I had a lot of food for thought in the past week. To be fair, the suspicion that I could be AuDHD has been rummaging in my brain for quite some time now, but it took a talk with my co-worker who was recently diagnosed with Autism for me to really dig deeper. She is very high-functioning and high-masking, but we share so many traits in various aspects that it kind of just clicked for me.
I then spoke to my mum on Friday and asked her if she thinks it possible and funnily enough, she instantly said that it is extremely likely based on my difficulties in social scenarios and stimuli. She is a care worker and has completed many courses on autism due to her job, so hearing that made me feel extremely validated. I am currently only diagnosed with ADHD because I didn't bring up the possibility of autism at that point.
My symptoms are probably on the lower end of the spectrum. It is very hard to find resources online that are written specifically for women with AuDHD. So I thought to post here and see if people diagnosed with both can relate or if I'm just completely off the mark.
For a long time I didn't really do well in groups of people. They overwhelm and overstimulate me if I am not in a setting of people who don't share my special interests. Other times I simply just am.... Extremely uninterested in talking to people who don't like what I like. The point my mum highlighted was that I always avoided social interaction, that talking to people made me extremely anxious, that I never "fit in". I know that something like this can be attributed to general anxiety or social anxiety, but for me the biggest issue is always that I simply don't know how to engage with people because I don't know how to be like them. Small talk doesn't do much for me. I learned to do it to be polite, because that's the social norm, but I don't care about it at all. I always just want to talk about my special interests and that's why it's easier for me to be social at, for example, comic cons and stuff. Because that's the only place where I feel like I can be myself. If I am forced to talk to "normal" people I feel out of place and extremely uncomfortable. I have to play a role, but always with the sense that I am an imposter.
Then there's eye contact. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable to look at a person's face when I am talking to them. I can't pinpoint why, but eye contact makes me squirm and cringe and I don't like it at all. I also force myself to do it now because again, it's kind of the norm.
My special interests absorb me and it's usually all I think about. I have always been a daydreamer, living in the world I am currently absorbed by. My partner is very likely on the spectrum too and luckily we share the same special interests, so that is an absolute blessing because he is the only person in my life I really don't have to mask with.
I have been stimming since I was a child, and textures are an especially important part for me. I always need to touch something with texture, even now.
But there's certain textures and smells that make me really uncomfortable. Oily or slimy things in particular. For the longest time I was unable to moisturise my skin because the feeling of cream is a big no for me. Therefore I've also hardly ever used sunscreen because the feeling AND smell is horrible for me. I apologise for the TMI but I struggle extremely with giving oral sex due to that reason too. I can't deal with the texture of certain bodily fluids and it makes me feel awful because my partner became insecure about it before. I tried to explain why to him, but I don't know how you explain something like that.
Empathy is a difficult subject. I always thought I was an extremely empathetic person, because I'm always there for other people and do what I can do help them. But if I really dig deep, I don't know if I truly ever understood someone's emotions in the way neurotypical people might. Big emotions make me uncomfortable because I don't know how to react. So it is likely my trying to comfort others was a way to help someone stop feeling these big feelings, so that it no longer makes me feel awkward. It sounds horrible, I know. That said, being empathetic is a lot easier when it happens on the internet, because I'm not directly next to someone who is crying. I also don't have any trouble crying at movies or stuff, and I am extremely against justice or harm against vulnerable groups (be that animals or people) and my empathy absolutely kicks in when I see injustice or harm against them. It is really tricky, and I don't know how to explain it.
However I think due to my ADHD I never struggled when my routine gets interrupted, because I'm so used to not having one. I am definitely stuck in ways to do stuff - I can't creatively think outside of the box and have to do things a certain way, be it at work or with my hobbies, and that places a huge barrier for me, because I feel like it prevents me from progressing. I did have emotional outbursts before when plans got interrupted I've prepared for in my head. But generally I can be quite spontaneous (or rather impulsive, if we're being honest) without trouble.
Sorry this got really long, but I'd be interested in hearing your stories and if you can relate. I'm probably gonna pursue a diagnosis eventually just to have a definitive answer and to be able to say "ah, this is why I am the way I am".

Forgive me if this has already been talked about -- but does anyone think Cash has Cushing's disease?? I haven't really heard of it until recently, but once I did I immediately thought of him. Some of the main characteristics are puffy face/cheeks, and also the big hump on the neck.
Especially in her "I love chill days" video, where he is sitting in the chair, you can really see how INSANE that fucking hump is in his neck. I think it's caused by high cortisol or something? But I think we can all agree his physical traits are not normal even for just being "overweight". That hump is suuuuuper concerning, and his cheeks look like they are about to pop.
Thoughts??

So all the races changed a lot between Brood War and Starcraft 2, which makes sense. But I was wondering the justification for some Zerg changes as far as the lore is concerned. Since the Zerg is all about chasing perfection and keeping positive traits...
-Why are Overlords no longer detectors? -Why did Defilers go extinct? -(Why aren't they extinct in Nova Covert Ops?) -Where did infestation go? Infesting the Terrans was such a huge part of SC1, now it's just Stukov -Why did Brood Queens get replaced by Swarm Queens? -What happened to the hierarchy? (Over mind -> Cerebrate -> Queen -> Overlord -> Normal Zerg became Queen of Blades/Overqueen -> Brood Mother -> Swarm Queen -> Overlord -> Normal Zerg) -Are Brood Mothers not reformed as Cerebrates were? Why? -Where did Kerrigan's power spike come from between games? -Where did Guardians and Devourers go? -Where did the elite strains (Devouring Ones, Hunter Killers, Torrasque, etc) go?
Okay, so not all of these have to do with the Zerg getting rid of powerful species that seems detrimental to the pursuit of perfection, but I'm curious nonetheless. Any answers are appreciated, even if the answer is that no one knows. I'm also interested to hear any similar tidbits about the other factions.
Thanks!

I don’t really know what to do anymore or how to handle being around my mom. I love my family so much but I can’t stand being around them, as they put me in a horrible mood. I (19f) often get annoyed, irritated, and horribly angry any time I spend time with my mom and I don’t understand why or how to control it. My mom as always been there for me and I know she loves me, but I feel that she hates me as a person and blames me, my siblings, and my father for everything wrong in her life. Most of the time she is normal and okay, but recently every time me and her talk we end up screaming at each other. She doesn’t listen to what anyone says and refuses to compromise or try to understand what I am talking about.
I am a more modern woman, a feminist and into current events such as what is going on politically and how people interact with each other. Any time I try to talk to her about something like that she tells me I am wrong and I don’t know what I’m talking about. She says that it’s stupid and I shouldn’t waste my time worrying or talking about things like that, and that I sound crazy and creepy. If she doesn’t understand, she won’t try to understand and tries to shut me down. She thinks she knows everything and does not let me speak or try to listen or understand me. Any time I talk, she tries to insert qualities or ideas she wants me to focus on, the traits she wished I had. This is why we always end up screaming. She thinks I am so negative and insufferable to be around and expressed that often, but I feel that about her. I am not typically a negative person, I am only like this at home. In the real world, I am quite pleasant and people love to be around me. My mom also suffers from a lot of autoimmune diseases which make her sick often, which definitely have a big role to play in her mood. This I understand but it is so frustrating when she takes it out on me and the rest of my family.
My mom also quite frequently gets mad at my father for no reason at all. My mom doesn’t leave the house a lot and is very unsocial, she doesn’t have any friends at all. My dad on the other hand, is very social and a well liked and respected guy. He is the president of our church parish and is a jack of all trades. He is often out helping others or is involved at the church. I am often there wherever he is, however my mom is not due to work or just not wanting to go. My mom will be in a bad mood and sometimes accuse my dad of cheating when he is at the church. My dad is extremely loyal to my mom and trust me when I say, if he was going to leave her or cheat on her, he would have done it years ago. She also, in her fits of rage says that she wants to divorce him, which she realistically would never do. This makes my dad extremely upset that she thinks like that and doesn’t know what to do. He knows that she is miserable but he can’t stop doing the things he loves to be miserable all the time with her.
This really drives everyone crazy and makes everyone depressed. Let me know if you want a pt 2 there’s more but I’ve written a lot already.

I hope this question doesn't come off as offensive or in bad taste, but I'm genuinely curious and would appreciate some insight.
I've noticed that at Furry Conventions, many attendees seem to fit certain stereotypes often associated with being socially awkward or less conventionally attractive. They might resemble the stereotypical "Reddit or Discord moderator", with traits like the classic "neckbeard", greasy skin or hair, poor hygiene, or a nerdy or "weeb" appearance. Some also have behavior that might be considered quite cringe-worthy. I'm not trying to judge or claim superiority over anyone—I’m a furry too, and I respect everyone in the community. I’m simply wondering why there seems to be a higher concentration of these people at furry events. Why aren't there more conventionally attractive or socially normal people in the furry fandom? For example, I participate in furry activities while behaving as I would in any other social situation, without embracing any unusual behavior.

