What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

This will be a gaming PC first and foremost, however, my laptop is done and I’d ask like to do some content consumption on it but it will be light such as YouTube, twitch, etc. Anything a normal pc could do. I play a few select games: my main game is Rocket League and I play it daily. Second tier of games are Valorant and CS. Rarely, I might play COD or Minecraft but the main games are the ones mentioned previously with RL being #1.

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

Ideally $1000-$1100 CAD as I think it should be sufficient, but don’t mind going over if it’s optimal. This also follows the gpu 50% of budget rule.

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

Not in a huge rush, I’m patient and plan to buy it over the summer.

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)

Only the actual PC!

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?

I’m in Canada, on the Quebec/Ontario border so can buy from both sides and also don’t mind buying online.

If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.

I already have a SteelSeries mouse I’ll re-use.

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

Not sure, whatever is optimal I guess (I don’t know much about overclocking)

**Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support,

As mentioned in title, I want a 6700xt as I think it’s the best midrange gpu’s and seems to offer great price to performance. For cpu, I was thinking 5600x or an i5-12400(f) but I’m not smart enough to know which is best.

What type of network connectivity do you need? (Wired and/or WiFi) If WiFi is needed and you would like to find the fastest match for your wireless router, please list any specifics.

Wifi

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

Ideally I’d like the case to look good, the colour be black, and some RGB inside (lol)!

Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?

It doesn’t need to be included in the budget.

Extra info or particulars:

Besides what’s mentioned above, I have a “decent” gaming monitor that I use with my Xbox right now. I’ll probably purchase a 1080p monitor and rock a dual monitor setup, then purchasing a better monitor to replace my current one, and so on, until I eventually, hopefully, have two 1440p monitors. From my understanding the gpu I’ve selected can perform at 1440p, but please let me know if my budget isn’t good enough to do this.
Also if the budget permits, I’d love to have room to upgrade things in a few years such as the gpu, but can understand if that’s not really possible with the budget right now!
Thank you.

I go back and forth when missing you, from a human I connected with on an incomparably deep level. To a lover, who’s intimacy I crave so deeply.
I knew this would come but I hoped i would have a little longer being somewhat yours before it inevitably ended. Knowing I’ll never again lay across your chest, feeling your breath on my skin… it truly pains me, I struggle daily to get through my day knowing I’ll never have it once more.
Part of me is happy it ended in the way it did. Never an argument or harsh word. You just simply stopped well, seeing me. That’s your decision and I guess you weren’t aligned for me longterm. But that fact won’t get rid of the longing I feel for you. Because I did and do love you.
And I miss you. Terribly.

All this nonsense was after I'm started as soon as I left my country (Russia). It wasn’t really a day like I wake up and this started. It was slightly getting worse for 7 months. I got sick in Armenia, with god know what, and I wasn’t suspecting Covid at that time. after 1 round of antibiotics, I thought I'm fine. I was in the rush to help myself to heal, as I’m coming to Mexico in 2 weeks. Then suddenly all my hotels started to decline in like 2 weeks to head to OAE. 1 week in UAE was fine, I was with my brother, but we started to argue like crazy, because he got the tournament in sports in active mode, and seems like he didnt wanted to spend time with me. We was living separately, because first agreed to live in the hotel my Mom booked for me, but it’s has been declined, so he switched to his BJJ team option, and was living with them. So I booked super expensive hotel because it was F1 started in abu - Dhabi. No way I have this bad luck bro…and all hotels was stuffed with tourists. End up sleeping in a small room no windows god know who’s been there, not a safely sterile place to be. I was mad at my brother and never talked to him again for a 2 months until I’m back to hometown. Out there started noticing that I’m tolerate to Arabic smells. It was strange but I just let it go cuz I have bigger thing on my check list. I was feeling like I’m not completely come off this condition as it was in Armenia. But I let it go. Then suddenly on my departure day, the guard don’t let me go to the flight on Abu - Dhabi - Paris - Cancun flight, out of nowhere, because I have Russian docs leaving Armenia territory? I started noticed something is ain’t right with my Carma or something. I’m flying to Turkey to fly from there. I’m already was feeling exhausted from that day. And I think it’s the virus started to kick in as cytokine storm. Successfully departured and dropped in Cancun. Migracion control don’t let me go out for 30 minutes (only in my case), all of the passengers entered In the country with no issues. 3 days in was very beautiful! Breathing good, no issues. Swimming in ocean, USA on the way, life is great and full of opportunities. Then this wild sh with sinusitis happend, 37,7 temperature for a whole month, really crazy breathing pattern? I thought I’m having asthma as I’m in new side of world? No. Moved to matamoris, I was also been finnesed 3 times while in Mexico. Why me? Body itching, brain fog started. I was the only one who was waited THAT long to cross the border (I was with the church method, it’s paid, and usually they let u cross in 1-2 week). I was waiting 1,5 month. Then stomach problems, then can't tolerate any high in histamine food. I’m guessing at that time i was having pneumonia but it was unnoticed. When I was crossing the border man… let me tell that…. I was SICK. I was red, temperature 38, cough started. While in USA, owners kicked me out of rented apartments multiple times out of no where… then I went to ER and they find pneumothorax with pleuritis out of nowhere… 4 times in ER… then somebody try to snatch me and human trafficked me. What’s that all about? Got luck to be alive and dropped on the Irvine highway. many doctors… run out of money… flight back to Russia without of doubts. My body betrayed me and my plans. Somebody playing with my soul and I have no Luck living as an immigrant, near to death experience. In my hometown, all the tests came back normal. I’m out of mind thinking I’m tweaking cuz of that. Ct scans of lungs - but without contrast - clean. Ultrasound of the heart clean, thyroid clean, ECG clean, visits to gastroenterologist - same pills, same treatment that don’t work.. PPI f up my stomach even more. except for spirometry, it was awful like I have COPD pattern?! 63% of the lung capacity. Constricted airways? Pulmonologist didn’t say nothing at all. My cognitive functions seems disappeared, I can’t remember things, slurping my words, can’t thinks of multiple thing of one time, I’m hearing sounds ridiculously weird, like they on the foreground, my movement not stable, I’m not feeling time at all, like I’m an alien. I can’t breathe. Like I’m breathing continuously in brochoconstriction. My chest is tight and I’m out of breath and have crazy dyspnea walking place to place. Still walking 5 km a days and don’t wanna be a sick dude. I do it, my principals don’t let me be bed bounded. Even some days I bed bounded like crazy. That's crazy cuz I was thinking I had lung cancer. Still do sometimes. But later I catch on, thats a LONG COVID. Tried COPD inhalers and whole lotta asthmatic stuff, only improvement cuz of COPD inhaler. Spirometry slightly improved in 3 month. But right now I'm still feeling like I can't breathe normal, like it’s in spasm all the time, even vapes with nicotine… the nicotine not even absorbing in mu lungs? Just tried it tho. like I’m not connected to this universe, I can’t feel my body, I’m starting to have suicidal thoughs. I tried antidepressants, almost 2 months slightly improved my fatigue and miserableness. feels like my bronchi constricted all the time, I can’t even control it.. I look like a completely healthy person to people and they don’t know what’s wrong with me. Either I have COPD because of COVID (I don't cough at all) or I have lung embolism (never did a CT with constrast). Or somebody f… me up and I got demons or whatever., month of arguing with my pulmonologist, now he's done referred me to it. I also have POTS, MCAS. feeling like I'm high all the time. Also GERD just pissing me off, it's so annoying. I never the same as way back…. On my treatment plan is basic supplements like vitamin D,C, Magnesium, Antihistamines 3 times a week, I theanine + glutamine (very helping me with flare ups and I can even drink coffee without feeling V stoopid and brain fog), NMD, trying nattokinase for the first time (got a slight flare up for about 2-3 hours, then feeling okay, I can breathe more), and I'm waiting for ivermectin and oregano oil pills. But what help me the most, it’s the masseur who did something with energy … 4 days in a row now I feel like my consciousness get back to me! But not 100%. Still can’t breathe tho.
What do I do? I hate me for this mistake! to leave my country as a 100% healthy educational kid with a purpose and motivation > only to spend like 40 racks and catch a deadly autoimmune disease, to be miserable and only research what’s wrong with me on daily basis. Help.

