing new. However, the collaboration informs us that this mission to be reunited with Aerith is what leads Cloud to enter the world of Remake.
Echo noted that people obtain the Promised Land they deserve rather than the one they want. What does Cloud deserve? I believe the answer is: another chance at saving Aerith.
Cloud needs to start over, from the top. He needs to go back to the very moment he and Avalanche arrived at mako reactor 1 to bomb it. He needs to return to the beginning of the OG game. He needs a redo, a fix-it, another shot at happiness; a remake.
IV. The Hidden Plot Point: Mission Theory
a) ThesisHere lies the heart of my theory. My dear Cleriths, Sephiroth isn’t the only one who travelled back in time to undo destiny and create a reality where things go his way: Remake is also —I would even say primarily— Cloud’s chance to free Aerith from her fate, save her life and secure his shot at happiness with her. That’s why he experiences MOTFs in Remake: he’s done FFVII before and now he’s back, although with only fragments of his memories from OG, to save Aerith. That’s why his triggers all involve Aerith: he doesn’t consciously remember anything from OG, but his grief over Aerith is so strong that it rises from his subconsciousness at the slightest trigger.
In Remake, Cloud remembers some but not all elements of the OG timeline (MOTFs), and it appears he only remembers the most important things: all his MOTFs revolve around Aerith and her fate. Our theory explains why Aerith triggers Cloud’s MOTFs in Remake quite perfectly: he traveled back in time to prevent Aerith’s death from happening. Remake Cloud remembers Aerith because, well, he knows her from OG. Post-OG Cloud has returned to the past to save Aerith, resulting in Remake. This is why seeing her in Remake triggers visions and memories of things that haven’t happened yet in Remake, but have already happened to post-OG Cloud. He recognizes her face on Loveless in Remake because seeing her face again is the whole reason he entered Remake in the first place. His visions of her death when they meet once more at the church, the spike of anxiety and grief as he watches her walk away from him, the constriction in his chest when she talks about doing everything in her power to help the planet… all of it, it’s all his memories of OG being jogged by things related to her death. What he’s forgotten from the OG timeline emerges in flashes of pain, images, memory and emotion. Remember that the language the devs used to describe these instances where Cloud reacts to Aerith in this way is always about “remembering” or “recognizing”; Cloud has to have seen Aerith, known Aerith, loved Aerith, lost Aerith and felt the pain of living without Aerith before in order to recognize and remember these feelings. Think about it: this is the only thing that can explain Cloud’s extremely selective MOTFs and the fact that he has MOTFs at all.
The Remake trilogy is all about Cloud and Sephiroth stepping into the ring one more time, both ready to risk it all to get what they lost in the OG timeline. Sephiroth is hungry for destruction and godhood, while Cloud stands determined to save the love of his life. Fighting for their respective goals, the fated enemies enter a new battle in Remake, one to end the war, both needing to win this time after losing so horribly in OG. Now, it’s all or nothing. Sephiroth vying for the planet, and Cloud reaching out for Aerith.
Cloud’s back with a quest, one he can’t fail— it’s the most secret and important plot point of all. I call this the “Mission Theory”.
IV. b) Mission Theory Logistics
There are a few things that remain vague, so I’m going to use this section of the analysis to speculate on the logistics of my theory. We know very little about the hows of the timeline and multiverse shenanigans, so I’m going to hypothesize. However, this analysis is about the whys: so if you’re not interested in mechanical speculation on the logistics of time travel and multiverses, you can totally disregard this section and skip to section “V.”.
IV. b) i. Cloud the Time-Traveler?
It’s unclear whether Remake is the result of post-OG Cloud going back in time to try his hand at the OG timeline again, or the result of post-OG Cloud somehow informing OG Cloud that he must save Aerith this time around. It’s vague in the same way that we aren’t sure if Remake Aerith is post-OG Aerith or if she’s been informed by post-OG Aerith via her connection to the Lifestream as a Cetra. Though it doesn’t much matter how Cloud has memories of Aerith’s death in Remake, I personally think that Remake Cloud is a time-traveling post-OG Cloud. My explanation as to why might be a little confusing, so again, feel free to skip to section “V.”.
One must be able to communicate with the Lifestream in order to obtain knowledge of the future. This access can only be granted to the Cetra or to the souls of the deceased that compose the Lifestream itself. Since Cloud is not a Cetra, he cannot commune with the Lifestream while he is alive, meaning a deceased post-OG Cloud would not have been able to communicate his memories of the OG plot-line with a living OG Cloud. Therefore, the only way Remake Cloud could have knowledge of the future (manifested as MOTFs) would be that Remake Cloud is inhabited by his post-OG consciousness. Effectively, this is time-traveling.
Then comes the question of how Cloud was able to time-travel at all. I have what I consider a pretty solid hypothesis. The most interesting thing about the realm of Palamecia is that every FF character that’s ever appeared in the realm for a cameo died in their core world beforehand (spoilers for FFI, FFV, FFVI, FFX, FFXII, FFXIII, FFXV incoming). These characters include Tidus (FFX), Lightning (FFXIII), Garland (FFI), Sephiroth (FFVII), Gilgamesh (FFV), Vargas (FFVI), Gabranth (FFXII) and Ultros (FFXV). My interpretation of Palamecia serves at least partly as a directory for deceased souls that can’t simply fade. For instance, FFX’s Tidus actually came back to life to be with his love>! Yuna !
IV. b) ii. Post-OG Cloud’s Amnesia
If we consider that Remake Cloud is a time-travelling post-OG Cloud who’s returned to the start of the OG timeline, we encounter another logistical problem: why doesn’t Cloud remember everything or most things from the OG plot-line in Remake, like Sephiroth and Remake Aerith do? After all, aren’t the three of them in the same time-travelling boat? Why isn’t Cloud as lucid on the matter as the two others? Didn’t the post-OG Cloud in Fatal Calling face his past and origins? Shouldn’t that mean Cloud would remember all that stuff in Remake from the start?
In OG, the true Cloud’s memories are repressed by both his false persona and Jenova. The latter’s memetic abilities are able to block Cloud’s memories of the past from emerging and conflicting with his SOLDIER persona. For instance, in both OG and Remake, Cloud is unable to hear Aerith tell him Zack’s name in Evergreen Park: Jenova blocks it out. I think this is a similar situation: post-OG Cloud’s consciousness carries memories things that Jenova doesn’t want Cloud to know, so she pushes down on them. On top of that, after travelling through different worlds and back through the Lifestream for who knows how long, post-OG Cloud’s consciousness must be quite weak. We know how good Cloud is at repressing, so it makes total sense to me that post-OG Cloud’s consciousness would be trapped or suppressed somewhere deep in Remake Cloud’s subconsciousness. After all, it’s not like this whole time-travelling-consciousness thing is normal for a mind to experience. It’s no wonder Remake Cloud doesn’t consciously remember how things go in OG. However, post-OG Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith are so strong that memories related to her can occasionally pierce through to his Remake consciousness and Jenova’s barriers, resulting in his MOTFs. His pain and love for her are definitely permanent and strong enough:
“A young woman descended from the Ancients who will forever be engraved in [Cloud’s] heart” (Dirge of Cerberus, Japanese manual, Aerith’s character description).
“I believe for those who formerly traveled with her as comrades and for the viewers, each carries their own feelings and love for Aerith. In this story, Cloud also carries his own undying feelings for Aerith, even to this very day… Its relation with the church scene is… Yup. I’ll leave this part to your imagination. (laughs)” (Nomura interview on Advent Children “Designer’s Note” in *Famitsu PS2!*magazine, October 24th issue).
So you see, Remake Cloud’s mind is a little more complicated than OG Cloud’s mind. Everything is still the same in Remake as in OG, but with the added complication that his future self is hidden in his subconscious mind, probably trying to get out.
There is actually pretty good evidence of this. I’m sure you’re aware that whenever Jenova is trying to hide something from Cloud or altering his memory and/or perception, the screen glitches green with an audio cue (34:15-34:29, 1:15:30-1:15:41 and 1:17:14-1:17:29). Guess what? These Jenova audiovisual cues also occur during the MOTFs (ie: MOTF 3 2:58-3:07 and MOTF 4 0:29-0:42). Whenever post-OG Cloud’s consciousness encounters anything that reminds it of losing Aerith, the strength of its pain helps it push memories of Aerith to the surface so that RemakeCloud can consciously see them. Remake Cloud then experiences sensations and/or visions, all from his future self’s memories as they rise to the surface, propelled by grief. Jenova can’t allow Remake Cloud to fully recover his post-OG memory, so in order to shut down the process, its cells jump in to repress the MOTFs: this results in the classic Jenova audiovisual cues. The only time Jenova doesn’t bother to fight against a MOTF is the sixth, as it is quite weak: no visions occur, only a tight sensation in his chest.
IV. b) iii. Eclipse Contact and Cloud’s Memories of Reactor 1
There is one problem I have trouble decoding. In Eclipse Contact, Cloud tells Wol and Echo that the last thing he remembers is the run-up to his arrival at mako reactor 1 (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 1). Recall that usually, people summoned to Palamecia have no memories of their world of origin and lives before that point at all. So then why is it that upon being summoned to Palamecia, Cloud recalls the events that took place right before the start of the OG game? This strikes me as highly relevant since this is the exact point in time where post-OG Cloud’s consciousness needs to be transported to in order for Remake to begin, but I haven’t been able to figure out a solid hypothesis on what it could mean. My best guess is that this is the devs’ way of signalling to us that the events of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration occur before the very beginning of post-OG Cloud’s second try at the OG timeline (Remake).
Now that I’ve shown you how I’ve come to form my Mission Theory and we’ve done some pesky housekeeping, let’s connect some dots, shall we? It’s time to really get into it and see if any of my wild speculation tracks with content from the Remake trilogy so far.
V. Musical Evidence
What about the music of the game? Any hints there? Let’s try to see if we can find support for the Mission Theory in the music made for the Remake trilogy thus far!As a preface to my musical evidence analysis, I want to insist on something: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything. In a high-quality production such as Remake, people who make music for audiovisual media are told everything in advance. They need to know the secrets of every little scene, because their job is to depict whatever is happening through music.
Therefore, if the Mission Theory is true, then there has to be musical evidence for it.
V. a) Preface: The Basics of the FFVII OST
There’s a lot of evidence in the music of the Remake trilogy that we have to address, but before we get into it, I do have to give you the basics of the FFVII soundscape! For the easiest experience, I suggest you keep a tab open for every link I provide for you until the music analysis is over, because we will be hopping from one musical theme to another and then back again.
V. a) i. The World Theme: Cloud’s Troubled Identity
The world theme of FFVII is a perfect example of how musicians working on an OST have to know the secrets of a story as they compose for it. On top of representing the FFVII world as a whole, it doubles as Cloud’s character theme… except that isn’t exactly right. You see, this piece does indeed contain Cloud’s true theme, but Sephiroth and Jenova’s musical motifs also contaminate it. This, of course, symbolizes how Cloud experiences identity sabotage because of these two antagonists. The result is that globally, the world theme does indeed represent Cloud’s character, but it isn’t exclusively Cloud’s in the same way that Cloud’s mind isn’t exclusively his. It’s brilliant storytelling through musical motifs, and evidently requires Uematsu to know in advance that Sephiroth manipulates Cloud’s identity in the story.
For future reference, let’s isolate Cloud’s true theme from Jenova and Sephiroth’s influence.
V. a) i. 1) Sephiroth: Dissonance and Semi-Tone Motif
I’m sure you know Sephiroth’s infamous theme: “One-Winged Angel”. The first motif we need to know is Sephiroth’s threatening, repetitive dissonance motif, which plays all throughout the piece (plays solo at 0:00 to 0:04). The second motif is what I call the semi-tone motif. “One-Winged Angel” has a ton of minor 2nd intervals, which is what we call the relationship between two notes that are only a semi-tone apart. You might recognize the minor 2nd interval in the foreboding Jaws theme. Just like in Jaws, the minor 2nd interval or semi-tone is commonly used to indicate an impending, life-threatening danger, a monster, predator, evil, or insanity; suits Sephiroth quite nicely!
V. a) i. 2) Jenova: Parasite Motif
The track “J-E-N-O-V-A” contains many competing melodies and has generated many variations of those melodies —almost like clones— that all represent aspects of the alien’s character. The main Jenova motif is simply a descending, two-octaves-long, arpeggiated mb6 chord (eight notes total). I’ve played it for you here. Sometimes, this motif is altered to form variations. For instance, in “Listen to the Cries of the Planet”, a variation of Jenova’s main motif is created by changing the order of the notes and reducing the number of notes to only six (0:00-0:03), however, it remains an arpeggiated mb6 chord. Regardless of the alteration, if you hear an arpeggiated mb6 chord, it means Jenova is creeping close by or that its influence is at work.
The variation of the mb6 arpeggiated chord that concerns us alters Jenova’s main theme so it ascends from the tonic to the b6 note and descends back to the tonic, then ending on the lower dominant for a total of eight notes. I’ve played it for you here. I call this variation the “parasite motif”, because it is often heard when Cloud is being controlled by Jenova. For instance, it plays when Cloud loses himself and becomes unusually violent in Rebirth’s chapter 13 (17:25-18:34), signalling to us that Jenova is in control. It is also the main motif of the track “Who… Am I?”, which evidently symbolizes Jenova’s fuelling of Cloud’s identity crisis— though here, the parasite motif is shortened to its six first notes.
V. a) i. 3) Cloud’s True Self
Now that we can recognize Sephiroth and Jenova’s motifs, let’s return to the world theme to isolate Cloud’s true self. Cloud’s true theme can be heard from 0:51 to 3:48. It consists of a section A (0:51-1:54), followed by a section B (1:54-2:41), and then returns to section A (2:41-3:48).
After Cloud’s true theme concludes however, it seems he experiences a psychic interference: doubt and confusion weave through the world theme (3:48-4:09), representing an instability in his identity. I call this interruption of Cloud’s true theme the “interference section”. It symbolizes a moment of psychic interference or weakness within Cloud that Sephiroth and Jenova take advantage of to take control of Cloud.
The end of the interference section introduces Jenova’s parasite motif. It slithers in (4:09), later joined by Sephiroth’s dissonance motif (4:16): Cloud’s mind and identity are being hijacked by the two antagonists in service of their evil plans.
They torment Cloud, dominating his mind until he manages to free himself: section A of Cloud’s true theme begins playing again (6:06), closing the loop of the theme.
Based on this musical storytelling, if you already knew the character motifs going into OG, you might’ve suspected something odd was going on with Cloud’s identity, and that Jenova and Sephiroth were involved. All this to say that whatever music is playing at any given time can give us hints as to what is going on. That’s the power and significance of a good soundtrack. Trust me when I say that with Uematsu and his team, we’re in excellent hands. And remember: the story guys tell the soundtrack guys everything.
V. a) ii. Aerith’s Theme
Another base we have to cover before checking out the Remake soundtrack is Aerith’s theme. I’m sure everyone here is familiar with it, but I insist that you refresh your memory. It consists of a section A (0:00-0:34), a section B (0:34-1:13) and a section C (1:13-2:00), concluding with a repeat of section A.
V. a) iii. Motifs and Timing in FFVII OSTs
I’m going to analyze pieces in great detail, which people who haven’t studied or paid attention to soundtracks may find strange. To prevent anyone from making the mistake of thinking that I’m reading too much into things, I want to emphasize that the music that plays during the Remaketrilogy’s cutscenes is carefully timed, composed and arranged to match the events in the cutscenes, as they are provided in advance to the musicians. Composers pay lots of attention to whatever is going on onscreen so they can include the corresponding musical motifs as accompaniment at the exact right moments, always striving to get the timing perfect. I’m not exaggerating the effort and minutia involved in soundtrack composition and arrangement. Here are just a few sound staff comments from the “Material 4: Soundtrack” section of the FFVII Remake Material Ultimania to prove it:
“[To] make sure players really feel the weight of the moment, we worked hard on getting the tempo and the entry timing of each instrument exactly right. In particular, that big ‘boom’ that sounds almost like a meteor crashing down was fine-tuned to match the timing of the logo's appearance. I remember this was a real sticking point for us, because if the boom's timing was even slightly off, the effect would be completely different. We […] had to sequence [each and every sound] to play at exactly the right moment” (Shotaro Shima on track “Midgar, City of Mako”, page 229).&
“I was originally told to keep this piece to under two minutes, but it ended up being over six minutes long, in order to match the flow of the cutscene. I arranged the track while watching the latest CG visuals that had been rendered for the scene” (Naoyuki Honzawa on track “Smash ‘Em, Rip ‘Em”, page 309).&
“This is the track that plays during the tour of Shinra’s different divisions. The movie shown in the Visual Entertainment Hall describes the history of the Ancients (0:25 onward in the soundtrack version), and I wanted to create a musical link to them as well, so I made use of the chord progression from ‘Aerith’s Theme’ [D(I)-Am(Vm)-D(I).] [This simple sequence of moving from major to minor and back again creates a really mysterious air. Then, during the section where the movie recounts the history of the construction of the Shinra Building (1:47 onward in the soundtrack version), I quoted a section of the Shinra theme” (Yasunori Nishiki on track “Stewards of the Planet”, page 313).V. b) The Remake OST
Now that you’re ready, it’s time to verify the Mission Theory’s validity with Remake’s music.
V. b) i. MOTF 6 Music
We were able to explain Remake Cloud’s MOTFs with the Mission Theory, and it just so happens that the music that plays during the scene of MOTF 6 is unique to Remake. This gives us the perfect opportunity: we should analyze the piece that plays as it occurs to evaluate the legitimacy of our theory on the Remake trilogy, using all the motifs we uncovered in section “V. a)”.
First, a refresher on the scene and on our theory’s interpretation of it. The party is gathered in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. Here is how the scene is described by the VA script notes:
“The Whispers once again close in [on Aerith], but Aerith refuses to stop speaking this time.Indeed, right after Aerith says she wants to help the planet any way she can, Cloud looks down at his chest with a frown and a quiet grunt (7:46-7:54). According to the Mission Theory, this tightness in Cloud’s chest can be explained as an emergence of post-OG Cloud’s grief, triggered by the slightest allusion to Aerith’s sacrifice.
Aerith: Listen to me. […] Shinra isn’t the enemy. They were the ones who set things in motion, but our true foe is someone else.
At that moment, the spectacle of Meteor they saw in the Visual Entertainment Hall comes into Cloud and the others’ heads.
Aerith: Somehow, some way, I want to help— all of you… the planet…
For some reason, Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”).
The piece that plays during this scene is called “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”. It is one of many variations of Aerith’s iconic theme arranged for Remake. However, Cloud’s theme is just as prominent in the piece— if not, more.
V. b) i. 1) The Fate Motif
Before we interpret “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”, I need to introduce you to one more motif that crops up in the piece. There is a windy motif that appears (from 1:45 onwards) and it is unaccounted for, despite how it’s clearly meant to represent something. I’ve become certain that this wind noise symbolizes fate, and I’ll tell you why.
In the MOTF 6 scene, just after Nanaki explains how he gained knowledge of the Whispers via contact with Aerith (7:23), they emerge and begin swirling aggressively around Aerith (7:26). Her hair and dress blow and ripple in the resulting wind. From this very moment onward “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (3:00), a string section (bowed instruments in the violin family) that deliberately emphasizes the airy sound of the bow crossing the strings enters, creating a windy effect that adds to the already present wind noise (that started at 1:45). As the Whispers progressively become even more aggressive onscreen, both the wind SFX of the cutscene and the wind noise in the piece get louder and louder. Because of the timing of its appearance and crescendo in the cutscene, I’m certain the wind noise is meant to represent the restrictive flow of fate; it only makes sense, given that destiny is a current —or a wind— that cannot be broken, and Aerith is like a helpless petal in fate’s carefully planned storm. Of course, it’s also quite significant that the Whispers make a windy noise as they fly. You can hear it every time they’re onscreen, like when they first appear to Cloud in chapter 2 of Remake (17:45-18:20), or when the White Whispers hold Cloud back from chasing after Aerith during Rebirth’s Sleeping Forest scene in chapter 14 (28:43-29:45). You can also hear the wind sounds in other Whisper-related tracks, such as “Whorl of Whispers” (clearly audible at 2:50-3:05), as well as “A Death Not Ordained by Fate” (clearly audible at 2:56-3:18). Therefore, I’ll call these wind noises the “fate motif”.
V. b) ii. 2) Interpreting “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra”
In part 1 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” (0:00-1:45), Aerith’s theme and Cloud’s true theme play simultaneously, their respective phrases fitting perfectly together, interweaving peacefully and softly. It sounds like the two of them are chatting, dancing bashfully yet contently and in perfect sync, glad to be exactly where they’re meant to be as their themes sing together in harmony (soft piano). Part 1 of this piece is about Cloud and Aerith becoming important to one another as they discover their soulmate bond.
Unfortunately that contentment doesn’t last. In part 2 (1:45-3:00), Cloud experiences a moment of psychic vulnerability (world theme’s interference section). Fate lurks (fate motif enters quietly). His instability forces our couple’s sweet dance to a halt, and Aerith’s theme must retreat as Cloud’s confusion takes center stage. Sephiroth torments and taunts him (semi-tone played by strings, 2:03-2:10), taking advantage of Cloud’s psychic interference to plunge him into darkness (world theme’s interference section ends, low cello enters, 2:18): Cloud temporarily becomes a darker version of himself as evil corrupts him (piano plays section A phrases 1 and 2 of Cloud’s true theme in minor, 2:18-2:53). Jenova finally reveals itself and promptly exits, releasing Cloud’s mind from its grasp (seven first notes of parasite motif played twice on piano 2:53-3:00). Cloud is free, but the damage has been done: his dance with Aerith has long been interrupted, and she is gone. Part 2 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud being manipulated in service of Sephiroth and Jenova’s evil plan, interrupting his interaction with Aerith.
Part 3 (3:00-3:33) kicks off the mechanisms of a tragic fate (strings section joins fate motif, 3:00). Both anxious that she’s disappeared from his side and terrified of the darkness he just discovered inside him (in part 2), Cloud fearfully calls out for Aerith (phrase 1 of Cloud’s true theme’s section A, timid and hesitant piano, 3:04-3:15). Before his psychic interference began (start of part 2), Cloud’s voice was accompanied by Aerith’s as they grew closer and closer (their character themes mingling in part 1)… but now, Aerith isn’t answering his call, and he cannot find her (Aerith’s theme doesn’t to join Cloud’s anymore).
Anxious, Cloud tries calling out for Aerith a second time (section A phrase 2 of Cloud’s true theme’s, 3:19-3:31), searching for her in the hopes that they can continue their dance, but even now, Aerith does not respond. She’s gone (Aerith’s theme remains absent). Destiny keeps Aerith away from Cloud (fate motif gently crescendos). Part 3 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud’s separation from Aerith, his search for her, and the fear and anxiousness he feels when he realizes he cannot find her.
And then, part 4 begins with a sweet, gentle voice, calling out from the blackened horizon: it’s Aerith (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, soft piano, 3:33-3:45). Cloud finally hears her respond to his pleas: he’s found her. Fate begins howling in protest, doubling its efforts to keep Cloud and Aerith apart (fate motif crescendos noticeably in reaction to Aerith’s theme, 3:45). You can just picture Cloud running toward Aerith, struggling against the current of destiny to try and close the distance between them. Aerith tries calling out for Cloud a second time, (section B phrase 2 of Aerith’s theme, 3:40-3:43), but the Whispers only swirl around her more ferociously, taking her away in the uncompromising current of fate (fate motif continues to crescendo). Aerith tries again (section B phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, 3:47-3:49). It sounds like she’s saying “Cloud, I’m over here, come find me!”
Fate doesn’t take too kindly to her defying it. Cloud and Aerith are not supposed to be together; it can’t be, it won’t. She’s destined to die to save the planet, and he’s destined to remain hollow forevermore. I can picture Cloud breaking into a sprint at the sound of her voice, running countercurrent to the flow of destiny— but the winds are so loud, fate’s demands are so strong, and the Whispers are shrieking in defense of destiny now. Aerith’s voice emerges for the fourth time (first three notes of section B phrase 3 of Aerith’s theme, 3:54 to 3:56). Fate screams louder, louder (steep crescendo of fate motif, 3:59-4:02). In a desperate hail Mary, Aerith shouts out one more time, as though throwing her hand out toward Cloud’s extended fingers (section C phrase 1 of Aerith’s theme, louder and more insistent, cutting through the fate motif as it crescendos sharply, 4:00-4:06). Part 4 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” is about Cloud and Aerith desperately trying to defy fate in order to be together. And then, it all stops: fate has seemingly quieted Aerith (4:04-4:08)…
Part 5 (4:08-4:27) begins with Cloud jumping, launching himself off the ground with all his strength (Cloud’s true theme section A phrase 2, first 5 notes, melody starting on the note E5 and ascending) as Aerith plummets toward the ground in a fatal fall (Aerith’s theme section C phrase 1, melody starting on the note E6 and descending, the last note altered)— he successfully catches her in mid-air (both Cloud’s ascending melody and Aerith’s descending melody meet in the middle of the octave, first uniting on B5, and then ending on A5). I’ve recreated the melodies for you here so you can hear this reunion more clearly. If you consider that the airy strings in this piece represent fate, which I do, the fact that they follow Cloud and Aerith’s themes in part 5 signifies that they are now in control of their own destinies, and successfully making it their fate to reunite.
To be completely frank, I did not realize until right now writing this that Cloud unites with Aerith in part 5, even though his theme is right there. I’m so excited to share this part with you.
We hear Aerith once more, her voice quietly trailing off into the silence (phrase 4 of section C of Aerith’s theme) with no conclusion (phrase 5 normally follows phrase 4 to conclude Aerith’s theme, but is absent here). Part 5 of “Aerith’s Theme - The Cetra” suggests that Cloud will save Aerith and that the couple will change their fate, but also conveys an uncertain and open-ended quality.