Hi all,
My GRE Test is tomorrow, and while I believe I'm pretty ready with regards to verbal and quant, I don't know how I currently fare with my essays, and wanted to see what someone more experienced with the GRE would rate my essay. Attached below is the prompt, and the essay.
Greatly appreciate the help!
Conditions: Timed. Completed in 29m27s.
Time distribution:
Planning - 5min
Intro - 6min
Body - 4min each
Conclusion - 3.5min
Check - 3min
Prompt:
To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
Essay:
While we may often state that society is filled with varying cultures and idiosyncrasies, as the number of people we account for increases, these idiosyncrasies get lost in the hubbub of major cities as statistical noise, in favor for a set of united defining traits. It is hence apt to state that the most important characteristics of a society – the fundamental pith of what makes a society unique from other such groups - would be concentrated in major cities. To that end, I believe it is important to study major cities of a society to understand its most important characteristics, especially with their impacts in the fields of cultural shifts, technological development, and economics and manufacturing.
It can be said that major cities are in essence a hodge podge of the cultures of not only those native to such major cities, but also of outlying towns – migratory flows, for a pithier term. As such, it is important to take note of such migratory flows and how these affect the characteristics of a society – especially in the socio-psychological aspect of human interaction. The city of Madison, Wisconsin, for example, often accentuates the rather special mix of modern liberal values with conservative hospitality, and this is conferred to the metropolitan, major city of Chicago. In this respect, the effects of the city of Madison has had a pronounced effect on the characteristics of its surrounding cities, which in turn leads to ripple effects to society as more people migrate from such outlying cities onto more metropolitan areas.
However, we can certainly say that these effects can also be seen in the major cities as well. In fact, the concentration of cultural flows and the incidence of cultural Zeitgeists in major cities are often much more frequent, rapid, and integral to understanding society as a whole. Significant changes in lifestyle in major cities such as Seoul and Tokyo have strong ripple effects to the cultural mindset of young people even in cities outside of Tokyo and Seoul, and are hence significantly more reflective of society as a whole. For a more specific example, dating culture in Tokyo has recently worsened, with increasing ubiquity of egregious cases of compensated dating, and this has had ripple effects on young people dating less in say, Kanagawa Prefecture. In Seoul, an increased focus for feminism has resulted in a greater career thrust in young women throughout Korea. Changes we see in major cities often permeate into outlying cities, and are hence reflective of a society.
Additionally, advancements in science and technology are often developed in major cities, especially with the availability of infrastructure, the pool of talented people migrating to such major cities, and the general culture for science and technology. A local example of this would be California – the posthumous Silicon Valley – and Hsinchu, Taiwan – a semiconductor fabrication hub. These major cities pool talent and infrastructure, allowing for major developments in science and technology ranging from Lithium-ion battery and its applications in advanced consumer goods such as electric cars, to developments in Artificial Intelligence technology, to even the coveted membrane technology used for environmentally friendly separations and hyper-selective energy-conservative manufacturing. As major cities are often major science and technology hubs which significantly drive progress in society, it would be remiss to ignore the forest for the trees, and it would hence be important to redouble our efforts into better study major cities.
Finally, it is also important to recognize that major cities are often economic and manufacturing hubs. Cities like New York and New Jersey – with its long history of a robust financial district and historic manufacturing hubs alike – are often the backbone by which most of America runs. The stock market is an inextricable part of daily life in America – with the rapid corporatization of America, the stock market presents an opportunity for not only social mobility, but also business ventures one would normally not expect. New Jersey – as a major manufacturing hub – has many integral industries that it supports, ranging from the medical devices industry, to semiconductor metrology, and to even large volume manufacturing of general goods such as toilet paper, bamboo chopsticks, and metal and wood polishing. Noting the importance of such hubs and the societal implications of the fluctuations that affect such hubs, it would, once again, be putting the cart before the horse to focus on outlying cities with less of an impact on society as a whole.
In conclusion, while I understand that it is important to also study flows from outlying cities to understand the characteristics of a society as a whole, it is much more prudent to extract this information in its concentrated form, by examining major cities instead with a fine-toothed comb. With that in mind, I believe it is extremely integral that we study a society’s major cities to better understand what a society stands for.

The most bizarre thing happened to me yesterday.
This is a throwaway account because this story has to do with a co-worker. Several co-workers and I have Reddit account and often post on subs related to the industry we’re in and I don’t want them to see this.
Yesterday, a female co-worker asked me to be her sperm donor.
I’m friendly with this woman. I like her. I think she’s genuinely a sweet person who takes her job seriously and is good at what she does. I don’t think she always gets a fair shake at work or is taken seriously some of the time due to her appearance and some might say flirty behavior. I don’t know if she’s trying to be flirty or if she’s just one of those super friendly people. There’s nothing crazy about her appearance or anything, she’s just objectively attractive. I’ve heard guys make inappropriate sexual jokes about her. There have been rumors about her hooking up with multiple male colleagues. There was even a rumor that she and I were having an affair at one point, which had no merit. I’ve never slept with this woman or done anything sexual with her. I find her attractive and admittedly sometimes I do have to force myself to maintain eye contact with her when she’s talking to me. She wears revealing blouses sometimes. I’m a boob guy, so I’m just being honest here. But I’d never pursue anything like that with her. I’ve only ever acted respectful towards her.
I’ve been divorced for about 2 years. I’ve dated some since then, but nothing serious that I want to commit to. I have kids with my ex-wife.
So she told me she needed to meet to discuss something important with me. I’m a director and she’s a manager, separate departments - I’m not her supervisor. My department handles some things for her department and I know she’s been having trouble with somebody on my team. I assumed that’s what she wanted to talk about.
Instead, she took me out to lunch to give me this big speech about why she wants to be a single mom and why she wants me to be her sperm donor! I was literally speechless. It was obvious she’s been thinking about it for a while. She’s even consulted a lawyer about the logistics of ensuring that a sperm donor of her choice could be guaranteed to not be held legally responsible for the child. She tried to assure me that she wouldn’t expect anything from me, she doesn’t want any involvement from me, and we wouldn’t have to tell anyone. We could even have actual sex if I wanted to do it that way, or we could be more formal about it, depending on my comfort level.
I mean, it’s bizarre and was very uncomfortable, but at the same time strangely flattering. I didn’t say no right away. I haven’t actually told her no at all. I mean, inside I was yelling no way, but why didn’t I actually tell her that? Maybe I just wanted me ego stroked a bit more, idk.
Of course I asked her why me. She said I’m nice, she likes me, I don’t treat her like a lot of the guys we work with. She thinks I’m “normal,” healthy as far as she’s aware, and she likes my physical features. But she’d want a full health history on me and my family before moving forward.
I asked her why she didn’t go to a sperm bank. She said that’s what she initially planned to do when she started seriously thinking about becoming a single mother, but once she started delving into it she discovered that there are many ethical issues with sperm banks. Shes been talking online with several women who have used known donors and has decided that’s the way she needs to go. She thinks I’m a good fit because while we’re friendly, we’re not friends, we don’t hang out with each other, we don’t know each other outside of work. She feels she knows me well enough to determine she likes me and certain traits/characteristics, without having to worry about it being weird because I’m not a close friend or somebody that would be around her family or friend group at all. Plus, I’m divorced now so there no spouse or partner to have to deal with.
She said she could always leave the company before anyone would possibly realize her kid looks like me if I’m worried about that. She feels she’d probably have to leave to avoid things being weird between us. She’s been studying for some sort of certification in hopes of finding a more specialized job anyway, she claims. We live in different cities, so our lives are totally separate outside of work.
I felt like it was a prank or hidden camera thing. Truly one of the most bizarre and unexpected things to happen to me. But when I googled “coworker asked me to be a sperm donor” I was surprised to find out this is far from an isolated incident. What’s even more bizarre is after reading some of these other stories, I’m not 100% about saying no. I mean, I’m about 90% sure I’ll say no. I felt bad telling her no on the spot and intended to let her believe that I was considering it over the weekend since I got the impression she had spent so much time thinking about it and rehearsing what she was going to say. But now I actually am finding a tiny part of myself considering it and I almost can’t believe myself.
Anyone ever been randomly asked to be a sperm donor before??? If you actually said yes, why? Did it work out in the end or become a legal mess? And no, I’m not seeming actual legal advice from Reddit.

