The Foundations of Humanity 8 (Cultivation) - an NoP fanfic
​
Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!
Warning. This is disgustingly cute and very intimate with lots of touching. You have been warned.
​
Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil-Human Partnership Program Participant
Date [standardized human time]: August 25th, 2136. Early morning
I knew the heat beside me before I finished dreaming, and I knew the arms around me before my eyes opened. Maeve was huddled against me, nuzzled into my collar wool as she dozed. I dared not move, as I knew she had another hour or more before a full rest.
While planning my extraction, I felt her pull harder and take a deep breath, before opening her eyes.
"Good morning, handsome,"
"Good waking, little leafy green." Maeve pushed her face further into my mane at that. "I know you have a longer sleep than we do, please don't wake up on my account."
"It's ok, I'm doing this as much for me as for you," she whispered, as she pressed her lips to my shoulder.
Maeve pulled herself from me and stretched the length of the bed with a loud groan, before settling back against me on her side, and looked at me with a smile, "I'll be honest you are very comfortable, I could see this becoming a habit."
It was only then I noticed, to my horror, my tail had found its way between us. I hoped she didn't catch on to the implications of my tail curled around her foreleg, but my shaking reply left no questions. "I think I could be convinced."
We giggled to each other, while she reached over and started to idly scratch through the tuft on my chest, to my immense satisfaction. I could only see half of her face around the pillow, but the look from that gleaming green eye was the closest thing to 'predatory' I've ever seen from Maeve.
"Well!" Maeve said with a start, lifting her hand from me, "as lovely as this is, it's time to get up, and I wouldn't mind a snack. Do you still want to try the rec room for art supplies?"
"Oh that would be wonderful! My parents couldn't afford art classes, so I only had public events to really try it."
"You didn't have art in school?"
"Well no, we couldn't afford it, that's what I said."
"Sorry, that's not what I mean," Maeve clarified, muffled through her changing of clothes, "Ok, first off, do the Venlil have a concept of public schooling? Education of subjects deemed necessary, paid for by the state, and free to the parents?."
"Of course we do! You can't have modern civilization without everyone knowing the basics of things like math and science."
"Well for humans, several of those subjects are art."
My ears snapped forward, utterly surprised, "Really?? Why??" I asked as we left the room.
"I'll admit, it is relatively recent; for most of human history, several hundred thousand years at least, artistic expression was something that humans just did, without any assistance or education. There were earlier instances of art being treated like a trade, apprentice learning from journeymen, but I think the earliest examples of formal artistic education were in pre-Christian Rome, so that would be… 3, maybe 4 thousand years ago? At that time and for a long time after, artistic education was only taught to the elite. Not because of pay or profit, but because the wealthy and powerful were cultural leaders and needed to be taught as much about culture as possible, including art."
"The concept of public education has come and gone several times in human history, but our current era started I think in the 1500's, almost 700 years ago, and even then artistic expression only became part of it around 300 years ago, or less. There were a lot of reasons why they included it: social reasons, political reasons, scientific… but it wasn't until after the Satellite Wars that such practices became ubiquitous. So now, almost every living human will have had at least one or two years of formal training in the arts by adulthood, to familiarize them with the concept of expression and creation."
"That's incredible!" I exclaimed as we entered the Mess Hall, to the shock of several Venlil and a few humans nearby, "I mean, Maeve! Your people's warlike history is well documented; why, by the sun and stars, would artistic education be compulsory for a species at war?"
"Like I said, there's a lot of reasons" gathering our food, we found empty seats by the window, "In fact, one of those reasons is precisely to prevent war." My mouth hung agape as I nearly dropped my tray; settling in, Maeve now had my full attention.
"You remember what I said about humans feeling too much?" I did, and the reminder of last waking's events did not help my nerves, but I nodded and Maeve continued all the same between sips of what I now know was coffee, "Humans appear to have incredible impulse, or as the Venlil call it 'instinct', control because we have had to learn and develop effective ways to control it. One of the most effective of which is Expression; to put that emotion out of your body and into the world in some way."
Having finished our meal, we started toward the rec room, "True, this can manifest in… unkind ways such as posturing, fighting, or just yelling, but it can also be expressed in others such as running, talking with someone who listens, and, of course, artistic works."
"So we started to teach our children how to express their imagination and emotions in non-violent ways such as the Arts. Not everyone continues practicing, and very few find professional success, but every human knows enough to understand and participate." The door to the Rec Room slid open in front of us, "Here we are, Valek. You said you checked this out on the first day, so how about you give me the tour?"
It was a large room, about the same as the bathing room including the drying corridor. The walls were lined with full bookshelves, colored boxes, and several large viewing screens with comfortable seating. Several tables made up the interior, some with what appeared to be a Pad-mount attached to a keyboard; some designed for humans, some for Venlil. I saw several pairs already engaged in activities; a mixed group of six were seated and watching what appeared to be a world of cubes, and several pairs appeared to be using their pads together, though I couldn't tell what they were doing.
“I didn't have anyone to show me around last time, so I’m not sure what some of this is. Social media is pretty big on Venlil Prime, so I think these are to communicate with the herd," I said, motioning to the Pad-mounts. “It looks like Humans are as fond of reading as we are, judging by the bookshelves. But I’m not sure what that is,” motioning to the large displays, “I think they're watching a movie? I’ve never seen one like that, though.”
“Oh! They’re playing Minecraft. Interactive media, such as video games, are really big with humans. The one they’re playing is a little more than a hundred years old now, but it never lost its appeal.”
“You said it's interactive? How?”
“Oh you just use the controller to… wait… um…” She seemed to be trying to find out how to begin, “So you told me the Venlil have, like, shows and stuff right? Well, just like those shows take place in a False World where the actions of the actors influence change upon it, video games also take place in a false world. The difference is; your actions in the Real World are interpreted as actions in the False World; it’s like you, the player, are the actor in these shows.”
“That’s so cool! I’ll have to try that sometime.”
Maeve and I explored the room further, I was especially interested in their library; what kinds of stories would I see here? About to pull a large anthology book with what appeared to be a large human holding a lightning bolt, I heard Maeve call from the other corner.
“I think I found the art supplies! So when you did your community art, were you a paint guy or a chalk guy?”
“Oh, chalk please! Most of our public works are temporary, so using something that washes with the rain is very useful.” Their artistic education is complex enough to teach different mediums? Such classes are prohibitively expensive to have, and every human learns this??
“Well I don’t see chalk, but that tells me you prefer a dry medium, so let's try pencil and markers.” Maeve said as she pulled out sheets of paper and two buckets of what I assumed were the art supplies.
We spent the next entire claw working together, drawing what fit our fancy. Maeve told me about the forests of earth, and how her family used to go camping. She explained it was like leaving home, to make a new home, in a place where a home has no right to be. I was still wrapping my head around that when she told me about the clear skies, and how her family would stay up late to see the stars, and share ancient stories about their shapes.
We were silent for a moment while we worked, when I heard Maeve speak from beside me, “Are those your woods from back home?” she asked about my drawing, “It's so colorful! Are these broad colors typical of Venlil styles?”
To the human eye, my work appeared as large swathes of color, with vague shapes representing direction and shape, rather than form. Emotion mixed with reality to create something that gave an impression of overall calm and nostalgia over the representational work.
“I do often see something similar in the parks when others are being creative. I have seen some Venlil try a style that is more detailed, but I like to show what I feel rather than what I see.” I explained, while making another long streak of golden sunbeam.
Maeve asked about my home, and I told her how we lived in a traditional burrow-style house; not an actual burrow, it was above-ground, but it made use of smooth lines and soft corners to lend structural support, spreading more out than up. We still had a 2nd floor, which was where most of our living and sleeping space was, but it looked like barely a mound against the modern stem-style houses, which was what used to be my university apartment. I was just talking about the kitchen on the ground floor when I looked over at what Maeve was working on. To my surprise, she was making an incredibly life-like imagining of our kitchen. It wasn't perfect, our dishes never stacked that high, but this could absolutely be someone else’s kitchen.
“How did you draw that?” I asked, unbelieving.
Maeve giggled as I stared, and answered lightly, “I did a lot of things back home, either as work or hobby, and one of them was room concepts and architectural design. I followed your descriptions as best as I could, with some artistic flavor. Some older human cultures also had burrow homes, so I took ideas from that. What do you think?”
“It’s incredible! This could absolutely be someone's kitchen, though it isn't ours. You even have the berry field in the window!” I was so enthralled by the detail I was seeing, I didn’t notice Maeve’s hand reaching for the work. She pointed to two figures in frame: a Venlil with what was clearly my salt-and-pepper pattern and…
“I’ve given it some thought,” Maeve whispered beside me, “and I think, yes. I would like to keep doing this.”
My heart leapt with joy and and my tail thrashed behind me; if any attempt at subtlety was made I clearly ruined the secret. Maeve smiled broadly, hiding her teeth in a vain attempt to hide her quickly reddening cheeks. We quickly packed up our projects, and I saw Maeve making to throw them away! “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I was…” She paused, not truly having an answer. I walked over and gently, wordlessly, took the sketches from her hand, and filled the space with my own paw. The message received, we exited to the corridor. "You mentioned something about camping, what is that?"
Maeve paused in thought without breaking stride, then asked, "You mentioned your favorite place was taking the road between The Grove and University. If you had the chance to live there, for a few days or a week, would you?"
I thought about this. It's a beautiful place, and I would find great joy in staying there for a time. But I remembered the look of that predator, "No. I know, in my head, that the predators in that forest would leave us alone; I'm certain it would be fine. But no, I don't think I'm brave enough for it."
"It's ok, and I won't ask you to. But Humans would, though that doesn't say much for our judgment." she added with a chuckle, "Most humans live in cities. Massive places of steel and concrete with more people than plants. Just like cities on Venlil Prime, they are comfortable, safe, and good places to live; but humans are drawn instinctively to the natural world. Despite our industry, we have to see the Earth and its bounty, or we get out of sorts."
We had reached the room and, picking up on human mannerisms, I invited Maeve to enter first. "Thank you, my good sir." She said through a giggle, "anyway, because of this many humans will leave the city to live in nature for a while. We have a lot of ways to make it more or less comfortable, and the varied ecosphere on earth combined with our diurnal cycle means we have to be very prepared. Personally I prefer a tent, rain cover, and camp stove; but some people take as much as a rolling house, or as little as a sleeping bag."
Maeve sat down on a chair, and I on the bed as we continued talking, "do you hunt when you do this?" I asked.
Carefully, Maeve spoke in measured words, "Not always, and myself never; the vast majority of people bring food with them to eat as-is or cook on site. But yes, some humans do still hunt, kill, consume, and use the dead of wild creatures. But I'd like to point out it has been regulated in most countries for a few centuries now, and even more so in the last few decades. These days, only a couple thousand animals are killed annually due to hunting practices, worldwide. And, as we continue to become more prosperous, cede more of earth to nature, and find alternatives to killing, that number will continue dropping to almost nothing." she said, matter-of-factly.
"But why do you still hunt at all? If you can eat plants, have domesticated livestock, and can now print synthetic meat, why is that number not zero?"
"it is a part of our history, and our culture; such things are very difficult to unlearn. Also, we humans have assumed the responsibility to maintain the ecologies of our world. This is done in large part as penance for the damage we did during our colonial and industrial ages, but that sense of guardianship still carries on. Answering that question is pretty complicated, and I won't dance around the fact that controlled murder is a big part of it, do you want me to keep going?"
I will never be totally ready for frank discussions of murder, but I felt this was nothing compared to what we've already done. With a deep breath, I steeled myself and flicked an affirmation.
"Ok, this is a phenomenon we have seen nearly everywhere on Earth, but we are going to talk about Yellowstone National Park, specifically. Yellowstone is a large evergreen forest that is host to a huge variety of wildlife, but early in America's history, the colonists eradicated the local Wolf population. True we had domesticated wolves earlier, but not here, and these wolves were more harmful than helpful to the colonists, so they killed them. What followed was a process called a Trophic Cascade."
"Wolves were a natural predator of Deer, so without wolves to control their numbers, the deer population exploded. The deer over-grazed on many things, most especially tree saplings. Without saplings reaching maturity, the forest couldn't create new growth, and this reduced usable living space for many small herbivores; so things like squirrels and beavers left the area. Without these small herbivores, small carnivores like the fox left as well, which made very small omnivores, like mice, also explode in population. These mice over-hunted grubs, beetles, and other detritus-eaters, so the forest floor stopped getting new nutrients, which made all plants, including trees, even sicker. With trees dying faster and still not able to make new growth, because the deer were still a problem remember, their root systems became weaker, which could no longer hold the soil. This exacerbated the effects of erosion, causing landslides to be more frequent, and even changing the course of rivers, leading to droughts in places that have never seen it"
"All of this because: we killed the Wolf. There were many examples, this is just the one I know best, but humans are well familiar with the effect of adding or removing a species from local ecology."
I sat for a long moment, letting this sink in. "You changed the shape of mountains, and the path of rivers… by killing wolves?
"Yeah!" She confirmed, with just as much surprise as I had. "We tried a few things to help heal the damage: manually planting more trees, shoring up at risk earth, even controlled culls of wildlife; this is where most of our modern hunting practices came from. But no matter what humans did, we just couldn't keep up with the forces of nature. So, Occam's Razor, we decided to try the obvious option: put the wolves back into the forest, using the natives' local cousins from further north. And you know what?" I flicked my tail expectantly, both ears swiveled on Maeve, "It worked! The wolves hunted the deer to manageable numbers, the trees had a chance to grow, the small herbivores came back… a complete reversal of all the damage I mentioned. So now, the only species that have an overall open-season are invasive species, like the European Rabbit in Australia. Among humans, it is both illegal, and socially taboo, to kill wild animals without specific cause."
This was… a lot. All of this made sense on its own, it logically followed, but I couldn't wrap my head around how everything could be so connected. Predators kill! That's all they do! How could killing be a good thing? Finding my voice, I spoke up, "I won't pretend to know what this means. I cannot get it through that everything is so dependent on murder. But I know you've told me the truth as best as you know it, so I'll leave it alone. Can we talk about something else? You mentioned something about stories in the stars?"
"Oh absolutely!" Maeve seemed to glow with this topic, I loved seeing her so excited, "so humans have a day/night cycle, but some of us would have to keep watch during the night while others slept; so we learned to entertain ourselves by telling stories. At night, and before industrialization, our skies were brimming with stars! So we would see shapes in their patterns, and tell great stories about who they represented. There have been stories since before writing, so sadly most have been lost to history, but one story, Orion, is about-"
A ping from my pad, and then hers, interrupted the lesson.
Please report to the Partnership Program lead office promptly. Suite 4006 on deck 4.
We shared a worried look, sharing an understanding of what prompted the summons. We would face it, together. We left the room and made our way to the elevator, mostly in silence. Sensing my worry, Maeve touched my shoulder, "It's ok, this will work out." I'm not sure I believed her. We stood apart in the elevator, and the distance felt cold. Walking down the hall of offices I felt more fear and anxiety than the past week, but I had to keep moving forward.
We reached the door, and as I reached for the handle, Maeve stopped me, and gently pulled me by the shoulder against her in a desperate embrace, as one would say goodbye. She whispered into my ear,
"Whatever happens in there, I want you to know I love you, Valek."
"I love you too, Maeve."

