High Sodium Intake Linked to Greater Risk for Eczema

Doug Brunk
In a study of adults, an increase of 1 g in estimated 24-hour urinary sodium excretion was associated with an 11% higher odds of an atopic dermatitis (AD) diagnosis, a 16% higher odds of having active AD, and an 11% higher odds of increased severity of AD.
Those are key findings from a cross-sectional analysis of data from the United Kingdom.
"Excessive dietary sodium, common in fast food, may be associated with AD," corresponding author Katrina Abuabara, MD, MA, MSCE, and colleagues wrote in the study, which was published online on June 5, 2024, in JAMA Dermatology. They referred to recent research using sodium MRI, which showed that "the majority of the body's exchangeable sodium is stored in the skin and that skin sodium is associated with autoimmune and chronic inflammatory conditions, including AD." And in another study published in 2019, lesional skin sodium was 30-fold greater in patients with AD than in healthy controls.
To investigate whether there is an association between higher levels of sodium consumption and AD prevalence, activity, and severity at the population level, Abuabara, of the program for clinical research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco, and coauthors drew from the UK Biobank, a population-based cohort of more than 500,000 individuals aged 37-73 years at the time of recruitment by the National Health Service. The primary exposure was 24-hour urinary sodium excretion, which was calculated by using the INTERSALT equation, a sex-specific estimation that incorporates body mass index; age; and urine concentrations of potassium, sodium, and creatinine. The primary study outcome was AD or active AD based on diagnostic and prescription codes from linked electronic medical records. The researchers used multivariable logistic regression models adjusted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, Townsend deprivation index, and education to measure the association.
Of the 215,832 Biobank participants included in the analysis, 54% were female, their mean age was 57 years, 95% were White, their mean estimated 24-hour urine sodium excretion was 3.01 g/d, and 10,839 (5%) had a diagnosis of AD. The researchers observed that on multivariable logistic regression, a 1-g increase in estimated 24-hour urine sodium excretion was associated with increased odds of AD (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.14), increased odds of active AD (AOR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05-1.28), and increased odds of increasing severity of AD (AOR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.15).

Validating Results With US Data

To validate the findings, the researchers evaluated a cohort of 13,014 participants from the US-based National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using pooled data from the 1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004 samples. Of the 13,014 participants, 796 reported current AD, and 1493 reported AD in the past year. The mean dietary sodium intake of overall NHANES participants estimated with 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires was 3.45 g, with a mean of 3.47 g for those with current AD and a mean of 3.44 g for those without AD.
The researchers observed that a 1-g/d higher dietary sodium intake was associated with a higher risk for current AD (AOR, 1.22; 95%CI, 1.01-1.47) and a somewhat higher risk for AD in the past year (AOR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.97-1.35).
"Future work should examine whether variation of sodium intake over time might trigger AD flares and whether it helps to explain heterogeneity in response to new immunomodulatory treatments for AD," the authors wrote. "Reduced sodium intake was recommended as a treatment for AD more than a century ago, but there have yet to be studies examining the association of dietary sodium reduction with skin sodium concentration or AD severity," they added. Noting that sodium reduction "has been shown to be a cost-effective intervention for hypertension and other cardiovascular disease outcomes," they said that their data "support experimental studies of this approach in AD."
They acknowledged certain limitations of the study, including the fact that a single spot urine sample was used in the UK Biobank cohort, "which only captures dietary intake of the last 24 hours and is not the best measure of usual or long-term intake of sodium." They also noted that the findings may not be generalizable to other populations and that AD was based on self-report in the NHANES validation cohort.
Adam Friedman, MD, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University, Washington, DC, who was asked to comment on the results, said the study by Abuabara and colleagues "gives us another reason to avoid salt, showing that 1 g/d of higher salt intake increases the risk of AD in an adult population and more severe AD."
He added that, "Now, can you say that reducing salt intake will have a therapeutic effect or clinically relevant impact? No. [That is] certainly worth exploring but at a minimum, gives some more credibility to keeping it bland."
The study was supported by a grant from the Medical Student in Aging Research Program, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Eczema Association. Abuabara reported receiving research funding for her institution from Pfizer and Cosmetique Internacional/La Roche-Posay and consulting fees from Target RWE, Sanofi, Nektar, and Amgen. No other disclosures were reported. Friedman had no relevant disclosures.
High Sodium Intake Linked to Greater Risk for EczemaDoug Brunk
In a study of adults, an increase of 1 g in estimated 24-hour urinary sodium excretion was associated with an 11% higher odds of an atopic dermatitis (AD) diagnosis, a 16% higher odds of having active AD, and an 11% higher odds of increased severity of AD.
Those are key findings from a cross-sectional analysis of data from the United Kingdom.
"Excessive dietary sodium, common in fast food, may be associated with AD," corresponding author Katrina Abuabara, MD, MA, MSCE, and colleagues wrote in the study, which was published online on June 5, 2024, in JAMA Dermatology. They referred to recent research using sodium MRI, which showed that "the majority of the body's exchangeable sodium is stored in the skin and that skin sodium is associated with autoimmune and chronic inflammatory conditions, including AD." And in another study published in 2019, lesional skin sodium was 30-fold greater in patients with AD than in healthy controls.
To investigate whether there is an association between higher levels of sodium consumption and AD prevalence, activity, and severity at the population level, Abuabara, of the program for clinical research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco, and coauthors drew from the UK Biobank, a population-based cohort of more than 500,000 individuals aged 37-73 years at the time of recruitment by the National Health Service. The primary exposure was 24-hour urinary sodium excretion, which was calculated by using the INTERSALT equation, a sex-specific estimation that incorporates body mass index; age; and urine concentrations of potassium, sodium, and creatinine. The primary study outcome was AD or active AD based on diagnostic and prescription codes from linked electronic medical records. The researchers used multivariable logistic regression models adjusted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, Townsend deprivation index, and education to measure the association.
Of the 215,832 Biobank participants included in the analysis, 54% were female, their mean age was 57 years, 95% were White, their mean estimated 24-hour urine sodium excretion was 3.01 g/d, and 10,839 (5%) had a diagnosis of AD. The researchers observed that on multivariable logistic regression, a 1-g increase in estimated 24-hour urine sodium excretion was associated with increased odds of AD (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.14), increased odds of active AD (AOR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05-1.28), and increased odds of increasing severity of AD (AOR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.15).
Validating Results With US Data
To validate the findings, the researchers evaluated a cohort of 13,014 participants from the US-based National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using pooled data from the 1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004 samples. Of the 13,014 participants, 796 reported current AD, and 1493 reported AD in the past year. The mean dietary sodium intake of overall NHANES participants estimated with 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires was 3.45 g, with a mean of 3.47 g for those with current AD and a mean of 3.44 g for those without AD.
The researchers observed that a 1-g/d higher dietary sodium intake was associated with a higher risk for current AD (AOR, 1.22; 95%CI, 1.01-1.47) and a somewhat higher risk for AD in the past year (AOR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.97-1.35).
"Future work should examine whether variation of sodium intake over time might trigger AD flares and whether it helps to explain heterogeneity in response to new immunomodulatory treatments for AD," the authors wrote. "Reduced sodium intake was recommended as a treatment for AD more than a century ago, but there have yet to be studies examining the association of dietary sodium reduction with skin sodium concentration or AD severity," they added. Noting that sodium reduction "has been shown to be a cost-effective intervention for hypertension and other cardiovascular disease outcomes," they said that their data "support experimental studies of this approach in AD."
They acknowledged certain limitations of the study, including the fact that a single spot urine sample was used in the UK Biobank cohort, "which only captures dietary intake of the last 24 hours and is not the best measure of usual or long-term intake of sodium." They also noted that the findings may not be generalizable to other populations and that AD was based on self-report in the NHANES validation cohort.
Adam Friedman, MD, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University, Washington, DC, who was asked to comment on the results, said the study by Abuabara and colleagues "gives us another reason to avoid salt, showing that 1 g/d of higher salt intake increases the risk of AD in an adult population and more severe AD."
He added that, "Now, can you say that reducing salt intake will have a therapeutic effect or clinically relevant impact? No. [That is] certainly worth exploring but at a minimum, gives some more credibility to keeping it bland."
The study was supported by a grant from the Medical Student in Aging Research Program, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Eczema Association. Abuabara reported receiving research funding for her institution from Pfizer and Cosmetique Internacional/La Roche-Posay and consulting fees from Target RWE, Sanofi, Nektar, and Amgen. No other disclosures were reported. Friedman had no relevant disclosures.

Acabei de acabar LEGI no Técnico e agora estou naquela indecisão clássica sobre o que fazer a seguir. Estou a pensar entre um mestrado em Data Science ou em Matemática (ramo industrial), ambos no Técnico. Apesar do curso, desenrasco-me bem com Python, graças a vários projetos que fiz por fora, especialmente na área de ML. Para ser sincero, a parte que mais curti foi mesmo programar em Python, Matlab, e a própria matemática.
Gostava de perceber quão grande é o salto da licenciatura para ambos os mestrados, considero que tenho alguma facilidade em aprender as coisas sozinho mas não sei se é too big of a step.
Desde já obrigado :)

