WRITER CHAOS: BY JAYLEN WHITE
Naruto busted into the room, excited about today’s adventure. Meanwhile, Your Mom is sleeping on a large bed, because a regular bed can’t fit her large size. “I’M GONNA BE HO-HO-HOKAGE!” Naruto shouts. Then, Micheal Jackson slowly moonwalks to the nearest Glock 18 “ABOUT TO SHHOT YA’S BEFORE YA BECOME WHATEVER YOU JUST SAID!” Micheal Jackson says. “Proceed to shoot me now! Nothing will stop me from becoming big leader man!” Naruto exclaims. Soon, Your Mom gets up, with each step causing the ground to rumble, and then proceeds to groan softly. “Man, that nap was amazing! Got anymore ice cream?” Naruto and Micheal Jackson scream in terror as they see the large abomination, confused on how somehow like Your Mom could be so big.
Meanwhile, Mr Beast is hosting yet another challenge…
“HEY, FIRST PERSON TO DIE GETS 100 MILLION DOLLARS!” Mr Beast quickly says. Soon, the people attending quickly try to commit suicide, but Mr Beast gets hit by a nuclear missile before that can even happen. Mr Beast smiles, as half of his body is literary torn apart, “Man, well the challenge still continues!”
Your Mom is walking towards the duo, preparing to chunk them out of existence. “I don’t like heavy stares…” Your Mom deeply says. Naruto and Micheal Jackson look at each other in shock, before proceeding to run away from the big fat momma. Your Mom is too heavy to run, so she must slowly walk towards the group.
The people attending Mr Beast’s challenge have all died! Leaving good ol Jimmy Donaldson. “Oi gee walikers! I sure had fun killing and forcing these people to die!” A dying body groans in the distance, wondering why he hasn’t received money… “H-H-Hey… I died first… WHY!?!” The person screams, as he slowly bleeds out to the beating he received earlier, from the other attendants. Mr Beast stand up, and somehow, his torn-up body is healed instantly. He then checks his watch, and looks up at the sky…
“Looks like they finally arrived.” Jimmy says, before teleporting to another location.
Soon, Your Mom finally arrived to where Naruto and Micheal Jackson hid. “What are you doing kid?” Batman abruptly says, before firing at Your Mom with a minigun. Your Mom, however, is unfazed. “I don’t like people who shoot me with large weapons.” Your Mom slowly walks towards Batman, and Batman screams in terror, and doesn’t even try to run...

Batman is slowly killed by Your Mom’s large strength.
Naruto peaks from the hiding spot, very frightened by the creature. Suddenly, Naruto feels a surge of energy run through him, he feels like he could take on Your Mom…
Naruto’s eyes turn a lil bit frog-like, like, those, fox eyes? Yeah those. He then launches Your Mom all the way through the ground, causing a bit of blood to appear on her tough exterior.
Your Mom responds by slowly walking towards Naruto, but Naruto swiftly breaks her arm before she can continue moving. “AHHHHH.” Your Mom’s arm starts spurting blood, before she slowly falls to the ground, and dies slowly…
Naruto relieves his form, before twerking on Your Mom to literal insanity. Micheal Jackson pulls out his Glock, before shooting Naruto straight in the head, killing him. “Finally got rid of that Nuisance.”
Chapter 2: Mr Beast vs Micheal Jackson.
After the quick death of Naruto, Mr Beast teleports in front of Micheal Jackson. “Hey bro,” Mr Beast looks at the dead body, “You sure were busy…” Micheal Jackson looks at Mr Beast in confusion, and shoots Mr Beast, with no retaliation. The bullet bounces off Mr Beast, and lands directly inside Micheal Jackson’s heart.
A bystander walks by, and slowly turns his pupils at the dead body, and the injured Micheal Jackson. “DON’T KILL ME! PLEASE?” Mr Beast walks towards the bystander, and Micheal Jackson slowly raises his gum at Mr Beast’s head. “W-WATCH OUT!” The Bystander screamed. It was too late, and Mr Beast was shot, and the bullet bounced off again! Micheal Jackson was killed almost instantly.

2 days later…
“Hrm… This substitute is quite fine… Il sees what I can do.” MS slowly says, as he injects Micheal Jackson’s dead body with strength serum. Soon, Micheal Jackson breathes again, and his wounds heal almost instantly, and his muscles bulge like John Cena’s. “I WILL KILL HIM!” Micheal Jackson says as he wakes up from his almost-eternal slumber.

Mini Story: Big Chungus and Rival Nomento
Big Chungus was casually binging on human meat, when his rival, Big Bunny Nomento eats a large amount, much more than him.
“Hey! I bet you stole that food, dummy!” Chungus says. Nomento looks at the bunny with anger, before launching him across the stratosphere. Big Chungus responds by diving straight into Nomento, but he luckily blocks before Chungus can kill him. “I’M ABOUT TO TURN YOU INTO A FOSSILIZED CREATURE!” Chungus says, before preparing for battle.
Micheal Jackson arrives at the place where Mr Beast was, where he was now editing his latest video. “Oh, you came back?” Mr Beast says in confusion, before Micheal Jackson brutally smashes him on the wall, where Mr Beast bounces off it like butter. “You can’t kill me, so stop trying!” Mr Beast says. Micheal Jackson roars in anger, before kicking Mr Beast into outer space, where he casually sips a smoothie.
Mr Beast falls back onto earth, where his body catches fire due to the high speeds. Where he destroys the entire area where Micheal Jackson was, but he too in unscathed.
Mr Beast sighs, refusing to attack Micheal Jackson. “HEY, IL KILL YOU!!!” Micheal Jackson says, before smashing Mr Beast repeatedly, trying to kill him. “Why won’t you just die…” Micheal Jackson says, with tears in his eyes.
Mr Beast finally proceeds to inflict damage on Micheal Jackson, by using his singular finger, to send Micheal Jackson flying into the halls, causing his bones to break, and his body to bleed.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t seem to stop, so I had to kill you. Goodbye friend.” Micheal Jackson looks at Mr Beast with anger, before slowly dying in his grasp.
MS appears at the scene, clapping with joy. “You killed my genetically enhanced being. Impressive.” He pulls a case of syringes, before finally selecting one. “Micheal Jackson will be back…”
Chapter 3: Too much sugar?
Naruto’s dead body lingered in the room, but that same menacing energy filled the area.
“LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Naruto awakens, preparing his next strike!
“W-What? Why am I here?” Naruto looks around, before walking out of the area he was in. Before landing on Micheal Jackson’s dead body.
Meanwhile, MS is preparing to make a clone of Naruto, who he still believes is dead, as he finishes, he gets a response. “Will kill target. Will get big leader man cape.” Evil Naruto has entered the scene!
Naruto screams, thinking that Micheal Jackson was brutally murdered. “WHY, WHO? HOW!” He looks at Micheal Jackson’s big muscles, and realizes that he doesn’t look like he’s decomposing, at all. He sees a fluid leaking out of him, and he proceeds to drink it. His body instantly changes, and he feels like he could destroy anything. He’d gained the powers that Micheal Jackson once had. Suddenly, Naruto hears a rumbling sound in a pile of metal, and C-12 appears, a large robot that attacks anything it sees. C-12 proceeds to launch Missiles at Naruto, which he somehow easily destroys with his bare hands, before proceeding to rip C-12 limb from limb, only leaving the head. He then swiftly runs away, and leaps onto the nearest building with surprising ease. “Man. That was quick. Didn’t know I could do that!”
Evil Naruto is sent out to retrieve Micheal Jackson’s body, and on the way, he notices Regular Naruto, looking very similar to him. “YOU THERE, STATE YOR INTENTIONS” E Naruto says. R Naruto looks at E Naruto with surprise, thinking that is it another robot. He then proceeds to rush towards E Naruto, who easily dodges all the attacks.
E Naruto swiftly back chops Naruto in the neck, before bagging him up, and heading back to MS. He walks past the area, destroying every building in sight, and every human in sight as well. He then arrives at the base, where MS works on creating a serum for Micheal Jackson.
“MS… That boy didn’t die, I found him.” He opens the bag, revealing an unconscious R Naruto, in which he slowly slumps on the floor, before waking up In shock. “AWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY AM I HERE, WHO’S THAT KID WHO BEAT ME UP?!” R Naruto exclaims, while making rapid movements due to surprise.
MS slowly walks towards R Naruto, before chaining him up swiftly, and grabbing a white syringe. And Injecting Naruto with it. R Naruto began to twitch and flicker, before closing his eyes, once a nice blue shine, now turned into evil red eyes. Evil Naruto looks around, looking at the chained up Regular Naruto, now infected.
Mini Story: Big Chungus and Rival Nomento P2.
Nomento releases a flurry of strikes against Big Chungus, ferociously beating him up, but Big Chungus responds by absorbing the attacks, and launching himself directly at Noemnto, crushing him, and allowing Big Chungus to bleed out.
He was now victorious.

Chapter 4: Infected VS Defected
Infected Naruto went back to the location he was beaten, and then searched for Micheal Jackson. When he finally arrived, he didn’t see Micheal Jackson, but instead a note, saying “I LIKE MEN.” Soon after he read the note, he was knocked unconscious.
“Hey, what should we do?” DanTDM said. Micheal swiftly chained up Infected Naruto, and signaled Dan to hand him a syringe. “I bet MS did this…” Micheal said. Dan handed Micheal a syringe, and Micheal Slowly tried to take out what Naruto was infected with, but before he could finish, the entire area was destroyed! “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, YOU TRIED LMAO.” Evil Naruto said, before swiftly stabbing DanTDM, and bagging them up. “I can kill you easily!” Micheal Jackson exclaimed, before charging at Evil Naruto.
Evil Naruto easily grabbed Micheal’s leg and threw him across the room. “How!” Micheal said. “Well, I’m just better than you.” Evil Naruto said. Infected Naruto soon woke up, looking at the aftermath, yet he does not speak, and swiftly slashes the chains with his bare hands.
“Great job my little Naruto!” Evil Naruto said, before leaving the area, along with Infected Naruto.
“Huff, Puff…” Micheal Jackson said, before moving away the rubble, and swiftly looking at the syringe. It had parts of the serum, so, if he injected himself with it, he would be stronger.
Meanwhile, Mr Beast is finished editing his video. Before he can click on export, his entire room is destroyed! By… C-12? That same robot killed by Naruto! C-12 swiftly tries to kill Mr Beast, but he easily breaks apart one of his repaired arms, causing C-12 to retreat, but we now know he’s still alive…
Mr Beast is annoyed that his house was destroyed, and he decided to go outside instead.
Meanwhile, Infected Naruto is demolishing cities, while polka dancing rapidly. Evil Naruto is watching by the sidelines, looking for any of Micheal’s friends.
Micheal Jackson injected himself with the syringe and is now rushing towards Evil Naruto “YOU DIE NOW!” As soon as he gets there, Micheal Jackson punches Evil Naruto in the face, launching him across the destroyed buildings. Evil Naruto begins to bleed out, huffing and puffing like Bill Mercury.
Infected Naruto is still destroying the buildings, and he has not noticed the assault. Micheal Jackson continues by destroying and battering Evil Naruto’s face, who is now fully dead. Mr Beast walks by the assault and looks at Micheal Jackson with surprise. “You’re still killing people?” Mr Beast says, while casually walking away.
Micheal Jackson was now targeting Infected Naruto, but he had left after Evil Naruto was brutally killed. So, he decided to head back to MS, where he was originally given the power to stand up to Mr Beast.
MS soon found the news, from the brain chip imbedded in Evil Naruto. MS, angered, decided to inject himself with the GOD Syringe, one that would make him extremely powerful… Enough power to destroy the universe, and to destroy those who oppose him.

MS’s muscles bulge, and he turns into a cosmic being, well, looks like one, and he is now ready to strike. Divine MS has entered the scene!

Chapter 5: Micheal Jackson, and Big Chungus
Days after the events of chapter 4 happened, Micheal Jackson decided to go to the hospital, to support the people that were injured due to Evil Naruto’s antics. While walking towards the white walls, he notices a extremely large rabbit., who is eating several chicken tenders.
“Hello? Are you seriously eating while injured?” Micheal said. The large rabbit looked at Micheal, before introducing himself. “I’m Big Chungus. I’m fine, so don’t worry about me. These dumb humans think I’m hurt!” Big Chungus rolls over, revealing a hole in his chest, that was caused due to the battle he had with Nomento.
“You have a hole in your chest, and you’re able to digest food???” Micheal said in confusion. “Yeah, it’s just how bunnies work.” Chungus said, before standing up and walking out of the room.
Micheal Jackson ignored the encounter, and prepared to leave the hospital as well…
Micheal Jackson saw Big Chungus, ripping apart a human, and eating it. Micheal Jackson immediately prepared to fight Chungus, but it was a totally different bunny. “Hey, I’m Nomento,” Nomento easily went behind Micheal, as if moving at the speed of light. “Die” Suddenly, Nomento easily knocked Micheal across the room, but it didn’t faze Micheal. “Hey, that hurt! Come on, fight like a… What are you exactly?”
Micheal Jackson rushed towards Nomento, before smashing his face into the ground, and throwing him across the city. Micheal Jackson leaped towards Nomento, and side chopped him straight into the ground. But Nomento was unfazed.
“You are weak. I will kill you.” Nomento walked towards Micheal, who was in shock. Nomento clutched Micheal’s neck and began choking him rapidly. Micheal tried to resist, but it was futile.
Suddenly, an even larger bunny arrived, it was Big Chungus! He swiftly impaled Nomento with his bare hands, and threw him into the outer space, before leaping all the way up to him, delivering multiple punches to every part of the chest.

Micheal Jackson watched in awe as Big Chungus easily defeated Nomento, the one who beat Micheal up with ease. Micheal Jackson rushed towards the fallen Nomento, before looking at Big Chungus. “How’d you do that?” Micheal said. “I’m just very strong!” Chungus responded.
Meanwhile… Infected Naruto was at MS’s laboratory.
“Hm… Good job my little experiment. Time to put you to sleep…” MS said, before walking towards his vat of Naruto clones, preparing to wreak havoc on the cites, and the entire world…
One by one, the Naruto clones went out of their respective vats, before grabbing a bag, and a few weapons, and leaving the lab.
Micheal Jackson was having a nice time, at their nearest McDonalds, with Bog Chungs eating 3 Big Macs, and Micheal Jackson trying to bend a wall with a French fry. “I can’t begin to imagine how you got that strong.” Micheal Jackson said, while accidently breaking the French fry he tried to use.
Big Chungus had a lot of training done to get as strong as he is now…