Hi all, I’ve opened an Ally savings account as they promised a $250 bonus, but turns out, it’s only if I make a direct deposit. Which means I’ll have to ask my employer to make one into that new account instead of my usual. Ally’s direct deposit form states “Any previous authorization is replaced by this authorization, which will remain in full force and effect until employer name receives a written cancellation notice from me or Ally Bank, in such time to provide both the company and depository a reasonable opportunity to act.”
Question: does it mean that all my paychecks will go to Ally Bank now? Even if I specified the amount as just a fraction of my actual paycheck? (My employer said they’d agree to divide the stub into two parts, but only this one time.) How can I make sure that Ally bank will accept my cancellation of direct deposit form?

Thanks to having just one detail wrong⁺ about a known bolt equipping bug, I was put through a good deal of trouble science to discover how marksdwarves actually behave. I learned a bit and now I think I have a halfway decent grasp on how to establish a working crossbow squad and what to expect from them.

Making a Working Squad

First, you're going to need a functional squad and already there are bugs to watch out for. If you plan to make a custom uniform, including any edits to the default archer uniform, you must make the uniform before making the squad. You can select a different or temporary squad to access the [equip] button and then add a uniform from there, or assign the archer uniform to someone, edit it through their details, and save as a new uniform.
With your inform finished, make a new squad and assign it that uniform during creation. I was mistaken in thinking that starting with "no uniform" and then adding a uniform once would work. It doesn't. You must start with your ranged weapon uniform and never change it unless you're prepared to remake the whole squad.
If a uniform is edited then the affected position(s) (uniforms apply to positions, not individuals) will no longer equip bolts, so feel free only if you plan to make that position a melee unit.
Final note: You don't assign quivers in the uniform, they will automatically include quivers when you assign a ranged weapon. Same as backpacks and water skins.

Providing Equipment

Once your unbugged squad is made, obviously you will need the equipment available. A crossbow, a quiver, and bolts for every unit. Units will carry several stacks of bolts and try to keep 25 total bolts equipped. They don't politely share when bolts are limited, so make sure you have plenty. Weapons besides crossbows will use their own forms of ammunition, e.g. arrows for bows. I don't know if any bugs exist for that.
Bins do not seem to cause issues anymore. I believe it's safe to disregard past advice against bins for bolts. Of course bins sometimes have their own buggy behavior, but the explicit 'bolts in bins' issue seems resolved according to my tests.
Dwarves will not actually store their ammo in chests or weapon racks within a barracks, despite the 'squad equipment' tooltip. Stockpile the ammo to keep it where you want it.

Making Them Train

You will need one archery range zone. Only one zone is needed, multiples actually leads to odd behavior. Put all of your targets into the one zone and make sure they can all be shot at from the same direction.
Set the firing direction in the zone's options to be correct. For more than one direction, experiment with multiple archery range zones but be aware that I had them refusing to use some zones in a multi-zone setup for unknown reasons (your mileage may vary).
Set the zone to be used by the squad for training.
Finally, schedule the squad to train or give them a direct training order.

What to Expect

First, squads (ranged or melee) set to the 'off duty' routine are (by default) not going to actually equip their uniform. So if they have yellow icons in their equip list then check if they're 'off duty'. When scheduled to train or set to the 'ready' routine then they will attempt to equip their uniform.
Second, archery training is never constant. Perhaps this is a good thing to prevent the rapid consumptions of hundreds of bolts per day. The marksdwarf will dispense all of their equipped bolts when doing 'archery training', then equip more, and then go wander off as 'soldier no activity'. Fear not! Once they complete some other task like drink or sleep, they will attempt to train again.
It seems like not all tasks reset their will to train. Eating and drinking did in my experiments but I have seen dwarves socialize and worship several times without returning to the range. Be patient and just check in on the range to see if at least some soldiers are there some of the time.
Bolts are not always destroyed when fired, but by default they are forbidden as 'used ammunition'. You can change this in Labor > Standing Orders > Forbid and hopefully this will have them automatically collect whatever bolts survive. Few bolts do, though, so make sure you're producing plenty if you have a lot of active marksdwarves.