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for his awesome universe! Second part to my first time writing a fic, critique until your heart is content.
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First
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Memory Transcription Subject: Katamiri, Fissan chief exterminator, Spirefin Bay.
Date [Standardized Human Time]: November 2, 2139.
“You know you don’t have to be an asshole all the time.” I responded as I heard Narn approaching from behind me, attempting to quicken his step to the front entrance as if Isaac wouldn’t notice if he were just fast enough.
“Narn!” Began Isaac. “My favorite exter-“
“Shut it, you mange ridden ape! I’ve got urgent business to attend to and it doesn’t involve entertaining your sadism and sass.”
“What you got goin’ on that’s more important than this?” Said Isaac, gesturing to his own form. “Got some elderly couples to hose down in all this heat?” He continued, pointing to Narn’s brightly colored plastic water gun.
After the incident with Kavithi and the foam our former chief made it mandatory that Narn never be allowed near a real flamethrower, as his eternal punishment, Kavithi issued him a “state of the art” toy water gun. Narn was to even clean and maintain it, and when it came time for weapons inspection Narn would dress with the rest of us and present it and the chief would check with the same thoroughness as he did our gear.
“Pretty colors too,” Isaac continued, “that pink sure is frightening.”
“It’s not the pink you should be worried about, it’s the orange, the color of blood and sacrifice,” said Narn while violently shaking his water gun before him, “You’re laughing now but you’ll be weeping the day I’m allowed to get a real flamethrower!”
“That’s cute buddy! You go ‘an get ‘em!” Isaac said while motioning a swinging gesture with his fist, “Though I do hope it’s soon, Dayside city already finalized the paper work on an outright ban of flamethrowers. Other offices are considering following their lead.” He added with a sadistic grin.
Narn’s face fell sheepish with a hint of existential dread, “Narn says he has important business to attend to,” I interjected with the utmost authority of my voice. “You are not a member of this guild so you’ve no business harassing my employees when they’re on duty. Be on your way Narn.”
Without a second glance Narn jutted his way past Isaac and through the front doors. I thanked the stars neither tried to get any last words in. Now it was just me and the man of my guild’s nightmares. I now realized that I never had a proper, sit down, face to face with him, I hope I was prepared as I now understood that I had no idea what to expect.
“You know you should probably get a better quality water gun, with the way that thing rattles and leaks about, when he’s doing that cute little flustered walk,” Isaac said. “you’d hear him from a mile away and he leaves a trail. Then again, why don’t you get him a real flamethrower? Couldn’t be because the SC slashed the guild’s funding again could it?” He said through his smile.
Keep your composure Katamiri, loosing your temper is the stuff this predator feeds off of.
What would Kavithi do in this situation? I asked myself as the image of a middle aged Krakotl, prancing about and squawking profanity, going on a long tirade about “predator filth”, asserted itself in my mind.
Never mind.
Some around the office initially claimed Isaac must have killed and ate our old exterminator chief to dispose of any evidence, but Isaac wasn’t that sort of man neither were humans that sort of predator. Vulgar and the embodiment of lacking tact, he was strange and hard to get along with but he wasn’t violent.
I let in a deep inhale while massaging my temples, finding myself at the climax of a situation that had been building up for over a cycle. Ever since his arrival strange things had begun to happen in and around the town, especially near the office.
It began, not long after the incident with Kavithi, when an anomalous caller phoned in a predator attack, Code Indigo, at a cross roads just off of an abandoned farm on the outskirts, this called for the deployment of all on duty exterminators in Spirefin. Kavithi was on a business related trip to Tonalu thus I led the charge! Suited and loaded up we took to the roads only then to discover that the emergency alert system aboard all of our Rapid Response Trucks (RRTs) were broadcasting an ancient Earth jingle known as “Turkey in the Straw”. Puzzled, I instructed all in our convoy to resort to declaring our presence over our loud speakers, informing nearby civilians to make way.
Due to Spirefin’s infamously unique geographic location, dusk had set and we were guided by our headlamps. We arrived at the abandoned farm where we were met with an odd sight. At the crossroads was a primitive construction, a scarecrow, though in hindsight, an effigy, made of local dried grass, fitted with an exterminator suit. Narn, being eager to please, lept from his truck to dismantle the object. I sent the others to search the abandoned farmhouse and surrounding woodlands. As Narn began tugging at the scarecrow, rather violently, it exploded in a cloud of pink dust and glitter. Narn flailed about in the dirt road, crying for help, as a ‘predator was attacking him’, it wasn’t until I came to his side that he came to his senses. The others, searching the perimeter, turned up dirty, bruised, and a good bit terrified as after scavenging the forests and decrepit farmhouse for nearly an [hour], they turned up a number of strange carvings, runes, and small totems, made from local tree bark, wood, and grasses. One such carving had human script carved into the back of it scribing the words; ‘Scuzzlebutt was here’.
Accepting defeat, after realizing it was all a prank, we loaded ourselves back into our RRTs and headed to the office as I called our police chief to look into the matter. Once back at the office things did not get better.
Opening the doors we were greeted with [0.5 feet] of standing water. Every tap in the office had been opened and the drains plugged. Our basement was completely submerged. And yet again we found more odd tiny runes and totems littered around the office. Likely meant to scare us with some form of supernatural mysticism, then again they may have just been the perpetrators calling card.
We could never find the culprit as all of our security monitors had suddenly gone missing from their mounts. We looked through the security feed only to find that all recordings of the day had been replaced with episodes from an ancient Earth children’s cartoon depicting a creature called a “wabbit” and his parlous, yet humorous, encounters with a human hunter named Elmer.
Odd, I thought at the time. It seems the ancient humans were depicting this wabbit as the protagonist of the tale and the human hunter as both the villain and comedic relief. Humans were much more complicated of a species than the Federation initially gave them credit for. I wasn’t sure if I was more mystified or curious that a predatory species would depict a human hunter and his prey in this manner.
This would not be the last time we encountered this culprit. Some would claim that it was of the supernatural order but most knew better, and we had a good idea of who it was, but with new anti-profiling laws passed by the SC we would need hard and undeniable evidence, thus whenever an incident would occur we would refer to it as ‘Scuzzlebutt’s’ doing.
As I was distracted, reminiscing on one of my more chaotic shifts, I passed a glance at the window behind Issac to see a frustrated Narn entering one of our, rather beat up looking, RRTs, parked along the sidewalk.
“Say Kat, what happened to Narn’s truck? Lookin’ a little rough.” He said, turning around, to watch the same spectacle as I, as a very bitter Narn tried to close the driver side door, only to find that it refused to latch shut.
“An, unknown assailant, coated our driveway in vegetable oil a few [days] ago,” I said through clenched teeth. I let out an exagerated sigh and approached the window, standing beside him as we both observed the commotion, “caused a lot of damage to our fleet, you wouldn’t know anything of that would you?”
“No ma’am,” he said with a chuckle, “Sure wouldn’t!”
“I certainly hope not. Feaden is looking into it as it is a very serious criminal offense! He seems to think that it’s the same perpetrator who flooded our office a while ago.” I stated with bitterness.
“Ah Scuzzlebutt at it again! I hope that sheriff finds ‘em. They sound like a real scumbag!” Said Isaac with his unwavering smile.
“And a danger to public safety might I add!”, I stated sourly as the commotion from outside continued to catch both of our attention as we watched a livid Narn repeatedly slamming his door in vein to latch it shut while screaming incoherently.
While the damage to our fleet was moderately severe I don’t recall this door malfunctioning. Why was the door not closing?
Isaac then let out another light chuckle and it dawned on me.
Oh, of course…
“Well I’m sure you guys got the budget to at least fix that door.” He said cheerfully.
We didn’t.
The SC did cut our funding after all, and exterminators across Skalga were turning in their silver suits left and right. There was a certain, unforeseen, response to this. A vacuum was left in a world dwindling of forsaken exterminators.
Initially starting out as an enterprise backed by the local magistrate, known as the Epidemic Prevention and Wildlife Purification Department of the Tonalu Valley Authority, often short handed to “The Authority”, was created. A name that was supposed to sound appealing in the minds of SC politicians, lawyers, and big decision makers, however most everyone knew them by a different name, a name they still refused to publicly deny.
The Immolators.
Created mere [months] after a massive controversy took place in Tonalu city, which led to the disbandment of the entire city’s exterminator office and brought in countless investigators from across SC space.
I can still see the news reels, and the unsettling B-roll footage.
Regardless, they were making a name for themselves across Skalga and beyond. Earning the favor of many of the rich upper-class, politicians, bankers, and a small handful of other Magistrates across our planet and colonies. Former exterminators flocked to them. Though they were a controversial group, earning the ire of many peoples longing to be a part of this human led alliance and of those who wished to distance themselves from the federation, still, they were gaining a small, yet loyal, fellowship.
We stood in silent contemplation for a moment as we watched Narn exit the cab and lept into the trucks bed, tossing out a random assortment of items across the pavement.
I don’t know that I can do this anymore, is this what utter defeat looks like? Is surviving the exterminators a lost cause? I ask myself looking at our young recruit reduced to nothing more than a muddled mess scavenging for scraps of supplies we probably didn’t have.
We used to be so much more.
The Federation betrayed us, the SC ignores us, the humans are draining us dry, and the people barely acknowledge us anymore! Worst of all being that I couldn’t just indict the man beside me based on crimes of suspicion due to one of the earlier reforms of ‘anti-profiling laws.’
“Why do you do this?” I asked with a defeated breath, deciding to give up our game, I turned to face Isaac. “I’m not doing this dance with you anymore, I know it was you. It always has been you. Many in the SC are on the path to shutting the guild down entirely, it’s everything I’ve ever worked for my entire life and I have you adding insult to injury. Have we not changed enough? I like to think that I have been very much fair to you humans since you arrived here. You can at least agree that I’ve been much more so than Kavithi!” I spat, finally loosing my temper. “I wish no ill will against your people and I hope you Humans prosper with the rest of us in this new galaxy but I just wished that you would leave us alone.”
“Not sure what you’re on about Kat”.
“That’s it? That’s all? You want to continue this song and dance?” I said with pleading desperation. “The time we had a stink bomb tripwired at our front door? The time that all of our radios got jammed with…” I struggled to remember. “‘Serbian’ war music? The multiple times that someone of our office has had their guild account hacked? Should I even mention the number of my exterminators who have had their Bleet and MyHeard account’s hacked and flooded with anti-exterminator propaganda?”
“Not a clue about that, it could be anyone considering you guys ain’t popular with the public like you used to be.” He finished with a smirk.
“Oh really? Not a single brahking clue?”
Isaac paused for a long while, as if in deep contemplation. A long moment passed as we idly watched Narn continue to litter the pavement. He let out a long sigh.
“Why are you still here Kat?” He said with a somber tone. “You’re a good person, most of you, that are left, are good people, why still hang on to this?” He said without looking at me. “You all know it’s a sham, since the guilds founding. Be something better, the exterminators are no longer needed. They never were needed.”
I felt a sudden fury flutter in my chest. Not Needed?! Of course I was still here, we all, or what was left of us, we’re still here! We were needed! “We are necessary! People need us, that won’t change it will never change! We have been the protector of prey peoples for countless centuries! We have upheld the peace and stability with dignity and glory and honor and respect since our peoples first ventured forth into the black abyss of the unknown and Found Ourselves At The Precipice of A Predator Infested Galax—“ I found myself searching for breath that I didn’t know I needed.
Oh stars,
I let myself go, I thought that out loud didn’t I?
I glanced in his direction, searching for that sinister snarl. But it wasn’t there, instead it was the stone face of a man who had been bombarded with a monologuing tirade and didn’t know what to do with himself.
Yeah, you thought all of that out loud.
Now he finally has me right where he wants me.
I brush my now frizzled mane from my eyes and shut them as I exhale. I accept my fate and await his barrage of insults and lecture of human pseudo sciences like ‘ecology’.
Is this really how it all comes to an end? Being the guardians of peaceful loving preyfolk everywhere for centuries only to be undone within a few solar cycles by these creatures?!
“Relax Kat, I didn’t come here to insult you.” He said. “Well, not initially anyway.” He lightly chuckled.
What?!
“I found you at last my pretties!” Announced Narn, dancing with delight, as he found a pair of bungee cords.
“We’ve embraced change even knowing that it will harm us all in the long run. You’ll never know what it’s like to be prey.” I said sadly as I noticed his smile suddenly fade. “All of those methods you use on Earth may work for you humans because you’re-erm…”
“Predators?” Replied Isaac, though oddly I didn’t find any malice in his voice.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “I— do try to police my speech, I want you to know. I understand the connotation that that word carries to your kind.”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate that.” Came Isaac. “Must be a struggle to wash all of that Federation brain washing off ya.”
It wasn’t all brain washing! Some of it was necessary to protect us! I calmed myself down before I replied. “Yes. As I was saying it may work for you humans, this idea of ‘preserving ecosystems’, but I know time will show that it doesn’t work when applied on a prey planet, filled with prey folk.”
“Hmm.” Was his only reply, was he actually contemplating what I was saying? Did I actually crack through a bit of his exterior?
I stiffened my posture with new found pride realizing that the man of the guild’s nightmares was actually listening to me. “Yes I’m sure in time you’ll realize that there is a lot more to us exterminators than just setting fire to feral predators.” I stated proudly.
I was always careful to use the word feral before ‘predator’ in the hopes that the humans I interacted with didn’t make the mistake of thinking I was including them when I talked about the monsters who lurked in Skalgas wood and dark side. I understood the difference between sapient, though sometimes troubling, humans and a feral beast of the field that needed to be vanquished. I wanted humans to be comfortable in my presence, in a way I was a saleswoman and I was determined to sell the idea of the exterminators to the humans so they could see our worth.
I needed their cooperation if I were to save the guild. I needed it now! I was not going to wait until feral beasts were wondering our cities, devouring our children and elderly. I was not going to wait for the predator taint to take hold of entire herds, I was not going to wait for the humans to realize their mistake!
“We orchestrate charity events for the needy,” I continued. “teach school children how to react to and combat predators, how to identify when a predator has been near.” I puffed out my chest and held my hand to it. “We install predator defense systems into the homes of the elderly. We rehabilitate wild prey animals back into health, we provide perimeter defenses to farmers, and instal trail cameras to monitor heard migrations!” I finished with my head held high!
“That’s all well and good Kat, maybe I’ll humor you another day, but I didn’t come here to have a long back and forth either.” He said, sounding disappointed.
I found myself puzzled, was he not up for a debate with me? Clearly it must be that now he understood that I was a lot more intelligent than he thought, he must have thought he could beat me in a game of wits, challenging our ideals, now he’s on the back paw looking for a way out! That must be it! Pride swelled in my chest at my own genius before I began. “Then why, in all of the stars of the galaxy, are you here?” I said with authority.
“Ahh! Eureka!” Shouted Narn as he finished wrapping the bungee cables around the door and rear window frame.
“Came lookin’ for Grith!” His tone suddenly taking on a cheerier mood. “Shelby’s been whisperin’ in her ear and that Skalgan’s adventurous! It’s about her shift’s end an’ she’s been itchin’ to learn how to swim. Wants to be the first Skalgan to take a dip in the bay and see a Spirefin for ‘er self!”
Ah, Grithilyn. Just a young ‘local yokel’, as Kavithi would call her but I always saw something more in her than most, always eager to put everyone around her in a good mood and her constant happiness was infectious, though her overbearing curiosity was hard to tame. When the SC made the demand that all exterminator offices have a ‘forensics’ division our little intern was the only one who volunteered in ours and thus became the division’s lead, not that she knew more than anyone else. She’d spend countless hours with her exchange partner watching human ‘crime dramas’ under the guise of “taking classes.”
“Well you’re waisting both of our times,” I huffed. “She’s at the bi-annual Spirefin festival running our recruitment booth, looks promising,” I said with a smug expression, “guild numbers have gone up two percent since last season.”
“Two percent ain’t nothing when the season prior saw ya drop eleven percent”. He said with a wide grin.
I loath this man.
We both turn when we hear a series of loud and incoherent bleats coming from outside. Narn had launched himself headfirst through the driver side window of the truck, his legs were sticking out of the window and kicking in every conceivable direction.
I had no idea a Venlil had such a wide vocal range, nor did I know a Venlil held that much air in their lungs.
To my horror the truck lurched forward and began rolling, for all of about [10 feet] until it collided with a road marker.
I raced through the front entrance to ensure Narn was okay. It wasn’t a hard impact but regardless I wasn’t about to let my employee embarrass himself any further, in addition, it was my duty to ensure that everyone under my command knew that they were cared for.
I opened the passenger door to see Narn, slowly skidding face down on the floor boards.
“Isaac!!” he yowled as I noticed the man was now standing beside me.
“Buddy!” Replied Isaac, “Why didn’t ya use the passenger door?”
“Is this yours?!” he yelled while fidgeting his arm from under his belly and lifting his face. In his grasp was a time keeping device with a band running through it. Definitely a human artifact. It featured a cartoon mouse with the direction of its hands indicating the time. Isaac’s. I turned to see Isaac, and Narn had the same idea, looking at his bare wrist.
Anti-profiling laws had been one of the earliest reforms pushed by the humans looking for acceptance in a galaxy that was very unaccepting. It was also laid out for those of other species looking to reverse ‘the cure’. The SC claimed that far too many resources and man hours were being diverted, from local law enforcement, to instances of ‘humans just doing human things’. Unfortunately this is what Isaac used as his personal play thing. With no hard evidence ever being found at any of the odd instances we encountered, and no eye witnesses, we had no hard proof that he was responsible. He’d only say snide remarks about the incidences when pressed. We could do nothing but pray and beg that he’d mind his own business.
Not anymore.
I put on my best “shit eating grin”, as he would say, and turned to him, as me and Narn’s laughter slowly rose from a chortle to a thunder. Isaac sheepishly rubbed the bare spot on his arm.
“Got you now you sneaky prick!” Screamed Narn through his fit of laughter.
“Hmm, Narn, my dear employee,” I said as he gave an ear flick of acknowledgement. “Why would Isaacs’s watch be in one of our guild’s vehicles? Did anyone invite him in it lately?”
“No ma’am!”
“Did anyone authorize him to be in one of our company vehicles?”
“Nnnnope!”
I turn to Isaac to see that his sheepish expression was now replaced with one of sullen disdain.
“Do you think this watch is from the same culprit who doused our driveway in vegetable oil?”
Narn took in a surprisingly long inhale. “Considering we’ve been under similar antics in the past and it only began after an Isaac Riffson started residing in this town and now that we have a personal possession of this Isaac Riffson at the scene of a crime, a personal possession, that we have him wearing in plenty of social media posts, I’d say it’s highly likely that we can at least criminalize him for trespassing on guild property, though considering that this trucks door was working a claw prior and the watch was discovered very shortly after it’s malfunction, I conclude that this Isaac Riffson was also tampering with guild property with the intent of sabotage.”
I was shocked at Narn’s sudden, long winded, professionalism, as if he’d been waiting for this moment for quite a while.
Had he been reading Skalgan law just for an instance like this?
“And with Skalga’s law of reasonable suspicion, this is enough grounds to at least incriminate”.
Yeah, he’s been researching Skalgan law.
“I’d say this is the same culprit who broke the door frame and laced our driveway with vegetable oil.” He continued. “The same culprit who goes by the alias of ‘Scuzzlebutt’, the same culprit whom Feaden has been searching for for [months], the same culprit who once placed a flaming paper bag of feces on my doorstep, the same culprit who once replaced my shampoo With Hair Remover!!”
Oh yes, how could I have forgotten about that…
Narn turned to a very grumpy looking Isaac. “As you would say; get fucked ape boy! We finally got you!”
“Isaac, do you know anything of this?” I asked. “Don’t make me call Feaden, I will call Feaden!”
Isaac let out a growling exhale, his sullen expression never fading.
I’ve got you right where I want you!
This was it, I could finally rid myself of this menace! I could finally free my local guild of this nightmare! Finally we have undeniable evidence! A simple call to chief of police Feaden and have him locked behind bars, or better, deported back to Earth!
Or…
I could be throwing away the chance of a lifetime. The man had a very unique set of skills, skills of which I doubted any of my employees had. Skills that I needed on my team. Skills that the exterminators needed. Stalking around for over a solar cycle without ever being caught, without ever being seen, leaving behind no trace, no evidence, and no witnesses while reigning chaos and mayhem!
What could be done if he actually applied himself?
I need him!
“Isaac, sweetie!” I said turning to see Narn taking selfies with the watch as an agitated Isaac tried to pry it back. “How about you join Narn in resupplying Grithilyn’s booth?”
“WHAT?!” They both shouted in unison.
Oh yes, you are going to make an excellent exterminator.
I grabbed Isaac by his shirt collar and with all of my strength I dragged him to the side of the truck and shoved his back to it. “I’ve shown you the exterminators good side now show me your good side!” I said through my teeth. “Everyone else in this town seems to get along with you, except us, now show me why!”
Maybe I could make him see!
Isaac let out a huff of defeat. “Could I at least call my boss and tell ‘em I ain’t showing up for work today?”
I smiled in the human way as I jingled his watch in front of my gaze. “Dearest, I am your new boss!”
—————————————————————————
—————————————————————————
Memory Transcription Subject: Isaac Riffson, exterminator new hire, Spirefin Bay.
[Time accelerated] - 10 minutes.
“I lost all interest in talking to Kat when she called herself prey,” I said. “as long as she thought that way I’d never get through to her.”
“But we are prey.” Narn replied while munching absently on his Earth made granola bar.
“I know you think that way but I thought better of Kat. I thought she was starting to see things our way.”
“You’re a predator and I’m prey, it quite literally is that simple.” Stated Narn in a matter-of-fact kind of way while balancing the steering wheel in one paw while the other opened another granola bar.
“Yeah, I know that, I just want people to stop thinkin’ like that.” I responded. “As long as people hold on to those old Federation ideologies there’ll never be any sort of progress made.”
I sat there, stewing in silence for a moment before I began again. “I mean before we met you lot we never really thought o’ ourselves as predators.”
“What? Really?!” Said Narn with a high amount of surprise in his voice. “How?!” He spat crumbs from his muzzle.
“What? You think we walked around all like; hello fellow predator,” I said in a tone of mockery. “fine predator day we’re having here aren’t we? Under this wonderful predator sun and this fine predatory weather. Can’t wait to go to my predator home and tend to my predator garden and eat dinner with my predator wife-“
Narn let out a light chuckle, “alright, I get it!”
I let out a deeply needed sigh, “Before we met you all, we were people, not predators, feels like we got demoted.”
I let silence permeate in the air. I was hoping Narn was using this quiet time as contemplation but knowing him he was probably just sulking. Or just really enjoying that granola bar. What was it that Kat said, show your good side?
After an awkward minute or two of silence had passed I decided that I was going to show that good side. “Hey Narn!!” I said a lot louder than was necessary.
“Gahh!” Was his sudden reply.
“Calm down, I was just guna suggest some music.”
“I don’t wanna listen to your—“
But I wasn’t going to allow him enough time to retort. “I like me some ole southern gothic too!”
“What? No! That’s not what I—“
But my holopad had already been connected to his truck’s music player since before his shift began. I had bypassed the volume control and the on/off authority as originally I was going to remotely force him to listen to the wondrous and sloppy sounds of Skuggels mating on his drive today but that wouldn’t do now that I was in here.
The music began.
Narn began saying something more but I turned the volume up until he realized that any further protesting would only be in vein.
Well fuck me sideways and call me Sally, I’m an exterminator now, how did that even happen, it was all so fast. I thought to myself as I took in the views of the rural town along our route.
Can’t really be mad at ole Kat for this one, I sort of had it coming, but of all the ways… blackmail?!
I look to my left to see that Narn was a bit more acceptive of the music than I thought he would be.
Guess this means I got to start being nice to you now too.

What are Isopoly Acids?
Isopoly acids are inorganic acidic compounds formed by the combination of acids or anions of the same type. During the combination of two acids or anions, a water molecule is eliminated. Structure of isopoly acids are usually consists of a central atom surrounded by oxygen atoms arranged in a specific geometric pattern. This arrangement affects their physical and chemical properties. Isopoly acids show unique physical properties such as high melting points, solubility in water and varying degrees of acidity. These properties make them versatile compounds. They have applications in catalysis, materials science and other fields.
For example, isopoly acids of molybdenum forms when molybdenum trioxide is dissolved in aqueous sodium hydroxide. It can form dimolybdate, trimolybdate, tetramolybdate, etc. These acids form from the combination of the basic unit MoO6. Since this basic unit has an octahedral geometry, the isopoly acidic compounds form via the combination of either the corners or edges of these octahedral units. However, this combination that occurs through the corners causes repulsion between the Mo metal atoms. And, this repulsion can be reduced using another metal, other than molybdenum.
What are Heteropoly Acids?
Heteropoly acids are inorganic acidic compounds formed by combination of acids or anions of different types. Generally these acids are combinations of oxygen and hydrogen atoms with particular metals and nonmetals.
Heteropoly acids show both acidic and basic properties, which allow them to participate in a variety of reactions. Their versatile nature makes them valuable catalysts in various chemical transformations.
In addition to their acid-base behavior, heteropoly acids can undergo redox reactions, where they transfer electrons during chemical processes. Due to its redox activity, it is necessary in organic synthesis and environmental remediation. It is used as both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts.
Due to the high concentration of oxygen atoms and the presence of multiple metal cations, heteropoly acids are generally much stronger acids than isopoly acids because the multiple metal cations provide a greater number of protons, leading to increase in the acidity.
Structure of heteropolyacids allows for the transfer of protons between metal cations, producing an overall stronger acid, making them ideal for the use in a different industrial processes such as catalysis and acid-catalyzed reactions.
Due to their unique properties, heteropoly acids have wide range of applications. They are often used as catalysts in chemical reactions. They can stabilize intermediates and promote selectivity. Heteropoly acids can also oxidize organic compounds. Due to its oxidizing nature, it is very useful in the production of pharmaceuticals dyes and fragrances. Heteropoly acids can effectively remove pollutants and heavy metal ions from contaminated water sources.
Isopoly acids while not as diverse as heteropoly acids, maintain significance in various applications. They are commonly used in the production of glass, ceramics and pigments. They play a crucial role in the synthesis of myriad compounds. Isopoly acids also use in the manufacture of fertilizer. They have shown potential as precursors in the production of nanomaterials.
Source: maxbrainchemistry

Question 1: Creation
Then God saw everything he had made and indeed it was very good. So evening and morning were the 6th day. Thus heaven and earth and all their adornment were finished and on the seventh day God finished the works he made. Then God blessed the 7th day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all his works God began to make.
This story doesn’t add up where God come from and why then? Even as someone who believes there is a creator I don’t understand how it’s him and if he is as powerful as he is why did it take him 7 days to make the earth and then need rest? Shouldn’t someone so powerful think of it in an instant? Also how is time told he doesn’t make the sun and moon until the 4th day so how were evening and morning created in the start? If he created the universe and every animal why didn’t he mention dinosaurs or the ice age or even give a significant hint of one instead of being vague with the creeping things and the wild animals of earth if he knew about those ahead of time wouldn’t mentioning it help prove that he is an almighty being who can see into the future? Yes you could argue that maybe it’s not important but remember if Adam and Eve came to earth later how come it doesn’t add up to what we know about the dinosaurs and the ice age? How come God didn’t mention removing them for the safety of Adam and Eve?
Also about firmament which I found out is separating heaven from earth and that there is a waterfall separating heaven and earth? What about space and the other planets God doesn’t even mention those in a vague way? God formed man out of dust from the ground and breathed in his face the breath of life and man became a living soul.
You know at least Allah says we were made from water which is more accurate than this? Science has proven that we are made up of 6 elements Oxygen Carbon Nitrogen Calcium and Phorsopus. Only about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium. All 11 are necessary for life. The remaining elements are trace elements, of which more than a dozen are thought on the basis of good evidence to be necessary for life.[1] All of the mass of the trace elements put together (less than 10 grams for a human body) do not add up to the body mass of magnesium, the least common of the 11 non-trace elements.
Yes you could argue that you could mix logic and spirituality but you can say that about any religion as well In the Quran it says seemen begins from the backbone and goes down to the ribs that’s clearly illogical but do I defend it saying I can’t mix logic and spirituality? What about Greek Mythology they had Zeus give birth to a full grown warrior woman by eating her mother when they were shapeshifting and trapping the mother who later gave birth to her in his head? I can’t say that logically either.
The Garden of Eden
Also in the middle of the Garden were the tree of life and learning the knowledge of good and evil. Then how were Adam and Eve supposed to know what they were doing is wrong?
You may eat food from every tree in the garden: but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat: for in whatever day you eat from it you shall die by death.”
Once again how is Adam supposed to know what’s good and evil? Not only is he in ‘’perfect paradise’’ that shelters him, he doesn't even possess the basic knowledge of a child of right and wrong most kids usually do? How does Adam know what death is?
Numbers 23:19 — English Standard Version (ESV) 19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Titus 1:2 New International Version 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
2 Timothy 2:13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.
These are one of the few verses saying God doesn’t lie yet he tells Adam he will die from death(God of the Bible lacks basic grammar skills) that itself is a lie since we know what happens later. In his 10 commandments for kids to adults he says lying is a sin he also repeatedly mentions hypocrisy as a sin yet he himself not even 5 minutes into the Bible has proved guilty of this. So how do I trust anything that comes out of his mouth and that’s even if I do believe he is not a deity?
Now the serpent was more cunning than all the wild animals the lord God made on earth.
Isn’t the serpent Satan supposed to be an angel? It even said he was cast out of heaven because he tried to overthrow God by sitting in his throne while God the omnipresent(can do anything including seeing into the future and being everywhere) went away to do something. Anyway, how is Satan supposed to be smarter than the other animals? Also it’s been awhile since I studied animals as a hobby but snakes aren’t that smart on the side of animals pigs and elephants and many others are smarter. Where did Satan even learn human speech?
Then they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden that afternoon and Adam and his wife hid themselves within the tree in the middle of the garden from the presence of the Lord God. So the lord God called Adam and said to him. ‘’Adam, where are you”. He replied, I heard your voice as you were walking in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’’ Thus he said, ‘’Who said you were naked? Have you eaten from the one tree which I commanded you not eat? Then Adam said. The woman you gave me, gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ Then God punished them for eating the apple Eve with childbirth and Adam with having to get a job.
Like I said a few times, how is Adam/Eve supposed to know right from wrong if they hadn’t eaten the fruit of knowledge and he left a manipulative monster or angel who tried to recently overthrow him? How is that grounds for punishing everyone else based on something someone else did? It just seems like a cheap way for the Christian God to demonize gaining knowledge or morals outside of him without an actual argument for why? The fact he does this in the first official story is a red flag on its own. Also how is God surprised he knows their entire story before they were even made? How is he confused about what Satan would do? Also this is also another lie and contradiction he told Adam he would die from death and I assume Adam passed that onto Eve and he let Satan off with little to nothing because from the few we see of him he could go anywhere he pleases while Adam and Eve carter to him for the rest of their lives in hopes that he doesn’t punish them even worse. How is he forgiving but at the same time he punishes Adam and Eve immediately for a decision they couldn’t make on their own instead of explaining how it’s wrong and still giving them another chance?