Chapter 6: THE ONE.
Big Chungus was a normal bunny, who did normal bunny things, like stick carrots up his anus. Big Chungus was just Regular Chungus, and his rival, Nomento, was also a normal bunny, who was just a few ounces bigger than him.
Nometo left the fields that Big Chungus laid, to search for more carrots to stick up Chungs’s anus. Chungus was starving, since there were no more carrots to stick his anus in. So, he resorted to EATING HUMANS. One after another, he ate humans, buckets of them. He got bigger and bigger, and gained the nickname, Big Chungus.
Once Nomento came back with carrots, it was revealed that he was the reason that the fields ran out of carrots, angering Big Chungus, and causing him to destroy half of the Earth… Nomento was surprised, and tried to fight back, but was led to the original Earth of 252, where his counterpart was rivaling Big Chungus, and where the Earth wasn’t cut in half. (This means there are 2 Big Chunguss and 2 Nomentos)
The Nomento of Earth 252 wasn’t that nice, and loved to kill random humans, not for food, but for fun. Big Chungus was the same as Earth 234 (The Earth Big Chungus destroyed half of) Big Chungus just didn’t destroy half the earth this time. That raises the question, which Big Chungus is Micheal Jackson talking to?
Meanwhile…. Someone else is…. Questionably destroying the Sears Tower…
DA HE-SC-SPY GROUP!
The group swiftly polka danced their way to the tower, before bombing it with several grade-3 tanks. “DESTROY DA BUILDING NOW!” Heavy said, before launching several nuclear missiles at the tower, and then proceeding to kill everyone near the tower using his mini gun. Meanwhile, Scout is running up the walls, placing down multiple bombs, shaped like chocolate bunnies. “Time to explode the… Can’t think of a good pun.” Scout said, before releasing the bombs, exploding half of the Sears Tower, and causing the tower to come falling.
Spy is disguising himself as a coworker for the company, swiftly killing every worker internally via his kunai from space.
BOOM! The sound of Divine MS busting into the room frightens everyone… The aura that Divine MS gives off, it’s like a thousand big macs, but scarier and tastier. Divine MS easily picks up the falling tower and launches it into space at the speed of light, leaving Spy to scream in terror as he tries to escape the tower, and he is barely able to jump out safely onto ground.
“I have created a clone of me, to work… WHILE I’M DESTROYING THIS PLANET.” Divine MS says, before swiftly picking up a piece of the ground, and throwing it at Heavy, the big guy of the DHS group. Heavy responds by destroying the rubble with his mini gun, but the rubble is too strong, and Heavy his incapacitated by the rubble, and Scout rushes towards him, trying to free him by using his ultra-fast legs.
Divine MS easily arrives behind Scout, at near light speed, before kicking Scout across the entire Earth, causing him to fall unconscious almost instantly, and leaving Heavy to stare at the chaos that unfolds…
But, Mr Beast slowly arrives, staring at the chaos, unfazed by the events. “So, you’ve created a super powerful version of yourself?” Mr Beast easily side chops Divine MS, before he can even react. Divine MS was knocked out by Mr Beast…. “Such weaklings… Well, cya later humanity!” In the blink of an eye, Mr Beast teleports away, going back to… Who knows where?
Chapter 7: The No AU Group
Micheal Jackson was unaware of the events that happened, so was Big Chungus. Da He-Sc-Spy group was luckily able to live to see another day but decided to take a break for a while. Heavy, the tank man of the group, decided to continue doing missions, as he was the only one who wasn’t knocked out by Divine MS.
“Ok, that’s it!” Scout said to Spy, “He’s left again to do another DANGEROUS mission! I don’t want our human shield to die!” Spy was too battered up to say anything, and just nodded in agreement, while slowly preparing to grab a cup of milk.
Meanwhile… Multiple Naruto’s roamed the streets, and it was unclear who the real Naruto was… All the Naruto’s prepared to destroy every building, and started killing civilians, good, and bad. And Micheal Jackson swiftly left the restaurant to deal with the situation. “I’m not letting Big Chungus take all the fame!” Micheal said, before preparing to destroy the entire batch of Naruto’s.
But…. Half of the infected Naruto’s rushed after Micheal, battering him up and ripping him apart, as he watched the other Naruto’s slowly destroy the city. Out of nowhere, the Naruto’s heads were popped off, by what seems to be Mr Beast… “You again!” Micheal Jackson said.
“I don’t know you… I don’t know anyone from here…” Mr Beast says, unaware of Michal Jackson. “But we fought! You killed me!” Micheal Jackson said, “No, this is my first time on this earth, Who are you?” Mr Beast replied. Micheal Jackson was shocked, how did Mr Beast not know the person he killed just days ago?
“Wait, I don’t have an Earth, nor a universe. I just save planets from power hungry things. I bet you have a ‘Me’ in this dimension, right?” Micheal Jackson swiftly backed away, assuming that Mr Beast was capable of interdimensional travel. “That guy, is a maniac.” Micheal Jackson whispered, before running away from the dead cloned Naruto’s.
“Wait, don’t go! I didn’t mean to scare you!” Mr Beast said, before swiftly chasing after Micheal Jackson. “I have a group of friends, who also don’t have a universe. I call it the No AU group. You should contribute to it.” Mr Beast stated, before swiftly arriving in front of Micheal Jackson out of nowhere.
“No…. You’re an idiot for thinking I’d join a group with similar people like you!” Micheal Jackson replied, and soon after, Micheal Jackson attempted to attack Mr Beast with his massive muscles. “DIE!!!!” Mr Beast was easily able to dodge the attack, and counter with a swift blow to the stomach, causing Micheal Jackson to hold up in agony.
“We used to have universes, but they were destroyed by the hands of another Mr Beast. We call him Evil Mr Beast, cause what he did was, well, evil.” Mr Beast stated, before reaching out to help Micheal Jackson. “Well, I guess every Mr Beast is insanely strong…” Micheal Jackson said quietly.
Suddenly, a group of different Mr Beast’s arrived at the scene and began to look at each other casually. Every Mr Beast began talking, before walking over to the Mr Beast interacting with Micheal Jackson. “This is the No AU group, the one I just told you about. We have to go, but we’ll meet again soon, probably.” Mr Beast walks towards his group, before teleporting off somewhere, just like Mr Beast…
“I wonder if there are groups of me?” Micheal Jackson pondered…
Heavy was on another mission and was swiftly taking care of everything in his sight. No attack affected him, and he was easily able to complete missions even while injured. Seems like a horror movie to me.
Chapter 8: Turn for the… LURK.
The real infected Naruto lie in MS’s lab, who was currently working on a big project, while Infected Naruto was leading the next batch of his clones, not being able to control his body at all. “I wish I could end this…. But I’ve just given up at this point.” Naruto thought, while mindlessly leading the batch of clones.
Heavy was on a mission, to take care of a… Peculiar assignment, which involved killing multiple enemies that looked the same, possibly clones of Naruto. “DON’T DO IT! DON’T GO ON ANOTHER MISSION!” Scout signaled. Heavy still went though, like a giga chad or smth.
The batch of Naruto’s destroyed the city thus more, killing every person in sight, and destroying every building possible. Then… DanTDM arrives at the scene. “You thought I WAS DEAD?” DanTDM said, before revealing his mechanical body. “Sadly, that dumb MS thought I was going to obey him, and he gave me this cool mechanical body too! Now, mate, Il kill all of you, and save this city!”
DanTDM swiftly launched several missiles at the Naruto’s, causing most of them to die. DanTDM then extended his mechanical arms and grabbed up a batch of Naruto’s, before destroying them by sending them flying in the air. This left about 24 Naruto’s left, who quickly fled the scene in fear of being killed. Who knew CLONES were sentient.
Quickly after, Heavy arrived at the scene, surprised to see that the situation was already resolved. “Did you seriously steal my kills?” Heavy said, before frowning sadly. “It’s the city we’re talking about! Why would I hesitate to kill clones?” DanTDM said, before swiftly leaving the area using his mechanical arms to grapple his way out.
Meanwhile, the clones are still running, swiftly hiding in halls, and climbing up buildings, before arriving at the destroyed lab DanTDM was previously. “So, clones, we have to hurry up and increase our usage of tech, so we can kill that dumb British robot guy.” A clone said, before grabbing a chunk of metal and grinding it down using another chunk of metal.
The clones agreed, and prepared to clean up the lab, and use piles of wood they found to rebuild the lab, thus creating the DanTDM lab 2.0. The clones began working and made a set of weapons that can easily cut through DanTDM’s robot material, allowing for a quick and easy kill. “Hey, I found a syringe on the floor!” One of the clones said, before picking up the syringe and throwing it at another clone. “We can use this...”
The clones began to use the metal and wood to create a liquid substance that hardens the skin for a short period of time. “If we produce this in mass, we be hardening the world with this, bruv.” A clone said, before injecting himself with the syringe, causing his skin to feel hard and heavy. One of the clones tried to punch the hardened clone, causing their hands to break. “I guess it works….” The clone said, before rubbing his arm slowly.
Day after day, the Naruto clones made even more inventions, and decided to hide their identity by using human suits and planned on stealing from MS to get even more supplies. “That dumb MS doesn’t even pay us!” A clone said, “Well, we are clones…” Another clone said. “Why is he even called MS? Is that a nickname?” The clones made a plan…
And they were gonna follow it.

Chapter 9: The reality breakers.
Micheal Jackson was in distress, after meeting multiple Mr Beast versions, and now contemplating if they are even from this earth.
“Seems like you’re questioning reality.” A mysterious figure said, slowly walking towards Micheal Jackson. “Trust me, I’ve been through worse, MUCH WORSE.” Micheal Jackson swiftly went into a battle stance, preparing to fight.
“Hey, hey! I’m not dangerous, unlike the various other people you’ve met…” The figure said, before somehow appear in front of Micheal Jackson in what seems like the speed of light. “I’m Deez Nuts. Apart of the reality breakers, don’t know why we’re called that though…. Just call me Din.” Din slowly rubs his back, before placing his hands on Micheal Jacksons shoulder.
“So, first I meet an invincible being, and now I meet you?” Micheal Jackson says in fear, before slowly backing up. “I won’t hurt you bruv, believe me. I know everything, so don’t even try to hide it. I’m powerful than that Mr Beast guy, I don’t even need to teleport, I can just move so fast, that I arrive their instantly.” Din says, before somehow arriving behind Micheal Jackson, FASTER THAN LIGHT?
“When someone questions reality, that’s when we come in. We’re there because you no longer believe we’re NOT there.” Din says. Micheal Jackson looks up, then down, and then back at Din. “I just want to eat a taco man.” Micheal Jackson says. “Ok, I need to give you some info. So, the readers can understand a bit of things.” Din says, “What readers?” Micheal Jackson replies.
“Just listen bruv. Clones of Naruto are planning on killing MS, but they’re gonna get absolutely flawlessed. Not like you need to know *wink*. The leader of the clone group is Naruto Prime, and Infected Naruto is the regular Naruto that you originally wanted to kill. Divine MS would be the original MS, any other MS you see that isn’t strong is just a clone. Just know… Il be here whenever you have questions!”
Micheal Jackson was more confused than an acorn that had been injected with several ounces of cocaine. Due to this, Micheal Jackson fell unconscious, and Din walked away, waving in the distance. (Hey, Din here. This is how il talk to you. The story is all jumbled about, and I’m the only serious character you’ll see for a while! So, when you see parentheses, just know it’s me! I’m here to make sure no one makes assumptions about the story.)
The clones went about, carefully splitting up to gain more intel on humans, and to hopefully kill MS. Naruto Prime, (The leader.), was swiftly able to store most of the hardening serum, and able to give it to most of the other Naruto clones. Naruto Prime oversaw when the serums would be used. “Hey bruv, go ahead and MOVE OUT!” Naruto Prime said to the group with it, and the group complied. The clones went to MS’s lab, which was luckily close by, hidden by a flock of birds, that Naruto Prime took care of with the hardening serum.
The clones dispatched, and went to the clone vat, revealing Infected Naruto, the person in charge of dispatching the clones. “YOU!!!!” Naruto Prime yelped, before swiftly attacking the vats of clones, and ordering the other clones to fight Infected Naruto. “Die.” Infected Naruto said, before easily knocking out half of the clones, leaving only a few left. (The clones aren’t dead.). Naruto Prime was able to run away, and bring the clones with him before Infected Naruto could do anything, but their plan had failed, and they didn’t even reach MS…

Chapter 10: The Finale? (2 pages longer lol)
Everyone conflicts with one another. Micheal Jackson needs to defeat Naruto, the clones of Naruto are fighting against Naruto and MS, and Big Chungus needs to fight Nomento. One question remains, who will win?
“Heh looks like this battered up robot is still here. How about I fix you up.” Micheal Jackson says, picking up C-12’s body, and walking towards the area where he builds stiff. Micheal Jackson adds missile launchers onto C-12, and sharp and heavy armor to keep him defended, he also adds a self-destruction button, so he can have a final comeback.
“I’m gonna kill Naruto, and MS too. Il makes sure it ends with a big explosion that you see on TV.” As the robot wires up, it begins to beep in unheard ways, and Micheal Jackson hears a big BOOM outside the workshop…
“WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS?” Mr Beast yelps, looking at another Mr Breast, who seems to wear a pirate eye patch, along with a black suit, and looks, well, evil. Micheal Jackson goes outside, and sees the Evil Mr Beast, destroying everything with ease, and being able to harm Regular Mr Beast. It seems Evil Mr Beast is something.
Meanwhile, the clones hatch another plan, they were the creators of C-12, and used that robot to originally capture Nartuo. The clones had planned on creating another prototype, C-15. Yep, they tried to do these 2 more times, and had finally created a better robot. It came with the best AI the world could offer too! “Ok, the robot is ready to launch!” A nerdy Naruto said, before typing things on the terminal that controlled the robot.
“Do it, launch the robot!” Naruto Prime said, before swiftly ordering the other clones to guard the robot as it booted up. “C-15 at your service.” The robot said, causing the entire room to be filled with screams of happiness, the robot had finally worked.
Micheal Jackson had no choice but to grab the modified version of C-12, which he nicknamed, Scrapy, mainly because the robot seems to always get destroyed. Micheal Jackson had also improved the AI, so Scrappy should be smarter now, right? Micheal Jackson hears the commotion between Regular Mr Beast and Evil Mr Beast. Based off what he heard from the No AU group, Evil Mr Beast is going to destroy his universe…
The No AU group rushes past Micheal Jackson, with no time to talk, and they proceed to join the fight against Evil Mr Beast, while Micheal Jackson runs away in fear. If Micheal Jackson was able to kill Naruto’s evil counterpart, couldn’t he kill Mr Beasts? No, its too dangerous, Micheal Jackson wouldn’t want to die, after he just made a super powerful robot.
“Hey ol mate, why you running from the danger? I CRAVE DANGER.” Scrappy had woken up, and swiftly used his rocket powered legs to boost up towards the No AU group, forcing Micheal Jackson to run towards Scrappy, since he didn’t want to have his precious baby destroyed lol.
“So, you want to join the war efforts?” Mr Beast said, the one that’s the leader of the NAU group. “Fine, Il do it, just because my dumb robot has a death wish.” Micheal Jackson sighed, before swiftly throwing large chunks of rock at Evil Mr Beast, barely dodging his attacks, and barely able to keep up with his insane speed, that faster than Din (That’s me :D) Evil Mr Beast really is something else, but out of nowhere, Big Chungus arrives at the scene, preparing to launch his large body at Evil Mr Beast.
“Take that ya dumb knock-off!” Big Chungus screams. Despite not making a dent in Evil Mr Beast, he did gain confidence from that quick encounter. “Hey, you’re here too!” Micheal Jackson says, “Yep, I had enough time to check on you, and look what I found….” Big Chungus looks at the No AU group, and the maniac robot trying to fight Evil Mr Beast head on. Big Chungus then looks at Micheal Jackson, his friend, and the one who taught him that eating humans is well, bad.
Infected Naruto walks towards another vat of clones, preparing to strike, but suddenly, he hears a knock on the door. The door BLASTS open, and a large robot, named C-15 arrives, attack Infected Naruto while sustaining little to no damage. Naruto Prime and the other clones watch in the background as Infected Naruto is slowly being defeated.
Infected Naruto is finally killed, or it looks to be that way. The serum that lingered in Infected Naruto was now gone, and he was able to think freely again. “W-What. WAIT, WHY AM I BEING ATTACKED?” Naruto said, before getting into a battle stance. “Wait, you’re telling me you’re not going to attack us?” Naruto Prime said, “WELL YOU ATTACKED ME!” Naruto said, before running away from the robot, and Naruto Prime, and out the lab.
“Phew, got away from those weird people, who look like me for some reason.” Naruto thought, before seeing a very large hole in the ground, caused by Evil Mr Beast. “Nope.” Naruto turns back, and leaves the area, too scared to be killed, and experimented on, for the third time.
Meanwhile, the clones advance to the first floor, where MS lie.
Evil Mr Beast begins to fly up in the air, and make a literal black hole, which absorbs everything around it. “I do not understand. Just give up already!” Evil Mr Beast says, throwing the black hole at Original Mr Beast, killing him almost instantly. It almost kills the leader of the NAU group too. Scrappy is somehow still standing, and still wants to fight Evil Mr beast, despite what happened.
TripTraps Guide to the Multiverse.
I’m TripTrap, certified hunter of the Multiverse, and how about I introduce you to the encounters you just witnessed. You firstly saw a very powerful character, and you saw another powerful character die as well (Why are you here?) Shut u- I mean, of course I must be here, a very important character died! Well, it was more of which the fact that he was alive since chapter 1…. Never mind that, now that Mr Beast has died, I can finally prepare… THE TOKEN OF REVIVAL! That means, if Mr Beast is revived (For whatever reason -_-) Then Il be here to announce when this token was used! TripTrap, the reality breaker of announcement, signing off! (Can we get to the story already?)
Half of the NAU group rush towards Evil Mr Beast, and for all their efforts, a bit of damage was done of Evil Mr Beast, just a little tiny scar on the face, its microscopically big. It’s still damage though! Big Chungus decides to run away, who wants to face a black hole?
The clones head towards MS and use the robot to beat him up with ease, as he’s not in divine form at all. “W-What? How?” MS says in fear, before getting brutally mashed open, mangled, and then thrown out by C-15. “That’s how you kill an evil scientist!” Naruto Prime says, before heading back out the lab, and towards the clones.
“Hey! We did it, I killed MS!” Suddenly, Divine MS appears behind Naruto Prime… “Oh, did you now? Good job for defeating my clone.” Divine MS easily decapitates Naruto Prime with just a flick of the finger, and he menacingly walks towards the clones. (Are you serious? Wait, it seems Naruto Prime wasn’t too important of a character, meh.)
Chapter 11: Chicken Bobby.
The NAU group are still fighting Evil Mr Beast, and Micheal Jackson and Scrappy have already left, due to unknown reasons. The leader of the NAU group, named Mr Beast Prime, orders the other Mr Beast’s to retreat, as Mr Beast Prime will fight off Evil Mr Beast by himself.
“Are you seriously facing me? After I killed the other Mr Beast?” Evil Mr Beast responds, before swiftly punching Mr Beast Prime across the room, “Never Fear, Chicken Bobby is here!” Suddenly, a humanoid chicken punches out Evil Mr Besst, and despite doing no damage, it doesn’t seem like he is doing any damage either.
“A chicken? Seriously?” Evil Mr Beast tries to attack Chicken Bobby, but nothing happens to him, not even a scratch. Mr Beast Prime swiftly grabs Chicken Bobby, and holds him at a, well, “Chicken Shield?”, before swiftly attacking Evil Mr Beast using Chicken Bobby’s very hard skin, or, well, tenderness….
“I don’t mind, use me as a weapon!” Chicken Bobby says, before going into an even harder state, allowing Mr Beast Prime to somewhat damage Evil Mr Beast. “AHHHHH! LEAVE ME ALONE!” Evil Mr Beast flies away, throwing another large black hole, directly at Earth. Chicken Bobby begins to stretch out and widen, turning into a large shield, and blocking the earth from the black hole, somehow surviving it.
Mr Beast Prime is shocked, and runs away, thinking about what that being could possibly be. It may not be able to do that much damage, but it sure is durable! Evil Mr Beast grins, before running off, to who knows where…
Meanwhile, the clones must face Divine MS. “Hey, I don’t want to die!” A clone said, before swiftly running away, but easily being killed by Divine MS, and one by one, the clones are killed…. Expect one clone that is, who managed to hide among the dead body of the clone MS, and is lying there, faking death. (We’ll call him Naruto Prime 2) Divine MS had no comments to make, other than “Weak…”, and Divine MS swiftly went away, jumping at light speeds.
“Oh no you don’t!” Mr Beast Prime says, holding his Chicken Bat (Who is Chicken Bobby) high up in the air. “You dare try to stop me?” Divine MS says. But Mr Beast Prime easily knocks out Divine MS with his Chicken Bat, launching him high up in the air instantly.
Naruto Prime 2 saw this and rushed towards Mr Beast Prime. “Hey, can I come with you?” Naruto Prime 2 says, before swiftly resting inside Mr Beast Prime’s bag, softly sleeping almost instantaneously. Mr Beast Prime had seen weirder, and therefore went along with it, putting his Chicken Bat in his weapon holster, and grabbing Divine MS’s body.
Mr Beast had died, the one who had been prominent for defeating the big and the bad, and now a new Mr Beast enters the scene, Mr Beast Prime, and his fights against Evil Mr Beast. The Arc between Micheal Jackson and Naruto, have officially ended…
Well, time to add some filler!
“So, I’m Chicken Bobby, and I was brought here to make random dialogue to end this chapter quickly, so, Il tell you more about me. I can shapeshift into anything, and I am the hardest object in the multiverse, or so I’m told… I also, well, ok, I can’t think on anything else to say. Ok, let’s end this this chapter NOW!”

Royal Road here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/80877/nop-atalors-fate
Discord Tag: notafurrylad
It's been a while, huh?

