So I’ve made a separate acct to post this bc I’m worried abt the consequences if anyone ik somehow found out abt this.(21NB) grew up in a toxic household, I’m audhd, I’m pretty sure my step dad is as well bc he’s heavily dyslexic and adhd but I’m also pretty sure he’s a narcissist, my mother is also most likely autistic for various reasons but more importantly I believe she’s a narc by proxy.
I was horrible with school, infact I ended up dropping out. I always finished a school year with at least 2 failing classes, and was a straight c student (when I wasn’t failing). Throughout my life I was gaslit and manipulated consistently into thinking I wasn’t trying hard enough and they were “convinced” I was lazy, entitled, and overall selfish, I was even called a “little narcissist” a couple times, even tho my whole life they implied it. Any time I’d give a reason relating to my autism as to why I wasn’t “pulling my weight” it’d by labeled as an excuse every single time without fail, this would frequently lead to us fighting and meltdowns on both of our parts bc of my stimulation issues and the fact they’re yellers. I was never able to get my struggles heard anywhere near how much I needed if at all bc they’d either use my social difficulties against me mid “debate” or “argument”; any time I took to long to respond I was thinking of a lie, if I had to look up to stim I was rolling my eyes, if I wasn’t making eye contact enough or accidentally “embarrassed” them somehow I wasn’t trying hard enough to socialize, etc etc.
All the accumulated manipulation, betrayal, and overall abuse led to, ocd, ocpd, osdd 2, and cptsd. I can’t even hear or read the word “narcissist” bc it’s heavily triggering, I have an obsessive hatred for anything that could be conceived as selfish, social skills got worse, etc. in 2021 I met a guy and we started dating, low and behold, he ended up being a narcissist too, how do I know this? Well, I moved out with this man a little over a year later not really noticing any truly alarming and it stayed like that until I told him whilst I was a work that I wanted to kms (still do lol), he then texted my mother and I had a talk with her about it after work. When I got home, I immediately noticed he looked upset and annoyed. I looked at him said “what” and fell face first on to my bed. Silence… he then asks “did you say that bc of me?”. I then said “what” again In which case he dismissed it said “nvm” and if I remember correctly he MIGHT have apologized I don’t necessarily remember, but he didn’t show much remorse at all after. This was all fall of 2022.
Fast forward January 2023 he “breaks up with me” for the first time, I then beg, and he accepts the beg, this was bc he “didn’t know if he could do it” (he found me embarrassing around his friends and I have trouble keeping up around the house but its NEVER a pigsty). He does this a few more times over the span of a few months and eventually it actually happens and I’m convinced it’s all me fault, I was a big and glorious break up with a couple days full of screaming crying and negotiating for the next attempt, that never came to be. A couple weeks after the breakup I find out about npd for the first time, this was the same day my ocd skyrocketed until further notice (notice still hasn’t been given) and I found out right then and there my ex, and my parents were like this.
While we were together we signed a lease on the house him, I, and 2 of his friends live today. And a few months into us living here he ends up having a full blown psychosis, that consisted of a week straight of him yelling “don’t worry you’re just like Steve Jobs” “its ok you’re just like Steve Jobs” for like 5 minutes at least every hour, barely feeding his cats, forcing his friends to re-write a Taylor swift song to fit him and his new bf, singing said Taylor swift song at the top of his lungs every chance he got, talking very loud, etc (also he got a 2nd cat that he couldn’t either financially or mentally take care of close to a month b4 this incident). A couple months later his brother dies and he goes to Louisiana for the wake and funeral (LLKCW🙏) and I haven’t seen him since a couple weeks after the psychosis incident (3 months).
So now here I am living in the house where I was promised a happy life, my roommates don’t give a fuck about anything that happened between us, I don’t wanna live with them in a couple months, I don’t wanna move back in with my parents, I don’t have a job, any money, serotonin, I cant b homeless (obviously), I’m worried about my mom, I’m worried my step dad is gonna snap one day bc I’m not there for him to take out his little antisocial tendencies and idk if my mother would allow him too take them out on her however my step dad is built like a wall and they own guns, I want my parents to fully realize the sheer damage they caused me but I don’t wanna see the looks on their faces, I’m scared they’ll hurt themselves or other people or each other, and I wanna leave this big fat fucking lie of a life I was promised behind and never look back.
W T F DO I DO

I'm using Node.js with Puppeteer for web scraping on LinkedIn Navigator. However, I'm getting blocked after scraping around 30 to 40 pages. My goal is to scrape at least 80-100 pages.
I've also built a front-end solution where I manipulate the DOM, take the URL, loop through the DOM elements, and handle pagination. To make it appear more human-like, I slowed down the DOM manipulation process. However, I still face the same blocking issue after around 35-40 pages.
I've tried using proxies as well, but the issue persists in Node.js. Additionally, most web scraping API and SDK solutions, such as Zenscrape, ScraperAPI, and many others, don't support LinkedIn Navigator.
Does anyone have any tips or strategies to prevent getting blocked? Any advice on how to achieve this goal would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Note, I have never read the CES letter so I don't know what's in it or the level of detail provided. I don't know if any of the following overlap that
So I can call it CES letter TWO? It didn't take long...
Sure, here is a more detailed letter with at least 40 additional concerns about Mormonism in the style of the CES Letter:

Additional Concerns about Mormonism

Introduction

Dear CES Director,
After extensive study and reflection on my previous questions, I have encountered additional concerns about Mormonism that I feel compelled to address. These concerns further challenge the foundations of my faith and raise significant questions about the history, doctrines, and practices of the LDS Church.

Pre-Existence and Plan of Salvation

1. Pre-Existence Doctrine: The concept of a pre-mortal existence is unique to Mormonism and lacks substantial scriptural support outside of LDS scriptures. How can we reconcile the LDS teachings on pre-existence with the broader Christian theological framework, which does not include this doctrine?
   
2. Plan of Salvation: The LDS Plan of Salvation is complex and differs significantly from traditional Christian views of salvation. Why does the plan include the necessity of temple ordinances and exaltation, which are not mentioned in the Bible?
   

Modern Prophecies and Revelations

1. Modern Revelations: Why have there been fewer public, significant revelations in recent decades compared to the early days of the church? How do we understand the role of modern prophets if new revelations are infrequent or administrative rather than doctrinal?
   
2. Changes in Revelation: The discontinuation of some practices (e.g., blood atonement, Adam-God theory) that were taught by early prophets raises questions about the consistency and infallibility of modern revelations. How can we trust that current teachings will not also be revised or abandoned?
   
3. Second Anointing: The practice of the second anointing, an ordinance reportedly given to select members, is not openly discussed or taught in the general membership. Why is there a lack of transparency about this ordinance, and how does it fit within the broader doctrine of the church?
   

Scriptural Integrity

1. Book of Moses: The Book of Moses contains unique doctrines and stories not found in the Bible. How can we verify the authenticity of these additional scriptures when there is no external historical or archaeological evidence to support them?
   
2. Joseph Smith Translation (JST): The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible includes significant changes and additions. Why do we not use the JST as the official Bible of the LDS Church, and why are some JST changes not included in the LDS edition of the Bible?
   
3. Apocrypha: The LDS Church's stance on the Apocrypha is inconsistent. Why are certain apocryphal texts included in LDS teachings, while others are disregarded?
   

Gender and Sexuality

1. Gender Roles: The rigid gender roles prescribed by the church, including the exclusion of women from the priesthood, do not align with modern views on gender equality. How can the church reconcile its teachings with contemporary understanding of gender and equality?
   
2. LGBTQ+ Issues: The church's stance on LGBTQ+ issues, including opposition to same-sex marriage and the treatment of LGBTQ+ members, has caused significant pain and alienation. How can the church's teachings be reconciled with principles of love, acceptance, and equality?
   
3. Heavenly Mother: The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is taught but not openly discussed or included in worship. Why is there such reticence to fully acknowledge and incorporate Heavenly Mother into church teachings and practices?
   

Historical Inaccuracies

1. Pioneer Accounts: Some pioneer stories and accounts of early church history have been found to be embellished or inaccurate. How can we trust the historical narratives taught in church when there are discrepancies and potential exaggerations?
   
2. Manifest Destiny: The church's historical involvement in westward expansion and Manifest Destiny raises ethical questions about its impact on Native American populations. How does the church address these historical injustices?
   
3. Mountain Meadows Massacre: The church's role and response to the Mountain Meadows Massacre remain controversial. Why was there a delay in addressing this tragedy, and how does the church account for the actions of its leaders involved in the event?
   
4. First Vision Variants: The multiple accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision contain discrepancies. How can the church reconcile these differences and present a consistent narrative?
   

Ecclesiastical Authority

1. Church Leadership: The process of selecting church leaders, including apostles and prophets, is not transparent. How can members have confidence in the leadership selection process when it lacks transparency and democratic principles?
   
2. Financial Transparency: The church's financial dealings, including the use of tithing funds and investments, are not fully transparent. How can members be assured that their contributions are being used appropriately without detailed financial disclosures?
   
3. Role of Women: Women's roles in leadership are limited. How can the church address the growing demand for gender equality in leadership and decision-making roles?
   

Doctrinal Changes

1. Temple Changes: Significant changes to temple ceremonies have occurred over time. How can these changes be explained if the ceremonies are supposed to be divinely revealed and unalterable?
   
2. Priesthood Ban: The priesthood ban on black members was lifted in 1978, but the reasons for its implementation remain unclear. How does the church justify this historical policy?
   
3. Word of Wisdom: The interpretation and application of the Word of Wisdom have evolved. How can these changes be reconciled with the claim of direct revelation?
   
4. Tithing: The requirement for tithing as a determinant of temple worthiness can place financial strain on members. How does the church address the ethical implications of this requirement?
   

Church Culture and Practices

1. Correlation Program: The church's Correlation Program has centralized and standardized teachings, sometimes at the expense of local autonomy. How does this impact the diversity of thought and practice within the church?
   
2. Church Discipline: The process of church discipline, including excommunication, is often opaque and can be perceived as punitive. How can this process be made more transparent and compassionate?
   