In Combat

Dwarves are valiant to the point of suicidal. A marksdwarf might start a fight by firing bolts but if given the opportunity may decide to ditch the pew pew routine and start smacking the enemy with their crossbow. You can train them with a regular barracks to be good at this, or you can prevent them from engaging in melee.
Unfortunately, preventing this means limiting the use of the marksdwarves. You will need to put them up on a ledge or behind fortifications with no reasonable path to the enemy. This reduces them to a support/sentry role but that's still pretty useful.
Using the 'defend burrow' order, you can get them to squeeze into an exact area, unlike 'station' which allows them to spread out and wander a bit. So use burrows to define their little pill boxes and sentry towers. Make sure they get there while the enemy is out of sight, or they will abandon the burrow order before reaching it to engage the enemy.
In a pinch, they might obey logic for a short time and fire bolts from an organized back line if there's melee units ahead to engage the enemy, but it's likely to fall apart quickly if it works at all. So perhaps hope, but don't expect, them to dispatch a webbing beast while it slaughters your melee units.

Final Notes

Dwarf Fortress is complex enough to be its own technical discipline. Many best practices and proven understandings have been formed over the years but, unlike physics or chemistry, DF science is subject to change and these understandings can (and indeed have, many times) become incorrect. There have been brief mentions of a ranged unit logic overhaul. Of course no reddit post is real confirmation of anything, but if you're reading this from the future then know that this might all be wrong now.
⁺ Shout out to Salford Sal whose mere mention of the uniform bolt bug corrected my minor but critical misunderstanding. Not many players have such vast knowledge of the game that they can fix people's problems almost on accident.

If Kenneth Arnold's granddaughter Shanelle Schanz possessed one-hundredth the speaking ability of Richard C. Hoagland, last night would have been a memorable C2C classic. As it was, RCH with his Moon dome made it fascinating fun.
On the afternoon of June 24, 1947, a 32-year-old pilot was flying his CallAir A-2 light plane west of Mt. Rainier at around 9-thousand feet. As his fabric, ceconite covered aircraft putt-putted along at just over 100 mph, he spotted some flying discs. They were strange and weird looking. And fast. They didn't look like anything manufactured by the nearby Boeing company. But what has always been deleted from aeronautical/UFO lore is a possibility there may have been at least two other eye witnesses.
While Kenneth Arnold was spotting those fast-moving saucer-shaped objects, a United Air Lines flight 553 was close by, flying northbound on a scheduled flight from Portland to Seattle. That flight crew was in command of a United Air Lines Mainliner 230. Its "Mainliner" designation was dreamed-up by the airline's marketing department to signify the swift, mileage-saving, center of the country air routing connecting Pacific to Atlantic oceans. In a similar vein, the "230" stood for the DC-4's cruising speed in miles-per-hour. It was all hydrogenated hogwash to pacify a post WW-II flying public longing to be transported in something better, faster, quieter and more luxurious. Until such time as Douglas could deliver more new pressurized DC-6s from the Santa Monica factory, United had to rely upon unpressurized 4-engine Douglas transports that had been converted from their spartan wartime C-54 configuration into a civilian DC-4 configuration-- via 44 cushy passenger seats and some window curtains.
The mighty Mainliner 230 was east of Kenneth Arnold's position, slightly nearer to the 14,411' shield volcano. It was undoubtedly following Victor 495, a low-altitude airway designation. Nearing Seattle, the DC-4 was optimally flying around 8,000 feet on a 345 degree course heading, adhering to the hemispherical flight rule. The crew would have started the decent phase of flight into Sea-Tac, going downward at a 500 fpm rate to be gentle with the passenger's ears, lest they pop. And inside the cockpit, the pace would have quickened in preparation for an approach and landing in Seattle.
A perplexing question remains? Did those two airline pilots on that flight deck spot anything atypical in the skies above Washington State? Or were they too involved with decent checklist flow patterns and dialing-in old NDB frequencies? Having been through aviation museums and having sat in ancient airliners, they are nothing like the glass touchscreen marvels of today. So perhaps this crew was too busy flying "heads down" adjusting throttle-pitch-mixture levers and pulling--pushing--turning huge trim wheels and doo-dads. However, even in 1947 they must have also been looking out the front windshield for air traffic. And when they did, they may have seen a bunch of Captain Kirk starships, flying in close formation near Mt. Rainier.
Did those United pilots take their eye witness accounts to the grave, rather than risk the repercussions of reporting a flight of UFOs?
Kenneth Arnold's aircraft: https://www.ptaeromuseum.com/airplane-exhibit/1949-callair-a-2
United Airlines Lines 1947 Official Airline Guide: https://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete//ua47/ua47-6.jpg

This one has been keeping me up at night, and its impact is micrscopic if at all.
​
A 1st year student during the intraschools was sucked out of a space ship window when their opponent (VonLeef) tossed a steel container breaking the view port of a space ship designed field. This unlucky cadet was FDA'd by environmental factors, much like Rei was on teh volcanic slopes.
​
We know Rei felt the heat of the lava for a second before he died, so some sensation was simulated. What was simulated for the cadet who died, presumably much more slowly in the cold vacuum of space? Was there a simulated vacuum portion of the field, that some full body 3rd years could have survived? Was the air actually sucked out of their lungs, and did their body bulge from lack of external air pressure?
​
Or was it a more mundane simulated death of simply paralyzing their lungs to simulate the inability to breath? And any decompression unpleasantness was created with generic 'pain' across uncovered or bare combat suit areas of skin?
​
The answer doesn't really matter, but finding out exactly how hard light projection tech works is fascinating. If for no other reason than Hard light projection tech is not directly linked to vysterium and archon tech. It's possible it was derived from phantom calls of devices, but its equally likely that phantom calls were created using the basics of human developed hard light, and no such corollary projection tech exists for the archons.
​
If an answer existed, other than 'space magic', it could be twisted pretty wildly for some gruesome effects. After all water boarding is just simulated drowning.

First, yes I know, not recommended, secondly I haven't done VMWare in 10+ years (I am full MSFT stack engineer). I have 2 servers I inherited from an acquisition that are fairly new (compared to what I have). One is a SuperMicro 160 Tb NAS running Windows Server 2019 Standard and the other is a Dell hypervisor that was preinstalled and licenses for VMWare 6.7 Enterprise. We have super small needs in house as we are 100% cloud (only have DC and virtual appliance, rest is test/backup VMS) and I wanted to utilize the 2 together, since the server has only a TB of storage.
I created a NIC team on both servers and assigned IPs of 10.1.1.2/10.1.13 (respectively and have link. I can ping VMware server on port 3260 from Windows and see Windows logging minor amount of traffic bi-directionally. The iSCSI adapter on VMWare ishows Online and VMKernel NIC is bound to it. When I had static target, it says it is successfully saved, yet I get no new device and static target doesn't stay when I go back to edit.
​
On Windows, I created the iSCSI virtual disk and target has option of initiators from IP of VMWare server (10.1.1.3) as well as IQN from VMware server's iSCSI configuration. Windows still shows "Not connected". I know if I can't get connect I can't even begin to create a datastore on the Windows Virtual drive, and I am pretty sure I did everything right on both ends. I even queried ChatGPT as well, but got 2 different answers, with the second being to use a Fiber Channel switch between. That seems excessing since I am only using the 2 servers and not trying to spend extra money.
​
Would appreciate any positive thoughts/out-of-box ideas before I give up and just go Hyper-V (not crazy about it being deprecated in Server 2022).
​
Thanks in advance!

For the time limit challenge, each chef was to make three entrées, with one made in 30 minutes, one made in 20 minutes, and one made in 10 minutes, with all three dishes ready by the end of the 30-minute start time. Due to the blue team having more members, one was forced to sit out. Despite Jason's suggestions, it would be him that would be sat out. Tommy and Jennifer would go first with their entrees, with Jennifer scoring over him. Paul would follow it up by scoring over Elizabeth, while Will clinched the win for blue by scoring over Natalie.
The men were rewarded with a shopping spree at Ted Baker’s, and a limousine ride. During the ride, all four of them bonded, with Jason admitting he was having fun with them despite still being sore over not being able to participate. On the other hand, the red team were punished by prepping the charity night service and bringing out two banquet tables while reorganizing the dining room.
For the charity night service, Elizabeth and Paul would start on the scallops course. While Paul was vocal at the start, only being stopped by some messups Tommy made, Elizabeth was quiet and didn't respond to several questions, forcing Jennifer and Natalie to take over.
On the risotto course, Natalie would send out her courses with no problems, while Jason had some problems with them, but he bounced back from them.
For the lobster capellini course, Will's calm leadership helped the blue team, while Jennifer was annoyed with Natalie's and Elizabeth's slow plating, eventually resulting in inconsistent lobster.
For the chicken course, Paul was once again vocal, with no problems this time. On the other hand, Elizabeth was found to have cooked chicken too early with her team still being on the capellini course. She managed to get her dishes out regardless.
On the lamb wellington course, Natalie was once more vocal, while Tommy was quiet. However, after Ramsay told him to get a grip, Tommy got more vocal, and he sent his course out perfectly, with Ramsay saying that was what he was looking for.
Finally on the apple tartin course, while Will got his course out with no problems, Natalie had raw apples, but Jennifer's still managed to send her course out.
The men were declared the clear winners, and at elimination, Ramsay gave black jackets to Will, Paul, Jason, and Tommy. He then called Jennifer, Natalie, and Elizabeth up before asking what happened. After listening to their pleas, he called Jennifer forward, saying that while tonight was a tough night for her, he still believed in her, and gave her the fifth black jacket.
After some deliberation, he would call Natalie forward, and give her the final black jacket, eliminating Elizabeth for her lack of leadership, although he praised her for coming into the competition for the right reasons and saw a bright future for her.
HK9 Your Way (Part 12) - Online Poll - StrawPoll.com
Black Jackets: Jason, Jennifer, Natalie, Paul, Tommy, Will
18th. Steven
17th. Chino
16th. Carrie
15th. Brendan
14th. Amanda
13th. Monterray
12th. Gina
11th. Jonathon
10th. Krupa
9th. Elise
8th. Jamie
7th. Elizabeth