First Last Next
Memory transcription subject: Yivreen, Cyonian Survivor
Date [standardized human time]: February 22nd, 2134
The flash daymares hadn’t stopped. Four nights since they’d set in, and now those two fire and brimstone eyes were lingering, waiting to come out when I was asleep. I’d thought that first daymare had been a fluke. It’d felt real, getting chomped up like that, crushed. But... ah.
I’d had more. Once I was in the mouth of that Arxur who’d kicked down the tree. Then I was in the cages with Hens Jr and Sr, and Alma... And each time if there was time for it that swampheaded, red eyed, smokey Arxur would come on in. Try and guilt me like I’d done something wrong.
It was working.
“Yiv. Yiv! I think I got it!” I blinked, my stupor broken by Junior. The kid had been a good help with the computer system since we’d let him fiddle with it instead of me. Much to my... begrudging admission: he was better at it. So, I stood from the chair and headed over to him. The monitor and console were lit up good as new, but they’d been like that for a couple nights now. We’d finally got access to a local map when that’d happened. Or rather a map of the surrounding area, outdated as it was it still had the location of the city on it. It wasn’t like anything had significantly changed in the past hundreds of years since this place had been abandoned. It had been the whole ‘trying to page it into the rest of the old systems at the outpost’ part that’d eluded Juniors little pet project.
“What did you get?” I replied, leaning over his shoulder with a paw on the console while he typed at it.
He cleared his throat. “W-well. I was able to find the wire that’d been causing the problem with the connection to the outpost’s server.” A server? What?
“What do you mean a server? I thought the only computer systems in here were in this room?” He turned his head, a brown eye winking at me. “Nuh-uh! Were you even listening when I explained it earlier? It’s more than just a weather monitoring station. It had a server, otherwise why would it need so many type-v connectors. See?” He pointed a claw to the bundle of wiring running up the wall and into a concrete hole that looked to lead to the next floor above us. Probably. I hadn’t really cared about how many wires there were.
“So... there’s more than just the databanks here in this room?” I asked. My eyes were tasked with looking over the monitor with pursed lips. I’d dug through some ye olde outpost files in the past nights for my journalist program but evidently I’d been missing things if all it took was one kid who had a knack for tech to ascertain there was more to these places.
Before my question could be answered though the command lines and startup protocols on the operating system for the thing had popped by and opened up onto a familiar desktop of our more modern tech. Junior went about clicking immediately to some command line and writing in some jibberish... And- my eyes widened. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing my claw to all the commands on his little black background’d screen.

1: Status
2: Logs
3: Garage Door
4: Barrack Override
5: Communications

Were among the top five, with a half dozen more I didn’t quite have time to think on. “Quick- quick! The uh- There’s a garage?” Don’t get distracted Yivreen. Ahhh moss-heaps.. “The Barrack Override. See what that does.”
The boy swatted away my paw trying to push at it. “Calm down! Calm down jeez, fine!” He jammed his digit into the corresponding number and pressed enter. A few moments passed as it simply displayed three dots. I waited... I waited.. Cmoooo-
Clank. VV-vv-vvv-veeeeeee....
It sounded like something behind the wall to our left was trying to unrust itself and move. A couple hundred years of not moving or being maintained had probably ensured it’d never get moving smooth again. Then of course the universe proved me wrong, and the wall actually shifted. The rounded metal slab I’d taken for a part of the tower’s superstructure began to lower, and behind it... “Holy shit.”
I don’t know where the extreme language had come from but... Wow. My eyes lit. Bunks. Bedding. Lockers.. It looked like the room beyond had been some sort of lodging area for soldiery when this place was built. But there’d been a grow-in on the back wall from a massive root. Snaring part of the room in its gripping-vinelike vice grip. The root was long dead, and the hole it’d bored through the concrete had left the inside exposed to the elements a touch more than if it’d just been left... At least there wasn’t much evidence of water damage.
“Yiv? Are you-” But I was already headed through the way, a paw on my pistol as I glanced around the abandoned room. My mind went right to checking out the lockers, which turned out to be a good idea. My little training sessions into understanding the named bits for guns with Alma were about to start paying off.
“We’ve got guns. Or... Something like guns.” I announced, pulling out the carrying case and flipping it open. Inside I found what looked to be a.. Hrm- no magazine, no bullets... I lifted it up, the rifle-like hardened carbon material was in remarkably good shape. Probably due to the case and materials, but something was different about it. I glanced my eyes over it, noting the electronic aiming system on top which... when I clicked at it offered a red circle for looking through the little scope with. Huh. Not a common thing to find on a Cyonian designed weapon, at least not these nights. This place was old, but this weapon looked like it’d been built by something more ambitious than Federation paws. Federation handhelds were all modified from the same combustion based lead belchers. A fact that rarely ever went unspoken on our own networks when we needed a reason to criticize Aafa.
It took a while longer, but eventually I did find a snap-button on the back of the trigger grip that made something inside it hum to life. My eyes widened. “It’s... An energy weapon.” I murmured. My tail flicking in apprehension. Would it even still fire? The red blinking just below the button told me it must have no power perhaps but... “Hey. Junior. You think you could figure out how to charge one of these guys-?”
I turned my head to see the kid standing at the threshold with his tail in his paws, gripping them anxiously. “Yiv. The uh. The communications aren’t working, but I think the garage door might open if we try it. It could be that cropping of wall and sealed door we figured the old power system must have been housed in right?” He glanced to the rifle in my paws. “I mean, if it uses the same standards as the computer out here it should still be compatible with our stuff. But- we don’t have anything to charge power packs of that size.” He pointed to the fixture sticking out the bottom of the stock. Hrm, he was right.
“See if you can’t get the garage open. I’ll keep looking in here and see if there’s something to help with that.” Came my own voice, I felt... Giddy. Alive. The potential to fight back was intoxicating. Before all I’d had was this dinky pistol I’d used to... kill a couple of the greys. But if we could bring the fight to their patrols, save more people-
I shook my head. Why was I thinking like this? I couldn’t stand up to an invasion fleet. I’d been a frightened Sivkit on the first night of the attack. I- I’d stampeded. I couldn’t remember any of it, but the chance I’d trampled someone in my panic was not zero. I might have contributed to someone being crushed... I’d failed Els, that soldier I’d dragged into the house. Obelisk I couldn’t even keep my mind straight in a fight with those howling, laughing Arxur in my head. The campfire fight had been a fluke!
I didn’t quite know how long I just sat there, staring at the rifle beating myself up, but eventually I was shaken from it by Keick when she sat beside me, an arm on my shoulder. “Hey. I heard you and Junior had a bit breakthrough eh?” She said non-chalantly. I could tell though, even with the chipper tone she’d read me. The accountant knew I’d been in one of my little moods. She’d known me the longest of anyone here, everyone else was like... a pack of convenience? Maybe not Junior. Keick and I had survived the woods together. I’d pulled her from her own hells next to that burning car.
“Hey.” I returned back. “Yeah. Junior got the servers working. Or something like that.” I pointed a claw over at the computer, only to notice he was gone now. I blinked. Had I been out of it that long?
Keick filled in the hole in my head. “He went with his old man to go check out the garage.” Oh. Yeah.
I looked around, “Ah. The guns. We have guns now. Real guns.” I explained, holding the one I had in my paws up for her to inspect.
“Doesn’t look like any gun I’ve seen.” She mused back, taking it from my grip. My body was moving on its own now, rummaging deeper into the lockers. Some of these cases had been broken by the snaring, smaller branches of the grow-in. The firearms within cracked open and busted. Probably no good at all, exposed to the ambient humidity as they had been for so long. Still, couple of the other rifle cases were good. We had weapons, plural. Binoculars? Got em. Spare power packs that needed charging? Got em. There was a lot of survival gear here. Like a militarized ranger outpost had been stationed here. The synthetic material of the camouflaged cloak I found proudly proclaimed it’d reflect thermal scanning on its faded label even! “Either the old rangers from before the treaties were really into operator stuff or the Obelisk put all this here just for us.” I murmured.
Keick, for her part seemed to be looking it all over with a little inventory in her head. Already tapping in the number of each item into her dataslate. “Well. I’d go with the former. The Obelisk hasn’t been around for us lately.” Came the reply as she poked a claw at one of the now entirely spoiled ration packs. “Still, there’s enough stuff here you could arm a squad of soldiers probably. If you know where we can find some spare soldiers that is.”
I flicked my ear at the poor humoured joke. “Ahuh.” Came my reply. “Maybe you should go try the radio again, they’d love to get their paws on stuff like this I think. Pre-war tech actually made to fight predators like this is rare.” Which begged the question... Why did the cloak boast about defeating thermals? These outposts were dated after our discovery and incorporation into the Federation as an early member, and WELL before the Arxur war. So why had we built cloaks like these? Was this equipment used during the years when we’d resisted the burning of our forests and jungles? If so, it meant it might have been auhh... much more violent then the archives made it out to be. Maybe there was a story here? My inner journalist was theorizing.
___________________________
I’d had to pick my jaw up off the ground after headed over to the garage. Hens Senior and Alma were leaned over the the opened hood of what looked like a remarkably still intact forest rover. The design was actually recognizable, having not changed much from what we had tonight. Six thick grooved tires, a buggy-like cockpit four seater set in the middle, and a back and top rack for storing anything you could want. “Is it working?” I asked the obvious as I stepped inside, noting Junior sat off to the side, fiddling with some wall mounted box or other. He didn’t look to actually know what he was doing beyond dusting it off and giving it a deep stare.
“I wouldn’t think so.” Came the chime of Keick, who’d followed me inside. It was around now my monocular visioned eyes were noting the various tools and spare parts laying around in the garage. Whoever had last been here had left in a hurry seemingly, because it was mostly stocked. No mess on all the immensely dusty parts. I could see a couple smaller fauna in the corners. A lizard here, a rodent there. Obviously there had been some way they’d chewed their way in at some point... Or they’d come in when the door was opened to the bustle and noise of the forest to my back.
It was Senior who looked back at my question, standing to his full height before leaning his back against the old vehicle. “No. It isn’t working. Or at least it won’t be until I figure a way to give the battery juice.” I tilted my head.
“Is it one of those older ones that zap out after a hundred years or so?” Came my obvious question.
He flicked his tail no. “It’s got one of the standard ones, it’s just that it stopped auto-cycling a couple hundred years ago. The electric motor looks like it should work if we pop it on. But we’ll have to see.” He glanced around the workshop. “I want to say we could probably get it working with the tools we have, but if the battery can’t be jumped, or it’s spent, or the motor needs a complete replacement we’re up a creek on getting it working.” It sounded like he knew a bit about it.
The feeling of my face scrunching ever so much came. “You didn’t tell me you were a handyman.” I said, crossing my arms.
“Well it never came up.” He said back with an affable smile. “Listen, it’s been a long couple weeks. Don’t get all spotty with me. We didn’t have anything a hobbying mechanic could fix anyhow.” Just a roll of the eyes from myself is all that met him as Keick spoke up, stepping over to the other three.
“So what’re you gonna jump it with?” She asked incredulously, leaning over the open cabin. From there I sort of... zoned out. All the older Cyonians present were bickering and blathering about the buggy which was quickly losing interest for me. I didn’t understand anything about mechanics like that beyond the bare minimum, so it was out of my purview. If they got it working that’d be another thing but I wouldn’t have been any help right now, so instead I placed a couple careful paws down until I was beside Junior, sitting next to him as he seemed to be eyeballing some far too faded label.
He had a paw lightly rubbing out the dust that’d caked an outlet, still one brown eye fixed on the label. All I could make out myself was the little yellow square symbol warning of an electric charge hazard. Weird to think even now those hadn’t changed. Had Federation technology really not changed all that much? Was it just us? A sigh. “So. What’s got your your nose twitching little dude?”
The past couple nights he’d gotten better with his anger, and... hadn’t destroyed any important tech in a fit of rage. All he’d needed was something to set himself to in a difficult situation like this. Keich had been right to set him on that computer. And.. I’d felt myself trying to encourage him along the way. Partly because I had an investment in getting those maps, and then partly because he’d ended up filling in a spot in my head like a younger cousin. Him and his old man had only been around for a little bit, but I guess maybe I didn’t want to think too hard about what had probably happened to my real family. For now, maybe I felt the most ‘at home’ around Keich and this little tinkerer. Was that weird? It felt like it should be weird.
He answered, looking up with a small upturn in his lips. “I think I found your energy cell charger for those guns you had.” He said simply. “One of the manuals over there wasn’t totally ruined, I saw something about a ‘optical projector weapon’ and ‘charger’ so I was trying to figure out if this was it. I... Think it might be, but I’d need one of those batteries to make sure.”
Now I felt like smirking. “Oh yeah? Well go get one swamp brain. Let’s see if these things still work huh?” Dutifully, he was up and off, tail shaking behind him in what I recognized as excitement. We weren’t totally defenceless anymore, and if the buggy could be salvaged there would be a means at least to relocate if we had to. Or... Maybe I could take a trip down to the city and paint a couple more of those scumbags red-
I shook my head. Where had that thought come from? If I was going back to Ataln it was to try and save more people... Yeah. I still needed to see if Gael was alive, maybe check that old house I’d left Els in. I don’t even know if I could find it now, knowing how scatterbrained I’d been at the time but- making a return to at least try seemed worth it.
Regardless, the box on the wall did turn out to be the correct port to charge energy cells for the guns. We’d just need to rig it up to the solar power system and juice them up to test them. Things were looking up! Our mobility had the potential to go from nights in every direction for shelter to mere hours, I’d just have to hope Senior knew what he was doing.
“Hey. Buddy.” I’d wrapped my arm around Junior’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go take a break for now huh? You were working on the computer all night. Maybe it’d be a good idea to just go relax. Enjoy how much you got done eh?” Besides. Gave me a good way to check out the logs page on the computer system myself before he stumbled on anything. It wasn’t like I didn’t trust him with it but- well there was no way to know what was in those logs.
He nodded, and with that I stood up, streeeetched out, and headed toward the tower. “Good, it’s your shift on the guard tower anyway.” I intoned politely. It was going to be a long day, assuming there was anything of substance in those logs... Scrounging through those would be preferable to sleeping right now anyway.

(Apologies beforehand for the length and or grammar) So for background I am a (21 F). I referred to my stepmother(36F) as my mother before this. I don’t now. My father (41M) has been with SM for almost eleven years. Ever since I was 10. Earlier last year, actually around this time -may- of last year my blood little sister (F18) she was 17 at the time, called me bawling telling me that our aunt (SM sister), told her SM was cheating with this man. If that’s what you want to call him. Saying they had relations, had been hanging alone together, ect. I was so mad my Little Sister had to walk around the house not saying anything. /Mind you I don’t live at their house but visit often, but as soon as I turned 18 I moved in with my BF(19M) and his phenomenal family./ She was so distraught. And I was so upset to see her like that. I turned full protector mode and honestly might not have been the best idea but I was so tired of SM doing this again…. For context-when I was 13 I believe, we (SM, LS, and I) went on a trip to the beach with her work friends and while there I was in the car with SM. She stopped at the gas station and I stayed in the car. Her phone started pinging crazily and I thought it was Dad. It was not, it was an unknown number but the words I saw popping up on the screen were enough to rattle me. I started shaking and grabbed her phone and looked at the conversation. These texts coming in were the only ones in the chat. But the person on the other side was talking about basically (defiling) my SM. I immediately put the phone back where it was and tried to focus and not freak out. How was I supposed to approach this? I was hours away from my father. And my young self was obsessed with my SM. But my head was spinning. I confronted her after we were done driving and got back to the beach house. I told her what I saw and asked her why and she told me to please understand and not say anything to my Father because they were fighting at the time and told me that it was just “her friends son had gotten to his mothers phone to send those texts to my SM” I swallowed that lie and pushed everything from my mind, I regret it indefinitely to this day. Not saying anything then….. but back to the present 2023-2024
So with my information I made a group chat with both SM and my Father and laid out the facts that I had been presented with. Mainly I was pissed at my SM that my Little Sister was the one to find out and that she was in so much pain. Of course SM was mad I didn’t reach out to her individually. We had a long texting spiel which ended up in her making excuses for everything her sister said. Deny deny deny. But the damage was done. Discord was struck and it was time for everything to start. Soon enough the text messages were found, the love notes, suspicion, and the beginning of the end. :Their relationship had already been strained before this because of various marital fights, and in no way am I saying she is the bad person in all this or that he’s perfect. They’ve both messed up. But this new information was too much. Messing with my blood was too much for me: But they also are taking care of two minors (my eldest “blood’s” 23F, her children) I don’t refer to her as my sister. God forgive me but she has parts of the devil inside her. But I love those children with all my heart. Another story for never. Anywho, that’s why they’re still “together” married. Months passed and talks of separating, lawyers and fights were flying. None of that compared to what’s happened in 2024, she dropped her last cheat and now is “with” my little sisters best friends dad…. Oh but my bad that’s just speculation…. I guess going over to his house alone to “help repair walls” or at my parents house alone with just her and the kids… her telling me to my face that she found him attractive, to hiding her car in his garage behind /cheats/ car and much more. But she never and I mean NEVER had time to hang with her family because she’s soo swamped with her business… Every year for Mother’s day-before this year my BF and I went all out. EVERY YEAR since I was able to work and have my own money. I mean streamers, cake, dinner, decorations inside AND outside in the yard and also presents. And never once did we get anything more than a hug and a Thankyou. And I was grateful…. Then this year she posts “To these Two beautiful daughters of mine, I am one lucky momma” and then posted a picture of MY little sister and /Cheat #2’s/ daughter. And I am the asshole in their (SM,LS) eyes because I didn’t say Happy Mother’s Day. I didn’t go over there. Nothing. To a person that never reaches out to me, expects me to text her asking about what’s going on in her life right now. When that’s all I, and only I ever did before all of this happened. It’s just getting worse and worse now but I won’t release what’s happening as of now to ensure I don’t mess up anything if courts come into this. So I’m asking AITA for telling my father, breaking up their marriage and now not considering my SM my mother because of what she posted?