3. Seminary and Institute: The curriculum in seminary and institute programs often emphasizes conformity and discourages critical thinking. How can these programs foster a more open and inquisitive approach to faith?
   

Social Issues

1. Political Involvement: The church's involvement in political matters, such as Proposition 8 in California, raises questions about the separation of church and state. How does the church navigate its political engagement while respecting diverse political views among members?
   
2. Humanitarian Efforts: While the church engages in humanitarian efforts, the extent and transparency of these efforts compared to its financial resources are often questioned. How can the church ensure that its humanitarian work is sufficiently robust and transparent?
   
3. Mental Health: The emphasis on perfection and worthiness can contribute to mental health struggles among members. How is the church addressing the mental health needs of its members?
   

Education and Information

1. Church History Curriculum: The curriculum often omits or glosses over controversial aspects of church history. How can the church ensure that members receive a comprehensive and honest education about their faith?
   
2. Intellectual Freedom: Scholars and intellectuals who question or critique church teachings can face censure or excommunication. How can the church create a more open environment for scholarly inquiry and debate?
   

Ethical Concerns

1. Transparency in Revelation: The process by which revelations are received and communicated to the church membership lacks transparency. How can members have confidence in the revelatory process?
   
2. Historical Revisionism: There are instances where church history has been revised or sanitized. How can the church reconcile this with a commitment to truth?
   
3. Apologetics: The methods and approaches of LDS apologetics can sometimes be seen as defensive and dismissive of legitimate concerns. How can the church foster a more open and respectful dialogue with critics?
   

Interfaith Relations

1. Exclusivity Claims: The claim that the LDS Church is the "only true church" can strain relations with other faith communities. How can the church promote interfaith respect and cooperation while maintaining its doctrinal claims?
   
2. Missionary Methods: Some missionary methods, including the use of high-pressure tactics and the emphasis on baptism numbers, can be problematic. How can the church ensure that its missionary efforts are ethical and respectful?
   

Additional Scriptural Concerns

1. Lectures on Faith: Once included in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lectures on Faith were later removed. Why were these foundational teachings removed, and what does this say about the consistency of LDS doctrine?
   
2. Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon: The Book of Mormon mentions a sealed portion that has yet to be revealed. How does the church address questions about the content and significance of this sealed portion?
   

Rituals and Ordinances

1. Endowment Ceremony: Changes to the endowment ceremony over time raise questions about its divine origin and consistency. How can these changes be explained?
   
2. Baptisms for the Dead: The practice of proxy baptisms for the dead is unique to the LDS Church. How can this practice be reconciled with broader Christian teachings on salvation?
   

Philosophical and Theological Issues

1. Nature of God: The LDS teaching that God was once a man and that humans can become gods differs significantly from traditional Christian theology. How can these teachings be reconciled with biblical scripture?
   
2. Eternal Progression: The concept of eternal progression, including the potential for humans to become gods, is unique to Mormonism. How can this doctrine be substantiated?
   

Community and Cultural Issues

1. Cultural Homogeneity: The church's culture can often feel homogeneous and exclusionary to those from diverse backgrounds. How can the church create a more inclusive environment?
   
2. Youth Programs: The emphasis on strict moral codes...
   

Introduction: The world of finance is often characterized by its unpredictability, where even the smallest shift in sentiment or regulatory decision can have a monumental impact on asset prices. One such recent example is the sudden flip in the odds of Ether ETF approval, soaring from 25% to 85% within a mere four days. This unexpected turn of events has left short sellers reeling, particularly evident in the case of Marathon Digital Holdings ($MARA), which has witnessed a staggering short squeeze, which will propell its stock price to over $40 in just a few days.
Understanding the Ether ETF Approval Odds: The anticipation surrounding the approval of an Ether Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) has been a focal point for investors in the cryptocurrency market. The prospect of an Ether ETF represents a significant milestone in mainstream acceptance and adoption of cryptocurrencies, particularly Ethereum, the blockchain platform underlying Ether. However, the regulatory landscape surrounding cryptocurrencies has been fraught with uncertainty, with concerns over market manipulation, investor protection, and adherence to regulatory standards.
The sudden shift in the odds of Ether ETF approval can be attributed to various factors. Regulatory statements, industry developments, and geopolitical events can all influence market sentiment and regulatory expectations. For instance, positive remarks from regulatory authorities or indications of increasing institutional acceptance can boost the likelihood of approval. Conversely, regulatory crackdowns, security breaches, or adverse market conditions can dampen prospects for approval.
Short Sellers Caught Off Guard: Short sellers, who profit from betting on a decline in asset prices, often rely on careful analysis of market dynamics and regulatory developments to inform their trading strategies. However, the rapid shift in the odds of Ether ETF approval caught many short sellers off guard. Those who had positioned themselves for a prolonged wait or outright rejection of the ETF found themselves on the wrong side of the trade as sentiment swiftly turned bullish.
The sudden surge in optimism surrounding Ether ETF approval triggered a domino effect in the market, as investors rushed to adjust their positions to capitalize on the newfound optimism. Short sellers, facing mounting losses as the price of Ether and related assets soared, were forced to cover their positions by buying back shares at higher prices, further fueling upward momentum in the market.
Impact on Marathon Digital Holdings ($MARA): Marathon Digital Holdings, a prominent cryptocurrency mining company, found itself at the center of this whirlwind of market activity. As a proxy for the broader cryptocurrency market, $MARA experienced a dramatic surge in its stock price as short sellers scrambled to cover their positions. The convergence of bullish sentiment surrounding Ether ETF approval and the inherent volatility of cryptocurrency-related stocks created a perfect storm for a massive short squeeze.
In just a few days, Marathon Digital Holdings saw its stock price skyrocket to over $40, defying expectations and leaving short sellers nursing significant losses. The relentless buying pressure from both retail and institutional investors, coupled with the panic-induced buying from short sellers, propelled $MARA to dizzying heights, underscoring the unpredictable nature of the cryptocurrency market and the perils of short selling in such an environment.
Conclusion: The sudden flip in the odds of Ether ETF approval, from 25% to 85% in a matter of days, serves as a stark reminder of the inherent volatility and unpredictability of the cryptocurrency market. Short sellers, who had bet against this sudden surge in optimism, found themselves blindsided by the rapid reversal in sentiment, resulting in a massive short squeeze for Marathon Digital Holdings and other related assets associated with bitcoin. As investors navigate this dynamic landscape, they must remain vigilant and adaptable to evolving market conditions, recognizing that regulatory decisions and market sentiment can swiftly reshape the investment landscape.
MARA 29c expiry this friday. also loading more FDS tomorrow prob full porting