I love my mom. She was a single mother with 2 kids (we have different dads) and me being the youngest and she pulled all the way through for us and made more than enough sacrifices. She juggled work and kids all while not putting us into any type of daycare or babysitting. She'd take care of us all by herself. I think she's cool for that. She never accepted any help and pulled through even with the pathetic amounts of child support we'd get. My mom and sister are the only true family I have. I believe that I was the most problematic child she's had. No amount of spankings would keep me from speaking my mind, it's how I've always been. I had my issues with her for sure, she would always call me a demon or tell me to go back to my dad n' such and that always hurt. I don't know if she ever meant it though. My older sister was more respectful of her. And I understand all of this as an older person now that she would get fed up. As I started growing up and started to have more personal issues, I was baker acted and diagnosed with major depression, being bipolar, and had many suicidal thoughts near daily in middle school. I have had many scary manic episodes as witnessed by my current boyfriend and other friends. Never infront of family, as I never wanted for them to have a reason to send me back to the hospital when it was the last thing I wanted. I think my depression affected my sister the most as she skipped college for a year or so. My mom on the other hand, said she was worried and was supportive of me. However, all I remember is that she would tell me to stop feeling what I was feeling and to control myself because I have no reason to be depressed. I drank pills for depression because it was extremely hard to control for me, I couldn't help but feel uncared for and that I was being dramatic because I'm a kid. She'd complain about not knowing how I feel but whenever I tell her how I'd feel she'd either A. get offended B. scoff C. if it was anything mentioning the thought of suicide, she'd threaten me with being baker acted again when all I wanted to do was get better on my own. And I did get better on my own, I still have episodes here and there but I don't feel an active desire to commit suicide not anymore. I know it's not right for me to do, and as messed up as it is I joke about it but it's a way of cope for me. People know when I'm joking.
I still believe my mom discouraged me a lot during the height of my depression. Sometimes she'd still say things that'd amplify the way I was feeling about myself even more and she denies that she said anything like that to this day but I remember it all vividly. I remember the exact words she'd say to me and she'd deny it all.
But to be honest, there's no point in denying it. She still does it to this day to me.
Our relationship has been slowly worsening. I've grown up and despite being a smartass as a kid, I still have valid gripes with her and my sister agrees with those gripes. There's a beginning to a lot of issues that still happen today with my mom and sister. Ever since my sister got her first consistently paying job, my sister was the sole breadwinner for our family when she was only 18. My mother gave up looking for a job or a certificate that'd help her get a job and relied on government help, extra money from very very inconsistent appointments with clients, and my sister. And of course, I relied on my sister as well. I never understood it at the time, but my mom would basically complain about my sister's selfishness with money. She'd complain about a lot of things to do with my sister's job as well (such as transportation) and how unwilling she'd be to pay for certain things beyond necessities.
I don't know if my mother ever thought about trying to contribute at that point when it wasn't handed to her. She eventually got a job at this one place, but it was very much handed to her, she didn't go through any application process and it was not good pay. That was temporary, and then COVID started and she was let go. After COVID, my mom started working again at that place, she has since been fired for no good reason with no pay. Regardless, the good thing is that she still gets clients from that old job and so she doesn't necessarily need to find a job... however the money is very inconsistent. And so, I try to bring up getting a certificate for that job so she can find a place that'd grant her the better pay and more consistent pay. She puts it to the side and has brought up an insecurity of mine just to get me to stop talking about it even though I never really talk about it.
What I think of my mom is very mixed. I love her, however I think she is very immature and stubborn. I don't think she is a person who can be changed. In the past year, she has focused on going on near monthly trips to visit her boyfriend. Spending money she doesn't really have and even buying extra things to bring over there as gifts. She can go away for weeks at a time and has brought up the idea of leaving for a month. Meaning my sister and I would have to deal with everything in the house including buying groceries, because she won't even buy anything like that sometimes before she leaves saying that we could afford it.
My sister is nearly 30 years old, while she basically "lives at home": She doesn't, she mostly stays at her boyfriend's house which is far from where I live. She has the right to stay wherever she wants especially if its a more relaxed environment for her, which my home isn't. However my mom relies on her so much that its difficult to stop paying for things in our home because my mom will simply refuse to pay for more or tries to dump more responsibilities on to my sister when she already pays for the majority of the house expenses. My sister has been slowly trying to rip that bandage off, however my mom gets more and more demanding.
I recently got a part-time job, its not amazing money but I'd like to take that money and save it to move out or something. However, my mom has been expecting me to cough up money at everything since she can't really ask my sister to do it so easily anymore. From Uber Eats or things that she just wants. I have told her no at mostly everything. She looks at me with a disgusted face and taps her foot, its honestly heart-breaking to see her look at me like that which is why I say yes most of the time.
My mom is also very unfair with money, even before I had a job she'd ask for me to split the very little money I'd get as a gift just for some food delivery even as a minor. Whenever my sister and I order food, we never ask her to split the money with us. But at restaurants she loves ordering 2-3 rounds of drinks and expensive dishes and a dessert. And if I did ask my mom to split the bill, she would get very angry and say that she's not obligated to do so because she's my mother. I feel like the title of mother means more to her as a means of power rather than just a connection. Even for little questions that implies she may have made a mistake or done something that may have offended me or my sister she will scream at the top of her lungs and say I'm a horrible daughter and how I wish I'd just go away. If it's something I refuse to buy she will just say I'm selfish and think I'm hot shit because I'm making money. (Let me clarify that if it's a necessity I won't usually refuse to buy it.) She will angrily say I'm going to cause her a heart attack all because I decided to bring up she's using up all the skin care products that I had bought specifically for my skin that I need. I have done nothing to torment her, 90% of the time I talk to her calmly. If I yell at her, it's because I am fed up of how she makes me feel. She has threatened to sock my face over these arguments and will start insulting me if I threaten the police. I don't remember her apologizing once for how she's made me feel. Even at my worst. She yelled at me in the shower so hard once to the point where I cried because she thought I had used her credit card on a site that was untrustworthy when I had never touched her credit card. She never apologized. She yelled at me for being busy to text an instacart shopper who literally spoke her language. She never apologized. She once told me in a bakery infront of others that I wouldn't commit suicide in a mocking tone. She never apologized and denies that it ever happened. She is never sorry. A place with my mom no longer feels like home anymore. I feel trapped. I feel my mental health worsening, but I don't have anyone else to rely on. My sister says I shouldn't move out to another state where my boyfriend lives because I'd "regret" it. My sister has also told me: "You can't tell her that, or else you won't have a relationship with her." While I respect my sister's advice, she doesn't deal with this 24/7 like I do. Not anymore. I can't bottle up my feelings, I just want to be able to get through my mom. I know it's for nothing but there's something in me that just continues to call out my mom and I know my mom hates it. I don't care how she feels about the truth as long as I get my feelings out. Even if I cry in my room after. I don't know if this is a form of abuse. I don't like throwing around the word abuse. My mother is a kind and normal person on the outside, which is why I think it's best to just have a very distanced relationship with her. I don't want to seem delusional or anything. Regardless, thank you for reading. It's a long and lengthy one and I have a lot of other past issues I won't get into but this is definitely the most relevant right now