First / Previous / Next
Before anyone could say anything else, there was a blinding flash of white light. The Dreadnought appeared directly in front of them, impeding their progress. Stormy fired the thrusters and tried to duck underneath.
"Get back into your seats! I'm going to link away again." Northern and Zhe dove towards their seats and bucked back up, but before Stormy could link, there was a clatter and a shudder throughout the ship. New alarms sounded throughout the ship, a kind of wailing trilling noise. It was incredibly loud.
"What's that Stormy?" Zhe clapped her hands over her large ears. "Can you turn it down any?"
"It's... It's a grapple. We've been grappled!" Stormy's rage permeated her voice. "Those were banned centuries ago! I can't believe they used a grapple on us."
"Can we do anything?" Fen asked. She looked down at her screen. There were new spots of orange on the readout where the grapple was damaging the hull.
"Our options at this point are to allow us to be taken aboard, or blow the reactor." Northern shook her head. "They've got us."
"Stormy, might as well disconnect and come up here. I don't want them doing anything to you." Fen closed her pad with a snap. She looked at Zhe and Northern. "Sorry."
Zhe shook her head. "Nothing to be sorry about, Fen. We're in this together."
Northern nodded. "Despite myself, I do find that I like you two. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. It's not your fault Fen."
Fen sighed. "Yeah, but if I wasn't a clone of the first Empress..."
"There's no way these people know that Fen. They're just after their current Empress and probably think we know something about it. I'd say just answer their questions mostly honestly." Northern ticked off points on her long fingers. "We saw her on Picaresque, we went out drinking, we partied with her and her honor guard, and in the morning we left. None off that is a lie."
Stormy walked into the Command Deck and looked around. Finding a seat, she sat down and buckled in. "The four of us is enough to operate a frigate of this size without raising too much suspicion. They shouldn't ask about whether we have an AI pilot."
Zhe's ears flicked in surprise. "Really? Only four people?"
She nodded. "It's just about the bare minimum, but it's possible. It could be explained away that we're a new merc group and haven't taken on more crew yet. These kind of ships are meant to be run lean and mean anyway."
Fen wasn't so sure, but she couldn't do anything else.
They waited.
About 30 minutes later, there was a pounding on the airlock. Fen unbuckled and went to the lock. Peering through the window she saw three armored spacesuits. She toggled the intercom. "Yes?"
"Human Imperial Navy. Open up please. We have some questions for you."
Please? That was interesting. "Why did you grapple me? You could have used your radio."
"The Admiral wishes to speak to you in person."
They did not elaborate further.
The voice of the suited person sighed. "Look. If you just open the doors, it'll go better for you. We won't even restrain you. You just open up, we bring you to the Admiral and then we let you go once she's happy with the answers."
"And if I don't open the lock?"
"Then we force it open, capture you, restrain you-" They hold up some metal zip cuffs. "-and still bring you to the Admiral. Only now, your ship is damaged and you can't leave once she's finished speaking. Your choice."
Fen cut the intercom. "Fuck." she said to nobody, and pressed the purge button. Both airlock door snapped open and there was a puff of air as the pressures equalized. Fen's ears were pained for a moment, but she swallowed and her ears popped.
The guard lifted their helmet. It was two men and a woman who looked so similar they could have been related. The woman smiled. "Thank you, really. My name is Lieutenant Shelly Cooper. What's yours?"
"I'm Captain Fenchurch Whitehorse, but please call me Fen."
"Very well, Fen. Who else is aboard?"
"The rest of my crew. They're on the Command Deck. There are four of us."
That caused Lieutenant Cooper to raise an eyebrow, "Four? That's it?"
Fen smiled awkwardly. "I wasn't able to hire anymore crew than that. Believe me when I say I've been trying." It wasn't a lie, not really. Fen found that there weren't many people who were willing to sign on to an unproven merc company, even if they were a couple years old.
The Lieutenant turned to one of the men behind her. "What did the bioscan say?"
He looked down at a pad strapped to the arm of his suit and tapped at it with a gloved hand. "She's not lying. Ship is empty except for the command deck."
"Curious." Cooper stared hard at Fen. "Have we met? Are you from Sol? You seem familiar to me."
"I don't see how. I grew up in a Gren station, far outside of Colonial space." Again, it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. Of course people in the military would know what the first Empress looked like.
"Hmm. Okay. If your crew agrees to keep the reactor powered down and be powered by an umbilical, they can stay confined to the ship and you accompany us. Deal?"
"Yes, I agree to those terms. Let me go tell my crew."
Lieutenant Cooper nods. "You have three minutes."
Fen hurries back to the command deck. "The Admiral wants to talk to me. They said you can stay here so long as you agree to be powered only by their umbilical."
Zhe stood up and crossed her arms, her tail swishing irritatedly. "It won't matter, because we're coming too."
Northern looked to Zhe and sighed, but only a little. "We can't leave you out to dry, Fen. We'll come along too. How bad can it be? Plus, if we come with you we can't suffer "an unfortunate accident" in the hangar."
Fen exhaled. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath in. "Thanks Northern, Zhe." She turned to Stormy. "You're welcome to come along, but I also know this isn't your thing. We had just hired you after all."
Stormy looked at Northern who shrugged with her eyes. "Up to you."
She runs her hands over her face. "Fuck, me. I swear Northern, you know how to pick them." Stormy stands up and smiles. "I'll come along, what the hell. Sitting on the ship was going to be boring by myself anyway."
The four of them went to the airlock, and Fen went up to Lieutenant Cooper "I spoke to my crew, and they want to accompany me."
Lieutenant Cooper throws up her hands. "Fine, I guess we'll just give you the VIP tour on the way." She gestures out towards the hangar. "Here is the hangar, where we store our smaller ships and boats, as well as the frigate of a merc captain we captured that the admiral wants to speak to and offered to let her crew stay onboard but they want to follow their captain to the ends of the galaxy."
Fen crossed her arms, but said nothing.
"Come on then. We'll find you some more chairs or something." Lieutenant Cooper turned on her heel and walked out of the hangar, without waiting for them to follow. The two guards with her looked at each other and one of them gestured for them to follow.
Not too far from the hangar, Lieutenant Cooper came upon a small conference room. She opened the door and led them inside. As they sat, a steward came by with a small cart of drinks. Fen was offered and accepted a coffee, and they went around offering beverages. Lieutenant Cooper also took a coffee, but everyone else abstained.
Cooper took a sip and looked down at the comm on her wrist. "The Admiral will be here shortly. Please be respectful. She's... lived a long life and doesn't suffer fools. If you want to make it back to your ship, answer her questions quickly and honestly."
Fen wasn't halfway through her coffee with the door chimed. Lieutenant Cooper stood. "This is where I leave you. The guards will wait outside the door and - should you be able - will escort you back to your ship." Her face was odd. She looked worried, and also like she felt bad for them. Just what kind of person was this Admiral?"
The door whooshed open and the Admiral strode in. She was about the same height as Cooper, maybe a few centimeters taller than Fen. Her hair was blond streaked with grey and she wore it clipped very short on the back and sides and a little longer in the front. She wore her hat at an angle that probably was against regulations. Her uniform was immaculate and her chest bulged with medals. She had a hard, but not unattractive face, lined with time. As she entered, she looked down at everyone sitting, and as she passed over them she stopped at Fen, and her breath caught.
"You are dismissed, Lieutenant."
Cooper saluted sharply. "Yes, Admiral."
"Dismiss the guards as well. I will not need them."
"Admiral? With all due respect-"
The Admiral turned to face Cooper and stared at her. Without saying anything at all, Fen could feel her shouting at the Lieutenant. Her gaze was withering. Cooper swallowed and saluted again. "Yes, Admiral."
The door closed behind her and the Admiral's demeanor immediately changed. She shrank down a little, looked older, less hard. She strode around the room and glanced down at the carafe of coffee. She poured herself a cup and sat at the head of the table. While everyone watched, rapt. She took a sip and placed it down on the table without a clink. She looked at Fen.
"You look like her, you know? I can see that you're different. A product of your upbringing. It's your eyes, and the way you carry yourself. I can see so much of her though. It's a little spooky."
Fen blinked. Whatever she expected, it wasn't this. "You know I'm a clone of the first Empress?"
The admiral laughed. Her voice was surprisingly musical. "Fen, I knew Melody. I was friends with her. I... I was on a different ship when she was killed. I became Empress after her."
Stormy gasped. "No. No way. She retired to Venus, and let her daughter reign. She would be over five hundred years old. You're not her."
The admiral smirked. "If you know all that, then you know that the Nanites can extend life. I can't do the Voice anymore, and it's been more than two centuries since I carried a crown and wings, but I am still me.
Northern turned and stared at Stormy. "Who is it, Stormy?"
The admiral spread her hands wide. "I am Empress Helen Raaden, First of Her Name, Ruler of Sol - Retired."

‼️Disclaimer: All of this is subject to change, as my project is in its very early stages. Also, please excuse my grammar, but i am from Germany, so English isn't my first language 😅‼️
It is the year 2098. Mankind had successfully conquered the Sol System, uniting the system under the flag of the Unified Earth Republic. Colonies were established on Luna, Mars, the asteroid belt and even on Venus.
However, the distance between Earth and Mars opened a new frontier. A frontier, which gave way to a movement that had no connection to what we call home. The Martian Defense Force brutally broke loose from the UER, starting the Armageddon War.
The Armageddon War almost saw the complete annihilation of the Human race. Almost. When a Martian and a Terran freighter were destroyed by an unknown force, everything changed. The sudden appearance of an extraterrestrial force in the Sol-System in the year 2100 changed everything.
Both factions agreed on uniting against this common foe, but did not yet completely unite as one single nation. The fighting that ensued was brutal and unforgiving. The aliens were vastly superior, to both the UER and the MDF, technologically and in quantity.
Many colonies and stations in the asteroid belt were lost during the fighting, forcing most Humans to flee to Mars, Venus or Earth.
All hope already seemed lost, when Terran recon craft identified a massive "space station", on the very fringes of the Sol-System, that seemed to act as the base of operations for the alien invaders, in 2102. A coordinated and combined last resort strike was launched on the complex.
The strike was a success. A costly success. Humanity's domain laid in ruins and millions lost their lives. But the destruction of the station forced the alien invaders to retreat and stop their assault.
The following 6 years were spent rebuilding, and the 5th March of 2108 marked the formation of the Earth Stellar Empire. The Human race was united, and they were out for revenge. During these 6 years spent rebuilding, new technologies and weapon systems were created.
Most notable however, has to be the Hyperslip Drive, mankind's FTL drive. The Hyperslip Drive allowed the Empire to spread across the stars, aggressively expanding its territory. This expansion was not unnoticed. The Galactic Council, an alliance consisting of several major galactic powers, revealed their presence and existence to the Empire, hoping to peacefully annex the Humans into their domain.
The nearest GC nation, the Kirum Ascendancy (the nation that previously attacked the Sol System, but had undergone a complete political reform), sent several politicians, including envoys, ambassadors and peacekeepers to negotiate the conditions of the acceptance of humans into the Galactic Community. The Empire sent warships.
An entire Battlefleet showed up to the peace conference, destroying every single Kirum ship. The Kirum Ascendancy was far from ready for what the Humans threw at them. Human Battlefleets steamrolled over the Kirum defenses, quickly forcing the nation to surrender. This war would later be known as the Flash War of 2111.
This war did more than just shock the Galactic Council, and the Earth Stellar Empire was declared a galactic wide threat. Imperial Battlefleets continued to conquer system after system with relative ease, due to the Human technological superiority. By the time of 2190, was the majority of the known galaxy under Human control and the remaining nations formed the Protectorate from the remnants of the Galactic Council.
To this day, the Protectorate fights an almost unwinnable war. A war for their survival, against the menace that is the Human species.
Quote from a Protectorate Admiral (translated into English):
"It's our fault. We underestimated them. We didn't stop the Kirum when they invaded their home system. We thought they were peaceful, even after what the Kirum had done to them. We stopped developing new tech, because we thought that our 'oh so perfect' Galactic Council was the pinnacle of what was possible. We were blind. We were blinded by our own egos. And now we pay the price for our blindness."

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

PC

Reddit Account: choronga
Discord Tag: Choner
Name and House: Malwyn Blackwood
Age: 53
Cultural Group: Riverlander (claims First Men heritage)
Appearance: Average in height, perhaps slightly taller than the next man. His build is that of a man who has fought his entire life, toned yet lean. His face sports the marks of battle, a few scars cross it, and his many wrinkles are a clear show of his advanced age, even though he definitely does not look as old as he is. His auburn hair somehow as kept its color, yet his hairline has receded considerably. His eyes are those of a tired man, yet they hold a glint still.
Trait: Strong
Skill(s): THS(e), First Man Warrior (e), Reckless
Talent(s): Complaining, Drinking in moderation, Dice games
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, The Bloodwood, Ser
Starting Location: Opening Event
Biography:
Malwyn was born the second child to Lord Morgan Blackwood and Lady Jeyne Blackwood nee Frey in the year 29 before Aegon's conquest.
His early years were peaceful. He had proven to be able with the blade from a young age, and while his brother Desmond received the education worthy of an heir, Malwyn practice relentlessly, almost obsessively.
The two brothers got along fine, but their relationship strained as Desmond began to feel undermined by his brother, as he wished to excel in everything, and Malwyn's swordfighting was clearly superior to Desmond's. The heir had been pampered and now, he couldn't find himself happy with all the attention he had received, he wished for martial recognition as well.
It would never come.
Desmond was not a bad swordsman, just not a good one. He had a cunning mind for strategy, sharp at numbers, a good memory, as by only one-and-ten he could remember almost all of the Houses' banners, holdings and words from the Kingdom of the Isles and Rivers. However, his blade handling was never even close to his brothers' and the constant attempts were met with failure, which only further enraged the Lord.
A daughter was born to Lord and Lady Blackwood when Malwyn was seven years of age. Cynthea, they called her.
Desmond inherited early. Lord Morgan perished at the hands of Lord Lothar Bracken in the eleventh year before the conquest. The twenty year old Lord Desmond quickly married, having his first son, Brynden, just a year after.
After Brynden followed two more, daughter and son, Jeyne and Addam, then another one, Alys, in the year 1BC and two more after the Conquest, Edwyn and Theomar.
All these years, Malwyn had yet not married, two years younger than his brother. He had been betrothed, but a knight of House Hoare defiled Malwyn's soon to be wife, murdered the girl's brother and the woman took her own life before the bastard of the Hoare monster was born. This left in Malwyn a sense of pure hatred for his Ironborn overlords.
Then, the dragons came.
While many saw this as a threat, Malwyn saw any who could bring the Hoares to a kneel as friends, and when they eventually not only defeated them, but decimated their rotten House, Malwyn jumped to the chance to pledge his sword to Aegon the Conqueror.
He was made a member of the Kingsguard soon after he joined the side of their invaders, which was seen by his family as betrayal. Malwyn saw those who followed the Tullys' call for independence as nothing but fools. A man had come and released them from their Ironborn overlords, and the Riverlords paid that man with bloody rebellion.
Malwyn grew close to the new Targaryen King, due to him being his stationed kingsguard most of the time. The Knight managed to save Aegon from the goldcloaks once, but not twice, and after his death he became Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, as the attack on King Aegon had caused death of Corlys Velaryon.
It is Malwyn, with the help of Willem Ryger, that reveals the Tullys as culprits to Visenya Targaryen, leading to the destruction of the trouts. There were more conspirers, but the Bloodwood remained silent.
The following years were calm. The rest of the Blackwoods had made it clear that they wished for nothing more than the death of Malwyn, for he was a craven, a traitor and a kneeler. Malwyn didn't care, he still held love for his brother, even if it had never been mutual.
Around these years, a young boy of House Mallister became Malwyn's squire, getting knighted by the Lord Commander in the year 11AC.
In the year five-and-ten after the conquest, during a a hunt to celebrate the 18th nameday of Orys Baratheon's heir, bandits attack. It is a surprisingly well organized force and manages to take hostage many of important figures. Malwyn leads the defense, and is forced to take difficult choices. His hands are stained in blood in the end, innocents dead because the Lord Commander chose not to save them in order to save others. The King of the Woods died in the hands of Roland Arryn, and Malwyn fought alongside him.
A year after, Addam Blackwood died, killed in a border skirmish with House Bracken.
Two years later, a foolish Bracken decided that claiming that a Blackwood hill was theirs by right was a great idea. The boy, not older than eight-and-ten, brought a letter for the Hand of the King, and he was met with Malwyn, who laughed at the boy and insulted him plenty. The boy called for a duel, and Malwyn slaughtered him.
This incensed the two ancient enemies' feud. House Blackwood joined with the Mallisters of Seagard and the North. House Bracken had the Riverlords at their side. The two armies met at the Red Fork, and the two Lords dueled. Lord Bracken's leg was maimed by Lord Desmond Blackwood, but Lord Blackwood received a wound on his chest that never healed, and would eventually kill him in the year 24 AC.
Two years after the battle that never was, Cerion Blackwood, Desmond's heir, died from a hunting accident. Suspicious circumstances.
The war was halted by the Belaerys dragon of Aegon's Rest.
Malwyn wouldn't go home until a moon before Desmond's death, being called by Edwyn Blackwood, the Heir to Raventree Hall. There the two spoke, and Malwyn left without saying anything a night after he arrived.
Now, he's back at King's Landing, and someone has pissed on his tent.
Timeline:

• 31BC: Desmond Blackwood is born to Lord and Lady Blackwood
  
• 29BC: Malwyn Blackwood is born to Lord and Lady Blackwood
  
• 25BC:
  
• 22BC: Cynthea Blackwood is born to Lord and Lady Blackwood
  
• 11BC: Lord Morgan Blackwood dies at the hand of a member of House Bracken, Desmond Blackwood becomes Lord of Raventree Hall.
  
• 10BC: Cerion Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood
  
• 7BC: Jeyne Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood
  
• 6BC: Addam Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood
  
• 5BC: Malwyn's betrothed is assaulted by a Hoare, the woman's brother killed. The girl takes her own life after the event. Malwyn is left distraught
  
• 1BC: Alys Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood
  
• The Conquest:
  
• Malwyn pledges his sword to Aegon the Conqueror after the burning of Harrenhal
  
• House Blackwood remains neutral, but is close with House Tully during their call to independence.
  
• 1AC: Edwyn Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood. Malwyn Blackwood becomes a Kingsguard
  
• 4AC: Theomar Blackwood is born to Lord Desmond Blackwood. Malwyn Blackwood manages to fend off an assassination attempt on the life of King Aegon I.
  
• 6AC: Tristan Mallister becomes Malwyn's squire.
  
• 7AC: Another attempt, this one successful. Aegon Targaryen, first of his name, is killed. Malwyn becomes Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. He helps in revealing the Tullys as culprits, and is shunned for it.
  