PC

Reddit Account: u/TheSacredGroves
Discord Tag: justinkayce
Name and House: Roland, of House Arryn
Age: 28
Cultural Group: Andal
Appearance: Tall, lean, well-muscled, handsome, fair - Roland is the portrait of a Knight of legend, of the Winged Knight come again. Harsh sky-blue eyes, severe cheekbones, and the familial aquitaine nose give him a cold and distant look - but one frequently broken by his warm and gentle smile. He keeps his pale-blonde hair long and his jaw clean shaven, accentuating the lines of his face. Roland is always neat and clean, his armour burnished and his threads well-tailored and fashionable.
Trait: Blademaster
Skill(s): Swords (e), Andal Knight (e), Essosi Blademaster
Talent(s): Dancing, Hawking, Singing
Negative Trait(s): -
Starting Title(s): Knight of the Gate
Starting Location: King's Landing
Alternate Characters: n/a

Bio-Timeline

• 3 BC: Roland Arryn is born to King Joffrey I Arryn and his wife, Queen Sharra. The third son, Roland's birth firmly secures the succession - fortunately timed considering his father's death later that year.
• 1 BC: The Conquest passes the two year old Roland by, the only impact on him being the squall he raised when Vhagar landed atop the Eyrie.
• 1-4 AC: The post-conquest world is the only one Roland knows, and he grows up in a household dedicated much to it. House Arryn in this period is an odd family, to say the least. Sharra Arryn's attentions are much divided and she has less time than a mother normally would for her third son; Roland is mostly raised by the medley of the Arryn Household and Court and is well-moulded by that as the expectations of maester, septon, courtiers, knights, servants, begin to be shape him into what an Arryn 'should' be in the eyes of their people.
• 5 AC: Roland struggles to find his place as a third son with little direct supervision. It is decided early that he does not have the smarts to become Septon nor Maester... but even as a youth Roland has a keen interest in the training yard, often an annoying shadow to his eldest brother and his squire friends. However, even at eight years old it is clear there is a natural talent to the boy - and when he defeats a squire four years older than him in a training bout in the presence of Lord Corbray, the famed Raven Knight, takes the precocious boy on as a page.
• 6 AC: Roland is by Lord Corbray's side when he tracks down the Root Father. Now a newly minted squire, Roland ignores his knight's orders to remain with the horses and sneaks after them. He kills his first man there, taking a clansman from behind as he in turn tried to attack the Raven Knight from the back. It is not an honourable kill or a clean death, and Roland is badly injured in the scuffle - but he survives. Lord Corbray is furious, and fiercely instils in Roland the importance of fighting with chivalry and honour. He almost abandons Roland, but his tearful begging convinces the Raven Knight that Roland is genuine in his regret.
• 7 AC: Visenya Targaryen's visits to the Eyrie become more frequent, and Roland's wariness of the stern, dragon-riding pagan is overcome by his fascination with said dragon, her skill with the blade... and his mother's growing closeness to the Queen. Visenya becomes something of a second mother to Roland, and her influences war with Lord Corbray's own. From Lord Corbray, Roland learns chivalry, honour, piety, and how a true Andal Knight should act. From Queen Visenya, Roland learns the importance of victory, and an understanding that wars must be won - he learns practicalities and realities. It is a schism within Roland that troubles him, but from both he learns the blade and even at ten it is more and more obvious there is something special about Roland. He quarrels sometimes with his brothers. Jonos, as even at ten, Roland could find little but disdain for his scheming, sneering, brother, and Ronnel as again even at ten, Roland already began to see himself as the better sword (and grows envious that Ronnel gets to adventure and party while Lord Corbray keeps Roland on a much tighter leash).
• 10 AC: Roland learns of his mother's death while at Heart's Home. He returns home swiftly, and his grief is overwhelming. There are few Roland can turn to; Ronnel is concerned with his marriage and rulership, Arwen retreats into the forests, and Jonos is Jonos. Roland relies further on Visenya, who has experienced such grief herself recently and guides Roland through it. Her place as a mother to Roland is confirmed in utterance. To distract himself, Roland throws himself fully into his training and an ensuing victory at a squire's melee at the age of ten and three sparks his reputation as a squire to watch across the Vale.
• 12 AC: Roland, at ten and five, wins the squire's tourney at Maiden’s Bay. He is stopped from sneaking into the higher tourneys by Lord Corbray, much to Roland's chargrin and his demand to be knighted is refused. His calamitously sized ego is rapidly deflated by the Eyrie's Septon and Queen Visenya, who pick him apart and teach him between them the values of humility, and the value of letting ones abilities speak for themselves. Roland does his best to control his pride in the future; ego is rarely ever an issue from him.
• 13 AC: While the honour of the day goes to the Cavaliers, Roland Arryn wins his spurs when the Painted Dogs are crushed under the Moon Gate, killing near as much as the Cavalier Superior herself. That his knighthood was overshadowed by an order of women warriors initially irritated Roland, but recalling his lessons from the last year, he happily shared the honour alongside them and was one of the voices that petitioned his brother to replace the Keeper with the Cavaliers. Knighted, Roland joins the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights and although young, is a key figure in helping rejuvenate the Brotherhood.
• 14 AC: Roland is betrothed to Alayne Waynwood; their romance is one from the storybooks, an instant and deep connection from the moment of meeting.
• 15 AC: Roland and Alayne wed as soon as they turn ten and eight. Part in celebration and part as dignitaries, the pair go to King's Landing together as guests of Lord Orys' great hunt for his son's coming of age. At the Kingswood Catastrophe, Roland saves Orys' life, but Alayne is slain defending other noblewomen. Roland hunts down, duels, and kills the King of the Wood afterwards. He is offered the Whitecloak for his service; on advice from Visenya, he declines, claiming his family needs him and he can defend Laenor and Visenya just as well in the Vale.
• 16 AC: Roland withdraws into mourning for a year, taking up a brutal campaign of bandit hunting in the Vale to cope with his grief.
• 17-18 AC: Roland returns to his brother's side, continuing to help rebuild the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights and slowly coming to terms with Alayne's death. He begins to more keenly ride the tourney track between his duties, earning a reputation as a fine lance alongside his growing reputation as one of the greatest knights in the realm.
• 19 AC: With Roland settling into his knightly role, Ronnel names him Knight of the Gate, with the downside of forcing Roland to have to keep a firm hand on Jonos from time to time when their brother is exiled to the Gate for yet another slight. The relationship between Jonos and Roland sours; where Ronnel threatens Jonos with exile or the Wall, Roland threatens him with death.
• 20 AC: Requested personally by Visenya, Roland tries to take on Prince Laenor as a squire. They are utterly ill-suited to the role, and after many frustrating failed training sessions in the yard, Roland gives up, labelling the Prince untrainable. The relationship between the two almost-siblings sours, but Roland works to repair the rift he created between them with much kinder words.
• 21 AC: Roland develops a relationship with a fellow Knight of the Vale, Colmar Corbray - the son and heir of the aging Raven Knight. Colmar has a fire in him that Roland can't help but seek, and he excuses Colmar's many flaws far too readily. It is a secretive bond, and toxic, but Roland does not believe he deserves better after letting Alayne die.
• 22 AC: The Winged Knights are whipped into fervour as yet another piece of the ancient armour is found. Roland himself dreams of perhaps finding more. Inspired my tales of the armour, the Brotherhood grows even further and in order to keep a firm hand on them, Ronnel makes Roland their Commander.
• 23 AC: Roland and Colmar's relationship deteriorates, ending in a duel that sees Colmar humiliated but, thankfully, alive. The two men hate each other from then on.
• 25 AC: Roland rides by his brother's side to King's Landing.

Family Tree

AC

Name and House: Marla of Gulltown
Age: 34
Cultural Group: Andal
Appearance: Broad and strong with well-calloused hands, Marla is as obvious a blacksmith as Roland is a knight. She keeps her brown hair tied severely back, framing her dour face with its squinting brown and wide mouth that wears an almost perpetual frown.
Trait: Artisan (Weapons)
Skill(s): Craftsman (e weapons; e armor)
Talent(s): Whittling, singing, maintenance of arms and armour
Negative Trait(s): -
Starting Title(s): King's Landing
Starting Location: Master of the Armoury of the Bloody Gate