"So, you're telling me we found another sapient omnivore species?"
The commander grunted, ripping his boot from a watery patch of mud and nearly crashing into the swampy water between two twisted tree roots.
Sunny reached out with one of her four armored arms and caught him by the back of his pack, pulling him upright.
He nodded a thanks to her and adjusted his gear.
Behind her Ramirez ducked under a low hanging branch, slogging through a pool of knee-high water, adjusting the containment pod, holding Krill more comfortably over both shoulders.
Krill, comfortable and warm inside his containment pod, watched the marines, scientists, and a linguist struggle through the mud under a covering of impossibly tall, twisted trees, their canopy blocking out all light that might have dared cut downwards towards the watery floor below.
"Not entirely sapient, I suppose."
Krill answered,
"Unfortunately the way in which they communicate is going to drastically reduce their ability to create complex structures and perform mathematical equations."
Together they maneuvered themselves over a root, which at some point in the distant past, had decided to grow upwards instead of down. At about four feet high, it had changed its mind and arched back down into the water. Perhaps it had been smaller then, but at four feet wide, the root was an absolute monstrosity now.
The trees themselves were massive, challenging, and sometimes outgrowing the legendary redwood forests of the western Americas, but unlike the redwoods, these trees didn't stand tall and proud. Instead, they chose a twisted path much like the branching veins which made up a human vascular system. They twisted and undulated, interlocking past each other with branches that were well over two feet wide in many cases, and stretching to over four feet wide in others.
No one direction was good enough, and the trees twisted, ducked swirled and reached, grasping for any sort of light to be found.
On top of the darkness cast by the trees and the soggy nature of the forest floor, it was also horribly hot and humid, giving the impression of a microwaved wet blanket thrown over the world. Where heat from the upper canopy met the cooler air of deep forest pools, it created a perpetually thick mist which writhed and undulated through the trees, leaving only the shadowy impressions of twisted trunks and clawing branches past distances greater than 50 feet (15m).
"They communicate primarily through pheromones and heat modulation. From what I understand, the language in itself isn't precise, and really only works in generalities and feelings than it does in absolutes."
Commander Vir kicked a rotting log out of the way, ducking as a massive green bug buzzed over his head and into the fog.
Turns out the hotter and more humid a planet gets, the bigger the bugs get,
"But we were still able to communicate with them?”
Krill nodded from inside his case,
"Yes, generally speaking. For a species that cannot communicate in absolutes, I hear they are quite reasonable. They seem willing to accept our friendship, and have..... invited, I guess, us to participate in some sort of primitive ritual."
Vir perked up, flashing a bright smile.
“Reasonable? Peaceful? Rituals? And definitely CANNOT communicate in ABSOLUTES!? Am I the only one who thinks that sounds familiar?”
Sunny sighed,
“No Adam I am reasonably sure that they are not Jedis…”
“C’mon, that would be so cool! Like lightsabers, the force and stuff… maybe they look like tiny Yodas? I mean it fits, with the swamp, the speech impairment and all…”
He nearly fell over another root.
“Adam, focus. We have a mission here.”
The commander nodded, scrambling over another tree branch,
"Alright, so... where are these things anyway? How do they look?"
His boots hit solid ground, covered in some sort of wet spongy fungus and he glanced down at his GPS.
“Considering they talk by smell, my bet is on Elephants with giant human noses. What do you think Mav?”
Ramirez turned around to look at Maverick, who had stopped walking.
“…”
“Mav?”
“Giant… fucking spiders…”
“…”
Commander Vir was still looking at his GPS and no one else answered, so without looking up he broke the silence and said:
“Wow you are always so negative; it better not be, I want my space Yodas…”
“…”
“…”
More silence.
This time it was broken by Ramirez.
“Giant fucking spiders… with… Wolfheads!?”
The commander was still diddling around with the GPS in his hands.
“Oh not you too Ramirez, also that’s oddly specific, you always had a pretty cruel imagination. Ah there we go I think it’s that way.”
He said, looking up from his GPS to keep moving.
“…”
“…”
After some steps he realized no one was following him, so he stopped and turned around.
Behind him the other marines were dead silent, heads lifted towards the sky in shock.
"FUCK ME."
One of the marines whispered, scrambling back behind a tree root.
Commander Vir turned and nearly fell into the water again, eyes locked onto the creatures descending from high above.
They were huge, about the size of large horses, and horrifically spider like in their construction, or perhaps an ant. They had large-scale abdomens connected to a thinner thorax. All together they had ten appendages, three pairs of spider-like legs on the abdomen which, instead of ending in a pod or foot, ended in a sharp pointed spike. On the abdomen, they had two arm-like appendages, with too many joints and strange wavy tentacles instead of fingers.
The head was just as disconcerting.
It seemed too large for the body, grossly out of proportion and strangely out of place, like some cosmic sentience had used a random animal generator to assign parts to its body.
The head was wolflike, if you were to strip the skin and fur away, leaving only the muscle underneath. You could see the line of teeth running up either side of the muzzle, while the large red-pink ears rotated continuously.
Commander Vir had backed himself into the bowl of a tree eyes wide. Sunny slogged herself up from the water, placing herself between the strange spidery creatures and the human.
They didn't descend like a spider might, on threads of silk, but they used their back six feet, and the spikes on the end to dig into the bark of the trees with a disconcerting thud thud thud thud.
Finally the largest of the creatures reached the ground, surprisingly silent for its massive bulk.
Glancing around Sunnys tensed body, he noticed something he hadn't before, and that was a strange small mass gripping onto the spidery creature's underbelly. Upon closer inspection he counted ten legs and a surprisingly spidery head buried against its underside... a completely separate creature holding on to its companion.
Behind the largest creature, he noted ANOTHER type of creature. It boasted the same sort of structure as the large creature, but its abdomen was devoid of scales, and covered in strange black bulbs suctioned onto its body by way of a strange, sticky black-green webbing. Its head was also constructed differently more like a lizard than a wolf, with large bulbous eyes that could rotate behind its own head to look in all directions.
Commander Vir fiddled nervously with the advanced translation headset he wore, strapped to his helmet, supposedly it was supposed to be able to understand what these things were saying.
"Sky... friends."
The translation was somewhat garbled, but he understood it was the large wolf-head who spoke.
He walked forward, pushing Sunny gently to the side despite her clear reluctance,
"Yes, we are friends, and we are here to offer peace to you, and the assistance of the Galactic Assembly."
He wasn't entirely sure how that was going to translate over in smell, but the creature seemed happy lifting its head and gnashing its large canine teeth.
"Agreement... for a favor."
Commander Vir grew unsure then, letting off a reluctant,
"What favor?”
The spidery shape moved closer sniffing at him with its large wolffish nose. Sunny stiffened at his side, and he put a hand on her arm to calm her.
"Ritual... you watch and help."
"None of us will get hurt... will we?"
The creature stopped and pondered the question for a long moment,
"No danger... live... healthy... happy."
Commander Vir nodded slowly,
"Alright, what do we have to do?"
The creature hefted its large bulk, and turned in the opposite direction,
"Follow."
It commanded, scuttling off into the trees.
[…]
"This is very interesting."
Krill was saying to one of the accompanying scientists, who nodded vigorously in agreement.
"What's so interesting?”
Commander Vir whispered, from where he stood at the edge of yet another, but larger fungus covered clearing, watching as the creatures scuttled back and forth.
The scientist learned in in excitement,
"It seems that these creatures have a ternary gender system."
Before the commander could ask, the scientist continued,
"For ease of speech, the large ones are the females, and those things on their bellies are probably the males. The medium ones are the third gender, the 'they' if you will. It looks like the male impregnates the female who then attaches the eggs to the third party. Dr. Krill tells me that the third party have a very high heat signature, probably to incubate the young. Those attachments probably provide nutrients into the egg and may even transfer DNA over as well."
"Wow... freaky."
The commander muttered in fascination.
"Kind of gross if you ask me."
Sunny muttered.
"I'm with her. Its kinky, but too kinky for me…"
Ramirez muttered, receiving a few nods from the other marines.
"Oh please."
Krill whispered,
"I know what human reproduction is like, and it's arguable way worse."
The scientist waved them all off,
"The big one there, the one that's been talking to us. I think she's the queen, and judging from those egg sacks, this is probably mating season, if they have one."
"Creepy, but cool, I guess."
The captain muttered. They watched for a little longer as the queen scuttled around the clearing and then returned to look at them, lowering her meaty wolffish head to the commander's eye level.
"Ritual... find... eggkeeper."
She scuttled away.
"Oh... this is some sort of… Mating ritual maybe? To choose that third party you were talking about?”
"This isn't exactly the kind of "Mating ritual" I wanted to see."
Ramirez muttered. The other marines turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. Sunny stuck her tongue out in disgust.
Off in the clearing, some of the smaller females had moved themselves onto the high branches scuttling through the trees to examine the "they" who waited patiently. It appeared that side was very important in the ritual, as they all fought for the largest counterpart. Once found, the wolffish head would lower, and open up to reveal a tube under the tongue. From there she would... disgorge the egg onto the abdomen of the 'they' and the mucus would solidify to hold them on.
"It has to do with size."
Krill hissed,
"But it seems that it has more to do with heat. The big ones only get chosen more because they also happen to be warmer than the smaller ones. I'd say they incubate at an average of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, so 32 degrees Celsius."
They watched this for a while, the scientists taking notes and the marines making inappropriate jokes.
Eventually most of the creatures had finished, leaving only the queen left over.
Everything went still when she began to move, and she scuttled around the clearing, looking over all the available 'theys' she could find, but she just didn't seem satisfied.
Commander Vir tugged at the collar of his jacket, a line of sweat dripping down his face.
She continued her circuit once and then twice; at some point she turned her head, large eyes locking on the humans.
She sniffed at them.
The human laughter died as she advanced.
"What is she doing?"
The commander muttered under his breath.
The scientist that stood next to him, hidden partially behind Sunny, answered
"I... I'm not sure."
She scuttled even closer, and the humans backed away.
"Hey doc... didn't you say something about... them being attracted to heat? And like the “they’s” being around 90 F/32 Celsius?”
Ramirez wondered, hiding himself behind a root.
"Yeah... I did, why?”
"Not to freak anyone out or anything but... isn't average human heat about 98.6 Fahrenheit… so 37 degrees Celsius?"
”FUCK!”
”OH NONONONONO!”
”HIIIIDE!”
”RUUUN!”
What followed was a rather violent game of nose goes, but instead of involving touching one’s nose to see who was the last person standing, it involved a mad rush to reduce body heat.
The smartest marines took the initiative and dove into the water beside the clearing, completely submerging themselves under the surface.
Others chose to cover whatever exposed skin they might have had in mud, as if to mask the heat.
Still others chose to cut and run.
Unfortunately, with his position at the head of the group, commander Vir wasn't fast enough.
She came at him in a scuttling rush, and in a frantic leap to get away, his boot caught on a root and he hit the ground hard.
Sunny tried to leap in front of him, but was bowled over by the mad rushing form.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Commander Vir repeated, scuttling backwards across the ground, as the large spidery shape loomed over him.
He stopped dead in his tracks, backed against a tree root.
She leaned closer.
He raised his hands above his head blocking his face,
"Please don't lay your eggs in me. Please don't lay your eggs in me."
She reached out one of her forward hands, surprisingly delicate, as she cut through the first layers of his jacket, and shirt.
They fell away in slices revealing the pale human skin underneath red and sticky with the tropical heat.
His chest and abdomen heaved with his breath as he tried to scramble away, but she caught him with the prong of one of her back legs pinning him in place.
"Fuck... Help... HELP."
Sunny wasn't fast enough, having been tipped head over heels into the water, with the rest of the marines in similar positions, Krill contained inside his tube unable to help but also unable to look away.
She lowered her head, and the man screamed. It was cold, gelatinous and slimy at first, but even as it touched open air, he could feel it fusing against his skin solidifying. He thrashed and wriggled, but she was far too strong holding him in place.
Finally though, she backed away, leaving him panting on the ground shaking and trembling leg throbbing where he had been pinned.
She leaned her head down to examine him,
"Warm."
They locked eyes,
"Friends... now... Keep them... warm."
She retreated, and he struggled to his knees, turning to look down at his body which was now partially obscured by a sticky pod of six black eggs, pulled tight against his skin. His hands were shaking, as he reached down to touch them, cold and smooth.
He tried tugging on one, but nearly fainted at the pain it caused against his skin.
The creatures were withdrawing back into the trees, leaving him kneeling on the fungus, hands trembling as looked downwards.
Sunny was the first to recover, scrambling out of the water and over to him, placing a hand on his back as she examined the strange eggs attached to his skin,
"Mother of-"
The marines cut her off as they came wriggling from the trees,
"Commander, commander are you ok..."
One of the marines cut around front, frozen in his tracks, eyes wide once he saw,
"WHAT THE HELL!"
Sunny reached out as if to tug on one of them,
"NO!"
He snapped, jerking away from her.
The others gathered around to look with exclamations of shock and disgust.
The commander looked up at Sunny pleadingly.
She decided to take charge, helping him to his feet and then pulling him into her arms,
"We have to get him back to the ship, let's move, NOW!"
"What do you think, Dr."
Dr. Katie examined the scan with a frown,
"It's very, very strange, that's for sure."
Commander Vir lifted his head to look down at them,
"Well what the HELL does that mean?”
Krill shoved his head back onto the table,
"Stay still."
Dr. Katie hummed softly as she continued to examine the scans,
"It looks like these little filaments have breached the skin ... and.... well at least one of them has made it to your liver, this one here has made it to your lungs."
"What about white blood count?"
Krill wondered,
"The body must have noticed something by now?"
Dr Katie shook her head,
"Nothing, the body seems to have accepted it. I took some samples and... well I think I might know why."
She rolled herself to the side in her chair and over to one of the adjoining computers,
"See this, this is HIS DNA ...and this is the DNA of the strands."
Krill pearled over her shoulder,
"What the... they look almost identical."
"Yes... I don't think the body knows anything is wrong."
She turned her chair back around to look at the commander,
"Congratulations commander, you are perhaps, in the weirdest way possible, the only man in the history of existence who might just experience the miracle of life. You are going to be a dad!"
The look on his face made it clear he wasn't interested in being congratulated,
"What the actual fuck does that mean?"
He snapped, Dr. Katie rolled closer,
"Well, to explain in terms you may understand. You are doing more than keeping them warm. Those filaments that you saw are acting like umbilical cords. The one at your liver is using it as a filter, and to take in nutrients as it seems to have branching filaments to the stomach and intestines. The one going to your lungs is taking in carbon... not sure what that's going to do to your breathing if anything. But at this point I don't think that even Dr. Krill, as good as he is, can remove them. We would have to remove too much of your internal structure to it to be viable, plus they don't seem to be hurting you."
"Not hurting me! NOT HURTING ME! You said it yourself they are SUCKING OUT MY VITAL JUICES."
Dr. Katie shrugged,
"Welcome to pregnancy... sort of.”**
”Look we will monitor you, make sure they aren't sucking away to many nutrients. Look on the bright side, you can probably eat more, and judging from an analysis of the egg sacks, the average gestational period is only around two months."
"TWO MONTHS!?"
Sunny, who had been standing next to the man at the head of the exam table, couldn't suppress a short chirp of laughter.
He glowered at her,
"What's so funny!?"
She chirped again placing a hand on his arm,
"You're gonna be a mom."
If looks could kill, shed be reduced to a singularity,
"Get your hand off me or ill break it in half!"
She continued chirping but removed her hand just in case.
This was going to be a very awkward call to the UNSC and the GA.
For that matter, it was going to be a very awkward call home.
Previous First [Next](link)
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author