15 minutes of Armenia coverage by Transcaucasian Telegraph. Follow for regular updates.

details form yesterday's gas station explosion on Yerevan-Sevan highway

Here is what leaked and caused the blast: 111 tons of gas, 8 tons of diesel, and 12 tons of benzin.
No deaths. There was fake news about 18 deaths.
7 injured, 5 of whom are gas station employees. 6 are middle-aged men and 1 is a woman.
2 of the injured are in critical condition fighting for their lives, with burns covering 60% of the body, including lung tissue damage.
4 of the injured have 20%-25% burns. They are walking.
1 was treated and discharged.
The fire was extinguished in all reservoirs but the efforts continued the following day to cool the area with additional water. Gasprom-Armenia temporarily shut down the gas for residents of Abovyan. Part of the highway had to be shut down.
Authorities launched a felony investigation for neglect that led to serious bodily injuries.

... about the gas station (by Hetq)

The gas station "Gas Oil Ltd" opened in 2021 and has since been fined several times for violations and owed taxes. In 2023 it was fined two for not printing sales receipts.
In February the inspectors discovered that the station was under-filling the drivers' tanks. They were fined and forced to put a public sign reading "մենք տուգանվել ենք թերլիցքավորման համար:"
In February 2024 its activities were suspended for not passing the fire inspection; violations were detected. Inspectors came and sealed off the equipment to prevent it from being used. The owner launched a legal dispute to challenge the findings.
In May, the IRS asked the court to declare the company bankrupt. (the company disputes the reports that it is going bankrupt)
Authorities restricted its operations just hours before the explosion.

... who is the owner?

Rafael Ayvazyan, possibly a former owner, is a politician from Armenia's richest man Gagik Tsarukyan's BHK party and balloted in 2018. The Facebook page says he is Tsarukyan's assistant.
Shushanik Hayrapetyan is possibly the current owner. Her husband claims the explosion was an intentional sabotage. He supposedly has a name of a suspect but won't release it while the investigation is underway; he is cooperating with authorities. He also claims the gas station was operating legally.
UPDATE: There are separate gas and benzin stations. The former had the right to operate, while the latter was suspended. That's probably where the ownership and suspension confusion comes from.
photo, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source,

Yerevan municipality demolished 25 illegal gas stations located dangerously close to apartment condos last year: Mayor Tigran Avinyan

He promised to continue the process this year.
source,

U.S. wants Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign a peace agreement ASAP

Other parts from the State Department's comment to an Azerbaijani outlet:
STATE DEPARTMENT: We are ready to support any process that will bring peace and stability to the people of the South Caucasus. Secretary Blinken and other officials maintain regular contact with high-ranking officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan. We are encouraged by the progress between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we support the two countries to conclude a peace agreement as soon as possible for the benefit of the region. We welcome the continued progress in border delimitation based on the Alma-Ata Declaration. This is an important step towards concluding a stable and dignified peace agreement. //
source,

Yerevan: Armenia is willing to sign a peace deal with Azerbaijan within the next month

In response to Baku's continuous false claims that Armenia has territorial claims against Azerbaijan and that Armenia's constitution is an obstruction to peace:
YEREVAN: Armenia does not have territorial claims on any of its neighbors, including Azerbaijan. The Constitution of Armenia and the amendments to it are an internal affair of Armenia, and we consider the attempts by official Baku to intervene in the internal discussions in Armenia as a gross intervention into the domestic affairs of the country.
We believe that such rhetoric torpedoes the peace process and casts doubts on the sincerity of the leadership of Azerbaijan to achieve peace. The negotiated peace agreement clearly states that the Parties recognize each other’s territorial integrity and do not have territorial claims against each other. There is also an agreed provision in the draft peace agreement that neither party may invoke its domestic legislation for not implementing its obligations under the peace agreement.
Accordingly, we believe that the clearest and most direct way to address all the concerns of the Parties is to sign the agreement, which will open the door to lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan is ripe enough for signing, and the Armenian side expresses its willingness to work constructively and intensively to complete and sign it within the next month. //
source,

Ilham Aliyev again cries about feeling bullied by Western powers

Aliyev described the AZ-EU relations as overall positive but he is unhappy over the harsh treatment of 3 European countries after his 2023 ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Without naming the countries, he said some EU countries have formed an "anti-Azerbaijan group" and "declared cold war" against Azerbaijan.
Aliyev praised the Orban regime for using Hungary to obstruct some of EU's pro-Armenian efforts.
source,

Parliament President Alen Simonyan about the visit of the Armenian Ambassador and a Yerevan district leader to Bucha, Ukraine, the site of the massacres committed by the Russian army

The visit was not part of an official delegation sent by the Armenian parliament, but they did receive authorization from the foreign ministry. Simonyan has just returned from a foreign trip, so he was either unaware that a low-ranking Armenian delegation visited Bucha, or the reporter's question confused him:
REPORTER: Today [Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson] Maria Zakharova urged the Armenian parliamentarians to present the list of supposedly killed civilians in Bucha that the parliamentarians received from Ukraine. Has the parliament received a list about Bucha?
SIMONYAN: I won't comment on her and the lies. No delegation was sent to Bucha, but I can send the list of hundreds of people killed in Nagorno-Karabakh to Mrs. Zakharova. If they are interested, I can also send the list of 100,000 refugees who fled the area of the responsibility of their peacekeepers. I have no further comments on lies and absurdities which, have become a routine occurrence.
REPORTER: Why is Zakharova making such assumptions? Are there suspicions?
SIMONYAN: She is just lying.
REPORTER: Why?
SIMONYAN: I don't know. You know that nobody went there, right? Neither opposition parties, nor...
REPORTER: It was a visit by the head of Yerevan's Nor Nork District and our Ambassador.
SIMONYAN: Then I will ask the Nor Nork district administration to respond to Russia's foreign ministry.
REPORTER: The Ambassador was also there.
SIMONYAN: Maybe my neighbor's husband was also there. No parliamentarians visited there. There is a strict protocol the MPs must follow before a trip. It's all a lie.

... Alen Simonyan about the statement by Russia's Deputy FM Galuzin

REPORTER: Russian Deputy FM Galuzin urged Armenia not to make reckless moves and not share national databases or classified information with Western states. Otherwise, he says it will become impossible for Armenia to have a common defense zone with Russia and CSTO. What information is Galuzin referring to? Why are they concerned?
SIMONYAN: First of all, please stop threatening us. Enough with the threats. Second, enough talking about CSTO. Before they talk about CSTO they should first come here and show where CSTO's borders go through and what obligations Russia has as part of CSTO and the AM-RU bilateral agreements. Enough of making such statements about Armenia's sovereign territories. Third, Armenia is not negotiating with any country to bring their military base or join their military alliance [NATO].
REPORTER: Moscow is concerned you might share certain information with the West.
SIMONYAN: What information?
REPORTER: National databases.
SIMONYAN: Absurd. Enough talking to us with that rhetoric. Enough threatening us directly and indirectly with their propagandists and mankurts with Armenian last names [Kremlin's ethnic Armenian propagandists], and all those people who get paid for it. It doesn't work on our population; it has the opposite effect. We don't use [what Kremlin propagandists say] as a guide.
REPORTER: So you won't respond to Galuzin?
SIMONYAN: I don't think I should respond to the Mister. If our foreign ministry finds it necessary to respond, then...

... Alen Simonyan about AM-AZ peace efforts

REPORTER: Aliyev wants Armenia to join the effort to dissolve the OSCE Minsk Group. Should it be dissolved today?
SIMONYAN: Discussions about dissolving the Minsk Group can happen after signing a peace agreement, and Armenia is taking steps to accomplish this. Aliyev is attempting to stonewall the peace process by making constitutional demands. The constitution is Armenia's internal affair and it will be reformed and that process began in 2020 but it's an internal topic of Armenia. Azerbaijan is using our opposition parties' opposition to constitutional reforms against us. We sent the 9th revision of the draft peace agreement to Baku, Azerbaijan's FM described it as very positive, but Azerbaijan uses our opposition to harm the process and Armenia's positions. Azerbaijan and Armenia's opposition are being guided from the same place [Moscow].
REPORTER (Azatutyun): Are you saying that as a political statement or do you have specific facts [about the two being guided by Moscow]?
SIMONYAN: It is a political statement and I'm so glad that out of all outlets, it's Azatutyun asking this because [they recently asked an NSS official if protest co-leader Bagrat Galstanyan is suspected of being a Russian spy and after receiving a response that there is no such open case against Galstanyan, opposition-aligned outlets presented that as Galstanyan's movement not serving the interests of Russia, to "absolve" him]. So you guessed it, this was a political statement by me.
REPORTER: Armenia's foreign ministry said it's possible to sign a peace agreement within a month. What steps were taken to bring us so close?
SIMONYAN: Most of the problematic paragraphs have been addressed. As I said late last year, we could sign it at any time in the presence of political will, but the Azerbaijani president continues to derail the process by making statements. Lately, he spoke about Khojalu. It would be better for him to start by discussing the massacres of Armenians in Baku and Sumgayit. A country that wants to host COP29 and be viewed as an internationally respected player should not torpedo a peace process and should release the Armenian POWs. We have a guy, who is a civilian, abducted by Azerbaijan on the AZ-AM border and jailed in Azerbaijan illegally. I have great concerns about him and I've expressed it to every international structure and to every international partner I've met. We have reasons to believe that this man's health and life are at risk. [oh damn I thought Alen didn't care about POWs].
REPORTER: What are the disagreements around the peace agreement?
SIMONYAN: We will find out soon. We sent them our response and we are waiting for their response.
REPORTER: Is there an agreement to hire an international company [as suggested by the Armenian government several months ago, instead of bringing Russian forces] to handle the customs procedures on the southern route? Pashinyan mentioned that earlier.
SIMONYAN: I don't recall that being written in the peace agreement. Our stance is that Armenia is ready to open all roads, all communications, which would also benefit Azerbaijan.
REPORTER: Pashinyan said in 2020 that it's possible to hire a specialized third party to manage it.
SIMONYAN: A lot has changed since 2020 and today we have a special unit in NSS ready to handle that process but we could again consider the involvement of a 3rd party company specialized in customs but in any case that can't be a country [e.g. Russia] that's regional. As far as I understand, there are no such discussions right now.

... Alen Simonyan about Bagrat Galstanyan and the ex-regime protests

REPORTER: Are you not concerned about their large numbers?
SIMONYAN: They won over 240,000 votes in 2021 so it's expected that they could gather 30,000 supporters. Galstanyan led his followers to clash with the police in front of the foreign ministry building while he watched. In comparison, in 2018 it was the protest leaders climbing barbwires. They still have the old mentality. They think they can hide and bribe others to show up. They think a revolution is a LEGO game. That's not how it works. It's difficult to repeat what happened in 2018 today because today people have the ability to vote. Back in 2018 people were upset because their right to make a change through elections was taken away. Today people have the ability to exercise their rights, and there are municipalities where we lost the elections. The protest leader understands that his efforts are failing so he is sacrificing his followers. I apologize to our residents for this inconvenience. I urge Bagrat Galstanyan to discuss with Serj Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan and find a way to minimize the impact on people's peace. International soccer matches are being held in Armenia, there are wine and other festivals [Galstanyan visited it today and received a warm welcome from some vendors], we have tourists, there are problems in hotels because of that and our businesses and state budget are taking a hit just because Galstanyan decided to circle around Yerevan with a thousand people.
video, source, source,

Armenia's parliamentary Defense Committee approves the ratification of Armenia-Greece defense agreement

The agreement was signed in December 2023 by MOD Papikyan and MOD Dendias.

... what's in it?

• Research of innovative technology for defense
• technical support in arms production
• creation of joint weapon manufacturers
• joint personnel training
• repair each other’s military equipment
source,

Armenia and Germany sign documents on military-technical cooperation [what the fuck?]

Armenia and Germany have reached agreements on military-technical and military-technological cooperation.
The documents were signed after discussions between Deputy MOD Brutyan and his German colleague Benedikt Zimmer, as well as other officials and representatives of German military-industrial companies.
The Armenian Defense Ministry delegation is in the German capital to participate in the ILA Berlin 2024 exhibition.
source,

Russia is attempting to convince countries to authorize its "Mir" payment cards (similar to Visa and Mastercard)

Armenian banks recently banned Mir citing the risks of Western sanctions. Moscow at the time responded with criticism, saying it would harm tourism in Armenia.
Now Russia is attempting to bring Mir back to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, both of whom are "under heavy pressure from the West", said Russian Deputy FM Pankin.
Russian Deputy FM Galuzin praised Azerbaijan for making Mir cards gradually more accessible in the country. "Russia is grateful to Azerbaijan for this approach, which will contribute to the development of ties in the field of tourism."
source, source,

so it begins (dramatic background music with overwhelming tunes of toot)

The U.S. has sanctioned dozens of Georgian officials over the passage of the Kremlin-style law against civil society organizations.
It's a visa ban on members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, MPs, law enforcement officials, private citizens, and their immediate family members.
The U.S. is slightly more deeply concerned than ever before and believes the new law risks derailing Georgia’s European future and runs counter to the Georgian constitution and "the wishes of its people."
Georgia's ranking ruling party member mocked the sanctions, saying "no one is afraid" and that it makes them "smile". He earlier predicted there wouldn't be any sanctions.
source,

EU rejects membership talks with Georgia (for now)

European Commission recommends start of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova this month to give a positive signal to both countries on their EU aspirations. Georgia did not get the green light.
Ukraine now meets the previously outstanding criteria including anti-corruption measures, restrictions on political lobbying, rules on asset declarations for public officials and protection of languages used by national minorities.
Orban is expected to block Ukraine.
source,

deputy foreign minister of the United States James O'Brien will visit Armenia on Monday

JIM: Traveling to Yerevan to lead the U.S.-Armenia Strategic Dialogue. I will meet with senior government officials, the business community, and civil society to discuss significant progress on bilateral relations and our support for Armenia.
source,

export stats in Q1 2024

Exports grew 2.7 times (mostly jewelry to UAE), and imports grew 76%. Exports of goods manufactured in Armenia declined by 14% YoY in the period.
source,

Armenia might build a copper smelter using Indian technologies

Economy Minister Papoyan hosted India's Ambassador Sinha. Besides the smelter, they also discussed cooperation in agriculture, jewelry manufacturing, industry, chemical industry, Crossroads of Peace, etc.
source,

dozens of people showed up on Friday to ride a bicycle with PM Pashinyan on the public streets of Yerevan after his Facebook invitation: VIDEO

Of course they had to start the process by spreading germs with individual handshakes that lasted inefficiently long (bureaucracy). The coffee was on the house (bribe).
The ride started early in the morning with light traffic. The cyclists occupied around half a block (smaller than Bagrat's crowd).
One ֆիքստուլ guy was seen doing a wheelie (a gang).
The 12-kilometer ride ended with selfies and participants sharing their experiences. Pashinyan said riding in a group feels entirely different. (as I said, a gang)
The PM wants to make this a regular event.
video,

soccer matches

Slovenia 2:1 Armenia
Armenia 2:1 Kazakhstan
source,

European Commission allocates €7 million to help develop education in Armenia

The agreement, which entered into force on September 12, 2023, is aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Armenia's educational system and implementing educational reforms envisaged in the government's 2021-2026 programme.