Timeline

• 9 BC: Marla of Gulltown is born to a master-armourer in Gulltown
• 1 BC: Marla begs her father to help as his assistant as he tries to deal with the massive increase in orders thanks to the Conquest; he reluctantly agrees. Her older brother dies when Vhagar burns the Vale's fleet.
• 2 AC: Marla secretly goes out to work her father's forge at night, practicing at smithing - and finding herself something of a prodigy.
• 6 AC: Her father dies of a weak heart. Marla and her mother discover his great gambling debts, and no money saved for them. They keep her father's death a secret as Marla works the forge to complete his current orders - what comes after that, no one knows.
• 7 AC: Somehow, the charade is kept up. Marla's father is portrayed as a recluse who has devoted himself to his work and the Smith and will see no one in person. This mystery increases the shop's popularity, and many marvel at how greatly his work has improved since taking up this holy vow of solitude.
• 10 AC: A young merchant attempts to woo Marla and is rebuffed. Spying on her, he discovers her secret, and spreads it through Gulltown. The reputation of the shop collapses, and Marla and her mother flee ahead of those furious at the deception, the Faith angry that they had been used, and the law's punishment for fraud. They flee to Pentos.
• 11 AC: Marla finds work with a Qohorik blacksmith, an old master, now drunk and washed up. He teaches her all he knows. Helping each other back to their feet, the pair set up a proper shop, once more, together.
• 15 AC: The old blacksmith dies; Pentos proves to be unfriendly in its business to a woman by herself without the old master by her side. Despairing, Marla hears about the Cavaliers of the Vale, and reckons that if her home will now accept female knights, surely they'll accept a female blacksmith.
• 16 AC: Marla returns to the Vale with her mother. She avoids Gulltown and instead heads to the Gates of the Moon, seeking to offer her services to the Cavaliers. She is accosted by vengeful Painted Dogs on the way, and saved by the miraculous intervention of Roland. He offers to accompany her to the Gates of the Moon, where Marla is gladly accepted.
• 17 AC: Having forged arms and armour for Roland as well, which Roland raves over, Roland has his brother take her on as the Arryn's personal smith and armourer.
• 19 AC: When Roland is given the Bloody Gate, he begs Marla to come with him, who agrees in part. The smith spends her time between the two Gates and the Eyrie, overseeing the arms and armours of all the Arryn forces. Mostly remaining at the Bloody Gate, Marla becomes an integral part of the Winged Knights.
• 20-24 AC: Marla is regularly persuaded to accompany Roland to yet another tourney to help maintain his arms and armour. She grumbles, but secretly enjoys the competitions. Tales of the Winged Knights armour fascinate the Blacksmith, and with her small amount of Qohorik experience she helps verify the pieces as true Valyrian Steel. Her and Roland worsen each others obsession with tracking down the rest.
• 25 AC: Marla rides to King's Landing with her Lord and Knight, ready to work her magic if Roland breaks his armour yet again.

Supporting Characters

• Septon Gernot, 41 (Medic) - Septon of the Gate
• Maester Guy, 42 (Scholar) - Maester of the Gate

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

I’m enjoying this game for what it’s worth and I know that it’s not even officially out yet, but I hope that before the official release they can add these things to the game. I don’t know if the devs are reading this sub, but I’m sure at least one of them does lol!
Different looking gear: This is definitely one of the main complaints in the game and they should really address this. Legendary weapons and gear should look like their in-game counterparts if they have any like in Fallout Shelter. I mean Cicero is wearing a mail, he should be wearing his jester costume. Tiber Septim should be wearing his gold armor, and so on. It just helps differentiate it from other items and also make them look more “Legendary”. They don’t even need to make their 3D model look similar to the source material, just their gear is fine, but at least give them the right skin tone and hairstyle.
As for the other gear with just special effects but are not from the other ES games, literally just add particle effects on them like a sword with a fire bonus should be on fire, an axe with a frost bonus should be icy, a dagger with a lifesteal effect should be dripping in blood, and so on. It makes it more obvious that the item has an enchantment. I swear people would love this game more if you add that.
Return the “Wasteland Expedition” feature(forgot what it’s called) that Fallout Shelter had: You know, just drop a unit or a party in a carriage placed maybe at the entrance of the castle or something and let them explore the world where they will get items, gold, and so on, without your intervention, and the longer they explore, the more items they get, then give it a cap that when they die, they automatically go back home instead so they don’t go exploring forever.
Maybe add a small animation where they are doing stuff like running, fighting enemies, eating, and so on to make it more interesting while they are just exploring and have dialog options here and there so you have to check them for then to move forward. Then have some checkpoints so you can continue travelling the said route and discovering new areas and dialog options to get better items.
They can connect this with exploring new locations for the game to have a more coherent story and questlines. Tbh exploring locations is what makes Fallout Shelter fun and interesting, I really hope that they return that feature someday. Imagine exploring towns and castles where you can go inside rooms, look for items and talk to other NPC’s, then at some point you get to fight enemies or while running around town you fight bandits and stuff, then the game switches to the normal combat screen. Man that would really elevate Castles to a more fully fleshed out game. Like imagine going to Whiterun or Cyrodiil, man that would be amazing 🤩
Imagine having a Thieves’ Guild Questline or a Dragonborn quest where in the end one of your units becomes a dragonborn with special gear and stuff like that. And they can make it seasonal since units die of old age anyways, so like this month you can get a dragonborn unit with a unique trait if you complete the quest, then next month you can get a thieves guild unit and so on. And these traits cannot be inherited so the only way to get them is by doing the quests. One can only dream 🙏
More decorations that the subjects can interact with: I only have a low level castle right now so I don’t have all the decorations, but I notice units can interact with the fountain and have a ruling that say the fountain is being filled with gold coins and such. I don’t know if there are other decorations like this in higher levels, but I hope they add more of them. Like maybe someone reads the red book and suddenly they get an enduring trait since the description says it contains the “Secret to Enduring Health”, or they read the green book and they become 5 years younger, someone hangs around the purple tree too much and they become temporarily haunted, that would be really nice to see.
Oh and animation-wise too they definitely should add more interactions. I’ve only noticed two decorations that the NPC’s interact with, the fountain and the purple tree. Adults steal coins from the fountain, and kids play ring-around-a-rosie around the tree. It’s cute when they do that, just small details that add more life to the game. Oh and they sometimes taste the soup in the kitchen and check out their clothes in the sewing table, which is funny. I hope they add more of these to the other workstations, like they can test a weapon in the blacksmith, scribble over the battle plans in the war room, steal a sweet roll at the buffet, and so on.
Hard mode quests: Quests where if your units die, you lose your units permanently, but the rewards are better. They can implement this at the gauntlet for more seasoned players to try.
Bookshelf should have books that players can read: I bought the Lusty Argonian 1 and 2 for some gold, I should at least be able to read them, right? Isn’t that why we even choose what book to buy in the first place?
Music Stage should let us choose what background music to play: The music plays on a loop but it changes, at least give us an option to choose what we want to hear and maybe get new music to play from the shop. And definitely should add a musician/bard trait or something where if they play music at the music stage, they increase happiness for other NPC’s. To make it balanced, they can only increase the happiness to the lowest green level and will only affect their family and friends, I guess that would be reasonable without being too gamebreaking.
Allow us to destroy items to get back their raw materials: Not really necessary but it would be a nice feature to have. I’d be okay with destroying items to get half or 1/3 of the resources used to make them, at least my useless items will have some other use except for selling them.
Have an alchemy/wizard table that produces potions/scrolls: 1 potion per day is good enough. In the same vein, having a wizard table that produces scrolls is nice too, maybe not just resurrection scrolls, but temporary buffs that work only for the current battle is good too.
Have a leveling system for the units: Like someone using their workstation for 5 years should at least get a +1 bonus productivity in their job, up to a maximum of +5, with rarer units getting more, like gold units can get up to +9, purple +8, blue +7, green but with 2 traits +6, while fighters should get more proficient with their weapons the more they fight. A 10% increase for having weapon proficiency isn’t so overpowered anyway but is nice to have. Maybe each weapon should have a specific unit that they need to kill, and when they accomplish it they unlock the proficiency? Like “kill 100 goblins to get 10% more damage with this weapon”? I dunno, but it’s a nice thing to have and adds something more to do in the game with a tangible reward.
That’s all I have for now, hope you guys like my ideas and definitely your comments will be much appreciated! If you have ideas of your own you can share them below 😊

I saw the ai kill Aayla Secura, Luminare, and Mace Windu, and now it's coming after me! Should I start a new campaign as Pong Krell? Clones get the disposable trait, and their costs are nearly 2/3 of what they normally cost, and recruitment time is instant. I don't have to wait 1-3 turns for clones because they are disposable.