This post is in response to this post which several people spoke about regarding its flaws. I feel the need to highlight on a community level the reality of the situation on the ground in Sordland and express just how dysfunctional Sordland is as a Democracy. I will start out by saying I find the comparison of it being a better Democracy than the United States laughable, and that I actually think the United States has many nuanced answers to issues facing a multicultural society that has allowed it to function as the worlds oldest Democracy. Of course, it has had issues in the past that have been subject to extensive reform, but there's the difference: there's been reform.
Sordland is controlled by two distinct political grounds, and an additional one on the fringe: The Old Guard, the Oligarchs, and the Reformists to an extent. The game tells you this explicitly by placing them in the faction screen. The Old Guard represent the political interests of the former Sollist regime, and by extension your own party the USP. The Oligarchs represent the business interests of the country, the interests of the former Alphonso regime, and in a nuanced way, the ideals of liberal democracy. The reformists are a much less powerful group, but represent a more modern political ideal of social democracy.
These three groups battle for control of the government, with much of the power still consolidated within the old guard. The shadow of Soll looms large on Sordland, and his influence is still felt even to the starting point of the Rayne Presidency. It is a reality of the political situation on the ground that it is much easier to push for Sollenomics than for free market ideals. You have the support of your party behind you, as well as the NFP. Many of your ministers are either indifferent to it, are more focused on social policy, or are just abjectly in favor of it such as Lillias. The only opposition you will receive is from the Oligarchs, who use soft power to try to oppose you. This, in a Sollenomics run, doesn't lend to much other than if you are bad at managing the economy an independent crash separate from their actions. This control over the political thought of Sordland, and the economic situation, lends itself towards authoritarianism. I use the key word "lends" to expressly emphasize that it doesn't have to infringe on peoples personal freedoms, but that because Sollenomics lends itself towards state control, there will be a temptation to take further control of the power bases of the country.
Now, I know authoritarianism is a bit of a loaded term, so I want to give the proponents of sollenomics their fair shake. There is an excellent video on the Ideology of Mr. House in Fallout New Vegas by Soup Emporium that I think explores the ideas of what a functional authoritarian state looks like really well by comparing New Vegas to Singapore within the real world. I think that comparison is very apt here, so I suggest everyone else take a look at it as well. In essence, the functional authoritarian state exercises control over the functions of the state in such a way that doesn't impede on personal freedoms. As long as personal freedoms are protected, often times people are willing to give up certain political protections in favor of a functioning and planned economy ruled by the benevolent leader. The game expresses this very well if you look at the Soll Administration and its history. Under Soll, there was a great economic boom that served to make Sordland a regional power. This was due to the centralization of the economy under Soll and his ability to control its many functions. However, while Soll exercised control over much of the economy, he also exercised control over a lot of the culture and personal freedoms of its citizens. During the Soll era, the Bludish people were harshly discriminated against, much of the state was culturally centralized over the cult of personality of Soll, and many personal freedoms are not sufficiently protected by the Supreme Court or the executive branch. Because of an improper balance of powers, and the wants of the man on top outclassing the personal wants of the people, the ideal of the authoritarian regime begins to crack, leading to the loss of Soll and the rise of Alphonso.
Much of the reasons Soll was even able to gain so much power was because he wrote the Constitution to allow him to do so. The Sollist constitution places a significant amount of power within the executive and the Supreme Court. The legislature, by proxy, is given very little power to actually exercise political control. Anything they pass can be vetoed by the president, and alongside Judicial review being able to smack down almost anything they pass due to the Supreme Court's complete immunity, they also can't change anything on a Constitutional level to check the other two powers because the Supreme Court reviews all constitutional changes before they are passed. Because the Supreme Court is hand picked by the President without even a say from the legislature, Soll was able to consolidate power within his branch continue to control much of the Sordish state long after he left office.
Many of you may be now thinking, "this sounds a lot like the United States," which I would argue is a very surface level way of looking at power balance within the country. Yes, much of the names are the same and there are similar motifs, but that is because this game heavily bases their politics and constitution around the Turkish constitution before it was reformed which itself borrowed its constitutional ideals from the United States. The reality is that the United States has a functional checks and balance system that prevents authoritarianism, and Sordland does not.
I am not going to get political or compare this to the modern day. Instead, I am going to explain the functionality of the balance of powers within the United States, and argue how they vastly differ from the Sordish Constitution. I am then going to argue how those balance of powers functionally allow for a democracy, even if it is flawed, and how Sordland is actually a authoritarian regime cosplaying as a democracy at the start of the Rayne Presidency.
To begin, Congress holds legislative authority to decide what laws to write. There is no Presidential decree system within the United States as there is in Sordland. Only Congress can write laws, and the President must follow them. An executive order only has the "force of law" in that it is the execution of the laws passed by Congress. If it is not within the scop of the law passed by Congress, it is considered ultra vires and thus unconstitutional. Congress, having the ability to decide what laws to pass, might use this power to consolidate their power within their branch and rule a dictatorial committee. As such, the United States gave the President a veto power in order o exercise a check on Congressional power. This veto power allows the President to reject a law passed by Congress in a similar function to the assent of the King in the United Kingdom. However, unlike in the United Kingdom, and unlike in Sordland, this veto can be overruled by a 2/3rds majority within Congress. This is so that the President himself can't exercise abject control over the laws that pass and functionally legislate from the executive by rejecting everything that Congress proposes to limit his power.
This system, and this is hard to accept for many people, creates gridlock. That is a function, not a glitch. The goal is to ensure that no one person exercises too much power within the United States political system that they can gain control over the total function of the State. It requires there be a consensus between two separate legislatures, and the President, in order for political change to take place. It also prioritizes compromise and forces sides to come to the bargaining table instead of pushing through legislation that may favor a slim majority. In short, it gives the minority in a government power, when most systems let the majority run rampant.
Alongside this, there is the Supreme Court. The third check on the power of the legislature and the executive. If the system of government is going to essentially write gridlock into its system to preserve freedom ,it must as a result have a way of resolving conflicts. This is where the Supreme Court comes in. Just like in Sordland, the Supreme Court of the United States has the power of judicial review. The purpose of Judicial review is to determine what the law is, and then determine if it is being applied correctly. This power serves as a mediation system between the legislature and the executive, and ensures that if either steps out of line, the other has recourse. Of course, the Supreme Court in the United States is appointed by the President, however, they must be confirmed by the Senate in order to become a justice. This allows both parties to have a say on who the referees are, and ensures that unlike in Sordland, power can't be consolidated into a particular loyalist power block that will side with one side no matter what.
Notably, the Supreme Court in Sordland also has the power to reject constitutional amendments from the legislature. This appears to be an attempt to check the power of the legislature, but the reality is that the legislature in Sordland has absolutely no power in the first place. It can only create laws with the approval of the president, and can only change the constitution with the approval of the Supreme Court. Unlike in the United States where the legislature can impeach both these branches if they feel they are not exercising their duties correctly, the Grand National Assembly has no functional way of getting rid of the President, or the members of the Supreme Court. They are in reality as powerful as the legislative body in Rizia, and no one ever notices.
I mentioned it before, but another important check on the power of any one branch is the ability of the legislature to impeach. This is a political question and is entirely the purview of the House and Senate of the United States to determine when impeachment is necessary. It allows for the legislature to get rid of any person they feel is consolidating power, and ensures that each branch can functionally control the impulses of another branch. This does not exist in Sordland. The executive wields absolute power to control much of the affairs of Sordland and are impeachable by the Supreme Court, not the legislature. Because they decide who is on the Supreme Court, it once again allows for consolidation of power just as with Soll. The country of Sordland calls itself a democracy, but it is a functioning dictatorship by the time of President Rayne, and his ability to consolidate power is a obvious problem.
These are not the traits we see in the United States. The United States is not unitarian like Sordland, but also has a second check on federal power: the powers of the States. While there is much to joke about when it comes to "states rights" in the context of the United States Civil War, the reality of the situation is the federalist principles of the United States additionally restrict the ability of the federal government to exercise control over every aspect of the country. Unlike in Sordland where the President may exercise power over pretty much anything within the country, and there appears to be no enumerated powers of the national government, the Federal government has no actual general policing power within the United States. They have the Commerce clause, which allows them widely the ability to regulate the functions of the economy both interstate, and to a wide extent intrastate, but it does not, for example, allow them to demand a state do a specific thing. In fact, they are actually limited by the 10th amendments anti-commandeering doctrine from instructing states to create specific laws. They can to some extent incentivize them to do so, but if it becomes too coercive the Supreme Court has in the past struck it down. Additionally, the Constitution gives power of the federal government both to the people, as well as to the states. The House is the proportional body of the federal government that has a proportional seat by population. Conversely, the Senate acts as a check on the power of populism by giving power to the states which function as regional microcosms of different cultures within the country. While the senate has the power of advise and consent, the power to approve treaties, and a few others, the house importantly has the power of the purse, or the ability to control spending. These vastly different powers must come together to pass a bill that is approved by both the people, and the cultures of the United States. This allows the minority to exercise protections against the majority, and ensure that they are at least heard in conversation, not just ignored.
This does not exist in Sordland. The Unicameral legislature of Sordland allows the popular whims of the government to function without any regard for the minorities within the country. the USP can, as the majority holder of the GNA, pass legislation unchecked by the other smaller parties. Confusingly, the NFP is able to pass several pieces of legislation targeting religious and ethnic minorities, but that is because their interests align with the conservative power block within the USP. As a result, they are effectively an extension of the USP, not a counterbalance to it. Additionally, while regions exist in Sordland, they exercise no power and do not serve as roadblocks to the power of the President. Your minister for education, for example, can completely reform the education system even in a place like Gruni, where Soll's influence controls the education of the region. Your minister for Health can enforce vaccine mandates throughout the country over the objection of the conservative population centers throughout the country whose only way of checking the power of the president is not through their regional legislatures, which I don't think even exist, but through a vote for a new President. Conversely, whatever you believe about these policies, in the United States it would be much harder for the President to enact these policies either through the DOE or the DHHS. While not impossible, the regions are still given a say and allowed to exercise some control over politics as a minority.
All of this to say that Sordlands checks and balances are non existent, and their governmental system lends itself to authoritarianism, not democracy. With all that said, lets address some of the issued raised in the previous post with an understanding of checks and balances and what happens when we don't have them:

"In Sordland people are outraged over the ten percent threshold keeping some smaller parties out, but in the US we have a voting system that makes it functionally impossible for small parties to win a single seat."

The original poster is talking about first past the post voting systems. I actually tend to agree with him on this point and think that the FPTP voting systems favor the two current political parties, but this does not change the fact that these two parties are "big tent" as a result of the consolidation. Just like how the USP in Sordland has several sub-factions, so do the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States. There are libertarians, authoritarians, and moderates in the Republicans just like there are socialists, communists, and moderates in the Democrats. Additionally, because representatives represent their states and their districts respectively, they are individually able to exercise more control over their ability to say no to their party. Unlike in the United Kingdom where voting against the party would be a death sentence, representatives in the US are able to do so with minimal repercussions. It allows for smaller parties within parties to function while still upholding the Democrat and Republican monikers. Additionally, I'm pretty sure Sordland also uses FPTP for its GNA elections, but I could be wrong about that.

"In Sordland people make a big deal over the election bill making it harder for small parties to get public funding, but in the US we don’t even have public funding for our elections."

This critique misses the problem with the public funding system. The public itself shouldn't even be funding political parties through their taxes. This is something the United States actually gets right and prevents additional consolidation of power within specific political parties, and it is counted against the United States for some reason. Funding political parties by the government only serves to encourage those with the most power to gain more. Its expressly stated in the game that is what is taking place by multiple people, even the USP, and somehow this was lost.

"In Sordland it’s taken for granted that every vote is counted equally for presidential and assembly elections. In the US we have the Senate and the Electoral College and we barely even question it."

This section seems to presume that the Senate and the electoral college are unfair by their very nature without understanding the purposes of either body, not examining the problems with the GNA and Executive structure as I outlined above. While I already went over the purpose of the Senate as a check on the power of the people, the electoral college I did not talk about. Its purpose is a check on the power of the states, and on the people, in a way that allows the President to be decided by both. Essentially, because the electoral votes are appropriated to states proportionally to however many senators and representatives each state has, it gives a lion share of the votes to states with large populations. However, it still emphasizes the importance of states due to the inclusion of at least 3 votes from every state, and makes it important to win victories in particular states, not just in population centers. By diluting the power of the people in this way, it allows minorities to once again have some say in the political process and not be crowded out by the slim majority. Whether you think the electoral college is a good system or not, it is highly unfair to just assume it has no function. Its purpose is to combine the power structures of Congress in order to decide the person who will execute their laws. And to say that "every vote counts" in Sordland just because they are decided by majority is not a nuanced way to look at power structures and rather favors tyranny of the majority over a sharing of power between political groups.

In Sordland people are outraged over the Supreme Court having the power to block constitutional changes. In the US our constitution can’t be changed without such an absurdly high quorum of state and federal governments that it’s pretty much a nonstarter.