... how?

aims to create updated and equipped science, technology, engineering and math laboratories in all 330 schools in [several provinces] as well as to retrain teachers in modern methodology
The construction of 13 educational complexes is also planned in Syunik

source,

EU allocated €3.5 million for ongoing justice reforms in Armenia

source,

Armenia is elected to the UN Economic and Social Council for 2025-2027

source,

Armenia's parliamentary Security Committee greenlights a bill to require large businesses to install public entrance-facing CCTV cameras "to combat crime"

The camera must be installed in front of the premises of a retail business that's >100 sqm, gas stations and catering outlets that are >50 sqm.

applies to banks, credit organizations, pawnshops, pharmacies, currency exchange offices with separate entrance, post offices, educational institutions, underground parking lots,

The Ministry says they spoke with representatives of several businesses and that they supposedly agreed that the equipment expense is worth it if it's going to improve safety.
The bill was drafted by the Interior Ministry and approved by the PM's cabinet. It received a negative assessment by the Justice Ministry's Personal Data Protection Agency but the ministry decided to greenlight it after discussions and citing the fact that cameras face a public space.
The system will allow the police to track the movement of a suspect, after a crime is committed, by tapping into several cameras. The system will record when the police agent accesses it and the agent's badge number, for accountability.
It aims to make it easier for police to solve crimes committed in public places, and to discourage crime, said the Deputy Minister, adding that its privacy aspect is in line with "European court precedent".
source, source, source,

Parliamentary Defense Committee greenlighted the creation of a Police Guard to replace the militarized Police Forces

It's the continuation of police reforms in Armenia that led to the creation of Patrol Police, Water Patrol Police, and Interior Ministry.
The reform offers clearer standards for the use of force. Police officers will know the boundaries of ‘permissible actions’. It was covered in more detail in May 2 news digest.

the government believes, a new, purely police service will be created in Armenia, capable of solving strategic tasks, meeting all modern international criteria, equipped with appropriate weapons, and provided with adequate professional staff

source,

how many members of Bagrat Galstanyan's movement have been detained since May for roadblocks and clashes with police?

Authorities report 629 detentions, 76 of whom had a record of committing crimes in the past, while 28 were recidivists.
source,

government to fight money laundering & cybercrimea with new tools

MINISTRY: People mistakenly believe that every crime committed through the internet is a cybercrime. The legal reforms will clarify the list of cybercrimes, which is a requirement under the Budapest Convention.
It is recommended to obtain the IP address within the framework of judicial control. Today it is given on the basis of the decision of the investigator, with the approval of the prosecutor.
Authorities will need separate court approval to inspect digital devices confiscated during an apartment raid if the original court order did not assume there would be digital devices with evidence.
We will clarify the legal definition of crypto asset. Last year we had 249 crimes involving crypto assets, worth at least $5 million.
Actions related to the management of the crypto-asset must be performed within the framework of cashless operations, and the exchange of the crypto-asset with other property won't be possible, but you can still exchange crypto with another currency. //
There is going to be another crypto regulation law introduced by the Central Bank soon. This one is an appetizer.
more, full report and debates,

French architectural firm Wilmotte presents its vision for the completed Cascade

Yerevan Mayor Avinyan recently visited Paris where he met with French architects to draw a plan to finally complete the decades-long abandoned upper section of Cascade.
video,

do NOT eat fruits from trees on Yerevan sidewalks, warn experts

It's likely contaminated with toxic emissions and dust, according to scientists. Mulberry is the worst; they discovered mercury in Yerevan tut. Lead was also found.
source,

Armenia has made significant strides in improving food safety: FAO and WHO

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization marked the World Food Safety Day.

Armenia has made significant strides in improving food safety through adherence to globally recommended standards.
FAO and WHO teams in Armenia have jointly promoted the multisectoral One Health approach and supported Armenia’s commitments to developing and updating national food safety emergency response plans.

... what exactly was done?

Commitment of the Government of Armenia reflected in strengthening national scientific, analytical, and technical capacities in risk analysis, early warning systems for food safety, and response to food safety emergencies which was supported by FAO.
Whereas, WHO played a critical role in supporting the Government of Armenia in implementation of the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) – a multisectoral assessment of country capacities to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to public health risks

source,

Yerevan Wine Days festival kicks off in the capital

This year's hero is pot, որպես պատմության վկա և պատմություն կրող.
source,

Bluebells are purple, Greenland's not green My pinkie's not pink, so what does it mean?? Roses are red, but my name's not Dave (Are you drunk?)
IM NOT DRUNK
Microwave Do you know what I'm saying?? Do you know what I'm saying????
Lying on the kitchen floor I know I shouldn't do it but I wanna do it more
Wait,
............... sorry I zoned out What did you just say
Did you just call me pretty! You must be mistaken Or talking to a mirror :)
Sorry, I'm bad at words
Maths is yellow and science is blue Marmite's gross and so are you SCOTLAND ISN'T REAL Nicholas Cage isn't either Yesterday I made friends with a spider
OH eM geE

Part 1
They're all going to die. The captain was right, this ship is our ticket out of here. No more subsisting on stupid algae rations. Fresh meat, Finally! I hope they have some Freeanas. They taste just like my favorite snack back home on Grobblum. I remember learning how to leap from the methane pools fast enough to catch the tiny flying things off-guard. I loved the snap of their brittle bones, so when I learned there was an entire species of giant ones? Heheheheh...
The blood-scent on this vessel is strong. The boarding latch hasn't even opened yet and I can already feel the bloodlust taking hold. My buddies besides me are all itchin' to go- but I ain't second captain for nothin'. I gotta make sure to keep 'em in line- so they tear apart the enemies instead of each other. Especially since we're all starvin'.
"REMEMBER, SPAWNLINGS! WE'RE HERE FOR THE SHIP, NOT THE STUPID SCIENTISTS ON IT. TEAR 'EM APART BUT LEAVE THE TECH INTACT. ANY OF YOU THE SCRATCH THE FURNITURE WILL FEEL MY TEETH, GOT IT?"
The roared in unison. Good. Morale is always key. The latch opens as their vessel finishes repressurizing, tearing open the secondary bulkhead like dry kelp and creating a new opening for us. Stupid Florbulan ships, they think their fancy redundant systems can stop Grobulans? Hah! They can add as many extra walls as they want, we'll just add more boom.
Time to go. I lead the charge, of course, and start tearing into the first Florb I see. Soft and chewy, but I ain't a fan of their blood. Too acidic. I leave 'em to the boys and pull a couple with me to go deeper in. Down the hall is a few more, I want to save bloodying my hands for the first Freeana I see so I fire a shot from the photon caster instead and let one of the boys I took handle the rest. I turn down the hall, and the other boy is already at a tear. Suddenly, a different Grobulan leaps from a doorway and the two start tearing into each other.
"Heh heh heh, look what we have here. BOYS! GET OUT HERE! LOOKS LIKE TODAYS A LUCKY DAY! WE GET TO EAT TRAITOR TONIGHT!" I bellow to the others behind me. They start pouring out of the room, leaving the half-dead Florbs to rot. Every Grobulan worth their teeth knows the name Hark Manyfred. Son of the Traitor King. Disgrace to every Grobulan in the galaxy. Figures he's here, on some no-name explorer vessel. Not even the Florbs want him doing anything important. Serves the trash right for what his fool of a father did. That war was as good as won, all we had to do was execute that filth of a mate and her treasonous pacifism. That would've set the bastards priorities straight, make it so he didn't surrender to these pathetic chew toys. Force the rest of us loyal Grobulans into hiding. Not that we mind the Pirates life, its more natural anyways. But it still sucks having to spend months or years on algae rations between hits.
After the traitor lept out the doorway, something else stepped in after him. A weird thing I'd never seen before. Must be one of the Combine's new races. We'd been stuck out in deep space a few years, haven't exactly been able to keep up to date on news. Good. I get to be the first Grobulan to taste new meat. What's the thing its holding? Doesn't look like a Photon caster. Must be some new tech? Or maybe something its people made. Who knows, who cares?
"Stop! Don't come closer or I'll shoot!" It bellowed. Translators still working? Stupid gunman missed. That shot was supposed to take out their computer core. Maybe its another of the Florbs stupid redundancies. Whatever, bloodlust is getting tougher to handle. I need me some RED.
Not good. Not good. Not good. Shark people don't respond to intimidation. Fuck. Of course the pirates also have to be homicidal maniacs. The things fast too, practically swimming through the air- and while I'd love to appreciate the majesty of a flying great white right now that thing is coming this way and I'm pretty sure its looking at me. I look to Hark but he's busy with another of the Pirates. I heard once that sharks go away if you hit them on the nose, I know the airsoft gun probably isn't much, but if I pelt him in the face a few times maybe it'll stun him a bit? Don't know, but I have to try cuz running in this low gravity isn't gonna work.
BOOM. SQUELCH.
Holy fucking shit. What the hell? He just... he just exploded!? Eugh, and that smell. Its like someone just turned on a stove. What the hell are these guys made of, fucking methane? Whatever, I look behind me just to make sure there wasn't some other guy with a gun or whatever. Nope. Nada. That shark just exploded cuz of an airsoft BB and I'm not in a position to start questioning things when there's a second one that looks like its decided I'm a bigger threat than Hark. After a very brief moment of shock from the sudden detonation, it and I lock eyes and it leaps at me. I panic and pull the triger again, spraying bbs down the hallway all the while and catching some other shark people that happened to be behind that first one. One of them scrapes the thing's arm, and it just blows off like I hit him with a twelve gauge. He goes careening into the wall and splats like a water balloon. More of that disgusting smell, and all the blood. I actually end up vomiting, and watch in horror as it sizzles on what's left of the dead shark guy's skin. Burns right through it like I'm a fucking xenomorph or something.
I look to Hark, and I may not be an expert of Shark social skills but I'm pretty sure he's shitting himself right now. God, to him I must look like I was plucked straight out of a horror movie. He probably expects me to whip out a knife tail or laser eyes or something. I look to my right to see Doc Oc again, and he's an even deeper shade of outright purple now. Almost black. I hear more shouts, more of those shark things start pouring out of the doorway the first ones came from. One of them is holding another octopus looking person in... christ in his teeth.
We're all going to die. But not to the Grobulans like I originally thought. This creature calling itself Duncan has just reduced, and is still reducing, the Grobulan pirates that have boarded the vessel to... paste. That 'toy' of its is quite literally making them explode. And I'm pretty sure it just spat acid venom at one to make sure it was dead. I was wrong, this is not a soldier. This must be some kind of gene-augmented bioweapon, bred for war. The fact that it hasn't already killed us is either a sign that some command trigger hadn't flipped until combat began or some other control mechanism that might be malfunctioning- or perhaps not malfunctioning. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem interested in either me or Lieutenant Hark, and I aim to keep it that way by pulling Hark into back into my office so I can work on the injuries he sustained from his brief scuffle. Pretty bad, from the looks of it. Several tears, a couple torn ligaments. One of his cartilage support structures is snapped in half. All I can hear from the hallway now is shouting, and that horrid noise its weapon makes. A high pitched whine, a handful of strange plinks, and the nausea-inducing squelch of a... of a detonating Grobulan. Whatever that weapon is, its more powerful than any I have ever seen or even heard of. At least as far as handheld firearms are concerned. The fact that its people has developed such weaponry before even achieving spaceflight is a testament to what is undoubtedly a violent, warlike nature. No wonder it seemed so concerned that Dr. Tryn had accessed their communications, it must have thought we were trying to conduct military espionage. I shudder to think what it would have done if the doctor hadn't been quick to assuage its worries. It could well be me painted on the wall right now...
I decided it was better to focus on Hark's injuries, than to speculate about my brush with death.
This is sickening. I thought that living out a sci-fi novel, killing goons and pirates with some weird super power or super weapon might be kind of neat, fun even. But right now all I want to do is go home and pretend like this never happened. But I can't. Something about seeing all the... blood up close. Hearing those screams. No actor can do a genuine death cry, and let me tell you the real thing tickles something fucking awful deep in my brain. Even if its from an alien instead of a, well human I guess. They're people, too, afterall. From all the dead uh, octopus people- mental note, ask Doc Oc what his people are called- its clear what's gonna happen if I even entertain the idea of surrender. These shark people don't leave prisoners, and if they did they'd probably have a different, more culinary, term for them.
Calling upon my years of... airsoft experience... I start clearing the hallway. Check corners, double-checking rooms, making sure I don't miss anything. There's a few more of those bird-fish people, cowering along with a handful of other strange aliens I've not seen before. More octopi, a few eel-looking ones, a literal man-sized starfish. Man, aside from the bird-fish all of them look like they come from the ocean. Are there any terrestrial species aboard? Maybe its a special ship or something.
Eventually, I hear a weird thunk and the entire ship seems to lurch. Then the Alexa in the walls says, "BREACH SEALED. 1 INTRUDER DETECTED. YELLOW ALERT."
"Sounds like its over mostly, I'm sure the ship has other soldiers on it to take care of the last guy. Now, back to uh... where... fuck. I have no idea where I'm at." I turn around, to find the hallway behind me now blocked by 2 eel-like aliens, wielding more of those banana shaped weapons- pointed at me. Shit.
I put my hands up, and drop my weapon- letting the band on it hang it by my shoulder, "Hey heyyyy.. it's alright. I'm friendly, I'm on your side, I helped uh... well, you can see for yourself." I gestured to the trail of... corpses. God. I left a trail of corpses. Fuck me. When I get back, I'm gonna have one hell of a story for my therapist.
"I am well aware of your actions today, sir... Duncan Euler, is it? Doctor Ruffaloo informed me of your... abilities," A voice from behind me, very soft. I turn around and... huh. This one looks sort of like one of those bird-fish people, but much... taller? More like a stork or a flamingo, where the other ones looked sort of like shiny pidgeons with gills. Given the voice, must be some kind of sexual dimorphism? Weird. She- or he? I don't know. They seem to also be actually dressed, admittedly with ribbons and medals instead of clothes, but I guess that's how it goes when you're people are all feathered. No need to add more coverings.
"Uh, ohkay. Look, I didn-" She raised a hand, or wing I guess.
"Its alright. I'm not about to interrogate the one responsible for saving my vessel about his people's military technology or strategies. From the security footage, its clear that you are no uncontrolled murder machine like our good Doctor seemed so worried about. You very much seem in control, and have gone to effort to target only the pirates who boarded my ship," she explains.
Her ship? So she's the captain then. Alright, cool, so I can just tell her what's going on, have her take me back to my planet and get her in contact with some way more qualified than me for something as big as first contact and then I can go home and forget about all of this.
"Oh, good, that's great. So, listen, I-" she raises a wing again.
"I'm sure you want to go home so you can report about this to your superiors. But, unfortunately, that is not currently possible. According to Protocol, first contact with a new species requires a thorough investigation of the prospective member species before making contact through official channels to prevent the spread of novel diseases or aid in application of species-unique accomodations; and of course to ensure our translators are functioning correctly so that there are no communicative misunderstandings. Normally this would be done at a great distance, and if any form of physical exam was conducted the individual would be sedated the entire time and returned in the same condition they were taken before any could notice. However, Lieutenant Hark broke protocol during his scouting assignment in an attempt to save your life. And while admirable, it has left us in a rather awkward position. I must thank you for saving my vessel, but unfortunately I cannot allow you to return to your planet before an official first contact is made. In the meantime, I'm sure the Combine would be more than happy to provide you any accomodation you desir-"
I raise my airsoft rifle, directly at her. I hear a few clicks from behind me, and quickly realize what my anger and adrenaline have made me do. I prepare to face death, but instead only hear gasps of.. horror? I flick around to see what's happened, only to find that the guards behind me are shining... laser pointers? Had to cover my eyes a bit but... yeah. Its just laser pointers. They're a little hot, I guess. But, not like "light me on fire" hot or anything.
"Hey! Be careful where you point those laser sights you have on your guns, you could blind someone! Or... well, I guess you wouldn't care about blinding someone you're about to kill, but still! That could hurt!"
I hear the captain lady's voice again, though its a hoarse whisper of abject shock.
"Those aren't laser sights. Those are Photon Casters. The deadliest handheld firearm that can be safely used aboard a spaceborne vessel. And you... you're just... immune? Do- do you even feel them?"
"Uh, well, they're a little hot I guess. Might be able to cook a chicken with one if you held it long enough." I said, unconsciously cracking a joke to take the edge off the fact that I was apparently about to be executed just to keep me quiet.
"A little hot? Sir Duncan those are- well, I don't know what measurement your people use and I'm sure the Translator doesn't either. But I assure you they would normally be extremely painful at the least, and if held could kill in just a few moments. I also don't know what a chicken is, but if takes more than this to 'cook' them then it must be quite the formiddable beast," She explains, her voice stern with amazement.
I can't help but chuckle at the idea of a chicken being formiddable, but it only ends up scaring the piss out of everyone around me. Fuck. 'The monster learns its invulnerable to its victims weapons, and chuckles menacingly'. Well, maybe I could turn this to my advantage.
"Take me back. Now." I say, in the deepest, most intimidating tone I could muster. Making sure the Captain is staring directly down the orange barrel of my apparently-lethal airsoft gun.
----
How did things come to this. First Lieutenant Hark disobeys a direct order, and though it is admirable to want to save a life, it is unimaginably reckless when it involves breaking first contact protocol. What happens if this "Duncan"'s family notices its absence? What if Hark's little escapade was noticed by local authorities? There's no telling how many things could have or indeed did go wrong at the very outset, and now here I am being threatened into making matters worse by the very individual Hark saved and who saved my own vessel from Grobulan pirates. Not even the Songs can tell where they came from, or why they were this deep in unexplored space. I've heard tales of Pirates living away from the Hyperlanes, but I didn't think they could be this far out.
In any case, what am I to do? Clearly this individual is attempting to reconnoiter with its military to report on the existence of extraterrestrial threats. There's no telling how this will paint first contact- it could even lead to another Cold War like with the Grobulan Empire; which ended in the obvious fashion. Thankfully their King had a sympathetic consort, and it was thanks only to her sacrifice that the war was ended before anyone went extinct. I'm sure the councilmen would prefer to avoid a repeat of these events. As would I, considering the death toll of that conflict. It may be futile, but I must try to negotiate- even if it results in my own death.
"Sir Duncan, I am sorry but I cannot do that. If your people learn of extraterrestrial life in uncontrolled conditions, it could cause mass panic, or worse, outright war. It is not unheard of for a civilization to over-react to the notion of extraterrestrials and end up running itself extinct over differences of opinion regarding how to move forward. Moreover, if you tell your superiors of what happened here they may be inclined to believe that extraterrestrials in general are a threat- which would hamper peace talks intending to offer them the protection of the Florbus Combine. Our goal is to ensure peace and cooperation between as many species as possible, for the betterment of all. But if a world is closed off and xenophobic, it can result in far worse conflicts than what has happened aboard this vessel. It is in everyone's best interest that we follow protocol, and ensure a smooth first contact with your world's governing bodies. To give them time to process the information before making it public knowledge and potentially causing chaos and, thereby, death. I do not see in you a heartless monster, if you were you would have killed my own people indiscriminately alongside the Grobulans."
If this does not sway it, then nothing can. I may be forced to scuttle. Better us to burn than entire planets.
----
Fuck. She saw right through me. In hindsight, threatening the captain of a military vessel would never have ended well anyways. They might have tried something insane. Especially since she's still convinced that I am a military man myself. My dad may have been, but I definitely am not. I like airsoft, sure, and I do enjoy occasionally watching videos of airsoft pros wiping the floor with military tactics. But I grew up with my mother never knowing if my Dad was going to come back or not. Too many tearful reunions, too many moments seeing the dead look in his eyes or overhearing him talk in his sleep. PTSD is a hell of a thing, and it seems I'm gonna end up with some of it myself after this.
The worst thing is she's right. If I go back, there's no way I couldn't at least tell mom- she'd notice something was wrong and find a way to force it out of me. Then she might tell Dad, and Dad really is a military man and there's no way he wouldn't tell one of his friends still in the military and then it all goes downhill from there. I lower the gun again, dropping it entirely this time and letting it hang loosely by the band. I end up taking a seat in the hallway as the adrenaline finally turns off and exhaustion hits me.
"Ugh... fine. You're right. It was selfish of me to try and force it. I just want to go home, man. I... I killed people today..." I sigh in resignation.
She gives me a confused look, "Is... that not your profession as a Soldier?"
I tilt my head back against the wall lazily, giving her just the side of my eye, "I tried to tell Doc Oc- er, uhm, Doctor Ruffaloo, that I'm not a soldier. Then those uhm, what did you call them?"
She answers tertly to allow me to continue smoothly, "Grobulans."
"Grobulans, right, Shark people. The Grobulans attacked. And like I was about to say just now, I didn't know my airsoft gun could even do that. It's a toy, I mean, watch-" I took it and quickly shot it at my arm, it stung a bit, but it was nothing much. Everyone else though looked in shock as I did it, several of them gasped and I'm pretty sure Doc O- Dr. Ruffaloo fainted. I think, he just sort of squished into the floor so its kind of hard to tell. But when they saw it do absolutely nothing they all relaxed a little.
"Well, I'm sure its a Toy to your people. But, at least to the Grobulans, its a lethal weapon of unimaginable proportions. Though, if it truly is just a toy, I hope you wouldn't mind me asking: What is 'airsoft'?" Oh boy.
"Uhm, its well... I hope the translator doesn't garble this. It's just a thing made to look like a gun- er, a real weapon except for the orange barrel which is the legal requirement to identify it as a toy. But instead of firing bullets-" I begin to explain.
"Bullets?" She interrupts
"Oh, uhm, actually deadly projectiles. Your doctor there pulled one out of me while I was out cold, I think. Some maniac brought a real gun to the airsoft field and, uh yeah. Fuck, that means I'm missing. There's no way they aren't gonna put out a search party for me, especially since that asshole fired a real fucking gun. God, my mom is gonna be devastated..." I sink low as reality hits me. Everyone I know is going to think that I'm dead, and I can't go back to tell them I'm not because if I do it could end up causing global panic or even war. Lord knows what China might do if they thought America was getting the upperhand in xeno-negotiations.
"Apologies, Sir Duncan," she said, "I did not mean to-"
My turn to interrupt, "Its alright. Not your fault, technically. I mean, if not for Hark I might really be dead so, I guess it doesn't really change much. I just get to be up here wallowing about it instead of in heaven."
"Heaven?" Oops. God, I really am not cut out for this first contact thing. Gonna be here for hours going down tangents cuz of me and my insatiable need for metaphor.
"Uh, my people's idea of an afterlife. The idea is that when we die, good people go up to Heaven to live in eternal paradise and bad people go to Hell to live in eternal punishment. I mean, there's a bit more nuance than that but I'm not a particularly religious person so I'm not exactly the one to talk to about it." I explained.
"I... see. Your people have quite unique beliefs. In any case, you were saying about what it is that 'toy' fires?" Thank god she can deal with my tangents.
"Yes, right. Uh, we call them BBs. Not a clue what it stands for, but its just a really tiny plastic sphere. Not really aerodynamic or anything, but that's sort of the point. The point is to be nonlethal. Its specifically design to not kill, just sting a little. I have no idea why its so... effective against the shark people. Sorry, uhm, Grobulans." I finally finished elaborating.
"Its quite alright, I imagine. They're not a particularly well liked sort, especially amongst my people, the Freeanas. Except for lieutenant Hark Manyfred, the one who saved you, most of them are vicious murderers and monstrous cannibals. I'm not particularly fond of applying racial stereotypes so generically, but in this case it really is difficult not to. Lieutenant Hark is an example of the more civilized Grobulans attempts at clearing their reputation. Though I'm not sure why they would assign him to my vessel. In any case, politics is not the matter at hand. What we must do now is finish assessing the damage and plot a return route back to Florbus space," She begins to nod and issue commands to the guards around me, I break into small laughter.
"Is something the matter, Sir Duncan? The translator isn't interpreting those noises, are you injured?" She worries
"Oh, no, its laughter. Uhm, a reaction to funny stuff. Sorry, I know things are serious and all but... Florbus? That's the name of the big alien empire? I just... sorry I can't..." I don't know why its suddenly so funny to me now, I guess I didn't really recognize it when that first uh 'Freeana' was telling me about them earlier. Florbus? It sounds like exactly the kind of weird madeup name a 70s or 80s sci-fi comic author would use. Or a modern one writing a parody. Speaking of, so is Grobulan. I mean, it rhymes with Romulan so I guess thats why my brain didn't quite register it as silly. Those guys are serious stuff!
----
My people's brains do not go unconscious, except for when we die. But we do have a response when stress becomes simply too much. All of our muscles go lax, and our entire body melts into a puddle like slop since we do not have any form of internal supports. The crea- or, I suppose I should call it "Duncan", is terrifying beyond imagination. Immune to Photon casters, but more than that to its own lethal weapon. And, apparently, this weapon is considered by his people to be a toy. I can scarcely imagine what genuine weapons are to them, though that "bullet" I pulled out of him appears to be a clue. It takes me nearly 15 minutes to restore function to my nerve endings and regain my form. While I was incapacitated, Captain Ashala gave me my orders.
"Doctor Ruffaloo, you are to attend to our guest and make sure he is not suffering internal injuries. According to the reports, you are now this vessel's most qualified science officer. Congratulations, Director Ruffaloo, on your promotion. In addition to your duties as the ship's primary physician, I also want you to investigate the matter of these 'BB's the Duncan's airsoft weapon fires. I suspect the lethality may be biological in nature, considering they do not seem to carry much in the way of physical force nor detonate on impact with other surfaces."
Of course. Dr. Tryn... and Saint Florb knows how many others amongst the science crew. Though reluctant I am to interact further with the Duncan, I have duties and I must perform them. It could be the difference between life or death for many.
----
Back at Dr. Ruffaloo's office. I'm really feeling it now. Definitely got a bruise from that initial explosion, and its really starting to smart. King Shark is here too, and man is he beat up. That other, uh, Grobulan really tore into him. And I'm pretty sure I heard the big one I shot first say something about a 'Eating Traitor'. So I can guess what his story is. Man, to think racism was a thing in space- though I guess when you literally are different species its probably an easier trap to fall into. I can't help but feel bad for the guy, especially since he's apparently the one who saved me from death by gun-shot to the femeral artery. That's definitely where I got hit, now that I have a calm moment I can remember it clearly. Isaiah was looking shifty from the moment he showed up at the field, and I remember the argument he got into with Isabelle last time, so I decided to confront him to make sure he wasn't going to try anything stupid.
And boy, was I right. Mother fucker brought a god damn gun, and was planning to kill me specifically. Apparently he thinks I 'stole' Isabelle from him, and thought that killing me would somehow make her fall in love with him again. Fucking psychopath. She dumped him precisely because he was a fucked up control freak, and I just happened to be there for her when she needed comfort instead of scolding about the color of her jacket or hair. God, Isabelle is gonna be devastated, too. We had been dating for nearly a year at that point... man, I really, really need this first contact shit to happen as fast as possible. I just hope that when I get back they'll be there for me. I've seen the movies where this kind of thing happens. Man gets into accident, far from home. Ends up lost for years and by the time he gets back everyone else in his life has moved on and doesn't care anymore, usually with living parents no-longer-living or somehow resentful. If I end up going back to that...
I shook the thought. There's nothing I can do about it except make sure the captain's protocols go off without a hitch and in as much haste as can be garnered. I let the doctor look over me, and sure enough there's one hell of a bruise. He asks me if I'm alright, and I tell him its just a bruise. He turns white as snow and asks, with what sounds like extreme concern in his- or I guess the translators- voice, "The... uhm, Translator is interpreting that word as 'Internal Bleeding'. Is that correct?"
"Well, I guess, yeah, technically," I state plainly.
"HOW ARE YOU ALIVE RIGHT NOW?" He practically screams, before squishing back into the floor like he did earlier.
It takes nearly 5 straight minutes of me explaining a few basics about human anatomy, kinda stuff even highschoolers know about, before he finally un-squishes from the floor. I ask about that, and apparently its his people's stress response. Kind of cute, but also concerning. If you end up paralyzing yourself if sometimes spooks you particularly badly, that can't possibly go well. He says it was apparently some kind of evolutionary advantage on his homeworld, because it would make them seem dead and most predators often ignored dead things and most scavengers would quickly realize that the thing wasn't dead before any real damage was dealt. Weird.
From what I can gather during our conversation, aliens in general are built pretty poorly. The ocean animal thing? Yeah, thats no coincidence. Apparently the vast majority of life in the galaxy is aquatic in some fashion, and usually evolve into semi-aquatic or even amphibious by the time they develop tools and the like. Only a bare handful, such as the avian Freeanas, end up departing from the water entirely- and even then are often still mostly coastal or prefer to live near bodies of water for ease of hunting. Makes sense, even humans tended to found cities alongside rivers and other water sources. In any case, when you take a fish out of water it tends to be very squishy. And although most people have gene mods that let them exist without being submerged- mostly because water and other fluid mediums are extremely heavy and thus expensive to haul around in spaceships- mods that enhance durability or strength are heavily restricted and available only to military personnel.
"Speaking of, I couldn't help but notice that your internal supports are particularly dense and tough to analyze with my equipment. Do Duncans not restrict genemods like the we do?" He asks. I can't help but chuckle a bit.
"First off, my name is Duncan. My species is Human. Second off, we don't have genemods. Not yet, anyways- last I heard that kind of stuff isn't even prototypable, at least not in humans. Best we've got are bacteria that help in chemical synthesis,"
He squishes into the floor again. This is gonna be a long day.
--End of Part 2--