Swordlances and Shield Bros (that actually attack) have gotten a lot of criticism in the BB community, but how bad are they really?
I wanted to find out, so I did a run where I banned most of the meta builds, as well as throwing weapons and close range two handers. I also banned gunners, qatal duelists, mace duelists and cleaver duelists. I also banned berserk and killing frenzy as I wanted to experience the stamina system without relying on berserk recover.
Reach weapons were allowed as their damage is more in line with other weapons. Possibly a mistake though, as they circumvent the weirdness of the stamina system.
Standard pure defense tank builds and normal banner builds were allowed, in order to keep the test focused on the performance of the other builds. Sword duelists were allowed as a filler option for bros without the stamina to do anything else, flail duelists were allowed for guys with bad melee skill.
This started off as a challenge run but it turned into more of a build testing experiment as the off meta builds turned out to be strong enough that it wasn't really much harder than a normal run (until the end). So I fought certain battles multiple times for testing purposes, but still let bros die normally.
Team composition:
4 Attacking Shield Bros, 4-6 frontline Swordlances, 1 Normal Banner, 1 Normal Tank, rest filler in the form of sword duelists & flail duelists. One Shield Bro was also a spearman. Two Swordlances were semi ranged units with around 46 ranged skill and carried crossbows so enemy parties with weak ranged would advance normally. Exact builds in pics.
Team Part 1
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Team Part 2
Results:
This team actually had a relatively easy time with most fights, getting in ~215 fights by day 149 and finding / buying 33 famed items while only finding a few champions and only buying a few good items. Core bros from early in the game hit level 15. I am not a speed runner or super high fight density player, so that's a decent result for me, which indicates the team was actually surprisingly strong.
Builds:
Frontline Swordlance:
This made up the bulk of my damage. While swordlance has gotten a lot of criticism, frontline swordlance just seems like a good tempo build for most of the game. Aside from gunners, it's simply the easiest way to AOE without requiring high stats or good armor. You can use a daytaler with mediocre starting stats for swordlance, while AOEing with a two hander requires a much better recruit who can survive a fair amount of enemy contact.
Winning against large numbers of humanoid enemies in early high tier camps is largely based on morale checks and getting fearsome procs. Using AOE abilities is a good way to get fearsome procs. Obviously it clears out weaker enemies and that lowers the morale of stronger enemies. But the damage doesn't really fall off too badly until you get to the most heavily armored enemies. It's even fine vs Chosen as you can use the increased reach and mobility to focus fire and get in multiple AOEs and stay out of trouble. Maybe vs later Chosen camps past day 150 that would become more difficult.
In general, with pathfinder + polearm you almost always get at least one attack in and you can focus fire very easily, while keeping your damage bros safe, which goes a long way in terms of tempo compared to other builds that have more dead turns.
Swordlance is also good against beasts like Lindwurms as many beast fights seems to favor the strategy of walk forward, hit with reach weapon, walk out of attack range. You can just AOE the lindwurms down while your damage bros are perfectly safe.
Is it better than Javelins? Probably not, javelins are OP, but it uses a much easier to obtain recruit type and it does have advantages in some fights compared to javelins, as in many of the more risky mid game camps the enemy likely has more range than you, forcing you to advance. Swordlance can simply walk right up to the walls and reap away, while throwers have trouble setting up throwing lanes and one range attackers get clogged up and can't attack.
Swordlance can also invest in a full set of defenses and survivability perks. (That's why it's "Frontline Swordlance".) It doesn't have to waste a scarce backline spot but can safely take contact from even Chosen temporarily, as long as it's not getting swarmed by them. So the more relevant comparison is Swordlance vs Dodge Quickhands. In that comparison Swordlance seems to have a lot of advantages while the disadvantages are minor (especially since in a normal run you can just keep a two handed axe as backup.)
Swordlance damage only really became a problem vs masses of uncontrolled, heavy armor enemies, like if you fight all the Ancient Undead at the same time in Monolith (more on that later). However, in normal fights Ancient Honor Guards aren't challenging due to predictable AI and by day 150 Orc Warriors are still in relatively small numbers and are easily controlled and their morale is easily broken. I guess if you played super late swordlance might start to struggle in some larger camps.
Swordlance build: Poleshield:
Stole this build from this subreddit, thanks! Most of the time he plays as a normal swordlance, but he has the option to swap to a heater shield when he gets stuck in melee and needs the defense. Start with swordlance out, swing (5 ap), swap to shield (4 ap). End turn. Next turn, wait with relentless as shield stays out, swap to swordlance at the end and swing (4 ap + 5 ap). Next turn you will go before slower enemies so you can swing again and put your shield up for the rest of the turn. Most swings hit while shield is up. For most of the game this wasn't needed very often and he instead used a 4 ap weapon as a sidearm so he could dump his stamina into damage as quickly as possible. He tries to stay out of trouble so he doesn't need the shield. However on Monolith or in dangerous situations the shield option did come in handy. One polearm swing per turn isn't great damage, but with AOE it's not horrible and the shield does a lot to keep them alive until they can get out of trouble (can reach 50 defense with dodge). It's also helpful to have the shield out when you use recover.
Swordlance build: Fake Ranged Tempo Poleshield:
If you aren't going to build ranged units, you probably want a couple of fake ranged units, otherwise enemies with minor ranged abilities (like orc young with javelins) won't walk up to you as they normally do. Just take a mediocre ranged recruit with high based ranged skill and get him up to 46 ranged skill, then put the rest of the stats in melee. Start the fight with a crossbow in hand so it's loaded. The AI treats it as a normal ranged unit and will advance normally. You still have to advance if they have a lot of ranged so it's the same as normal runs. He can actually hit quite often with his crossbow vs certain enemies. Bags and belts performed great on these guys but duelist was for a specific weapon and probably shouldn't be taken normally. One died but he had similar stats.
Shield Bros:
While four shield bros that attack plus a tank and a tank banner (who usually just stands there holding the banner) is overkill (or uhh underkill) in terms of low damage defensive units, the shield bros performed surprisingly well in terms of tempo, even though I was never able to find an ideal candidate for a battleforged hammer + shield bro.
In a normal run it often takes a quite a long time to find candidates who can hit a stat line like 85/35 at level 11 to qualify as fatigue neutrals, which means that you can end up with a team full of nimble damage dealers with few defense bros aside from the tanks. That delays your ability to shift to optimal tactics, where the front line is made up of high defense high armor bros who take most of the enemy attacks, while the damage dealers stand in safer positions and try to only get attacked by one enemy at a time.
A unit who wouldn't quite measure up as a fatigue neutral can be made into a Shield Bro instead and he'll have plenty of defense to fill a front line spot and stand up against 3 enemies or more, while still contributing some damage over time.
Probably the most desirable attacking shield bro is a battleforged hammer shield bro, but that only works with high fatigue backgrounds, I didn't get the right recruits for that so I was forced to compromise on my shield bro builds.
Shield Bro Build: Fatigue Neutral Iron Lungs:
Stamina management is a huge problem without access to two handed weapons. Getting attacked by a lot of enemies quickly uses up a lot of stamina and only a small percentage of recruits can have enough stamina to tank in battleforged armor and still swing two times per turn. I never really found many skilled recruits with a high stamina pool like that.