My executive dysfunction attacks cooking and my ability to feed myself most often. It's hard for me to prepare food, even food as simple as popping in the microwave. My ADHD gets bored, and my autism finds the ick in everything even snack foods like nuts and cheese and pretzels.
I have been attending a lot of theme parties the last few years, and I've noticed that I really love and enjoy cooking/baking/preparing themed food dishes. Some of the "themes" I've made food for: soup, rainbow, board (like charcuterie but doesn't need meat), 90s, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Vanderpump Rules, Real Housewives, Taylor Swift, Disney, Italian, German, books, cats...
I find that my executive dysfunction mostly if not COMPLETELY disappears when I'm prepping food for a themed party. The novelty, creativity, sometimes connection to a special interest, challenge to come up with something, fun of trying something new, knowing I'll get to share it with someone and post pics online, etc. It hits all the ADHD and autism requirements for whether something is worth doing.
So my thought was why not incorporate that into my daily life? Not every day of course, then we lose the novelty. But maybe once a week? Once a month? Perhaps choose to make a meal that's related to whatever TV show I'm watching at the time, whatever special interest is top of mind, etc. It doesn't totally solve my feeding myself issues but it adds some change that will cover a couple of meals. And also it's fun???
So idk if this will even work but thought I'd share it anyway in case anyone else can relate and wants to try it too!

This post is about a couple of older and elderly women who vanished without a trace. I wanted to include women who disappeared without much of an explanation. When elderly people go missing, their disappearances can often be chalked up to a dementia-related event. I believe many elderly people who vanished with their cars may be in the bottom of lakes and rivers. Those who lived near wilderness may have gotten lost and died of exposure. Those who were picked up or hitchhiked could've been brought to a hospital where they were unable to communicate their true identity. The women I included went missing under more suspicious circumstances.
Mayme Hart Johnson - Disappeared June 12th, 2000 from Nashville, Tennessee.
Mayme is the first on the list and the reason I decided to do this post. On June 12th, 2000, Mayme Hart Johnson, a local historian, researcher, and teacher went missing from Nashville, Tennessee. Mayme, who was 85, lived in the 100 block of Bosley Springs Road in West Nashville with her son, Sam, in his apartment. At 6:30 am that morning, her son woke to find his mother gone. While he reported that he wasn't initially concerned because Mayme occasionally left the apartment around that time, he became alarmed when she didn't return by lunchtime. Where Mayme would go/what she would do at that time is not known. Richland Creek is close by to the apartments, but from what I've seen, it's narrow and a body would probably soon be found if it was in there, despite it being 28 miles long. Of course, there is always a chance she made it into a larger body of water that concealed her. A maintenance man from the Johnson's building told authorities that he had seen Mayme at 6:30 am the day she went missing. This was around the time Sam woke up. Whether this employee saw her outside the building, inside the building, near or on her apartment floor, or down the street is not mentioned. At the time of her disappearance Mayme was 5'5, 120 pounds, with brown eyes and gray hair, and last seen wearing pink pants and a pink blouse. Whether these were pajamas or not (possibly indicating a dementia-like episode, where she got up out of the house and left without telling her son or getting dressed) is, like many things in this case, unknown. Mayme, as I mentioned, was a historian and if you google her name you will find a few sites that show her body of work. In 1986, she published "A Treasury of Tennessee Churches". A search for Mayme was conducted in the Nashville area and extended to Huntingdon, TN, where her husband's grave was, and where she had been visiting the weekend before she vanished. There was also an aerial search of Eastern Maury County that took place in July 2000 after law enforcement came up with a theory that she could be a target of the I-65 rapist. I'm not sure where police got this idea from. The I-65/Days Inn Killer, now identified as Harry Edward Greenwell, murdered three hotel clerks (ages 21, 24, 34) in the late 1980s. He also sexually assaulted a 21 year old hotel clerk in 1990. While LE does believe he's connected to more violent crimes, I'm not sure how they link Mayme to him--if you know, please add your knowledge in the comments. After the aerial search, nothing was found linking anything to Mayme. In 2008 she was declared deceased.
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Helen Joyce Rawley - disappeared June 4th, 2003 from College Park, Maryland
Helen Joyce Rawley lived in a bungalow on the 4600 block of Knox Road in College Park, Maryland with her son. 75 year old Helen went by her middle name "Joyce" so that is how I'll refer to her. Seventy-five year old Joyce and her son, Tom, had lived together since the death of Joyce's husband of 48 years, Nelson, in 2001. Between 6:45 and 7:00 am on June 4th, 2003, Joyce was last seen by her tenant, a man who had rented a room at the Rawley home for the last eight years. Joyce was seen by him on her porch that morning as he returned home from work. Beginning the day after her husband died in February 2001, Joyce suffered two strokes four days apart. Because of the strokes, she was unable to talk and considered disabled because of her inability to communicate. In 2002, Joyce underwent chemotherapy and radiation for rectal cancer. She was on medication that made her tired and weak. She didn't go out anywhere by herself except to get the mail. Her mind remained "sound", according to her son. The day she went missing, her son returned home from his foreman job at 3:30 pm, and found the house empty with the lights off. Joyce's purse and wallet remained left behind in her bedroom, everything was in place, and there were no signs of a robbery. Police tracked Joyce's scent out the front door which she never used, and to the corner of the block. However, she went missing on a "rain-soaked" and "dreary" day and it's possible the bad weather could've washed away any more of her scent outside. Since the death of her husband who died unexpectedly in his sleep, and her two other sons who died together in a 1982 boating accident, Joyce's immediate family consisted of her remaining child Tom, who was unmarried and childless at the time of his mother's disappearance. If she had other family out of the area is unknown. She does have a beach house in Annapolis, Maryland, but had not visited there after she went missing. She was 75 when she disappeared, standing between 5'4-5'5 and 110 pounds. Due to her cancer, she wore a colostomy bag and was on several medications that she can't go long without. Fliers with Joyce's information went out, woods were searched, local bus drivers were notified and questioned if they had seen her, and hospitals had been checked. A helicopter flew over the city at night with a heat-detecting device. No sight of her was ever found. She had brown eyes and white hair and was last seen in a sweatshirt and slacks. She enjoys gardening, crossword puzzles, and reading. Police don't suspect foul play and Tom isn't considered a suspect (neither is the tenant who was the last to see her), but they aren't sure what could've happened.
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Maebell Dawson - disappeared January 3rd, 1998 from Jefferson Township, Ohio
68 year old Maebell Dawson had lived in a one bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor of the Martin Luther Manor Living Center on Liscum Drive for about a year when she went missing. Maebell was divorced, had two daughters, and had retired from a hospital housekeeping job two years prior. Maebell was close to her family, and when calls to reach her went unanswered for two days, by January 5th, her residence was checked. Nothing in the second-story apartment was missing or out of place. Her winter coat was draped over a chair, her wallet, credit cards, cash, and a check for rent dated 1/8/98 were all found in her purse on the table. Her bank account was never accessed again. There were no signs of forced entry, a struggle or robbery inside the apartment. LE does not believe Maebell was attacked from her apartment or lured from the premises, but they do believe foul play was involved. According to CharleyProject, suicide "has not been ruled out but has been deemed unlikely". In 1998, Maebell was between 5'4 - 5'6 and 180 pounds. She had brown eyes and gray hair, wore glasses, and was last seen in a tan jogging suit. She was last seen entering her apartment at 9:30 pm on January 3rd. Five and a half years after her disappearance, Maebell was declared legally dead.
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Norma Mae Maynard - disappeared February 3rd, 1979 from Boone, Iowa.
Norma Mae Maynard went missing in early February of 1979, just two weeks after the unexpected death of her husband, Carl, on January 19th. Norma and Carl had been married for three decades and Norma was deeply grieving the loss. Norma lived with her 30 year old son, and he was the last to see his mother. He stated that shortly before noon on February 2nd, he found a note from his 61 year old mother that stated she was on her way to Los Angeles, not to look for her, and that she'd get in touch again someday. The validity of this note (if seen by LE, if handwritten analysis was performed, etc) is not known. Norma's purse and a few items of clothing were missing, but her checkbook and jewelry were left behind. There was no sign of a break-in at the house. Her husband's pension which she lived off of and her bank account with savings was not touched. Norma was a shy woman who spent most of her time at home and had a regular routine. She didn't drive and her brothers stated that she had never been more than a few miles from her hometown. Her husband's funeral bill was paid for by a check dated four days after she vanished and signed by "Mrs. Carl Maynard". According to Charley Project, "The signature appeared to match Maynard's handwriting, and her son said she had signed a blank check and left it with him to fill in and pay the bill". The validity of this is not known either. A sighting of a woman matching Norma's description was seen by a local Greyhound bus station employee. The woman was boarding a bus bound for Los Angeles. Police are not sure of the accuracy of this sighting and consider it "shaky". Norma didn't drive but she didn't normally travel by bus, and why she allegedly went to Los Angeles is unknown: she had no friends or family there. Norma's son was not considered a suspect in her case, though some members of her family believe he was involved in her disappearance. He has maintained his innocence and has since moved out of state. Norma was 5'3 tall and weight 175 pounds, with blue eyes and gray hair. If she was alive today, she'd be 105. I believe someone close to her knows what happened and made up the story about her leaving for California. My second theory would be suicide, and she made up the California story so her family wouldn't worry.
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Yu Chin Goodson - disappeared March 25th, 2005 from Russellville, Franklin County, Alabama.
Yu Chin Goodson is one of the youngest on my list, and at 57, I wouldn't classify her as elderly, but she is an older woman with a lot of mental and physical issues, who went missing under mysterious circumstances like these other women. Yu Chin is an Asian woman suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, diabetes, and a heart problem which required daily medication. In 2005, she was living in group home for patients with mental disabilities in Russellville, Alabama. On March 25th, 2005, a witness claimed to see Yu Chin enter a small, older grey or silver car with a loud muffler. The car was headed toward the Decatur, Alabama area, which is where her son lives. Staff at the group home were informed that Yu Chin was gone, and within 15 minutes of her disappearance, the police were notified and a search for Yu Chin began. No trace of her was ever found. Her son, who lives in the Decatur area, was never contacted by his mother. There has been no mention of foul play, and authorities believe she could currently be homeless and living in shelters. At the time of this write up, she has been missing for almost twenty years and would be around 75 if still alive.
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Barbara B. Blount - disappeared May 2nd, 2008 from Holden, Louisiana
Barbara B. Blount was a 58 year old widow who lived on the same road as her children, kept in regular contact with her family and friends, and was active in her local church. It came as a surprise one morning when her nephew came over to visit her residence in rural Livingston Parish, Louisiana, and Barbara was nowhere to be found. A neighbor had just spoken to her over the phone, and Barbara had said she was cleaning out her kitchen cabinets. By the time her nephew had arrived for a visit, the front door was wide open, Barbara's phone was lying on the floor with the battery pulled out, her car was gone, and Barbara was missing. Besides for the unusual circumstances in the home, police didn't find any proof of forced entry. A few hours later in the late afternoon, the silver four door 2006 Toyota Camry Barbara owned was found a quarter of a mile from her home. It was found 25-30 yards off the main road and out of sight, hidden by trees. No trace of Barbara was discovered, baffling friends and family who described Barbara as a cautious individual who carried a gun when she went outside to milk the cows and didn't open the door to strangers. Waterways and woods were searched in attempt to find Barbara, but nothing was ever found.