(continued in part 5)
2024.05.16 15:43 MarkG_108 Some speculation on the recent assault of a character (spoiler for overseas viewers)
So, Nathan was mugged. The assailant appears to have been dressed in a dark grey hoodie (note picture 1), though the colour of the hood looks a bit lighter than the rest of top (thus, it could be a separate hood):
https://preview.redd.it/rxnktitfcs0d1.jpg?width=823&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42496823a7c2e96396846c415478f1cd6816e4e4
The assailant did not use a weapon. One solid punch to the head downed Nathan, followed by several kicks to the ribs. So, it had to be a big white guy (or athletic gal) with serious strength and/or a roll of coins (note colour of hands in photo #2):
2.) Attacker shoes and pants and hands
The shoes are black, and the pants are a dark off-coloured grey or khaki. This picture indicates the hoodie could have been a lighter grey.
Some big guys in the episode were Craig, Daniel, Gary, Kit Green, and Ryan. David too was in the show, though he doesn't seem big enough to pull off a one punch knockout. Both Ryan and Gary were wearing grey hoodies, but their hoodies were a lighter colour. None of the other characters had a dark hoodie (except David, but his was black, rather than dark grey, and the pants and shoes don't match). It's possible that the assailant donned a dark grey hoodie, and then discarded it.
3.) After having drunk with Gary and Daniel (served by Ryan), David rushes somewhere.
David was wearing a hoodie, but it was black. His pants are acid wash, rather than a solid colour. His shoes don't match. After the assault, we see David return to his flat to launder his pants (the same acid wash pants) and put a key down on the table.
4.) Ryan and Gary's hoodies
Ryan and Gary are wearing grey hoodies, but they seem too light coloured. But, given picture number two, it's not impossible. There's no other picture of what Ryan was wearing before the assault. Ryan did have a chat with Bethany after it, where he (presumably innocently) implicated Daniel. Ryan was wearing different clothing then. Another picture of Gary shows he was wearing dark coloured khaki pants and black shoes:
5.) Gary's wardrobe
It's likely not Craig, but the fact that previously he had been speaking of Nathan to Bethany shows an awareness. His wardrobe is dark but not completely black.
5.) Craig is not wearing a hoodie, but dark grey of his top matches. The pants seem a bit dark.
Kit Green is a vigilante cop. Dawning a hood and taking out a bad guy on his own would, I'm guessing, be in character for him. His jacket and pants are both dark grey. The pants are a bit lighter.
6.) Kit Green's wardrobe
Daniel's clothing does not match:
Daniel in blue jeans and a trench coat.
submitted by MarkG_108 to coronationstreet [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/rxnktitfcs0d1.jpg?width=823&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42496823a7c2e96396846c415478f1cd6816e4e4
The assailant did not use a weapon. One solid punch to the head downed Nathan, followed by several kicks to the ribs. So, it had to be a big white guy (or athletic gal) with serious strength and/or a roll of coins (note colour of hands in photo #2):
2.) Attacker shoes and pants and hands
The shoes are black, and the pants are a dark off-coloured grey or khaki. This picture indicates the hoodie could have been a lighter grey.
Some big guys in the episode were Craig, Daniel, Gary, Kit Green, and Ryan. David too was in the show, though he doesn't seem big enough to pull off a one punch knockout. Both Ryan and Gary were wearing grey hoodies, but their hoodies were a lighter colour. None of the other characters had a dark hoodie (except David, but his was black, rather than dark grey, and the pants and shoes don't match). It's possible that the assailant donned a dark grey hoodie, and then discarded it.
3.) After having drunk with Gary and Daniel (served by Ryan), David rushes somewhere.
David was wearing a hoodie, but it was black. His pants are acid wash, rather than a solid colour. His shoes don't match. After the assault, we see David return to his flat to launder his pants (the same acid wash pants) and put a key down on the table.
4.) Ryan and Gary's hoodies
Ryan and Gary are wearing grey hoodies, but they seem too light coloured. But, given picture number two, it's not impossible. There's no other picture of what Ryan was wearing before the assault. Ryan did have a chat with Bethany after it, where he (presumably innocently) implicated Daniel. Ryan was wearing different clothing then. Another picture of Gary shows he was wearing dark coloured khaki pants and black shoes:
5.) Gary's wardrobe
It's likely not Craig, but the fact that previously he had been speaking of Nathan to Bethany shows an awareness. His wardrobe is dark but not completely black.
5.) Craig is not wearing a hoodie, but dark grey of his top matches. The pants seem a bit dark.
Kit Green is a vigilante cop. Dawning a hood and taking out a bad guy on his own would, I'm guessing, be in character for him. His jacket and pants are both dark grey. The pants are a bit lighter.
6.) Kit Green's wardrobe
Daniel's clothing does not match:
Daniel in blue jeans and a trench coat.
2024.05.16 13:19 Sorenota I Wasted Over a Month of My Life Chasing After a Girl
About a month ago(25M) during the first night of April, I decided to club with a close friend of mine in downtown LA. Apparently, there was a gal he knew that he reached out to since she was also attending that same club that night and asked if she wanted to join us. Surprisingly, she did end up making an appearance, after all, and the three of us ended up enjoying each others' company for the next few hours. After a few drinks and time on the dance floor, I got incredibly intoxicated and started flirting with this gal that my friend invited. She was quite receptive and even ended up giving me her Insta and Discord. It seemed like we were into each other and I was hopeful that we would end up possibly becoming something of a pair, so to speak.
A day later, I ask her out over text and she accepts seemingly giddy at the prospect of someone such as myself showing interest in her. Fast forward a week, we ended up speaking over text on Discord every single day, getting to know one another and even entertained the idea of seeing each other soon. Well, come mid April we arrange to meet at the nearby Little Tokyo before heading to that same exact club where we first met; just the two of us this time. However, what ended up taking place was her not only being over 2 hours late, keeping me waiting in Little Tokyo by myself when it was agreed upon that we would meet there but she tells me she just started getting ready when it was already past 7(she was supposed to meet me around then). Naturally, I was upset but did well to keep my composure and be understanding. Fast forward it is almost 9 pm and I proceed to ask her if she is still coming, to which she replies to just meet her at the club. I was at this point contemplating just leaving for home as I felt both disrespected and hurt by the fact she kept me waiting for over 3 hours just because she decided to get ready so late(while also taking hours in the process) but I held my tongue and made my way to the club. I paid for my ticket and then made my way inside, where I continued to wait for about 45 minutes until she finally arrives.
She knew I was upset but I assured her if I was I would not have shown up at all, which is correct. While I was upset, however, I decided to just enjoy myself and assure her it was fine. We had a few drinks, danced, and talked until past 2 am. I decided to wait with her outside until she got picked up by her dad and then I went home. Overall, it was a fun experience but I was concerned by the fact she kept me waiting for so long and made no effort to get ready sooner. I asked her about what happened, and she ended up telling me that she was thinking about not going but knew I was there so she decided to go, anyways. Along with that, she claims that she takes hours to get ready, supposedly.
It is after this event things take a turn for the worst. From here, almost every single attempt I make in asking her out to do anything or even voice call was met with indifference or some excuse such as her not feeling well or being in a call with her other friends. Keep in mind this went on for almost a month until I finally asked her if I should even continue talking to her, which then prompted her to VC me finally. She and I converse for a few hours and clear things up(so it seemed) and I was hopeful for the future. That, naturally, did not last long as any attempts to do anything with her besides chat over text led absolutely no where. I should have added this for context earlier, but: she is stuck living with her family while working a part time retail job that hardly gives her any hours to work. From what I was being told, she spends a very large portion of her time in her room, only interested in activities such as clubbing, concerts, and cosplay conventions. Outside of that, she finds every other activity boring. I suggested we go see a movie, eat somewhere, or even just hang out, but she had no interest in any other of the latter activities I suggested. Even when she would go out, she would always choose her friends over me. She then asks me if I would like to go club with her later in the month and I say 'sure.' That would be fine, only a week later when I ask about that she just tells me 'maybe' depending on the music that will be playing at that particular club and she won't meet up with me if the conditions are not perfect and exactly to her liking, I suppose. It was clear I was less than an afterthought for her and I was little more than a last resort when it came to people she could hang with during an outing.
It also seemed incredibly odd how obsessed she was with her ex boyfriend from a year prior. She would talk about him constantly and her intense desire for revenge against him; what he looks like, what he's into, his address, the girl he's dating. From what I was told, the two of them were together for about a month before he friend zoned her. A month after he did so, he allegedly 'ghosted' her, unfollowing her on all socials and cutting ties with her completely. To this day, she obsessively stalks his social media, his twitch, and even knows his address. In fact, her obsession with him is so severe she would have breakdowns every week whenever she would see that he viewed her Insta stories or he was streaming on Twitch. She would tell me things like "I hope he and his gf die" or "unless you can hire a hitman to end him, I can't let go of my hatred."
I understandably found this concerning and asked her why she cares so much, which in turn made her angry with me as she goes to tell me she does not care about him at all when it is obvious she does. She complains that everyone in her life tells her the same exact thing. I am quick to apologize only for her to respond 12 hours later telling me 'it's fine.' This was a massive red flag on its own but I still pressed on because against my own judgment I thought we could possibly be a couple and because I'm beyond stubborn. I found it strange how it seemed like she was giving this dude more attention than for me, especially because the two of them are no longer talking or on good terms.
Well, as of last week I asked her once more if she would like to VC to which she finally agrees. This is the second time we have VC'ed together in over a month as she would decline almost every other time I would ask unless the situation seemed dire. I wanted to talk to her, game with her, or whatever it may be but all she ended up doing was watching a Twitch stream the entire time not making much in the way of conversation. I will admit I was on the verge of tears because of the fact I spent weeks trying to spend time with this person only to sit quiet in a call with her for about 3 hours. Keep in mind I made attempts to converse with her, offered to game with her, or even just watch something but she would just tell me she isn't in the mood.
Eventually, after being in denial I realized that I have been chasing after a girl who has no interest in me at all or much of anything, truly. I then confront her about it and we argue for about an hour. I tell her she needs to let go of her hatred for her ex and that revenge is almost always a fool's game, as it is ruling her entire life. Both that and not to mention the fact she refuses to do much of anything with me outside of things she wants to do which are far and few between. She then tells me to give up on her, that she's "a nobody, won't listen to anyone, and a narcissist."
I conclude by thanking her for her time, that it was a pleasure getting to know her, and leave off by saying "They say you don't really know someone until you see them at their worst. With that being said, I now know you a whole lot better."
I then completely stop texting her and a few days later she removes me on all socials and off of Discord. I ponder as to the reason why her ex boyfriend ended up ghosting her, but if my time with her is any indication, then it would only make sense she may have had a hand in it.
I wasted 5 weeks of my time trying to get with this girl and have nothing but disappointment and frustration to show for it. I am more upset with myself for putting up with a person who clearly had no respect for me or even for themselves.
submitted by Sorenota to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
A day later, I ask her out over text and she accepts seemingly giddy at the prospect of someone such as myself showing interest in her. Fast forward a week, we ended up speaking over text on Discord every single day, getting to know one another and even entertained the idea of seeing each other soon. Well, come mid April we arrange to meet at the nearby Little Tokyo before heading to that same exact club where we first met; just the two of us this time. However, what ended up taking place was her not only being over 2 hours late, keeping me waiting in Little Tokyo by myself when it was agreed upon that we would meet there but she tells me she just started getting ready when it was already past 7(she was supposed to meet me around then). Naturally, I was upset but did well to keep my composure and be understanding. Fast forward it is almost 9 pm and I proceed to ask her if she is still coming, to which she replies to just meet her at the club. I was at this point contemplating just leaving for home as I felt both disrespected and hurt by the fact she kept me waiting for over 3 hours just because she decided to get ready so late(while also taking hours in the process) but I held my tongue and made my way to the club. I paid for my ticket and then made my way inside, where I continued to wait for about 45 minutes until she finally arrives.
She knew I was upset but I assured her if I was I would not have shown up at all, which is correct. While I was upset, however, I decided to just enjoy myself and assure her it was fine. We had a few drinks, danced, and talked until past 2 am. I decided to wait with her outside until she got picked up by her dad and then I went home. Overall, it was a fun experience but I was concerned by the fact she kept me waiting for so long and made no effort to get ready sooner. I asked her about what happened, and she ended up telling me that she was thinking about not going but knew I was there so she decided to go, anyways. Along with that, she claims that she takes hours to get ready, supposedly.
It is after this event things take a turn for the worst. From here, almost every single attempt I make in asking her out to do anything or even voice call was met with indifference or some excuse such as her not feeling well or being in a call with her other friends. Keep in mind this went on for almost a month until I finally asked her if I should even continue talking to her, which then prompted her to VC me finally. She and I converse for a few hours and clear things up(so it seemed) and I was hopeful for the future. That, naturally, did not last long as any attempts to do anything with her besides chat over text led absolutely no where. I should have added this for context earlier, but: she is stuck living with her family while working a part time retail job that hardly gives her any hours to work. From what I was being told, she spends a very large portion of her time in her room, only interested in activities such as clubbing, concerts, and cosplay conventions. Outside of that, she finds every other activity boring. I suggested we go see a movie, eat somewhere, or even just hang out, but she had no interest in any other of the latter activities I suggested. Even when she would go out, she would always choose her friends over me. She then asks me if I would like to go club with her later in the month and I say 'sure.' That would be fine, only a week later when I ask about that she just tells me 'maybe' depending on the music that will be playing at that particular club and she won't meet up with me if the conditions are not perfect and exactly to her liking, I suppose. It was clear I was less than an afterthought for her and I was little more than a last resort when it came to people she could hang with during an outing.
It also seemed incredibly odd how obsessed she was with her ex boyfriend from a year prior. She would talk about him constantly and her intense desire for revenge against him; what he looks like, what he's into, his address, the girl he's dating. From what I was told, the two of them were together for about a month before he friend zoned her. A month after he did so, he allegedly 'ghosted' her, unfollowing her on all socials and cutting ties with her completely. To this day, she obsessively stalks his social media, his twitch, and even knows his address. In fact, her obsession with him is so severe she would have breakdowns every week whenever she would see that he viewed her Insta stories or he was streaming on Twitch. She would tell me things like "I hope he and his gf die" or "unless you can hire a hitman to end him, I can't let go of my hatred."
I understandably found this concerning and asked her why she cares so much, which in turn made her angry with me as she goes to tell me she does not care about him at all when it is obvious she does. She complains that everyone in her life tells her the same exact thing. I am quick to apologize only for her to respond 12 hours later telling me 'it's fine.' This was a massive red flag on its own but I still pressed on because against my own judgment I thought we could possibly be a couple and because I'm beyond stubborn. I found it strange how it seemed like she was giving this dude more attention than for me, especially because the two of them are no longer talking or on good terms.
Well, as of last week I asked her once more if she would like to VC to which she finally agrees. This is the second time we have VC'ed together in over a month as she would decline almost every other time I would ask unless the situation seemed dire. I wanted to talk to her, game with her, or whatever it may be but all she ended up doing was watching a Twitch stream the entire time not making much in the way of conversation. I will admit I was on the verge of tears because of the fact I spent weeks trying to spend time with this person only to sit quiet in a call with her for about 3 hours. Keep in mind I made attempts to converse with her, offered to game with her, or even just watch something but she would just tell me she isn't in the mood.
Eventually, after being in denial I realized that I have been chasing after a girl who has no interest in me at all or much of anything, truly. I then confront her about it and we argue for about an hour. I tell her she needs to let go of her hatred for her ex and that revenge is almost always a fool's game, as it is ruling her entire life. Both that and not to mention the fact she refuses to do much of anything with me outside of things she wants to do which are far and few between. She then tells me to give up on her, that she's "a nobody, won't listen to anyone, and a narcissist."
I conclude by thanking her for her time, that it was a pleasure getting to know her, and leave off by saying "They say you don't really know someone until you see them at their worst. With that being said, I now know you a whole lot better."
I then completely stop texting her and a few days later she removes me on all socials and off of Discord. I ponder as to the reason why her ex boyfriend ended up ghosting her, but if my time with her is any indication, then it would only make sense she may have had a hand in it.
I wasted 5 weeks of my time trying to get with this girl and have nothing but disappointment and frustration to show for it. I am more upset with myself for putting up with a person who clearly had no respect for me or even for themselves.
2024.05.16 09:28 haygurlhay123 “This Time, I Will Never Let You Go”: Cloud’s Mission and the Hidden Purpose of the Remake Trilogy - Literary and Musical Analysis of FFVII - Part 3
(continuation of part 2)
III. e) The Mobius FF x FFVII collaboration
Alright, back to our suspension world-hopping! Let’s visit the realm of Mobius FF, —more specifically, the collaboration between Mobius FF and FFVII—, where I found the most substantial evidence for my theory.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the Mobius FF (MFF) world and games, let’s begin with a bit of a summary of the parts relevant to us. The story takes place in a world called Palamecia, to which people from other worlds are inexplicably summoned. The vast majority of those who are brought there don’t remember anything from their worlds of origin or their lives before Palamecia except their names: these amnesiac people are called Blanks. The main character is Wol, accompanied by a guiding fairy of Palamecia named Echo. Echo knows a lot about the mechanisms of Palamecia, as she’s tied to the realm. The leader of this world is Vox, a being who manifests only as a voice. The first thing all Blanks remember before they wake in Palamecia is Vox telling them the rules of the realm. Incidentally, the crystals of the MFF world are teleportation crystals.
III. e) i. Devs’ Statements
Let’s review some of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration devs’ statements before diving into its story.
For both the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration and the Remake project, Kitase took on the role of producer while Nojima supervised the screenplay and wrote the scenario. The project leader was none other than the Remake trilogy’s Hamaguchi, who told a SE interviewer the following:
III. e) ii. Eclipse Contact
1) Fact-Finding
Part one of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event is called Eclipse Contact. It came out in 2017 on Aerith’s birthday, February 7th, and its release campaign ran until March. In Eclipse Contact, Palamecia welcomes someone new: Cloud Strife appears in the realm with very little recollection of his core world of FFVII.
Cloud isn’t a Blank, since he recalls the mako reactors in Midgar upon his arrival in Palamecia, and also remembers that he was hired by Avalanche to blow them up:
Wol and Echo are intrigued by Cloud’s strange case: non-Blanks rarely arrive in Palamecia. The following text appears on the screen shortly after they meet:
Wol and Echo agree to help Cloud figure out why he’s here, since there’s clearly something strange going on with his presence in Palamecia. In fact, Cloud brought Midgar’s mako reactors with him somehow, transplanting them onto the landscape of Palamecia. The group decides to bomb these reactors, following Cloud’s instincts in the hopes that it will jog his memory.
Now for my favorite part. After blowing up another reactor, the group is surprised by the appearance of a crystal. A piano rendition of Aerith’s theme begins. When Wol tries to touch the crystal, something akin to a force field rejects him. When Cloud approaches it, however, the crystal responds to his hand by flashing with light. As it begins to glow, Wol concludes that the crystal is linked to Cloud and Cloud alone. Let’s examine the resulting dialogue:
Cloud disappears with his crystal, after which Echo speaks to Wol about Cloud’s journey:
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
There’s a lot of vital information to dig into here, mostly provided by Echo. She claims that the crystal’s light is linked to Cloud’s memories of home; Cloud has to have known this home in the past, as it could not otherwise exist in his memories. MFF Cloud must be a post-OG Cloud. Unfortunately, Echo indicates that whatever Cloud’s home is, he’s lost both it and his memories of it. Despite this, Cloud describes his home as warm and peaceful, concluding that he wishes to find it. Though Cloud can’t return to the past, Echo tells him that if he wishes it strongly enough, the crystal can guide him toward a new world, where his home and his Promised Land exist in the future. The fact that Aerith’s theme is playing all throughout these descriptions of Cloud’s lost home, his Promised Land and the past that he can’t return to makes it extremely obvious that these concepts all point to Aerith. Aerith is Cloud’s lost home. Wherever Aerith is, that’s his Promised Land. The time spent with Aerith before her loss is the past he tragically can’t return to. You might have clocked the similarities between Eclipse Contact’s mention of Cloud’s lost home and DFF’s mention of Cloud’s lost dream: in both these titles, Cloud’s home and dream are equivalent to his Promised Land. It’s confirmed yet again that Aerith is the one Cloud hopes to return to, just like every soul returns to the Lifestream. At this juncture of my research, I was curious as to why the last thing Cloud remembers before waking in Palamecia is the run-up to the Reactor 1 bombing mission in OG (disk 1, chapter 1). This mystery will have to persist for a while longer.
The alarm bells in your head might’ve been triggered by the mention of the wishing scene’s rainbow ripple effects— and rightfully so. This visual cue has sparked passionate debate in the fandom since its appearances in Rebirth, as seen in these pictures:
Zack Choosing To Get A Cure For Cloud, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating a New World/Timeline
Aerith Pushing Cloud Out of that World/Timeline, Remake Chapter 14
Cloud Blocking Masamune, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating New World/Timeline
You might have read or heard that this rainbow effect signifies that a character has entered another timeline, created a portal to another timeline, created a new timeline or is being shown different timelines. Indeed, whenever the OG timeline is deviated from in a significant way, this effect appears. The pictures above present multiple examples of these shifting realities.
One might propose that the rainbow ripples in Eclipse Contact and Rebirth are unrelated because of the long period between their respective release dates. This long in-between period indeed makes it likelier that the effect was used without forethought in Eclipse Contact, forgotten over the years, and incidentally reused in Rebirth as a plot-important visual cue with no connection to Eclipse Contact. I’m inclined to disagree since the crystal is specifically described as a vessel that can take Cloud “to a new world” by Echo, which is a bit on the nose. Regardless, it’s plausible that there’s no connection. That is, it would be, if the rainbow effect didn’t show up in Remake too.
When the Whispers are finally defeated in chapter 18 of Remake, a burst of the rainbow ripple effects indicate the emergence of multiple worlds, newly freed from the restrictive clutches of fate (1:16:36-1:16:47). Shortly thereafter, Sephiroth takes Cloud to the Edge of Creation and invites him to join forces with him. Cloud refuses, and Sephiroth says the following:
Given that Remake was released in 2020 and Eclipse Contact came out in 2017, the major story elements of the Remake trilogy —including the eventuality of alternate timelines— had to have been planned out at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: while the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration was being made, Remake was also in production. Also recall that the collaboration event and the Remake trilogy share a codirector in Hamaguchi, a writer in Nojima and a producer in Kitase. Based on all this, it’s more than likely that the rainbow ripples in the Remake trilogy and inEclipse Contact represent the very same thing: alternate worlds and timelines. All this to say that when the rainbow effect appears around the crystal in the Eclipse Contact, it means the crystal is acting as a vessel to another world, just like Echo said.
But that’s not all Echo said: she also mentioned that this other world would take Cloud to his home, to his Promised Land. We’ve already established what that means for Cloud, what it’s meant since two whole decades at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: this crystal will take Cloud to Aerith. So, where exactly did the crystal take Cloud? In what world can he meet Aerith again?
The music that plays during the wishing scene gives us a huge hint. As I noted before, the track playing in the background is a slightly modified version of Remake’s “Midgar, City of Mako”, which plays in the introduction cutscene of Remake. This is a musical cue that the ending of Cloud’s journey in Eclipse Contact and the very beginning of the Remake trilogy are closely related. Add the fact that the devs wanted players to experience this collaboration event before playing Remake, and it becomes undeniable: the crystal that appeared to Cloud in Palamecia —which offers to lead him to his home and Promised Land, meaning to Aerith—, took him to the world of the Remaketrilogy.
Eclipse Contact is huge. The whole crux of my theory lives and dies right here. However, we still have part two of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event to analyze as well as its promotions to look into before I can drop the thesis on you, so bear with me in order to receive the most thorough analysis of all this possible! I want to give you every drop of proof I can!
III. e) ii. MFF x FFVII Remake Fatal Calling
1) Fact-Finding
Fatal Calling came out February 1 of 2018, and its release campaign ended in March. The game opens with a cutscene: Cloud is floating, seemingly unconscious, through a sparkling, green current of light. The current flows into a circle of bright, white light, surrounded by rainbow ripple effects as Cloud is driven toward and into it. An orb floats along with him. The Advent Children theme “The Promised Land” plays, a choir of mournful, aching, mutedly desperate souls engaged in a lamenting prayer. Sephiroth’s voice echoes:
Cloud enters a battle with Sephiroth with the help of Wol and Echo, who are surprised to see him back in Palamecia. Cloud tells them about the orb seen floating along with him in the opening cutscene: though he calls it a materia, he doesn’t know how or when he acquired it. Based on his behavior, it appears that Cloud remembers just as little about the events of OG as he did by the end of Eclipse Contact. Wol informs Cloud that whoever he heard speaking to him on his way here was probably Vox pretending to be Sephiroth.
As the group advances, Cloud recalls Midgar and decides they should go there next. At one of Midgar’s mako reactors, the group encounters Sephiroth, who speaks to himself:
Once Cloud has woken up, the group travels to Nibelheim to uncover the truth about Cloud’s memories. Cloud slowly gathers pieces of his past, shown to the player as titled, diary-like text written from various perspectives. Cloud learns the truth about SOLDIER, Jenova cells, Sephiroth, and what happened in Nibelheim. Let’s examine a few of these diary entries:
Cloud, Wol and Echo find Sephiroth at the Northern Crater. He mocks Cloud for believing the orb in his possession is materia. Sephiroth waves a hand and his signature black and purple fog surrounds Cloud, immobilizing him. Sephiroth claims that the power Cloud regained at the Mt. Nibel reactor was Sephiroth’s all along. Now that it courses through Cloud’s veins, Sephiroth controls him. He calls Cloud his puppet and finishes with the following before the two vanish, leaving Wol and Echo alone:
Once both the final name in the credits and Aerith’s theme fade, we’re surprised by a sudden, troubling image: Sephiroth appears in a frightening flash, standing amidst the flames of Nibelheim. When his image fades to black, the collaboration title *“Final Fantasy VII x Mobius Final Fantasy”*appears on the screen. The FFVII title is accompanied by the 1997 meteor logo. Then, a flash of light: the titles reappear, except this time, they read “Final Fantasy VII REMAKE x Mobius Final Fantasy”. The new Remake Meteor logo replaces the 1997 version. As soon as these changes to the FFVII title and meteor logo occur, Aerith’s theme returns. It plays on until the game ends a few seconds later, the screen fading to black.
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
The introduction cutscene shows that MFF Cloud travelled from Eclipse Contact to Fatal Calling via Lifestream. It’s unclear how much time has passed in between, but the atemporal nature of the Lifestream makes the question irrelevant. My theory that MFF Cloud has died is corroborated by the way he’s depicted in the opening cutscene: his eyes are closed and his body is limp as the Lifestream carries him.