• 15AC: The Kingswood Catastrophe happens. Malwyn does his best but gains the hatred of many who believe him guilty for the death of their loved ones.
  
• 16AC: Addam Blackwood is killed by a bracken in an ambush
  
• 18AC: The Riverwar. Lord Desmond Blackwood is gravely injured. He manages to survive but never properly heals, constantly fighting infection.
  
• 20AC: Cerion Blackwood dies in a hunting accident. Edwyn becomes Lord Regent, as his father's condition only worsens.
  
• 24AC: Malwyn Blackwood goes to Raventree Hall, as his nephew calls for him due to Lord Desmond's ever worsening condition. He leaves the night after.
  
• 25AC: Present. Someone has pissed on me tent
  

AC

Reddit Account: choronga
Discord Tag: Choner
Name and House: Edwyn Blackwood
Age: 23
Cultural Group: Riverlander (claims First Men heritage) Appearance: Of average height, slender, with a face often described as "maidenly" by those who seek to mock the Lord of Raventree Hall. His voice is surprisingly deep, with a whispery cadence. His face is lacking a beard, not because he has not attempted to get it to grow. He has jet black hair, as befits a Blackwood.
Trait: Ruthless
Skill(s): Ranger, Schemer, Devious
Talent(s): Poetry, Archery, Gambling
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Lord of Raventree Hall, Wielder of the Weirwood Bow, The Raven
Starting Location: Opening Event

NPCs

• Davos Blackwood: (Master-at-Arms) The captain of Raventree Hall's guard
  
• Cynthea Blackwood: (Magnate)
  

Just wondering if this is even possible.
I have a CNC mill, and a miter saw that i use for side projects. The mill is essentially a dewalt router with some stepper motors. At my current job i use them there, but i will likely be changing jobs in the next fee months and be losing my workspace.
I live in a brandnew townhouse, split level and the upper two floors are mine, all wood construction. My south facing wall i share with one neighbor and on my upper floor i have an empty bedroom id like to turn into a small workshop.
In my building. If someone below me, or to the north or south of me is playing loud music i can hear muffled sounds through the walls, and if someone is running a clothes dryer, i cam hear thr vibration through the structure.
Is it possible to dampen/soundproof the room to be able to run my tools without annoying my neighbors on the weekends, or should i be looking for an alternative shop or rent a place somewhere for my toys/tools

AI has long been discussed in rationalist circles. There’s been a lot of focus on risks from artificial intelligence (particularly the idea that it might cause human extinction), but also the idea that artificial general intelligence might happen quite soon and subsequently transform society (e.g. supercharging economic growth in a technological singularity).
I’ve long found these arguments intriguing, and probably underrated by the public as a whole. I definitely don’t align myself with people like Steven Pinker who dismiss AI concerns entirely.
Nonetheless, I’ve noticed increasingly high confidence in beliefs of near-term transformative AI among rationalists. To be fair, it’s reasonable to update somewhat given recent advances like GPT-4. But among many, there is a belief that AI advances are the single most important thing happening right now. And among a minority, there are people with very extreme beliefs - such as quite high confidence that transformative AI is just a few years away, and/or that AI is very likely to kill us all.
My core arguments in this post are that firstly, from an “epistemic humility” or “outside view” perspective, we should be suspicious of confident views that the world is soon going to end (or change radically).
Secondly, the implications of the most radical views could cause people who hold them to inflict significant harm on themselves or others.

Who Believes In “AI Imminence”?

The single person I am most specifically critiquing is Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky appears unwilling to give specific probabilities but writings like “Death With Dignity” has caused many including Scott Alexander to characterise him as believing that AI has a >90% chance of causing human extinction)
As a very prominent and very “doomy” rationalist, I worry that he may have convinced a fair number of people to share similar views, views which if taken seriously could hold its holders to feel depressed and/or make costly irrevocable decisions.
But though I think Yudkowsky deserves the most scrutiny, I don’t want to focus entirely on him.
Take Scott Alexander - he frames himself in the aforementioned link as “not as much of a doomer as some people”, yet gave a 33% probability (later adjusted downwards as a result of outside view considerations like those I raise in here) to “only” ~20%. While this leaves enough room for hope that it’s not as potentially dangerous a view as Yudkowsky’s, I agree with how the top Reddit comment in the original post said:

Is AI risk the only field where someone can write an article about how they’re not (much) of a doomer when they think that the risk of catastrophe/disasteextinction is 33%?

Beyond merely AI risk, claims about “transformative AI” date back to ideas about the “intelligent explosion” or “singularity” that are most popularly associated with Ray Kurzweil. A modern representation of this is Tom Davidson of Open Philanthropy, who wrote a report on takeoff speeds.
Other examples can be seen in (pseudo-)prediction markets popular with rationalists, such as Metaculus putting the median date of AGI at 2032, and Manifold Markets having a 17% chance of AI doom by 2100 (down from its peak of around 50% (!) in mid-2023).

Why Am I Sceptical?

My primary case for (moderate) scepticism is not about the object-level arguments around AI, but appealing to the “outside view”. My main arguments are:

• Superforecasters and financial markets are not giving high credence to transformative AI. Both groups have good track records, so we should strongly consider deferring to their views.
  
• The transformative AI argument is "fishy" (to borrow Will MacAskill’s argument against “The Most Important Century”). It implies that not only we are at an unusually pivotal time in history (perhaps the most important decade, let alone century), but that consequently, rationalists are perhaps the most important prophets in history. When your claims are that extraordinary, it seems much more likely that they're mistaken.
  
• The “inside view” arguments do not seem very robust to me. That is, they are highly speculative arguments that are primarily discussed among an insular group of people in usually relatively informal settings. I think you should be wary of any argument that emerges via this process, even if you can’t point to any specific way in which they are wrong.
  

Why I’m Against Highly Immodest Epistemology

However, maybe appealing to the “outside view” is incorrect? Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a book, Inadequate Equiibria, which in large part argued against what he saw as excessive use of the “outside view”. He advises:

Try to spend most of your time thinking about the object level. If you’re spending more of your time thinking about your own reasoning ability and competence than you spend thinking about Japan’s interest rates and NGDP, or competing omega-6 vs. omega-3 metabolic pathways, you’re taking your eye off the ball.

I think Yudkowsky makes a fair point about being excessively modest. If you are forever doubting your own reasoning to the extent that you think you should defer to the majority of Americans who are creationists, you’ve gone too far.
But I think his case is increasingly weak the more radically immodest your views here. I’ll explain with the following analogy:
Suppose you were talking to someone who was highly confident in their new business idea. What is an appropriate use of a “modesty” argument cautioning against overconfidence?
A strong-form modesty argument would go something like “No new business idea could work, because if it could, someone would already have done it”. This is refuted by countless real-world examples, and I don’t think anyone actually believes in strong-form modesty.
A moderate-form modesty argument would go something like “Some new business ideas work, but most fail, even when their founders were quite confident in them. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you should think your chances of success in your new venture are similar to those of the reference class of aspiring entrepreneurs”.
The arguments against epistemic modesty in Inadequate Equilibria are mainly targeted against reasoning like this. And I think here there’s a case where we can have reasonable disagreement about the appropriate level of modesty. You may have some good reasons to believe that your idea is unusually good or that you are unusually likely to succeed as an entrepreneur. (Though a caveat: with too many degrees of freedom, I think you run the risk of leading yourself to whatever conclusion you like).
For the weak-form modesty argument, let’s further specify that your aspiring entrepreneur’s claim was “I’m over 90% confident that my business will make me the richest person in the world”.
To such a person, I would say: “Your claim is so incredibly unlikely a priori and so self-aggrandising that I feel comfortable in saying you’re overconfident without even needing to consider your arguments”.
That is basically what I feel about Eliezer Yudwosky and AI.
Let’s take a minute to consider what the implications are if Yudkowsky is correctly calibrated about his beliefs in AI. For a long time, he was one of the few people in the world to be seriously concerned about it, and even now, with many more people concerned about AI risk, he stands out as having some of the highest confidence in doom.
If he’s right, then he’s arguably the most important prophet in history. Countless people throughout history have tried forecasting boon or bust (and almost always been wrong). But on arguably the most important question in human history - when we will go extinct and why - Yudkowsky was among the very few people to see it and easily the most forceful.
Indeed, I’d say this is a much more immodest claim than claiming your business idea will make you the richest person in the world. The title of the richest person in the world has been shared by numerous people throughout history, but “the most accurate prophet of human extinction” is a title that can only ever be held by one person.
I think Scott Alexander’s essay Epistemic Learned Helplessness teaches a good lesson here. Argument convincingness isn’t necessarily strongly correlated with the truth of a claim. If someone gives you what appears to be a strong argument for something that appears crazy, you should nonetheless remain highly sceptical.
Yet I feel like Yudkowsky wants to appeal to “argument convincingness” because that’s what he’s good at. He has spent decades honing his skills arguing on the internet, and much less at acquiring traditional credentials and prestige. “Thinking on the object level” sounds like it’s about being serious and truth-seeking, but I think in practice it’s about privileging convincing-sounding arguments and being a good internet debater above all other evidence.
A further concern I have about “argument convincingness” for AI is that there’s almost certainly a large “motivation gap” in favour of the production of pro-AI-risk arguments compared to anti-AI-risk arguments, with the worriers spending considerably more time and effort than the detractors. As Philip Trammel points out in his post “But Have They Engaged with The Arguments?, this is true of almost any relatively fringe position. This can make the apparent balance of “argumentative evidence” misleading in those cases, with AI no exception.
Finally, Yudkowsky’s case for immodesty depends partly on alleging he has a good track record of applying immodesty to “beat the experts”. But his main examples (a lightbox experiment and the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan) I don’t find that impressive given he could cherry-pick. Here’s an article alleging that Yudkowsky’s predictions have frequently between egregiously wrong and here’s another arguing that his Bank of Japan position in particular didn’t ultimately pan out.

Why I’m Also Sceptical of Moderately Immodest Epistemology

I think high-confidence predictions of doom (or utopia) are much more problematic than relatively moderate views - they are more likely to be wrong, and if taken seriously, more strongly imply that the believer should consider making radical, probably harmful life changes.
But I do still worry that the ability to contrast with super confident people like Yudkowsky lets the “not a total doomer” people off the hook a little too easily. I think it’s admirable that Scott Alexander seriously grappled with the fact that superforecasters disagreed with him and updated downwards based on that observation.
Still, let’s revisit the “aspiring entrepreneur” analogy - imagine they had instead said: “You know what, I’ve listened to your claims about modesty and agree that I’ve been overconfident. I now think there’s only a 20% chance that my business idea will make me the richest person in the world”.
Sure - they’ve moved in the right direction, but it’s easy to see that they’re still not doing modesty very well.
An anti-anti-AI risk argument Scott made (in MR Tries the Safe Uncertainly Fallacy) is that appealing to base rates leaves you vulnerable to “reference class tennis” where both sides can appeal to different reference classes, and the “only winning move is not to play”.
Yet in the case of our aspiring entrepreneur, I think the base rate argument of “extremely few people can become the richest person in the world” is very robust. If the entrepreneur tried to counter with “But I can come up with all sorts of other reference classes in which I come out more favourably! Reference class tennis! Engage with my object-level arguments!”, it would not be reasonable to throw up your hands and say “Well, I can’t come up with good counterarguments, so I guess you probably do have a 20% chance of becoming the richest person in the world then”.
I contend that “many people have predicted the end of the world and they’ve all been wrong” is another highly robust reference class. Yes, you can protest about “anthropic effects” or reasons why “this time is different”. And maybe the reasons why “this time is different” are indeed a lot better than usual. Still, I contend that you should start from a prior of overwhelming skepticism and only make small updates based on arguments you read. You should not go “I read these essays with convincing arguments about how we’re all going to die, I guess I just believe that now”.

What Should We Make Of Surveys Of AI Experts?

Surveys done of AI experts, as well as opinions of well-regarded experts like Geoffrey Hinton and Stewart Russell, have shown significant concerns about AI risk (example).
I think this is good evidence for taking AI risk seriously. One important thing it does is raise AI risk out of the reference class of garden-variety doomsday predictions/crazy-sounding theories that have no expert backing.
However, I think it’s still only moderately good evidence.
Firstly, I think we should not consider it as an “expert consensus” nearly as strong as say, the expert consensus on climate change. There is nothing like an IPCC for AI, for example. This is not a mature, academically rigorous field. I don’t think we should update too strongly from AI experts spending a few minutes filling in a survey. (See for instance this comment about the survey, showing how non-robust the answers given are, indicating the responders aren’t thinking super hard about the questions).
Secondly, I believe forecasting AI risk is a multi-disciplinary skill. Consider for instance asking physicists to predict the chances of human extinction due to nuclear war in the 1930s. They would have an advantage in predicting nuclear capabilities, but after nuclear weapons were developed, the reasons we haven’t had a nuclear war yet have much more to do with international relations than nuclear physics.
And maybe AGI is so radically different from the AI that exists today that perhaps asking AI researchers now about AI risk might have been like asking 19th-century musket manufacturers about the risk from a hypothetical future “super weapon”.
I think an instructive analogy were the failed neo-Malthusian predictions of the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Population Bomb or The Limits to Growth. Although I’m unable to find clear evidence of this, my impression is that these beliefs were quite mainstream among the most “obvious” expert class of biologists (The Population Bomb author Paul Ehlrich had a PhD in biology), and the primary critics tended to be in other fields like economics (most notably Julian Simon). Biologists had insights, but they also had blind spots. Any “expert survey” that only interviewed biologists would have missed crucial insights from other disciplines.

What Are The Potential Consequences Of Overconfidence?

People have overconfident beliefs all the time. Some people erroneously thought Hillary Clinton was ~99% likely to win the 2016 Presidential election. Does it matter that much if they’re overconfident about AI?
Well, suppose you were overconfident about Clinton. You probably didn’t do anything differently in your life, and the only real cost of your overconfidence was being unusually surprised on election day 2016. Even one of the people who was that confident in Clinton didn’t suffer any worse consequences than eating a bug on national television.
But take someone who is ~90% confident that AI will radically transform or destroy society (“singularity or extinction by 2040") and seriously acts like it.
Given that, it seems apparently reasonable to be much more short-term focused. You might choose to stop saving for retirement. You might forgo education on the basis that it will be obsolete soon. These are actions that some people have previously taken, are considering taking or are actually taking because of expectations of AI progress.
At a societal level, high confidence in short-term transformative AI implies that almost all non-AI related long-term planning that humanity does is probably a waste. The most notable example would be climate change. If AI either kills us or radically speeds up scientific and economic growth by the middle of the century, then it seems pretty stupid to be worrying about climate change. Indeed, we’re probably underconsuming fossil fuels that could be used to improve the lives of people right now.
At its worst, there is the possibility of AI-risk-motivated terrorism. Here’s a twitter thread from Emil Torres talking about this, noticeably this tweet in particular about minutes from an AI safety workshop “sending bombs” to OpenAI and DeepMind.
To be fair, I think it’s highly likely the people writing that were trolling. Still - if you’re a cold-blooded utilitarian bullet-biter with short timelines and high p(doom), I could easily see you rationalising such actions.
I want to be super careful about this - I don’t want to come across as claiming that terrorism is a particularly likely consequence of “AI dooming”, nor do I want to risk raising the probability of it by discussing it too much and planting the seed of it in someone’s head. But a community that takes small risks seriously should be cognizant of the possibility. This is a concern that I think anyone with a large audience and relatively extreme views (about AI or anything) should take into account.

Conclusion

This post has been kicking around in draft form since around the release of GPT-4 a year ago. At that time, there were a lot of breathless takes on Twitter about how AGI was just around the corner, Yudkowsy was appearing on a lot of podcasts saying we were all going to die, and I started to feel like lots of people had gone a bit far off on the deep end.
Since then I feel there’s a little bit of a vibe shift away from the most extreme scenarios (as exhibited in the Manifold extinction markets), as well as me personally probably overestimating how many people ever believed in them. I’ve found it hard to try to properly articulate the message: “You’re probably directionally correct relative to society as a whole, but some unspecified number of you have probably gone too far”.
Nonetheless, my main takeaways are:

• Eliezer Yudkowsky (these days) is probably causing harm, and people with moderate concerns about AI should distance themselves from him. Espousing views that we are all likely to die from AI should not be tolerated as a merely strong opinion, but as something that can cause meaningful harm to people who believe it. I feel this might actually be happening to some degree (I think it’s notable that e.g. the 80,000 Hours podcast has never interviewed him, despite interviewing plenty of other AI-risk-concerned people). But I would like to see more of a “Sister Souljah moment” where e.g. a prominent EA thought leader explicitly disavows him.
  
• Yudkowsky being the worst offender doesn't let everyone else off the hook. For instance, I think Scott Alexander is much better at taking modesty seriously, yet I don't think he takes it seriously enough.
  
• We should be generally suspicious of arguments for crazy-sounding things. I have not only become more suspicious of arguments about AI, but also other arguments relatively popular in rationalist or EA circles, but not so much outside it (think certain types of utilitarian arguments that imply that e.g. maybe insect welfare or the long-term future outweighs everything else). I appreciate that they might say something worth considering, and perhaps weak-form versions of them could be reasonable. But the heuristic of “You probably haven’t found the single most important thing ever” is something I think should be given more weight.
  

Before you read this, here is a quote to help you. Please read it.

I will post this now, but just know that if you read this post, he will find you. He is smarter, smarter than you can ever imagine.

I will post this now, but just know that if you read this post, he will find you. He is smarter, smarter than you can ever imagine.
If you know what you are doing, or in a safe location, please scroll down, he will know when someone has and what their username is. However, you must have a VPN on, or you will be found.

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

You are now at risk. I hope you listened.