edit: ooof messed up the title.

What would you like to accomplish? I waited too long for a replacement for my HP Office Jet 3830. Didn't like it so didn't think I'd miss it but I need a budget printer now. Need to combine Word and pdf files with a scanned signature page to become a complete pdf. Will be doing this throughout the next year.
Are there any models you are currently looking at? Many, which is why I waited too long.
List out anything that has caught your eye. Some people want to compare similar models. Cheap, fast, reliable. I tell it to print and it says "OK"
Minimum Requirements:
Budget: $200 - $300
Country: US
Color or black and white: Black (next printer will be for photos but I don't know when that will be so don't exclude color if it keeps this purchase in budget)
Laser or ink printer: Ink, SuperTank if it fits the budget
New or used: New
Multi-function: Multi; scanning quality is important. Never used the fax on my last printer
Duplex Printing: No
Home or business: Home
Printing content: Word and pdf files, signature scans
Printing frequency: Daily - weekly
Pages per minute : 10 PPM
Page size: 8.5 x 11
Device printing from: Desktop computer
Connection type: WiFi with router
Any other details:
Anything else you think is relevant to your purchasing decision - Probably purchasing from Amazon. Goal is to make this purchase fast and cheap and I do not want to lose the savings by constantly paying for expensive ink. Thank you.

In the web development, Node.js has gained significant recognition. This JavaScript runtime environment is lauded for its speed and efficiency, but like any technology, it comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Let's delve into the pros and cons of using Node.js in web development.

The Pros of Node.js

1. JavaScript Everywhere: One of the most significant advantages of Node.js is the ability to use JavaScript on both the client-side and server-side. This means developers can write both front-end and back-end applications in the same language, increasing efficiency and simplifying the development process.
2. Non-Blocking I/O: Node.js operates on a non-blocking, event-driven I/O model. This allows it to handle multiple operations simultaneously without waiting for tasks like database operations to complete, making it ideal for applications with heavy I/O operations.
3. Real-Time Applications: Node.js shines when it comes to developing real-time applications. Its event-driven architecture is perfect for creating chat applications, online games, and collaborative tools where real-time updates are crucial.
4. NPM Ecosystem: Node.js comes bundled with npm (Node Package Manager), the largest ecosystem of open-source libraries in the world. This repository of reusable components can significantly speed up development time and increase code quality.
5. Scalability: Node.js is designed to build scalable network applications. Its ability to handle many concurrent connections with high throughput makes it a great choice for microservices architectures and real-time applications.

The Cons of Node.js

Despite the numerous benefits, Node.js isn't without its drawbacks.
1. Not Suitable for CPU-Intensive Tasks: Node.js isn't the best option for CPU-intensive tasks, like computations and logic. Due to its single-threaded nature, such tasks can block the processing of incoming requests, slowing down the application.
2. Callback Hell: A notable challenge with Node.js is "Callback Hell." This occurs when asynchronous functions are nested within other asynchronous functions, leading to code that's difficult to read and debug. While modern versions of Node.js support async/await syntax to mitigate this issue, it still can be a challenge for beginners.
3. Lack of Consistency: The Node.js ecosystem is vast and ever-changing, which can be both a boon and a curse. New tools and updates are continually emerging, which, while good for innovation, can lead to a lack of standardization and consistency.
4. Young and Unstable API: The Node.js API is still relatively young and not fully stable. This means it can change frequently, potentially resulting in compatibility issues.
5. Lack of Strong Libraries: While the npm ecosystem is large, the quality of libraries can be uneven. Some important functionalities like working with databases, handling dates, or image processing lack strong, robust libraries, often making developers turn to other languages for these tasks.

Conclusion: Is Node.js Right for Your Project?

The decision to use Node.js depends on your project needs. If you're building a real-time application, need high scalability, and have a team skilled in JavaScript, Node.js can be a strong choice. However, if your application involves heavy computations or requires strong libraries for specific functionalities, you might want to consider other options.
Remember, every technology comes with trade-offs. Understanding both the pros and cons of Node.js is vital to make an informed decision. Assess your project requirements, weigh them against what Node.js has to offer, and you'll be well on your way to choosing the right tool for your web development needs.
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Context: a friend asked me what taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha meant to me personally. We talked about it and she found it inspiring. She asked me to write a reflection about it, which I did, and then thought I might post it here. This is just my own way of making meaning of refuge both as a concept and as a momentary practice in daily life, so there may be many mistakes or deviations from the correct understanding. I hope it will be helpful and would be interested to hear what refuge means to you personally.