Eclipse Contact ended with Echo’s claim that Cloud will face his true self and confront his past while he journeys to his Promised Land. This description resembles what Cloud experienced in the OG Lifestream sequence (disk 2, chapter 8). Indeed, Fatal Calling revolves around the same topics the Lifestream sequence addresses: the truth about the Nibelheim incident, Hojo’s experiments, young Cloud’s crush on Tifa, etc. The opening cutscene shows Cloud being transported to his Promised Land and facing his past on the way there, just like Echo said he would.
Let’s now take a long detour to examine the song that plays during the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling: “The Promised Land” theme from Advent Children. The title and general subject of this song are obviously relevant to the cutscene, but there must be more to its inclusion than that. Perhaps the lyrics can help us understand its appearance in the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling. Here are the unofficial English lyrics (translated from the original Japanese lyrics by an anonymous fan and verified by me via DeepL):
Importantly, the song plays in Marlene’s introductory narration of Advent Children, meaning its themes are related or similar to the film’s. I highly recommend listening and watching it again, even if you remember this iconic segment. Marlene references Aerith’s sacrifice as the image of Cloud lowering her into the water is shown. Note that Marlene says “Sadness was the price to see it end” (2:36) after we are shown Aerith’s death and her subsequent unleashing of the Lifestream (1:49-2:24): Aerith’s innocent life was sacrificed for the planet’s survival. The lyrics “A gentle life returns to the planet” and “Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?” suit Aerith’s situation quite well.
The theme also plays in Advent Children as Kadaj dies in Cloud’s arms (1:45:00-1:47:55), hearing Aerith’s gentle voice and reaching up to take her invisible hand. Here is what Aerith says to him in his dying moments as “The Promised Land” plays:
Additionally, the song’s themes of regret, shame concerning one’s sins and a small hope perfectly describe Cloud’s character arc and feelings in Advent Children. Cloud regrets his inability to save Aerith, which he considers a sin. Further, he only realized how important she is to him once it was too late to tell her. And of course, he harbors a fragile yet important hope that he’ll be reunited with her in the Promised Land:
The scene depicts Aerith guiding Kadaj into the Lifestream as the song plays, tying her to the concept and theme song of the Promised Land once more. This connection is later solidified by Tifa’s thanks to the late flower girl. All of this evidence shows us that this musical theme is intimately linked to Aerith, as it never plays in her absence. After all, the song speaks of sins, the death of innocents, forgiveness, grief, a small sense of hope, regret and the afterlife: all themes relevant to Cloud’s feelings surrounding Aerith’s death in and outside of Advent Children.
The Remake OST also includes a version of this piece called “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life”. This iteration of the theme begins playing in the wake of the first bombing mission, right after Sephiroth taunts Cloud with his mother’s dying words in Sector 8 (chapter 2). Sephiroth appears to Cloud surrounded by flames, evoking the Nibelheim massacre, and the theme begins playing in the background once he disappears, continuing (13:17-15:30) as Cloud walks through the sector, encountering fires and destruction all around him. This version of the Promised Land theme is meant to emphasize the deaths of the innocent Nibelheim townsfolk and the innocents in Sector 8. This dreadful atmosphere is amplified by the cries of despair that ring all around as Cloud passes by NPC Sector 8 residents. Perhaps the themes of tribalism and mankind’s sin are relevant to this scene as well, since Shinra and Avalanche are two distinct and warring groups whose quarrels, regardless of their necessity, result in the deaths of innocents. The theme of guilt also emerges, reflecting the Avalanche members’ feelings upon seeing the unintended collateral damage of the explosion. “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life” plays until Cloud encounters Aerith on Loveless. So it seems in this scenario, the heavy weight of death and despair is lifted when Cloud meets the lively, cheery Aerith. Once more, Aerith is central to the musical theme of the Promised Land, as well as to the concept itself.
I also noticed that a version of the song plays as Cloud and the party ready to enter the Forgotten Capital to save Aerith in Rebirth’s chapter 14: it truly adds the weight of her upcoming death to the scene.
Back to Fatal Calling, the scene where Cloud regains his strength is quite mysterious. Wol says Cloud’s orb regained its “guiding light” light because of its proximity to the mako reactor. In the moment his strength is replenished, Cloud is shown tilting his head back and closing his eyes: this is reminiscent of the scene in Advent Children when he stands under Aerith’s healing Lifestream rain, feeling at peace. The rainbow ripples shining from the orb indicate that something is crossing the boundaries of worlds. Since the mako reactor pumps up the Lifestream, being near a reactor also means being physically near the Lifestream. This means Aerith’s spirit is within proximity. In my opinion, Aerith was able to heal Cloud from the Lifestream, just like in Advent Children. However, Aerith is not in Palamecia with him: her healing had to travel there through the Lifestream, transcending the boundaries of worlds, hence the rainbow ripples.
Let’s now address the appearance of Tifa’s character theme in Fatal Calling. Since Fatal Calling is all about discovering Cloud’s past in Nibelheim and then in Hojo’s lab, it makes lots of sense for Tifa’s theme to play as the crystal appears. In OG’s Lifestream sequence (disk 2 chapter 8), she’s the one there helping Cloud sort through his past instead of Wol and Echo. Cloud even picks up a piece of his childhood crush on Tifa in Fatal Calling as a shard of his memory. After all, this crush was the catalyst for him joining SOLDIER, and everything that transpired in consequence:
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III. e) The Mobius FF x FFVII collaboration
Alright, back to our suspension world-hopping! Let’s visit the realm of Mobius FF, —more specifically, the collaboration between Mobius FF and FFVII—, where I found the most substantial evidence for my theory.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the Mobius FF (MFF) world and games, let’s begin with a bit of a summary of the parts relevant to us. The story takes place in a world called Palamecia, to which people from other worlds are inexplicably summoned. The vast majority of those who are brought there don’t remember anything from their worlds of origin or their lives before Palamecia except their names: these amnesiac people are called Blanks. The main character is Wol, accompanied by a guiding fairy of Palamecia named Echo. Echo knows a lot about the mechanisms of Palamecia, as she’s tied to the realm. The leader of this world is Vox, a being who manifests only as a voice. The first thing all Blanks remember before they wake in Palamecia is Vox telling them the rules of the realm. Incidentally, the crystals of the MFF world are teleportation crystals.
III. e) i. Devs’ Statements
Let’s review some of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration devs’ statements before diving into its story.
For both the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration and the Remake project, Kitase took on the role of producer while Nojima supervised the screenplay and wrote the scenario. The project leader was none other than the Remake trilogy’s Hamaguchi, who told a SE interviewer the following:
“We would love for you to play the [MFF x FFVII] collaboration event as you look forward to [Remake’s] release” (“Celebration of the Overseas Release of the Steam Version and FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Collaboration Event”, Square Enix).He later hints at the collaboration’s storyline:
“This collaboration is focused on Cloud, so the other characters will not make an appearance. Players will join Cloud, who has gone astray in Palamecia, on his adventures and see how the story unfolds based on his decisions. Content-wise, FINAL FANTASY VII fans will surely become fraught with emotion as events unfold in-game (laughs).”Kitase concurs on the emotional aspect of the collaboration in the same interview:
“When it comes to the story, I seek two things– ‘mystery’ and ‘[…] emotional impact’.”Clearly, fans of FFVII are supposed to react emotionally to the events of the collaboration. With these statements in mind to give us perspective, we can get into the plot points relevant to our analysis. MFF x FFVII Remake comes in two parts, the relevant plot points of which I will describe and analyze one at a time.
III. e) ii. Eclipse Contact
1) Fact-Finding
Part one of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event is called Eclipse Contact. It came out in 2017 on Aerith’s birthday, February 7th, and its release campaign ran until March. In Eclipse Contact, Palamecia welcomes someone new: Cloud Strife appears in the realm with very little recollection of his core world of FFVII.
Cloud isn’t a Blank, since he recalls the mako reactors in Midgar upon his arrival in Palamecia, and also remembers that he was hired by Avalanche to blow them up:
“Echo: How did you end up in Palamecia?This piece of dialogue reveals that Eclipse Contact Cloud’s memories end at the very moment when Avalanche arrives at reactor 1 in OG (disk 1, chapter 1): the very beginning of the game. Consequently, Cloud does not remember anything that happened from the beginning of the OG timeline onwards.
Cloud: I… That day... I remember now. A job. I had taken a job. I was hired muscle protecting clients. They wanted to stop the reactor... We used a train to get past security... Was it at night? Something happened... Next thing I knew, I was floating through darkness. Then [I woke up here]”.
Wol and Echo are intrigued by Cloud’s strange case: non-Blanks rarely arrive in Palamecia. The following text appears on the screen shortly after they meet:
“Perhaps he is not truly who he thinks he is.Just like he did in FFT’s Ivalice, Cloud feels the need to find the Promised Land in MFF x FFVII, despite the fact that he lacks memories of the OG timeline. Though Cloud doesn’t remember anything beyond the train ride to reactor 1, he does remember the Promised Land (at least somewhat). This is odd, given that in OG, Cloud didn’t learn about the Promised Land until several chapters into the game.
Perhaps everything is illusory, a dream.
Only one thing is certain, that he must press on, one step at a time, toward the light that shines from the promised land.”
Wol and Echo agree to help Cloud figure out why he’s here, since there’s clearly something strange going on with his presence in Palamecia. In fact, Cloud brought Midgar’s mako reactors with him somehow, transplanting them onto the landscape of Palamecia. The group decides to bomb these reactors, following Cloud’s instincts in the hopes that it will jog his memory.
Now for my favorite part. After blowing up another reactor, the group is surprised by the appearance of a crystal. A piano rendition of Aerith’s theme begins. When Wol tries to touch the crystal, something akin to a force field rejects him. When Cloud approaches it, however, the crystal responds to his hand by flashing with light. As it begins to glow, Wol concludes that the crystal is linked to Cloud and Cloud alone. Let’s examine the resulting dialogue:
“Echo: This is the light in your memories. The light of home.What follows is a moment I call the wishing scene (13:43-14:34). Cloud closes his eyes and wishes on the crystal. It flashes, and suddenly, rainbow-colored ripples of light appear around it. Aerith’s theme is replaced by a slightly modified version of “Midgar, City of Mako”, the track that plays during the opening cutscene of Remake. You can recreate the modification by listening to “Midgar, City of Mako” from 2:00 to 2:23, then skipping to 3:00 and listening until 3:18. You may recognize the musical motif that kicks off the wishing scene as the Lifestream motif, which has become symbolic of the mysteries of the Remake trilogy, as it often plays during scenes where unexplainable plot deviations from OG occur— more specifically, deviations involving multiverse shenanigans. For instance, it plays during MOTF 4. It also plays in Rebirth after Cloud blocks masamune as Aerith is shown dying anyway.
Cloud: Home? But I don’t—
Echo: If you don't remember… then your home is lost to you.
Cloud: Then my memories are gone.
Wol: Do you want to reclaim your past?
Cloud: Not interested... I am what I am now. Not what I was.
Wol: Then tell me… This light. If you can’t remember it, what does it mean to you?
Cloud: It's a warm light... I feel at peace. If this place —home— is as warm and peaceful as this light, then I want to go there.
Echo: You can't go there... Not back to the past.
Cloud: I see.
Echo: But even if you can't go back to the past, you can go forward. If you wish for it strongly enough, the crystal will show you the way. The way to a new world. The way to your Promised Land. […]
Cloud: So... Should [I] take [my] chances and make a wish to this crystal?
Wol: Go ahead. It’s your crystal.
Echo: I should warn you that once you start on this journey, there's no coming back.
Cloud: The past is the past. I want to go to a place where everything is new. I’m ready.“
Cloud disappears with his crystal, after which Echo speaks to Wol about Cloud’s journey:
“Echo: Each person gets the Promised Land they justly deserve, not the one they really need. If you’re a bad person, you go to a bad place. If you expect nothing, you get nothing. Even the journey there makes you look deep within yourself to find out who you really are. Cloud should be facing his own past as we speak. It’s cruel, but necessary. That battle was a long time coming”.Apparently, at least in the context of this collaboration event, the Promised Land can be a reward or a punishment, depending on which you deserve. Echo explains that Cloud will have to face himself and his past on his way to his Promised Land. This means that the Cloud that appears in Eclipse Contact must next embark on a journey that will confront him with his past, test his mettle, and ultimately lead him to the Promised Land he justly deserves.
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
There’s a lot of vital information to dig into here, mostly provided by Echo. She claims that the crystal’s light is linked to Cloud’s memories of home; Cloud has to have known this home in the past, as it could not otherwise exist in his memories. MFF Cloud must be a post-OG Cloud. Unfortunately, Echo indicates that whatever Cloud’s home is, he’s lost both it and his memories of it. Despite this, Cloud describes his home as warm and peaceful, concluding that he wishes to find it. Though Cloud can’t return to the past, Echo tells him that if he wishes it strongly enough, the crystal can guide him toward a new world, where his home and his Promised Land exist in the future. The fact that Aerith’s theme is playing all throughout these descriptions of Cloud’s lost home, his Promised Land and the past that he can’t return to makes it extremely obvious that these concepts all point to Aerith. Aerith is Cloud’s lost home. Wherever Aerith is, that’s his Promised Land. The time spent with Aerith before her loss is the past he tragically can’t return to. You might have clocked the similarities between Eclipse Contact’s mention of Cloud’s lost home and DFF’s mention of Cloud’s lost dream: in both these titles, Cloud’s home and dream are equivalent to his Promised Land. It’s confirmed yet again that Aerith is the one Cloud hopes to return to, just like every soul returns to the Lifestream. At this juncture of my research, I was curious as to why the last thing Cloud remembers before waking in Palamecia is the run-up to the Reactor 1 bombing mission in OG (disk 1, chapter 1). This mystery will have to persist for a while longer.
The alarm bells in your head might’ve been triggered by the mention of the wishing scene’s rainbow ripple effects— and rightfully so. This visual cue has sparked passionate debate in the fandom since its appearances in Rebirth, as seen in these pictures:
Zack Choosing To Get A Cure For Cloud, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating a New World/Timeline
Aerith Pushing Cloud Out of that World/Timeline, Remake Chapter 14
Cloud Blocking Masamune, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating New World/Timeline
You might have read or heard that this rainbow effect signifies that a character has entered another timeline, created a portal to another timeline, created a new timeline or is being shown different timelines. Indeed, whenever the OG timeline is deviated from in a significant way, this effect appears. The pictures above present multiple examples of these shifting realities.
One might propose that the rainbow ripples in Eclipse Contact and Rebirth are unrelated because of the long period between their respective release dates. This long in-between period indeed makes it likelier that the effect was used without forethought in Eclipse Contact, forgotten over the years, and incidentally reused in Rebirth as a plot-important visual cue with no connection to Eclipse Contact. I’m inclined to disagree since the crystal is specifically described as a vessel that can take Cloud “to a new world” by Echo, which is a bit on the nose. Regardless, it’s plausible that there’s no connection. That is, it would be, if the rainbow effect didn’t show up in Remake too.
When the Whispers are finally defeated in chapter 18 of Remake, a burst of the rainbow ripple effects indicate the emergence of multiple worlds, newly freed from the restrictive clutches of fate (1:16:36-1:16:47). Shortly thereafter, Sephiroth takes Cloud to the Edge of Creation and invites him to join forces with him. Cloud refuses, and Sephiroth says the following:
“Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see.”The question “What will you do with it?” implies that the answer is unknown, meaning Cloud is no longer bound to the OG timeline by fate: many alternate futures lay ahead. Sephiroth is telling Cloud and the audience that now, the mystery of the Remake trilogy has become “Which future will Cloud bring into existence? Which among the infinite possible timelines will his choices result in?” After pondering this aloud, Sephiroth leaves Cloud alone to consider the rainbow effects in the sky (1:19:23-1:19:36). Because they generally represent alternate or changing timelines, it’s safe to assume that the rainbow ripples here represent the myriad of possible worlds that Cloud’s actions in those seven seconds could generate. After all, Sephiroth was just talking about them, and chapter 18’s description in Remake reads as follows:
“In a world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path towards an unknown future."This explains why the player is shown Cloud staring at those colors in the apocalyptic sky at world’s end, directly after hearing Sephiroth’s cryptic words: those are all the alternate “unknown future” timelines ahead of him, now unravelled from fate. Amongst those rainbow ripples lies the answer to the question “What will you do with [the seven seconds]?”
Given that Remake was released in 2020 and Eclipse Contact came out in 2017, the major story elements of the Remake trilogy —including the eventuality of alternate timelines— had to have been planned out at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: while the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration was being made, Remake was also in production. Also recall that the collaboration event and the Remake trilogy share a codirector in Hamaguchi, a writer in Nojima and a producer in Kitase. Based on all this, it’s more than likely that the rainbow ripples in the Remake trilogy and inEclipse Contact represent the very same thing: alternate worlds and timelines. All this to say that when the rainbow effect appears around the crystal in the Eclipse Contact, it means the crystal is acting as a vessel to another world, just like Echo said.
But that’s not all Echo said: she also mentioned that this other world would take Cloud to his home, to his Promised Land. We’ve already established what that means for Cloud, what it’s meant since two whole decades at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: this crystal will take Cloud to Aerith. So, where exactly did the crystal take Cloud? In what world can he meet Aerith again?
The music that plays during the wishing scene gives us a huge hint. As I noted before, the track playing in the background is a slightly modified version of Remake’s “Midgar, City of Mako”, which plays in the introduction cutscene of Remake. This is a musical cue that the ending of Cloud’s journey in Eclipse Contact and the very beginning of the Remake trilogy are closely related. Add the fact that the devs wanted players to experience this collaboration event before playing Remake, and it becomes undeniable: the crystal that appeared to Cloud in Palamecia —which offers to lead him to his home and Promised Land, meaning to Aerith—, took him to the world of the Remaketrilogy.
Eclipse Contact is huge. The whole crux of my theory lives and dies right here. However, we still have part two of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event to analyze as well as its promotions to look into before I can drop the thesis on you, so bear with me in order to receive the most thorough analysis of all this possible! I want to give you every drop of proof I can!
III. e) ii. MFF x FFVII Remake Fatal Calling
1) Fact-Finding
Fatal Calling came out February 1 of 2018, and its release campaign ended in March. The game opens with a cutscene: Cloud is floating, seemingly unconscious, through a sparkling, green current of light. The current flows into a circle of bright, white light, surrounded by rainbow ripple effects as Cloud is driven toward and into it. An orb floats along with him. The Advent Children theme “The Promised Land” plays, a choir of mournful, aching, mutedly desperate souls engaged in a lamenting prayer. Sephiroth’s voice echoes:
“Sephiroth: It’s time. You may turn your back on the past, lock your memories away. Hide reality beneath a layer of illusion. But destiny will not die so easily. Yes. At memory’s end you may plead for it all to go away. But the past is a curse, binding your soul. It’s time. Wake to your fate. Rise to your destiny.Sephiroth’s mentions of Cloud hiding under an illusion and repressing his memories are no doubt allusions to Cloud’s past, which was complicated and darkened by Hojo’s experiments. It makes sense, then, that Cloud responds with “Reunion”. Fatal Calling indeed focuses on Cloud’s relationship to his past, his identity and Sephiroth. Everything involving Nibelheim —where everything started—, Sephiroth’s manipulation, and Hojo’s experiments are on the table. Also noteworthy if not out of place is Sephiroth’s evocation of fate.
Cloud: (In a half-conscious grunt) Reunion…
Sephiroth: The light will lead you. Wake to your fate. Rise!”
Cloud enters a battle with Sephiroth with the help of Wol and Echo, who are surprised to see him back in Palamecia. Cloud tells them about the orb seen floating along with him in the opening cutscene: though he calls it a materia, he doesn’t know how or when he acquired it. Based on his behavior, it appears that Cloud remembers just as little about the events of OG as he did by the end of Eclipse Contact. Wol informs Cloud that whoever he heard speaking to him on his way here was probably Vox pretending to be Sephiroth.
As the group advances, Cloud recalls Midgar and decides they should go there next. At one of Midgar’s mako reactors, the group encounters Sephiroth, who speaks to himself:
“It's still not enough. This... this is but a pale imitation of the power I desire.”Once Sephiroth has disappeared, Cloud explains what he remembers: Sephiroth was the greatest SOLDIER of all and a hero to Cloud, though Cloud can’t remember what exactly ended this admiration. As players of FFVII OG, we know the event in question is the Nibelheim incident, wherein Sephiroth slaughtered the town’s residents, including Cloud’s mother, after learning of his past. The former war hero also severely injured Tifa, whom Cloud presumed dead when he found her in the old mako reactor with a vicious slash on her chest. Cloud is agitated by the gaps in his memory, so the group resolves to follow Sephiroth for answers. When they find him again, Sephiroth causes Cloud to experience a piercing headache with the mere mention of the Reunion. They fight, but Sephiroth is too powerful— he skewers Cloud with the masamune and taunts his unconscious body:
“Sephiroth: A puppet. I won’t kill you. Not yet. Not until you know true despair.Sephiroth darkens Cloud’s materia, turning it black. Later, Wol explains to Cloud that Sephiroth stole the light from his materia, taking Cloud’s strength along with it.
Wol: If you want despair, we got plenty to go around. Palamecia’s full of it.
Sephiroth: Yes, this planet knows suffering. But it is not the world that was promised to me. I must go home. Tell Cloud, if he wants to see me again, he should face his memories. I will await him there, in the land of memory, where it all began. In Nibelheim.”
Once Cloud has woken up, the group travels to Nibelheim to uncover the truth about Cloud’s memories. Cloud slowly gathers pieces of his past, shown to the player as titled, diary-like text written from various perspectives. Cloud learns the truth about SOLDIER, Jenova cells, Sephiroth, and what happened in Nibelheim. Let’s examine a few of these diary entries:
“A Warrior’s Tale: There's a girl in Nibelheim I think about. Warm. Cheerful. More grown-up than a child. Haven't talked to her much, but she seems nice. She's going to be leading the SOLDIERs to the mountain reactor. Maybe if I get into the survey team I'll get a chance to talk to her? Nah. She's out of my league.”Young Cloud’s crush on Tifa is on full display! This must be a memory from his time as an infantryman accompanying Zack and Sephiroth to Nibelheim.
“Tale of the Nameless: I drift along in the mako, asleep. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Give me a number. I… I… I am… The Reunion. The Reunion must happen.”This entry could be taken from any one of the Nibelheim survivors’ perspectives, as they were all bathed in mako and turned into Sephiroth clones. I would venture to say this is Cloud’s perspective though, given the reference to this iconic line from OG:
“Cloud: Professor... please give me a number. Please, Professor...The trio encounters Sephiroth near the old Mt. Nibel mako reactor. Because Sephiroth stole the light from his materia earlier, Cloud goes into the confrontation already drained of his strength. However, when Cloud lifts the materia in his hand, it lights up and creates rainbow ripples in the air around him, similar to those seen in Eclipse Contact and Rebirth. Cloud is healed of his injuries: he closes his eyes for a moment, wearing a peaceful expression. Sephiroth is displeased, but recovers quickly:
Hojo: Shut up, miserable failure.” (disk 2, chapter 2).
“Sephiroth: The guiding light… it healed you.With this second evocation of fate, Sephiroth disappears.
Wol: […] here, near the mako reactor, the materia regained its light. And your strength returned […]. [Sephiroth]’s here so he can steal the power you've stored inside that materia.
Sephiroth, with a short laugh: I have all the power I need. Cloud. What strength you’ve regained is yours. Use it to fight me. It’s time. Let’s decide this, in this land lost to despair. The prize is home. The Promised Land. There to answer the call of destiny.”
Cloud, Wol and Echo find Sephiroth at the Northern Crater. He mocks Cloud for believing the orb in his possession is materia. Sephiroth waves a hand and his signature black and purple fog surrounds Cloud, immobilizing him. Sephiroth claims that the power Cloud regained at the Mt. Nibel reactor was Sephiroth’s all along. Now that it courses through Cloud’s veins, Sephiroth controls him. He calls Cloud his puppet and finishes with the following before the two vanish, leaving Wol and Echo alone:
“Now, let us return. Back to the Promised Land. The time of the Reunion has come.”After Cloud finally breaks free and defeats Sephiroth with the help of Wol and Echo, the villain makes a final threat:
“Very good, Cloud. You’ve destroyed an illusion. But the time will come to abandon your illusions and face reality. Then, you will know true pain.”Sephiroth disappears for the last time, his body surrounded by his signature dark fog and the rainbow ripples. A piano rendition of Tifa’s theme begins. Cloud’s orb rises into the air and becomes a crystal, with the same shape and glow as the one we see in Eclipse Contact. The following dialogue is illuminating:
“Cloud: I will fight. The light will lead me where I need to go.Tifa’s theme ends. Cloud approaches the crystal, and disappears in a beam of blinding light. Once Cloud has vanished with the crystal, Aerith’s theme begins playing. A few pale feathers with a slight orange tint (the color of MFF) float down onto the floor where he stood seconds before. The image fades to black. The credits roll, and Aerith’s theme continues all the way through.
Wol: You sure? Wasn’t that [crystal] Sephiroth’s?
Cloud: I heard Sephiroth's voice, at the end. Inside me. Whatever he put in me, it’s still in there. Someday I’ll settle that score. If I can't avoid destiny, I might as well face it head-on.
Wol: Yeah. That was quite a speech, Cloud. Surprised you made it through without laughing.
Cloud: Yeah, forget I said it. I will too.
Echo: Forgetting won’t make it go away. Even if the words fade from memory, your dream will never disappear. Not until it becomes real.“
The crystal shines as though in response.
“Echo: See? See, that's how the light of hope works. Hope can turn your dreams into reality.
Cloud: Yeah. I guess so. I might forget this world, but I won’t forget hope. And my reality, that’s for me to live.”
Once both the final name in the credits and Aerith’s theme fade, we’re surprised by a sudden, troubling image: Sephiroth appears in a frightening flash, standing amidst the flames of Nibelheim. When his image fades to black, the collaboration title *“Final Fantasy VII x Mobius Final Fantasy”*appears on the screen. The FFVII title is accompanied by the 1997 meteor logo. Then, a flash of light: the titles reappear, except this time, they read “Final Fantasy VII REMAKE x Mobius Final Fantasy”. The new Remake Meteor logo replaces the 1997 version. As soon as these changes to the FFVII title and meteor logo occur, Aerith’s theme returns. It plays on until the game ends a few seconds later, the screen fading to black.