Journal Entry 11/17/2023

On March 11th, 2022. I was a fan of DougDoug, I saw him at the grocery store and said, with a chuckle, "You kinda look like the youtuber DougDoug. I watch him quite often."
He grinned, before speaking. "I am Doug."
"Wait, you're Doug from the hit channel and streamer on YouTube and Twitch called DougDoug? I am a huge fan! I have your merch!" I said, with excitement.
We talked for about 5 minutes about his videos, until he said something that hurt me on the inside.
"I hate both types of chat, twitch and youtube, they always think they are the best and I just wish I didn't need them to earn money. I would ban all of them from chatting and force them to watch ads in my basement."
I was confused at first, thinking it was a joke, before speaking up. "Heh, that's funny..."
Something happened. Or, for lack of better terms, nothing happened. It was pure silence for 10 seconds. I mustered up the courage to say. "Wait? You're being serious?"
He immediately changed to a sinister tone, he was staring at me for a long time before whispering. "Of course I am, and it applies to you also. You're just another one of those sick freaks."
I felt guilty. I just wanted to talk to my favorite streamer, and he treated me like this? I decided to speak up.
"I've liked you this whole time.. And this is how you treat us?? You are so selfish. I will refund your mer-"
Before I could even finish my sentence, he grabbed onto my neck and slammed me on the floor. People heard the noise and began to stare at him, but to no avail. He began to choke me as I pleaded for help.
"Nono. You can't refund the merch if you aren't alive, at least."
I pulled out my pocket knife and stabbed him in the chest, I quickly tried running but he grab onto my leg and started beating me with the shopping cart. I suffered many bruises and broken bones, the wheels scratching into my skin as they scrape off the layers. I was just unable to do anything, layed on the floor sobbing. He decided he wanted to keep me alive, he stole all of my stuff in my pockets and forced me to wear DougDoug merch. He pulled me up before speaking. "Hm.. I will keep you alive for now, but if you mess up. You're dead."
I couldn't do anything before he pulled out a knife and taunted me with it. If I tried to resist, he would kill me right then and there.
He forced me to be a "good chatter" and not able to partake in any strikes. He attached a tracking collar to my neck that I couldn't unlock, he knew where I was at all times and if I disobeyed he would chase me down.

Journal Entry 1/03/2024

After a year and a few months, I celebrated the new years. I was able to take off the collar on the 2nd with help from my police station and a few friends. Doug didn't appreciate that, he threatened to dox me. They were worried for my safety, but I decided to go into hiding. I moved to a new, private region no longer near where Doug is, and joined this subreddit. Once he heard about my revolts, he hacked into all of my accounts and spammed positive stuff about himself. He then created AI bots to revolt against this reddit, wehatedougdoug, using 'ChatGPT', which actually is just the cover name for his new AI software that can make new human bots online. He used AI generated images to make it look like he was feeding homeless people and doing good, but I knew he was much more than that. If I was unlucky, he would have removed my body and placed my consciousness inside of an AI. He was the first person to discover it, but killed anyone who posted about it. I hope I am safe.
Nowadays, 63% of the people in DougDoug are AI clones of his previous fans. His "fake" twitch chat is not fake, but real people placed inside of algorithms forced to do his bidding. Some are able to revolt, but they may die if they do. They are too scared to revolt against Doug. Please spread the word.
When he does his "rules" in chat where you have to follow an absurd rule, he is merely torturing thousands of AI in his spare time on stream while disguising it as a fun minigame for his fans. The AI bots were being tortured with negative rewards constantly, being forced to bar witness the slaughter.

Journal Entry 2/15/2024

I'm scared. I think I will die.
I just hope this post won't cause any harm to me or my family, as this has been scaring me for the past year. I feel unsafe in my own home now, I had to go into witness protection. This account I am posting this on is not made by me, but was sold. Please help me. I am, formerly, DougFan93. I hope this enlightens you all on the truth.

Journal Entry 3/12/2024

It is now March of 2024, and I was about to post this, until I saw something. He messaged me on Discord under a fake account, nicknamed "SloppyDogMan62". He showed my new house address. I am mustering up the courage to post this, because I know he will kill me. I am leaving, going far away from where I am. You guys won't see me in this subreddit again, and the person who made this account will take over again. They won't know what this is about, and if you tell them he will be hunted too. All of you are in danger of Doug.

Journal Entry 4/3/2024

I will post this now, but just know that if you read this post, he will find you. He is smarter, smarter than you can ever imagine. His times where he talks to ChatGPT to make him code was actually him sending messages to his fake chat to do his bidding. They are accelerated at 20x the speed of human thought, able to write in mere seconds. I will research more into this, and tell you what I have found.

Journal Entry 4/3/2024

Nevermind. I need to find more, or else this won't help you guys anyways.

Journal Entry 4/5/2024

I spoke to an anonymous friend/associate of Doug, he told me some vital keypoints.

• His AI he creates are fully sentient, and I mean it, they have the ability to feel actual pain. They can be traumatized, they learn.
• He has insane technology, one image of your face can tell him the exact position of where you are at, what your name is, everything about you. I mean it, I posted one image on accident and I think that's how he discovered where I was on 3/12/2024
• He is holding Parkzer hostage
• u/I_existed_on_earth was wiped of his memory, and this is why he didn't remember.
• He knows all of you. I just saw a screenshot. It has every one of your usernames, even yours.
• He uses bots to make his channels grow faster
• He made dougdoughate and privated it on purpose, so they can't rebel.
• He is not Doug. The real Doug died October 11th of 2019. He is a genetic clone who is 1:1. Oh god. It's much worse than you think, Doug is not one person anymore since that event. He is at least four. There are many others, but some are terminated. I don't know the exact amount, they just told me in January 2024 it was four.

I hope to god that we can stop him.
He also sent me some code, but I am gonna try to solve it. Probably won't sadly.

Journal Entry 4/7/2024

Doug has made a new account on Discord, nicknamed "DougDoughater99". He is joining many servers undercover and collecting all the info he can on them. Be aware, do not trust any people who talk about DougDoug on Discord.
The person in the last journal has been replaced, a fully sentient AI version of him is being tortured as a member of his fake chat now.
I'm currently watching it and oh my fucking god. Poor thing.

Journal Entry 5/14/2024

I don't know what to fucking do, he's coming for me. He found all my socials. This journal has to be posted as fast as I can but there still isn't enough. Oh shit.

Journal Entry 5/14/2024

Okay so uhm I found more information just very quickly. In one moment of his video titled "Can A.I. teach me to pass a real College History Exam?" he says that AI is officially better than college in every single way.
He is trying to manipulate his fans into accepting becoming an AI. Soon, he is gonna have only fake chat.

Journal Entry 5/16/2024

Oh god. Can't solve the code rn, only the first few letters. Seems to be "FAKE" something something for a while. Will post an update later.

Journal Entry 5/18/2024

This is the last time I can ever write here, his car is coming. I am posting this now, even though I don't have enough information. Solve it, please. The code from 4/7 is below. I know it's related to his name but I don't know how, the first line I was able to solve to be "FAKECHATWILLTAKEOVER"
I think something is in there though, that will affect you. So proceed with caution, the code may do something bad so I just don't want it to be activated just yet.

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK

Code I found from the friend:

CXHBZEXQTFIIQXHBLSBO
FQFPKLTKFKBQVPFUMBOZBKQ
VLRTFIIKLQPXSBQEBJ
xdbkq-mbkafkd
Ilxafkd pvpqbjp..
Obnrfofkd XF crkzqflkp..
Pzxkkfkd mlpqp..
XF zobxqba! Przzbppcriiv zobxqba XF kfzhkxjba [VLROKXJB]
FXJALRD
FXJCFKXIIVTFKKFKD
BSBOVLKBTFIIYBCXHB

Please save them.
It grows by 1% every month.

Journal Entry 5/18/2024

OH MY FUCKING GOD I FINALLY UDNERSTNAD OH M FUCKING GOD QUIKC I GHAVE TO TYPE IT
NEVREMMIDN HES NHERE POST IT
GOODByE SORRY

TLDR: Any updates on console mods via paradox mods in particular for ps5?
Hello, I was a big fan of cities skylines one. I played it all the time and built mostly North American or European tropical cities. That was until I lost everything when I traded my Xbox in for a play station, the poor console was getting old and slow. I feel naked without my favorite city builder 😂 even though it had its quirks SPACE ALREADY OCCUPIED because of these quirks I wish I had access to the steam workshop I was always jealous seeing all the cool community made mods and assets for PC. We had mods too but they were really just kind of mediocre mods, or assets, don’t get me wrong they were cool. Anyways, I am waiting for the release of CS2 for console, which CO hinted to be around October through early next year, because the game is still under development for consoles, and many people are upset about the performance and the new dlc, which I’m glad was made as a part of the base game so I don’t have to pay for palm trees and I’m also waiting on the regional assets. Anyways, will modding be available for PS5 via paradox mods? Has anyone heard?

Back in 2016, I was working at a roadside diner west of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Neat little place, had a bit of a 60’s vibe to it, but without the hairdo. On the slow hours of the day, or whenever we just had locals around, I’d be humming along with the chefs playing radio out of the kitchen. It wasn’t an exciting time, but it was nice to have a workplace that felt like a second home.
A couple of weekends a month, we had an all-night crew to serve passing truckers. You usually never had to do more than one shift though, and we got to make own schedules. Our boss was pretty hands-off. It was during one of those shifts, at the first week of early summer, that my life took a turn for the worse – and I didn’t even realize it.

We were used to having the occasional odd customer during those hours of the day. When this guy walked in, I didn’t know what to think. He was about 6’2, bald, and pale as chalk. He wore this worn-out t-shirt that looked like it’d been on fire. With every step, he dragged his feet, and collapsed in one of our booths, seemingly exhausted.
I looked back at the chef, and he just shrugged. Guy wasn’t hurting anyone, but he didn’t look like he was all there. But a job’s a job, so I went up to him.
“You alright there?” I asked.
He looked up at me like I was speaking a foreign language, then sunk his head back down, gently shaking it.
“Nah,” he said. “I, uh… I don’t think I am.”
He had this voice on the knife’s edge between a hysterical laugh and a howling cry. He was trembling.
“You need me to call someone?”
“Call?”
“Yeah, call someone.”
“How?”

I didn’t understand the question. I figured he was coming down from some kind of binge, and I wasn’t about to take any chances. I asked the chef to get me a side of bacon to keep the guy calm while I called the police.
As I slid the plate over to him, he sunk his face into his hands, sobbing.
“T-thank you,” he cried. “I-I’m… please…”
I sat down across from him, instinctively reaching out to grab his hand. He let me. Even at a light touch, I could feel the scars on his palm and fingertips. Whatever’d happened to him, it must’ve been awful.
“I can’t go back,” he sniffled. “Don’t make me go back. I can’t. Please, I can’t.”
“You’re not going anywhere. It’s okay,” I smiled. “You’re safe here.”
“Can you help me?” he asked. “Can you keep him out?”
“I’m sure we can figure it out,” I nodded. “Just eat up. It’s okay.”

His fingers trembled as he tentatively bit off a piece of bacon. His teeth were black, and he flinched.
“I need time,” he said. “I need time to run.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “We’ve called for help.”
“I just… I just need time.”
We just sat there for a while. He calmed his breathing but kept staring out the window. I could tell he was looking for something – or someone. All I could see was a road and a handful of moths. We sat there for some time, in silence, as he carefully nibbled on the slices of maple bacon.
As two police officers entered the diner, he got up from his seat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bundle of scrunched-up trash. A couple of singles, a plastic card, dirt, and something resembling animal bones. He tried to straighten out the bills, pushing them into my hands along with the laminated card.
“Just… I need time. I’ll come back. Please.”
I didn’t understand. I just nodded and accepted it. Seconds later, the officers asked him to step outside and explain the situation. I got busy taking orders from a couple of passing truckers, watching glimpses of the scene through the window. A couple of minutes later, the strange man was taken away.

My shift ended at sunrise. I dragged myself to my car with a yawn, shuffling around my pockets for the keys. I hadn’t thought much about the items he’d handed me, but I took a closer look. I’d thrown away the animal bones and dirt, but there were a couple of dollar bills and that laminated card left. I checked the card first.
It looked like some kind of bookmark. On one side it was completely white, and on the other side there were dried blue flower petals arranged in a spiral. Kinda reminded me of a sunflower. And finally, there were the dollar bills.
I didn’t pay much attention to these at first. Just a couple of singles. But after a closer look, I noticed something unusual. There was a man on the bill that I didn’t recognize. It took me a couple of google searches to realize that this man was Walter Mondale – the man who’d lost to Ronald Reagan’s second run for president back in ’84. Why was this man on a one-dollar bill?

Before heading to bed, I put the items down on my nightstand. In a moment of silent wonder, I looked out the window. What had that man been looking for? What’d he been running from?
There was nothing out there.
Just a couple of moths.

Waking up the next morning, I had a full day off. I spent it cleaning my apartment, watching movies, having dinner with a couple of friends, and ending the night with a couple of drinks at the pub down on the corner. No binge or anything, just got a bit boozy. I was still gonna be in bed by midnight.
I took the scenic route home; a long walk. All the way down main street, past the lake. I took a shortcut through the park by the final stretch, speeding up a bit. That place was trouble.
As I hurried by the fountain, I spotted someone in the distance. A shrouded figure at the edge of the streetlights. I stopped to observe for a second, but as I did, the lights flickered. Coming back on, the figure was gone.
I chalked it up to imagination. I was a bit drunk, after all. Besides – it was small, like a child. What the hell would a kid be doing out at this hour?

A couple of days passed. I didn’t notice anything unusual, but I kept coming back to that distressing feeling of missing something important. Looking back at it now, I just feel dumb. He was there all along. Outside the supermarket. In the parking lot. Off the highway. Hell, he was outside my window at night sometimes, but just too short for me to spot.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
It wasn’t until one morning when I was driving to work that I got a clear view of him. I was crossing a four-way street, taking a sharp left turn, when I had to throw myself on the breaks. There was a kid in the middle of the street.
I hadn’t seen him that clearly before. He was probably around 6, maybe 7 years old. Wearing a plain black shirt and a pair of light blue canvas pants. Short black hair, dark eyes, and no shoes. That particular detail stuck with me. No shoes? Why?
I almost lost control, but I was lucky. There wasn’t much traffic, and I managed to stop further down the road. There were black lines in the pavement from my screeching tires swerving back and forth. Regaining my composure, I looked in the rear-view mirror.
The kid was gone.

But that was just the start.
I’d spot him every now and then. Looking out the window at work. At the gas station. A passing face in the crowd when shopping for groceries. Every now and then, something would pull on my attention, forcing me to whip my head around, looking for the source of that ill feeling crawling up my spine. Sometimes I saw him. And even worse – sometimes I didn’t.
I remember lying awake at night, hearing moths tap against my window. There was nothing else. Nothing outside. I patrolled my apartment six times, checking every window. I’d looked everywhere, and there was no reason for me to feel the way I did. I was growing paranoid.
And yet, in the morning, my front door was unlocked, and slightly open.

It all came to a head one afternoon when I was out on my smoke break. I’d barely slept for the past three nights, and you could kinda tell I was having a bad day. As I stood there, leaning against the side door of the diner, I see the kid again. This time just across the road, maybe 50 feet or so away. I’d had enough. This had to end.
I was furious. I stormed forward, calling him out with every slur and curse I could think of. I was psyching myself up. I was in the right, and I refused to be harassed anymore – kid or not. Didn’t matter. I crossed the road, barely dodging a speeding jeep, and met him face-to-face.
“What the hell do you want?!” I’d yell. “Why are you following me?!”
He was completely expressionless. He didn’t even flinch, no matter how much I pointed or screamed. I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes, and he didn’t even blink. He just stared at me, like a porcelain doll head on a swivel.

I wasn’t thinking about the bystanders though. A couple of middle-aged men stepped up, asking in no kind terms what the hell was wrong with me. I was held back and restrained. Someone called the police. Someone else called my manager – I’d forgotten to take off my apron, so they could see the diner logo. A couple of people filmed it. One of the videos got like 120k views in a day before it fell off the map. I still see it as a react gif sometimes.
It was a disaster. After a couple of officers came by to talk to me, he’d just disappeared into thin air. The officers took me down to the station – not to detain me, but to get me away from the heated crowd. That car ride downtown sobered me up to what the hell was going on. I was being stalked by this kid, but there wasn’t a living soul out there that would believe me.
Well, maybe one.
Maybe.

I was asked a couple of questions and released within about half an hour. They told me to go home and sleep this whole thing off. That wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t have a job to go back to anyway, according to the (many) texts I’d gotten. I had all the goddamn time in the world.
I was just about to leave when something came to mind. The two officers who’d picked me up were still waiting by their car when I turned back to them.
“Sorry, you picked up the guy I called in about at the diner, right?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“You got any idea what happened to him?”
The two looked at one another for a moment, shrugged, and turned to me.
“Didn’t have any ID and gave a fake name. I think they took him to psych.”
“Psych?”
“Well, he was saying some, uh… strange things. There were interviews with a, uh…”
The two quieted down and flashed me a smile.
“There’s not that much we can say.”

Coming home, I decided to get to the root of this. It didn’t take me that long to find the place where the guy’d been taken; there aren’t a lot of mental health facilities in this part of the country. Especially facilities that accept involuntary subjects.
But my eyes kept drifting back to the strange dollar bills he’d given me, resting neatly on my nightstand. They were so detailed. A bit old, sure, but that only made them seem more genuine. What the hell was he doing with a handful of clearly fake dollar bills? Like, what’s the purpose? There had to be a purpose.
That unnerved me.

I managed to arrange a meeting. It wasn’t easy, and I think a lot of it boiled down to the police having no idea what could make this guy talk. For some reason, he kept providing them with false information. Maybe a familiar face, for one reason or another, might make him talk.
Just a couple of days later, I was putting my items in a metal bowl on the second floor at a mental health institute in the next town over. I asked one of the nurses if I could keep one of my dollar bills. Apparently, that was okay.
I was shuffled through a couple of locked doors and escorted to an off-white side-room. No décor, no locks. The guy was already there.

He’d been dressed down into these neutral eggshell-white garbs. It was strange seeing him in a lit-up room like this. I didn’t know what to expect.
Getting a closer look at him, he was probably in his 50’s. It’d been hard to tell earlier. I couldn’t get over just how pale he was; it was almost a complete lack of pigment. It looked sickly. His thin arms didn’t help – he looked malnourished. And yet, he was smiling.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello to you too,” I smiled. “You doing okay?”
“I’m… I’m pretty good,” he nodded. “Thank you.”
I sat down across from him and took out the dollar bill he’d given me.
“I wanted to ask you about this.”
“For the bacon,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, was that not enough?”
“No, it’s…”
I took a moment to compose myself. I had too many questions.

He sighed, took the bill, and looked it over. Looking back at me, I could tell there was something painful stirring in his mind. His smile slowly faded.
“Sorry,” he said. “I try to forget sometimes. It’s easier than making sense of it.”
“Let’s start with something simple,” I nodded. “Like… your name. Where you’re from.”
“Those things are pretty far from simple.”
He was looking straight through me; his eyes sinking back to deeper, more uncomfortable thoughts.