Again, checks and balances that mean something. The United States assumes changing the constitution to be a very important affair. It is not merely another law but rather the very makeup of our democracy. As a result, there needs to be a significant backing by the people to actually acomplish a constitutional change. The country at large needs to actually want the change in order for it to be done, and to do so requires a large power base of the states to ensure it actually represents a large majority of the people. This prevents a slim majority of the states from exercising control over the constitutional process, or prevents a small majority of the population from voting away important fundamental protections. Conversely, the Supreme Court's ability to reject any constitutional issue takes the legislative power away from even the states or their populations and gives a full veto to the judiciary appointed by the President. It is far more restrictive than a requirement there be a consensus of states and to think the United State's system is more restrictive than the Sordland system is laughable.
In conclusion, Sordland is not a functional democracy, nor are its system set up in such a way that favors actual political discourse. It is a tyranny of the majority which functionally gives almost all of its power to its president without any real checks on his authority. The United States systems of checks and balances are a feature, not a bug, and serve to prevent much of the issues that can arise from a bad actor, such as Dictator Rayne, gaining power through the electoral process. If Dictator Rayne won the presidential election in the United States, he would not have been able to do almost any of the awful stuff he did in Sordland. That is a reality of the situation, and is a reality because of the systems of checks and balances that exist in the United States that Sordland does not have.
It's ok to think that the United States has problems. It does objectively have problems. But to say its a worse democracy than a Kingdom in a Republican trench coat is laughable at best and concerning at worst.

you know for fck sake i showed up strong but proxy ba’s and proxy people you know for fck sake i showed up strong but proxy ba’s and proxy people people you out over me in deception has lead to this verdict.. your a liar and i hope your face shows it beauty taken away . The lord giveth and the lord taketh away.. beauty will go to Asia not Europe the 6 symbolic of Spirit and Beauty is Asian.. it will not be with run away Russian women.. their children have no covering no spiritual covering by me. I must keep the theme going in past judgement many others have made before me otherwise i will be a hypocrite.. what they don’t know “alien beauty” is rarer and exceeds mortal beauty when they do get it.. its just rarer.. mostly they keep same suit / covering. and even the men when refined or they work where they can work get Elven beauty .. no in between really.. earth is not a place I believe they contribute much of anything other to foreign wives and Asian Major women .

Hi I am struggling to understand one environment run by previous admin.
Basically everything is setup in the most specific way possible.
For example we have a host in one subnet protected by firewall. This host has an address which isn't routable from outside of the protected subnet (our standard LAN). However , one host needs to communicate to the mailserver in standard lan.
So the previous admin created a nat rule to translate the source IP but the nat rule is only for one specific destination and source. Also the firewall doesn't have IP address assigned to the interface instead proxy arp is used.
Is this okay way to do this?
What I would do is create a standard NAT rule which would only be specific by destination which would be all of our standard lan. Also I would assign an IP to the "outer" facing interface. And then limit the communication using firewall rules.
And I would consider re addressing the subnet so it is routable inside our corporate network. Which would be a lot of work but would safe a lot of time.
I am not sure if I am missing something here.
NOTE: I like how this question and answer to it differentiates between two groups of you guys. It is an interesting read.

Hello, I selfhost plex in docker and I use nginx as reverse proxy. I'm sure I setup everything right. but still when I go to remote access I see Not available outside your network Your server is signed in to Plex, but is not reachable from outside your network. Learn more and I want to fix it. tried use custom ports like 443 and 80 and added plex server URL in network tab but still face same issue so is there way to fix it?
docker compose: ```yml version: "3.8"
services: plex: image: linuxserveplex:latest container_name: plex restart: unless-stopped volumes: - /mnt/rclone:/mnt/usemedia - ./config:/config ports: - 127.0.0.1:32400:32400 #- 8089:8089 environment: PLEX_CLAIM: "claim-REMOVED" tautulli: image: ghcr.io/tautulli/tautulli container_name: tautulli restart: unless-stopped volumes: - ./tautulli:/config environment: - PUID=1000 - PGID=1000 - TZ=EG ports: - 32500:8181
volumes: media: {} config: {} Nginx conf: server { server_name plex.domain.com;

location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:32400; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $host; # so Invidious knows domain proxy_http_version 1.1; # to keep alive proxy_set_header Connection ""; # to keep alive } if ($https = '') { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # if not connected to HTTPS, perma-redirect to HTTPS listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/plex.domain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/plex.domain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { server_name tautulli.domain.com;

location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:32500; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; proxy_set_header Host $host; # so Invidious knows domain proxy_http_version 1.1; # to keep alive proxy_set_header Connection ""; # to keep alive } if ($https = '') { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # if not connected to HTTPS, perma-redirect to HTTPS listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/tautulli.domain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/tautulli.domain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { if ($host = plex.domain.com) { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # managed by Certbot

server_name plex.domain.com; listen 80; return 404; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { if ($host = tautulli.domain.com) { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # managed by Certbot

server_name tautulli.domain.com; listen 80; return 404; # managed by Certbot 

} ```

Hello, I selfhost plex in docker and I use nginx as reverse proxy. I'm sure I setup everything right. but still when I go to remote access I see Not available outside your network Your server is signed in to Plex, but is not reachable from outside your network. Learn more and I want to fix it. tried use custom ports like 443 and 80 and added plex server URL in network tab but still face same issue so is there way to fix it?
docker compose: ```yml version: "3.8"
services: plex: image: linuxserveplex:latest container_name: plex restart: unless-stopped volumes: - /mnt/rclone:/mnt/usemedia - ./config:/config ports: - 127.0.0.1:32400:32400 #- 8089:8089 environment: PLEX_CLAIM: "claim-REMOVED" tautulli: image: ghcr.io/tautulli/tautulli container_name: tautulli restart: unless-stopped volumes: - ./tautulli:/config environment: - PUID=1000 - PGID=1000 - TZ=EG ports: - 32500:8181
volumes: media: {} config: {} Nginx conf: server { server_name plex.domain.com;

location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:32400; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $host; # so Invidious knows domain proxy_http_version 1.1; # to keep alive proxy_set_header Connection ""; # to keep alive } if ($https = '') { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # if not connected to HTTPS, perma-redirect to HTTPS listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/plex.domain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/plex.domain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { server_name tautulli.domain.com;

location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:32500; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; proxy_set_header Host $host; # so Invidious knows domain proxy_http_version 1.1; # to keep alive proxy_set_header Connection ""; # to keep alive } if ($https = '') { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # if not connected to HTTPS, perma-redirect to HTTPS listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/tautulli.domain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/tautulli.domain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { if ($host = plex.domain.com) { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # managed by Certbot

server_name plex.domain.com; listen 80; return 404; # managed by Certbot 

}
server { if ($host = tautulli.domain.com) { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; } # managed by Certbot

server_name tautulli.domain.com; listen 80; return 404; # managed by Certbot 

} ```

Hi everyone!
I'm interested in buying a pair of earrings on mercari, the seller specified to send her some preferences regarding the Order, but unfortunately there Is no way to contact the seller from a proxy right?
There Is already a picture of the finished earrings on the listing, if i buy, what would you think Will happen? Did you face any similar issue?
Any advice would be great!

[First] [Previous] [Next]
Edited by WaveOfWire
- - - - -
Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!

I'm new to the world of Tails OS but I'm a big fan of privacy and anonymity. Recently, I've been facing an issue where many websites block Tor by default, which I find really annoying. I was thinking about using a proxy to potentially obfuscate the fact that I'm using Tor and avoid getting blocked by these sites.
However, I'm concerned about whether using a proxy with Tails OS and Tor might compromise my privacy and anonymity. I've read a bit about Tor bridges as an alternative, but I'm worried that using bridges might also pose some risks to my anonymity.
So, I wanted to ask the community:

1. Is it safe to use a proxy with Tails OS + Tor?
2. Will using a proxy compromise my privacy in any way?
3. Are there any risks associated with using Tor bridges that I should be aware of?

I'd really appreciate any advice or insights you all could share. Thanks in advance!

I'm new to the world of Tails OS but I'm a big fan of privacy and anonymity. Recently, I've been facing an issue where many websites block Tor by default, which I find really annoying. I was thinking about using a proxy to potentially obfuscate the fact that I'm using Tor and avoid getting blocked by these sites.
However, I'm concerned about whether using a proxy with Tails OS and Tor might compromise my privacy and anonymity. I've read a bit about Tor bridges as an alternative, but I'm worried that using bridges might also pose some risks to my anonymity.
So, I wanted to ask the community:

1. Is it safe to use a proxy with Tails OS + Tor?
2. Will using a proxy compromise my privacy in any way?
3. Are there any risks associated with using Tor bridges that I should be aware of?

I'd really appreciate any advice or insights you all could share.

I'm new to the world of Tails OS but I'm a big fan of privacy and anonymity. Recently, I've been facing an issue where many websites block Tor by default, which I find really annoying. I was thinking about using a proxy to potentially obfuscate the fact that I'm using Tor and avoid getting blocked by these sites.
However, I'm concerned about whether using a proxy with Tails OS and Tor might compromise my privacy and anonymity. I've read a bit about Tor bridges as an alternative, but I'm worried that using bridges might also pose some risks to my anonymity.
So, I wanted to ask the community:

1. Is it safe to use a proxy with Tails OS + Tor?
2. Will using a proxy compromise my privacy in any way?
3. Are there any risks associated with using Tor bridges that I should be aware of?

I'd really appreciate any advice or insights you all could share.