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
The introduction cutscene shows that MFF Cloud travelled from Eclipse Contact to Fatal Calling via Lifestream. It’s unclear how much time has passed in between, but the atemporal nature of the Lifestream makes the question irrelevant. My theory that MFF Cloud has died is corroborated by the way he’s depicted in the opening cutscene: his eyes are closed and his body is limp as the Lifestream carries him.
Eclipse Contact ended with Echo’s claim that Cloud will face his true self and confront his past while he journeys to his Promised Land. This description resembles what Cloud experienced in the OG Lifestream sequence (disk 2, chapter 8). Indeed, Fatal Calling revolves around the same topics the Lifestream sequence addresses: the truth about the Nibelheim incident, Hojo’s experiments, young Cloud’s crush on Tifa, etc. The opening cutscene shows Cloud being transported to his Promised Land and facing his past on the way there, just like Echo said he would.
Let’s now take a long detour to examine the song that plays during the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling: “The Promised Land” theme from Advent Children. The title and general subject of this song are obviously relevant to the cutscene, but there must be more to its inclusion than that. Perhaps the lyrics can help us understand its appearance in the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling. Here are the unofficial English lyrics (translated from the original Japanese lyrics by an anonymous fan and verified by me via DeepL):
“Why do we cling together?The song appears to be a regretful lament of human behavior, expressed by the repetition of “Why do we […]?” questions. The behaviors listed are all typically human ones: the terms “[clinging] together” and “[giving] punishment to [the] lesser” express the uniquely human nature of tribalism and the consequences of the fear and hatred it can generate, and “[begging] for forgiveness in the Promised Land” is likely a reference to the human hypocrisy of only feeling sorry for one’s crimes when judgement day arrives. This last line describes a scenario where someone remains passive or ignorant in the face of something important, only to realize its essentiality once it’s too late. The repeated“The planet did not forgive us” lines reflect the fear of being condemned forever because of one’s mistakes, as though the planet is a deity one has sinned against. The lyric describing a pulse in the earth is obviously about the planet being alive— a reference to the Lifestream. But the pulse is faint and weak and the planet is dying, perishing because of mankind’s greed. This is an indictment of mako energy. The line “A gentle life returns to the planet” refers to an innocent’s soul returning to the Lifestream after death, while the next lyric “Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?” protests the “sacrifice” of the planet’s soul energy for mako production. In all this darkness, this song’s mention of “forgiveness in the Promised Land” leaves a modicum of hope for a better place, however meek, even though mankind might not deserve it. The song “The Promised Land” is both a lament of mankind’s ways and a plea for mercy, with religious and/or spiritual undertones. The song’s themes seem to be: the Promised Land itself, regret and shame, the sins and foolishness of mankind, the death of innocents, grief, Cetra spirituality, and a meek, quiet hope despite it all. The most interesting aspect of the song is its antithetical portrayal of death as a thing of both despair and hope, condemnation and salvation, cruelty and mercy, suffering and relief. Maybe we can glean more information about this theme’s significance in the world of FFVII if we examine the contexts in which it appears.
Why do we give punishment to lesser hearts?
The planet did not forgive us
Did not forgive us
The planet did not forgive us
Did not forgive us
The pulse of veins flows through the earth
A faint, faint pulse
Of a heart drawn to death
A gentle life returns to the planet
Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?
Why do we cling together?
Why do we beg for forgiveness
In the Promised Land?” (“‘The Promised Land’ (theme)” by Final Fantasy Wiki).
Importantly, the song plays in Marlene’s introductory narration of Advent Children, meaning its themes are related or similar to the film’s. I highly recommend listening and watching it again, even if you remember this iconic segment. Marlene references Aerith’s sacrifice as the image of Cloud lowering her into the water is shown. Note that Marlene says “Sadness was the price to see it end” (2:36) after we are shown Aerith’s death and her subsequent unleashing of the Lifestream (1:49-2:24): Aerith’s innocent life was sacrificed for the planet’s survival. The lyrics “A gentle life returns to the planet” and “Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?” suit Aerith’s situation quite well.
The theme also plays in Advent Children as Kadaj dies in Cloud’s arms (1:45:00-1:47:55), hearing Aerith’s gentle voice and reaching up to take her invisible hand. Here is what Aerith says to him in his dying moments as “The Promised Land” plays:
“Aerith’s voice: Kadaj?Kadaj is brought into the Lifestream by Aerith as she provides rain from the Lifestream. All those with geostigma are healed by the rain, and Tifa feels Aerith’s presence as the party celebrates:
Kadaj: Huh?
The dark sky has gone with Sephiroth. Healing rain starts falling from bright clouds. The rain no longer hurts Kadaj.
Aerith’s voice: You don’t have to hang on any longer.
Kadaj: Mother! Is that…?
Aerith’s voice: Everyone’s waiting, if you’re ready.
Kadaj nods his head slightly in acceptance. He holds out his hand, and slowly evaporates into the Lifestream. Cloud watches […]” (Advent Children).
“Tifa, looking out at the falling rain […]: Somehow, I knew you were there. Thank you” (Advent Children).Cloud stands in the rain with a smile —his first in the whole film—, closes his eyes and basks in Aerith’s healing with his face upturned. He is finally at peace:
“Cloud’s expression is one of peace as the [Lifestream] rain patters against him” (Final Fantasy VII Advent Children English script, “[83] Atop the Shinra Building”).One thing is clear: the track “The Promised Land” accompanies Aerith. It only makes sense, since we’ve seen overwhelming evidence that she is Cloud’s Promised Land, and since she occupies the Lifestream —which some consider the Promised Land as it is where souls go after death— during the events of Advent Children. Note that when the piece plays, Cloud is shown either mourning Aerith and releasing her into the river at the Cetra capital, or basking in her presence, smiling with relief at the peaceful feeling that she’s somewhere near: these two opposing scenes reflect the song’s antithetical portrayal of death.
Additionally, the song’s themes of regret, shame concerning one’s sins and a small hope perfectly describe Cloud’s character arc and feelings in Advent Children. Cloud regrets his inability to save Aerith, which he considers a sin. Further, he only realized how important she is to him once it was too late to tell her. And of course, he harbors a fragile yet important hope that he’ll be reunited with her in the Promised Land:
“‘Can sins ever be forgiven?’ — Cloud asks this to Vincent, who mutters a brief answer. For both of them, ‘I couldn't protect my loved one’ is the sense of guilt that they carry, so their words resonate with weight” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVIIWorld”, “Vincent Valentine”, “In Advent Children”, page 72).&
"’It is my sin that I couldn't protect my loved one’ — under this assumption, Cloud closes off his heart. What will the reunion with Aerith bring him? ‘I... think I want to be forgiven. Yeah, I just want to be forgiven’” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVIIWorld”, “Cloud Strife”, “In Advent Children”, page 40).&
“Cloud, after seeing Aerith’s hand reach for him through the Lifestream: … I think I'm beginning to understand.Just as the song and Marlene express in the introduction of the film, Aerith was innocent, and her sacrifice generated great grief. Cloud finally experiences peace when he feels her presence in the healing rain, and he smiles: he’s glad to be with her again, even if it’s only for a brief moment of tangential respite.
Tifa: What?
Cloud: An answer from the Planet… the Promised Land... I think I can meet her... there” (disk 3, chapter 3).
The scene depicts Aerith guiding Kadaj into the Lifestream as the song plays, tying her to the concept and theme song of the Promised Land once more. This connection is later solidified by Tifa’s thanks to the late flower girl. All of this evidence shows us that this musical theme is intimately linked to Aerith, as it never plays in her absence. After all, the song speaks of sins, the death of innocents, forgiveness, grief, a small sense of hope, regret and the afterlife: all themes relevant to Cloud’s feelings surrounding Aerith’s death in and outside of Advent Children.
The Remake OST also includes a version of this piece called “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life”. This iteration of the theme begins playing in the wake of the first bombing mission, right after Sephiroth taunts Cloud with his mother’s dying words in Sector 8 (chapter 2). Sephiroth appears to Cloud surrounded by flames, evoking the Nibelheim massacre, and the theme begins playing in the background once he disappears, continuing (13:17-15:30) as Cloud walks through the sector, encountering fires and destruction all around him. This version of the Promised Land theme is meant to emphasize the deaths of the innocent Nibelheim townsfolk and the innocents in Sector 8. This dreadful atmosphere is amplified by the cries of despair that ring all around as Cloud passes by NPC Sector 8 residents. Perhaps the themes of tribalism and mankind’s sin are relevant to this scene as well, since Shinra and Avalanche are two distinct and warring groups whose quarrels, regardless of their necessity, result in the deaths of innocents. The theme of guilt also emerges, reflecting the Avalanche members’ feelings upon seeing the unintended collateral damage of the explosion. “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life” plays until Cloud encounters Aerith on Loveless. So it seems in this scenario, the heavy weight of death and despair is lifted when Cloud meets the lively, cheery Aerith. Once more, Aerith is central to the musical theme of the Promised Land, as well as to the concept itself.
I also noticed that a version of the song plays as Cloud and the party ready to enter the Forgotten Capital to save Aerith in Rebirth’s chapter 14: it truly adds the weight of her upcoming death to the scene.
Back to Fatal Calling, the scene where Cloud regains his strength is quite mysterious. Wol says Cloud’s orb regained its “guiding light” light because of its proximity to the mako reactor. In the moment his strength is replenished, Cloud is shown tilting his head back and closing his eyes: this is reminiscent of the scene in Advent Children when he stands under Aerith’s healing Lifestream rain, feeling at peace. The rainbow ripples shining from the orb indicate that something is crossing the boundaries of worlds. Since the mako reactor pumps up the Lifestream, being near a reactor also means being physically near the Lifestream. This means Aerith’s spirit is within proximity. In my opinion, Aerith was able to heal Cloud from the Lifestream, just like in Advent Children. However, Aerith is not in Palamecia with him: her healing had to travel there through the Lifestream, transcending the boundaries of worlds, hence the rainbow ripples.
Let’s now address the appearance of Tifa’s character theme in Fatal Calling. Since Fatal Calling is all about discovering Cloud’s past in Nibelheim and then in Hojo’s lab, it makes lots of sense for Tifa’s theme to play as the crystal appears. In OG’s Lifestream sequence (disk 2 chapter 8), she’s the one there helping Cloud sort through his past instead of Wol and Echo. Cloud even picks up a piece of his childhood crush on Tifa in Fatal Calling as a shard of his memory. After all, this crush was the catalyst for him joining SOLDIER, and everything that transpired in consequence:
“Cloud: That was the first time I heard about Sephiroth. If I got strong like Sephiroth, then everyone might... If I could just get stronger... Then even Tifa would have to notice me” (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).Additionally, it’s fitting that her theme should begin right after Sephiroth speaks of “[abandoning] your illusions and [facing] reality”, considering that Cloud’s false persona was concocted by Jenova using Tifa’s mistaken impressions of Cloud:
“While being tended to by a station worker in the Sector 7 Slum train station, [Cloud] was reunited with Tifa, and using the abilities of Jenova’s cells, formed a new personality” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVII World, “Cloud Strife”, “Cloud Behavior Record, Compilation of FFVII”, page 40).&
“(Image caption:) A new personality takes shape the moment he sees Tifa” (FFVII Story Playback, “Story Check: Tifa’s Flashback”).&
“Tifa (to Cloud): Deep down, you're a pretty nice guy. Didn't see it when we were kids, but...” (Remake, chapter 14).(Continued in part 4)
2024.05.16 08:18 haygurlhay123 “This Time, I Will Never Let You Go”: Cloud’s Mission and the Hidden Purpose of the Remake Trilogy - Literary and Musical Analysis of FFVII - Part 2
(continuation of part 1)
And boy, did I find them.
III. a) Core Worlds and Suspension Worlds
There are a couple of general FF rules that we need to establish before going forward.
It’s important to note that there are multiple realms in which the FF stories take place, each with a different name, history and society. This ensures that all FF stories occur separately, never intercepting or interacting— though they do have creatures like moogles and chocobos in common, as well as concepts like airships, gil, magic and some form of crystal. For simplicity, I will refer to these separate worlds in which the numbered FF games (FFI, FFII, FFIII, etc) occur as “core worlds”.
Characters from different core worlds may appear together in non-numbered FF games, the events of which have no impact on the core world at all: it seems that sometime after a FF character has reached the end of their core world’s plot-line, they may somehow be summoned to far-removed realms where they will face new adventures. I call these far-removed realms “suspension worlds”. One example of a FF game that takes place in a suspension world is Dissidia Final Fantasy, wherein characters from multiple core worlds unite to accomplish a mission as a team.
III. b) Final Fantasy Tactics
First on our list of non-compilation SE games to explore is 1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT), a game whose plot takes place in the suspension world of Ivalice. Let’s plot out the relevant events, and then analyze!
III. b) i. Fact-Finding
The main character of FFT, Ramza, encounters a brunette flower peddler with Aerith’s iconic, gravity-defying bangs:
\"Aeris\" in FFT's Ivalice
If you choose to buy a flower from her, she express her relief: apparently, business isn’t going well because no one is interested in flowers. The girl wistfully dreams aloud:
There’s a lot to unpack here, all of which you probably clocked in your head upon reading, but let’s put it down in writing.
While FFT Cloud’s memory is far from perfect, the Aeris he encounters in Ivalice doesn’t recognize him at all. FFVII Ultimania Omega addresses this question without answering it:
FFT Cloud’s dialogue borrows two lines from the speech OG Cloud makes as Aerith lies dead in his arms (disk 1, chapter 28): “My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!” and “What are we supposed to do? What about my pain?” You might’ve noticed that this glimpse of grief Cloud experiences in FFT bears a resemblance to the fourth MOTF 4 experienced by Remake Cloud (see section “II. a)”). Could it be that FFT Cloud and Remake Cloud have something in common?
Shortly after being summoned to Ivalice, FFT Cloud declares that he must go to “that place”, a mysterious line that is later elucidated when he tells Ramza that he must go to the Promised Land and find the “very important” thing he’s lost. The Promised Land is the Cetra culture’s afterlife, meaning FFT Cloud is looking for someone who’s died, someone “very important” to him. OG suggests this is none other than Aerith:
On the one hand, it’s possible that Cloud was summoned to Ivalice after he and Tifa fall into the core of the planet: this point in the FFVII OG timeline occurs after Aerith’s death and shortly before Cloud finds out he was never SOLDIER, which matches the gaps in FFT Cloud’s memory quite well. However, this scenario does not account for the vagueness with which FFT Cloud remembers Aerith and her death. Most importantly, Cloud’s realization that he can find Aerith in the Promised Land occurs much later in the game (FFVII OG, disk 3, chapter 3) than when he falls into the Lifestream with Tifa (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).
On the other hand, FFT Cloud’s vague yet persistent memories of Aerith suggest that he’s been summoned to Ivalice after his eventual death post-OG, but also that he’s lost quite a large portion of his memories. His incomplete memory loss is likely the result of Cloud’s individuality’s erosion by the Lifestream after death, which we discussed in section “II. a) ii.”. We can therefore surmise that by the time he is summoned to Ivalice from the Lifestream, Cloud has been dead for long enough that the Lifestream eroded a large portion of the memories of his lifetime. This post-death scenario is likelier than the first. The memory of Cloud’s realization that he was never SOLDIER must be gone, which explains why he claims otherwise upon being summoned to Ivalice. Contrastingly, vestiges of Cloud’s OG memories of Aerith cling to his soul, even after others have been wiped clean. Could this be a consequence of their soulmate bond? Could the strength of Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith have made his memories of her stronger and more difficult for the Lifestream to erode? Could it be both?
One thing is clear: Aerith is of fundamental importance to Cloud, even when he can’t quite remember her. In fact, the only other character he remembers and/or mentions in FFT is Sephiroth. It does make sense that the memories of those who have marked one’s soul forevermore would be the most difficult for the Lifestream to erode.
III. c) Dissidia Final Fantasy
The next stop on our travels through suspension worlds is 2008’s Dissidia Final Fantasy! Now strap in, because here’s where things get really serious.
III. c) i. Fact Finding
In the suspension world of Dissidia Final Fantasy (DFF), the goddess of harmony Cosmos and the god of discord Chaos are engaged in a never-ending cycle of conflict. Both deities need warriors to fight on their behalf, so they recruit core world characters into their respective teams by summoning them to DFF. Some of these summoned characters are FFIV’s Cecil, FFVI’s Terra, FFVII’s Sephiroth, FFX’s Tidus, and of course, FFVII’s Cloud. The warriors find themselves in the suspension world of DFF with no memories of their core worlds’ plotlines. However, as the DFF adventure progresses, they are able to recover pieces of their memories here and there. It isn’t clear how much they come to remember. Ultimately, the warriors hope to return home to their core worlds by fighting in this war and seeing to its end.
Cloud is summoned to DFF as a warrior on the side of Chaos, who seeks to destroy all existence. Sephiroth is also on Chaos’ side, meaning the two are teammates despite being enemies in their core world of FFVII. It just so happens that Tifa is a summoned warrior in DFF too, though she’s fighting on Cosmos’ side. Intrigued by her vague familiarity, Sephiroth hypothesizes that killing Tifa will bring back his memories of OG’s plot line: before long, the masamune wielder finds Tifa alone and corners her into a one-on-one fight. Thankfully, Cloud swoops in and saves her before Sephiroth can do any harm. Tifa is thankful for Cloud’s help, though confused that Cloud would elect to assist her and turn against a fellow warrior of Chaos; she doesn’t remember what Sephiroth and Cloud mean to each other in OG. In fact, Tifa doesn’t even remember Cloud’s name or that they share a core world, though Cloud feels somewhat familiar to her. For his part, Cloud at least remembers that Tifa is someone he cares about from his core world. As Tifa thanks Cloud for saving her from Sephiroth, something she says elicits an odd reaction from the warrior of Chaos:
Now we enter phase two of the war. Cosmos tells her team of ten core world warriors that in order to save the world from Chaos’ destruction, they must collect what she describes as crystals containing the power to persist through darkness. I call these the “DFF crystals”. There are ten DFF crystals in total: one for every warrior in Cosmos’ group to find. To obtain their crystal, each hero must overcome a trial that will confront them with whatever personal struggle they faced in their core world; if they prove themselves worthy, their DFF crystal will appear to them. On one hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals simply take the form of the crystals found in their core world. For example, Onion Knight’s DFF crystal looks to be nothing more than one of FFIII’s elemental crystals, which hold little to no personal significance to him. On the other hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals symbolize something more personal to their respective warriors. For instance, Cecil’s DFF crystal looks to be one of FFIV’s dark crystals, which specifically represent the dichotomy of light and darkness he struggles with in his core world’s plot line. Cosmos describes the quest for the DFF crystals as follows:
Once the team is debriefed on their mission, Cloud remains reticent to fight; he doesn’t much like the mysterious nature of this conflict. Not knowing exactly what they’re all fighting for is clearly bothersome to the swordsman, and the idea of thoughtlessly engaging in battles leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Fellow warrior Firion understands that without a reason to fight, Cloud’s heart just isn’t in it. He imparts upon Cloud that he must have a dream he’s fighting to protect, something he wants to see come true, to motivate him to stop Chaos from destroying all existence. Unfortunately, Cloud doesn’t have a dream to preserve, or can’t find one for himself:
Finally, after the war has ended, we arrive at the final cutscene of DFF. I will let you read the full script, with notes added by me in bold behind the spoiler censors. Please do not read my notes if you do not wish to encounter spoilers for FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVIII, FFIX or FFX:
III. c) ii. Fact Analysis
Firstly, it’s clear to me that the Cloud that appears in DFF is a post-OG Cloud, given how many plot points from OG he interacts with. I’m reticent to say whether or not this post-OG Cloud is dead like in FFT, as he recovers many of his memories of OG during DFF and there is no evidence of him having passed away and joined the Lifestream.
The second thing I’d like to point out is Cloud’s strange reaction when Tifa compares him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. Cloud gasps, indicating that her words mean something to him; the trope Tifa references must therefore be included somewhere in the FFVII OG plot-line. Some of you are surely ahead of me by now, having realized that only the tragic antithesis of this trope appears in OG: Cloud is unable to save Aerith from Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). Whether or not DFF Cloud remembers Aerith herself at this point, it’s clear he recalls the pain and guilt of losing Aerith to Sephiroth.
Next, let’s address Cloud’s lost dream: to meet an unspecified person. It seems Cloud is aware at this point that in OG, he was eternally separated from the person he dreams of meeting. So, who was he separated from in his core world? Who can he never meet again, even if his team of warriors defeats Chaos and Cloud returns to the realm of FFVII? There are a few options —his mother, his father, Zack, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and any other person he knew who died—, but the sheer narrative weight that Aerith’s untimely death carries makes it clear who he truly wants to meet. This is corroborated by Cloud’s “I think I can meet her… there” line in OG (disk 3 chapter 3), by FFT Cloud’s search for Aerith during his appearance in Ivalice, and by Cloud’s strange reaction to Tifa’s comparing him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. All the available evidence suggests that Cloud’s dream is indeed to reunite with Aerith, and that this dream is “lost” to him because she was killed by Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). This would also explain the title of the DFF segment “Recurring Tragedy”, since as we all know, the ultimate tragedy of FFVII OG is Aerith’s death. Considering Sephiroth was the one to take Aerith away from Cloud, Sephiroth’s threats of drowning him in despair in “Recurring Tragedy” only solidify this interpretation of Cloud’s lost dream.
Finally, we arrive at the ending cutscene. Cosmos’ warriors return to where they belong to try and accomplish whatever dream they held as motivation during the Cosmos-Chaos conflict, each carrying their DFF crystal. Cloud is shown standing in a field of white and yellow flowers and walking deeper into it with a light green materia in hand. Why was a white and yellow flower field chosen to represent DFF Cloud’s dream? The answer is obvious. White and yellow flowers symbolize Aerith: she sold Cloud a yellow blossom upon first meeting him in OG (disk 1, chapter 1), and her yellow and white flowerbed cushioned Cloud’s fall when the two reunited in the Sector 5 church (disk 1, chapter 4). What’s more, we have the iconic credits video of the original cut of Advent Children to refer to, wherein Cloud is seen driving near flower fields. Aerith stands there (3:20), seemingly waiting for him. Here’s what Nomura had to say about this credits scene:
With all of this established, we can address the nature of Cloud’s DFF crystal. As we established, every core world has its own version of a crystal, each possessing a distinct appearance, function and meaning. Materia are the crystals of FFVII, so one could be satisfied by the proposition that Cloud’s DFF crystal is simply meant to represent a random materia. However, I think Cloud’s crystal is specifically the White Materia, as it represents Aerith’s sacrifice, her importance to the plot and what she died fighting for. If any one object symbolizes her death, it’s the White Materia; it’s even given closeups during the event (2:33-3:02). Besides, unlike any other materia in FFVII, the White Materia is known to glow a light green when Holy has been activated:
https://preview.redd.it/0qtumfeyfq0d1.jpg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3995f010738c83fca0c5842a0564d0a9ad206dfd
https://preview.redd.it/0kj525tzfq0d1.jpg?width=1144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=575573ef1d2c937635cf569d4a376886a24b384c
Cloud's DFF Crystal
Cloud’s DFF crystal
So far, in both suspension world games we’ve examined (FFT and DFF), Cloud is searching for Aerith. As a final note on DFF, it may interest you to know that codirector of the Remake trilogy Toriyama was actually a writer for DFF: he may have carried some themes from DFF to Remake…
III. d) Detour: The Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition
Before we hop onto the next suspension world, let’s return to ours for a quick detour: the 2018 Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Expo. Themed with farewells and tragedy, this expo showcased the heartbreaking goodbyes featured in different FF games. Artwork, clips, quotes and images aplenty here! As the highly anticipated Remake was going to be coming out approximately a year and a half later, the FFVII section of the expo featured a few sneak peek Remake designs. This means the expo was at least partly curated with the Remake trilogy in mind; there could be interesting material in the FFVII section of the expo related to Remake. Let’s dive in!
Unsurprisingly, the focus of the FFVII section is Cloud and Aerith, since she is the loved one he lost in OG. Zack is also given a mention, however Aerith was the glaringly central star of the show. To showcase how important Aerith’s farewell in particular was to the expo, the FFVII portion was introduced by a photo of Cloud lowering Aerith into her watery grave and a video of her tragic death:
Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition, FFVII Introduction
The description under the video screen reads:
The expo also had pamphlet descriptions of the farewells depicted. Here is the general summary of FFVII‘s farewell story according to that pamphlet:
In light of everything we’ve analyzed so far, it can be said that between FFT (1997) and this farewell expo (2018), SE has consistently demonstrated that reuniting with Aerith is post-OG Cloud’s goal. That’s a period of over two decades— two decades of wishing, seeking, longing in real-world time for this character. This is a huge long-term commitment for SE to make, and you can bet the devs don’t take it lightly. Again and again, once the events of the OG game have ended, Cloud is shown to desire a reunion with Aerith. This ever-present and ever-insistent theme will become very important to us later in this analysis.
(continued in part 3)
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III. Searching for Aerith Beyond FFVII
There were absolutely no answers in Remake or OG (at this point in my research, Rebirth wasn’t released yet), no matter how much I looked; nothing at all hinted at how Cloud could’ve obtained the memories of OG that emerge in Remake as MOTFs. I knew I had to look elsewhere to search for more clues, so I decided to check every piece of media ever released by SE with a mention of Cloud or Aerith in it, digging for hints in the compilation and beyond.And boy, did I find them.
III. a) Core Worlds and Suspension Worlds
There are a couple of general FF rules that we need to establish before going forward.
It’s important to note that there are multiple realms in which the FF stories take place, each with a different name, history and society. This ensures that all FF stories occur separately, never intercepting or interacting— though they do have creatures like moogles and chocobos in common, as well as concepts like airships, gil, magic and some form of crystal. For simplicity, I will refer to these separate worlds in which the numbered FF games (FFI, FFII, FFIII, etc) occur as “core worlds”.