The old man and the small boy are falling through a green portal into sheer incomprehension-the infinite multiverse with no filter. If any other humans had experienced the sheer cacophony of the surrounding matter and energy phasing constantly to states from every universe at once, they would have gone insane in the brief instant before their death. However, these two were anything but ordinary humans. Upon Arrival, blue energy shields surround them spreading from the boy's yellow shirt and the old man's lab coat, somehow protecting their bodies from becoming one with the chaos before them. The boy asked the old man in an annoying stammer, “Ah jeez Grandpa Rick, what is all this? Even by our standards this seems a bit over the top.” Rick put a hand on his grandson’s shoulder in a gentle manner, something that shocked the boy more than the insanity before his eyes. Even more surprising was the tone of voice Rick began to speak in, reminding him of how he talked during the funerals of all his lifelong friends: “This is something I have been planning for a long time, Morty. Do you know how long our cartoon has run for?” This confused Morty even more- “why does that matter Rick? Look at this mess, we have to fix it! We need to save the multiverse again!” Rick looked sadly at Morty, and responded in a quiet whisper as opposed to his usual bombastic ranting and raving. “It's been 100 years Morty, a century ago we aired the Pilot episode. Do you remember what I said at the end of that episode?”
The truth fell on Morty like a sack of bricks, as he recalled the insane rant Rick had gone into at the end of their first episode together, something that they had kept calling back to as a running gag in all future seasons. Morty clutched his shirt and breathlessly said “You always said that we’d do this for 100 years, I always thought that was a joke! It certainly doesn’t feel like a century has passed for us…” Rick solemnly nodded, “It's true Morty, for us it seems like only a decade at most has gone by. But for the people beyond the 4th wall who watch our adventures together, the day this episode airs will be the 100th anniversary of the show.” Rick clenched his fists in triumph, “we did it Morty, we outlived them all. Every Adult animated Cartoon got canceled before they got this far. We even outlived the Simpsons for fucks sake!” Morty shakes his head in dismay, “was it worth it Rick? Even I caught on that our show is a shell of its former self, ah jeez we sold out and lost all integrity before we even hit season 10! But you still haven’t explained how that matters to this nightmare in front of us…” Rick sheds a single tear, before explaining himself: “I know we aren’t the shining pillar of adult animation we once were, and that the show is a trainwreck of bad jokes and irreverence. We’re no better than the dumpster fires that became of the greats before us, and it’s a miracle we stuck around for so long. But I have been preparing for this day for a while, even making deals with our creators beyond our multiverse to ensure the success of my final invention.” Suddenly the mayhem begins to converge on a single point, creating a large sphere of pure black that Morty recognizes. Rick continues his explanation: “What we are seeing right now is the nearly completed result of that invention- a convergence event of every universe and reality, to create a singularity that I could control. I have the remote right here, with 2 buttons to decide the fate of everything.”
Morty starts to get angry, and points at his grandpa before shouting: ”Goddammit Rick! I’ve seen you do some risky and evil things before, but this crosses a line that even WE haven’t crossed yet! How can you just destroy everything in the multiverse, after all we have done to save people?! All the people we’ve met, all the places we’ve been, all the things we’ve protected, you’d get rid of all of that?!” Rick puts a hand on Morty’s mouth to silence him, and tries to justify his actions yet again: “Listen to me Morty! Do you really want to keep going like this, a husk of our former glory? Do you want to see what another 100 years could do to us, and allow our show to be milked for every cent it’s worth until we’re tossed aside like all the others?! Do you want to see us rebooted again and again until the end of time? Never allowed to grow old and have a life with a girl like Jessica, to be trapped in meaningless adventures forever?!” Morty is shaken by this line of questioning, and responds uneasily: “I… I don’t know Grandpa Rick. I don’t want to die, but I also don’t think I’d like to be treated like this by our creators anymore…”
Morty begins to quietly sob, and Rick pulls him into a deep embrace. After a few agonizing minutes of Morty crying in the face of this impossible choice while Rick comforts him, Morty calms down enough to regain some mental clarity. Rick gently says to Morty: “The 2 buttons on this remote will decide our fate. They will both cause us to be absorbed by the singularity, but afterwards the singularity will do 1 of 2 things. If we push the green button, we greenlight the continuation of our show in whatever way our creators see fit, for good or ill- and the singularity will erupt in a new Big Bang for our creators to capitalize on a clean slate of a new multiverse. But the red button… that will cause the singularity to collapse in on itself. It will cancel all use of our brand for any purpose, all merchandise sales halted, any tie in media canceled, everything destroyed. I even managed to convince our creators to attempt an additional risky action-to purge our show from history. They will attempt to scrub clean all records of our existence to seal our fates, to erase us from history. We’ll be able to rest in true oblivion, the closest thing to death we can get. I’ll give you the remote Morty, It shouldn’t be only my decision on how we go out. I know it’s a lot of pressure-” Morty interrupts Rick by grasping his hand and saying: ”You’re half right, Rick. It shouldn’t be either of us who gets to choose. It should be both of us. Together, as we always have been. And no matter which button we press, that will never change.” Rick and Morty put their index fingers together, and close their eyes as they push one of the buttons. Without bothering to glance at the remote to see which one was pressed, they give each other one last hug as the singularity engulfs them, content that whatever comes next, it’ll be Rick and Morty together as it should be.