Chapter 31 - Farewell to JR692
Previous Chapter
Trix furrowed her brow as she watched her plot. The Arcadia had stopped accelerating at all to maintain velocity at five hundred thousand kilometers per hour, the maximum allowable for d-space transition. The idea being that if anything unexpected happened, they could escape almost instantly. With how these morons were flying, though, it looked like they were vastly overestimating their opponent.
To start with, the Tanjeeri vessel had not exceeded 4G’s of acceleration. So long as the humans could see their opponent, the Arcadia could practically DANCE around it. And then there was the idiotic stunt they’d pulled with the planet. Trix’s plan to use the planet as a means to increase the distance between them had worked better than anyone had expected, since the idiots flying over there didn’t just curve around it, but in fact swerved the LONG way around to do so. She’d thought they would simply turn into a tighter curve parallel to her own as they moved to cut inside of her orbit. Instead they’d made a wide, broad curve around the planet to actually match her own planned orbit, falling in behind her, while putting them an additional 3 million kilometers behind the Arcadia.
“How could any species that reached space fly THIS stupid?” She wondered aloud.
“Careful there Pilot.” Alexander cautioned her. “We don’t know how stupid they truly are. Yes, what they did is incomprehensibly dumb but at the same time we don’t know any specifics about their ship. They may have some trick up their sleeve we don’t know about. Best not to get cocky until we’re absolutely certain.”
Trix made a guttural noise as she shook her head. “Maybe, but look at them! At the rate they’re coming at us I’ll have time for ANOTHER entire night’s sleep before they manage to come within one hundred thousand clicks of us.”
“Unless they have some capability we don’t know about,” Josh pointed out. “The emissions coming from that ship are unlike anything Sol or Proxima can put into space. We don’t know how their propulsion works, don’t know if they have artificial gravity or not. Farscope and the trading ship we encountered both used a rotational frame to produce artificial gravity, but the Tanjeeri ship isn’t rotating.”
“If we don’t know how their tech works we don’t know what to be on the lookout for,” Alex clarified. “All we’ve seen of them so far is one very lazy attempt to hit us with some kind of missile, one that didn’t even have tracking. That and the last 14 hours of this chase. For a species that apparently terrorizes this part of the galaxy, I can’t imagine that they have zero other tricks up their sleeve.”
Trix just shrugged and returned her attention to the plot. “Okay, but if we aren’t going to slow down to let them catch up I don’t know exactly what we’re going to learn just by watching them crawl after us slower than a ‘Tix bug.” She watched as the ship’s slow acceleration continue
Alex didn’t know what a ‘Tix bug’ was, but he bit his tongue. “Let’s give it a bit longer. Once the range falls down to 2 million kilometers, if there’s still been no change we’ll just bug out.”
—--
The Fourth Claw of the guard shifted irritably on his command dais. Accelerating this fast for this long was taking its toll on the crew, as the constant flow of the viscous water around him struggled to keep up with the forces of acceleration pushing them back. Instead of the comforting pressure of the water flowing steadily from above, the water flowed at an odd angle due to the pressures they were enduring. And yet, despite this, the Thieves’ ship was still far, far ahead of them. Worse, the thieves could accelerate far faster than his own ship.
He scratched idly at his side as he tried to consider what to do. Claws like him were always supposed to be under the guidance of an Interpreter, and being forced to act alone was uncomfortable. But this was his duty.
“How far are we from the Thieves ship?” His voice croaked uncomfortably as he spoke.
“We are still over ninety-five thousand uloms from the Thieves, protective one.”
“And how long will it be until we can approach to firing position?”
“Our spines can reach at most six thousand uloms. It will be twenty day-segments until we can approach them that close.”
The Fourth Claw scowled at this. How did the Thieves even see his ship? Only the vessels of the great enemy’s militaries had sensors with sight enough to see so far away. Were the Thieves in a military ship?
“I tire of this. I wish to return to the flotilla.” He thought silently, and slammed a forefist down on the dais, his claws clacking together as he did so. “They will not allow us to approach. They flee as the cowards they are. Their speed is commendable but if they run they obviously cannot fight. Prepare a micro-jump. We will ambush them. Let them freeze as a Chiqor does when facing the gaze of an adult male, only to be torn apart by our spines.”
“At your command, great protective one.”
—--
Trix stifled a yawn. The situation was unchanging, and despite all warnings she was beginning to wonder whether or not these big, scary Tanjeeri were even a threat at all. What danger was there from an enemy that couldn’t actually come into range?
“Energy buildup. Their EM is spiking.” Josh was focused entirely on his console, monitoring and recording the details of the encounter in real time. As he said that, the course plot in front of her shifted, and she returned her attention to her own console.
The interception arc had vanished, and she began tapping in commands. But it wouldn’t return. The computer wasn’t allowing her to update the arc. Why? The pursuer was gone? She frowned and attempted to update it again, yet still it refused. “Captain…”
“I see it. Or I don’t see it. We lost the ship on sensors.” Alex was already punching in commands on his terminal. “Ma’et, any idea what happened?”
Ma’et’s familiar voice immediately came through the overhead. “Sensors are reading fully functional. We’re getting all other inputs, just no EM from the Tanjeeri. They could have some kind of stealth or mayb…. SHIT! CONTACT AT 14 DEGREES!”
“Swarm Missiles Out! New Heading 225 by 0! Pilot get us the HELL away from here!” Alex immediately shouted as he grabbed the armrest of his chair. He wanted to DO something, physically, but that was what his crew was fore.
Trix felt the blood drain from her face as the plot updated itself automatically. The Tanjeeri weren’t behind them, they were now in front of the Arcadia! She immediately threw the Arcadia into a turn counterclockwise, feeling the faint rumbling of the thrusters as they altered the ship’s course. Momentum was still propelling them towards the enemy ship, and she felt too slow on the keyboard as she swept her wingtips up to grab the controls she could work faster. As the ship began to change course she glanced up at the main screen as two bright dots separated from the Arcadia, curving away towards the Tanjeeri vessel’s red triangle. As she watched each dot vanished and was replaced by a sparkling spread of tiny pinpricks, each one curving and approaching the interloper.
The display next to the plot suddenly changed to show the Tanjeeri vessel. It was turning in space, its jump placing it ahead of the Arcadia but facing the wrong way. As she watched its slow and cumbersome turn, suddenly a bright flash of light appeared on one of the sides of the ship. The flash spread quickly as more and more of the micro-missiles housed within the Swarm Missile detonated on contact with the Tanjeeri vessel, filling the screen and the bridge with a harsh glare of light.
Her fingers were tightly squeezing the wingtip controls as she stared at the dimming light, her heart hammering away in her chest as the image oh-so-slowly clarified. She realized she was holding her breath and let it out in a long sigh as the image changed. Where once there was a grotesque bulbous enemy ship, now there was just a twisted hulk of blackened metal. An odd mist of… something… was spraying out from the internal components only to vanish into the void as the ship rotated in space from the momentum of its occupant’s final command.
The bridge was silent for several minutes as the occupants watched the screen, waiting for any sign of activity from the ship. Then, with a suddenness that made Alex scream out in surprise, the ship was engulfed with a brilliant light that hurt to look at as the remains of the Tanjeeri were instantly vaporized.
“What… happened...?” It took Trix a moment to realize that was HER voice and that she’s said that aloud.
Josh responded in a quiet voice, “We must have ruptured their power plant. I think… that was a fusion explosion.”
Alex shook himself out of his own reverie and called out. “All hands. We are returning to Kiveyt immediately. Par will give you an after-action report, but to sum up, the Tanjeeri surprised us with some kind of short FTL movement. We fired in self-defense and the ship was destroyed. It was unexpected and unplanned but we appear to be safe and we are leaving. Now.”
Trix felt a tingling in her fingers as she realized how tightly she was gripping her wingtip controls. She relaxed her grip and began to enter the commands to straighten out the ship’s course to prepare for the d-space jump.
—--
The room was filled with a sickly brown murk as the behemoth closed its eyes. It witnessed the strange chase, the Thieves fleeing before the small claw, the micro-jump that gave the claw the edge over its prey, then the odd and tiny flashes of light in the void before the claw met its end.
The end had come too rapidly for the behemoth to be able to understand what had happened. One moment the Thieves were fleeing, the next moment and the claw had ceased existence. What kind of weapon was it? Those glittering flashes, almost like metallic sand next to the small claw, how did they work?
It shifted around uncomfortably on its bulk, far too large to ever be able to lift itself up on its own, instead forced to scrabble massive claws against the metal as it sought a more comfortable position.
“FOOD!” It roared out, suddenly acutely aware of the rumbling within it. Seeing so far and in such detail was difficult and required huge amounts of energy. An attendant hopped over, bearing a huge tray of entrails and beats - yet a massive clawed hand snapped out, wrapping around the attendant’s body and shoving it into the creature’s massive maw. A single snap of its jaw crushed the poor attendant in half, and it swallowed heavily before it began grabbing fistfults of organs and entrails from the platter and greedily stuffing itself.
The loathsome creature continued to think upon what it had seen. The Heavens would deal with the swiftness of these Thieves, of that it was sure. But it could not understand the death which had so rapidly erased the small claw from the void. If it could not understand, then Heaven could not entreated to help. It would have to learn more, and it could do so only by more conflict.
The proposal of the Interpreter of the Voice came to mind. The pitiful being had laid out a proposed trap for the Thieves, and had sent out the small claw. The Voice did not know whether the Heavens would support the feeble little creature’s idea, but it knew that they MUST have additional information. They MUST learn more in order to trap these Thieves. Then they would be brought before him, to be interrogated. And executed.
The trap would be approved. There would be not one but dozens of claws. Small, Large, even Greater ones. They would all trap the Thieves. Then they would be brought before it, to be interrogated before Heaven. And executed. The Voice wished it could see through the eyes of the smooth ones as it could through its own people. It was burning with curiosity about the Thieves, how they looked. How they smelled.
How they tasted.
—--
“You’re going to be executed. And I, for one, am not going to argue very hard at all against it.” Amanda sipped at her coffee and smiled brightly at the captain. “I wonder what they’ll do in particular? String you up? Lop off your head? Or just shoot you and get it over with quickly?”
Alex reached out to the table beside his bed, and grabbed a bottle of water. He greedily sucked at it before letting the bottle fall down on the pillow next to him. “Don’t care. Death’ll be mercy.”
The after-effects of the Insomniol Inhaler were brutal, and he’d known this was going to happen. His body was busily metabolizing the drugs and breaking them down, and in the process he experienced a rapidly shifting array of unpleasant side effects. Dehydration, headaches, intense drowsiness, and having to run to the bathroom six times a day to urinate as his system moved quickly to flush all of it through him at once. Luckily the process only lasted a few days. Unluckily the pain and drowsiness kept him mostly bedridden, minus the unpleasant trips every couple of hours to the bathroom.
“In that case, I’ll see whether or not we can stretch it out. Perhaps some late night sessions with the interrogators, aided by copious amounts of Insomniol while they try to wring out of your scrawny neck just what the fuck you was going through that idiotic brain of yours?”
Alex mumbled something about ‘cruel and unusual’ into the pillow as he languidly shook his head.
Amanda bit the inside of her cheek, a habit she always seemed to fall back on whenever she was angry with the Captain. And oh, how she was angry.
His actions made sense on the surface. Most of the civilized species knew little about the Tanjeeri other than the fact that they existed and were hostile to nearly everyone. The one species that knew the most about them, the Qyrim, were tight-lipped about EVERYTHING and thus could not be relied upon to help out in any meaningful way. So trying to gather additional information wasn’t entirely stupid.
But doing so in a converted yacht with minimal weapons, shields, and armor while simultaneously trying to protect a VIP on board? That was entirely stupid. As was his decision to cut her lab and quarters out of the all-hands broadcasts during the confrontation. The single, sole saving grace to this was that the Tanjeeri vessel hadn’t survived the missiles. If they had then god knows what would have happened to the Arcadia, and its crew.
Alex continued to lay face-down on the pillow, a leg sticking out from under the sheets. Amanda reached out and pinched the exposed calf. HARD.
Alex winced and lifted his head, his eyes squeezed tightly shut to keep the obnoxiously bright light that Amanda had turned up out of his vision. “Arright, arright… Sorry, jus… felt like I hadda find out more.”
“After Farscope I actually thought you were improving. You were somehow, miraculously trying to behave in a way that wasn’t entirely reckless and stupid. Why the hell you couldn’t just keep on actually thinking before you acted is beyond me. Do you have a death wish? Do you want to kill off the crew? To kill off Trix?” Amanda continued on her rant. It actually felt good to be able to just tell him off without his usual bickering and arguing. Without him trying to justify everything.
“But the worst part, the worst part of all, is that you swore to the Matriarch, no combat. No danger. She already didn’t trust us, and you…” She glanced down, and realized that the Captain had fallen asleep on her. She stood up, walked over to grab the water bottle and quickly unscrewed the top. Unceremoniously she dumped its contents over the sleeping figure, waking him up with a start.
She didn’t stay to see the aftermath, instead taking her leave. As she walked out of his quarters she turned and strode onto the bridge, bringing her mug with her. “The absolutely insufferable moron…” she muttered, under her breath.
“Captain’s in tro~uble,” Josh sang out quietly, then chuckled as Trix glanced over. With the Captain going through the after-effects of the Insomniol Josh as XO had taken command, and was currently in the Captain’s seat.
“We got the Tanjeeri though. They were in even smaller pieces than the debris field when we left. What’s so wrong about that?” She was genuinely curious. The ship survived, the enemy was vanquished, and now they were returning home with a small fortune in precious metals. Seemed like a win no matter how she looked at it.
“What’s WRONG,” Amanda began angrily, “Is that in doing so he put every single person on this ship in incredibly grave danger. Instigating a confrontation with an aggressive alien species with zero understanding of their capabilities?”
Trix was silent with this. She was surprised as everyone else by the Tanjeeri’s sudden FTL jump that had overtaken the Arcadia effortlessly. She was so cocky about how they’d been effortlessly capable of flying circles around the other ship that the surprise had been a definite blow to her confidence.
“We got lucky that they didn’t fire a shot at us, but what if they did? What would they have fired? Could our ablative armor absorb it, or deflect it? Or would it have been pierced? A military ship everyone wears e-suits and can survive sudden decompression. We don’t have any of them. An emergency happens and we lose atmosphere and…”
“Enough, Amanda. Enough.” Josh hopped down from his chair, then stepped over and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder as she stopped abruptly. “It was reckless but it’s over, and we did get some very valuable data out of it.”
“What, uh, what kind of data?” Trix reached out to rub at a feather that had come askew, pushing it into its place. “Was what we did worth it?”
“I’ve got gigabytes of emissions data from the Tanjeeri ship. For one, I can identify any ship with similar propulsion. Also we now have a good EM signature for that tiny little FTL burst they did. Next time they try that little trick we’ll know exactly what happened. Then there’s the fact that our swarm missile's micro-rockets were effective against their armor. And lastly, and this is the big one? We have definitive proof they use fusion reactors based on the way it lit up. That was a plasma containment failure, a big one. Knowing that, we can actually make reasonable assumptions on how much power is available to them.” As Josh spoke, Par pulled up a list of various data points on the main screen as he went on. The words flowed so quickly down the screen that Trix’s visor translation could barely keep up.
“I don’t doubt it was useful. I know for a fact it was. I just… I just wish he’d think first before he’d act. The data’s absolutely no good if we get killed acquiring it. There’s other, safer ways to get this information.” Amanda took another sip of her coffee and set it down on a console. The words “Party Controls” had been covered up with a “Science Station” sign and she had spent a considerable amount of time linking it to the lab below. It still wasn’t quite as good as physically being in front of her instruments but considering how things had gone this time she was completely done with not being present on the Bridge.
“Either way, now we have some basic info about the enemy. We can pass this along to the Avekin as well as to Proxima when they finally get out here.” Josh returned to the Captain’s chair. “Assuming that the e-beacon arrived.”
Amanda just nodded, and brought up some of the data to inspect closer on her station. “I can’t imagine it didn’t. They’re incredibly over-engineered given what they do.” Of course she knew that it HAD arrived and that the joint diplomatic mission between Sol and Proxima would be leaving anytime now.
“Nothing’s perfect.” Josh countered, then turned his attention back on the main screen, bringing up the navigational plot. Six days of D-space travel from Kiveyt. “Par, go ahead and pass along a message to Ji. Grab a grav belt and a cutter and let’s start loading the pieces of the asteroid in our hull into the fabber. D-space gives us almost infinite energy at our disposal, let’s make the most of it while we’re in transit to make things easier when we land.”
“Affirmative, XO.” Par replied.
—--