Characters from different core worlds may appear together in non-numbered FF games, the events of which have no impact on the core world at all: it seems that sometime after a FF character has reached the end of their core world’s plot-line, they may somehow be summoned to far-removed realms where they will face new adventures. I call these far-removed realms “suspension worlds”. One example of a FF game that takes place in a suspension world is Dissidia Final Fantasy, wherein characters from multiple core worlds unite to accomplish a mission as a team.
III. b) Final Fantasy Tactics
First on our list of non-compilation SE games to explore is 1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT), a game whose plot takes place in the suspension world of Ivalice. Let’s plot out the relevant events, and then analyze!
III. b) i. Fact-Finding
The main character of FFT, Ramza, encounters a brunette flower peddler with Aerith’s iconic, gravity-defying bangs:
\"Aeris\" in FFT's Ivalice
If you choose to buy a flower from her, she express her relief: apparently, business isn’t going well because no one is interested in flowers. The girl wistfully dreams aloud:
“When is my knight in shining armor going to take me away from here...?”Later, Ramza and his companions encounter a mysterious machine that can summon people from across universes. The machine is activated, and a rather rude young man with spiky blonde hair appears. Cloud claims he used to be in SOLDIER, and says the last thing he remembers is “getting stuck in the current”. He looks to be disoriented and lost, and suffers from piercing headaches. Mere moments after being summoned to Ivalice, Cloud rambles:
“What’s this? My fingers are tingling… My eyes… they’re burning… Stop… stop it [Se]phiroth…”He dashes out of the room, but not without announcing:
“I must go… must go to that place…”Outside, Cloud encounters the brunette flower girl Ramza met earlier. She offers Cloud a flower, but he only stares at her wordlessly:
“Flower girl: Buy a flower? Only 1 gil.As soon as Cloud leaves, a gang of ruffians surround the flower girl and start harassing her, demanding payment that’s apparently overdue. One of them finally calls her by her name: “Aeris”. He grabs her, insinuating that he might sexually assault her in lieu of payment. Aeris is not strong enough to push him away. That’s when Cloud returns:
Cloud: …
Flower girl: Something wrong? Do I resemble someone?”
Cloud: No… it’s nothing.”
“Cloud: Get your hand off her!Aeris heeds Cloud’s advice, fleeing the scene before a fight between Cloud and the thug can break out. After Cloud scares the ruffians off with the help of Ramza and his companions, he speaks once more:
Thug: What did you say!?
Cloud: Didn't you hear me? Get your dirty hand off her!
[…]
Cloud, to Aeris: Go… now.”
“I lost… something very important… Ever since, I’ve been lost […]. What should I do? What about this pain [?] Must go… to the Promised Land.”III. b) ii. Fact Analysis
There’s a lot to unpack here, all of which you probably clocked in your head upon reading, but let’s put it down in writing.
While FFT Cloud’s memory is far from perfect, the Aeris he encounters in Ivalice doesn’t recognize him at all. FFVII Ultimania Omega addresses this question without answering it:
“[The flower seller’s] name is Aeris, and she has the same appearance and tone of voice as the Aeris of FFVII. However, when she comes across Cloud, she does not recognize him. Could she really be the same Aerith who appears in FFVII but with memory loss, or is she a completely different character?” (“#4 Proof of Omega”, “FFVII in Other Games”, “Final Fantasy Tactics”, page 560).Regardless of her unknown identity and inability to recognize Cloud, FFT Aeris’ fantasy of a “knight in shining armor” is quite reminiscent of the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic we’ve come to know and love. Cloud’s armor doesn’t shine, but in my opinion, if you’re looking for the dystopian, corporatocratic equivalent of a knight, you can’t get much closer than a supposed-former-SOLDIER-turned-bodyguard. Additionally, despite his rude and cold attitude toward Ramza’s gang, the urgency with which Cloud swoops in to save the flower girl from the ruffians betrays a softer, warmer side to him: the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic strikes again!
FFT Cloud’s dialogue borrows two lines from the speech OG Cloud makes as Aerith lies dead in his arms (disk 1, chapter 28): “My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!” and “What are we supposed to do? What about my pain?” You might’ve noticed that this glimpse of grief Cloud experiences in FFT bears a resemblance to the fourth MOTF 4 experienced by Remake Cloud (see section “II. a)”). Could it be that FFT Cloud and Remake Cloud have something in common?
Shortly after being summoned to Ivalice, FFT Cloud declares that he must go to “that place”, a mysterious line that is later elucidated when he tells Ramza that he must go to the Promised Land and find the “very important” thing he’s lost. The Promised Land is the Cetra culture’s afterlife, meaning FFT Cloud is looking for someone who’s died, someone “very important” to him. OG suggests this is none other than Aerith:
“Cait Sith, reading Cloud’s fortune: You will find [what] you pursue. However, you will lose the most precious thing” (disk 1, chapter 16, English translation by Kotaku’s “Let’s Mosey: A Slow Translation of Final Fantasy Seven: Part Eight” by Tim Rogers, 9:42-9:52).&
“Cloud, after seeing Aerith’s hand reach for him through the Lifestream: … I think I'm beginning to understand.Finally, let’s try to understand where on the OG timeline Cloud was summoned to this suspension world from and what he remembers. His comment about getting stuck in a current has to be about the Lifestream; apparently, on top of its atemporal nature, it can act as a conduit to other worlds. One only enters the Lifestream if they’ve somehow fallen into the core of the planet or once they’ve passed away and returned to the planet. Both scenarios merit consideration.
Tifa: What?
Cloud: An answer from the Planet… the Promised Land... I think I can meet her... there” (disk 3, chapter 3).
On the one hand, it’s possible that Cloud was summoned to Ivalice after he and Tifa fall into the core of the planet: this point in the FFVII OG timeline occurs after Aerith’s death and shortly before Cloud finds out he was never SOLDIER, which matches the gaps in FFT Cloud’s memory quite well. However, this scenario does not account for the vagueness with which FFT Cloud remembers Aerith and her death. Most importantly, Cloud’s realization that he can find Aerith in the Promised Land occurs much later in the game (FFVII OG, disk 3, chapter 3) than when he falls into the Lifestream with Tifa (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).
On the other hand, FFT Cloud’s vague yet persistent memories of Aerith suggest that he’s been summoned to Ivalice after his eventual death post-OG, but also that he’s lost quite a large portion of his memories. His incomplete memory loss is likely the result of Cloud’s individuality’s erosion by the Lifestream after death, which we discussed in section “II. a) ii.”. We can therefore surmise that by the time he is summoned to Ivalice from the Lifestream, Cloud has been dead for long enough that the Lifestream eroded a large portion of the memories of his lifetime. This post-death scenario is likelier than the first. The memory of Cloud’s realization that he was never SOLDIER must be gone, which explains why he claims otherwise upon being summoned to Ivalice. Contrastingly, vestiges of Cloud’s OG memories of Aerith cling to his soul, even after others have been wiped clean. Could this be a consequence of their soulmate bond? Could the strength of Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith have made his memories of her stronger and more difficult for the Lifestream to erode? Could it be both?
One thing is clear: Aerith is of fundamental importance to Cloud, even when he can’t quite remember her. In fact, the only other character he remembers and/or mentions in FFT is Sephiroth. It does make sense that the memories of those who have marked one’s soul forevermore would be the most difficult for the Lifestream to erode.
III. c) Dissidia Final Fantasy
The next stop on our travels through suspension worlds is 2008’s Dissidia Final Fantasy! Now strap in, because here’s where things get really serious.
III. c) i. Fact Finding
In the suspension world of Dissidia Final Fantasy (DFF), the goddess of harmony Cosmos and the god of discord Chaos are engaged in a never-ending cycle of conflict. Both deities need warriors to fight on their behalf, so they recruit core world characters into their respective teams by summoning them to DFF. Some of these summoned characters are FFIV’s Cecil, FFVI’s Terra, FFVII’s Sephiroth, FFX’s Tidus, and of course, FFVII’s Cloud. The warriors find themselves in the suspension world of DFF with no memories of their core worlds’ plotlines. However, as the DFF adventure progresses, they are able to recover pieces of their memories here and there. It isn’t clear how much they come to remember. Ultimately, the warriors hope to return home to their core worlds by fighting in this war and seeing to its end.
Cloud is summoned to DFF as a warrior on the side of Chaos, who seeks to destroy all existence. Sephiroth is also on Chaos’ side, meaning the two are teammates despite being enemies in their core world of FFVII. It just so happens that Tifa is a summoned warrior in DFF too, though she’s fighting on Cosmos’ side. Intrigued by her vague familiarity, Sephiroth hypothesizes that killing Tifa will bring back his memories of OG’s plot line: before long, the masamune wielder finds Tifa alone and corners her into a one-on-one fight. Thankfully, Cloud swoops in and saves her before Sephiroth can do any harm. Tifa is thankful for Cloud’s help, though confused that Cloud would elect to assist her and turn against a fellow warrior of Chaos; she doesn’t remember what Sephiroth and Cloud mean to each other in OG. In fact, Tifa doesn’t even remember Cloud’s name or that they share a core world, though Cloud feels somewhat familiar to her. For his part, Cloud at least remembers that Tifa is someone he cares about from his core world. As Tifa thanks Cloud for saving her from Sephiroth, something she says elicits an odd reaction from the warrior of Chaos:
“Tifa: The way you showed up and fought that guy off. It was a pretty cool thing to watch. You were like a hero, charging in to save the girl.On another note, Cloud knows he will have to fight Tifa once the Cosmos-Chaos conflict comes to a head, as they are on opposing teams. He thinks to himself:
Cloud gasps at her words. She doesn’t notice” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).
“Once [her] memories return, [she]’ll lose the will to fight just like I have. So... Before that can happen, I have to act...” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).In order to end the cycle of the conflict and to avoid fighting Tifa, Cloud decides to try and defeat Chaos himself. Predictably, Cloud is no match for the deity. As he dies, Cloud pleads the following to the goddess Cosmos:
“Cosmos, goddess of harmony. If you can hear me, listen to my plea. I beg you. Save her. Save my friend… Tifa.”Cosmos hears him and responds immediately:
“Cosmos: An end to this conflict, and a life spared? This is your heart's desire? If your will remains unchanged, I shall bring you here when the battle draws to a close. Cloud. My chosen" (Dissidia 0.13: Treachery of the Gods, report 7: “Unexpected Fulfillment 3”).Cloud’s wish is granted by Cosmos: the first phase of the conflict ends without Tifa getting hurt, and she is sent away from the suspension world of DFF before the second phase begins. Cloud is saved from death, and Cosmos enlists him into her team of warriors for phase two: this time, Cloud is fighting on the good side.
Now we enter phase two of the war. Cosmos tells her team of ten core world warriors that in order to save the world from Chaos’ destruction, they must collect what she describes as crystals containing the power to persist through darkness. I call these the “DFF crystals”. There are ten DFF crystals in total: one for every warrior in Cosmos’ group to find. To obtain their crystal, each hero must overcome a trial that will confront them with whatever personal struggle they faced in their core world; if they prove themselves worthy, their DFF crystal will appear to them. On one hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals simply take the form of the crystals found in their core world. For example, Onion Knight’s DFF crystal looks to be nothing more than one of FFIII’s elemental crystals, which hold little to no personal significance to him. On the other hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals symbolize something more personal to their respective warriors. For instance, Cecil’s DFF crystal looks to be one of FFIV’s dark crystals, which specifically represent the dichotomy of light and darkness he struggles with in his core world’s plot line. Cosmos describes the quest for the DFF crystals as follows:
“Cosmos: The crystals embody the strength to face despair. With ten gathered, there is hope yet to save the world. The path to your crystal will be perilous... and different for each and every one of you. But you must believe in and follow your own path. Even if you know not where that path leads" (Dissidia 013: Light to All, prologue: “A Final Hope”).From this exposition, simply keep in mind that: Cloud must find his crystal by overcoming a personal trial, and his crystal may have the appearance of an object in OG that’s important to him.
Once the team is debriefed on their mission, Cloud remains reticent to fight; he doesn’t much like the mysterious nature of this conflict. Not knowing exactly what they’re all fighting for is clearly bothersome to the swordsman, and the idea of thoughtlessly engaging in battles leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Fellow warrior Firion understands that without a reason to fight, Cloud’s heart just isn’t in it. He imparts upon Cloud that he must have a dream he’s fighting to protect, something he wants to see come true, to motivate him to stop Chaos from destroying all existence. Unfortunately, Cloud doesn’t have a dream to preserve, or can’t find one for himself:
“Cloud: I've looked, but I'm still empty-handed. And without a dream, what do you suppose I should do? […] Maybe what I'm looking for... isn't here” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gateway of Good and Evil”).Another fellow warrior, Cecil, expresses worry for Cloud, whose response evokes the main theme of FFVII OG:
“Cecil: Everyone's worried, Cloud. But... Do you shoulder a larger concern?Whatever Cloud is looking for “isn’t [there]”, and he feels “a sense of loss”: Cloud’s motivating dream has been lost to him. This is later reasserted in a conversation with Terra, another warrior of Cosmos:
Cloud: Concern... Maybe a sense of loss" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Beyond the Continent”).
“Terra: And you, Cloud... What's your dream?Later, Cloud encounters and fights Sephiroth, who is still a part of Chaos’ team. Sephiroth is defeated, but not before he’s taunted Cloud with his habitual puppet talk. However, Cloud remains strong and refutes Sephiroth’s manipulation, asserting that only he can determine his own path. This must’ve been Cloud’s personal trial, because his crystal appears at that very moment: it is a small, light green orb that looks like materia from his core world. Having pocketed his crystal, Cloud decides he must find his own reason to fight. Interestingly, his search is depicted as intertwined with Fate:
Cloud: I've lost mine" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 3: “The Chosen Battle”, “Gateway of True Intent”).
“Cloud: Even if I have my doubts... I have to find my own answer […] Until then, I'll keep fighting.Later, the nemeses meet again in a segment called “Recurring Tragedy”. Their interactions here are particularly interesting. Sephiroth speaks of making Cloud suffer through despair and pain as though referencing their history together:
Narration: The warrior has vowed to keep fighting— and keep fighting he will […]. Etched in destiny, his quest for answers continues on” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gulg Gateway”).
"Sephiroth: This disease called hope is eating you alive. The world of suffering was born out of such half-baked ideals.This final line suggests Cloud has finally found a reason to fight: he wants to meet someone unspecified.
Cloud: If that's the case, I have to endure the suffering. There's no moving on if I run from it.
Sephiroth: If that is what you wish for, you shall drown in the pain. I'll lead you to true despair. [My] shadow is burned into your heart. We'll meet again, Cloud. I'll keep coming back— as long as you are who you are."
Sephiroth disappears. Cloud looks out into the distance before the scene ends.
“Cloud: No thanks. The one I really want to meet is…” (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”).
Finally, after the war has ended, we arrive at the final cutscene of DFF. I will let you read the full script, with notes added by me in bold behind the spoiler censors. Please do not read my notes if you do not wish to encounter spoilers for FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVIII, FFIX or FFX:
“[The] heroes are all standing together in a grassy field with a forest behind them. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining brightly, and the wind is blowing gently. The heroes look around them in awe. They're all holding their crystals.As you can see, everyone’s crystal is very important to the story of their core world, and in the cases of at least Tidus, Squall, Terra and Cecil, the crystals represent something very personal. What about Cloud and his crystal, then? What about the dream he lost and the person he wants to meet? Let’s begin analyzing to answer these questions.
WoL: The battle has come to an end...
Tidus notices that his crystal has begun to emanate a blue glow.>! His crystal is a movie sphere from his core world of FFX: a capsule containing sounds and images that people record for later viewing. Tidus’ crystal likely represents the specific movie sphere recorded by his love interest Yuna, which revealed that she’d loved him from the beginning.!<
Tidus: Gotta go, huh...
The blue glow transfers to him as well. He turns to look at the others
[…] Tidus grins at the others, then turns and runs toward a nearby lake. He leaps into it in a manner reminiscent of [the events] of FFX. He vanishes as he descends toward the lake.
Zidane: We're not vanishing. We're returning—
Zidane is sitting on a tree limb as he says this. His crystal begins to glow gold, as does he. His crystal is shaped like a highly important ‘progenitor of all life’ crystal from his core world of FFIX.
Zidane: — to where we're supposed to be.
Zidane spins around the tree limb with the use of his tail and launches toward the sun. He's lost to view.
A white feather then drifts down from that direction and Squall catches it. The feather is reminiscent of his love Rinoa Heartilly, whose character symbol is a white feather. In fact, Squall’s crystal looks like a mix of his revolver gunblade from FFVIII and Rinoa’s feather motif. [Squall glows blue.]
Squall: Perhaps we can go on a mission together again.
Squall vanishes.
Cloud is then visible, standing in [a] flower field. The flowers are white and yellow. Cloud has his crystal, a light green materia from his core world of FFVII, in hand.
Cloud: [(Chuckles shortly, like a scoff)] Not interested.
Cloud walks off into the flower field, gaining a green glow. He vanishes.
A snowflake then falls into Terra's right hand as her crystal begins to glow pink. The flames drawn on her crystal represent her power, which is connected to the element of fire: her character arc in FFVI.
Terra: I think I've learned how to keep going. Thank you— and take care.
Terra glows pink and then vanishes. Bartz throws a stick. He's glowing pink as well.
Bartz: When you're having the most fun, that's when time always flies. His crystal is the Adamantite from his core world of FFV.
Bartz vanishes.
Cecil: It's mine to pass on—
A moon appears behind Cecil and goes through its phases as he begins to glow blue. His crystal has shadowed and illuminated parts, representing the duality of his character, which is central to his personal arc in his core world of FFIV. It also represents his brother Golbez, who has chosen the darkness. Cecil considers his familial bond with Golbez his guiding light and hopes to be with him someday.
Cecil: — this strength I've gained from everyone.
Cecil vanishes.
Onion Knight hugs his crystal and looks up toward the sky. His crystal is shaped like those found in his core world of FFIII**.**
Onion Knight: Everyone... thank you!
Onion Knight briefly glows blue and then vanishes.
There are wild roses at Firion's feet. He and WoL are looking toward the sky. WoL suddenly begins walking away while Firion looks down and sees the roses.
Firion: This isn't the end. Another dream is waiting to begin.
His crystal is the color of the wild roses that were at the center of his dream and of his motivation to fight Chaos. The roses are also the emblem of the Rebel Army he was a part of in his core world of FFII. His crystal is shaped like Pandaemonium, the final dungeon of his core world story. Firion gains a violet glow and then vanishes.
WoL is walking through the field and then comes to a stop. He's looking at something.
WoL: May the light forever shine upon us.”
III. c) ii. Fact Analysis
Firstly, it’s clear to me that the Cloud that appears in DFF is a post-OG Cloud, given how many plot points from OG he interacts with. I’m reticent to say whether or not this post-OG Cloud is dead like in FFT, as he recovers many of his memories of OG during DFF and there is no evidence of him having passed away and joined the Lifestream.
The second thing I’d like to point out is Cloud’s strange reaction when Tifa compares him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. Cloud gasps, indicating that her words mean something to him; the trope Tifa references must therefore be included somewhere in the FFVII OG plot-line. Some of you are surely ahead of me by now, having realized that only the tragic antithesis of this trope appears in OG: Cloud is unable to save Aerith from Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). Whether or not DFF Cloud remembers Aerith herself at this point, it’s clear he recalls the pain and guilt of losing Aerith to Sephiroth.
Next, let’s address Cloud’s lost dream: to meet an unspecified person. It seems Cloud is aware at this point that in OG, he was eternally separated from the person he dreams of meeting. So, who was he separated from in his core world? Who can he never meet again, even if his team of warriors defeats Chaos and Cloud returns to the realm of FFVII? There are a few options —his mother, his father, Zack, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and any other person he knew who died—, but the sheer narrative weight that Aerith’s untimely death carries makes it clear who he truly wants to meet. This is corroborated by Cloud’s “I think I can meet her… there” line in OG (disk 3 chapter 3), by FFT Cloud’s search for Aerith during his appearance in Ivalice, and by Cloud’s strange reaction to Tifa’s comparing him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. All the available evidence suggests that Cloud’s dream is indeed to reunite with Aerith, and that this dream is “lost” to him because she was killed by Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). This would also explain the title of the DFF segment “Recurring Tragedy”, since as we all know, the ultimate tragedy of FFVII OG is Aerith’s death. Considering Sephiroth was the one to take Aerith away from Cloud, Sephiroth’s threats of drowning him in despair in “Recurring Tragedy” only solidify this interpretation of Cloud’s lost dream.
Finally, we arrive at the ending cutscene. Cosmos’ warriors return to where they belong to try and accomplish whatever dream they held as motivation during the Cosmos-Chaos conflict, each carrying their DFF crystal. Cloud is shown standing in a field of white and yellow flowers and walking deeper into it with a light green materia in hand. Why was a white and yellow flower field chosen to represent DFF Cloud’s dream? The answer is obvious. White and yellow flowers symbolize Aerith: she sold Cloud a yellow blossom upon first meeting him in OG (disk 1, chapter 1), and her yellow and white flowerbed cushioned Cloud’s fall when the two reunited in the Sector 5 church (disk 1, chapter 4). What’s more, we have the iconic credits video of the original cut of Advent Children to refer to, wherein Cloud is seen driving near flower fields. Aerith stands there (3:20), seemingly waiting for him. Here’s what Nomura had to say about this credits scene:
"[...] we filmed the video for the ending credits in Hawaii. There are fields of flowers on both sides of the road, and the colors —yellow and white— are the same as the flowers in Aerith's church […]. With Aerith, 'flowers' have been her image throughout the series” (FFVII Reunion Files, “Countdown to Reunion”, “Stories from CG Production”, page 87).Even in the Advent Children Complete cut of the film, where Aerith is not shown standing in the field, the flowers and their symbolism of Aerith remain. That being so, it’s more than fair to say that the white and yellow flowers in DFF’s ending cutscene serve as yet another confirmation that Cloud’s dream is to be with Aerith.
With all of this established, we can address the nature of Cloud’s DFF crystal. As we established, every core world has its own version of a crystal, each possessing a distinct appearance, function and meaning. Materia are the crystals of FFVII, so one could be satisfied by the proposition that Cloud’s DFF crystal is simply meant to represent a random materia. However, I think Cloud’s crystal is specifically the White Materia, as it represents Aerith’s sacrifice, her importance to the plot and what she died fighting for. If any one object symbolizes her death, it’s the White Materia; it’s even given closeups during the event (2:33-3:02). Besides, unlike any other materia in FFVII, the White Materia is known to glow a light green when Holy has been activated:
“Bugenhagen: If [the prayer] reaches the planet, the White Materia will begin to glow a pale green” (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 15).Here are pictures of the White Materia in OG and Advent Children, and two pictures of Cloud's DFF crystal (in order) so you can compare for yourself:
https://preview.redd.it/0qtumfeyfq0d1.jpg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3995f010738c83fca0c5842a0564d0a9ad206dfd
https://preview.redd.it/0kj525tzfq0d1.jpg?width=1144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=575573ef1d2c937635cf569d4a376886a24b384c
Cloud's DFF Crystal
Cloud’s DFF crystal
So far, in both suspension world games we’ve examined (FFT and DFF), Cloud is searching for Aerith. As a final note on DFF, it may interest you to know that codirector of the Remake trilogy Toriyama was actually a writer for DFF: he may have carried some themes from DFF to Remake…
III. d) Detour: The Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition
Before we hop onto the next suspension world, let’s return to ours for a quick detour: the 2018 Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Expo. Themed with farewells and tragedy, this expo showcased the heartbreaking goodbyes featured in different FF games. Artwork, clips, quotes and images aplenty here! As the highly anticipated Remake was going to be coming out approximately a year and a half later, the FFVII section of the expo featured a few sneak peek Remake designs. This means the expo was at least partly curated with the Remake trilogy in mind; there could be interesting material in the FFVII section of the expo related to Remake. Let’s dive in!
Unsurprisingly, the focus of the FFVII section is Cloud and Aerith, since she is the loved one he lost in OG. Zack is also given a mention, however Aerith was the glaringly central star of the show. To showcase how important Aerith’s farewell in particular was to the expo, the FFVII portion was introduced by a photo of Cloud lowering Aerith into her watery grave and a video of her tragic death:
Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition, FFVII Introduction
The description under the video screen reads:
“She was gone in the blink of an eye. But the pain never went away.Conveniently enough for us, the expo’s tagline is “Who is the person you want to meet again?” Given that Aerith holds the spotlight in the FFVII section of the expo, it’s clear who SE is telling us Cloud wants to reunite with. Recall Cloud’s unfinished line in DFF: “The one I really want to meet is..." (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”). We theorized that he must be referring to Aerith, and now, we are certain.
Aerith awoke the ultimate magic to protect the planet and the people she loved. Yet her life came to a sudden end at the hands of Sephiroth, a man bent on seeing the world destroyed. Even the usually stoic Cloud couldn’t hide his grief at the unexpected death of an irreplaceable companion. ‘My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning.’ True words, revealing Cloud’s deep sorrow” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition).
The expo also had pamphlet descriptions of the farewells depicted. Here is the general summary of FFVII‘s farewell story according to that pamphlet:
“The story follows the lead character Cloud, but it is the heroine, Aerith, who opens Cloud’s eyes and helps bring him closer to understanding the mystery that is his past. Through her, we draw closer to the truth of the story.It’s interesting that SE would mention the rumors of Aerith’s revival circulated by players back in 1997, especially as fans were awaiting Remake’s release…
This scene, in which the heroine Aerith is lost, is easily the most shocking and tragic in the story. No one expected to say goodbye to such a major character in the middle of the story. Rumors of a secret way to revive Aerith spread, and it was clear players were having a hard time saying goodbye to her too. Even now, twenty years later, it still feels like a shocking turn of events” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition Pamphlet, page 36).
In light of everything we’ve analyzed so far, it can be said that between FFT (1997) and this farewell expo (2018), SE has consistently demonstrated that reuniting with Aerith is post-OG Cloud’s goal. That’s a period of over two decades— two decades of wishing, seeking, longing in real-world time for this character. This is a huge long-term commitment for SE to make, and you can bet the devs don’t take it lightly. Again and again, once the events of the OG game have ended, Cloud is shown to desire a reunion with Aerith. This ever-present and ever-insistent theme will become very important to us later in this analysis.