Battleforged is still essential though. Bros with iron lungs can be fatigue neutral and swing certain weapons twice per turn, every turn. Normally that's limited to cleavers and swords, but if you get famed weapons you can expand the list of one handed fatigue neutral weapons. I was lucky enough to get famed weapons for these two, although they were not great ones.
Defensively, these guys performed better than the numbers indicate as they didn't take any bleeds, injuries or fearsome checks. And while their defense is only in the mid 50s with shield, that still makes them significantly tankier than a normal fatigue neutral. Their damage is pretty bad but it adds up in the course of long fights, so I think you'd lose tempo in most fights if you substituted pure defensive tanks. In Monolith they could survive for many rounds tanking up to 7 ancient undead at a time, which nimble or nimbleforged bros could not handle.
With recruiter retinue it makes sense to check a lot of guys for traits anyway and this can be a high impact way to use some guys with iron lungs and mediocre stats. It's a bit niche but I would consider using this build in a normal run, especially if I got an appropriate famed weapon and didn't need a duelist. One of these guys started as a 55*/2* Iron Lungs Daytaler, his performance as a damage sponge + damage over time was solid in this build, but as a duelist he'd have been mediocre and used up a lot of tools. In this run more damage was needed, but in a normal run there is usually a shortage of high defense forged units.
Shield Bro Build: Hammer Shield
One handed Hammer still performs well even without double grip or duelist. Destroy armor still does a lot of armor damage on the appropriate enemies and the regular attack will always proc fearsome, which often means he can simply walk up to an orc warrior or chosen and rout him with a couple hits, while having 60 defense.
This run didn't really maximize the strengths of the hammer shield bro, ideally he'd be a high stamina background in forged armor and he'd be paired with high damage teammates like a barbarian two handed axe that just need a little armor softening.
Nimble and nimbleforged are definitely fine for large camps at 150 days of scaling and earlier but if the late game camps scale to the point where he has no choice but to be focus fired by many high damage enemies, then you'd want a forged bro instead. Mine started to run out of steam when fighting both undead groups at once in Monolith. Still, this is a build I would routinely consider adding to the line up. Another great reason to build this is that Nimble Hammer Shield combines well with Spear + Shield, which is great for mid game tempo.
Shield Bro Build: Spear Specialist
Spear specialist performs a similar role to the indomitable tank, but becomes available earlier. Due to the way the AI works he can often hold off as many as 4-6 enemies for several turns. The spear specialization perk is very valuable as you can continue to refresh spearwall even while tanking another enemy, often you can arrange it so the only available spot for an enemy to attack is next to the spearman, causing several enemies to waste their turns trying to move in. Two handed enemies like chosen and berserkers are particularly crippled as they can only move one tile and attack, so you either force them to waste their turn by moving, or if they walk into spearwall they lose their turn if the spearman hits even once. The spearman singlehandedly increases the number of camps that will be profitable for your team. Spear combines well with shield and hammer in the classic Spear Hammer Shield Build from early BB, giving you something to do when you are done spearwalling. Will build again.
Weaknesses and Monolith:
I did multiple Black Monolith fights for testing purposes.
https://preview.redd.it/tgvvrj14881d1.png?width=1779&format=png&auto=webp&s=a58156df46337efd136bccea6564799c81e2abf2
I'm aware of two strategies for Monolith, with one being significantly easier than the other.
The "Speedrun" strategy (seen in Shringshring's video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayh35O9mLUw&t=8429s) involves splitting the undead into two groups by running the tank to the top left corner of the map, while the rest of the team retreats towards the bottom left corner of the map. The fight plays out as two separate fights with a break in between. It is reliable if you move like he does, the necrosavants may attack if your team spreads out too much though. Even if you only move a little bit though, it's enough to split the undead as long as the tank makes it to the corner.
The other strategy is the "Normal" or "Hard Mode" strategy for Monolith, where the tank runs approximately 4 hexes towards the top of the map and the team retreats approximately two hexes to the left. The fight starts sooner and it is possible for the tank to die relatively quickly. You need either a good tank to last a long time or a good amount of damage, otherwise you can end up facing both undead groups at the same time. This is the more difficult strategy but high damage late game teams with good tanks can handle it fine.
The Shield Bro + Swordlance team doesn't have any problem with Monolith with the speedrun strategy. It's true that the swordlances feel a bit weak against the ancient honor guards, but there isn't excessive pressure on the team so it can take the time to set up good AOEs with swordlances, weaken armor with hammer bros and focus fire. It plays out like two normal fights back to back.
However, when trying to brute force both Ancient Dead groups with the "Hard Mode" strategy, the team finally starts to show its weakness. The team takes 20 to 21 rounds to beat Monolith using this strategy. That's much slower than normal for Monolith. The Battleforged fatigue neutral shield bros performed well, surviving for many rounds while getting hit by up to 7 ancient honor guards at a time, but having the fight take so long leaves more time for things to go wrong and win rate on Monolith was probably only about 60% with this strategy, as there was a risk of the tank going down early. This could have been reduced with a better tank and/or more potions. Fighting both undead groups + necrosavants all at once was too much for the team to overcome reliably. Swordlances ran out of stamina and got stuck in non optimal positions for AOE, hammers were not able to eliminate Honor Guards quickly enough on their own. It may also have been a mistake to go from 5-6 Swordlances in most normal fights to only 4 in the Monolith, by benching the faked ranged for newly trained high defense bros, as there was a real lack of damage for the "Hard Mode" strategy.
While there isn't much reason to do the "Hard Mode" strategy instead of the "Speedrun" strategy, this still hints at a weakness that might show up in certain extremely highly scaled camps late in the game, like very late sea of tents. Just not enough damage vs armor, plus tons and tons of armored enemies pushing in too fast, getting in contact with vulnerable nimble units. However the amount of orc warriors that spawned in early game Sea of Tents were no problem at all, swordlance guys could just keep a tier 2 hammer in the pocket and easily rout them with fearsome after routing the young and berserkers.
Finally, fighting both undead groups at once illustrated some problems with the stamina system in this game as it relates to 4ap weapons. I left the sword duelist option available for filler bros with lower stamina who couldn't do anything else. Normally the build performed fine, however when there was an extremely high density of enemies and the sword duelist was getting attacked a lot he quickly ran out of stamina and could rarely regain enough to swing twice. He could either use recover, which was never needed in any other fight, or he could stand there and swing only once like an idiot. I gave them reach weapons for just this reason, but it was kind of a crutch to play around this imbalance of the stamina system, that's why two handed weapons are so good after all. In the Speedrun strategy when the undead were split into two groups, the sword duelists had no problems as they could take positions where only small numbers of enemies could swing at them.
Conclusion:
The meta builds exist for a reason of course, but the Devs generally did a great job balancing this game and you can definitely make a lot of non-meta builds work. Sometimes they even feel quite strong. However, when designing your non-meta builds keep in mind the imbalances with the stamina system. For a tanky character with a high stamina pool who uses high stamina cost moves, like the Hammer Shield Bro, taking a turn to recover doesn't feel too bad. But pathfinder based 4 ap builds that don't use much stamina in normal fights can find their offense shut down if they let a lot of enemies swing at them. That kind of limits the value of high defense and high durability on this kind of unit and makes me want to avoid putting 4 ap weapons on them, even though it seems more thematic than giant two handed weapons.