---

Taking refuge in the Buddha is not just about recalling the example of Gautama Buddha, a figure of tremendous inspiration, though that is certainly an important aspect of it. Taking refuge in the Buddha also means recalling the principle of Buddha-nature in this awareness in this moment. For me, as a momentary practice, taking refuge in the Buddha is about connecting with and recognizing awareness.

Taking refuge in the Dharma is to recall the teachings about life and reality. It has a devotional aspect, because the Dharma is a path I aspire to and a collection of profound teachings that I revere. This sense of taking refuge in the Dharma as teachings has a feeling of quiet joy, or perhaps reassurance, the sense that here is a reliable discourse that speaks to the deepest and most heartfelt human needs. The recollection of the Dharma as teachings is also a dose of realism that pacifies any flights of fantasy I might be indulging at the time. Since Dharma also means reality or phenomenon, there is a sense of being grounded in this moment’s reality. Taking refuge in the Dharma is not a fantasy about future enlightenment, but recognizing and relating with what is here right now.

Taking refuge in the Sangha is about recalling the community of Buddhist practitioners. It reminds me that I’m not alone, which I find encouraging and reassuring. Since I don’t currently meet regularly with a group of practitioners, I don’t have a sangha in the most conventional sense. If I did, taking refuge in the Sangha would entail appreciating the love and compassion in that community as well as its frictions and tensions, both of which are raw material for waking up. Taking refuge in the Sangha also seems to entail (though this may diverge from the canonical meaning of sangha) the recognition that any and all beings are my companions, walking alongside me in this life. It recalls the lineage of enlightened teachers both past and present, whose examples humble and inspire me.

I'd like to find someone who captivates me. Someone who I can talk with effortlessly. I want to meet a person who I can include in my daily tasks, and talk with throughout the day. I just want to find someone I can be open with. Platonic conversation or romance. Whatever you are looking for, don't hesitate to message me. I hope to hear from you.
I love a number of things, and hate very little. I'm fairly open to trying new things, but some of the things I enjoy are as follows. I love the outdoors. I've never been camping, but I would like to try it with someone some day. I also love to fish. I mostly fish salt water. I do occasionally fish freshwater though. I like to check out new spots around me, but I mostly fish on the beach. Do you like to fish? What are some of your favorite places to go?
I also enjoy the shooting sports. I primarily target shoot. I take part in a little bit of everything, including rifle, pistol and shotgun. It would be nice to find someone who is into shooting or would like to learn/become more familiar. If you shoot, what do you like to shoot mostly? What's been your favorite gun to shoot so far?
PC games are also a enjoyable pastime for me. I have a variety of games, most of which are on Steam. I have other games on various other stores/services. I enjoy a wide variety of different kind of games, so I'm sure we can find something to play together if you game. What are some of your all time favorite games? What are you currently grinding on that you can't put down? One hobby I discovered later on in life is Magic the Gathering. I play both online on MtG Arena, and with physical cards. Magic has become something I am particularly fond of. Do you play any kind of card/table top games? What's been your favorite so far? If you play Magic, what are some of your favorite deck themes?
Music has always been a part of my life. My tastes are varied, ranging from country, death and black metal, electronic, classic rock, folk, pop punk, and more. Do you have a favorite band? What has been your favorite concert you've been to?
I'm honestly an ambivert. I enjoy doing things outside, as well as spending time indoors. I can veg out all day under the covers curled up in my bed, or I can take a trip somewhere and experience something new. I think my personality is a mix of the best of both worlds. What would the perfect day consist of for you?
As far as my personality is concerned, I would say I am fairly relaxed and laid back. I feel like I am somewhere in the middle between loud and excitable, and shy and quiet. Around people I don't know, I tend to be fairly quiet and to myself. In the company of someone who I am close with, I am more open and free. Do you open right up to people, or does it take a while to become comfortable with someone new?
All I hope for is a connection. It could be platonic, or it could blossom into romance, and commitment. I'm not putting a limit on what I am looking for.
With the prior being said, I am single. I may be interested in changing that with the right person. The idea of commitment excites me. Monogamy is appealing to me. Do you feel satisfied with your social life? What kind of connection are you looking for?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I appreciate it. I hope you can identify with something I wrote. If you do, please reach out.
P.S. Please feel free to check my post history, and check out a few pictures of my cat if you would like.

Hello, all! I am here because I feel quite alone. The truth is, even though life has its ups and downs, I have a relatively stable and boring life. What I need is a friend. I just feel the longing to connect with someone.
I'd like to meet someone here who is mature and respectful and who would invest in creating a friendship with me gradually over time, as we get more comfortable with each other. I would like to find an interesting personality to learn more about their world, conflicts, and aspirations, to learn new stuff from them, and ultimately become a better person by being their friend.
I'd like to meet someone who is a thoughtful and easy-going person and who would be willing to commit to this friendship. I'd like to meet someone with whom I would feel trusted enough to hear their life story and be trusted by them as I listen to theirs—with no judgments—and accept our struggles as they are. Someone who has a lot to say but hasn't had the opportunity to do so. I would be there for you.
I'd like to meet someone willing to commit to this friendship with the intention of it lasting more than two days, ideally communicating daily and letting the friendship grow without pressure, at its own pace. A friend is all I need, nothing else.
A few words about myself: I'm a person in my twenties from a small corner of Europe. I am a reserved, introverted, and perhaps unnecessarily serious person. I live in my own world. I'm a hopeless romantic who sees the world through stained glass. I enjoy art, poetry, and movies. I love walking in nature, I love summer storms, sunsets, and the mountains.
I am a nineties person who likes everything created during that decade. I wish I were then right now. Currently, my favorite bands and artists are Electronic, The Cardigans, Talk Talk, etc. I would like to add new artists to the playlist of my favorite songs, so your suggestions would be more than welcome. I haven't seen a movie or a TV show in ages, but my favorite ones are The Young Pope, Scrubs, the Office etc. I also enjoy listening to podcasts, like Radiolab, 99% Invisible, Wiretap, Heavyweight, and others.
If the type of friendship I described resonates with you, feel free to send me a direct message with a brief introduction about yourself. I would be glad to engage in a conversation with you.

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element ('Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element (Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element ('Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

First, Next

Chun shuffled in her chair, she was only a mortal boar-kin, why did she have the misfortune of taking the hidden master up to his room. Now this Mei of the Iron Paw sect had cornered her in the Inn when she arrived for the morning shift.
Mei shoveled rice into her mouth from an oversized bowl as she spoke, “Tell me exactly what happened last night when you led the hidden master to his room. I want to know everything you know about him.”
Again Chun shuffled, “I actually met him before that, he was alone at the table near the exit. It was odd because everyone tries to move to the kang to keep warm, but this man simply sat at his table as though the cold meant nothing to him.”
Mei stopped eating, “He was here while we were eating? What was he doing?” She demanded.Chun recoiled a bit, “He just seemed to be watching everyone, including your table. When I brought him his food and drink I warned him to stop staring or he would draw someone’s wrath upon him.”
Mei nodded, if she couldn’t sense him, she obviously couldn’t expect a mere mortal to know what they were dealing with. “What did he do after that?”
Chun took a deep breath, “He seemed to just sit there and eat his meal until the warning bell sounded. When you and your sisters left he asked me how much he owed, dropped coins on the table and left the inn. I didn’t see him again until after the battle.”
Mei sat back and thought, “He paid for his meal you say?”
Chun nodded, “He didn’t even complain or haggle, he simply dropped the coins as if they were nothing and walked out. Huang has told me not to accept payment if he asks when he comes down this morning.”
Mei nodded, “A wise choice, now that he is no longer hidden he may decide to toy with you, it is best for you to play along.”
Chun looked around the inn as customers started to come in for breakfast, it was still early, the sun had barely breached the horizon.
Mei sighed, “Bring me another bowl of porridge, I will await the hidden master, his name was Cain, correct.”
Chun stood quickly before bowing, “He stated his name was Victor Cane, Mistress Mei.”
Mei sat back in her chair and shoo’ed the boar-kin mortal away. Her sisters had taken shifts to ensure from a distance the hidden master had not left. More information on this male was needed, and she expected to gather it for her sect.
She would already be renown for the twenty two instinctual cultivators slain here yesterday, particularly as she had only lost 7 sisters. Three to one was not a feat to be trifled with when it came to instinctuals. The problem was, at least ten of those were from this hidden master that she knew next to nothing about.
She would await him here, and eat her fill to replace her spent energies.
_________________________
DAILY MAINTENANCE COMPLETE
ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL
SUBSPACE LINK : NO CONNECTION
RADIO LINK : NO CONNECTION
POWER CORE : 100%
CAPACITOR CORE : 100%
TIME 0700
ACTIVATE WAKE UP ALARM