(continued in part 3)
2024.05.16 08:10 Sad-Pop6649 Lunetten, Utrecht, Netherlands, a higher density green suburb?
 | https://preview.redd.it/8yds0x4mdq0d1.png?width=1482&format=png&auto=webp&s=92f6de754e519475997b6af36b838a95b80ae404 submitted by Sad-Pop6649 to Suburbanhell [link] [comments] This might end up as a bit of a weird post. But mostly a very long one. I don’t think this place I’m presenting here is heaven, but without Suburbs Heaven Thursday this subreddit may give viewers the idea that we’re all just hating, and this case study may help illustrate some of the alternatives and what one could like and dislike about them. I know that yelling “the Netherlands!” on any urbanist platform is overdone and so 2 years ago, but I also feel like the available “Netherlands!” content is giving people an incomplete picture. So I’m going to discuss a suburban neighborhood, Lunetten, in Utrecht, where I’ve lived for about a year now. It’s a place built in the 70’s and 80’s, housing about 11,000 people in 5,500ish homes, for a density of just over 4,000 people/km2, 10,000 per square mile. Obviously that’s pretty dense. In a North American context Lunetten may count more as an example of the “missing middle” than a true suburb, but I feel it still works as a comparison because it is situated at the edge of a city* and it offers features people often look to the suburbs for, like a low noise environment, plenty of green and child oriented features. So, what can we find in this example that people may like or dislike in their suburban areas? If you want to look along on your favorite online map: 52° 3'53 N, 5° 8'13 E. Traffic and transit Lunetten has a clear main road (middle left image, bright pink line on the map) that serves as the main way of getting around by car. It is the only road where the limit is 50 km/h (30 mph), not 30 km/h. The main road has priority over all side roads, indicated by the exits of all side streets being raised a bit. The speed bump automatically makes one slow down to yield to the traffic on the main road. In the places where people’s front doors open towards this main ring there are service roads for them to do their parking and loading and such on. In the busiest part of the ring the road was raised a few meters so pedestrians and cyclists can pass underneath through tunnels. So while the maximum speed cars can go on most of the roads in this place is quite low, the time to destination is pretty good, because a lot was done to ensure a good flow of traffic. A more debatable feature is the lack of through-traffic options. If you want to leave Lunetten by car there are two roads leading West, connecting to the rest of the city and to the 70km/h raised road that serves as the exit from the city. There is also one small road going South-East along the train line, and that’s it. Despite being next to two highways Lunetten has no direct on- and off-ramp accessing it, and even no direct way across the highways for cars. Cyclists and pedestrians do have options leading in basically all directions. On the one hand this does wonders for how quiet the neighborhood is, but on the other hand that one road taking people in and out of the city is still more prone to blocking than a direct ramp to the highway, so car owners will experience some travel delays because of this. Lunetten is no public transit hotspot, but there are like two bus lines both going to more connected places including the city’s central hub, and the train station is two stops from said hub as well, which happens to be the biggest train station in the Netherlands. Public Spaces Even by Dutch standards Lunetten has a pretty urban-ish density. There’s a mix of mostly rowhouses and midrise apartment buildings, mostly gallery flats up to 5 stories tall, including the ground floor. To give you an idea of Dutch standards for density: I grew up in a commuter town of about the same size as Lunetten, housing 1,000 less people (present day numbers) on roughly 1.25 times the surface**. But what I find interesting is what that space is used for. In Lunetten, on the outer ring of the neighborhood, adjacent to the two highways, busy raised road and train line that surround the neighborhood, there are quite sizable parks (bottom right picture). There’s plenty of space for dogs to run off their leash, there are football/play fields, there are two skate parks, two ponds for amphibians to spend the winter in (granted: that’s an amenity most people could live without) and an entire petting zoo, in case you had doubts this was a suburb. Together with a football/soccer club, a tennis club, some allotment gardens and a small business park near the train station these parks take up most of the space where traffic noise is an issue. There is room for recreation and other daytime activities in the noisy bits (there are sound screens, but that’s not blocking all of the noise) so that peoples’ homes can mostly be in the quiet parts, shielded from noise by trees and stuff. And then there’s the neighborhood interior. You’ll see on the map a few yellow locations marked as “playground/square”, but in reality many, probably most, of the dark green “courtyards” contain a little playground too. All of the courtyards have grass, most if not all of them have trees, many of those trees being taller than the midrises. Some of the courtyards feature parking space as well***. The middle right image is far from the greenest example. The combination of the parks and the courtyards make Lunetten much greener than the actual smallish town I lived in mentioned previously. Plenty of birds live here too, including a bunch of water birds who enjoy the ditches and canals. In the smallish town much more of the space was simply used for row houses with pretty large gardens, and in the newer parts a bunch of four home and two home units and free standing homes as well****. Which brings me to the reality check. With all these pedestrianized public spaces around and loads of playgrounds, is Lunetten actually a good neighborhood to raise kids? From what I can tell, opinions are mixed. Because one thing that does tend to come with density of people is density of crime. In my year here I have personally witnessed a man snorting coke off his bicycle saddle, in broad daylight, in the middle of a bike lane near a skatepark with playing children in it*****. There is also the occasional lost shopping cart dumped in a canal and apparently there was a pretty shocking supermarket robbery just before I moved in. Especially if your budget only allows for an apartment and not a house I could imagine feeling a little scared to let young children wander around near the house on their own, also maybe because of the canals and ditches they might fall into. The sweet spot age for children in Lunetten is probably around 9-12, old enough to be trusted with their own safety around water and some minor drug use and vandalism, yet young enough to fully enjoy all the outdoor play space. The blame for the crime is often put on the street pattern that is said to attract drug dealers and the like who love having good get away options, and the many green public spaces and nice dry apartment building entrances are certainly not the worst place a homeless person could go to for another night of hopefully not being bothered by the police. More recently developed neighborhoods have tried to avoid these effects by using a “cauliflower pattern” for their streets, branched streets ending in a bunch of (at least to cars) dead ends. The downside of that pattern seems to be less sense of community. The more direct neighbors you have, the more interaction. That’s why cul-de-sacs can be so isolating after all. Lunetten is not the worst crimey part of its parent city by a long shot, but it’s noticeable enough to be worth mentioning. A planned neighborhood The big advantage I think Lunetten has over a lot of other places is that it was designed in one go. The land it was built on was part of the Dutch Water Line******, and had to stay free of buildings and obstructions that would block the firing lines of defending artillery. (That’s what the two weird shapes in the northern park are: old fortifications, called Lunette 3 and 4. Hence the suburb’s name.) When the line was legally disbanded in 1963 Utrecht started planning to build a new neighborhood here. Because of the highways (current configuration built at the same time as the suburb) and the train line that surround the place it was very clear to where the neighborhood would stretch. And it shows. The suburb is designed as a cohesive whole. There’s a neighborhood shopping center (bottom left image and the main soft pink blob on the map) at the heart of the neighborhood. It has two supermarkets, some small other shops, several small fast food/lunch places in different styles, two bicycle shops and repair places (it’s the Netherlands), a restaurant (there’s another one on one of the forts in the park, which doubles as a sort of social work place), a community center which houses some clubs and such (not the scouts, those have a place in one of the parks) as well as a library. There’s even a bar (I think, I should maybe go there ones), and some space where small neighborhood markets and events turn up with some regularity. The other main soft pink and yellow blob in a convenient central location on the map is two elementary schools*******. In many more organically grown neighborhoods or places the amenities wouldn’t be so conveniently centralized or would eventually be “centralized” on the outskirt of town. The Bijlmer comparison, what not to do Another interesting point of comparison I think is the Bijlmer (Bijlmermeer officially) in Amsterdam, another green neighborhood designed as one big plan outside of its parent city’s core, yet quite different. The Bijlmer is nationally famous as a bit of a ghetto, a place where you don’t want to live. (To be fair: the plane falling down on it didn’t help its case.) A lot of work has been done to improve the place, but its initial “ghettoization” was surprising because the Bijlmer was never intended to even be particularly affordable, but more of a vertical suburb, spacious family apartments (around 120 m2) for 100,000 people or more in large highrise buildings with between them plenty of green. A quiet place, with quick access to the city, using density to save on land use and travel time. There are three main differences I see between the struggling Bijlmer and “doing pretty well” Lunetten: 1 The Bijlmer has a higher density through the use of massive apartment buildings, literally and figuratively increasing the distance between people’s homes and the public space. 2 The Bijlmer is a much bigger place, I’m not sure they ever got to those 100,000 inhabitants, but it certainly loses that towny vibe. 3 They’ve been correcting this in the rebabilitation, but as designed the Bijlmer had basically no amenities. It wasn’t a town or city, it was people storage, housing for people who mentally lived several kilometers away but couldn’t afford it there. See the rest of this subreddit for why that doesn’t work for many people. Interdependency with other suburbs Looking back on growing up in that smallish town I notice that there really isn’t that much of a difference in amenities. The town offered much of the same things Lunetten does. But Lunetten’s status as a suburb gives it a big advantage over that town. Because while suburbs mostly serve themselves, they also serve each other. Take sports: there’s a football and tennis club and two indoor sports halls in Lunetten, but what if I want to swim or throw spears instead? Well, there’s a pool in a suburb to the North, as well as an athletics stadium. After elementary school there’s no middle/high school in Lunetten, but there are in nearby neighborhoods, and there are even college options******** spread throughout different suburbs and neighborhoods. These things are closer than they are in a small town not because the suburb is associated with a city center, but because it is associated with other suburbs. There are things I liked about the commuter town, but having to take either an honestly too long bike trip or a bus ride that only went whenever it was not convenient for me whenever I wanted to do something my town didn’t provide, like going to school, wasn’t one of them. And I say that even as a spoiled person whose commuter town at least had buses and bicycle paths. Conclusion And that is I think the main takeaway from this absolute wall of text: suburbs don’t have to be places where there’s nothing to do and you feel disconnected from the world. That’s the entire point of living in a suburb instead of in a town: there are other places nearby. There is a balance to be found between private space, public space and connectivity. Essentially, in a neighborhood of 10,000 people, for every 100x100 meters of public space or amenities either every person gets 1 square meter less private space or everybody gets maybe a few meters of extra travel distance on the average trip. Lunetten probably provides too little private space for the taste of many North American suburbanites, but it does show I think that there is quite a bit of room on those sliders. A green place with amenities sort of near other places can still be built with more spacious houses. (Just maybe go easy on the sea of lawns?) And that’s when all the separated bike lanes and other urbanist talking points really start making sense: when you found the balance between having your own place, having local places worth going to and being close enough to other places worth going to, then you want a good way to get there. The other takeaway I feel is that it pays to design neighborhoods as a unit. And that’s another reason why suburbs can be better than towns. A town of 10,000 residents can’t plan ahead for the next 10,000, but a city of several hundred thousand people can. And it pays off. Don’t lose track of the human scale though, planning 10,000 residents ahead might actually be better than planning 100,000 or 1,000,000 residents ahead when it comes to suburbs. It is still supposed to feel like a quiet little place with maybe a bit of its own identity. * On the other side of one of the highways there’s a bit of forest tied to several historic estates that’s very nice for walking in as well as a golf course half as big as this entire neighborhood, this really is the edge of town and will be for the foreseeable future. ** I’ve also lived in several other cities since then, near the city center, further out and on the far edge in a highrise neighborhood. Honestly I might still prefer the smaller cities I’ve lived in, being near everything the city offers and even to some of the stuff outside of it. But work took me back to a larger city (pretend I said “less tiny” if you’re from Mexico City or something), and I could honestly have landed in a much worse place than this particular suburb. *** Fun fact: this is one of the very few neighborhoods of Utrecht where parking is currently still free, because of enough parking space and enough distance to the city center. It really is a suburb. **** In the 90’s a style of more expensive neighborhoods called “Vinex” set standards for the ratio of more expensive to cheaper houses in those neighborhoods, and ever since both contractors and local politicians refuse to let go of those ratios everywhere. A newer, competing vision is that we shouldn’t be building new neighborhoods at all, just filling in the gaps in our cities. So now we mostly build quite large houses, but only in very small spaces. We’re still not sure where that massive housing shortage came from, somehow. ***** I stopped and addressed him because I thought he was having bicycle trouble, chain ran off or something. Quite a chill dude, very apologetic, but still maybe not exactly what the average parent is looking for in a neighbor. ****** More accurately: Holland Waterline, because it wasn’t the only Dutch waterline, but it was the main one defending the part called Holland. But that sounds a bit off in English. ******* We have a bit of a weird school system, for every public elementary school there is at least one other founded on religious grounds or based on some specific didactic theory. That’s why there are two schools in the same central location instead of just one bigger school or two in separate locations. ******** If I start going into the differences in advanced education systems we’ll be here all day, but there are options within cycling distance ranging from trade school to university, depending on the field you actually want to study *********. ********* I could start using other symbols instead of these confusingly long rows of asterisks, but where would be the fun in that? |
2024.05.16 07:38 Mountain_Counter929 Making Aliens based off every pokemon type combination (Fighting)
Fighting/Normal: OHKO (One Punch Man but instead of one effortless punch it’s a touch of death combo he has to )
Species: Mugen
Planet: Sonof
Appearance
Fighting/Grass: Doungwun Nemetrix predator of the Chunwin (See Kung book in Grass Types)
Appearance
Fighting/Fire: Racaln the Nemetrix predator of the Clabestro (See Firing Squad in Fire types)
Appearance
Fighting/Water: Ultimate Slush (See Original in Water Types)
Appearance
Appearance
Appearance
Appearance
Fighting/Ground: Ultimate Mudripper (See Original in Ground Types)
Appearance
Appearance
Fighting/Bug: Ultimate Float Stinger (See Original in Bug Types)
Appearance
Species: Reffox
Planet: Arbeitar
Appearance
Fighting/Poison: Biolence (Fist of the North Star Powered by drugs, and can weaponize their own explosions )
Species: Gomane Planet: Omawoshindyu
Appearance
Fighting/Ghost: Body-structor (Havik from MK1 with hints of Water Law from One Piece)
Species: Rankensain
Planet: Taxodoom
Appearance
Fighting/Dragon: Medisnake (Combat Snake with Street Fighter Chi abilities)
Species: Ansatryu
Planet: Chakrenin
Appearance:
Fighting/Steel: Weapon Blaster (Tank Knight with hand guns that shoots bladed weapons) Species: Arthmo
Planet: Palawar
Appearance
Fighting/Dark: Spotshot
Species: Dalmate
Planet: Cerberence
Appearance
Fighting/Fairy: Best-O Change-O (Magical Girl/Boy Recruiting Bunny)
Species: Usegin
Planet: Lunakessho
Appearance
submitted by Mountain_Counter929 to Ben10 [link] [comments]
Species: Mugen
Planet: Sonof
Appearance
- Humanoid blank white body
- Thick Smooth/Blocky appearance (like made of pillows)
- Headband and Gi are common wares
- Enhanced Strength
- Unlimited Stamina
- Extremely High Pain Tolerance
- Semi-Mechanical Nature does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe
- Unaging
- Slight combat prowess
- Slightly stuns the opponent on contact with physical force (specifically after a physical hit. Applies to non living beings as well)
- Once an attack lands, it’ll receive enough energy to continue physically attacking it in a never-ending combo. Dealing blows significantly faster, gaining strength with each hit and eventually able to deal noticeable damage to almost any target with each hit.
- Slow movement
- Limited Fighting Capabilities
- Attacks are usually short
- Can extend reach but takes notable time so it needs to make an effort to land combo
- Combo can be interrupted, loses momentum and needs to land another hit when it does.
Fighting/Grass: Doungwun Nemetrix predator of the Chunwin (See Kung book in Grass Types)
Appearance
- Green Body
- Mantis like Body
- 2 Pairs of claws with sharp fanged ends, each with a long membrane hanging off of them.
- Multiple pair of locust-like wings under where abdomen should be.
- Reptilian head
- Pupilless Eyes
- Flight
- High reflexes
- Claws able to capture and break of Chunwin limbs, and attach to body of prey.
- Membranes absorb attack from Chunwin
- Long retractible tongue able to launch with precision and strength, able to pierce the body and grasp onto vital organs.
Fighting/Fire: Racaln the Nemetrix predator of the Clabestro (See Firing Squad in Fire types)
Appearance
- Large translucent viscous puddle with various organs inside, including left overs from prey
- A lot of mouths and eyes
- Able to reconfigure organs inside body
- Able to raise body in multiple large bumps of various sizes, which usually containing organs
- Raises body with jaw to consume prey on its body
- Full sensory of targets on its liquid body
- Viscous body can regenerate (and even split into multiple organisms)
- Prey stable on body is inflicted with Hallucinogenic and Auditory illusions, to make them unable to see and hear others allowing the Racaln to strike admit this confusion
- Also able to block telepathic and electronic communication
- Able to use the natural weapons of digested prey (ie the guns of the Clabestro)
Fighting/Water: Ultimate Slush (See Original in Water Types)
Appearance
- Dark Green Body
- Loses gourd
- Various sharp attachments that have the appearance of the sharp bottlenecks of broken bottle
- Core with an unbalanced changing color in head
- Retain expert flexibility
- More aggressive fighting style (while retaining it’s drunken boxer like moves)
- Fire Projection
- Can’t feel pain
- Core hypnotizes targets on sight, intoxicating them
- Able to use sharp accessories
- More Violent personality
- Can’t spill out body to trip opponents
- Loses Elasticity
Appearance
- Long thin build made of lightning
- Normally invisible
- Invisibility
- Intangibility
- Invincibility
- Whenever an Influx of energy (Any kind) in an area appears:
- Able to instantly teleport to any place where the energy is dispersed
- Doing so attacking the target with massive strength directly proportional to energy
- Once energy subsides or moves outside of energy influx, body becomes invisible/intangible again
- When visible, can absorb all kinds of energy
- Able to unleash a large burst of both sound and light with absorbed energy
- Unable to extend body parts
- Can only deal damage in large bursts of energy
- Is no longer invincible when exposed a large energy influx in a prolonged duration
Appearance
- Black/Brown coloring scheme
- Face is more crow like
- Tails are longer
- Hawk-like eyes and wings
- Larger body
- Stronger
- Faster
- Enhanced Senses
- Slight Danger Senses
- Hypnotic Stare
- Invokes Intimidation into targets provoking them into either fighting or running
- When staring at foes, they’re able to read gains seconds precognition into multiple visions whether they fight or fly and combinations of timelines when they do both. Visions show what they would do, but is able to be altered with the newfound knowledge in real time.
- Precognition can predict unknown interferences like hidden dangers
- Heightened intelligence and brain processing speed to plan out effective strategy to hunt or combat their attempts
- Unable to split self into two forms
- Using hypnotic stare on multiple targets can overwhelm self
- Predicted precognitive visions can be avoided if target resists hypnosis making them prep for things that won’t happen
Appearance
- Skeletally thin limbs
- Very lanky frame (usually hunched over)
- Large Wooly body
- Long clawed fingers
- Sharp Teeth
- Immunity to cold
- Silent movement
- Inflicts hallucinations on target nearby especially Ashe
- Inflicts shadowy hallucination of a competitive animal (usually the same as the affected prey) causing the target to continuously attack hallucination.
- Target eventually tires out attacking hallucination, losing adrenaline and succumbing to hypothermia or exhaustion.
Fighting/Ground: Ultimate Mudripper (See Original in Ground Types)
Appearance
- Diamond Skin
- Loses eyes
- Elongated Snout
- Six pairs of short legs
- Clawed Hands
- Glass Hairs
- Loses Tail
- Enhanced Smelling Senses
- Heatproof
- Durable and ough Diamond Skin
- Sharp Claws
- High Speed Burrowing
- Thermo-adaptation
- Able to resurface lava and create lava motes/small volcanos on ground from underneath
- Drooling Lava Saliva
- Able to walk on surfaces
- Vacuum Adaptation
- Loss of Eyesight
- Can’t Jump
- Unable to grab object with claws as well as base form hands
- Can’t Swim
Appearance
- Sheep-based body
- Green Wool
- Flowers growing on body
- Wool is able to absorb strong impacts
- Vine-like tendrils on side of body able to connect to cliffsides
- Able to camouflage selves into a grass pile
- Grows a disconnected field perpendicular to the cliffside making it look its prey is on the ground
- Field camouflaged to be unable to be seen from below
- Able to communicate with Sabter to trick it on standing on the field, of the cliff before falling to their deaths.
Fighting/Bug: Ultimate Float Stinger (See Original in Bug Types)
Appearance
- Slightly bigger body
- Longer wasp like structure
- New Vertical striped black and white body
- Able to summon a near indestructible hive shaped structure
- This pocket dimension draws in 2 individuals (which can include the creator) into an arena pocket dimension.
- Telepathic communication with all individuals in pocket dimensions
- Individuals in the pocket dimension must follow certain reality altering conditions to set a “fair fight”
- This usually includes removal of “powers” but can also vary to have no removal or even the addition of powers
- Fight doesn’t have to be direct combat and more of a much as a sport
- Individual size are usually scaled to be relatively similar
- Individuals leaves once one or both is considered ‘defeated’ or by the creator’s permission
- Rules set in arena must be made to be fair for both individuals
- No longer able to project honey to prevent powers
- Slightly slower and weaker outside of hives
- Reality altering rules only affect targets inside a hive
Species: Reffox
Planet: Arbeitar
Appearance
- Tall Humanoid muscular appearance
- Body looks skinless and made of muscles
- Egg-shapd head and single eye
- Enhanced Atleticism
- High combat p rowess
- Able to slowly build up strength and speed
- Photographic reflexes
- When looking at any moving target, able to quickly learn, memorize, and mimic that targets moves allowing them to be able to come up with a counter for it.
- Also applies to their use of tools
- Can only memorize and mimic movements not powers
- Can only enhance strength and speed in short bursts
- May be at risks for learning ineffective techniques
Fighting/Poison: Biolence (Fist of the North Star Powered by drugs, and can weaponize their own explosions )
Species: Gomane Planet: Omawoshindyu
Appearance
- Rough Green Skin
- Orc Like Head
- Muscular Build
- Costume comes with a mouth-covering mask
- Large Hands
- Enhanced Strength
- Strength and size are gradually enhances from absorbing normally hazardous or even just unhealthy substances
- Body is slowly producing its own internal toxins
- Noxious Stench
- Poisons eventually build up into large cysts on skin that eventually bursts into powerful noxious and slightly toxic gas expulsion when ‘popped’, able to do damage from force
- Able to control cyst development early
- Cysts become more powerful with more hazardous substances given
- Able to transfer poisonous cyst development onto others from force of contact, usually other species skin is not built to handle the expulsion causing damage when they pop
- When exposed to hazard substances, the Cysts become faster developed and harder to control possibly hindering the body
- Loses strength build after cyst has popped
- Mind can be altered to be more violent depending on hazardous substances consumed, commonly manifests in an addiction or violent temperament (usually removed when expelled)
Fighting/Ghost: Body-structor (Havik from MK1 with hints of Water Law from One Piece)
Species: Rankensain
Planet: Taxodoom
Appearance
- Tone “Action Figure like structure”
- Smoothed out Joints
- Skeletal head
- Sharp Claws
- Retractable Spikes on limbs
- Leathery skin
- Large tail
- Enhanced Strength and Stamina
- Combat Prowess
- Immortality
- Quick Cellular Regeneration
- Able to detach own limbs/body parts and effectively control them when attached.
- Able to grow a detached body part on the detached body
- Able to detach others limbs/body parts of target on contact
- Able to attach body parts detached this way to self
- Body parts detached this way can still be controlled and are controlled by the head/brain they are attached to (all head/brain are in control of themselves). If their original head/brain is detached they can still be controlled by that head/brain unless it’s on attached to another of the same body part in which case they can’t move.
- With the exception of Rankensains who can control their own body parts even while their heads are on a different body.
- Different body parts can be reattached to other bodies detached this way, even in places the body parts don’t go
- Specifically in the Omnitrix after retransformation original rankensain body parts will dematerialize and all new attached body parts from detached bodies will fall off.
- Slightly slow
- Detachment requires strong force of contact
- Targets dispatched bodies can reattach their own parts, and can’t take them off again when put back into place (Can only be detached again by a Rankensain)
- Body parts attached to wrong part of body can be dispatched by anything even by accident
- Targets can disconnect different a body part that wasn’t originally there’s
- After regrowing a body part that was already attached, the original detached body part will lose its structure and melt
- Will die if all body parts are destroyed too fast
- Only their own body parts can detach other limbs
Fighting/Dragon: Medisnake (Combat Snake with Street Fighter Chi abilities)
Species: Ansatryu
Planet: Chakrenin
Appearance:
- Long Reptilian Body built similarly to a Skink
- Dragonoid Scales
- Small Limbs
- Bipedal
- Enhanced Combat Prowess
- Slithering
- Easily able to enter a meditative state for enhanced self-control, psychological/emotional balance, mental clarity, and even healing
- Able to access pressure points that puts allies in a similar state
- Natural chi-like energy and mastery
- Energy skills normally manifest as enhanced athletic skills and energy projection at a basic level
- Energy can be personalized into a different element or even power
- Personalization initially requires a level of training that the Omnitrix transformation doesn’t initially give.
Fighting/Steel: Weapon Blaster (Tank Knight with hand guns that shoots bladed weapons) Species: Arthmo
Planet: Palawar
Appearance
- Tall metal body
- Tank treads for legs
- Knight-Like Helmet
- Short cannons for arms
- Enhanced Durability
- Enhanced Eyesight
- Full rotating body
- Canon arms launch out metal objects commonly melee weapons like swords, spears, axes etc at high speeds
- Weapons are animated and “preprogrammed to move in ways/fly in a direct path and can be “preprogrammed’
- Can be locked onto a focused target and rotate/swing in a specific way whilst following the target
- Other different types of weapon shooting
- Machine Gun type: able to launch out multiple imprecise smaller metal weapons that can’t be animated
- Sniper: Able to launch a singular fast powerful far reaching weapon
- Giant: Able to launch one giant weapon a short distance that stays out longer.