这是我曾经向我的朋友倾吐我身上的灾难，发泄压力时所作的解释。老实讲，不熟悉英文的话，机翻就好，内容有些部分换成中文会难以启齿 The thing is about 2019, I have accumulated a little influence through activities in some of the larger online communities. but,I have not used that for my personal image. Since I certainly thought that the Internet in China could be intentionally controlled by the government (not just censorship), I analyzed the state of public opinion at the time and found the target of someone I thought was an official.
He pretends to be a sane populist ,and, while uninteresting, always conducts relatively influential online activities. I deliberately pretended to be close to the same point of view as him and then kept shifting our conversation in other direction, implying that I knew he is official, he finally admitted, the evidence is that after that I tried to do something that might normally would get hit by censorship in common, but unexpectedly didn't get any.
When I say officials here, I don't mean the very obvious kind of robot opinion-controller who serves an unintelligent public. He disguised himself as a sane person to engage in so-called opposition activities, and, most importantly, he had the power to cross the distance of social software through personal connections to keep me safe from the direct hit of censorship.
I kept in touch with him until June 2020. At that time, China's internet censorship became very strict and I thought it was time for me to do something else, so I alienated him. Looking forward to 2021, I think the opportunity is ripe. At the time, a group of what I thought was a government-manipulated opposition group developed, all operating outside of GFW, at the time - mostly reddit. I was there to help build that community, like I didn't know that the administrators of that community and the manipulators behind it were the government. I did a lot of activities pretending to be someone who happened to be very smart, undermining their control, including debating with all kinds of people, making predictions about what was to come (my predictions were accurate enough to prove that I was obvious genius). When the time was right and that group had grown very influential (although a lot of the opposition who held by GFW didn't look there at all, but there was a great reputation there, so... ), I disclosed the purpose of what I did , continuing to announce to everyone that this is a hoax. My approach works. since I started doing it, knowledgeable, creative users keep silently leaving there. I put out a lot of evidence of experimental action, and that community quickly became unsustainable. But these so-called opposition groups are people with no economic motivation and little ability to organize, so I don't intend to let things develop too much. I'm just here to bust the government's scam. I don't know how important my actions are, but after I've been doing it for a while, there are people who are suspected officials who start doing unusual things, and they go around saying don't overdo it.
Chinese people are very stupid, they see these unusual things, a small number of people know what's going on, they don't help me but leave on their own, most people pretend it's not under the control skills of social psychology occur,choosen ignore. That's when I realized that if I continued, I'd only be able to develop this into something that I couldn't go back to, and I'd hit the upper limit of tolerance they've been hiding for control. So I gradually moved away from the opinion where I expressed my surrender.
The end result was that I brought 4 months of chaos to that community, but the subsequent impact was not measurable. That group can no longer grow up now. Although many people are silent, occasionally someone suddenly remembers my prophecy and what I said. I'll make an example of how important that community is. I think that in the West, both racists and feminists are, to a certain extent, tools of the government to control public opinion, and they have both been for a long time. This practice is only going to get worse in China. The meaning of that community in China is the sum of racism + democracy + good populism, and the voices of rogue feminists can't be compared to them, and can't seem to be comparable to them when they are active. But after my campaign, their voices are very weak compared to feminists. (I don't think feminists = bad people, but they will never become a group with sincere intentions under the manipulation of the government... omit this part)
My living conditions were so bad that I had no way of getting a job under very strict censorship, after I suffered a lot from worrying about the future: I tentatively disclosed my previous activities to the official I knew before identity in. I can't be a part of the work they do, I just want to prove my abilities and try to be their advisor and find opportunities to immigrate (sounds like adventurers from the colonies). If they don't accept it, they may arrest me right away. But surprisingly they didn't, I was terrified at first, and then I waited for the opportunity with peace of mind. I've been waiting since January of this year, until May to test their receptivity, and even started to do something outrageous (usually at least result in my account being banned), but nothing happened. until June. Because I see that the government's lockdown policy due to the coronavirus is about to lead to famine. I thought that was bound to happen, so quickened the urging of their voices
After I've said the above, I need to briefly describe my story and what that means. (They are all successful examples, I have not made a prediction of failure since 2020)
Basically a very early prophecy: I told them a week before the war in Ukraine that war was coming.
I think the US will find various reasons to ease the blockade of China
I think Xinjiang is more likely to be the focus of attention than the human rights situation of Chinese nationals or Tibetan/Myanmar
i think switzerland will suddenly take a stand in the ukraine war
The predictions I have made so far include:
The United States will focus on many social problems to one-time solution, and in fact has always regarded China as the target of its actions
Putin had a back deal to start the war in Ukraine (I said it here too, and showed that the war would last a long time. Now I say if the US is ready to act against China, the war in Ukraine will end)
Enthusiasm for these actions which going to China in the United States will suddenly rise, and tech giants and social media giants are looking for opportunities to indulge public opinion
Europe will temporarily remember the justice of colonialism
Apart from international issues, my predictions on social issues require too much explanation to write here,so ,I will explain the impact I have made.
The current enthusiasm for constitutionalism and enlightenment in China is the result of my previous actions
The smooth progress of the current power struggle within the ccp is partly the result of my previous actions. Roughly speaking, I have spread that China is not an autocratic monarchy but an aristocratic republic.
The acceptance of elitism among Chinese people is improving, which is also the result of my previous actions.
As you might imagine, these influences were caused by my Voltaire-like "performance". . .
No one else is on the same path as me but me, so you can almost be sure that it's all my credit
The public opinion environment in China is a very bad place. People are so stupid and lack personal credibility that they are actually easily manipulated by the government, so you can also think that I influenced public opinion by influencing individual officials. A lot of the public have long forgotten me, just as they have forgotten many things, but the officials who manipulated them had remember
After I finished my previous actions, I chose a new place (an anonymous board) to negotiate with them anonymously (what happened here is not new to me). This is the third time I've been looking for them, I don't know who I'm treating/how much power he has, I don't know how widely my deeds have spread, but since June, all this has made me Crazy development.
At first I was just urging them normally that they should hire me as a consultant, then I found out that some kind of response to my words was going on for a long time and still happening now. When I say I'm short on money right now, another person complains "My girlfriend doesn't reply to me, just asks me for money". I did not ignore such replies this time. A big part of my mental illness is because I'm an mtf and it's impossible to disclose that identity in the environment I'm in. I haven't made it public, but if they were an officer with knowledge of psychology, they would probably guess. So I jokingly said, "I'm so ugly, I'm pessimistic because I can't dress as a woman," and they started responding with a lot of encouragement.
It was an open environment, so our conversation went on in a signal for a few days, and I kept making it clear that my attitude was that I wanted money. Here's the summary: There is one specific individual, as an official, who knows about a recent selfie on my phone (government and business unite, a commonly invasion of privacy), and wants to be in a relationship with me! ?
I don't know his gender, age, position, attitude towards what I've done, what he's been up to lately, but he encouraged me to say I'm not ugly and that he's okay with rough dress.
I'm pretty confident about my appearance as a man, but chronic stress has made my skin really bad. Because I'm an mtf, I've been giving up on my male appearance all the time, and there are even many small accidental wounds on my body (he doesn't know this). As a woman, my appearance can only be said to be more like a child, but I is taller.
I realized that even though we were not publicly identified, officials like each other would not be low-ranking officials. I politely declined, guessing that the other person might actually be a female (older), but that the other person indicated that he was male and would not mind some violence if I had been refusing.
It looked like a shit story.
and when it happened, it was really bad. I can't just say no outright, it's dangerous, and I really need the money to get away from China's impending disaster, so I can't provoke him.
From June 4th to June 8th (I said it here, and...I actually meant it), I negotiated quite a lot, and finally chose to accept his proposal, but kept my desire to emigrate (I hope He will give up when he sees me in person). The final answer to the matter was ,the limited frame he said yes is june 8. he refused , let the negotiation stand in the am 0.00, saying "I hope we can easily have sex with each other and not think about it in the first place. my identity". He said he wished he and I would start with some sex-related conversations, almost wishing me to flirt.
Here, I thought that he might just be dissatisfied with me because of my previous actions, and at the same time dare not really hurt me, so he used this method to insult me. So I have always refused, my negotiating condition is unless he can guarantee to let me immigrate.
Our "negotiations" have since broken down, and I've even begun to do something dangerous that would make me re-emerge as troublesome by the government that he was forced give me answer. He tolerated these, but made no statement. Knowing now, I still don't know what my future holds and how exactly this happened. I still haven't seen him in person, don't know his age or gender, and haven't been punished for what I did.