Victor slowly regained consciousness after sleeping like the dead. New gene-mod updates, transmat accident, small firefight with ware-wolves and one cute tiger lady had really kicked his ass. “Computer, turn off that damn alarm.”
He opened his helmet as he sat up from the horrible bed. He had never seen a mirror as poorly made as the one in front of him, maybe it was tarnished bronze? He recalled his scout drones and sent them to storage before reaching in and pulling out his overnight bag.
After washing his face in the not-too-clean sink and brushing his teeth he made his way to the chamber pot by the bed. After relieving himself he decided breakfast was in order. He put his overnight bag into dimensional storage and made his way downstairs to the inn proper.
As he slowly walked down the stairs, hoping the wood could hold his three hundred kilo weight a second time he noticed Mei sitting at the same table as the night before. As usual, the patrons around them gave her a wide berth. Well, judging by the way Mei’s eyes never left him he assumed she wanted to talk to him.
“Hello Mei, how are you doing this morning? He asked innocently enough.
She looked at him stone faced, “I spent most of the night burying my sect sisters, then caught a few hours sleep while we waited for you to wake up.” She stated as she crossed her arms.
Well, this was more new information, evidently there was some camaraderie within the sects. He wasn’t sure of that until now. Evidently cultivators do care for each other, if they care little or nothing for the average peasant.
Victor decided it was best to seem the aloof master rather than the bumbling fool he obviously was and change course, “Chun, could you bring me whatever you have for breakfast, oh, and some more of that wine!”
Mei’s eyes flared at Victor, if looks could kill he’d be scorched right now, “Who are you? I just reminded you that 7 of my sect sisters were buried last night and you call to a mortal for food?”
Victor turned back to her, his officer face was back on again, “Is this your first war Mei?”
Mei sat back and batted her cup back and forth in her hands as she looked down at the table, “Yes, while I’m older than some of my sisters, war hasn’t visited the Celestial Empire in decades, if not centuries.”
Victor reached out a hand and placed it over one of Mei’s. She froze at his touch, a male cultivator touched her, a lowly cultivator of the second tier. “This is not mine, I have lost count of the small fire-fights and battles I’ve been a part of of my last twenty years. Or the soldiers I have lost.”
Mei blinked, fire-fights, like what he did last night was considered small, she had never seen creatures burn like that, wait, did he say the last twenty years. She cleared her throat, “Um, please excuse this lower cultivators curiosity, but you have been in battles for the last twenty years? You look no older than I at twenty eight seasons, how is that possible?”
Victor removed his hand as Chun brought him a huge portion of porridge, rice, pork sausage, eggs and wine. He looked up to her as she bowed down, “Thank you Chun, you are dismissed. Yeah, I don’t age like other people. Actually, I don’t age at all.”
Chun turned on her heels and nearly sprinted back to the kitchen. She had gotten a small taste of Mei’s killing intent when she glared at the hidden master, while she nearly dropped to her knees, the master didn’t even seem to notice.
Victor popped one of the sausages into his mouth as he watched Mei nearly drop her jaw in astonishment. Victor pointed to his plate, “Would you like one? They are quite good.”
Mei shook her head, “You’re an immortal and you thanked that peasant? Do you care nothing for face?”
Victor looked back as he chewed, “Chun? Yeah, she works hard, least I can do is thank her for her efforts. Someone should do something about the turnips though, they are horrible.”
Mei crossed her arms, “I cannot tell if you are toying with me or not. You have an Imperial accent, one that requires training from birth, you fight as if you are a divinity, and you show appreciation to mortals?”
Victor shrugged, “I’m not a complicated man, I’m just passing through the Empire looking for a way home. Speaking of which, you mentioned the Eternal Empress, would you say she is the most powerful person in the land?”
Mei uncrossed her arms before leaning in, “You mean to tell me you don’t know about the Eternal Empress yet you are hundreds of li into her Empire?”
Victor mixed his eggs and sausage into his rice bowl and then looked despairingly down at the chop sticks. He reached into his dimensional storage and produced a spoon, which to Mei seemed to appear from nowhere and scooped out a portion before taking a bite and pointing at Mei with his spoon. “Well, it’s not grits, but it will do in a pinch. No, I don’t know about the Empress, that’s why I’m asking you, if anyone knows how to get me home it might be your Eternal Empress, so how do I get an audience with her?”
Mei sat back in her chair once more, holding the hand Victor had recently touched under the table, “That might be easier than you think, but you may not like the outcome. I sent ahead to my sect leader one town over and she will be using a calling stone to reach the Imperial Palace, I’m sure they will have questions about the foreigner who is also a hidden master.”
Victor stopped eating and sat back in his own chair, “Ah, you say I may not like the outcome, why is that?”
Mei shrugged, if he didn’t know how things worked she didn’t see the harm in telling him. “The Eternal Empress has been said to be a bit temperamental, particularly to foreigners entering her lands. Yes, she is said to be the wisest in the land, and many millennia old. Her magic defends this land and its people.”
Victor took another slow bite with his spoon, “So she may know how to get me home, or she may try to have me killed. No way to know until I meet her eh?”
Mei nodded before stopping, “Wait, you said she may try to have you killed, not that she would have you killed or kill you.”
Victor grinned at her, “Well, I’m not about to make it easy on her if she tries. Listen, I’ve got some things to get done, so in the mean time, here.” He then presented her with a silver bauble with a red gem in the center that dropped from nothingness into his hand. “Take this with you, and give it to the Empress, it will allow her to communicate with me no matter where I go.”
Mei stared at the piece of exquisite jewelry, it would be worth many fortunes over in the Celestial city, and he just handed it to her? “Wait, I can’t just let you leave, you are a foreigner in our lands, it is my duty to keep a watchful eye on you.”
Victor walked over to the bar where Huang looked nervous and dropped a large pile of copper coins before walking to the door.
Mei stood, kicking the chair behind her and stomped towards the exit only to see the hidden master take flight again on wings of fire. This time he did not stop at the bell tower, but continued to fly towards the mountains. “Damn that man to the divinities she shouted as even she lost sight of him in the clouds.”
______________________
“Activate camouflage mode.” Victor spoke into his helmet as his armor took on the the colors surrounding him. It wouldn’t fool anyone close up, but from the distance he was from the village now he doubted even the cultivators could make him out from the sky.
With any luck, Mei would get that communicator back to the Empress, who might know how to get him home. In the mean time though, he reached into his dimensional storage and brought out a satellite probe. He had used the full capacitor load on his jump jets and was still eighteen thousand meters up, more than enough for the probe to reach geosynchronous orbit.
After launching it he looked for a good patch of ground to land. He found one at the base of a mountain range, it even came with a mountain stream. Firing his retro-rockets he landed soft enough and sat on a particularly smooth boulder.
His heads up display showed him his probe had reached geosynchronous orbit and was gathering data. “Well, this is going to take some time.” He thought to himself as he ordered his AI to split his armor. To anyone else watching this would have probably been horrifying as the scout armor appeared to break apart and separate into two halves joined together by a hinge.
Victor took a sniff of himself and groaned, “Good thing the suit is sealed, being in that thing for almost two days and I am ripe!” He thought as he found a nice place in the woods to relieve himself in a way he couldn’t with his armor on.
After that he removed the boxers he wore in his scout armor and placed them on the boulder and stepped across the pebbled beach into the stream. He instantly regretted it, gene-mods or not, a mountain stream in the fall is still cold! After washing as best he could he walked back to his armor, reached into his dimensional storage, produced a towel and fresh boxers and dried off while sunning himself on his rock.
His AI sounded in his inner ear. IMMEDIATE AREA SURVEY COMPLETE.
He kicked off his boulder and climbed back into his now somewhat aired out armor and checked out the results. A mountain in this range was nearly perfect for his needs, abundant metal and mineral deposits, and a valley with a small but very useful petroleum reserve, as well as some natural gas deposits, although those were less than 6% on the scan.