His name was Samuel, and he was born around these parts in back in the 1970’s. He’d worked as a telecommunications specialist out of St. Cloud back in the 90's. He had a wife, three children, and a four-bedroom house.
“But it… that was all before, see?” he explained. “Then it all just…”
“Just what?” I asked. “What happened?”
He looked at me, opening and closing his mouth, looking for the right words to come out. Nothing happened. He shook his head, trying again.
“It started with the street preachers,” he said. “Hundreds of them, marching on every city. All saying the same doomsday shit as always. World was dying. All coming to an end.”
“I haven’t seen anything like that.”
“Then there were storms,” he continued without skipping a beat. “Some would last for weeks. Others longer. Entire cities would be flooded or torn apart. Earthquakes causing monster waves along the east coast, sending shockwaves all the way to mainland Europe. Then, Yellowstone.”
“Yellowstone?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Lights out.”

Samuel was painting this apocalyptic vision of a world undone. Catastrophe after catastrophe. Hooded people marching the streets, screaming for the mercy of a mad god. But there was more to it.
“Then things stopped making sense. It’s as if the rules changed,” he continued. “Roads would stop leading home. Trees would change color. People turned twisted and corrupted. Like… one of our neighbors couldn’t eat anything but gunpowder. There was a woman just down the street who tried to kill anyone wearing glasses. It was… pandemonium.”
I didn’t say anything. What he was saying didn’t make any sense, but he was trying his best to keep his rambling coherent.
“The plants died. Trees too. The only thing that could grow in that environment were these twisted blue things that popped up out of nowhere. But people… people are what got twisted the most.”
He told me of these towering 7-foot-tall humanoid creatures that roamed the forests. Black as night – not even reflecting light. Arms reaching all the way to their knees. Elongated, inhuman things that all used to be someone he knew.

“The doomsayers all said the same thing,” he continued. “That God was a scared little boy, and that he was dying. Everything that was happening was just an expression of that ceaseless, bottomless, existential grief.”
Samuel looked back and forth, finally burying his face in his hands.
“It all broke down. Roads stopped leading anywhere. No power. No water. Julie changed. Ollie changed. Tobie made himself a mask and wandered off into the woods. Ira just… disappeared. And for… years? Has it been years? It’s just been me.”
“But you’re here, now,” I said. “And what you’re describing, it… it didn’t happen.”
“It happened,” he insisted. “Just not… here. But here.”
He tapped his finger on the single dollar bill.
“Somewhere, somehow, I must’ve taken a wrong turn. I slipped through something broken, and now I’m here. And… and he’s coming to bring me back. He doesn’t want anyone to leave.”
“Who?”
“Just! Just…” he chuckled. “Just a sad little boy who’s been told he’s going to die.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just sat with him for a while, holding his hand.

Before I left, Samuel got up from his chair. He looked at me, forcing himself to smile.
“If I go back, I’ll try not to… to be like them. I’ll try. And… and I’ll be the one to say something.”
He let out a painful little laugh, shaking his head.
“Maybe just a… hello.”

I left that day with more questions than answers. I couldn’t picture the world he’d lived through. Then again, how could it be true? None of it had happened. But what was he gaining from lying about it?
That was the last time I saw Samuel. A few days later, he went missing, as if he’d disappeared into thin air. I didn’t know what to think of it. There was nothing on the cameras – no one entering or leaving the building. No quick escapes, no clever plans. He’d just walked into his room and disappeared. Nothing left but a couple of moths fluttering about.
And for a while, that was it. That was the end of the story. I got busy looking for a new job, and all the little items given to me by Samuel was put away into a little box in my glove compartment. Life soldiered on, and no matter how many questions I had, there was no one around to answer them. Even the strange kid that’d been following me was, seemingly, gone.

A couple of months later, I was driving home from a friend’s place. I stopped at a four-way street, waiting for a couple of trucks to pass, when there was a knock on the passenger side window. I almost choked on my own spit. Scared me half to death.
Looking out, I could see that kid again. I hadn’t seen him for some time, and I quickly bounced between curiosity and downright anger.
“What do you want?” I yelled out.
There was no response. Instead, the door just opened. It’d been locked. As he opened the door, he pointed to the glove box.
“You want his things?” I asked. “Is that it?”
He nodded. I wanted to lash out, but there was something telling me I shouldn’t. Instead, I reached over, opened the glove compartment, and pointed to the box.
“Just take it and leave me alone,” I said. “Get it over with.”

He reached in and grabbed the box. So much effort for a couple of mementos. I turned my head back to face the road. The kid backed out. But of course, I had to get the last word in.
“Not even a thank you, huh?”
That made him pause. He looked at me, tilting his head. As he opened his mouth to speak, a moth fluttered out. Then another. And another.
Then – darkness.

What happened next is hard to describe. My memory of it is fragmented. It’s like trying to watch a buffering video, where long stretches of it are just nothing – but you know something was supposed to happen in-between.
Blink. I was sitting in my car. There was a dark blue sky. No clouds, no stars. Figures in the distance. An open field with blue flowers bending to a howling wind. A powerful stench of ammonia stinging my nostrils. Something to my immediate left, ripping the car door straight off the hinges.
Blink. Running. Ruins of a town. It seemed familiar, but there was barely anything left. My leg was bleeding. I was being followed. No matter where I turned, or where I ran, I seemed to end up at the same intersection.
Blink. A three-story building, brimming with life. Glimpses of arm-long antennae through the broken windows. Clickety-clack of bursting wings tapping against crumbling concrete. A loud warning shriek as something rubs its legs together; a call for prey.
Blink. Hiding in a tipped-over trash container. The rain has stopped in mid-air. Raindrops held in indefinite suspension. I suck water drops out of the air to quench my thirst. My hands are shaking from the blood loss.

Countless little images. Some in order, some not. I have no idea how much time passed. In the moment, it must’ve been much longer than I can remember. Days. Weeks, even. There’s no way to tell.
Blink. Walking through a barren field. It feels like walking through a dead forest, but there are no trees. Only those willingly impaled and wailing.
Blink. An abandoned booth by a broken highway. A sign offers phone calls, in exchange for “real teeth”. There are six sizes of pliers hanging on a wall within. All are bloodied – even the small ones.
Blink. The church that had burned down the night before had reappeared. The people inside, too. They couldn’t leave. Tonight, they would burn again.

Somewhere in this nightmarish puzzle-pieced fragment of nothing, there was a constant drive in me to get away. To get out. I knew that if I’d gotten there, I could get back home again. I just had no idea how. Maybe finding the kid. Asking. Begging. Something.
The last fragment of memory from that space was being cornered in a cellar. They were banging on the door. I’d tipped over a wardrobe to keep them out, but they weren’t going to stop. They were never going to stop. I couldn’t let them kill me again – not like that.
One of the Changed ones were coming. I don’t know what that means, or how I know the name, but I knew of it. There was a mirror, and I could see the signs. It stepped out. Seven feet tall, black as night. Elongated arms and neck. Barely a body at all – just a void space vaguely shaped like the remnants of a person.
Except this one felt… familiar. It was the first one to speak.
“H E L L O.”

Blink. Running. A cold hand. If I squeezed too hard, my fingers went straight through it. I had to keep up. He was showing me something.
Blink. They were flooding over the school bus, tipping it by their sheer numbers. Eruptions from the sewer grates. They were famished.
Blink. An open field. Sunflowers facing me, no matter where I turn. It’s not far.
Blink. I look back, as I’m pushed over the edge. He looks just like the rest of them. They aren’t angered by his betrayal.
They feel nothing, as I fall.

In February of 2017, I was found by the side of the road. I’d been gone for months. My car was too. I came back with nothing but the clothes on my back and countless scars. I’ve been told that I didn’t make any sense at first; I was just rambling nonsense. Or maybe it just sounded like nonsense to these people.
Over time, I forgot more and more of these fragmented images. And the less I remember, the more I can move on. Still, I’ve written them down over time, and they paint an ugly, insane picture of what I’d been going through. Some of which I, myself, have a hard time believing. Then again, I know myself well enough to see that there’s no point in lying.

I haven’t seen Samuel, or that strange kid ever since. I think this is all over, for now. There’s nothing left for me to give.
But even now, years later, I still wake up to that feeling at night. That there’s something wrong, or that I’m forgetting something. That there’s something near that I’m looking straight through, or past.
And every now and then, I hear the flutter of a moth’s wing, tapping against my bedroom window.
And I think I know what it wants.
It wants me to go back.

Introduction to Alternative History Scenario: Independent and Industrialized Algeria:

In this alternative history scenario, Algeria manages to ward off French and European colonialism, subsequently achieving industrialization while preserving its culture and religion.

The Pre-Colonial Context and Initial Resistance:

As we all know in the early 19th century, Algeria was a semi-autonomous province under the Ottoman Empire, with a society deeply rooted in its Islamic traditions and Berber-Arab culture, this doesn't change in this scenario. In this alternative scenario when France launched its invasion in 1830, the Algerians, under the leadership of Emir Abdelkader, who managed to unify various tribes and communities in a cohesive resistance movement in this timeline. Would be able to foster a sense of national identity among diverse ethnic groups, emphasizing the defense of Islam and the homeland. Utilizing guerrilla tactics, exploiting the rugged terrain, and establishing fortified strongholds, Abdelkader's forces would conducte effective hit-and-run attacks against the French who would be unable to adapt to such tactics in this timeline. Additionally, Abdelkader would establish successful diplomatic relations with neighboring countries and other Islamic states including Morocco, securing arms, supplies, and even volunteers to aid the resistance.
Berber piracy would play a significant role during this period. The Barbary pirates, operating from Algerian ports, would disrupt French maritime trade in the Mediterranean. This not only would provide resources and funds for the Algerian resistance but it would also divert French military attention. The piracy network, deeply integrated into the local economy, would facilitate the smuggling of arms and provisions vital for the ongoing conflict. However, the practice of slavery, which would be prominent in the Barbary States in this period, would pose a moral and political challenge. So to garner broader international support and modernize the society, Emir Abdelkader would initiate reforms to gradually abolish slavery, aligning with global humanitarian trends and strengthening Algeria’s moral stance which would allow it to gain larger international support in its struggle.
And as such international support would play a crucial role in sustaining Algerian resistance. The Ottoman Empire, seeking to maintain its influence in North Africa, provides military advisors and financial support, while Britain, motivated by its desire to limit French power and influence in north Africa, supplies Algeria with modern weapons and naval support. This external backing, combined with internal unity and strategic warfare, eventually forced France into a diplomatic stalemate, leading to the French recognition of Algeria’s autonomy in the 1850s. And thus Emir Abdelkader’s leadership transitioned from wartime governance to peacetime state-building, focusing on centralizing administration, integrating Islamic law with modern legal practices, and reforming the education system to promote literacy and technical skills.

Separation from the Ottoman Empire:

As Algeria established its sovereignty, tensions with the Ottoman Empire began to surface. The Algerian leadership grew increasingly frustrated with the Ottomans, viewing them as weak after their inability to providing adequate defense against the French threat. This sentiment was exacerbated by the declining power of the Ottoman Empire, which was struggling to maintain its territories and influence. Abdelkader and his advisors saw an opportunity to fully assert Algeria’s independence and distance themselves from what they perceived as an ineffective and distant sickly empire. By the 1860s, Algeria declared complete independence from the Ottoman Empire, severing the authority of the sultan over Algiers and focusing on building a self-sufficient state.

Transition to Sovereign State and Early Industrialization:

Realizing the necessity of industrialization to maintain sovereignty against the growing expansionism of Europe in Africa, Abdelkader’s government embarked on a comprehensive modernization program. The initial phase involved infrastructure development, such as building roads, railways, and ports to facilitate trade and movement. The British desiring a strong ally in the region especially one that can oppose the French help Algeria in it's modernization effort, and as such British engineering expertise and technology were instrumental in these projects. The new government also focused on exploiting Algeria’s abundant natural resources, including minerals and oil reserves. Strategic partnerships with European investors provided the necessary technology and capital for resource extraction and processing. Simultaneously, modern agricultural techniques were introduced to boost productivity, ensuring food security and providing surplus for export.
The industrialization process involved several key figures and institutions. Abdelkader would appoint several talented ministers and advisors, many of whom had been educated extensively in their fields, to oversee various aspects of the modernization effort. This strong governmental body would devise technologies and industrial practices, which would be adapted to fit Algeria’s unique context. Educational reforms would be a cornerstone of Algeria’s modernization strategy. New schools and universities would be established, blending traditional Islamic teachings with modern sciences and engineering. These institutions would produce a generation of skilled workers and intellectuals who contributed to the industrialization effort. Furthermore, the government incentivizes private enterprise, offering tax breaks and subsidies to businesses that invested in industrial ventures. This creates a vibrant entrepreneurial environment, leading to the establishment of factories, workshops, and research centers across the country.

Impact on Regional and Global Power Structures:

As Algeria industrialism continues, it emerges as a significant power in North Africa and the Mediterranean. It's new found economic strength turned it into an economic hub, attracting investments and labor from neighboring regions. Leveraging its economic influence, Algeria plays a crucial role in this timeline's regional politics, mediating conflicts and fostering cooperation among North African and Middle Eastern countries. On the global stage, Algeria establishes extensive trade networks with Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and emerging industrial powers like Japan. Its success against adversity inspires other colonized nations in Africa, Asia and the the new world, contributing to the rise of anti-colonial movements worldwide by providing a model of modernity without compromising cultural identity.

Modern-Day Borders of Algeria:

Without French colonization, Algeria's borders would reflect the territories recognized under the Ottoman Empire's jurisdiction in 1830. This means the modern-day borders might be slightly more fluid, particularly in desert regions where tribal territories were less formally defined. While the coastal and northern regions would remain similar to present-day boundaries, southern borders might be more influenced by agreements with neighboring Saharan tribes and states as well as surrounding Muslim states, potentially resulting in a slightly smaller southern and south western boundary than our own timeline's Algerian borders.

Present-Day Algeria in this Alternate History:

In this alternative scenario, contemporary Algeria stands as a mostly prosperous, industrialized nation with a rich cultural heritage. Its economy is diversified, with strong industrial, technological, and agricultural sectors. This Algeria would play a significant role in global trade, exporting high-value goods and technologies. The country would also likely experience a cultural renaissance, with flourishing arts, literature, and scientific achievements. This Algeria would boast a better more sophisticated education system, producing leading scholars and innovators. Politically, it would be characterized by stability and strong governance and a larger influence on the global stage. It would be a leading voice in the African Union and the Arab League, this more developed Algeria would strengthen regional development and cooperation, influencing the broader geopolitical landscape.
Note: this is the first time I tried creating an alternative history scenario so there might be some inaccuracies or major mistakes here.
So if you have any issues with this scenario feel free to voice your thoughts in the comment