The strange creature draws its weapon, and every Florb in the room freezes. We've all seen just what this terrifying device is capable of firsthand when it used it to slay the Grobulan pirates who had boarded our vessel. It was a massacre, their screams still echo in my mind. I could do nought but watch in bloodied horror as their bodies simply detonated in a shower of blue fluid. And the noise... the horrible horrible noise. One would expect a weapon of such terrifying power to be matched by an equally powerful roar, but this one's report is far more fluidchilling. Almost silent, except for a high pitched whine as its motors spin to unfathomable speeds within fractions of a second- delivering its lethal payload at a fraction the speed of sound itself yet despite this, the projectile is almost entirely silent. At least until impact. Never did I think a soft 'plink' could instill such fear within me. But when it is accompanied by such death... how could it not? And the plink was only when it missed and struck a nearby object instead! I dare not describe the noise of a direct hit, suffice to say it is the stuff of nightmare.
At the least, it certainly appears fearsome. Ergonomically designed, seeming to my eyes to be tailored to the creature's unique physical composition. One end is flaired into a flat shape which it braces against what it has informed me during my earlier medical operation to be its 'shoulder'. No doubt to handle the certainly vicious recoil such a mortifying tool must produce- though it gives no physical signs of such recoil during firing, I can only assume its physical strength must be beyond measure. The main body of the weapon is as black as the void, which makes its surface difficult for my eyes to truly discern- not that I believe my mind could handle whatever arcane horrors must make up its mechanical composition. What is all too easy to see, however, is the other end of it. Bright orange, as the surface of a lower main sequence star- appropriate, given its sheer power. One could liken it to the force of a star itself, and though such a likening would yet be metaphorical I could think of a few who may yet truly believe it if they bore witness to its effect.
"Take me back. Now." The room's translator intoned with mechanical apathy. It was a rushed job, and certainly imperfect- intonations and inflections are always the most difficult thing to encode into a translator so sometimes when a new one pops up it doesn't know what to do with it and just goes flat. This is the first time it's used this particular tone, but we all knew exactly what it intended, given that it now points the weapon of our salvation against us. As the captain pleaded with it to reconsider her offer, I thought back to how this mess began...
I am aboard the FLB Bright Future. An exploratory vessel plying the deepest reaches of unexplored space on a mission to discover valid hyperlane anchor points. Ours is a most vital task, for without the anchors, travel on the scale necessary to support intragalactic infrastructure was simply impossible. And without such infrastructure, new sources of valuable chemical resources could not be tapped to support the growth of the Florbus Combine. It is a long mission, as traveling without a hyperlane is a task of many years even with the most powerful warp engine. Folding spacetime from within the bubble is a monumental and extremely energy intensive task, which is why we need the anchors. With an exorbitantly large external structure, a self-stable bubble can be formed with relative ease around other objects, and from there a smaller engine can focus instead on pushing it- though the bubble will break on its own eventually, which limits how far a given vessel can travel, and cannot be broken from within; thus necessitating a different anchor at the destination. Further still spacetime bubbles of any sort are extremely sensitive to gravitational forces, which makes sense of course as gravity is essentially a fluctuation within spacetime itself. Thus, the 'hyperlane' was born. Areas of the galaxy where such fluctuations are either weak enough to be ignored, or predictable enough to be utilized for ever faster travel.
And so, the task of exploratory vessels such as the Bright Future is twofold. To ply the depths of unexplored space, analyzing the gravitational patterns and identifying prime locations for Hyperlane anchors. Far enough away from the next nearest to be cost effective, as simply building an anchor in every single star system is out of the question, but close enough to minimize the risks of unwary vessels overestimating their distance and ending up trapped in the depths of the void. Though most vessels do have a warp engine, most commercial organizations rely upon the anchors so greatly that such engines are often only barely strong enough to guide a bubble formed by an anchor. It is rare for a non-specialized vessel to be capable of self-bubbled travel, especially since such an engine is often extremely expensive to fabricate and to power. Nearly 90% of the Bright Future's fusion drive is dedicated to the task, necessitating minimal life support functions and stasis pods when in use.
I am the lead medical officer of the FLB Bright Future, Plorp Ruffaloo. Yes, yes, hold your awe. I am well aware of the nobility of my name, but I care little for such things. I refuse to ride upon my father's coat-tentacles, which is why I volunteered for such a common position instead of seeking the employment of cutting edge research facilities. Besides, I always felt that the best research is that done outside of a stuffy and controlled laboratory. Science is exploration, of a sort, if one is not adventurous in their pursuit of it than any discovery they make is bound to be pedestrian or extraordinarily slow to achieve. Out here, I get to study the anatomies of new and exciting creatures discovered upon the worlds we encounter. The array of life is truly astonishing.
Which is why I am currently utterly flabbergasted at the sight before me. Never in my days have I encountered a creature so... perplexing. Preliminary examination reveals that it's body is, astoundingly, supported by some kind of rigid internal structure, not unlike the hollow structures inside of Freeanas, that my medical scanning equipment cannot penetrate. However, by my reckoning I would need a vessel-grade device to create rays powerful enough to examine the internal structure of these supports, it is as if the thing is made of some manner of rock or crystal! What on Florbulus could drive such an adaptation? I do understand that the gravity of the world upon which it was discovered is significantly higher than average for life bearing planets, but surely this is too much?
"What could these creatures being doing, to necessitate such internal durability..." I mused to myself. I jumped when Hark Manyfred responded, I had forgotten he was here still, "From what I saw, doc, fighting a war."
My cephalus paled. A war? So then the long-distance scanners were true? This is an intelligent species? I suppose I should have gathered from the relatively obvious artificial accoutrement it came with but, well, I was more focused on the gaping wound in one of its limbs at the time. When lieutenant Manyfred brought the creature in, it appeared to have been struck by some kind of object- a small piece of lead, which was astonishingly almost flattened. For such a material to deform so severely, whatever sent it flying must have been extraordinarily powerful. I struggled greatly to perform surgery, even the creature's flesh seems to be supernaturally durable. I had to make use of a laser cutter typically reserved for cutting through military armor just to create an opening large enough to fit extraction tools through. It took the strength of I and all three of my attending to ply the object free from its form- as it appeared to have been lodged inside one of those very dense supporting structures.
As I recalled this, it all suddenly made sense. A high gravity planet, intelligent, with extremely dense internal structures, and fighting a war. This is a soldier! Heavily augmented with some kind of organic implant. The lead must be... dear gods, a weapon? Fashioned specifically to tear through flesh with ease, if its saw-blade shape is anything to go by. Or perhaps... could the lead have deformed after impact with the structure, rather than having been shaped? If that was the case then its original shape... some kind of pointed volume? Aerodynamic... it was FIRED*? They use lead projectiles as a weapon? I must make a report of this, the captain will want to-*
"Ugh... my head..." IT SPEAKS? Actually, wait, that must be the translator. The ship is equipped with embedded translators in each room to save the burden of carrying a computational box on the person, though the fact that its working already must mean...
"Dr. Tryn? I take it you have already deciphered their language?" I call over my communication device.
"Yes, Dr. Ruffaloo," Dr. Tryn began, he is the ship's communications officer, a Freeana, and also an expert in xenolinguistics for exactly this situation- first contact, "Once we entered orbit I had discovered that the strange EM waves were, in fact, not due to the local star. But rather artificial constructions! A massive communications network scaling the entire planet, though nowhere beyond it except for what appear to be a handful of very small orbital outpo-"
"Yes, yes, Dr. Tryn. I understand you're excited. But if you truly wish to study their language more, I believe you would have better luck speaking with our guest," I know him too well, and frankly was not eager to handle initial outreach with a patient who had just awoken from such a horrendous wound. I did not need to keep my device on to know that his assistants were plugging their auditory cavities to protect themselves from his excited shrill.
In barely 2 minutes, Dr. Tryn burst through the doorway in an exhausted huff. Thankfully the patient didn't seem to take notice of where exactly it was just yet, its oculars have yet to unshield themselves. I prepared to greet my colleague but he seemed disinterested in me, as I should expect.
"Arghcke Thee Awoken?" I heard, which caused me to realize that I was actually awake and not at home in bed. Fuck. I've gotta get up, that asshole could still be- "OW!" Shit, the gunshot, I must-
Where the hell am I. I'm pretty sure I was just at an airsoft field, in the middle of a match when some psycho brought his dad's real fucking gun instead. Bastard even painted the damned thing's barrel and made sure to hide it. What the fuck was he thinking? But right now I'm looking at... a... what the hell is it? It looks like a cross between a fish and a bird. It's got feathers, and what looks like a beak. But then its shiny, and has big 'ol fish eyes and weird looking neck-gill thingies, like Abraham from Hellboy. Next to it is.. an Octopus? But its huge*, like three times the size of a person. And also wearing a doctor's outfit. What the actual-*
Ow. I'm reminded that I was just shot in the leg. Even the slightest movement hurts like hell, but when I looked down I couldn't see an entry wound. Or any blood for that matter, nor did it feel like I had shards of thigh bone stabbing me from the inside. It was just... really sore.
"Me Cogitates Its Wakefulness, Medical Officer Tryn," The Octopus spoke. It spoke. Holy shit these are aliens. Holy shit. Fuck. Uh, oh no? Oh yes? I don't know, actually. I mean, they don't seem like the 'take me to your leader and prepare for anal probing' type... They apparently even bothered to fix my leg and, presumably, save me from that gun toting maniac. Looking around I see they even brought my stuff with me, though it's locked up in some kind of transparent locker. Not that an airsoft M4 would be particularly useful against an advanced alien species. Their words are weird, but the fact that I can hear anything even remotely coherent means they have some kind of translation thingy going on. Though either its really bad or they do just have a strange manner of speaking. Is... no way is this actually first contact? That would explain the crappy translation, at least, it would mean they've had hardly any time at all to decipher my language. I should try...
"Uh, yes? I am awake. Uh, hi?" I make my best attempt at a greeting, but they all jump back when I raise my hand in a lazy wave. Oh yeah, first contact, shit. Can't make any sudden movements, in fact they probably- OH JESUS THAT'S A SHARK. YEP. THAT IS A GOD DAMN SHARK PERSON RIGHT THERE.
Ohkay. Ohkay. Calm down. Aliens. Yes. Just aliens, maybe its a nice shark person? Maybe he's a doctor- no. He's definitely got some kind of weapon. Vaguely gun shaped, but strangely very round like a banana. But with a lightshow on the side of it. A laser maybe? Anyways, yes, he must be the guard. Makes sense. New species, no clue what they're capable of. Far as they know I got retractable claws or acid spit or something. No sudden moves, or King Shark over there might rip me in half or... distingrate me with that fancy gun, I guess.
The bird-fish, I think the Octopus called it Medical Officer Tryn? But the Octopus is the one wearing the outfit... ohhh bad translation, right. Medical Officer is probably an attempt to translate Doctor? Which means the bird-fish is a Doctor, but not necessarily a medical one. Or maybe he is and doctor's just dress like that and the Octopus back there is a nurse or something. Anyways, the Doctor seemed to fiddle with something in the wall, and then spoke again, "There, that should be better. I always forget to account for the more common bands. Now, I would ask if you are awake again, but I think that much is obvious. Greetings! I am Doctor Ooliueaette Trynishidianafore. But my colleagues often refer to me a Dr. Tryn, I am the communications officer. This is Doctor Plorp Ruffaloo our shipboard medical professional, and the one behind you is lieutenant Hark Manyfred, the on who retrieved you from your endangered state. We are currently aboard the FLB Bright Future, which is a spacefaring exploratory vessel under the command of the Florbus Combine. I hope you do not mind, but I took the liberty of exploring the rudimentary communications systems of your world, and discovered quite the interesting stock of conceptual fictions! I've not yet poured through them all, but I believe you are well familiar with most civilized structural concepts."
The bird-fi, er, Dr. Tryn seemed... happy? I couldn't be too sure, whatever is doing the translation appears to be attempting to mimic tone and inflections but, well, I guess its still a bit too new at this. In any case, I think the doctor here is excited. Also the Shark guy is the one that saved me? Cool. Wait, he said he looked through our 'rudimentary communications systems'? Oh dear god no, he's seen the internet. This could be bad.
"Listen, uh, what you saw on the internet, just know that it alot of, uh, well not really true stuff. I mean, its not the best image of humanity-" I began, when the doctor interrupted me
"Oh! Don't worry too much! As I said I've yet to pour through most of what I recovered, and when I performed my initial sweep I had yet to fully flesh out the translations. Currently I only have saved information related to a few keywords. This isn't my first first contact, you know! I'm well aware of how.. shall we say, odd some species' public communications networks can be. To protect myself from whatever horrors may have been conjured by nascent- what did you say, humanity? I was very conservative in my retrievals. In any case, there will always be time later to do a more thorough exploration when sufficient context has been gained."
Oh thank god. I raised a hand to my chest, only to notice that it was incredibly easy. Far too easy, in fact. As if I weighed almost nothing...
Oh day! What a joyous day! First contact! It has been so many years since the last one, I had begun to lose hope that I would see another in what time I have left. I could not help but sing a joyous song on the way, though for the sake of our new guest I had to restrain myself before entering. There is no telling if they are sensitive to sound, I would not want to accidentally deafen a brand new species! I am so very pleased to know that the translation is working correctly, it won't be long before it's heard every possible phoneme and intonation. Perhaps in just a few days we'll be able to converse as if we shared the same native tongue!
Not to mention, they are remarkably calm! Normally first contact can be a rather hectic affair, filled with songs of fear or anger. But not this one! It seems I was correct in my observation that his people have long since theorized spaceflight, and even the possibility of alien species. I was afraid for a moment that the fictions I'd discovered were obscure resources known to only a few, or perhaps they are and he is one of those few. In any case, this is looking to be a very smooth first contact! Those are the best, as it gives me the greatest amount of time to converse for the sake of improving the translator and truly exploring the depths of their culture and history in the most engaging way possible: conversation!
"Now! What do your people call you- actually, first, do your people also utilize individual-specific names, or titles?" A beginners question, but an all-too-important one. A great deal of cultural differences can arise from something so seemingly small as the usage of names.
"Ugh, yes, we have names. Mine's Duncan. Duncan Euler, no not that- oh, you... probably wouldn't know who Euler was. Anyways, yeah. That's my name." It spoke, the words did come off a little flat in the translator but I could hear the subtle variations that the translator couldn't overwrite! Wonderful! Their species seems to make use of intonations and inflections, and the name, two names, a first and last. Just like most species, lending further creedence to Metacognitive Binomial theory. I'll have to make a note of that later, for now...
"And what is it you do, Duncan Euler? I mean to say, your profession or trade? For what societal purpose do you serve?" Another quite important question, by knowing the station of the subject we know what their perspective of their own society might be. Naturally you cannot learn all there is to know from a single individual, especially in more fracturous societies where so little as a place of birth can be the difference between ancestral hatred or familial piety.
"I believe he is a soldier, Dr. Tryn," Dr. Ruffaloo spoke up, which does annoy me somewhat. I understand his desire to hasten things stems from his people's general anxiety towards prolonged contact, but seriously! Long, drawn out conversations are the best. He should know how rude he is being!
Duncan spoke up now, thankfully, "Actually, no, I-"
BOOM. The entire vessel is suddenly rocked by what sounds like some kind of explosion. I and the others are tossed to a far wall with agonizing force, I feel as several of my hollow bones shatter from the impact. The pain is excrutiating. It cannot end like this! I had too much to live for! I wasn't... done... talking......
----
Fuck. That was loud, and painful. Not really in the "oh no all my bones broke" sort of way, but more like tripping on something and then faceplanting sort of way. Except I fell backwards, into the wall, and although I didn't feel anything break, that doesn't mean nothing did. At the very least I'm gonna have one hell of a bruise on my back. This, at least, confirmed my suspicions. I bounced off that wall like a superball, gravity on this ship is really weak. Walking is going to be a bitch and a half. Though given the explosion I don't think walking is going to be my main worry, what hell is happening?
"HULL BREACH DETECTED," A drone of a voice rang out, must be some kind of ship board AI? "SEALING CABINS. SEAL SUCCESSFUL. REPRESURR-" BOOM. Another explosion, but smaller this time- I was able to catch myself just fine. I look over to where the other are and- oh god. Dr. Tryn is... jesus. Like a bird that flew into a window at full speed. I guess.. I mean he does look like a bird, so I guess he had hollow bones. Which means that first explosion must have... I'm gonna be sick. He seemed so nice, too. Thankfully the Sharkman and the Octopus seemed to have taken that a little better, squishy bodies I guess probably helps with shock absorption.
"INTERNAL BREACH DETECTED. INTRUDERS DETECTED. RED ALERT. RED ALERT. INTRUDERS-"
I get the point, and immediately begin shutting out the AI voice. Of course this happens. Textbook sci-fi. First contact interrupted by some kind of violent enemy. What is it? Soldiers? Don't tell me they came out here as explorers in the middle of some kind of Galactic warzone? No, that doctor seemed far too smart for these aliens to be naive. Must be Pirates, or maybe Mercenaries of some kind. The only question then, is why? What value could an Exploration ship hold for Pirates? Well, stupid question I guess. He also said "under the command of the Florbus Combine". Military ship. Military ships have military weapons. Of course pirates would want something like that if they got a chance, and I guess these ones decided a first-fucking-contact was theirs.
I go for the locker with my stuff, I doubt an airsoft gun is going to be helpful against space-age technology but you never know. Maybe I can use it to make a distracting noise, or maybe they won't be able to tell it isn't a real weapon and I can do some kind of bluff with it. Worst case, it's heavy- real metal. I liked the heft, and I'm sure a pirate's face probably won't. The Octopus and the Sharkman seemed to still be recovering, I guess it hit them a bit harder than I thought. But I didn't have any kind of medical expertise, especially for alien anatomy, so I didn't really bother to check on them. I smashed the glass window of the locker they put my stuff in- wasn't about to bother fiddling with some kind of locking mechanism and risk activating something.
It... didn't hurt? Its not actually glass, just some kind of thick transparent film. Really easy to break through, in fact. Tore like some kind of gel. Eh, whatever. Got my airsoft gun, wielding it as seriously as I could so any pirate that saw me might think its real and think twice before starting a gunfight. I glanced over at the Octopus, I think its name was Dr. Ruffaloo? Funny name. Its color changed, it was a shade of blue before but now its a sort of maroon color. Its.. I think those are its eyes, are locked on me. I guess it saw me get my stuff, was it really that surprising though? It wasn't exactly made of anything- oh dear god.
Light gravity, weak security locker. Someone fucking died from that toss. Is... is this a space orcs thing? Am I some kind of like, monster beast to these people? Noooo, no way. That mother fucker over there is a SHARK for fucks sake and bit like a tank to boot, ain't NO WAY I'm stronger than him. It must not have been a secure locker, I mean what kind of security locker is fucking transparent? Yes, that's it. Doc Oc over there is just scared cuz my little act is a bit too good- he did say he thought I was a soldier, so to him I'm a trained killer getting ready for my morning commute. The fake military fatigues certainly help, I think. I call out to King Shark, er, Hark Manyfred I think his name was?
"Hey, Big Guy get up. Alexa up there said we got intruders. I don't know what that disco banana you got does, but if its what I think it is we're gonna have to throw a party for the uninvited guests."
He just groaned, then looked up at me confused. Too much metaphor I guess, translator must've garbled it.
"Pick up your weapon and get ready for a fight." I corrected.
He just nodded, and seemed to take a similar stance as mine. Good, glad to know 'lieutenant' wasn't a mistranslation. At least someone here is professionally trained.
-----
I could scarcely believe my oculars. This, 'Duncan' individual just tore through a security locker as if it were made of primitive writing scrap. Not to mention the detonation, he was thrown to the wall as all of us and stood up from it like nothing happened. Even lieutenant Hark was rendered unconscious for a few moments, my brain has no functions for losing consciousness so I was sharply aware of everything that transpired. Dr. Tryn even... he... he may have been an annoying colleague, but he was a good friend. What am I going to tell his mate? I... I have to avoid thinking about it, for now. Right now we have bigger problems. If those intruders were willing to toss the vessel that fiercely, our lives are certainly the least of their concerns. Dr. Tryn was far from the only Freeana on the ship, and there's no telling how much more viscious the impact was in other parts of the vessel.
The creature, or rather, Duncan, spoke something but the Translator failed. That impact must have jumbled it a bit. What it said next, however, was crystal clear- redundant computer must have come online.
"Pick up your weapon and get ready for a fight," It said. So it IS a soldier, I knew it. Then that strange device it holds must be a weapon of some kind. Dear lord... don't tell me it fires lead projectiles like the one I extracted from it? I must warn him, if he fires something like that aboard this ship it could rip a hole to the void, or puncture a vital fuel reserve. The ship has systems for handling such occurences, but they can only do so much- especially if other events have already activated them.
I began, "Please! Do not use that weapon aboard this vessel! Such a heavy projectile will surely-"
"Oh, uh, yeah, don't worry about it. It's not real. Just a toy." It said. A toy? So... it isn't a soldier? Oh no... this is not good. That leaves Hark as the only one here capable of defending himself, and if a firefight breaks out in my medical facility it could severely damage the equipment and leave me unable to treat the wounded.
"Lieutenant! You must fight outside of this chamber! If any of my equipment is damaged in a fight, it could turn out poorly for us all!" He simply grunts and nods at me. Grobulan fighting instinct must have kicked in already, he cannot speak. It likely takes all of his willpower just to avoid turning on us- but it is precisely his extreme degree of self control that earned him his position upon this vessel, and indeed in the Florban military in general despite his people's reputation. In fact, if my suspicion is correct, Grobulan pirates tend to be very keen on explosive weaponry when it comes to naval combat. For exactly the reason that it turns the insides of any vessel struck into a bloody mess, perfect for activating their instincts and turning them into some of the most terrifying fighters in the galaxy when they inevitably board. And judging from the screams coming from the hallway, I'd say my suspicions are terribly, terribly correct.
We're all going to die.
-End of Part 1-
Part 2