Victor checked that his jump jets capacitor were sufficiently charged and set his jump vector for a somewhat flat ridge three quarters of the way up the mountain, just below the snow caps. Four minutes later, he landed, staring at a nearly sheer cliff face that raised up the mountain another 20 meters above him.
He reached into dimensional storage and retrieved a mining laser. These were a bit expensive, but necessary to start any good mining operation. Mining drones were not good at starting a mining shaft. Oh, it could be done, but it was usually done slowly and crudely. Best to set the aperture to four meters square and crank up the power.
The laser had a magazine of some miracle crystal that put out about ten seconds of power before it was exhausted and was then discarded. He squeezed the trigger and watched as the sheer rock face before him seemed to literally disintegrate as the shaft began to deepen to a depth of about four meters in.
The laser chimed and ejected the magazine as the barrel smoked from the immense heat it had just endured. Victor carefully sat down the mining laser and opened his dimensional storage once more to bring out four mining drones, two forge spiders, and four scout drones.
He set the mining drones to work digging into the mine shaft with gusto the seven dwarfs could never match. Then turned his attention to the scout drones, he sent them off in a patrol pattern to watch over the mountain for any sign of trespassers. Then he remembered the satellite and set it to watch over his piece of paradise as well.
He also thought about retracing his helmet but the temperature outside was just above freezing and decided it best to have a seat and wait a bit for the mining drones to get some work done. On a whim he checked his database, yup, there were 86 different versions of Snow White, might as well pick the Disney one from antiquity, he’d never seen it anyways.
One hour and twenty three minutes later the film was over, and his mining drones and forge spiders had deepened the shaft another five meters. A small pile of ingots had been dropped off by the spiders, the air around them giving off a small mirage effect from the heat they radiated.
Computer, have the nano-forge produce proper steel doors, tracts, motors, and security to cover the dimensions of this shaft. The AI took measurements, produced the adjusted prints, sent them to Victor for approval, then started crafting the necessary materials. Then Victor’s stomach growled.
Sighing, he went over to the pile of fresh ingots, some iron, some copper, others tin and silver.
Retracing his helm he found that although the temperature hovered around 2 degrees celsius, near the ingots it was quite a bit warmer, if you didn’t mind the metallic smell, which it didn’t. Reaching into dimensional storage he found his ration stash, while he had hoped this would be what he would use to fashion himself a life after he left the Imperial Guard, there was a chance he would never get home.
“Resources are there to be used.” He quoted to himself as he took a bite from a bar he hoped wasn’t made from corpo-starch, but as it had no ingredient list he had no way of knowing. Finishing his ration bar, the densely caloric and extremely nutrient bar would play havoc with his bowels later. He noted getting living quarters up soon would be a really good idea.
He slid his helm back into place, “Computer, have the mining drones level off and begin to dig a cavern to fit the small hab module in dimensional storage, have them oversize it by a meter on all sides, I want some clearance when I bring this out of storage.”
The AI complied and he watched his mini-map on his hud as the drones turned ninety degrees and started opening up a new cavern. A few minutes later, the computer chimed to let him know the doors were complete and ready for installation.
A good thing he had his scout armor, these doors were five centimeters thick and three meters high and wide. They weighed almost four tons a piece, which was right at the limit of what his power armor was capable of. Pulling out the necessary tools he installed the tracts above and below, then setup the motor controls before pulling the doors out of storage and setting them into the tracks.
After testing and adjustment he was satisfied that not only were they very secure, they even seemed to blend in well with the sheer cliff wall. “Not a bad job if I do say so myself.” Victor said as he began setting up production orders for ventilation, water drainage, and lighting with his AI to start construction while he waited for the chamber to be completed.
A full six hours later and several movies of varying degrees of watchfulness, his computer chimed letting him know the new cavern was complete and the mining drones were continuing their downward path towards the more dense metal reserves deeper in the mountain.
He stood, stretched his back, and ordered the massive steel doors to open, walking the gently sloping shaft down the ten meters to the new cavern. The walls were smooth and the entrance seemed just about right for the habitats air lock door to fit flush with the mining shaft.
A few minutes later and a loud bang as the habitat module appeared from dimensional space and then found that gravity existed again, slamming it the few centimeters to the floor of the cavern. “Oops!” Victor said to himself hoping he didn’t break anything.
Nothing appeared to be damaged, after all, these habs were basically mini-bunkers designed for anything from death worlds to deep space mining. Fifteen meters on each side and four meters high, it gave him an excellent respite from the world around him. Indoor plumbing, central heating and air, entertainment center, kitchen, bath, and a bed.
He entered the habitat and sealed the airlock to the mine shaft. The internal temperature of the hab read twenty one degrees celsius, so he shed his armor, placed it in the airlock rack and connected it to the habitat’s power and computer system before opening the inner airlock.
“Home sweet home, at least until I find a way back." Then he thought about it, would the Guard blame him for the transmat accident? Sure he lied about having anything on him in dimensional storage but he knew guys who smuggled things around all the time and something like this never happened to them. "Hope I don’t look at a court martial if I ever to get back home for going AWOL or some such bullshit.” He muttered as he headed for the shower. That mountain stream was freezing!
______________________
“What to you mean he flew away?” Shihan looked at Mei from across her desk.
Mei shifted uncomfortably in the rickety chair that sat across from the elder cultivator in front of her. The room was also cold, and Shihan had set the desk low so that she could sit on the kang and keep warm while others had to endure. “He said he had important matters to attend to and flew away on wings of fire.”
Shihan shook her head, “Lazy eggs, all of you. We lost seven Iron Paw warriors in your battle three days ago, and probably would have lost you all if not for this hidden master. I have reached out to the the sect mistress who will be informing the royal court at this weeks meeting with the Empress. Do you have anything else to report?”
Mei nodded and set the jeweled bauble on the desk in front of the elder sect leader, “The hidden master, Victor Cane presented me with this. He stated to give it to the Empress and they would be able to communicate no matter the distance.”
The older lady stared at the priceless looking item before slowly looking back up to Mei, “I feel no chi coming from this item, how could it possibly do what he says. Even our best calling stones can barely reach three hundred li, how could this tiny broach communicate anywhere?”
Mei had thought long on this, “I do not know mistress, however, I do know that not once did I feel any chi from this hidden master either. I believe it is his cultivation technique, as he must use near perfect yang energy to power his creations. Can you detect pure yang, head mistress?”
Shihan shook her head, “I cannot my student, for that is only in the realm of the highest levels of male cultivation, and to my knowledge, no male alive can use pure yang energy, hence why they are inherently weaker as they cultivate some yang and some yin, their meridians are out of balance.”
Mei nodded, this was the same conclusion she had reached as well, “I watched him create multiple items from thin air, some for weapons, one was a simple soup spoon, we know most men use their cultivation for crafting, perhaps this hidden master is so adept at it he uses pure yang energy that we simply cannot sense.”
Shihan’s eyes widened with the implications, “That means he would appear as just a normal mortal until he decided to act, just as he did in your report.” She then looked down at the silver jeweled broach that sat on the desk. “The craftsmanship of this object is superb, its gem is absolutely flawless, I have never seen silversmithing so pure. Were this not to be sent to the Empress its sale would keep the Iron Paw clans coffers full for seasons on end.”
She sighed, “No, we cannot abandon our duty, I will send this item to the Empress herself, and as this Victor Cane had entrusted you with it, I feel that you should be the one to deliver it to her yourself.”
Mei gasped before bowing, “I will not fail you head mistress.”
Shihan sat back on her cushions enjoying the warmth of the kang under her, “See to it that you do not, for the Empress does not take kindly to fools who waste her time.”