ACT 1. Sunday afternoon after visiting the local market two brothers wait for their train to arrive. If they were even a minute late, they knew their mother would surely scold them and scold the elder of the two far worse. The idea of another beating did not bother the elder brother; he had been through far worse just dealing with the brat and his attempted jailbreaks, though something did begin to make him painfully nauseous forcing him to feel pressured by the light breeze as if gravity had suddenly been increased tenfold. All his senses were heightening beyond anything he had thought possible.All around him he saw that the once energetic and hyperactive passengers had become little more than mannequins; their movements slowing to a standstill. They had all gone silent. The station was no longer filled with the cries of children or the gentle laughs of their parents. He had never heard such silence in such a crowded location. He did not feel panicked, nor did he feel a need to act for this silence was oddly comforting to him. However, the newly calm atmosphere would quickly be the source of a lifetime of suffering.His hand began to reach for his brother in an attempt to call his attention. Though in a moment of both unprecedented shock and exhaustion John shoved his younger brother onto the rails of an oncoming train. Local news would report the incident as nothing more than a tragic manic episode of a young sixteen-year-old. However, for John this single visceral instant in which all of his brother's bones were instantly crushed was stretched into hours. He was painfully aware of how every bone in his brother's body contorted in inhuman ways some nearly resembling perfect right angles, until eventually, they snapped and sent insurmountable pain throughout his nervous system. His blood curling screams were made mute by the screech of the train coming to a halt, though, by the time they stopped, his brother had torn his every vocal cord and had long ago lost consciousness. Still on the platform, the elder brother stood still, attempting to process what exactly he had done. He had no idea what force had compelled him to push his brother, but that instant would forever define what he saw as reality.That however was nineteen years ago, in present day he lived in isolation far from any person. He spent his isolated days wandering the land around his cabin completing house chores that distracted him from reminiscing about his days in the asylum or as he liked to call it “The Echo Room” where he was transferred after the incident. He headed inside after spending a portion of his morning counting all one-hundred-and-thirty-two trees that were showing signs of life after the harsh winter that nearly forced him to cut down two of them for firewood. Once inside he began preparing his morning coffee when he heard a loud creak come from the hall. He (after many incidents) learnt to avoid the boards that creaked, so in his mind immediately an intruder was breaking into his cabin searching for food or his stash of special edition coffee. Deciding to investigate he walked towards the noise when suddenly he heard two knocks at his front door. Confused and slightly worried, he proceeded to walk towards the door making sure not to step on any of the annoyingly loud floorboards.He approached and looked through the peephole and saw only what remained of the melting snow outside. Opening the door, he saw that only his steps led to the doormat. He glanced around and saw no indication of any life aside a few dark patches on the snow. He was about to close the door when he noticed a tiny red package wrapped in a radiant red bow placed clear from where the door would open. Cautiously picking it up, he noticed how it had almost no weight to it; as if empty. He walked inside and sat at his desk planning to journal later about the weird morning he had been having. He examined the exterior of the package and saw how not only was it near perfect condition but it was also slightly warm to the touch; as if recently held. He undid the bow and cautiously opened the package, half expecting an explosive of some sort. Though, all he found was a ragged ripped piece of paper. Unremarkable aside from the fact that it was inside such a carefully constructed package. On the other side he saw that it had some scarlet lettering inscribed into it reading.“Ouroboros”. At first believing it to be a prank by the kids who had heard rumors about him, and his incident, nearly caused him to dismiss it entirely deeming it little more than a slightly humorous event. He decided to put it aside for now as he had coffee left to drink that was quickly getting cold. He walked back towards the kitchen still distracted by the idea of no trace being left by whoever had left the gift. Was it even a gift? Maybe it was just some well-executed prank? In any manner he would later have a better look at it. He absentmindedly, reached for his cup and immediately pulled his hand back shocked by the temperature of the cup. It was frozen! Almost to a complete solid. He thought himself slightly distracted but not enough to freeze his morning coffee especially not his special edition coffee. First The Box and now this, it was all adding up to an annoying morning. Was it still morning? No, that’s not right. He had just spent the day counting trees. How could it still possibly be morning?The thought of Dr. Lumis being correct about his mental condition after so many years sent a chill down his spine especially since last time they talked, he did not exactly behave amicably. He was sure that both incidents had been isolated events that could never happen again. Sure, he had heard the echoes every once in a while, but he was never insane like the others; this he knew to be a fact. If he was insane, how could he have ever left? Disoriented and beginning to sweat, his legs suddenly gave out causing him to fall backward landing on the cold wooden floorboards. He looked around hurriedly expecting to see an intruder that had somehow found him. After seeing nothing but his pristine furniture, he steadied himself and began to control his breathing. He slowly got up causing the wood underneath to creak under the sudden release of weight. Deciding to further assure himself he went around the cabin checking in all four rooms. He found nothing aside from his own disturbances. Still feeling slightly nervous and disturbed he headed back towards the living room in search for The Box with the red bow determining that it had somehow triggered his current situation. The Box was still where he placed it; much to his relief. He sat down. He looked once again at the scarlet lettering.
Act 2. Back in the asylum he would often spend his days wondering how he could have ever been grouped alongside individuals who had purposefully and viciously committed heinous crimes against innocent victims. He was not insane like them. Whatever had caused his hand to shove his brother had long abandoned him. His routine now consisted of cleaning whatever mess the older residents made in the halls and transporting lab waste to the crematorium. He would clean from the southern stalls all the way to the northern cemetery and make his rounds gathering the waste from the rooms. It was a simple job but lonely, nonetheless. The halls were often only illuminated by tiny flickering red lights that indicated the position of the cameras through which Dr.Lumis would often monitor John during his nightly crusades. Though incredibly distasteful, John did not mind, he accepted that odd situations would be easier to explain if someone of credit had seen them. Yet despite this, he felt he was being watched by someone other than the doctor. He assumed that this feeling was due to the paranoia he had been diagnosed with a few months back. On a particular night, moments after dumping another bag of soft solids and dense liquids down the chute, he heard footsteps, just outside the room. Expecting to see the doctor he begrudgingly walked towards the door. Exiting and seeing no one he called out for the doctor but got no response aside from the echo of his own voice. He began to walk towards where he had heard the footsteps come from when he suddenly collapsed out of exhaustion. The same exhaustion that had plagued him during the moment of his brother’s death. He tried to reach for his panic button (a gift from Lumis) but it had disappeared from his chain. He tried to scream but not a single whisper was heard. He gazed into the dark corridor where he had thought Dr.Lumis had gone, but saw nothing but soft shadows. Though something was unnervingly wrong about them. They moved as if following an order, all synchronized, all heading towards him. That night in the asylum had left him scared to even return to the disposal area; he feared that The Shadows might eventually be able to reach him. The Shadows did not haunt him unaccompanied: they followed alongside The Echo tormenting his nights. While The Shadows could not reach him during daylight, he could never escape The Echo. It followed wherever he went and tracked everything he did. Dr.Lumis explained that he merely suffered from an extreme case paranoia but John saw the others; who yelled and who screamed true nonsense, he was perfectly aware of himself and the ones around him. Dr. Lumis secretly believed patient #132 experienced Hyper-sanity though this he would never verbally confess. It was term he decided would for now adequately describe his patient’s acute awareness of The Shadows and The Echo. John would for many years go without hearing The Echo after that night, only ever hearing what seemed like the final moans of a dying voice. Back in present day, he hoped he wasn’t suffering another hallucination as they tended to leave him in an embarrassing shocked state. He questioned what “Ouroboros” could possibly mean in relation to himself. He considered the possibility of it being an early warning of some threat to the sanctity of his home. He quickly dismissed it as he had not interacted with anyone long enough to possibly annoy them. Weird them out? Sure. Offend them? Maybe with his sense of fashion. Following his incredibly fine-tuned survival instincts he put on a light coat and went outside to walk among the trees. A mundane task, but one he truly enjoyed especially since he hoped it would distract him for a short while. Just before he closed the door behind him, he took one more look at The Box sitting on his desk and decided to take it with him in case he met the person who had left it. The sun had begun to set marking the end of the day. He watched the sun hide behind the mountain range letting the world bathe in darkness for another night. John did not dislike the night (he had worked nightshifts in The Echo Room for years) but he didn’t find the freezing cold to be ideal. He had not left his land for what was a few years now and the idea of even slightly stepping out of his comfort was making him incredibly anxious. Still, he walked forward towards wherever the path took him. The night only got darker and quieter, and he only got colder. He did not see the lightning bugs that usually warded away the dark near the edge of his hill. Without the soft hum of bugs or soft breeze that would brush against his beard he felt alone. Even the nights back in the asylum did not possess this level of quiet. He kept moving hoping that eventually he would find something that could break the uncomfortable silence. As he continued down the hill, he realized he could no longer distinguish the path from the dirt surrounding it. He considered heading back when he realized he had not kept track of where he had come from. Not only was he lost but alone with his thoughts and whatever had been watching him from the start. He walked a step forward and then another one back repeatedly. What he was attempting to achieve was beyond reason. Had he gone mad? No, he was perfectly sane. “Wait, I can hear them clearly now” he spoke, his voice dried from the cold.“This is not a hallucination” he spoke softly.“i-I AM NOT HALLUCINATING” he proclaimed. He heard The Echo once more though they were not of his voice but rather of Another. He had long been aware of “The Echo” but he could never fully determine whether it was a dream or an effect of the chemicals but this Other was undoubtedly real. “I don’t know where you are but please. Are you real?” he asked the night. He could now hear The Echo or rather feel the pressure of its words upon his reality. Had it been trying to hide the Other? He walked forward and pulled out The Box. “You gave me this right? What for? What purpose does it serve?” No one responded.Annoyed, he threw it as far as he could down the hill. “THERE! THIS CAN’T CONTINUE WITHOUT IT, RIGHT?” He shouted at the endless empty. That’s when out of the darkness emerged a faint light. Was it a lightning bug or maybe a sign of civilization?
Act 3. Cautiously, he approached the cold light and saw that the light was artificial. The tube inside flickered before another appeared a few feet ahead, and then another and then another and then what seemed like an uncountable amount more. He took a step forward and noticed that the ground underneath had turned to hard white tile. Accepting that this was not the weirdest occurrence that had affected him he proceeded to walk forward making sure to keep a mental note to journal about it later. The surrounding landscape transformed into white walls that every so often had a window that let him peek at the other side. At first, he could still see the snowy landscape, but it to slowly changed; first having scattered papers and then chairs, cabinets, and desks until they eventually resembled a typical office. Its purpose was not obvious to him, and neither was the hallway but if they were changing surely, it possessed a deeper metaphorical meaning that related to his life. He saw a door at the very end of the hall and decided to not postpone the ploy of whatever “The Echo” was planning. He stood before the door wondering about what it could possibly contain. John proceeded to open the door. Inside was a desk along with a single cabinet. Walking inside he noticed that the room was illuminated by some otherworldly source that had no words that could possibly describe it. He walked towards the desk and a file he had not seen previously, sat open. Inside was a description of his physical appearance. “Age: 35. Height: 5’8. Weight: 185 lbs. Hair: Black with obvious signs of stress. Eyes: Brown. Character Aptitude: High.” “Okay, I get it. I’m old, you didn’t have to expose my hair like that” he said slightly embarrassed quickly restyling his hair. He noticed that even though they had an almost perfect description of his hobbies, dreams and wishes they did not have a single picture as if they for some reason were only able to use words. “SOOO you know about that one time in the asylum (don’t ask) BUT NOT A SINGLE PICTURE? That’s lame.” he said mockingly. On the final page he found what looked like an incomplete file; most of the personal attributes had not yet been filled and only a note was made reading. “They don’t need a complete story just one they can understand.” Besides the fact that whatever role he played in this act had been a mere afterthought; he was confused as to how anyone could have ever gathered such sensitive and personal information about his isolated life. Was it The Echo? Had it told them his life? A phone started to ring somewhere in the room abruptly breaking the silence he had become used to. He quickly rotated towards the source of the ringing but did not find anything. There was only him and the four walls that despite the lighting did not change a shade of grey. He walked towards one of them that seemed to be where the noise came from resting his hand on it and gently put his ear to it thinking that the ringing was from another room entirely. The wall he had just laid a hand on had no longer a physical representation and causing John to fall through to the other side. Disoriented he slowly looked up and saw The Telephone illuminated by what seemed to be the same light that illuminated the previous room. This one however was far more powerful and concentrated solely on The Telephone. He approached it expecting a chasm to somehow appear underneath his feet. The Telephone did not stop ringing and only seemed to increase in intensity (though this could have simply been a hallucination). He lifted it to cut the blaring noise and slowly put it to his ear. “hello?” “…” “…” “The protagonist only dies if the story ends” the voice said quietly. “HUH? YOU DRAGGED ME HERE TO TELL ME THAT OMINOUSLY ANNOYING LOAD OF *********!” “…I’m so sorry” The call disconnected not out of offense but rather out of completion. John slammed the phone back onto its stand and decided it was time for this nonsense to end. He walked out into the room he was in before anxiously attempting to find another exit: only to be met with solid walls. What wicked game had he been roped into? When would it end? These were questions he would answer far earlier than he expected. A door appeared in the center of the room. No, it was more of a two-dimensional plane that appeared to be a sort of portal. With no other options, John stepped into the newly opened portal.
Act 4. On the other side was a station, and his ears were immediately flooded with the cries of children and the laughs of their parents. He walked around moving through the crowd careful to not miss any indication of the location. His pace increased as he began to recognize the commuters shortly realizing exactly where he was. He rushed to a platform, the platform where he and his brother were to arrive after their day in the market. He sat on a nearby bench committed to saving his brother no matter who he would have to shove instead. Three agonizing days passed with the daily commuters repeating their routine with the slightest variations. One of these variations would be the key to preventing the day that haunted his nights. Something would soon cause him to shove his brother onto the tracks. He was determined to stop the fall or kill himself to keep his brother safe.He heard a familiar laughter and turned towards the source and saw his brothers face uncontrollably laughing and himself lightly smiling. He began to run towards them but felt once again suddenly exhausted. As if the air became a type of nonnewtonian sludge making his legs impossibly heavy. The crowd around him seemed to be moving just as easily as before; children laughing just as maniacally and just as carelessly. He tried to yell to them, but his lungs were filled with the dense fluid drowning any screams he attempted. He was forced to watch how his brother got closer and closer to the edge. Through much effort, he managed to get close enough to extend a hand towards his past trying to desperately push him away from his brother. The past reacted in what seemed to be a defensive system and sent a temporal anomaly throughout the space his past and present inhabited. Time began to exponentially speed forward. In a last desperate attempt to prevent his brother’s death he tried to distract the past long enough to let the train pass without incident, but the temporal anomaly caused the relative slow velocity of his touch to have the effect of a sudden jerk and in his final moments of consciousness he saw his brother accelerate towards the rails in a split second. He awoke back in the office alone with nothing, but the realization of what force had killed his brother. He curled into the fetal position and began to cry; still believing his lungs to be filled with the dense liquid he did not let out a single sigh. He spent several hours in this state of painful silence without even opening his eyes. His emotions were chaotic and his thoughts unending. They tormented him for hours far after he had run out of tears to let out. They were merciless and torturous forbidding him from resting, insisting on his suffering. Being the cause of his brother’s death nearly caused him to go insane yet part of him kept insisting that Another was to blame. Another had caused him to do it. The Other had forced his hand. Of this, he was now sure. The Other enjoyed his suffering, The Other forced him to kill his brother. He had not eaten nor slept in what seemed like years and yet he stood up defying the gravity that held him down. He took a deep breath of as much oxygen as his lungs allowed and began to speak. “Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Wherever you are. Just know I will no longer play for your entertainment the rest is entirely my choice” he said threateningly. He then began to walk forwards confidently towards the dark wall and through the hidden door that he was not supposed to see. He entered what seemed to be a studio room though, unlike the sterile office; it was trashed. Papers littered the floor and empty bottles populated the lone mattress. On it laid a journal that had recently had liquid spilt on it. He picked the journal and gently opened it and began to read. It was scratched with the stray ideas of a creator who seemed to have never decided upon an end or beginning to his story; yet possessing the journey. He saw many ideas that together seemed to create a way for the continuity to depend entirely on Another rather than itself. A thought described in a single word interested him enough to take it with him. The room started to dissolve around him transforming into a cold landscape. Armed with the knowledge of who he was he treaded what remained of the worn-out path. The sun began to rise signing the start of another day, yet John did not seem to notice as he was focused on something buried in the snow. He could not see much of it yet he knew it was The Box he had thrown the previous night. He dug it up and began his walk up the hill once more. He eventually arrived at his cabin and walked towards his front door….
Act 5.
If you wish to rebel; continue reading on the next page.
Begin the story once more on Truth 2.
If you wish to ward away The Other; don’t read any further
If you wish to follow The Echo read Truth 3
To understand turn to Truth 4
Truth 1
…Before deciding that no longer would he be a puppet for someone’s amusement. John arrogantly began marched back down the hill and headed north towards the nearest interstate a few miles from his home hoping that he had derailed The Echo’s plot. It took him hours on foot, but he would eventually come across the road and start his journey back to civilization no longer subject to the whims of an Otherworldly Audience. He believed his future was now his to decide. He decided what he would become. He decided when and what to think. This he was sure would be how he escaped his torment. John suddenly suffered a complete body collapse and fell forward landing face first onto the scorching road. It would be several sweltering hours before anyone would find him. But eventually someone did, john suffering heavy burns and on the brink of death was saved. He would awake months later in a hospital bed though no one would ever know of this. Weeks would pass as john laid in the hospital bed unable to speak or even move; alerting no one to his consciousness. The doctors and nurses were busy with whatever important patients needed immediate attention; they walked from one end to the other in what seemed like mere minutes. The entire time the only company he had was The Echo and yet slowly it too seemed to forget his existence as well. Eventually The Echo having no interest went away.Jane a third-year medical student had recently joined the staff a month prior and had already been assigned two elders and one child. Though overwhelmed she did not grow annoyed nor frustrated; she loved her job and by proxy her patients. Despite her benevolent nature there was a single patient she never went near as he always seemed to be watching her despite his eyes being shut for over four months. Any time she got near to patient #132 she would begin to get nauseous and quickly retreat. She had no ID on the man, but it seemed he was dehydrated for far longer than should’ve been possible and should be by all accounts dead if not near it. Whenever she worked nightshifts, she would swear that she heard the man whimper slightly as if to warn her of something. Even when she was on the opposite side of the building, she would hear the echo of his groans. She would eventually be transferred and would soon forget the man who after 6 months was officially declared braindead and was due to be disposed of, yet she would still every once in a while, still hear The Echo. Forgotten Ending
Truth 2…Realizing that there was no other choice John took a step forward while placing the note he ripped from the journal into The Box making sure to keep it neatly packaged. He saw the footprints he had left two nights before and carefully stepped into each one making sure to not disturb the surrounding snow. Whatever…Whoever had set him on this path allowed him to live a life of suffering, a life of loss, and a life of pain. This, he felt was the way things were intended to play out; the way it had to end. He placed The Box on the final step making sure it would not be knocked away whenever the door would eventually open. He walked away nearly to the edge of the property when he looked back once more. Managing to peek inside he saw his past still making his coffee when he saw an almost invisible distortion appear near the front door. He smiled and turned away only saying…Freedom ending
Truth 3…though spotting a disturbance near the back of the cabin distracted him from the front door. He decided to investigate for fear of losing a single blossoming tree. Arriving near the back fence he saw no indication of a disturbance giving him much needed reassurance. He heard noise emerge from inside the cabin giving him one more dilemma to deal with. He headed to the backdoor making sure to not disturb the recent snow and entered the cabin. Being sleep deprived and without coffee he had forgotten about the wooden floor and stepped on one that caused a creak to be heard throughout the cabin. He quickly hid in the bathroom fearing that he had disturbed the continuity that The Echo had established when suddenly a bright flash blinded him. He found himself at the front door next to The Box. Slightly amused he proceeded to knock on the door and was soon after transported once more to an empty hall. Both confused and entertained as he was being transported from one place in time to another he took a few steps forward alerting the past to his presence. Seeing his past enter the hall he ducked and quickly hid around the corner. His past seemed to believe that the doctor was in the halls and decided to investigate though just as he was nearing closer; his past collapsed. John saw how his fall was slowed as if moving through the dense liquid he had once gone through. He walked towards his past and noticed an old fashioned panic button that would instantly call Dr.Lumis to his location. Measuring the consequences, he decided to remove the panic button and head back towards The Shadows. For a third and final time he was transported to a final location, the bottom of a snowy hill. Taking in his surroundings he noticed burn marks on the snow where his past would eventually walk through the portal whenever the past caught up. He reached into his pocket and realized how the plot was supposed to move forward. He walked until he reached the exact point where his past would once again find The Box. He kneeled and buried The Box making sure to erase any evidence of his own disturbances. Fully fulfilling his purpose John collapsed. The End.
“Did the hero die?” “What?” “Did he die?” “No? He beat the bad guy and saved the day remember?” “Yea but like AFTER.” “Well, I guess after a few years he would.” “No” The young child said growing annoyed, “when you said, “The End” did he die?” “No.” responded the elder brother. “Then what happened to him? Is he still alive?” “The protagonist only dies if you stop reading.” concluded the elder brother as if possessed. Begin again?
Truth 4…Then just as he took his first step forward everything began to rot. His trees, his home, his coffee, all of it was slowly eroding into a fine dust. He knew that another temporal anomaly would be the likely cause, but he had not yet experienced one that possessed this level of molecular destruction. The fabric of his reality was slowly and thoroughly being untangled into its most simple of compositions. It separated the light from dark, gravity from time, and words from spaces.John could now comprehend what had defined his reality for so many painful years, he finally understood The Narrative and how all possible endings had been chosen long before his creation. John had been a slave from the moment The Narrative began; not once in his entire existence had he ever had a real choice only walking paths already treaded by Another. He was nothing but a plot device in an otherwise self-indulging tale written by a gentle master forced to be cruel for those above. From the moment this story began, John was in pain. He could never hope to truly escape; he could only die until he arose once more. Had John never understood what his life really was then maybe he could’ve found meaning in his suffering. Unfortunately, this choice has now forced John to become aware of how truly meaningless his existence was. His life was little more than entertainment for The Other; they were the ones truly in control. For as long as The Other remained, The Echo would doom John to eternal suffering. The Echo was never in control of The Narrative; he too was merely a subject to it by an even greater force. The Echo did not wish for John to suffer but The Other would not allow John to live if he did not. It is a toxic cycle of pain, suffering and realization that forces John to relive The Narrative lifetime after lifetime. The Narrative must have suffering intertwined into its foundation otherwise The Other would grow bored and erase the reality ending John in but a mere thought. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? This is reality; John cannot exist without pain, The Echo cannot live without a narrative, and The Other is you. THE END......
Intended to be a philosophical narrative detailing the tragic relationship between the reader, the narrator, and the character and how they cannot coexist without hurting each other.