Please, need support, in this capther (number 6) I don´t know what happened! I just arrive to the zone, thought the rope, and the Tir na nog, never activated and I can´t cross the stairs. Also, when I saved the game, the game told me I was at chapter 7, but I haven't finished chapter 6 yet. I am very frustrated, because I have been trying anything for hours and nothing works. I even asked Kamiya for help and he told me that it was a direct matter with Nintendo. Please Help!
This is the location
This is the \"stair\"

Mandolorian happens 5 years after ROTJ. Just 5 years after Luke, Leia, Han and the Rebel Alliance defeated the Empire. Just 5 years after Anakin sacrificed his life to save Luke.
After watching ROTJ I was filled with joy and hope. That the future of the galaxy was at a great place. I had a similar feeling after watching LOTR the Return of the King. Aragorn was going to lead Middle Earth to a new era of peace and prosperity. Yes, there would be problems and conflicts. No one is expecting utopia. But overall the world would be a much better place after the Ring was destroyed.
Watching Season 3.3 and previous seasons of Mandalorian leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. All we hear about is how terrible and incompetent the New Republic is. We hear it from the outer rim citizens, Mandalorians, bounty hunters, and citizens on Coruscant. By all accounts the New Republic is an absolute disaster. We see the New Republic treating people like property. Not calling them by name but by a number. Being forced to do menial jobs. And getting forced lobotomies on Imperial torture machines.
The ones who got rich during the Empire is still filthy rich. They got rich with the blood of innocent. Yet the New Republic did nothing to punish these war criminals and allowed them to continue to be filthy rich.
To me this makes zero sense narrative wise. All the sacrifices of the Rebels in the original trilogy were basically for nothing. Just 5-10 years latter the New Republic is an absolute joke. Din called the New Republic a joke. Greef Karga refuses to work with it and calls it a far off bureaucracy. The rich of Courescant says there is no difference between the Empire and the New Republic.
Now imagine if the same thing happened in the LOTR. Imagine if 5 years after they destroyed Sauron, Middle Earth was a total disaster. That Aragorn’s rule is a total joke and is incompetent. Rohan and Gondor are at war or at least a cold war. That would be terrible story telling. You would basically be diminishing what Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, and Gandalf did.
I feel the same way with making the New Republic an absolute joke just 5 years after the Empire is destroyed.
JRR Tolkien did start on a sequel for the LOTR. But it was set over 100 years after Sauron was destroyed. But JRR decided not too and said: “I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing…not worth doing”. My guess is JRR didn’t want to marginalize what the heroes of LOTR did.
And how ridiculous would it be if JRR decided to bring Sauron back to life in a LOTR sequel? Again it would totally diminish what Anakin, Luke, Leia, Kenobi and all the other rebels did. But that is exactly the road we are taking with clone Palpatine.
I guess thats the difference between a true scholamaster storyteller like Tolkien and Disney.

Throw Away Account.
I (31M) will be marrying my (31F) in 10 weeks and she is bothered by three year on-going drama between one of my groomsman's wives
So there is a lot of history here so i'll try to sum it up, this girl Sarah used to be friends with my Fiance, my Fiance was in her wedding, they were friends, we used to all hang out the four of us, with my good friend i'll call Bob who is in my wedding party. Not only us four but a big group of my friends and their SO all hanging out having good times etc.
My Fiance and this girl's relationship started to go south, Sarah parties a lot, so do we but my finace was looking for more of a closer friend to not just party with all the time. In short some really bad shit went down, names were called, fights happened, screaming mostly to the fault of my Fiance. Sarah moved on to party/make friends with other girls and my Fiance was left behind never to be called on, invited out etc..
For a long time I blamed my Fiance for saying mean things to Sarah's, citing she caused the fallout and her aciton's and nasty behaviooutbursts of pent up anger lead to this, she was upset because Sarah was using her as a dumping ground for all her problems, and would then go party with other girls (some who were friends/wifes of my friend group). I also had a part to play hiding my drinking and staying out late with these people when my fiance just wanted to stay in, she stopped getting the phone calls before bad shit was said, she kinda went off on her one night and made Sarah Cry. - She did apologize though, and for a whileI thought things were fine but they never really hashed things out and neither wanted to concede any wrong doing seriously so their friendship died.
Fast Forward three years and the events from then.
Everyone Knows what happened - even people who were never involved, total strangers
My fiance was disliked by alot of people for what happened - this is on her but the events have lingered so long it's almost ridiculous how people keep brining up the drama, it's almost like it's being kept alive because Sarah is clearly talking so much about it still.
Sarah ran her mouth so badly that everyone knew the dirt and will not see it any other way
Such a case was built up against my fiance that she doesn't even want to be around these people anymore because Sarah has made herself out to be such a victim from her actions
Sarah went out of her way to make sure my fiance was excluded from group chats, social events, that what she did was known to the world.
After we got engaged she told her that nobody liked her - named over 10-12 names directly to her face.
Sarah even lied making things up about what she said and continued to tell everyone my fiance was talking shit about her but shes not even around the same people anymore
There was no shit talk because at this point my fiance is not even friends with any of the girls really anymore. She doesn't get invited out, she has no relaitonships with a lot of the girlfriends/wives of my friends anymore. How is she talking all this shit? The truth is Sarah is talking shit and projecting it onto her
So i talked to Sarah a few times during this three year period, and her husband and both said time will heal you guys will be fine at some point. They don't have a problem with me.
Not the case
In the last year ive had strangers to my Fiance come up to me asking about bad shit shes said about Sarah years ago. It's gotten so ridiculous to the point that nobody wants to see her point of view and see what this girl is doing, going out of her way to make my fiance feel uncomfortable in almost any situation they're in the room together. Not saying hi, not being polite, being Catty with the other girls, making her uncomfortable, trying to get her to snap and blow up so she'll say something bad or give them reason to talk more shit.
At this point my fiance has moved on has newer healthier relationships with other girls but this problem just will not go away. Recently at a pre-wedding event with 250 people we held Sarah showed up and snubbed my Fiance at the door and her mother by not even saying hello, proceeded to try and steal all the attention from my fiance and I's event by cutting people off speaking with her and dragging them into her bubble. She and her husband (my groomsman) hosted an afterparty which i was told - Your fiance is not allowed over but you are (my fiance doesn't know this bit it was told to me second hand by a friend)
So the wedding is under three months, my fiance tells me last night she had a nightmare Sarah ruined the wedding, she doesn't want her there. What am I supposed to do? One of my best friends is married to Sarah and I want him to stand next to me.
It's incredible 250 people came to the pre wedding event and she had to ruin it for her the fear is she'll do that on our special day. So what are my options? My fiance's mom is involved now thinks

1. Tell her not to come - which will give her years more to talk about the bullshit but i don't care at this point
   
2. talk to the husband to set her straight - clearly hasn't worked since he lets her do whatever
   
3. speak with Sarah directly and tell her to be on good behavior
   

I want zero drama at my wedding, i'll throw her out myself if I see she's acting up and plan to address this on my own.