- Drawbacks of each weapon shooting
- Slow Tank like movement
- Can only create simple metal objects
- Weapon projectiles can be moved offcourse
- Weapon projectiles can only stay out a minute before dissipation
- Weapons take time and varying degrees of focus to charge before launch which increases with duration of animation
- Shooting out a large powerful weapon increases load time, and can’t shoot more weapons while the giant weapon is out
Fighting/Dark: Spotshot
Species: Dalmate
Planet: Cerberence
Appearance
- Dalmatian white and black spotted pattern body
- Monkey like proportions and arms
- Dog like head
- Paws for feet
- Long tail with a forked end
- Enhanced Athleticism
- Enchanted Acrobatics
- Wall Crawling
- Able to use forked tail and string-like mucus in between split as a slingshot
- Shoots able to launch “spots” from tail
- Dark skin works good for camouflage
- Combat Prowess
- Spots inflict a strong force on impact
- Leaves a spot mark on the target, and can potentially blind a living target
- Projectile spots are able to fly out of marks
- Able to make spots launch off objects on impact before making mark
- Hitting mark with multiple projectile creates a bigger mark, and a bigger projectile by extension
- Able to absorb Dalmate spots on own body
- Spots dissipate after minutes
- Unable to projects spots marked on body
Fighting/Fairy: Best-O Change-O (Magical Girl/Boy Recruiting Bunny)
Species: Usegin
Planet: Lunakessho
Appearance
- Anthropomorphic Bunny
- Biological Crystal accessories on head
- Natural mask-like fur pattern on head and pupils eyes (males only)
- Crown like horns on females
- Standard outfit of a Tuxedo-like suit, or School-Girl dress based on gender
- Natural magic potential
- Enhanced leaping
- Enhanced Athleticism
- Costume transmutation
- Able to enhance a small hand held object
- Transmutes the object into a specialized weapon and usually able to project a specialized material/force/or element (depends on a combination of both the individual and object)
- Able to enhance another object allowing an Ally to gain a similar weapon and the same powers of an Usegin except the ability to enchant other objects.
- Only able to utilize one weapon at a time
- Applies to allies, they can only utilize their chosen object
- Takes a while to enchant another object for an ally after the first
- After an allies enchanted objects breaks they lose their gained abilities
- Ally abilities also go away when the Omnitrix Transformation ends
2024.05.16 07:10 haygurlhay123 “This Time, I Will Never Let You Go”: Cloud’s Mission and the Hidden Purpose of the Remake Trilogy - Literary and Musical Analysis of FFVII - Part 1
Shortly after Final Fantasy VII hit the gaming world in 1997, Cloud Strife’s howls of grief at the loss of his beloved companion Aerith Gainsborough were echoed by droves and droves of fans. These echoes gathered in swarms, reaching the developers in the form of petition signatures, each begging the makers of the game to allow Aerith’s resurrection. Though these prayers remained unanswered —until now—, there soon came more protests: this time, fans pleaded with the developers to consider making a remake of the original game. Both of these wishes were met with considerable derision, with large chunks of the fandom calling the requests delusional— which is why the Final Fantasy world had to prepare for another meteoric hit when the Remake project was finally announced in 2015. With Kitase, Nomura, Toriyama, Nojima, Uematsu and more of the original developers at the helm, along with longtime FFVII fan-turned-developer Hamaguchi, the Remake trilogy was met with great expectations. These were nevertheless surpassed, though one aspect of the trilogy’s first entry seemed to thoroughly puzzle some and enrage others. Far and wide, the resounding questions were “What are these Whisper things?”, “Why is Cloud having visions unrelated to Nibelheim and Zack?” and “Why and how in the hell did Zack survive?”
Friends, I believe the answer lies within this post. Welcome to my literary-analysis-based theory on the Remake trilogy’s most important and most secret plot point: Cloud’s hidden mission. I want to make this fun and suspenseful to read, so I will write my analyses in the same order and manner in which I encountered them while putting my theory together. You will be reading what initially sparked my curiosity, the path I took while researching for answers, the conclusions I made every step of the way, and only then will you read my theory, after which we’ll try and apply it to the Remake trilogy so far and see if it fits! I want you to experience the rollercoaster that I did when digging through SE content to bring you this post. Thank you so much for waiting for and anticipating this analysis, and I do hope you read every word to soak in every last bit of Clerith you can get. I also hope it’s really fun and touching for you (I cried at least once making this)! Let’s embark on our adventure through the compilation, other FF games and real-life events to find out what the Remake project is truly all about and anticipate the events of part 3.
N.B.: Please be aware that I have never seen this theory navigate online, so I have no idea if anyone has ever come up with a similar hypothesis. The big reveal I’m building toward might be something you’re already aware of or suspected. In that case, I hope this post doesn’t disappoint you if you’re one of the lovely people who requested it! At the very least, it will provide you with valuable literary and musical analysis, a ton of evidence you haven’t considered yet, and hopefully, entertainment too!
WARNING: Please be careful with the censored spoiler text, because I'll be referencing other FF games in this analysis and I don't want to ruin anything for you! Obviously, this analysis contains spoilers for the entirety of the FFVII compilation. Additionally, if you're not a fan of Clerith and you've stumbled upon this post, please stop here. I would hate it if something I worked on and posted made you angry, so please don't read this analysis. I have only good intentions and I just want everyone to enjoy the FFVII world as much as they can.
I. a) Sephiroth’s Plan
The premise of the Remake trilogy is widely thought to be the result of post-OG Sephiroth attempting to succeed where he failed in OG. There are six key points we need to keep in mind to understand how this was possible.
I. a) i. Sephiroth in the Lifestream
Firstly, it’s important to remember that Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream before OG even begins, and remains that way for almost all of OG's duration. He is only able to operate in the world of the living via his/Jenova's control over the living Sephiroth clones. In the OG timeline then, Sephiroth is sent to the Lifestream by Cloud twice: once before the game takes place on the night of the Nibelheim incident (pre-OG), and a second time during the final battle against Sephiroth (disk 3, chapter 3). During the long period between the Nibelheim incident and Sephiroth’s rebirth at the Northern Crater (disk 2, chapter 2), he exists in the Lifestream. After his ultimate defeat (post-OG), he returns there for good.
II. a) ii. Sephiroth Unintegrated
Secondly, because he is full of hatred and unyielding determination, Sephiroth’s spirit cannot become one with the planet. After both occasions where Cloud kills him in OG, Sephiroth retains his individual will and the memories of his lifetime, remaining a separate entity in the Lifestream. He says so himself in Nojima’s Advent Children prequel novel On a Way to a Smile:
It is also thought that Sephiroth cannot be integrated into the Lifestream because he was conceived with the use of Jenova cells in vitro. Given that so much of his consciousness and genetic makeup originate from an alien life force, it is impossible for him to become one with the planet.
Regardless of the reason, it is precisely this persisting individuality in death that allows Sephiroth to meddle in the world of the living during the post-OG events of Advent Children, as explained to us by post-OG Aerith in On a Way to a Smile:
Our third point is that the Lifestream has existed for as long as the planet, and has therefore touched every part of its history— including, of course, the events of OG. On that account, one could think of the Lifestream as atemporal. Considering this, it is possible for a spirit in the Lifestream to communicate with or even travel to the past, provided the necessary circumstances and/or abilities. For instance, the Aerith that appears in Cloud’s resolution scene in Remake (chapter 14) is commonly considered to be a post-OG Aerith, appearing to him from the future to try and dissuade him from falling for her. This time-defying event is made possible by the fact that post-OG Aerith’s spirit has access to the atemporal Lifestream because she's deceased. In my view, this explains why she dissolves into green light (Lifestream visual cue) at the end of the resolution scene (5:19-5:45). This is not time travel per se, but it is a manner of communication unobstructed by the one-directionality of a linear timeline that only spirits can perform.
I. a) iv. Sephiroth Beyond Time
What we’ve covered so far amounts to our fourth point. Please familiarize yourself with the graph below before you continue reading. Refer back to the graph when you encounter text in bold.
The Remake Timelines Theory: FFVII OG Timeline
As we discussed in section “I. a) i.”, Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream for the duration of the green arrow and beyond point D: in the context of the OG timeline, he can only ever be considered “alive” during the period highlighted in purple. In section “I. a) ii.”, we asserted that Sephiroth retained his individual will in the Lifestream, enabling him to exert his influence on the world of the living by manipulating his clones on the surface. In section “I. a) iii.”, we covered the atemporal nature of the Lifestream, which allows post-OG Aerith’s spirit to communicate with her past, living self thanks to her Cetra abilities. Now, I will explain to you how Sephiroth was able to do virtually the same thing, albeit his lack of Cetra blood.
To the characters of the story and a fully immersed first-time player of OG, the timeline above was not always an established series of events: when they first started playing FFVII OG, the player began at point B, with nothing existing beyond it. It is only as the player moved Cloud forward that the black, arrowed timeline was drawn, accumulating lived events (or points) in Cloud’s wake. The picture you see above is only available to Cloud and to the player with hindsight. All this to state the obvious: at point B, Cloud could not know what would occur, say, at point C.
During the period highlighted in purple, Sephiroth was “alive” again, accumulating new memories on the surface of the planet and adding them to his consciousness. When he entered the Lifestream for the second time at point D, he brought these memories with him. Simply put, after returning to the Lifestream at point D, Sephiroth remembers what happened during the period highlighted in purple. However, given that the Lifestream exists beyond time, upon Sephiroth’s consciousness’ return to the Lifestream at point D, his newly acquired memories were also made available to him at all points on the green, double-arrowed line— including point A, before the OG timeline even begins at point B. So while it is true that Cloud cannot know what will occur at point C if he is only at point B, Sephiroth indeed knows what will occur during the period highlighted in purple when he is only at point A. While a living, pre-OG Aerith would be able to receive post-OG Aerith’s spirit’s knowledge through the Lifestream thanks to her Cetra powers, Sephiroth has no need for this ability. The fact that he resides in the Lifestream for practically the entire FFVII OG timeline renders the limitations of time irrelevant: as far as the FFVII OG timeline is concerned, Sephiroth exists beyond time itself.
In summary, after point D was first encountered in OG, pre-OG Sephiroth (in the Lifestream) is made aware of his eventual defeat, and begins plotting an alternate path to victory. This time, with the benefit of hindsight, he will do things differently: we experience his "second” attempt at FFVII as the Remake trilogy.
I. a) v. Sephiroth Against Fate
Of course, the Whispers stand squarely in Sephiroth’s way. This leads us to our fifth point, which Remake Ultimania describes better than I ever could:
I. a) vi. Sephiroth and the Multiverse
Consequently, our sixth point is that Sephiroth must dismantle the mechanisms of fate before he can even try to accomplish his dreams of godhood.
As Sephiroth explains in chapter 14 of Rebirth, “the planet encompasses [an ever unfolding] multitude of worlds”, and these “[new worlds are born] when the boundaries of fate are breached.” Since the Whispers uphold the “boundaries of fate”, a world in which Sephiroth’s evil plans succeed can only emerge after the Whispers have been defeated. Otherwise, destiny will continue to protect the OG plot line by preventing any significant deviations. Consequently, before the party vanquishes fate, the Remake timeline and the OG timeline are one and the same: before chapter 18, Remake Barret is OG Barret, Remake Tifa is OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is OG Hojo, etc. After the defeat of Destiny, the OG timeline is no longer protected by fate: there are now an infinite number of timelines or worlds, including those we see glimpses of in Rebirth: Remake Barret is no longer necessarily OG Barret, Remake Tifa is no longer necessarily OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is no longer necessarily OG Hojo, etc. Perhaps this is why Aerith gives the party the following warning at destiny’s crossroads in Remake:
Now that these six points have been elucidated, we can compose a solid hypothesis on how Sephiroth plots to win FFVII.
After gaining knowledge of his eventual demise (disk 3, chapter 3), pre-OG Sephiroth began thinking of what he must do in Remake from the Lifestream. First, Sephiroth must antagonize the Whispers in the initial stages of the OG timeline. He accomplishes this by commanding his clones to commit acts that drastically violate the fated timeline, engendering plot-line deviations that the Whispers must course-correct. The most extreme example transpires in Remake’s chapter 17 when the Sephiroth clone in President Shinra’s office kills Barret, forcing the Whispers to restore the fated plot line by coming forth and reviving him. The Whispers react to Sephiroth’s prodding by rushing in to protect fate, their efforts culminating in the protective wall of destiny that surrounds Midgar in chapter 18.
Secondly, after he’s created an opportunity for a battle against the Whispers, Sephiroth must convince the party to seize it and beat fate for him. After all, a mere Sephiroth clone is probably no match for Destiny. This second step is accomplished in Remake’s chapter 18 when Sephiroth successfully tempts Cloud to breach the boundaries of fate. Now that destiny is no longer a limitation, worlds deviating from the OG timeline can finally emerge; Sephiroth has a chance at victory.
The steps Sephiroth plans to take going forward are unknowable at this stage, but we do get more hints in Rebirth’s chapter 13. At the Temple of the Ancients, Sephiroth reveals a part of his plot:
I. b) Aerith’s Intervention
But Aerith can’t let this slide unchallenged!
We know that before chapter 18 of Remake, while the OG plot-line is still protected by fate, Aerith has knowledge of its future. This is insinuated by certain slips of the tongue: for instance, when Aerith reveals she knows Cloud is a mercenary upon meeting him for the second time in chapter 8, just like she knows Tifa will ask her to retrieve Marlene at Seventh Heaven in chapter 12. In the run-up to Remake, post-OG Aerith's spirit likely sensed Sephiroth planning his second try at FFVII in the Lifestream. She’s been able to anticipate Sephiroth’s plotting in the Lifestream before, namely in the context of Advent Children:
Be that as it may, it’s unclear how much Remake Aerith is aware of. You would think she’d be completely opposed to defeating, destiny since it protects the planet, but Aerith shows ambivalence toward the idea instead. Had she gotten a clear message from her future self that she must keep fate intact, she would not have allowed the party to enter the battle against fate in chapter 18. She doesn’t seem to know what the Whispers are the first time she encounters them either. Regardless, what’s important is that the Aerith seen in Remake is the result of pre-OG Aerith receiving knowledge from post-OG Aerith via the Lifestream.
I. c) Ambiguity: Memory Transfer or Time-Travel?
There remains an ambiguity pertaining to the Aerith we see in Remake and the question of time travel. What I’ve described to you in section “I. b)” is post-OG Aerith's spirit transferring her memories to her past self through the Lifestream. However, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith’s consciousness used the atemporal nature of the Lifestream to inhabit her living OG body instead, effectively time-traveling. There is no evidence to outright refute either explanation, since the gaps in Aerith’s memories of the OG plot-line in Remake can be explained in both cases. For instance, in a memory transfer scenario, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith only communicated the most essential information to pre-OG Aerith. On the other hand, in a time-travel scenario, one could interpret the following quotes as proof that the Whispers are progressively erasing Aerith’s memories of OG as Remake advances:
The specifics don’t matter nearly as much as I’m impressing upon you by explaining all these little alternatives. Simply keep in mind that: regardless of why, the Sephiroth and Aerith we see in Remake know the events of the OG game because they have acquired this knowledge from the future, and the events of Remake occur squarely within the OG timeline until the Whispers are defeated in chapter 18.
So there! That’s my iteration of the Remake Timelines Theory! I hope I’ve made it clear in your mind, or at least clearer. Now that we’ve established the widely theorized premise of the Remake trilogy, we can get into our theory on its hidden premise.
II. My Initial Curiosity
My theory first burgeoned upon going through Remake for the second time. I noticed something strange going on with Cloud, something that could not be explained by the Remake Timelines Theory. Key moments in Remake Cloud’s experience of the OG timeline (aka, everything before chapter 18) stuck out to me as strange and mysterious, and certain inexplicable audiovisual cues struck me as hugely significant. It was upon watching the tear fall from Cloud’s eye during my second go at chapter 8 that I knew I had to look into this.
At the very end of Remake’s chapter 8, Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him, humming happily into the night air as she sets off to lead the way to Sector 7. According to the VA script notes, “his heart skips a beat” and watching her walk away provokes a sudden “anxiety” within him. Triggered by the familiarity of the sight, a strange sensation overcomes Cloud:
Many players immediately recognized the composition of this scene: the blue-greenish air, the straight path Aerith heads down, the sight of her walking away itself… this moment closely resembles Cloud’s Sleeping Forest dream of Aerith in OG, wherein Cloud and Aerith’s very last words are exchanged (disk 1, chapter 25). Toriyama, codirector of the Remake project, comments on this scene thusly:
Cloud experiences a few moments like these throughout the game. These pseudo-premonitions are just as markedly exclusive to Remake as the Whispers are. I did not want to dismiss them as a foreshadowing device the devs included just to elicit emotional reactions from OG players; I felt they were more important. And thus began my digging! My mission was initially to figure out what these “[memories of the future]” (MOTFs) could signify… I had no clue it would turn into what I’m writing right now.
II. a) Each MOTF and Its Context
I began by finding every one of Cloud’s MOTFs so I could better understand them.
MOTF 1 occurs in chapter 2 on Sector 8’s Loveless Street, when Cloud sees Aerith struggling against the Whispers. The VA script notes reveal that even though this is only his first time seeing her, Cloud recognizes Aerith’s face:
MOTF 2 occurs in chapter 3, at the plaza in front of the Sector 7 slums support pillar. Cloud experiences a MOTF of the plate falling, which is fated to occur at a much later point in chapter 12. The Whispers float near him, “watching Cloud alertly as he sees a vision of the future” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Newly Arisen Mysteries”, “What Is the Goal of the Elusive Whispers?”, page 733).
MOTF 3 occurs in Aerith’s church at the start of chapter 8, when Aerith mentions that her mother’s materia is “not good for anything at all”. Triggered by the mention and sight of the White Materia, Cloud’s fourth MOTF takes the form of a vision: he sees quick flashes of the materia falling into the lake of the Forgotten Capital and Aerith holding her hands together in prayer. These are evidently visions of her death in OG (disk 1, chapter 28).
MOTF 4 is the one we first discussed, occurring at the very end of chapter 8 as Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him to lead the way toward Sector 7.
MOTF 5 occurs in chapter 13 shortly after the Sector 7 plate has fallen on the slums. Cloud tells Barret that Marlene is safe at Aerith’s house, and they begin heading there. As Cloud thinks about Aerith, the VA script notes describe the very next moment as follows:
Contrary to Sephiroth’s words, this is the first time in Remake that Cloud “[fails] to protect [Aerith]”, and he hasn’t “[lost]” her either— not yet, at least. So why use the words "again" and "loss"? This fifth MOTF must be similar to MOTF 1, in that Sephiroth is referring to Cloud’s guilt surrounding Aerith’s death in OG.
MOTF 6 occurs in chapter 17, in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. The Whispers swarm Aerith as she tells the party earnestly that she wants to do everything in her power to help her friends and the planet: according to the script notes, it is at this very moment that, “for some reason, Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”). In the corresponding cutscene, this unpleasant physiological reaction to Aerith’s words makes Cloud glance down at his chest with a confounded frown. This physical response to her speech about wanting to fulfill her duty to the planet implies that Cloud somehow knows deep down that saving the world will cost Aerith her life.
At this point, I noticed that five out of the six MOTFs Cloud experiences in Remake are triggered by and/or revolve around Aerith specifically, the one exception being a MOTF of the Sector 7 plate fall. One could actually argue that this MOTF revolves around Aerith too, considering the plate fall marks the first time Aerith is taken away from Cloud since reuniting with her in the Sector 5 slums church. This is more than plausible, as MOTF 5 proves that in the wake of the Sector 7 plate fall, Cloud’s main concern is Aerith (see section “II. a)”). How fitting is it, then, that the merc of few words’ longest uninterrupted piece of dialogue in all of Remake is:
At this juncture in my research, my questions were only stacking up. What are these MOTFs? Why is Cloud the only one experiencing them? Why do all of them implicate Aerith? What did the devs hope to accomplish with their inclusion in the game? What do they mean for Remake’s story? But most importantly:
II. b) What Does Cloud Know?
The first assertion we have to make is simple, yet essential: the only reason Cloud would experience MOTFs is that whatever’s triggered them is significant to him in one way or another. Some part of him must recognize his triggers for them to be triggers at all. It’s clear he doesn’t consciously understand the meaning of his MOTF triggers, just like his Jenova triggers: for example, Cloud doesn’t know why Zack’s name causes him to experience psychic interference, but it sure does. We as players know Cloud’s MOTFs are hinting at Aerith’s fated death because of our awareness of OG, but as a character navigating the OG timeline, Remake Cloud shouldn't even be unconsciously aware of Aerith’s eventual death in the slightest! Whatever the nature of the MOTFs, it’s essential to understand that if Cloud “[recognizes]” Aerith’s face the first time he sees her, it must mean some part of him knows Aerith’s face in the first place. If this recognition triggers a hallucination of Sephiroth telling Cloud he “can’t protect anyone”, it must mean some part of him knows he was once unable to protect Aerith. The same goes for every other MOTF: subconsciously, Remake Cloud somehow has memories of the OG timeline. Most interestingly, it looks like he either only has OG memories related to Aerith, or like his OG memories of Aerith are simply the only ones prominent enough to trigger his MOTFs. Why and how does Remake Cloud have memories of OG, and why are they so focused on Aerith in particular? What does he know?
When examining a situation with no explanation, it’s wise to examine similar situations that have already been explained. Maybe the mystery of Remake Cloud’s MOTFs will become more approachable if we consider the cases of the only other Remake characters who seem to know the future: Aerith and Sephiroth. Remake Sephiroth knows the future of the OG timeline because his consciousness exists beyond time in the Lifestream, while Remake Aerith likely obtained her knowledge of the future from post-OG Aerith’s spirit via the Lifestream. But what about Cloud? Where does his weaker, fragmented knowledge come from?
(continued in part 2)
submitted by haygurlhay123 to cloudxaerith [link] [comments]
Friends, I believe the answer lies within this post. Welcome to my literary-analysis-based theory on the Remake trilogy’s most important and most secret plot point: Cloud’s hidden mission. I want to make this fun and suspenseful to read, so I will write my analyses in the same order and manner in which I encountered them while putting my theory together. You will be reading what initially sparked my curiosity, the path I took while researching for answers, the conclusions I made every step of the way, and only then will you read my theory, after which we’ll try and apply it to the Remake trilogy so far and see if it fits! I want you to experience the rollercoaster that I did when digging through SE content to bring you this post. Thank you so much for waiting for and anticipating this analysis, and I do hope you read every word to soak in every last bit of Clerith you can get. I also hope it’s really fun and touching for you (I cried at least once making this)! Let’s embark on our adventure through the compilation, other FF games and real-life events to find out what the Remake project is truly all about and anticipate the events of part 3.
N.B.: Please be aware that I have never seen this theory navigate online, so I have no idea if anyone has ever come up with a similar hypothesis. The big reveal I’m building toward might be something you’re already aware of or suspected. In that case, I hope this post doesn’t disappoint you if you’re one of the lovely people who requested it! At the very least, it will provide you with valuable literary and musical analysis, a ton of evidence you haven’t considered yet, and hopefully, entertainment too!
WARNING: Please be careful with the censored spoiler text, because I'll be referencing other FF games in this analysis and I don't want to ruin anything for you! Obviously, this analysis contains spoilers for the entirety of the FFVII compilation. Additionally, if you're not a fan of Clerith and you've stumbled upon this post, please stop here. I would hate it if something I worked on and posted made you angry, so please don't read this analysis. I have only good intentions and I just want everyone to enjoy the FFVII world as much as they can.
I. Groundwork: The Remake Timelines Theory
Before I take you on this ride, we must lay down the framework of the Remake Timelines Theory. In this section, we’ll be reviewing the general consensus of theorizers within the fandom on timeline/multiverse shenanigans, with some added specifications on my part. Please keep in mind that because the timeline mechanics are kept quite vague by the devs, there might be certain inaccuracies in my iteration of the timelines theory. Thankfully, these potential variances won’t have any effect on the legitimacy of the theory I’ll be presenting to you in this analysis.I. a) Sephiroth’s Plan
The premise of the Remake trilogy is widely thought to be the result of post-OG Sephiroth attempting to succeed where he failed in OG. There are six key points we need to keep in mind to understand how this was possible.
I. a) i. Sephiroth in the Lifestream
Firstly, it’s important to remember that Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream before OG even begins, and remains that way for almost all of OG's duration. He is only able to operate in the world of the living via his/Jenova's control over the living Sephiroth clones. In the OG timeline then, Sephiroth is sent to the Lifestream by Cloud twice: once before the game takes place on the night of the Nibelheim incident (pre-OG), and a second time during the final battle against Sephiroth (disk 3, chapter 3). During the long period between the Nibelheim incident and Sephiroth’s rebirth at the Northern Crater (disk 2, chapter 2), he exists in the Lifestream. After his ultimate defeat (post-OG), he returns there for good.
II. a) ii. Sephiroth Unintegrated
Secondly, because he is full of hatred and unyielding determination, Sephiroth’s spirit cannot become one with the planet. After both occasions where Cloud kills him in OG, Sephiroth retains his individual will and the memories of his lifetime, remaining a separate entity in the Lifestream. He says so himself in Nojima’s Advent Children prequel novel On a Way to a Smile:
“[Sephiroth] could sense the Lifestream trying to erode his spirit— the memories of his former experiences, thoughts and emotions. If he allowed himself to be taken into the current, the being he once was would soon disseminate and disappear amongst the spirit energy cycling around the planet. [He] thought this unacceptable. The planet was to be his to rule, and to become a part of that system would be nothing short of defeat” ("Lifestream Black 1").Combined with Bugenhagen’s basic lesson on planetology (FFVII OG, disk 1, chapter 19), this excerpt provides interesting information on how the Lifestream normally works. Usually, when a life returns to the planet, its individuality (personality, will, consciousness, memories, etc.) is stripped away. The trappings of a soul’s former lifetime are progressively dissolved so that all that is left is the spirit itself, ready to integrate into the Lifestream. This way, soul energy can be “recycled” by the planet to animate new lifeforms in a sort of reincarnation process. The erasure of one’s memories in the Lifestream is necessary for the creation of a brand new life, poised to make its own memories: the slate must be wiped clean, so to speak. Sephiroth’s sheer hatred for and desire to dominate the planet is enough to keep him from undergoing this process.
It is also thought that Sephiroth cannot be integrated into the Lifestream because he was conceived with the use of Jenova cells in vitro. Given that so much of his consciousness and genetic makeup originate from an alien life force, it is impossible for him to become one with the planet.