Ponder the Frorb
Description Main characters~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Skyler Amethyst Corgi(main character, they/all) a crystalline being who gains different powers for different emotions, a monster hunter. acted by @Dark-water83, or Skylerthecorgi on YT
Fog ? Lofthouse(sidekick, he/they) Cute lil' Witch who is skilled in alchemy, very frequently makes witty comments. He can use his magic for fire crap. voiced by @XenonPigeon, the one who made this desc.
Donut Aries Sprinkleton(in most episodes, but not AS frequent as Skyler or Fog she/her) Demon. Yes, a Demon. uh clad with frosting and sprinkles, she just does stuff like steal people's blankets. acted by my friend Summer (or Summer Star on tiktok)
Sin Hades --.-(as frequent as Donut, he/they/?) an introverted nicer demon. He isn't really friends with the others, but he appears randomly.
Secondary characters~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Principal Whiskers
a cat in a wagon with a translator collar.
voiced by @XenonPigeonl again
Mrs Carroll
old, evil, abusive ELA teacher. based on my old ELA teacher (I have a better one now) voiced by summer
Mrs Olga
nice math teacher. could very well be a stand up comedian. voiced by my gramma
Mrs Henderson
Mrs Carroll but not as old and also a science teacher. voiced by... @XenonPigeon ????
Vice Principal Johnson
used to be a wrestler.
ripped.
likes blueberry pancakes.
an obvious ripoff of Dwane "the Rock" Johnson. voiced by my dad cuz why not
Tiffany
works at The Fiddlers as a cashier
owns a cactus if anyone tries to find the secret menu (store policy) voiced by summer
Stormwick
the villain
voiced by @dark-water83
Journey
Magic duck
Voiced by @XenonPigeon
Luci
Hades
Voiced by lucy
The Bri'Ish guy
he's British alright. voiced by @XenonPigeon
Places~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Surfaceton
the place where everyone lives
a parallel of Saint louis in real life
Buttercup Marsh
right outside of Oddlywood is a marsh
not a parallel
where Fog lives
Snugglebean Cafe
a capybara/cat/weasel Cafe
if "Made by Lia's" had snuggly animals
best coffee in all of the Cobalt Isles
Oddlywood Northish Middle
the only middle school with a cat for a principal(Principal Whiskers)
Fiddler's
white castle. that's it it's just white castle
AYYYYYY TONNAAYYYYYY
the pizza place.
really good wings
just marco's pizza(if you know their wings you know)
Ep1, “Ponderers.”
{narrator}
Imagine a world, where humans don’t exist. That’s it. Okay fine, maybe you want more, uhhhhhh where to start where to start…. Oh! Okay here we go
A long long time ago, around the summer of ‘83, not only was there the showdown between Richard and Lazy Larry, but also a magical artifact in a cave, in a town, on an island, on an archipelago appeared, and this artifact was the Frorb, created by the great and almighty Frogus (who isn’t important at the moment) so I assume you want to see the story behind this thing, well no. but you get this!
{end of narration}
{text on screen says “Present Day (~2024ish)”}
The screen shows multiple fight clouds in a cave, with the sun in sunglasses and a sunhat just wears his usual concerned grin and in the middle-bottom is the Frorb
A crystal brunette, a blondie, another blondie, and a shadowy figure walk into the cave, take the Frorb, and just… walk out of the cave.
{cut to their treehouse}
[the brunette with crystals growing out of their body] shifting in their chair “so… we just…-”
[the one with curly blond hair] looking concerned and excited “Took an ancient artifact from a cave while nobody was looking thus committing grand larceny? Yeah.”
[the blond with horns and slightly longer hair] “that was an impressive feat for a bunch of middle schoolers to pull off”
[The one that is a shadowy being, and two floating circle hands] “we should hide this”
{the group of friends quickly scrambles to find a place to hide the artifact before}
[Frorb(AKA the artifact)] makes a high pitched chirp like a baby frog
{everyone “Awwwwww”s, including the cops who just showed up}
the middle schoolers yelp and try to escape, but treehouses only have two exits, and one is the windows, so they get caught and taken to juvie, and the artifact gets confiscated, but sitting around is pretty much just the exact same thing that its been doing for 41 years.
Cut to jail, where the group of kids are in a cell
prison bars clank
the curly-haired-blond starts playing a harmonica
[the brunette smacks the curly-blond} “Stopit Fog! we need a way to get outta here!}
[Fog(the curly-haired-blond)] “We have a 30-day no bail sentence Skyler, the only thing we can do is wait”
[Skyler (the brunette)] “then we need to break out, Donut, Sin, we need ideas!”
[Donut(horned blond)] “Summon Grom, king of the dimension dimension?”
[Fog] “we need trans-dimensional knowledge for that”
[Sin(being)] “uhh, what about breaking the bars?”
[Skyler] “no, we’re too weak”
[Fog] “Oooh I know!” he rips off Skyler’s crystal arm - don’t worry, it regrows - then he turns the arm into a pickaxe and destroys the brick wall
[Skyler] “OWW! WHY DID YOU-!?”
[Fog] “RUNNN!!!!”
The friends booked it outta there.
[Donut] (cartoon SCREECH!) “WAIT! We need to get the Frog back!”
[Skyler] “We just escaped jail, why should we get the artifact back”
[Fog] “did you not hear the chirp? It’s obviously sentient”
[Skyler] “but we-!”
[Fog] starts yapping about plans as they walk back to the treehouse
As they enter the treehouse they all start planning, even Skyler, who was convinced to by Donut and Fog, who love cute little critters.
[Fog] “Okay, let’s go over the plan, so we break in through the roof and find the confiscated items bucket, and the artifact, who we still need to name, but we can do that when we get them back, they deserve opinions.”
[Skyler] “Okay, let’s go.”
Cut to the roof of juvie
[Skyler] turns hand into a pickaxe and breaks through
They throw down a rope and Sin goes down, grabs the artifact, and leaves
[Skyler and Fog] in unison “well, that was easy.”
Cut to treehouse
[Fog] “Froggo?”
[Donut] “no, how about Mr Croaks?”
[Fog] “we don’t know their gender, oh!” looks at the artifact “how about Frorb?”
[Donut] “Frorb?”
[Fog] “Frog orb”
[Frorb (the artifact)] (Happy chirp)
[Fog] “They like it!”
[Skyler] “O-K?”
[Sin] under breath “Just roll with it”
[Skyler] under breath “alllllllriiiight?”
Episode ends
Ep. 2, “The Secret menu. Mm that's good!”
{Narrator}
Welcome back to Oddlywood! Wait, I didn’t tell you that the town was called Oddlywood? Darn, I didn’t explain a lot of stuff. Well screw you.
{end of narration}
The camera pans to the group of friends trying to pick a lock, as skyler locked himself out of his apartment
[skyler] “it’s no use, we should just grab some food and break down the door”
[Fog] “i heard about a secret menu over at Fiddler’s, maybe we can get that”
[Donut] “sure”
[sin] appears and says “how’d we get the menu?”
[Fog, Donut, and Skyler all yelp]
Cut to the Fiddler’s, a fast food restaurant
[Fog] “So should we just… ask?”
[Skyler] “yeah i’ll try” walks up to the counter “how do we get the secret menu?”
[Tiff(the cashier)] Throws a cactus at Skyler’s face. luckily it missed
[The rest of the group] disappears in various directions and ways, such as jumping out of the window(fog), or descending back down to the under(Donut) or just recreating that disappearing meme(Sin)
[Skyler] books it out of the door
[cut to the treehouse]
[Skyler] “Who else do we ask?”
[Donut] with a sinister look on her face “I know a guy”
[Skyler] “oh cool what’s their name?
[Donut] “Lucy”
Cut AGAIN to the underworld
[Lucy (the devil)] “Oh hey Donut, how’s it hangin?”
[Skyler] “YOU KNOW THE DEVIL!?”
[Donut] “Yeah”
[Fog] “He seems pretty cool!”
[Skyler] just paralyzed
[Donut] “so do you know the secret menu for Fiddler’s? We need some cheap food so we can bust down Skyler’s door, cuz he locked himself out again”
[Lucy] “I legally can’t tell you that. But here’s the menu on a laminated paper! Just don't tell tiff”
[Fog] “Gotit!”
Cut to the Fiddler’s
[Skyler] “We’d like a number 389752875696, a 38074587963847, and a 9834658796394769075, oh and don’t forget a 02847t583t874379467936596340956936495693864895387965638974696089360964580936480960946593645630984580936458093458
[Tiff] “okay, that’ll be 25 pebbles”
[Skyler] puts some pebble coins in Tiff’s hand “and here’s a stone note”
End of episode
Ep. 3, “Ponder the- ERLEGH!”
{crash noise}
[narrator] OW!
[end of narration???]
{cut to the inside of Fog’s house at the buttercup marsh where Fog is teaching Skyler how to make lofthouse cookies.}
[Fog] “then you throw ‘em into the oven and you're done!”
[Skyler] “you seared gourmet race into my eardrums but it’s such a good song i don’t give a crap”
[Fog] “yeah it is an earworm.”
[Skyler] “I don’t think it’s cuz the song is catchy, it’s just because you played it forty-seven times.”
[Fog] “O-or that”
{a ram jumps through the window, scaring Fog, Skyler, and the Frorb}
[Fog] “WHAT THE-”
[ram] rams into fog’s gut before he could finish
[Fog] “euughluegh”
[Skyler] “there’s a paper in its mouth” takes the paper “let’s see, it says ‘run’. Well that's an omen!”
{Skyler and Fog run with the Frorb, that is being held by Fog}
{a mysterious villain riding on a cloud with an obsidian overcoat and tophat crashes through the window}
[Villain] “dangit, shouldn’t have given them a warning.”
{cut to Fog and Skyler in town square}
[Skyler] “we are dead. We are so dead.”
[Fog] “maybe we can hide with the-”
[Frorb] turns them all invisible
[Fog] “woah. That’s weird.”
[Villain] comes to town square
[Fog and Skyler] “THAT”S STORMWICK!” they proceed to book it outta there
[Stormwick(villain)] “where are they?”
{cut to the duo with the frorb}
[duck] “quack”
[Fog] “ACK! WHY CAN THAT DUCK SEE ME!”
[Duck] “I am no regular duck, I am a MAGIC duck!”
[Skyler] “oh that explains everything.”
[Duck] “Correct, it does!
[Skyler] “that was sarcasm.”
[Duck] “I don’t care, anyways I am here to save you!”
[Skyler] “if you’re gonna save our lives then at least tell me your name”
[Fog] “and me”
[Journey(Duck)] “Oh right! My name is Journey!”
[Skyler] is about to talk and is cut off by a “To be continued” screen “OH COME ON!”
To be continued/end of two-parter episode
Ep. 4, “Ponder the- ERLEGH! But it’s part two”
{cut to where last episode ended}
[Journey] “Or right! My name is Journey!”
[Skyler] “you just said that”
[Journey] “oh.”
[Skyler] “So how the heck do we beat Stormwick?”
[Fog] “i think my spine is broken” faints
[Skyler and Journey] “Fog!”
[Skyler] “HOW DO YOU KNOW HIS NAME-”
[the Ram from earlier] breaks Skyler’s spine too
[Journey] “great, now I’m legally obligated to take you guys to the hospital”
Cut to the hospital
[Journey] “Well I get that but their spines are broken!”
[Doctor Ducky D. Duckbill] “their SPINES!?!!!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? WE NEED TO FIX THEIR SPINES!!!!!!!!”
[Journey] “yes. Yes we do.”
3 months later
In the treehouse
[Fog] “man am I glad that the healthcare here is amazing!”
[Skyler] “yeah”
[Donut] “So what happened?”
[Skyler] “we got chased by Stormwick, Frorb made us invisible and we got saved by a magic duck named Journey”
[Journey] “you called?”
[Fog, Skyler, and Donut] “AHH!”
[Journey] “what?”
[Donut] “you just appeared”
[Journey] “yes, I am a MAGIC DUCK!”
[Fog] “YES WE KNOW” Throws a bundle of pencils at Journey
[Journey] in a happy voice “Ow!”
[Skyler] “what the-?” gets stabbed by Journey with her beak “I’m not even the one who THREW THE PENCILS!”
[Journey] “I can’t tell you losers apart!”
[Skyler] “MY LEFT ARM IS MADE OF CRYSTALS!!!!”
[Fog] “and I’m blond.”
[Skyler] “No you’re not, you dyed your hair blue and pink”
[Fog] “you know what i mean”
[Skyler] “whatever we need to fight Stormwick”
[Journey] “the other loser left, said something about donuts and danger”
[Skyler] “do you think i have any chance at beating Stormwick?”
[Journey] “no”
[Skyler] runs off shouting “who cares!?”
[Journey] “UUUGGGHHH I do NOT wanna deal with that loser”
{cut to town square where Stormwick and Skyler are standing}
[Skyler] does breathing exercises, and leaps 50 feet into the air to do an ultimate drop attack with a mace he made from is left arm “Get rekt loser” and OBLITERATES Stormwick
[Stormwick] “I’LL BE BACK” while flying away on a cloud
[Skyler] “will you?”
{end of episode}