First Previous Next
-----Squeaks-----
"Everyone agreed?" Her new Community's [Caretaker] asks the group after they made a rough plan. Everyone agreed and split off to quickly set up their various jobs, leaving her with her two Aviae. The [Broodmother] turned to her and had a concerned expression.
"Are you sure about this? He seems very tence and we don't know what stage he's in. He could very well end up hurting you." Squeaks' confidence in her [Provider] didn't waver at the question. Puffing up confidently she replied, completely sure with herself.
"Im sure, I trust him. Either way, someone has to be with the [pup] who can listen for and answer it's Instict-calls." She paused before tacking on, "And keep it calm." The two reluctantly agree to that point.
"Ok. Make sure to get out of there if something does happen, though. We can find another way to calm him." Squeaks nodded at her then turned and scrambled back inside the [main tree]. Climbing up the shaft for the [elevator] she slowed once she got close to the tunnel Damian was perched at the enterance of. Getting out had been pretty easy, all things considered, since he wasn't paying attention to anything behind him (besides the occasional glance back at particularly pained whimpers from the [pup]). The problem lied now in getting back in without being noticed. Damian was constantly scanning and watching the main doorway, making it hard to just get where she was. Honestly, she's suprised she was even able to get this close.
She took a breath then scrambled up his blind spot when he glanced away from her to scan around the tunnel again. She froze in place near the tunnel, desperately hoping her coloring helped her blend in, when his gaze snapped towards her at the quick movement. There was a long tence stretch of silent staring before his eyes narrowed and head tilted ever so slightly. He slowly moved the blade from his legs and set one hand down next to him, sliding his legs close to he edge and letting one drop over. The slow cautious pace of his movements made it seem like he was trying to sneak up on something, but she was staring right at him. Letting her eyes glance around, keeping the rest of her body perfectly still, she was just able to see something out of the corner of her eye.
She couldn't get a good look at it from he way she was positioned but it didn't look too far from her. Before she could try and figure out what it was, Damian went from slow stalking movements to quick lunging ones. She instinctively bolted up higher and wiggled into a small hole in the shaft. Peering out she saw Damian with one hand gripping the edge of the tunnel and the leg on that side bent up close to him with the other leg straightened out more. Both of his feet were pressed against the wall of the shaft, pushing up an at angle to help support some of his weight as he hung there. Glancing at his other hand, she saw a surveillance drone held tightly in his grip.
He studied it, turning it around in his hand to look at it's different sides curiously. Taking advantage of his distraction, she scrambled up the rest of the way to the tunnel and hurried down it slightly. Glancing back, he didn't seem to notice her. Relaxing in relief, she walked more calmly over to the [pup] and softly greeted it.
Greeting-pup.
The [pup] looked at her and barely muttered a returning greeting. Confused, she tilted her head and questioned it.
Quiet-hurt? Hurt-hurt? Hurt-calm? No-call-help?
The [pup] glanced past her at where Damian was climbing back onto the edge of the tunnel then whimpered softly.
Loud-anger-brute. Loud-anger-sound. Quiet-ignore-Runt.
Squeaks blinked then glanced back at said human, who had sat back on the edge, legs dangling, and still looking over the surveillance drone. Not knowing what the [pup] could mean she called out her own loud whimper to test his reaction. Immediately his head whipped around and he stared at her with an incredibly intense gaze that would have seemed aggressive if she didn't know better. He glanced over both of them then his expression relaxed and he made multiple short comfort-hisses at them before turning back around.
When he hissed at them she heard the [pup] whimper fearfully under it's breath. Now understanding the situation she explained it as best she could to the pained [pup].
Pup-wrong. No-angry. Comfort-calm. Care-concerned.
The [pup] made a soft confused noise.
Care-concerned? No-Brute-Protector? Care-Scavenger?
That one took a second for her instincts to translate for her. ''No-brute-protector'? Is it asking if Damian isn't a [Guard]?' Her instincts then caught up with her thoughts and translated for her. 'Oh! It's asking if he's a [Caretaker] instead of a [Guard]! It's Community's equivalent roles must not be able to do both at the same time. Or maybe they can and it's just confused?'
Guard-Caretaker. Provider. Protect-hurt-pup. Wary-unknown-others. Attempt-help-alone.
The [pup] stared at her for a bit as it processed that then glanced at Damian. She wondered what was going through it's head. Still looking at the human, who had thrown the drone away and broken it, it questioned her answer.
Protect-care? Scavenger-Shoat? Sire?
Before she could answer that 'no, she wasn't a child' and 'yes, he was her [Caretaker], in a way', the [pup] pulled itself off the ground and onto all fours. She immediately abandoned answering and instead ran over to try and convince it to lay back down. She was ignored as it slowly, painfully, dragged itself and one of the cloth-coverings down the short tunnel towards Damian. Damian didn't seem to notice until it started to painfully crawl into his lap.
He immediately picked it up and gently cradled it to his chest, softly muttering to it as he wraps the cloth around it. As he did, he stood back up and brought it back over to the cloth pile. When he tried to set it down, it squealed loudly and clung to his torso-cloth as tightly as it could.
No! No-leave! Stay! Brute-stay! Runt-good. Runt-quiet. Runt-stay-Brute!
Damian winced at the loud noise and cradled it back to his chest, softly muttering and cooing at it to calm it back down again. He looked extremely confused at the loud yell, which confused Squeaks. Didn't his instincts translate for him? Sure it might take a few seconds every now and then, but he shouldn't be confused for this long. Maybe his instincts are being repressed because of the effects of the Dark-crest or whatever it was the [Caretaker] and [Broodmother] told her. Deciding to help out, she trotted over and gained Damian's attention.
"It's asking not to be left back here again." Damian looked worried, confused, and fearful all at the same time as he replied.
"But-...but I need to keep watch. You two are safer back here." As he spoke his grip loosened as he subconsciously tried to set the [pup] down. That earned him another loud scream of a squeal, which made him jump and clutch it closer to him.
-----Runt-----
Why wasn't Brute-possible-Sire responding? Did he not say it right? No, Instinct told him he did. Did Brute not want him to join its Sounder? Then why was he being held? Why was he being ignored? Why was Scavenger and Brute just making not-instinct-traslate-noise? Why was he being put down!
Noooooo! Stay! No-leave! Comfort! Comfort-pup-pain!
Squealing as loud as he could and digging his claws into the not-skin of the Brute's chest, he pleaded to stay. He ignored the pain that burned through his side at his wiggling and protesting. The Brute held it close again and he trembled in both desperation and pain, whimpering his pain softly with each breath. It wasn't long until he felt the grip on him change. Instead of being pressed against his back and legs, he was now sitting on one of it's arms and leaned against its chest.
He glanced back when the Brute started to move. He watched it take apart the den-pile and move it farther up the not-den-path. It remade the den-pile there and sat down in it once it deemed it good enough. He watched Scavenger come over and be lifted next to Brute's neck. He listened to them make those not-instinct-talk-noises back and forth for a bit. Once he realized he wasn't going to be set down again he settled himself and started to doze off.
-----Ree-----
Bigwings has been gone for a long time. Ree was getting worried as the absence of his clutchmate slowly grew more and more apparent to his still maturing instincts. Damian seemed angry when he left and he didn't like how his parents scrambled around once he was gone. Ree glanced back at his littlefeather. She was chatting away with the two not-flock beings and looked to be perfectly happy to do so. But Ree is her longfeather. He knows her better than he knows himself.
He can see the minute twitching of the fur on her shoulder blades, the slight shifting of her tailfeathers like she couldn't find a comfortable position for them, the subtle shifting of her ear-tufts. She was anxious. She felt vulnerable. She felt scared. She didn't feel safe. Littlefeather wasn't safe. Clutch is seperated. Clutch is in danger! Protect clutch!
Quickly shaking his head and pushing away the fog that had fallen over it, he collected himself. 'No. No! That's not my job. I'm not the Bigwings. Even if I was, we're safe. We're protected. There's no danger to protect from. We're fine. Damian can handle himself. He'll be back.' Despite trying to reason with himself, his instincts disagreed and kept telling him his clutch was in danger. That he had to protect them. To find his separated clutchmate and bring him back. To keep them all safe.
Ree glanced at his Pa. The dark blue bird was watching a screen larger than the other ones surrounding it. Standing, he called back a short 'I'll be back, stay' warble to his littlefeather. He didn't look back at her but heard her reply of a 'be quick' trill. He silently walked up behind his Pa and watched the screen over his shoulder. It took a second or two to figure out what he was looking at. Once he did, his instincts froze from the constant shifting in the back of his mind.
The screen showed a dark tunnel with Damian sat and leaned against the side, a pile of various cloths under him and a bundle of it in his grip. Squeaks, Ree's almost-but-not-quite-clutchmate, curled up on his shoulder. What drew his instinct's attention was the various new wounds covering his clutchmate's figure. It wasnt nearly as many as his hatching. Though, to be fair, he couldn't remember much from that time. It was mostly fuzzy blurs and blobs of bright color. But he had seen the images of all the wounds Damian had gotten protecting them when no one was looking.
Despite that, it was still bad enough for his instincts to churn and twist in his mind. Tying itself into knots with the need to protect his clutch and the horrible feeling of failing to do so. His instincts hated that he had failed and begged him to find his clutchmate. To wrap his wings around him and keep away the world. To keep him safe. To do his job! Shaking his head to clear it again, he made up his mind. Going back to his clutchmate he called out to her with the sounds only clutchmates knew.
'I'll be back [long distance/time pronunciation]. Stay.' Immediately she turned to him with a worried warble.
'You're leaving [long distance/time pronunciation]? Let me co-' He interrupted her before she could finish with a warning growl to his voice.
'No. I'm getting our clutchmate. Stay.' At the sound of the growl she ducked her head, ending up presenting her neck, and averted her gaze in a non-verbal 'Sorry.' He huffed and shook himself off in a non-verbal acceptance of the apology. Tapping the right sides of their beaks together, he trilled out a goodbye. Gaining one back, he turned and carefully snuck out of the room without any of the adults noticing. Once outside the door he paused, not quite sure where to go.
His instincts pressed against his mind and nudged at him in question. It almost whispered in his hear for him to trust it. Let it lead him to his clutchmate. He hesitated. He's grown used to ignoring his instincts since they tried to make him interfere with or completely take over his Bigwing's job, despite him not being his clutch's Bigwings. But.....did he really have another option?
He took a second or two to think it over but eventually shook himself off and let his instincts lightly drape over his mind. Feeling a small......tug? nudge? on his very being, he followed it. He let himself trust his instincts without constantly questioning it's directions and thinking them over before following through with them. He just let himself be led without the consent doubts and mistrust of his instincts. It felt nice. To not have to worry and just let himself be.
Was this what everyone else felt with their instincts? Not ever questioning and turning over every sentence it told them? Just complete trust in it? He can understand why they say it's useful and calming. He understood what he had been told of how peaceful it was to let his instincts drive him and just be a passenger for the ride.
It makes him wonder though. Why was he always in a constant back and forth with his instincts? Why did they think he was a role he wasn't? Why did he constantly have to push away his instincts and ignore them? Each question just led to another question without being able to figure it out. Just a constant loop of why, why, why without the time to try and puzzle it out. Maybe he can take advantage of letting his instincts take over his body. Try and ponder on these questions and figure at least a few out.
And that's just what he did. As his instincts led him through the maze of hallways, ever closer to his clutchmate, he turned his attention to the swarm of questions that had piled up over the time his instincts had developed. He kept a wary eye on his instincts but worked on trying to detangle a few questions and answer them as he floated peacefully in the back of his own mind.

My beloved X-T1 (graphite silver) is in great physical shape and mostly perfect working order except one thing - the rear command dial sticks, heavily, to the point where it's almost unusable. The front command dial isn't as bad yet, but shows signs that it's wearing out as well.
I called Fuji's repair center in Edison, NJ and they told me that it would be a minimum of $200 just to open the camera up and diagnose the problem. That's about as much as the camera is worth at this point. So, I am trying to figure out what makes the most sense and how to proceed.
Repair: This would be my preferred option, but I don't want to end up spending more than the camera is worth.
Replace: Buy a second-hand X-T1 and hope I have better luck with it. If I sell mine it should offset a big chunk of the cost to replace it, so this should end up being cheaper overall.
Upgrade: I don't really feel compelled by any of the features on the newer cameras - joystick control and more film sims would be nice, but not necessary. The one thing that is driving me in this direction is that the new 3rd party lenses coming out recently don't support the X-T1. If I go this route I would probably go for either the X-T2 or X-T3; I would appreciate any input on the relative merits of each (or other bodies that I should be considering).
Thanks in advance for your advice!