[FIRST][LAST]
Atlantis Commission
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
Well this had definitely been a very interesting couple of hours. This dimension and its people had very odd opinions and ideas. Apparently the prey species of this dimension were all obligate cowards, whose instincts compelled them to be non-violent and run from threats. At least according to themselves. There were apparently some of them who were “predator diseased” as they called it, a disease which often resulted in increased violence, aggression, lack of empathy, and unheard like behavior. It sounded to me like some form of infectious psychopathy, but the venlil assured us it shouldn't affect us since we were predators, which didn’t really ease my fears, but hopefully it was something we could figure out when we got home if it ever became a problem.
Gotta love mandatory quarantine periods woo hoo!
As scary as this odd disease sounded, my main concern at the moment was to try and turn a professed coward into someone who could at the very least defend themselves.
I looked down to the table of gear ahead of me and then over to the mostly naked Venlil to my side, and then even farther to Tiel’c who thought It would be a good idea to help oversee Farva’s rapid fire training course. I fiddled with the bluetooth earpiece which was rigged up to one of our handhelds to run a translation program to speak directly with the captain. A big step up from our unknowingly one sided communications earlier.
I stepped on the other side of the plastic table and placed my hands down upon it and looked on at my new student..
“Welcome Captain Farva to our very impromptu accelerated course on Human arms armor and basic infantry tactics.” I said gesturing to the hodge podge gear we had managed to assemble for the good captain. “Are we ready to begin?”.
She flicked her ears, somewhat nervously by the looks.
“I’d take it that's a yes then?”
“Oh yes sorry”
“Alright then, well given that most of our crew is human and the only other alien struts around naked all the time, the only gear we have on hand is for humans, So you're going to be running size smalls and it's all going to fit all a bit big” I say as I toss her the tactical vest. ”Here try this on, we can try to tighten it up if it's a bit loose anywhere”. The captain wrestles with the buckles a bit, and Teal'c helps her tighten up some of the top straps, as the Venil’s shoulders weren't as broad as humans. Farva gave Teal’c an odd look, but seemed appreciative none the less.Once finished, she grasped the vest in her paws with interest. “This armor seems quite lightweight, which is nice, weight is often an issue that causes us to forgo armor, since heavy armor would hurt our running ability.” Farva remarks. “Also the sheer amount of pockets seems quite excessive, what do you need all these for?”
“Well for starters it's currently missing these '' I hand Farva one of the armor plates which she looks over. “That is a depleted Naquadria ceramic composite plate. It’s designed to stop bullet impacts and dissipate energy weapon blasts. It slots into that chest compartment in the front and back of your armor.”
“This isn't quite what Id imagine for the armor of your kind”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well judging by your ships I would have imagined you would put more emphasis on defense Your predatory nature would make you less likely to run away from conflict allowing for more encompassing armor to cover more than just your chest, since you have less need to run.”
She would put it like that.
“Well there are a number of reasons for that, a lot to do with those excess pockets you mentioned. For starters you will not be carrying the same amount of gear that the standard infantry unit would normally be carrying, we are preparing you for a quick in and out op. Normally us expedition teams need to be deployed into unknown territory for extended periods of time, we need to carry everything we might need with us from food, bullets, weapons, to comms gear, sensors, repelling equipment etc. The weight from all that gear adds up fast; In order to stay sufficiently mobile and combat effective; we only carry enough armor to protect our vitals, head and torso, anything else can hopefully be patched up by a field medic.”
Tielc gave his piece as well. “It is important to know when to run both towards and aways from one's foes, not every battle can be won through strength alone, but by strategy and cunning. Being able to reposition oneself quickly is therefore highly advantageous”
Farva seemed to freeze at Teal'c's statement, not out of fear I think, she instead had a distant look in her eye. To snap her out of her slump I handed her a standard ballistic helmet.
Seeming to get the idea she looked at it oddly and tried it on. It confirmed to her head shape decently well but depressed her ears to either side of her head, kind of resembling what one might imagine a sad bunny rabbit to look like “I don't think this will be something I can bring with me” she said ” I can't use ear signals and this will muffle my hearing.”
“Why don’t you keep it on for the time being, I think any extra hearing protection might be useful considering what we are about to try next.” I hand Farva some ballistic ear protectors, slightly modified and somewhat ramshackle. “One of the corporals worked closely with Nurse Fila to get an idea for safe decibels levels for your kind, we were also able to get these earbuds molded to fit into your ear canal better”
Farva took them and slipped them in. “These are a bit uncomfortable, what do I need these for?”
“You'll need them for this” I say as I unsnap the clasps on the weapons case revealing its contents.
The content seems to capture Farva’s interest, getting a slight tail wave.
“Okay So this here is a p90, It carries a 50 round top loading magazine of teflon coated armor piercing ordnance. With a cyclical rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.”
Farvas ears perk up at this. “This seems like an efficient design, I take it these are a flashlight and laser sight for accuracy?” She asked, pointing to the top of the weapon.
“Yes we also have holographic and acog optics which will help line up targets from farther away.” I look on as Farva picks up the weapon and inspects it, testing the weight as I note that it will weigh a fair bit more once loaded. But she doesn't seem to be struggling with the weight. I can't help but notice good firearm safety as well, she keeps her finger well off the trigger and takes care to keep her weapon pointed aways from anyone else.
“This seems like a solid design but I'm not sure how useful those weapon optics would be, as they are not designed for my side facing eyes”
“I'm sure our master at arms can figure something out, why don't we give it a test fire first tho, before we send it off to make adjustments.” I instruct her on how to load the weapon and turn the safety off. I warn her of the sound it makes. And while definitely taken aback by the recoil and sound at first, she quickly gets the hang of it, she has some respectable shot groupings in both single fire and in short bursts. And keeps the rounds reasonably centered while firing in full auto.
She did a whole lot better than I would have initially suspected given her performance in the hanger bay a day before.
“The rate of fire seems useful” Farva spoke “This would be useful for our soldiers, our accuracy falters when we are panicked, and the increased shot count should guarantee some hits based on volume of fire alone” she finished with a dejected expression.
She quickly places the weapon back in its case, as if it burned to touch.” I don't know if I should be armed for this mission, at least not with that weapon, I don't want to miss and hit one of you in the back!”
“What? Nonsense, you are a great shot, and this is just a precaution in case we get separated or flanked and need some covering fire. If our guys are doing their job right you shouldn't need to fire a single round anyways.”
Captain Farva’s breathing started to hasten, earlier I might have thought it was fear, but I was starting to get an idea of what the captain's issues were. I’ve seen this before.
“I.. I can’t be trusted with this responsibility, every time I am left in charge of something, every time people put their lives in my paws I ....”
“Farva, don’t you start with me now you hear.” I said sternly, swiftly capping off her inevitable spiral of self doubt.
“But.. no.. you don’t understand”
Stopping her again I spoke. “But nothing, what happened before on that ship, and back at that colony is in the past. I don’t know your whole situation, but from what I have gathered from the crew It was nothing good. You feel responsible and it's eating away at you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if that's true or not. Accidents happen, people make mistakes, and when that happens we need to learn, take those lessons to heart, and don't let it stop us from helping people in the present. If you let guilt, or fear of mistakes stop you, then bad guys have already won, all without having to have fired a shot”
Farva is quiet for a short time, I was hoping I got through to her, I'm not the best and pep talks and this certainly wasn’t your typical weapons demo, if only everyones could go as smoothly as Ronan’s.
Farva spoke quietly, arms pressed up against her chest, she looked so sad, defeated, and small. Well more than usual anyways. “We can't be strong like you humans, we are too emotional and when we are scared we run away or we lock up and...”
“And that is clearly not the case with you captain Farva” Teal’c finally reentered the conversation having heard enough. “You have shown courage with every action you have taken so far, your actions have saved the lives of many of your crew, every time you have been threatened you acted not just to protect yourself but others as well. You attempted to contend with beings many times your size without even thinking about it, all in the effort to protect others, and this is only in the time we have known you, this speaks nothing of your actions over the colony. You are a warrior of admirable courage Captain Farva, your self doubt is unearned.”
A single tear rolled down Farva’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. “That was very nice of you to say, but I'm not brave like you say, I was terrified out of my mind the whole time.”
Teal’c looked puzzled. “I did not call you brave, I said you were courageous.”
Farva shot back with the little venlil one up one down ear flick I had very quickly learned was confusion.” I'm confused you just said brave twice”
“Hmm it appears your language does not contain the word I am using, I apologize I am not used to speaking through a translator” Teal’c relented “ There are two words I am using admittedly in slightly different forms, bravery and courage. Bravery or to be brave is to lack fear, to not be afraid to begin with. Courage tho, Is a trait far more admirable. Courage is to be afraid, to have fear, to worry about one's own mortality and personal safety. It is to acknowledge risk, danger, to feel fear, but to act in spite of it.”
“Had I not met your kind before I would have thought predators don't feel fear.”
“Everyone fears feel Farva, It is how we overcome it that determines our worth as warriors”
Teal’c picks up the p90 and returns it to Farvas hands.
“Your people need a warrior Farva, a warrior who protects the innocent and guides the lost to safety. You have shown how collected you can be in the heat of battle, You have already proven your worth in our eyes Farva, now you must do the same in your own. The greatest enemy lies not without” Teal’c places his hand firmly on the venlil’s chest “But within”.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
I fiddled with my holopad, Its small surface area proving to be a consistent source of annoyance in my current endeavor. Gone was the large workspace afforded to me by my holotable back in my office. Instead I had to work with the scaled down portable holotablet I was just fortunate enough to have strapped to my person when I was beamed away from our last ship. I was stuck with its smaller keyboard and slower rendering speeds.
An annoyed smooth skin alien looked over my shoulder at my device, attached to it was a jury rigged fiber optic cable, slotted into a terran silicon to crystal patch cable, which would convert the electrical signals broadcasted by my tablet into a bandwidth that the terrans crystalline based computers; which they used for highly complex tasks like hyperdrive and transporter systems; could use, and then It was patched again in a even stranger connector to patch into the odd asgard computer stones.
All in all it looked like someone tried to plug a regular computer into some crystal construct like you would find in a fantasy holonovel, and again plugged that into a harchen heat rock sauna lounge. Finally branching out from this conglomeration was a simple copper based wire that connects to a computer terminal at which currently sat the late Doctor Rodney Mckay. A title upon initially hearing led me to believe he was a medical doctor, which led to a flurry of medical questions that he had absolutely no means of answering.
While this odd alien nomenclature was interesting, what intrigued me more was his actual area of expertise, theoretical astrophysics, as well as a number of other diverse specialties and fields. Not to mention not only was he a great scientist who had he been raised in the more civilized portion of this galaxy, would have knowledge and aptitude that would put him alongside some of Aafas greatest minds, but he was also an engineer without peer, at least in this galaxy. His interactions with general Samantha Carter hinted at her possibly being his match if not more. For a species that was supposed to glorify violence the decision to have a scientist be arguably the most senior member of what was by their admission a military vessel spoke to their commitment to knowledge and understanding, a very noble prey-like goal.