I'm 18M and I have questions regarding the ingredients of products in my routine.
My routine is as follows:
Day: Acne soap, Clindamycin Phosphate, pimple gel 5%, suncreen gel
Night: Acne soap, acne med solution, acne lotion
The product ingredients are as follows:
• Acne Soap: Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Palm Acid, Palm Kernel Acid, Calcium Carbonate, Malaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Oil Carboxymethyl Cellulose (Cellulose Gum), EDTA, Menthol Cl 19140, Cl 77492, Cl 74260, Cl 74160, Cl 77891, and Cl 77266
• Clindamycin Phosphate For Treatment of Acne Vulgaris Formulation: Each mL contains: Clindamycin phosphate USP ....20 mg It also contains 35% of alcohol.
• Regarding the pimple gel idk what the 5% was.
• Suncreen gel: Water, Dehydrated Alcohol, Carbomer, Octyl Methoxycinnamate, Methyl Paraben & Propyl Paraben
• Acne med solution doesn't indicate ingredients.
• Acne Lotion: Aqua, Dehydrated Alcohol, Zinc Oxide, Talc: Hydrated Magnesium Silicate, Red Iron Oxide Cl # 77491, Methyl & Propyl Parabens
With ingredients such as alcohol, talc and various acids, I'm worried on what will be my skin's condition by the next days, weeks or months. I've heard some doctors advising not to have ingredients such as alcohol directly with your skin. I've just started this routine recently, but I'm concerned with the ingredients these products have. It's going fine so far and hopefully will remain fine, as I've just started this routine recently. I'm just worried that while my skin may look fine now, idk soon, especially with those ingredients. I'm just trying to be wary.

ALBANY — The story is local lore: While showing a Dutch princess around town, Governor Rocky was so embarrassed by the shabbiness of the neighborhood near the Capitol that he decided it must go.
The result was the early-1960s destruction of 98 acres in Albany, the lively home of hundreds of businesses and thousands of families. The result was the construction of Empire State Plaza, a soulless, egomaniacal monument to government power that would have made Benito Mussolini smile. We’re still living with the consequences today.
Alas, the story is at least partly apocryphal. Nelson Rockefeller biographer Richard Norton Smith says the Republican governor was scheming to build an architectural wonder long before he drove Princess Beatrix around in an open convertible, so his embarrassment that day was probably, at best, the final straw. Bring in the wrecking balls!
Of course, a kinder, gentler Rockefeller would have felt sympathy for the folks living in such shabby conditions and vowed to improve their neighborhood with smart investments. Instead, he booted them to construct a plaza he called “the most spectacularly beautiful seat of government in the world” and “the greatest thing to happen to this country in a hundred years.”
Wrong on both counts, of course.
Yes, I’m crying over spilled history. Empire State Plaza isn’t going anywhere. The destroyed neighborhood lives only in our nostalgia and isn’t coming back.
But Dutch royalty are returning to town. Next week, the king and queen of the Netherlands are scheduled to come to Albany Wednesday for a whirlwind tour. And since I’m always trying to be helpful, I’ve imagined a fun itinerary designed to spur Rockefeller-style ambition that might do the city good.
8:00 a.m. — King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima arrive in the city by Greyhound, where they are met by Gov. Kathy Hochul at the grand bus station on Hamilton Street.
“Is that urine I smell?” asks the queen.
“It ain’t roses!” says Hochul.
8:15 a.m. — The governor takes her royal guests on a tour of the surrounding neighborhood, which is near where Fort Orange, the area’s first permanent Dutch settlement, once stood. It’s also home to the city’s oldest building, one of just a handful of urban Dutch structures left in the U.S.
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“There’s nothing here,” says a befuddled king. “Isn’t this the city center? Where are all the buildings?”
“We tore 'em down for parking!” says the governor.
9:15 a.m. — Hochul loads the king and queen into Franklin Roosevelt’s Packard for a spin around the city and quickly zooms onto the engineering marvel known as Interstate 787.
“You get a great view of the Hudson from up here!” says Hochul.
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“In Utrecht, we tore down such a highway and uncovered a canal,” says the queen, gaping at the 13 lanes of waterside concrete. “It transformed the city and brought joy to our people.”
“Is that so?” Hochul says.
“My goodness!” exclaims the king, pointing northward. “What in the name of Wilhelmina is that?!”
“That’s our Central Warehouse!” says the governor. “Isn’t she lovely?”
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“Not quite,” says the king.
11:00 a.m. — The governor drags the king and queen into the New York State Museum, after walking them across a barren Empire State Plaza.
“This here’s the finest museum in the city!” says Hochul. “Let me show you the big elephant.”
The king and queen glance around at the tired and dated exhibits before giving each other a meaningful look.
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“I think we want to go home now,” says the king. “Back to the Netherlands, I mean.”
“But we haven’t even had lunch yet!” exclaims the governor. “We ordered fish fry!”
Noon — A dejected Hochul returns to the Capitol alone, lost in thought. “Gosh,” she mutters to herself. “Those royal hoo-haws really didn’t like all the highlights I showed them, which makes me feel kind of… embarrassed.”
The governor swings into action. She immediately allocates $200 million for the construction of a downtown soccer stadium, a new bus station and an authentic replica of Fort Orange, plus $20 million to demolish the Central Warehouse and another $20 million to remake the State Museum with a science center for children on the fourth floor.
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Then, Hochul calls Joe Biden and demands that the federal government immediately pay to redo that god-awful highway. He sheepishly agrees and promises that the feds will also uncover Erie Canal Lock One, thus creating a graceful marina and tourist attraction near where the Central Warehouse once stood.
And Albany lives happily ever after.

So I’m running out of copper at my home planet and the closest planet to it doesn’t have any copper. There’s one more lava planet in my system with loads of copper but I’m afraid to go there because the hive is sending I don’t know what there.. and what is this hive thing anyway? Could I just put some missile sets into my inventory, go there and kill em all? I have all red blue and yellow science and upgrades unlocked and magnum ammo box as well as some missiles. But I fear this won’t be enough. But I don’t want to start a new game:/

Lived in the greater Burlington are of Vermont all my life and while I love it here, the dating scene if rough. Dating apps are either lacking or absolute ghost towns and shockingly I've had better experiences meeting people through Reddit so let's give it another go.
Big dork, a silly guy even, I love making dad jokes, bad puns, and the occasional silly voice. I enjoy playing a number of games on Steam, particularly strange and unique indie games and I always love hearing about new ones so if you know any, tell me or even show em to me! I love D&D and have been told by a number of friends I make a great DM. I love crafting fun stories for the ones I'm closest to. I love to watch movies and shows of all sorts, and plenty of Youtube. Nature and science were my biggest subjects in school and I still love learning new things in those fields as well as anything else that piques my interest. I have a hard time calling myself a 'professional' artist, but I do draw digitally and have had work featured in a handful of indie games in the past. I've taken it a bit slow this year, but hope to get back into the groove of things. I'd love to share my work if you have any interest!
I'm 5'11" and 145lbs and in average shape. Blue eyes, fluffy brown hair and a short beard. If we get along well enough and chat long enough I'd be happy to share a pic or two.
As far as relationships go, I can be quiet and shy at first. I rarely go after the other party, at least not directly. I like to spend time and learn about them, see how we connect and whether they're someone I want to grow closer to. I don't care for the usual small talk, I'd rather we talk about game design than the weather or art styles we enjoy instead of the score of the last sports game.
Touch is my love language, but I take my time getting to that point and only when I know the other party desires it. I take consent seriously because I hate making others uncomfortable.
There's plenty more I could say, but I think this is enough to go on for now. If you think we might get along as friends or maybe more, please reach out! I try to always respond to every message I get.

(Listen I know it's been done before but analysing is one of my favourite things, besides most analyses don't offer examples.) INTPs are arguably one of the most varied personality types around there, from what I've observed in various posts; they tend to be a bit more talkative in childhood, something resembling an ENTP. Their Fi demon most active in teenage years (I've had phrases and so did a couple other people). Here they are either memelords, procrastinating on Monday, edge lords (Sorry that's ISTP, probably) or analysing the heck out of everything. I've made an INFP analysis post before, they were nice but here if I make one mistake ya'll are gonna chew me alive so let's get on with it! Ti: Hero-Introverted Thinking The INTP's hero function or most preferred function is introverted thinking. Who talking from personal experience don't care how do you fucking get the results in most efficiency, but why you get the result from doing that thing or how that thing works. E.G- While the others in the classroom are practicing to apply the formula to get results in questions, INTP is wondering how the fuck we got the formula in the first place? If so, how does it work? And why do we have to use it? Why can't we make our own way? I'm sorry, please explain. I'm not sure if I am INTP but in my experience I absolutely refuse to use the formula and can have a literal breakdown (By that i mean that I procrastinate to no end) from not understanding the concept if I don't understand how something work and why do i have to use it. I'll get scolded for it, I'll waste my whole day, I'll be rolled eyes at but I'll understand. This is in Maths and science, in fields such as psychology and character writing (My personal favourite and I'm sure some INTP female do agree with me), in which I overanalyse everything, from breaking them down into simple part (Motives, goal, method, etc.), classifying, studying their tone (Especially book characters), anything and everything, I have to analyse it. I'll tear the character inside out, it might take me time but in the end I can predict precisely what they'll say, what they'll do, etc. And have at least 70-90% accuracy rate. E.G 2- I was watching my favourite show, the character seemed to have OCD and be germaphobic obviously but that wasn't it. So I researched anxiety disorders, etc. And figured out that wasn't the only thing preventing them from being a hero, a true hero, not a tragic hero. I started guessing their MBTI, enneagram, Big 5, etc, writing about em' until I know absolutely everything. (Extreme obviously but examples so bear with me). Notice anything? Yeah, Ti takes time, a lot of it. That is why snappy decisions aren't it's piece of cake, it might discard emotions because it doesn't understand why it's emotions are coming, how they are coming, what to do. So it does the next best thing, ignore them. Ne: Parent-Extraverted intuition The second most preferred function is Ne, often called the clown function (*cough* ENTP *cough*), if you want to visualise it, imagine your TV wire cords, tangled, messy, too many, scattered, incomprehensible. That is extraverted Intuition, it makes unobvious connections. Intuition first of all (In Psychology) means, a piece of knowledge or insightfulness that suddenly occurs to you without having obvious connections or patterns. The most glaring difference between Ne and Ni is that Ne is always jumping off to one idea or another, coming with lot of viewpoints and brainstorming, thinking of weird ass jokes, etc. Ni is not, it takes a lot of information and comes up with one solution and is generally more stubborn. E.G- I had to write a report on vampires and why they don't exist, instead of looking for possible cases and disproving them like most people will, I started to look for what defines a vampire, what diseases, etc. Instead of diving into history, i dove into science, then I calculated the chance of one person having those disorders using real Maths and thus showed that it is not impossible, it has just not happened yet. On the bright side I started arguing with myself why they do exist, manipulated the definition of vampire and viola-La lost my own debate with myself, while winning it with myself. The teacher assigned us to write about our last birthday, so I wrote about the different ways I might die (Including natural causes) since I probably wouldn't know when my last birthday will happen so I won't write about it and when my teacher asks me why, I'll just say,'I can't know my last birthday Ma'am, it's illogical.' E.G 2- I was supposed to read a little about Newton's law of gravitation and examples of how to use the formula, instead of doing that, I did the next best thing. I got from Newton's laws of gravitation to Newton's laws of motions to Equations of motions to kinematics to quantum theory to Einstein's theory of relativity to law of conservation of momentum to law of conservation of angular momentum to The Doppler effect to Redshift to- and I just wasted 6 hours and my work hasn't even started. Si: Child-Introverted sensing Trust me, you'll legit suspect an INTP of having short term memory loss if you didn't know them well (Damn you se!) but they'll remember the most random things. They'll remember the small error you made yesterday or when they wet their pants in public when they were 5 (And trust me, they'll remember it worse than it was, Is is subjective as it relies on memories and they are well, not reliable) or that The universe tastes like raspberries or Owls are the only birds to see Blue. Don't get me wrong, they despite hierarchy and traditions with absolute passion. A high Si user is not as physically present as Se, they'll remember things okay, but how they felt there and their reactions. Se can be more detached or more specific but that is for high users not INTPs who barely get out of their heads. E.G- I don't remember what I ate a few hours ago or maybe a few minutes and I am probably not paying attention to what I am eating now but I am busy thinking about how I could've won that argument, even losing my temper as a Neutrophil (Control yourself Ne!), I just remembered another fact about them, don't they release NETs or something, anyways I had a terrible day, wait is this cognitive dissonance? I remember reading about this somewhere... E.G 2- I wonder why my parents don't remember making that one comment about the political situation of this country 8 months ago and now that I bring it up, my mother is staring at me like what am I talking about. Fe: Inferior-Extroverted feeling I smell insecurities! All jokes aside, it's a curse/curse, I don't understand what they are thinking or feeling about me, have I said something wrong? oops, probably should've not said that, great now they are mad, what's wrong with fighting an argument about feelings with logic?! Oh c'mon I literally won it right now, why? because you were being irrational! I don't know what they are talking about, uh try to act cool! Play along, yeah I've heard of the rocks! Oh my god she asked me a question I didn't know answer to, I look like an idiot. I'm reaching my hand out for someone who was going to shake it with someone else, nobody noticed it, nobody but me...great now it will haunt me for years to come. (Rot in hell Si...) Need I say more? (No, no, I don't actually believe that being antisocial is an admirable quality, I just wanted to argue for god's sake...even though you know, I don't believe in god. Do you want me to do shadow functions? Cause...you know I can edit it later. Please correct any errors.