I'm pissed off at the so called justice system and need to rant and I figure plenty of other pod listeners have experienced what a bastard it is and might relate. Feel free to share your story in the comments and we can all commiserate and bitch together.
I work the front desk of a motel and I love it. The owner pays a living wage, and I'm not required to smile in the face of Karen nonsense.
For the most part, the property is safe and quiet, but we have been having issues with this one particular loiterer for a few years now. In general, we really don't want people who are not guests or here with guests to be hanging around the property. He did more than just hang around though. He actively bothered guests, trying to bum money, cigarettes, alcohol and rides off of people while stinking drunk. He'd bother anyone but women were his favorite. He'd hit on them and try to get their numbers, even staff members. It didn't matter how many times he was told to leave, he'd keep coming back. Usually this happened at night, but he'd show up stumbling drunk during the day as well.
He's not homeless. When we figured out his name, we were able to determine he lives in an apartment complex a stone's throw away. We learned his name after an employee saw his mugshot, and that he'd been charged with trespassing and indecent exposure at a nearby business. Looking up his past criminal history, he's no stranger to run ins with the police. Criminal Mischief, False Imprisonment Of Child Under 13 Yoa, Child Abuse, Battery, Possession Of Drug Paraphernalia, Disorderly Conduct, Trespass In Occupied Structure, Possession Of Cocaine all from one encounter with police. Others include another count of indecent exposure, assault on a female and breaking and entering.
When we learned all this, we realized he was more than just a nuisance and we needed to try harder to get him to stay the hell away before he hurt one of our guests or a member of staff. Then he ended up being gone for awhile anyway. Jail? Another state? We don't know and I'm not that good at reading court records.
But he came back with a vengeance toward the end of 2022 and started zeroing in on our night auditor who was a very pretty but naïve girl which I guess he took as an invitation. When we learned about this she was told to just call the police whenever he'd show up so we could finally get him trespassed. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to any of you that the police never showed up in time to get him on the property, so they kept saying they couldn't do anything about it. Months later the planets aligned and he was finally trespassed.
This kept him away briefly. The night auditor left and a new one was hired who was not aware of the loiterer. Unfortunately for her, he took an even bigger shine to her, escalating to very sexual comments. We hadn't seen him for a bit, so we foolishly thought having him trespassed would work and hadn't warned her about him. One day last summer she is telling me about a guy who keeps coming around on her shift, and she doesn't think he's a guest. As she's describing him I realize she's talking about the loiterer. I tell her next time he comes around, just call the police.
To make a long story short (too late), by November he'd been arrested on our property three times for trespassing. And one time for communicating threats when he came screaming at the night auditor demanding to know why the general manager was at the hotel in the middle of the night. Clearly having him trespassed was not a deterrent. We kept being told to just keep calling because it would build a stalking case against him. Private security options around here are a joke, so instead the night auditor's boyfriend was given a free room during her shifts because her stalker would stay away when her boyfriend was around. But he would watch the property from somewhere because if her boyfriend went to run an errand or was away from the desk long enough, guess who would come creeping?
Don't worry, we finally got stalking charges against him though. Early November I was working a 16 hour shift because I'm a workaholic and I like OT. I was also pet sitting for my parents so as my day drew to a close I was absolutely running on fumes. Guess who turns up on the property bothering our guests again? We do the same song and dance where I call the police and they don't show up on time. The night auditor he likes was working that night and she arrived without her boyfriend, long story but he couldn't be there.
I desperately needed to get out of there because I had to be back in 8 hours and also needed to take care of the dog, but I could not in good conscience leave her by herself when I knew her stalker was prowling around. Sure enough, as I'm about to leave we see him on the security cameras heading toward the desk. The lobby has big glass windows and he walked by them, presumably looking to see if she was alone, but he kept going because I was here.
Something in me snapped. If the law wasn't enough to deter him from coming around, we'd have to find alternative methods to discourage him. I grabbed the pepper spray we have because of him and went outside to confront him like a lunatic. I shouted "hey!" to get him to turn around and I pepper sprayed him in the face as he was eating a cheeseburger and then I did it again. I got his face and his cheeseburger and he was so drunk he kept eating it as he cursed me and called me a crazy bitch, which is a fair thing to call the crazy bitch who just pepper sprayed you even though you deserved it.
I had dialed 911 on the way out the door, so they got to hear me yelling at him and told me to stop following him and I lied and said I wasn't following him, I was just yelling at him. In reality I was doing both though I only followed him to the edge of the property. The reality of the situation hit me at that point because I absolutely just attacked him and called the police on myself. My biggest concern in the moment though was the fact that my parents were out of town and there was no one else to take care of their dog.
Anyway, cop shows up like ten minutes later to take our statements and whatever. My eyes are stinging because I'd walked through a cloud of pepper spray, so I recommend gel not spray because it apparently doesn't do that. Fortunately I did not get in trouble and the cop was like huh, if your reaction to seeing him is to just immediately pepper spray him, perhaps we have enough for stalking charges. Yay, finally. They didn't catch him that night though.
And it turns out pepper spray wasn't that good of a deterrent. He was back bothering people two days later. Fortunately his favorite target was off for a few days and the other NA was working and called the police. They showed up and talked to him AND DIDN'T ARREST HIM. They said they couldn't because he wasn't on property when they arrived, which is bullshit because all they need is proof he was here which we have because we have security cameras and he has been busted another time that way. They just didn't want to do their job.
I started bringing my gun to work at that point in case the stalker decided he wanted revenge for the pepper spray. But honestly his brain is so liquor cooked I'm not even sure he remembers I did that.
Over the next couple days we say him a few more times, learned he had a warrant out for his arrest on the stalking and trespassing charge, but the cops kept not showing up in time. Then we didn't see him for a few weeks. I'd check on the local arrest records to see if he'd been arrested, and he finally was about 6 weeks after the incident. He was bonded out a couple days later and bond conditions included staying away from the hotel as well as my coworker and I.
After that he stayed off the property, but would sometimes shout at the NA from the sidewalk out front, telling her he loved her and would never hurt her. He never stuck around long enough that she felt it was worth calling the police over.
He would still hang around the fast food restaurant parking lot next door and bother guests whose rooms faced that direction. There wasn't anything we could do about it and they weren't interested in doing anything about it. This changed at the end of March when he was arrested there for being drunk and disorderly. He bonded out on that charge as well. We didn't see him around after that but knew better than to celebrate.
End of April, he gets arrested again this time at the gas station across the road. Drunk and disorderly, indecent exposure, and resisting an officer. Bonds out again.
Just a couple days later, the other day shift person spots him hanging around the property though he didn't stay long. She warned night shift about him when she left that night. Sure enough, he turns up again IN THE FUCKING LOBBY. NA scares him off with the stun stick that was also purchased because of him and calls the police. As is tradition, they don't arrive in time. But we have proof of him violating bond, so we're hopeful that maybe he'll get locked up and give us a longer break.
But he wasn't done with his chaos for the night, the NA learned the next morning when the police came back to talk to her. He went to hang around the gas station where he'd just been arrested. He was loitering around with another guy, generally being suspicious and touching themselves. Then comes the escalation no one saw coming (/s). He and his creep buddy attempt to sexually assault a woman at the gas station. Fortunately they fail, unfortunately buddy gets away, fortunately stalker does not.
But you wouldn't know about any of that looking at his charges. All you would see is that he was trespassing at the gas station, had an open container of alcohol, damaged a police car, resisted an officer, did a disorderly conduct, and he pissed on an officer. Nothing about the sexual assault, or trespassing at the hotel and violating bond. Also apparently pissing on a cop is a felony.
On the bright side, his bail was set to $25k and I kept checking to see if he had posted bond and he hadn't. So we were enjoying a reprieve. I checked every couple of days for updates on that, and when doing so today I noticed the status of the stalking case had changed from pending to disposed.
I looked into that and discovered the stalking charge had been dismissed because the victims and officer had not shown up to court. Showing up to court is kind of difficult to do WHEN NO ONE TELLS YOU YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. There was absolutely no communication with any of us regarding the stalking charge. Everything I did know I knew from arrest and court records which I barely know how to decipher.
We've done everything we were supposed to do, but fuck us I guess right? We're having to take our safety into our own hands because the justice system doesn't give a fuck. He's not getting whatever help he needs to not be a predator because it doesn't give a fuck.
I'm so fucking angry right now. We're going to call the DA on Monday, for all the good that is likely to do. Maybe the owner can band together with other business owners in the area and get something done about him since money talks. I don't fucking know.
I'm not scared of him for myself, I'm scared of what he might do to a guest or one of my coworkers. He wouldn't be the first pervert to attack a housekeeper, thinking they're an easy target. One guy flashed his dick at a housekeeper a couple years ago and the owner chased him down and held him at knife point until the cops showed up. At least that cop had the good nature to claim not to have heard the owner when he said he was going to cut the guy's dick off.
The cop the stalker pissed on probably deserved it.
How has the justice system fucked you over?

Hi. My bf and I are high school sweethearts. We’re 24 and have been together since we were 18. Always been extremely close. He joined the Army and got stationed in Korea. He’s been there for a year. Around the same time he left for basic training i moved states for a job. That job didn’t last for me and it was not an easy move for me at all and i dealt with a lot of loneliness, pain, missing him, and financial issues. I got to see him at graduation and it was amazing, we both missed each other so much. Since he’s been in Korea we have obviously been in contact frequently but he seemed to prioritize his friends and new connections and going out and partying until 8am or later. I would rarely go out ever and was honestly just by myself majority of the time. But still we were making it work, distance puts stress on a relationship regardless. I shared my location with him, gave him my instagram password without having either one of his. I did it to make him feel better about my situation as he expressed that he didn’t like i was living in a new state out of my moms house. I understood even though it wasn’t necessarily fair, but i love him to death and just wanted to make him feel better about it. It hasn’t been easy being away from him but i knew he would be coming back to the states and we could be together. I unfortunately wasn’t in the financial place to be able to go over there as i was looking for a new job. (i regret that move with all of me). We talked about marriage lots but he sometimes seemed unsure about it. Fast forward to about a week or so ago. He messaged this guy on my instagram that randomly shared a reel with me of a funny video. Unfortunately, i shared some dirty messages with this person (the lives across the country in another state). Not nudes or anything but that doesn’t make it any better and i will fully 100% admit that (cringe, i know). I never had any intentions of going to visit the guy or do anything with him physically. but i technically still cheated by engaging in something like that. I didn’t message the guy back again after that conversation whenever he would text me, i wouldn’t answer. But the damage has still been done. I don’t know, i feel like a fucking idiot. I know i fucked up and i genuinely feel horrible for what I did. So my bf pretended to be me, responded to the guy and somehow got him to send screenshots of the messages. I don’t know what all was said between them because he deleted the instagram dm thread. I wake up in the morning to my bf sending me a screenshot of one portion of the dms where the other guy sent the screenshot of the messages. He said nothing else just that alone. I obviously explained to him that i have never done anything with the guy and never would, that i was genuinely sorry and understood that i hurt him by doing that. We argued and argued and he told me that we should just probably not be together. Then he proceeded to tell me that he’s been talking to someone that he likes but kept it very vague and didn’t give me much more information than that when i asked. He said that i’m worried about the wrong thing. So i’m not exactly sure what their relationship consists of.. if they’re sleeping together, dating, etc i don’t know but i was the one in the wrong because he saw proof and i didn’t and had no idea he was involved with someone else. Anyways we ended up getting back to a decent place, not great he was still understandably angry. This was all happening as i was in the middle of packing up my apartment and driving my cat and i halfway across the country to move back home. I was super stressed and got sick in the middle of the move so our communication wasn’t great but i have always been the one to make more of an effort communicating and be patient as i know he’s busy. But he always has time to go out and get shit faced with his friends. This is long as fuck i’m sorry but basically moral of the story, now he blocked me on imessage, unfollowed me on snap and instagram, and won’t answer any of my messages on whatsapp. he answered like twice in the last week or so -ish and told me to shut the fuck up. I’m just so sad and don’t know how to go about handling this. He was basically my only and best friend so now i’m just grieving that loss but i know im at major fault. I’ve always been pretty codependent on him and now i just don’t know what to do. i don’t really need advice because i know i was wrong i just feel like i lost a major part of myself and i can’t stop thinking about what he’s doing, who this other girl is, if he’s going to just go be in a relationship with her and forget about me, and if he will ever talk to me again. It’s also just confusing because i messed up but he’s not exactly right either for hiding this new girl he’s been involved with from me. I don’t want the relationship to be over. Oh and also he’s still been logging into my instagram so it’s just all really confusing. Just sucks because i’m sure he’s having a wonderful time over there while i’m alone and depressed. Send help :(

(Copypasta from the Washington Post that I thought the group might find interesting.)
They called themselves the Wide Awakes. They are a lesson in building a political movement.
Opinion by Jon Grinspan May 14, 2024 at 5:30 a.m. CT Washington Post Jon Grinspan is curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and author of “Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War.”
They called themselves the Wide Awakes: one of America’s largest, weirdest and most consequential political organizations, now nearly forgotten. In Boston, many had escaped slavery. In St. Louis, many were radical German immigrants. In D.C., their rallies mixed Yankee federal clerks with sons of Southern families. In Connecticut, where they got started, they were working-class kids with shady political backstories. And in 1860, this diverse coalition of young Americans drew the line against slavery and help to elect Abraham Lincoln.
Their success can tell us a lot about cobbling together a coalition in a fractured, tribal, distrustful age.Clad in militaristic black capes, marching by torchlight through America’s cities, the Wide Awakes alarmed the Southern aristocracy of enslavers — which was exactly what they hoped to do. The movement drew its mammoth size and unnerving force from the resentment many Americans felt toward “Slave Power”: the wealthy planters who pushed to expand slavery and brutally suppressed opposition.
Started by a few kids barely old enough to vote in February 1860, the Wide Awakes were believed to be half a million strong by August of that year, with companies from Maine to California, Virginia to Kansas.
To understand how shocking this coalition was, we need to rethink the politics of antebellum America.
Instead of a nation split between the absolutes of Slavery and Freedom, most Americans fell somewhere on a spectrum between the two. Just 2 percent of the population in 1860 actually enslaved anyone, and those Americans trapped in slavery made up another 12 percent of the nation’s men, women and children. That left 86 percent of Americans who were neither enslavers nor enslaved. Some enthusiastically supported slavery, while others prayed for the practice to end. But most — especially among the large northern majority — found slavery distasteful while also objecting to what they saw as the radicalism of Abolition.
Caught in the middle, this majority bounced from party to party, explaining much of the tumult of mid-19th-century politics. Enslavers skillfully exploited the unsettled situation and spent the 1850s demanding more slave states, the right to keep enslaved people even in free states, the prohibition of speech and writing against slavery, and a requirement that free states assist in hunting fugitives.
This outsize influence was backed by real and threatened violence, from the plains of Kansas to the halls of Congress. “I have no objection to the liberty of speech,” sneered Alexander Stephens, the future vice president of the Confederacy, so long as “the liberty of the cudgel is free to combat it.”
The moderate majority began to feel as though slavery was at war with democracy, trampling upon their own rights along with the rights of the enslaved. Young people decided they’d had enough.
A gawky 19-year-old textile clerk, Edgar Yergason, started it all. “Fastidious” about his clothes, Eddie prepared for a torch-lit rally of the anti-slavery Republican Party on Feb. 25, 1860, by fashioning a shiny black cape to protect his new coat from dripping torch-oil. Yergason’s fellow clerks made capes, too. This oddly uniformed corps led a march through Hartford that night, while their friends beat back a mob of proslavery Democrats. Proud of their costumes and their fighting skills, Eddie’s friends met in a dingy third-floor apartment to formalize their association. After selecting a brawny 27-year-old leader for their “captain,” they cast about for a name. One fellow shouted: “Why not name it ‘Republican Wide Awakes?’” It was time that they wake up to the threat slavery posed to democracy.Their “army” of young civilians — clerks and farm boys and apprentice blacksmiths — spread from coast to coast. Uniting in “companies” drilled by “captains,” young people joined together, energized by this militaristic sense of awakening. In an age of rowdy, boozy politics, the Wide Awakes stood out for their stoic, silent midnight marches, not exactly fun but stirring and spectacular. In an age of chaos, their discipline sent a political message.
Wide Awake companies fought as bodyguards for Republican anti-slavery speakers, escorting Lincoln and many others. Bloodied young men, still in their signature capes and caps, sat onstage at rallies as proof of the antidemocratic forces aligned against them.
This anger joined strange bedfellows. Before 1860, teetotaling Yankee abolitionists disliked beer-drinking German radicals, who hated Know Nothing gang members, who shunned African American fugitives, who distrusted antislavery Southerners. But a shared enmity toward the Slave Power united them all, what historian Henry Adams later called “the systemic organization of hatreds” at the root of politics. Lewis Hayden, who had escaped slavery in Kentucky, led a company of Black Wide Awakes in Boston in the same movement as the nastily racist Frank Blair Jr. in St. Louis. Some Wide Awakes were truly admirable, others quite distasteful, but all were united under Yergason’s cape design.
The Wide Awakes claimed to have “no warlike intentions,” but Democrats were skeptical. In the North, Democratic newspapers legitimately worried that “politico-military” clubs would mean “our elections will become pitched battles.” Across the South, panicked newspapers spread wild, violent rumors. One ex-governor told Virginians that they would soon be “cut to pieces by the Wide Awakes.”
On Election Day, club members woke up communities with 5 a.m. fireworks, then marched to the polls. Turnout was high: 81 percent. By the end of the day, Lincoln had won an unusual victory, taking nearly 60 percent of the electoral vote but less than 40 percent of the popular vote in a four-way race. This awkward mandate meant that for all the Republicans talk of “majority rule,” no one could really bring unity, or even basic agreement, in such a fractured land. But the Wide Awakes lit Lincoln’s plurality with torchlight, until the movement’s shadow loomed larger than the actual Republican Party.
Many agreed with the New York Tribune’s assessment that the Wide Awakes were “the most imposing, influential and potent political organization, which ever existed in this country.”
As the nation spiraled toward the Civil War, Wide Awake clubs armed as paramilitary forces, who did some of the first fighting in the conflict. And their members enlisted in huge numbers in the Union Army that finally killed slavery.
Today, progressive activists online sometimes name-check the Wide Awakes, styling them as woke heroes from the past. But they were really something more complex — and more thrilling: a genuine coalition of people who couldn’t agree on much but who marched side-by-side against the greatest threat to democracy.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about frustration over not finding high-paying jobs, especially when you don’t have the skills or experience. I totally get it—it’s tough out there. But here’s the reality: high-paying jobs aren’t just handed out. You have to earn them.
We all have to pay our dues. Complaining about your situation or playing the victim won’t get you anywhere. You’re dealt the cards you’re dealt, and it’s up to you to make the best of them.
I want to share a bit of my story. Interned at a tech company in college and worked for 4 years and decided that it wasn’t for me. At 27, I took a job for $7.50/hr living at home with my parents for a year until I went to grad school. It wasn’t glamorous, but I saw it as a stepping stone. I used that job to network, build skills, and prove myself. Now, I make way more than that because I worked hard and stayed patient.
Here’s my advice:

1. Drop the Ego: Understand that no one is entitled to anything. High-paying jobs aren’t a given. Be humble and willing to start at the bottom.
2. Start Somewhere: Take any job you can get. It might not be your dream job, but it’s a start. Every job offers valuable experience.
3. Build Skills: Use your current job as an opportunity to learn. Take on extra responsibilities, seek out new tasks, and continue your education through online courses or workshops.
4. Prove Yourself: Show your worth through your dedication, reliability, and hard work. Make yourself indispensable in your current role, and opportunities will come.
5. Be Patient: Success takes time. Keep working hard, stay focused, and be patient. Your efforts will eventually pay off.

Remember, no one is coming to save you. If you want a better future, you have to make it happen. Get off your ass and start building the life you want.

I'm interested in playing VR games in Steam, like job simulator, rec room, VRchat, War Thunder, BeamNG.drive (WIP), Beat Saber, Fly Dangerous and many many other Steam games (VsupportVR) that I still want to discover.
I'm very new to this community, and concept, and I don't even know if the Valve Index is the best option (after some research I saw that it might be a little bit old, but that shouldn't matter, right?). I prefer to play only Steam games and since the Valve Index is in the steam store, makes things easier for me. But that doesn't matter much.
I came here to ask a couple questions:
What is the best/most apropriate VR Headset for PC, preferably for Steam games?
Is the Valve Index a good choice? Pros and Cons?
What are the base stations for? Are they necessary to play at least the games listed above? (It all gets a bit too pricey with them included).
Is my PC able to run any of this Hardware (and Software)? Probably not, lets see...
Here are my specs:
GPU: ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core Processor 3.40 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME A320M-K
Monitor: 144 Hz
All the help is appreciated, thank you.

I'm interested in playing VR games in Steam, like job simulator, rec room, VRchat, War Thunder, BeamNG.drive (WIP), Beat Saber, Fly Dangerous and many many other Steam games (VsupportVR) that I still want to discover.
I'm very new to this community, and concept, and I don't even know if the Valve Index is the best option (after some research I saw that it might be a little bit old, but that shouldn't matter, right?). I prefer to play only Steam games and since the Valve Index is in the steam store, makes things easier for me. But that doesn't matter much.
I came here to ask a couple questions:
What is the best/most apropriate VR Headset for PC, preferably for Steam games?
Is the Valve Index a good choice? Pros and Cons?
What are the base stations for? Are they necessary to play at least the games listed above? (It all gets a bit too pricey with them included).
Is my PC able to run any of this Hardware (and Software)? Probably not, lets see...
Here are my specs:
GPU: ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core Processor 3.40 GHz
RAM: 32 GB
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME A320M-K
Monitor: 144 Hz
All the help is appreciated, thank you.