I looked warily at the lines of code at my screen, the asguard translation program had earlier scanned our ship and was able to parse written languages, but complex files, like images and 3d design schematics were harder to encode and decode from our perspective systems. As is stands we have 3 completely separate computer architectures, the asguard can talk to human computers and the venlil computers can talk to the asguard computers, It sounds like we would have everything we need to get a human C.A.D schematic into a venlil holotablet right? Wrong! And you're stupid for entertaining such a idiotic notion! Parsing text from raw binary is relatively straight forward, you're just looking for patterns, repeating bit combinations that might infer letters and then iterating them over millions of times looking for patterns, letters, words, and then with a bit of help from some undecoded analog audio transmission, spoken language. This is a far cry from actual procedural communication protocols,the ones that allow for file transfers, exactly what we needed if we were to get Rodney's redesigned part schematics into a format and medium that can be plugged into a suitable fabricator. Assuming one still exists, which I can reasonably assume it does.
Speaking of which, I have just made something of a breakthrough. For upon my screen appears a simple geometric hydrogen cube, we’re talking vertices, planes, material data, everything we need for a usable design file.
I let out an excited pent up yip, the culmination of hours of frustrating software integration work. Unfortunately I startled Rodney, who lets out a panicked gasp and clutches his chest pelts with one of his paws.
“Oh god…..” He gasps, pointing at me “Please.. don’t do that”
“Sorry!” I say a bit meekly. I slowly approach him so as to not make him unnecessarily uncomfortable and show him my work.
“I got the file exchange set up, all we need from you is to finish any modifications to your part, upload them to my holopad, and then we can print away at any class 3 or above fabricator we can scrounge up on Brayga colony.”
“Ok.. um.. got it, I'm almost done i’m just you know” He points a lone grasping appendage at his screen,”Running some simulations, making sure everything is up to spec.” keeping his response kurt. “Sorry for freaking out there.”
I nod my head in the human display of affirmation and return to my workstation to further bug check my work, to test potentially problematic edge cases for when he finishes. Tho Rodney's continued odd behavior intruded on my thoughts.
I should have felt empowered, being able to intimidate this ‘massive beast’, but I didn't. I didn't like being feared, his people have been nice to me, Rodney himself courteous to a fault and desperate for positive attention.
I thought I could expect predators to be fearless but that clearly wasn't the case, rodney was fearful, nervous, had I not known better I would say defective, and while it annoyed his crew, they didn't berate him for it, or attempt to assert dominance, they encouraged it even with placating words and tried to help him through it, they encouraged and supported him like a proper herd, even if sometimes it took the form of what the human would call a playful ribbing. I supposed I could help him as well.
I approached him again, careful to make my approach known to him, making sure to approach from within his limited field of vision. He looks up at me with a wide eyed glare, had I not known him I might have assumed it was hunger, but I did and knew it to be concern.
“Uh high Donu.. um whats up?”
“Why are you afraid of us rodney?”
“Wa-What, me afraid?” he gives out a panicked laugh ”uh no no, I'm not afraid, you know just a bit weirded out I'm just getting used to you all, it's not a fear thing it's a a…. Just getting used to new aliens thing, ask Hermirod we went through this whole song and dance right buddy”
Hermirod furrowed his brow and gave an irritated sigh from across the room.
I reached out to take Rodney by the paw.
His whole body flinched at my mere touch, I quickly withdrew my paw.
“Oh.. um.. I didn't…”
“Rodney! It's okay, your crew doesn’t seem to care when you show fear, and neither do I. Why are you afraid of us? You are almost twice our size and surely double our strength, most venlil would scream and run in terror at the mere sight of you. What's wrong?”
Rodney let out a sigh. “Oh its, we don't have to talk about this, I can deal with this, I deal with scary situations all the time, it's fine, I'll be fine.”
“Rodney, my people are a very emotional, empathic people, we are open with our feelings and with our fear, and the fear of the one can affect the herd, please let me help you. I don’t know what to expect from your society but I promise I wont judge you for your fear or emotions, I mean look at many of my crew mates, we are no one to judge”
Rodney shot back “You didn't seem to be so bothered”
“I’m too old to care, I was about to retire, hell I was about to die as far as I knew, Brayga colony was supposed to be a quiet place to lay back, work on some hobbies, plant a garden and pester the young men of my colony until I either dropped dead of boredom or got lucky” I joked.
That seemed to raise Rodney's mood somewhat. He sighed and seemingly relented.
“It’s… a dumb story, I don't even know why it affected me so much, I come from a place on earth called Canada, people don't usually believe me when I say I am from there, us Canadians are notoriously friendly and I guess I haven’t exactly filled that mold for a lot of my life, but hey I'm working on it, people like me, I have lots of friends back at Atlantis” He says the last sentence in a way as if it isn't me he's trying to convince.
“I'm sure you do, Rodney, You seem like quite the charming individual when you're not cowering!”
“Ha ha thanks, maybe you could come and visit sometime. Tell that to doctor Becket, really nice guy, smart man, he would love to meet you, he loves investigating new species. But back on topic, oh boy, so me and my sister Jeannie were on a family trip to rural Vancouver to visit my grandpa's farm, he kept a lot of goats, not for eating or anything, they were essentially pets that he would use for milk”
“Wait hold on? You drink milk from other animals! Do your females not produce enough milk for their young?”
“Oh um no, we just sort of drink it or ferment it into cheese!”
“Ferment? You mean spoil?
“Yeh”
I reeled from this plasma blast of a statement, I like any right minded venlil had a number of nightmares about being an arxur’s cattle before, especially when I first learned about those things in primary school, but never once had it crossed my mind that we could be used for something so weird. What the speh was I supposed to do with that information?
“Maybe you should get back on topic”
“Yeh sorry about that uh.. Anyways the momma goat had just had a litter of babies, and their real cute when their little, so late in the day when my grandpa was asleep we snuck out to the pens so we can play with the little baby goats, our grandpa told us not to but you now how kids are.”
At this I think back to a young Nyan, as I teach him the inner working of the hyperdrive, I tell him he’s not cleared yet to operate in this engine compartment alone, but I could tell from the occasional caught black hairs and dropped writing implements, there had been a number of curious unauthorized expeditions into its inner workings, he didn't really listen either.
“My sister as always was trying to be the voice of reason, wanting to take it slow. If I was paying attention I might have noticed the angry moma goat who didn’t appreciate the strange human messing with her children.”
The color seemed to drain from his face.
“I uh…” He began to stutter again ”I screamed, a lot, it was rather undignified, she ran right at me, thank god it wasn't a male goat, one with horns, I tired to run but I was hit in the back and knocked over and kicked real good in the head, like wake up in the vet clinic a quarter mile down the road kind of bad”
“This goat was a prey animal?”
“That would be what your kind focuses on”
“Oh sorry”
“Anyways It seems dumb but I have just never been good with animals since then, especially ones that look like you; no offense; I'm getting better but when I first saw you guys in the hangar bay, I was just that dumb kid again, getting in way over my head, scared for my life. I guess there is something to be said about childhood trauma. I really should be over this, I'm getting better with it I swear it’s just”
I take his paw again, he doesn't flinch this time.
“I'm a venlil, a prey animal, I know fear, I know what it is to live in fear, It rattles your brain, it turns your paws to wet grains. It takes great strength to overcome it, to push it aside just long enough to protect the herd. Your herd relies on you Rodney and you are doing a great job in spite of your fear, in spite of having to work with those you fear. You have achieved intellectual feats that rival the greatest minds of the federation and all that while struggling with a traumatic experience. Fear isn’t dumb and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.”
“Thank you” Rodney says “That means a lot, I won't be like forever I promise, I just need some time.”
“We will laugh about this someday,” I assured. “Nothing as big and intelligent as you should be afraid of anything”
“Are you calling me fat?” Rodney exclaimed with fake offense.
We both chuckled.
My kind words had resulted in a more upright posture, and a more cheerful demeanor from the human, almost like when I congratulated Nyan on his work, and it got me a look at that happy snarl of his, that I was starting to grow quite fond of.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Apprentice Engineer Nyan
Oh wow! I get to write a report for this mission! I never get to write reports, Donu says they're too boring, but there’s so many interesting things going on all the time. Sometimes I sneakily write my own! Just for fun of course, nobody sees them, which is probably for the best as I sometimes get excited and embellish them slightly. One of the reports I wrote was about the time Donu used nothing but a wad of electrical tape, a bottle of high grain venlil alcohol and a pocket knife to repair a venlil medical ship just in time to get out of the way of a big scary space predator, with glowing red eyes and a million tentacles!
Anyways Im not sure If im suppose to write these In present tense first person or past tense. I asked the captain and she said it's whatever so long as I make sure any pertinent dialogues are properly quoted(“”).
“Nobody usually reads these things anyways.” She said, but this one is surely going to be so exciting, who could look away!
I mean who's gonna scoff at a chance to read about friendly predators from another dimension! A dimension of friendly predators who give warm head scratches and hand out yummy strayu not strayu treats called donuts, that are somehow fluffier than strayu, and have a nice moisture to them. I asked for the recipe but Samantha said we wouldn't have the ingredients back on Venili prime to make them, and Teal'c said the recipe is an old family secret. Its weird predators would be so protective of their plant snacks.
There are so many weird things about these predators, they have nurturing instincts that make them find us cute. They stay perfectly balanced even if they don’t have tails, swinging their arms and body all over the place to keep upright like a lopsided gyroscope, it's pretty funny looking!
They also wear artificial pelts all the time, which I thought was weird, I thought maybe the ships temperature was set by the angry gray alien since he’s the only crew member beside the venlil who walks around naked all the time, maybe he had a fit when it was to warm, and the humans obliged him cause they were worried they would make him even angrier, and wore clothes to make up for the cold. I thought this made sense, a lot of their technology does seem to come from the Asguard, maybe he has more say in the goings on of the ship because of that. But apparently humans just like wearing pelts all the time. They feel uncomfortable without them and don’t like it if you try to remove them or look up their upper artificial pelts they call shirts.
The humans are so weird, I don’t even have to embellish my reports to make it more interesting. Like that time with the big tentacled space predator. That may sound real compared to this stuff but it Isn't, Ha! I bet you fell for it at first, hook line and sinker! Like the humans would say. I think I used that saying right, I'm not sure what it means, but Shepard brought it up when he was telling a story about the wraith.
The humans are so nice, instead of exterminating their predators they try to cure them! Their doctors are working to modify the wraith so they don't have to eat humans anymore, so they can be friendly predators too.
Anyways I should probably get to the actual report part of this report. Farva says I should start after I went off with Samantha to work on some special astrophysics equations she said I would be good at. I kind of wanted to go with Donu to help Rodney get the new parts they needed, or Farva to help rescue our people, but the humans and even the angry gray alien got really weird when Farva mentioned taking me on the mission. Samantha seemed to want me to help her really badly so I didn’t mind. Samantha says I have the most important part to our mission. She's teaching me about how humans communicate through subspace, and about stellar drift equations. We are working on what she calls the exit strategy.