Regardless of the reason, it is precisely this persisting individuality in death that allows Sephiroth to meddle in the world of the living during the post-OG events of Advent Children, as explained to us by post-OG Aerith in On a Way to a Smile:
“[Aerith] had sensed a different presence within the Lifestream cycling around the planet. It was the vehemence of a strong will, one that would never join with the planet. She knew this consciousness. It was [Sephiroth]. A merciless spirit hidden behind a beauteous wall. That spirit was now operating from within the Lifestream. [She] sensed that he was planning to exert his influence to the surface of the planet“ ("Lifestream White 1").I. a) iii. The Lifestream Beyond Time
Our third point is that the Lifestream has existed for as long as the planet, and has therefore touched every part of its history— including, of course, the events of OG. On that account, one could think of the Lifestream as atemporal. Considering this, it is possible for a spirit in the Lifestream to communicate with or even travel to the past, provided the necessary circumstances and/or abilities. For instance, the Aerith that appears in Cloud’s resolution scene in Remake (chapter 14) is commonly considered to be a post-OG Aerith, appearing to him from the future to try and dissuade him from falling for her. This time-defying event is made possible by the fact that post-OG Aerith’s spirit has access to the atemporal Lifestream because she's deceased. In my view, this explains why she dissolves into green light (Lifestream visual cue) at the end of the resolution scene (5:19-5:45). This is not time travel per se, but it is a manner of communication unobstructed by the one-directionality of a linear timeline that only spirits can perform.
I. a) iv. Sephiroth Beyond Time
What we’ve covered so far amounts to our fourth point. Please familiarize yourself with the graph below before you continue reading. Refer back to the graph when you encounter text in bold.
The Remake Timelines Theory: FFVII OG Timeline
As we discussed in section “I. a) i.”, Sephiroth is dead and located in the Lifestream for the duration of the green arrow and beyond point D: in the context of the OG timeline, he can only ever be considered “alive” during the period highlighted in purple. In section “I. a) ii.”, we asserted that Sephiroth retained his individual will in the Lifestream, enabling him to exert his influence on the world of the living by manipulating his clones on the surface. In section “I. a) iii.”, we covered the atemporal nature of the Lifestream, which allows post-OG Aerith’s spirit to communicate with her past, living self thanks to her Cetra abilities. Now, I will explain to you how Sephiroth was able to do virtually the same thing, albeit his lack of Cetra blood.
To the characters of the story and a fully immersed first-time player of OG, the timeline above was not always an established series of events: when they first started playing FFVII OG, the player began at point B, with nothing existing beyond it. It is only as the player moved Cloud forward that the black, arrowed timeline was drawn, accumulating lived events (or points) in Cloud’s wake. The picture you see above is only available to Cloud and to the player with hindsight. All this to state the obvious: at point B, Cloud could not know what would occur, say, at point C.
During the period highlighted in purple, Sephiroth was “alive” again, accumulating new memories on the surface of the planet and adding them to his consciousness. When he entered the Lifestream for the second time at point D, he brought these memories with him. Simply put, after returning to the Lifestream at point D, Sephiroth remembers what happened during the period highlighted in purple. However, given that the Lifestream exists beyond time, upon Sephiroth’s consciousness’ return to the Lifestream at point D, his newly acquired memories were also made available to him at all points on the green, double-arrowed line— including point A, before the OG timeline even begins at point B. So while it is true that Cloud cannot know what will occur at point C if he is only at point B, Sephiroth indeed knows what will occur during the period highlighted in purple when he is only at point A. While a living, pre-OG Aerith would be able to receive post-OG Aerith’s spirit’s knowledge through the Lifestream thanks to her Cetra powers, Sephiroth has no need for this ability. The fact that he resides in the Lifestream for practically the entire FFVII OG timeline renders the limitations of time irrelevant: as far as the FFVII OG timeline is concerned, Sephiroth exists beyond time itself.
In summary, after point D was first encountered in OG, pre-OG Sephiroth (in the Lifestream) is made aware of his eventual defeat, and begins plotting an alternate path to victory. This time, with the benefit of hindsight, he will do things differently: we experience his "second” attempt at FFVII as the Remake trilogy.
I. a) v. Sephiroth Against Fate
Of course, the Whispers stand squarely in Sephiroth’s way. This leads us to our fifth point, which Remake Ultimania describes better than I ever could:
“According to Red XIII, who gained knowledge through his contact with Aerith, ‘The Whispers are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny’s course and ensure they do not’ […]. It would appear that what the Whispers deem to be ‘fate’ is the original story of Final Fantasy VII” (section 08 “Secrets”, “Newly Arisen Mysteries”, “What Is the Goal of the Elusive Whispers?”, page 733).OG’s plot line is the fated timeline, and the Whispers are tasked with its preservation. They prevent alternative paths from even beginning to branch out from the OG timeline, which poses a problem for Sephiroth: he cannot win FFVII if his destiny is to lose it.
I. a) vi. Sephiroth and the Multiverse
Consequently, our sixth point is that Sephiroth must dismantle the mechanisms of fate before he can even try to accomplish his dreams of godhood.
As Sephiroth explains in chapter 14 of Rebirth, “the planet encompasses [an ever unfolding] multitude of worlds”, and these “[new worlds are born] when the boundaries of fate are breached.” Since the Whispers uphold the “boundaries of fate”, a world in which Sephiroth’s evil plans succeed can only emerge after the Whispers have been defeated. Otherwise, destiny will continue to protect the OG plot line by preventing any significant deviations. Consequently, before the party vanquishes fate, the Remake timeline and the OG timeline are one and the same: before chapter 18, Remake Barret is OG Barret, Remake Tifa is OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is OG Hojo, etc. After the defeat of Destiny, the OG timeline is no longer protected by fate: there are now an infinite number of timelines or worlds, including those we see glimpses of in Rebirth: Remake Barret is no longer necessarily OG Barret, Remake Tifa is no longer necessarily OG Tifa, Remake Hojo is no longer necessarily OG Hojo, etc. Perhaps this is why Aerith gives the party the following warning at destiny’s crossroads in Remake:
“[This] is the wall of destiny. If we go through it… if we go beyond it… then all of us will change, too” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Destiny’s Crossroads”).I. a) vii. Sephiroth’s Plan
Now that these six points have been elucidated, we can compose a solid hypothesis on how Sephiroth plots to win FFVII.
After gaining knowledge of his eventual demise (disk 3, chapter 3), pre-OG Sephiroth began thinking of what he must do in Remake from the Lifestream. First, Sephiroth must antagonize the Whispers in the initial stages of the OG timeline. He accomplishes this by commanding his clones to commit acts that drastically violate the fated timeline, engendering plot-line deviations that the Whispers must course-correct. The most extreme example transpires in Remake’s chapter 17 when the Sephiroth clone in President Shinra’s office kills Barret, forcing the Whispers to restore the fated plot line by coming forth and reviving him. The Whispers react to Sephiroth’s prodding by rushing in to protect fate, their efforts culminating in the protective wall of destiny that surrounds Midgar in chapter 18.
Secondly, after he’s created an opportunity for a battle against the Whispers, Sephiroth must convince the party to seize it and beat fate for him. After all, a mere Sephiroth clone is probably no match for Destiny. This second step is accomplished in Remake’s chapter 18 when Sephiroth successfully tempts Cloud to breach the boundaries of fate. Now that destiny is no longer a limitation, worlds deviating from the OG timeline can finally emerge; Sephiroth has a chance at victory.
The steps Sephiroth plans to take going forward are unknowable at this stage, but we do get more hints in Rebirth’s chapter 13. At the Temple of the Ancients, Sephiroth reveals a part of his plot:
“Sephiroth: My fragmented mother, these errant worlds... All shall be one again.It seems Sephiroth eventually plans to merge the worlds created by destiny’s defeat in Remake’s chapter 18. My guess is he hopes to achieve godhood in part 3 and consolidate all diverting worlds into a single timeline protected by destiny once more— only this time, his victory will replace the ending of OG as the destined outcome. If he succeeds, Sephiroth’s Black Whispers will likely replace the planet’s Whispers as the arbiters of his desired fate.
Aerith: The ‘Reunion’…!”
I. b) Aerith’s Intervention
But Aerith can’t let this slide unchallenged!
We know that before chapter 18 of Remake, while the OG plot-line is still protected by fate, Aerith has knowledge of its future. This is insinuated by certain slips of the tongue: for instance, when Aerith reveals she knows Cloud is a mercenary upon meeting him for the second time in chapter 8, just like she knows Tifa will ask her to retrieve Marlene at Seventh Heaven in chapter 12. In the run-up to Remake, post-OG Aerith's spirit likely sensed Sephiroth planning his second try at FFVII in the Lifestream. She’s been able to anticipate Sephiroth’s plotting in the Lifestream before, namely in the context of Advent Children:
“[Aerith] had sensed a different presence within the Lifestream cycling around the planet […]. It was [Sephiroth] […]. That spirit was now operating from within the Lifestream. [She] sensed that he was planning to exert his influence [on] the surface of the planet” (On a Way to a Smile, "Lifestream White 1").If you’re wondering how Aerith was able to maintain her individuality in the Lifestream like Sephiroth, On a Way to a Smile provides the following explanation:
“[Aerith] was an Ancient, which explained how she was able to maintain her individuality even within the Lifestream. If she so wished she could become part of the planet at any time, but [she] thought it too early for that just yet” ("Lifestream White 1").It is thought that, as a countermeasure to Sephiroth's scheming, post-OG Aerith’s spirit used the atemporal nature of the Lifestream to inform her past, living self (pre-OG Aerith) of this new threat to the planet. Because the Cetra can commune with spirits, pre-OG Aerith would have been able to receive post-OG Aerith’s message from the Lifestream without a problem. Essentially, pre-OG Aerith received post-OG Aerith’s memories of the fated OG timeline. As a consequence, pre-OG Aerith embarks on the OG timeline with knowledge of the fated future that demands she give her life: the player experiences this version of her in Remake.
Be that as it may, it’s unclear how much Remake Aerith is aware of. You would think she’d be completely opposed to defeating, destiny since it protects the planet, but Aerith shows ambivalence toward the idea instead. Had she gotten a clear message from her future self that she must keep fate intact, she would not have allowed the party to enter the battle against fate in chapter 18. She doesn’t seem to know what the Whispers are the first time she encounters them either. Regardless, what’s important is that the Aerith seen in Remake is the result of pre-OG Aerith receiving knowledge from post-OG Aerith via the Lifestream.
I. c) Ambiguity: Memory Transfer or Time-Travel?
There remains an ambiguity pertaining to the Aerith we see in Remake and the question of time travel. What I’ve described to you in section “I. b)” is post-OG Aerith's spirit transferring her memories to her past self through the Lifestream. However, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith’s consciousness used the atemporal nature of the Lifestream to inhabit her living OG body instead, effectively time-traveling. There is no evidence to outright refute either explanation, since the gaps in Aerith’s memories of the OG plot-line in Remake can be explained in both cases. For instance, in a memory transfer scenario, it’s possible that post-OG Aerith only communicated the most essential information to pre-OG Aerith. On the other hand, in a time-travel scenario, one could interpret the following quotes as proof that the Whispers are progressively erasing Aerith’s memories of OG as Remake advances:
“Aerith: Every time the Whispers touch me, a piece of me falls away” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”)&
“At any rate, Aerith is perplexed at how, like a flower being scattered, something inside is being taken away by the Whispers and lost to her” (Toriyama in FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”, “Scenario Staff Q&A - Answered by Motomu Toriyama”).This ambiguity is completely irrelevant to Sephiroth’s situation in Remake, as we established in section “I. a) iv.”.
The specifics don’t matter nearly as much as I’m impressing upon you by explaining all these little alternatives. Simply keep in mind that: regardless of why, the Sephiroth and Aerith we see in Remake know the events of the OG game because they have acquired this knowledge from the future, and the events of Remake occur squarely within the OG timeline until the Whispers are defeated in chapter 18.
So there! That’s my iteration of the Remake Timelines Theory! I hope I’ve made it clear in your mind, or at least clearer. Now that we’ve established the widely theorized premise of the Remake trilogy, we can get into our theory on its hidden premise.
II. My Initial Curiosity
My theory first burgeoned upon going through Remake for the second time. I noticed something strange going on with Cloud, something that could not be explained by the Remake Timelines Theory. Key moments in Remake Cloud’s experience of the OG timeline (aka, everything before chapter 18) stuck out to me as strange and mysterious, and certain inexplicable audiovisual cues struck me as hugely significant. It was upon watching the tear fall from Cloud’s eye during my second go at chapter 8 that I knew I had to look into this.
At the very end of Remake’s chapter 8, Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him, humming happily into the night air as she sets off to lead the way to Sector 7. According to the VA script notes, “his heart skips a beat” and watching her walk away provokes a sudden “anxiety” within him. Triggered by the familiarity of the sight, a strange sensation overcomes Cloud:
“[There’s a] close-up shot of Cloud’s fingertips (they’re tingling). He presses them to his temples (his eyes are burning). A trickle of tears quickly rolls down from the eye hidden behind his hand” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “A Midnight Ambush”).If you’re clever, you’ll recognize these lines as a reference to the speech Cloud makes in OG following Aerith’s death at the City of the Ancients (“My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!”) (disk 1, chapter 28). In this small moment in chapter 8 of Remake, Cloud experiences a flash of the profound grief he is destined to feel upon Aerith’s fated death.
Many players immediately recognized the composition of this scene: the blue-greenish air, the straight path Aerith heads down, the sight of her walking away itself… this moment closely resembles Cloud’s Sleeping Forest dream of Aerith in OG, wherein Cloud and Aerith’s very last words are exchanged (disk 1, chapter 25). Toriyama, codirector of the Remake project, comments on this scene thusly:
“It’s possible these similarities […] cause a memory of the future to be called forth in Cloud” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “A Midnight Ambush”).The language used by Toriyama here is strange in both the English translation and the Japanese original: the term “memory of the future” makes no sense. One cannot remember things they haven’t already experienced, so why did Toriyama use the word “memory” to describe a "future" event? Couldn’t he have simply said that Remake Cloud experiences “visions of the future” rather than “[memories]”?
Cloud experiences a few moments like these throughout the game. These pseudo-premonitions are just as markedly exclusive to Remake as the Whispers are. I did not want to dismiss them as a foreshadowing device the devs included just to elicit emotional reactions from OG players; I felt they were more important. And thus began my digging! My mission was initially to figure out what these “[memories of the future]” (MOTFs) could signify… I had no clue it would turn into what I’m writing right now.
II. a) Each MOTF and Its Context
I began by finding every one of Cloud’s MOTFs so I could better understand them.
MOTF 1 occurs in chapter 2 on Sector 8’s Loveless Street, when Cloud sees Aerith struggling against the Whispers. The VA script notes reveal that even though this is only his first time seeing her, Cloud recognizes Aerith’s face:
“Recognizing Aerith’s face causes Cloud to experience [a hallucination]. Sephiroth is suddenly standing between him and Aerith” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Encountering Aerith”).Sephiroth then taunts Cloud with words that, according to the script notes, “[live] inside of Cloud's heart”: “You can’t protect anyone. Not even yourself”. Cloud should not recognize Aerith’s face at this point in the OG timeline, nor should he associate it with not being able to protect people.
MOTF 2 occurs in chapter 3, at the plaza in front of the Sector 7 slums support pillar. Cloud experiences a MOTF of the plate falling, which is fated to occur at a much later point in chapter 12. The Whispers float near him, “watching Cloud alertly as he sees a vision of the future” (FFVII Remake Ultimania, section 08 “Secrets”, “Newly Arisen Mysteries”, “What Is the Goal of the Elusive Whispers?”, page 733).
MOTF 3 occurs in Aerith’s church at the start of chapter 8, when Aerith mentions that her mother’s materia is “not good for anything at all”. Triggered by the mention and sight of the White Materia, Cloud’s fourth MOTF takes the form of a vision: he sees quick flashes of the materia falling into the lake of the Forgotten Capital and Aerith holding her hands together in prayer. These are evidently visions of her death in OG (disk 1, chapter 28).
MOTF 4 is the one we first discussed, occurring at the very end of chapter 8 as Cloud watches Aerith walk away from him to lead the way toward Sector 7.
MOTF 5 occurs in chapter 13 shortly after the Sector 7 plate has fallen on the slums. Cloud tells Barret that Marlene is safe at Aerith’s house, and they begin heading there. As Cloud thinks about Aerith, the VA script notes describe the very next moment as follows:
“Cloud: Tifa, you know anything about the Ancients?*Sephiroth does not use a gendered pronoun here, because the grammatical structure of the original Japanese sentence doesn’t necessitate it. I've seen some debate as to whether the proper translation is “her” (Aerith, who’s just been kidnapped), or “them” (Jessie, Biggs or Wedge, who have seemingly just died). I believe Sephiroth was referring to Aerith for a few reasons. First, Cloud’s hallucinations of Sephiroth always appear as a response to whatever he is perceiving or thinking about at the moment. At this point in the scene, Cloud has been thinking and talking about Aerith for some time, and not about Jessie, Biggs or Wedge. The Sephiroth hallucination must therefore be referring to “her” rather than to “them”. Secondly, Cloud was never tasked with “[protecting]” Avalanche, but he was in fact tasked with “[protecting]” Aerith as her bodyguard back in chapter 8: it makes far more sense for Sephiroth to be referring to Aerith when he speaks about someone Cloud “failed to protect”. Finally, FFVII Remake Ultimania describes this piece of dialogue as “[Sephiroth aiming] these profound words at Cloud, who not only failed to prevent the tragedy in the Sector 7 slums but allowed Aerith to be abducted” (Sephiroth’s profile in section 01 “Character & World”, “Impressive Words”, page 29): the specific mention of Aerith here seals my decision to translate the line with the pronoun “her”.
Tifa: I’ve heard of them before, but…
Barret walks on ahead, showing little interest in the topic.
Barret: Read a book on planetology and they’re sure to come up. They’re a tribe that cultivated the planet a real long time ago. Used to talk to it. That sort of stuff.
Cloud: That must be why the Turks were after her.
[Psychic] interference starts up.
[Cloud has a] flashback of Sephiroth from five years ago, after learning of his ancestry at Shinra Manor […].
Sephiroth [(in flashback, voice tinged with madness)]: Within my veins flows the blood of the Ancients. I am the rightful heir to this planet!
The flashback ends and Cloud looks lost in thought. The interference starts up once more. Cloud makes agonized sounds. When he opens his eyes, Sephiroth is actually standing before him.
Sephiroth: You failed again— failed to protect [her]*.
Cloud is startled. He shrinks back. Tifa watches what’s happening. The other two can’t see Sephiroth. All they see is Cloud acting frightened.
Sephiroth: But loss will make you strong. […] Isn’t that what you want?
With that, Sephiroth departs.”
Contrary to Sephiroth’s words, this is the first time in Remake that Cloud “[fails] to protect [Aerith]”, and he hasn’t “[lost]” her either— not yet, at least. So why use the words "again" and "loss"? This fifth MOTF must be similar to MOTF 1, in that Sephiroth is referring to Cloud’s guilt surrounding Aerith’s death in OG.
MOTF 6 occurs in chapter 17, in Aerith and Ifalna’s old room at Shinra HQ. The Whispers swarm Aerith as she tells the party earnestly that she wants to do everything in her power to help her friends and the planet: according to the script notes, it is at this very moment that, “for some reason, Cloud feels his chest constrict tightly” (FFVII Remake Material Ultimania Plus, VA script notes, “Aerith Speaks”). In the corresponding cutscene, this unpleasant physiological reaction to Aerith’s words makes Cloud glance down at his chest with a confounded frown. This physical response to her speech about wanting to fulfill her duty to the planet implies that Cloud somehow knows deep down that saving the world will cost Aerith her life.
At this point, I noticed that five out of the six MOTFs Cloud experiences in Remake are triggered by and/or revolve around Aerith specifically, the one exception being a MOTF of the Sector 7 plate fall. One could actually argue that this MOTF revolves around Aerith too, considering the plate fall marks the first time Aerith is taken away from Cloud since reuniting with her in the Sector 5 slums church. This is more than plausible, as MOTF 5 proves that in the wake of the Sector 7 plate fall, Cloud’s main concern is Aerith (see section “II. a)”). How fitting is it, then, that the merc of few words’ longest uninterrupted piece of dialogue in all of Remake is:
“We found an underground Shinra lab where they've done human testing. This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. I know these people, and I know they're never gonna let Aerith go. She's the last living Ancient on the planet. Think about what that means to Shinra's scientists. Especially to that son of a bitch Hojo. We're all just numbers and meat to him—“ (Remake, chapter 13).Cloud would’ve gone on too, had Elmyra and Tifa not stopped him.
At this juncture in my research, my questions were only stacking up. What are these MOTFs? Why is Cloud the only one experiencing them? Why do all of them implicate Aerith? What did the devs hope to accomplish with their inclusion in the game? What do they mean for Remake’s story? But most importantly:
II. b) What Does Cloud Know?
The first assertion we have to make is simple, yet essential: the only reason Cloud would experience MOTFs is that whatever’s triggered them is significant to him in one way or another. Some part of him must recognize his triggers for them to be triggers at all. It’s clear he doesn’t consciously understand the meaning of his MOTF triggers, just like his Jenova triggers: for example, Cloud doesn’t know why Zack’s name causes him to experience psychic interference, but it sure does. We as players know Cloud’s MOTFs are hinting at Aerith’s fated death because of our awareness of OG, but as a character navigating the OG timeline, Remake Cloud shouldn't even be unconsciously aware of Aerith’s eventual death in the slightest! Whatever the nature of the MOTFs, it’s essential to understand that if Cloud “[recognizes]” Aerith’s face the first time he sees her, it must mean some part of him knows Aerith’s face in the first place. If this recognition triggers a hallucination of Sephiroth telling Cloud he “can’t protect anyone”, it must mean some part of him knows he was once unable to protect Aerith. The same goes for every other MOTF: subconsciously, Remake Cloud somehow has memories of the OG timeline. Most interestingly, it looks like he either only has OG memories related to Aerith, or like his OG memories of Aerith are simply the only ones prominent enough to trigger his MOTFs. Why and how does Remake Cloud have memories of OG, and why are they so focused on Aerith in particular? What does he know?
When examining a situation with no explanation, it’s wise to examine similar situations that have already been explained. Maybe the mystery of Remake Cloud’s MOTFs will become more approachable if we consider the cases of the only other Remake characters who seem to know the future: Aerith and Sephiroth. Remake Sephiroth knows the future of the OG timeline because his consciousness exists beyond time in the Lifestream, while Remake Aerith likely obtained her knowledge of the future from post-OG Aerith’s spirit via the Lifestream. But what about Cloud? Where does his weaker, fragmented knowledge come from?
(continued in part 2)
2024.05.16 06:33 hellomot1234 This SB was a scam, right
I am 99% sure it was, but I just wanted to make sure. Unfortunately I can't give pics of the convo as it was on telegram and telegram nukes all the texts before I had a chance to save them.
I met this POT on WYP. Her pictures were very attractive, she was rather young for me but was studying nursing which is a huge green flag, coming from a doctor family. We small talk for abit, she's apparently not have too much success due to scams and what not, etc.
We agreed on a sum for the first date and immediately she says that "if we get along I'm open to more 😉". At this point everything just seems to be too good to be true. So the night before the date I decide to checkout her WYP profile one more time only to see that the whole convo is gone, indicating that she probably got her profile deleted. She also had telegram premium, which is a red flag to me because of its more advanced privacy and deletion features.
Come to the date and lo and behold, she gives a speech about being scammed too much so she sends me her PayPal details 2 hours before we were supposed to meet. Bearing in mind we set this up many days beforehand.
So I respectfully told her no but I'm more than happy to give it to her when we meet. She tries fairly hard to persuade me otherwise, so I also her if she can video call. She says yes, but not right now because she's shopping. She sends me a photo of her shopping cart (lol). I say okay, just let me know when you're done.
30 minutes before we meet I ask her is that video call coming? She says no this time because she's "out in public". So I ask her, what is she going to do with her cart full of stuff? Drive to meet me at the location? She says no she's with her mother (wtf?). So I reply to her saying "lol we both know what you really are, but I'm curious, does anyone actually send you money?".
Now this is the part I'm confused by. She gets really defensive and angrily texts me, saying "oh you can't see my profile because I blocked you" and that I'm a scammer and time waster because she's at the location and I'm not. I'm confused because a scammer usually owns up to getting caught or immediately blocks but this person took the time to actually address my suspicions and call me names before blocking me. So were they just a scammer with extra time, or did I mess up?
submitted by hellomot1234 to sugarlifestyleforum [link] [comments]
I met this POT on WYP. Her pictures were very attractive, she was rather young for me but was studying nursing which is a huge green flag, coming from a doctor family. We small talk for abit, she's apparently not have too much success due to scams and what not, etc.
We agreed on a sum for the first date and immediately she says that "if we get along I'm open to more 😉". At this point everything just seems to be too good to be true. So the night before the date I decide to checkout her WYP profile one more time only to see that the whole convo is gone, indicating that she probably got her profile deleted. She also had telegram premium, which is a red flag to me because of its more advanced privacy and deletion features.
Come to the date and lo and behold, she gives a speech about being scammed too much so she sends me her PayPal details 2 hours before we were supposed to meet. Bearing in mind we set this up many days beforehand.
So I respectfully told her no but I'm more than happy to give it to her when we meet. She tries fairly hard to persuade me otherwise, so I also her if she can video call. She says yes, but not right now because she's shopping. She sends me a photo of her shopping cart (lol). I say okay, just let me know when you're done.
30 minutes before we meet I ask her is that video call coming? She says no this time because she's "out in public". So I ask her, what is she going to do with her cart full of stuff? Drive to meet me at the location? She says no she's with her mother (wtf?). So I reply to her saying "lol we both know what you really are, but I'm curious, does anyone actually send you money?".
Now this is the part I'm confused by. She gets really defensive and angrily texts me, saying "oh you can't see my profile because I blocked you" and that I'm a scammer and time waster because she's at the location and I'm not. I'm confused because a scammer usually owns up to getting caught or immediately blocks but this person took the time to actually address my suspicions and call me names before blocking me. So were they just a scammer with extra time, or did I mess up?