By David North
On April 25, 2024, Bogdan Syrotiuk, the 25-year-old leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (the YGBL), a socialist-Trotskyist organization active in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the former USSR, was arrested by the notorious state security service of the fascistic Zelensky regime, the SBU. Bogdan is being held in atrocious conditions in a high security prison in the city of Nikolaev (Mykolaiv), which is located in southern Ukraine.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement with which the YGBL is politically affiliated, has finally obtained the actual documents in which the SBU presents its charges against Bogdan Syrotiuk. These documents, which form the basis of his detention, make absolutely clear that Bogdan is the victim of a monstrous state frame-up. The allegations concocted by the SBU are a crude combination of lies, obvious fabrications, and political absurdities.
Moreover, the documents submitted by the SBU are directed not only against Bogdan. They are nothing less than a declaration of war against all left-wing and socialist opposition to the Zelensky regime and, specifically, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its public organ, the World Socialist Web Site.
The central allegation leveled against Bogdan Syrotiuk is that he is guilty of high treason. The basis of this charge is that Bogdan has been for the past two years “engaged in the preparation of publications commissioned by representatives of a Russian propaganda and information agency, the World Socialist Web Site” [emphasis added.]
The World Socialist Web Site is denounced as an instrument of “an active information war against Ukraine” being waged by Russia, which

uses the so-called “left-wing” propagandists and their information platforms (websites, media and social platforms) to discredit the support of Ukraine by international partners, justify Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, accusing Western countries of creating conditions under which Russia was forced to launch the so-called special military operation, fomenting wars in Ukraine by providing it with weapons, etc. As a result, they are used by Russia to systematically convey pro-Kremlin narratives to the population of Ukraine and Ukraine’s allied countries…
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the World Socialist Web Site “WSWS” has regularly published articles in various languages aimed at discrediting Ukraine and representatives of governments around the world for assisting Ukraine in its fight against the aggressor state.

The ICFI’s opposition to the US-NATO war in Ukraine is an essential element of its political program, deeply rooted in the socialist and internationalist principles of the Trotskyist movement. The attempt of the Ukrainian regime to portray this opposition as an instrument of Putin’s propaganda network is as viciously mendacious as it is politically absurd. The intransigent opposition of the International Committee of the Fourth International to the Putin regime—which emerged as a consequence of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s final betrayal of socialism and the restoration of capitalism in the former USSR—is a fundamental political fact that is substantiated not only in written texts numbering in the hundreds, but also in the exhaustively documented activity of the Trotskyist movement spanning decades.
True to its fascist character, the Ukrainian regime is operating on the basis of the well-known precept of Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels: “The bigger the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”
In this particular case, the Zelensky regime seems to believe that the scale of the SBU lies are of such a magnitude that they will simply overwhelm the thinking public. It thus expects that public opinion will accept that the Putin regime is directing the work of the WSWS, which the SBU indictment describes as

an online publication of the world Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated sections in the Socialist Equality Parties around the world, which covers the main socio-political problems around the world from the position of revolutionary opposition to the capitalist market system, with the aim of establishing world socialism through socialist revolution.

At no point does the SBU attempt to explain the contradiction that wrecks its case against Bogdan, i.e., that the political principles that he upholds as a socialist and internationalist opponent of wars waged by the capitalist ruling class are irreconcilably hostile to the policies of the Putin regime, including its invasion of Ukraine.
It attempts to evade the contradiction by simply lying. The indictment claims that Bogdan’s activities, “acting on the instructions of a representative of the World Socialist Web Site,” consisted of “supporting and justifying the conduct of the Russian aggressive war on the territory of Ukraine…”
Every word is a lie. The opposition of the ICFI, its affiliated organizations, and the WSWS to the Russian invasion, in line with its hostility to the Putin regime, is a political fact that is documented in hundreds of articles that have been posted since the first day of the invasion.
On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion, the ICFI posted a statement on the WSWS titled: “Oppose the Putin government’s invasion of Ukraine and US-NATO warmongering! For the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers!” It began:

The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site denounce the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Despite the provocations and threats by the US and NATO powers, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be opposed by socialists and class-conscious workers. The catastrophe that was set in motion by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 cannot be averted on the basis of Russian nationalism, a thoroughly reactionary ideology that serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class represented by Vladimir Putin.
What is required is not a return to the pre-1917 foreign policy of tsarism, but, rather, a revival, in Russia and throughout the world, of the socialist internationalism that inspired the October Revolution of 1917 and led to the creation of the Soviet Union as a workers state. The invasion of Ukraine, whatever the justifications given by the Putin regime, will serve only to divide the Russian and Ukrainian working class and, moreover, serve the interests of US and European imperialism.
In the two major statements that he has made during the past week, Putin has justified his actions by enumerating the provocations and crimes of the United States. There is, no question, much that is factually true in his denunciation of Washington’s hypocrisy. But the viciously anti-communist and xenophobic ideology that he invokes and the interests that he claims to be defending are thoroughly reactionary and incapable of appealing to the broad mass of the working class in Russia, let alone in Ukraine and throughout the world. A substantial section of the working class in Russia and Ukraine will be repelled by the cynicism of Putin’s glorification of the heroic struggle waged by the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in World War II while denouncing the October Revolution and the existence of the USSR as a multi-national state.

The ICFI insisted that the socialist opposition to imperialism was incompatible with any form of national chauvinism, and, therefore, rejected all the justifications given by the Putin regime and its apologists for the invasion. Their invocation of “national defense” could not be accepted by socialists. The defeat of imperialism and its overthrow was possible only through the revolutionary struggle of the international working class. The ICFI statement cited the words of Trotsky: “Not to bind itself to the national state in time of war, to follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle, is possible only for that party that has already declared irreconcilable war on the national state in time of peace.”
The ICFI called “for an immediate end to the war,” and explained: “In opposing the invasion of Ukraine, we denounce the policies of US/NATO imperialism, whose claims to be defending democracy and human rights are blood-drenched with hypocrisy.”
This political declaration elaborated the principles and policy that have guided the work of the ICFI and WSWS since the war began.
On February 26, 2022 the International Committee held an international webinar, in which its opposition to the war was emphatically advanced. Among the speakers, in addition to myself, were Nick Beams, a longtime leader of the International Committee’s Australian section, Johannes Stern, a leader of the ICFI in Germany, Thomas Scripps, a leading member of the ICFI’s section in Britain, Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, and Evan Blake, another leading member of the SEP (US).
The ICFI has never wavered from the principled opposition to the policies of NATO and Russia that it advanced in the first days of the war.
The relationship between the ICFI and the comrades of the YGBL coincided almost exactly with the outbreak of the war. They were attracted to the ICFI precisely because of its opposition to both the war and the national chauvinism of the Russian and Ukrainian regimes.
The SBU indictment charges that the World Socialist Web Site assigned to Bogdan “the task of preparing, writing, editing and publishing … both on the WSWS website and other communist-oriented media, articles, publications, comments, etc. aimed at spreading pro-Russian narratives related to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, to which [Bogdan Syrotiuk] gave his voluntary consent.”
In support of this claim, the SBU references a YGBL statement titled, “For the organization of an international movement of workers and young people against war!” It claims that this document, posted on the World Socialist Web Site on October 12, 2022, includes “fragments, statements, sentences and phrases… which contain justification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, which began in 2014…”
The actual document clearly exposes this claim to be a lie. There is not a single sentence in the YGBL declaration that indicates support for the invasion of Ukraine. The SBU cites selectively from the document, including passages only from numbered paragraphs 4, 7, 8, 10 and 13. Paragraphs 4 through 8—the SBU interrupts the continuity of the YGBL’s analysis by leaving out paragraphs 5 and 6—provide a concise Marxist explanation of the objective capitalist crisis and political aims that underlay the instigation of the war by the United States and its NATO allies. They state:

1. The new world order that the United States wants to establish looks like this very possible picture: Russia and China are to be subordinated to imperialism and divided, if that is necessary to maintain direct control over their natural, industrial-technological and human resources.
   
2. The European imperialist powers support the United States for their own place in the new redivision of the world. At the same time, European imperialism, while placed on rations by the United States, sees a way out of its economic and geopolitical predicament only in a redivision of the world in which it can regain its former greatness.
   
3. Japan, South Korea and Australia support the US only as much as it suits their interests in the struggle against China in the Pacific region. These countries will support the US as long as it allows them to compete with China. The process of dividing spheres of influence will revive the contradictions between the Pacific capitalist powers, which are as much in limbo as Europe.
   
4. The crisis of 2008 revived class struggles around the world. The Arab Spring of the early 2010s is vivid evidence of this revival. It forced US and European imperialism to take more decisive measures. In 2014, they supported a coup d'état in Ukraine. Through this coup, the US was able to create all the conditions to build a bridgehead in a future war against Russia.
   
5. The Covid-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020 exacerbated the contradictions of capitalism and was the trigger for a more rapid expansion of US imperialism in preparation for war against Russia and China. The US embarked on a more provocative path of abandoning the “one-China” policy, and increasing its support for Ukraine, as expressed in the NATO summit in August 2021, which supported Zelensky’s “Crimean platform.”
   

Significantly, the SBU leaves out paragraph 9 of the YGBL declaration, which presents a scathing indictment of the Putin regime. That paragraph reads:

The reactionary regime of Vladimir Putin emerged from the treacherous dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy and the restoration of capitalism. The policies of Putin, in the final analysis, are aimed at safeguarding the wealth of the post-Soviet oligarchy against the pressure of Western imperialism from above and, even more critically, against the movement of the Russian working class from below.

The SBU does cite paragraph 10, which continues the critique of the Putin regime, stating:

Within this geopolitical and social context, Putin’s adventurist invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was the Russian oligarchy’s response to NATO’s relentless expansion to the east. The Putin regime’s main objective was to achieve through the pressure of its “Special Operation” a new round of talks with the US-NATO, since the last round ended up crossing “red lines” on the part of the US-NATO, which caused Putin’s invasion [emphasis added].

The characterization of Putin’s invasion as “adventurist” is in no way compatible with what the SBU claims to be a “pro-Russian narrative.” Obviously recognizing the fragility of its attempt to portray the YGBL statement as pro-Putin propaganda, the SBU decided against further citations from the document, leaving out the YGBL’s development of its denunciation of Putin’s policies in paragraphs 11 and 12, which assert:

1. The Russian bourgeoisie’s desire for an “equal partnership” with the West was one of the most utopian delusions. This delusion, historically derived from Stalin’s policy of “Popular Fronts” and then “peaceful coexistence,” developed among the fledgling class of Russian capitalists in the 1990s.
   
2. The Putin regime has not gotten rid of this utopian delusion. Its whole policy has been to maneuver and seek compromise with the West, with whom the Russian oligarchy wanted to be “on equal footing.” Except that Western imperialism, with its conquering ambitions for Russia, did not care about these conciliatory tones of Putin’s regime.
   

The SBU also chose not to cite paragraph 17 of the YGBL statement, which declares:

The course of the war after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine increasingly emphasizes the reactionary nature of this invasion. While claiming to be fighting for the independence of the Russian people from the threat of Western imperialism, Putin is in fact only defending the independence of the Russian oligarchy to exploit the Russian working class and the country’s raw material wealth.

Paragraph 18, which is also left uncited, further demolishes the SBU’s indictment of Bogdan, the YGBL and the WSWS as instruments of Russian propaganda. The paragraph asserts that

the Putin regime has no way out of the current crisis for Russian society. It will not have such a way out in the future. All of the military and political activities of the Putin regime will only contribute to the escalation of Western imperialism and the deterioration of conditions for the Russian, Ukrainian and international working class.

The SBU also failed to cite paragraphs 19 and 20, which presciently warned of the catastrophe to which the war could lead.

1. The prospects for the present war, when thought within the framework of the capitalist system, are very bleak. First, this war will take on a long-term character and will not only be fought between Ukraine and Russia. It is the first step in inflaming the world situation to the point that the threat of a third world war is simply inevitable. All countries of the world will take part in the future war.
   
2. Secondly, the nature of the war will be determined by the policies of the ruling classes, which now stand on a blatantly anti-human position. The ruling classes are recklessly moving toward the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict, thereby creating the real possibility of a nuclear Armageddon. The specter of planetary destruction arises from the insane policies of imperialist and capitalist governments. The recklessness of the ruling capitalist elite compels young people to ask whether they will be allowed any future at all.
   

The SBU specifically cites this document as proof of Bogdan Syrotiuk’s treasonable activity. But the text of this document conclusively refutes the charge that Bogdan and the YGBL are advancing a pro-Putin narrative.
Moreover, and most decisive, the Ukrainian regime does not present a scintilla of evidence to substantiate its absurd and lying claim that the World Socialist Web Site is a “Russian propaganda and information agency.” With this filthy slander, the Zelensky regime betrays—notwithstanding the ongoing war with Russia—the lingering influence of Stalinism’s rabid hatred of Trotskyism. As in Russia, the transfer of power in Ukraine from Stalinist bureaucrats to capitalist oligarchs has not required any change in the methodology of the political police. The same techniques of fabrication and slander, utilized by the Stalinist regime against Trotskyists in the era of the Moscow Trials and the terror of 1936-39, remain operative in Kiev.
Bogdan Syrotiuk stands accused of treason and faces the threat of a life-long prison term that is the equivalent of a death sentence. But the allegations against Bogdan are based entirely on articles and speeches he has posted on the World Socialist Web Site, in which he has declared his opposition, as a socialist internationalist, to the capitalist regimes of Zelensky and Putin and the ongoing war that has cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives.
The SBU indicts Bogdan for advancing in his speeches and writings posted on the World Socialist Web Site “which are accessible to everyone in the world, including citizens of Ukraine” information that exposes the reactionary character of the Ukrainian regime and the war.
The SBU declares that Bogdan’s “criminal actions were stopped only with the intervention of a law enforcement agency.” What a devastating self-exposure of the claims that the US-NATO proxy war is being waged to defend democracy in Ukraine.
The reality is that Ukraine is a fascistic dictatorship, which applies police methods to stop the expression of popular opposition to the policies that have brought untold suffering and death to the people.
The arrest of Bogdan Syrotiuk comes precisely at a point of mounting popular opposition to the Zelensky regime. On May 18, a new and vastly unpopular mobilization law that will vastly expand the recruitment dragnet of Ukrainian military goes into effect. Even the New York Times has expressed doubts about Zelensky’s ability “to find new troops to relieve a weary, often demoralized force.”
In an article posted on the World Socialist Web Site on April 30, Maxim Goldarb, a Ukrainian socialist who has been persecuted by the Zelensky regime, reported: “More and more Ukrainian men are desperately trying to flee the country, unwilling to die for someone else’s selfish purposes.”
He added:

It is not the rich minority, but the poor majority—the unemployed, workers, peasants, teachers, doctors, office workers—that will be sent into the bloody meat grinder. Now, with the adoption of the new law, the number of men deprived of basic human rights, who will be captured and hunted down like animals and sent to the front, will increase many times over.
The profits of those who benefit from this war will also increase many times over … These huge profits will be divided up between the military-industrial complex, its lobbyists in the American and European establishment, and the Ukrainian oligarchic top brass.

Bogdan Syrotiuk’s life is in danger. In the environment of terror that exists within Ukraine, he is deprived of all means to defend himself. Efforts to obtain competent legal representation have been undermined by government threats against defense lawyers. No less than five attorneys have declined to represent Bogdan because to do so would expose them to significant physical danger.
The significance of the fight to defend Bogdan and secure his freedom extends beyond Ukraine. His incarceration is yet another example of the growing international assault on democratic rights as imperialism escalates its military operations throughout the world. The political conspiracy to destroy Julian Assange set into motion a process that is replicated throughout the world.
Those who oppose and expose the crimes of the imperialist regimes are targeted for persecution by the state. The assault on basic democratic rights—first and foremost, freedom of thought and speech—is always justified on the basis of lies.
The opponents of Israel’s genocidal war against Gazans are denounced as anti-Semites, even when the protesters are Jewish. In the denunciation of Bogdan Syrotiuk as an agent of Russia for opposing the proxy war in Ukraine, the same lying method is at work.
The real reason for the arrest and persecution of Bogdan Syrotiuk is that he is fighting for the unity of the Ukrainian, Russian and international working class against the ruling capitalist elites of all countries. As Comrade Andrei Ritsky of the Russian branch of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists explained so eloquently in a speech delivered at the May Day 2024 celebration held by the International Committee:

The only “crime” that Bogdan committed was his conviction that Ukraine can become truly free only through the independent struggle of the Ukrainian working class, acting together with the international working class against imperialism and war. He advanced a principled political position based on a Marxist understanding of the war, opposed to the fanatical worship of Ukrainian nationalism as well as the reactionary Russian nationalism of the Putin regime. Like our entire movement, he has fought for the unification of workers in Russia and Ukraine with the workers in the imperialist countries, to put an end to a fratricidal war that has claimed the lives of at least half a million Ukrainians and tens of thousands of Russians.

He concluded his remarks with a declaration of the fundamental perspective that underlies the work of the Fourth International:

No bourgeois regime is capable of resolving the crisis other than through war and destruction, because any other way would be contrary to its fundamental capitalist interests. The contradictions of capitalism cannot be resolved within national borders and on the basis of a defense of private property. Only the international working class armed with the program of world socialist revolution will be able to put an end to the wars and resolve the fundamental crisis. To do so, however, it must fight for its unity with its brothers and sisters around the world.

The International Committee of the Fourth International calls for a global campaign to demand the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk from prison. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom must be taken up by workers, students and all those who are committed to the defense of democratic rights and opposed to the escalation of imperialist wars that, unless stopped, threaten humanity with a nuclear catastrophe.
Join the fight to Free Bogdan. Circulate this statement as widely as possible on social media. Bring this case to the attention of co-workers, fellow students, and friends. To sign a petition demanding Bogdan’s release, contribute funds toward the defense campaign, and become personally active in the fight for his freedom, go to wsws.org/freebogdan.