Before I dump on the game, let me mention a few of the places that were actually clever:

The bit with Camelus where you had to raise the bridge and shoot into it from below.
Figuring out there was a path under the bridge that the ice block blocked.
Figuring out that you could get up on the ice block from the other end of the crane.

I found the game to be disappointing and frustrating, all down to three reasons:

The lack of interaction modes. Everything is a doorknob.
The lack of characters, plot, conflict, and motivation.
An inability to suspend disbelief, made even more absurd by the ending.

Let's look at these, along with contrasting to early Cyan games, and notice how combining all three together makes for a poor experience.
Essentially, the only mode of interaction available is turning a knob. While this is not necessarily a game killer (Myst, for example, only has clicking something) in Firmament it is completely treated as turning a knob. That is, every time you use the adjunct, you're interacting with a manufactured bit of machinery to control power to one or the other function of what you're connecting to. This leads to a sparse range of puzzles that can be included, essentially none of which progress the narrative. And it leads to the requirement for a technical instruction manual at the start of the game.
There's no "let the water out of the chest then close the knob again so it'll float when you fill the pool." There's no compass rose or turning mirrors. There's no locks to find the combination to (fortunately, given the plot). There's no sorting of singing monkeys. There's no tempting of birds with seed pods. There's no catching of Squees. There's no summoning of Wharks. The steam generator and pipes to fill the Voltaic airship actually work logically, and there's a reason they're puzzling, unlike the steam pipes in Curievale. (I had to actually look up which world the steam pipes were in just now, which shows you how well-integrated that puzzle is.) Also, each puzzle is independent of all the others; there's no foreshadowing of what you need to know, nor cleverness of relating one puzzle to another, as was common all through Exile for example.
Almost all the puzzles (including the most frustrating) involve trying to find the next doorknob to turn; or, having found it, trying to figure out how to reach it with the one and only tool available. Occasionally there's the "let's see if I can find the hidden pathway." Almost none of them involve figuring something out based on the environment or the world building. When stuck, I found myself walking around with the adjunct out looking for some hidden doorknob to light up, or wandering into unobvious corners and walking around the edge of the playable area seeing if I missed a hidden pathway. This is compounded by the huge amount of nonsensical consistency-busting designs. (Watch any first-time playthrough and you'll see the player running all over the place looking for the next clue.)
Granted, once you figured out the solution, it was often clear in hindsight what you were supposed to have been doing.

You could realize the conservatory is symmetrical and has rubble blocking the way so you need to climb across the planters.
You could figure out that there were controls under the sulfur you couldn't see the first time by looking at the diagram, if you could figure out what the diagram was saying without extensive exploring to start with.
You could figure out that the goal in the battery field was to connect the one wire to the other (and not stringing batteries from the outside inwards) once you realize there's exactly two wires leading out from the lake and the error is "no connection".
You could figure out what order the sockets get concatenated in by looking at their orientations. (Granted, they tried to teach you that during "verification.")
Once you've drained the first reservoir, it becomes clear the odd structures sticking up were walkways.
Often you progress a ways through a puzzle and then you can see the exit.

The lack of characters, living people, conflict, narrative, etc also left the game feeling lacking. There's nobody you can interact with, almost no direction is provided as to what you should do (and no, just saying "start the Embrace" doesn't help given you have no memory of what that means), and no motivation for doing it other than some ghost tells you. The real reason you work at it is you know you're playing a game. The fact that the world is terribly inconsistent with the story, and the mentor wants you to do things she won't reveal, just compounds the problem.

One of the first things she tells you is she'll lie to you, which kind of gave away the "you are Turner" ending.
You're the only person alive/awake, you're vital to the completion of the project, and your mentor can tell you what to do, but she doesn't.
In Myst, Riven, Exile, you're given ongoing plot, and you know your motivation from the start, and why there's nobody helping you.
The ending is an unsatisfying info dump. The beginning is the same. There really wasn't a sense of accomplishment, especially since "Hey, you got to the end, no go away, everything else is automated."

The entire time I was playing, I was saying to myself "Why would this be like this?" It made the entire experience tremendously gamey. Myst and Riven didn't make you think "why would anyone do this?" Exile and Portal both had reasons for being full of puzzles, as well as a motivation for your opponent to be setting up the puzzles and for making them solvable. But Firmament should have been 10x as easy to navigate, except that wouldn't make a good game, so artificial barriers that make no sense are set in your way. This, for me, destroyed the suspension of disbelief. Especially when the ending reveals that even the things you might have thought were accidental were designed that way. Even the constructed places were designed like puzzles rather than somewhere you want your workers to be effective at working.

Why would your mentor set things up that you needed to work so hard to make happen what she wanted?
Why are there even locks on the doors, given only keepers and crew are there?
Why would any giant door only have a doorknob on one side, especially when there are other doors you can enter?
Why wouldn't there be a path around the skiff engine so you could couple either side?
Why is there even a cargo skiff stuck to the side of a building that has stairs at the top and bottom of its range? That's like making a handicap elevator that opens onto a staircase landing. What are you moving on the skiff?
Why would you install steam pipes zig-zagging all over under the water?
Why would you install the gangways zig-zagging all over under the water?
Why would you install steam valves that block the path when turned on? Why not turn that bit so they stick out over space?
What does turning on the steam even do, other than clearing the way to the spire? It's not powering anything at the exit. Why are the pipes and heaters even there except to make a puzzle?
Why do the electric heaters need steam power?
Why do pressurized steam pipes glow green, except to make the puzzle possible? Why are electric lights shining out from inside the steam pipes?
Why wouldn't you provide all the modes of running the crane on top of the crane? Why can't you raise the hook from on top of the crane?
How is Juleston the only place that needs special electricity? Where do the other realms get their electricity that this realm couldn't?
Why does the conservatory have collapsed columns blocking the way that aren't anywhere else in the building? There's no place for them to have fallen from. They're not symmetrical with the other half of the building.
Why wouldn't the walkways around planters go all the way around? How are you supposed to care for or harvest the contents on the sides without walkways?
Why wouldn't the controls for rotating the planters be more easily accessible? There's 6 or so controls to raise and lower each planter, and one control to rotate them that you wouldn't even be able to access on foot.
Why do you need to ride the ice block to get to the factory? Did OSHA approve that? How come the protective gear described on the sign isn't available?
Why did the walkway in the ice processing center that the moving bridge fills collapse, and where did the collapsed floor go? There are no broken plates on the floor.
Why is there even a movable room in the ice processing center? Why not just finish building the bridges and walkways?
How did whoever put the moving bridge there leave? You can only reach it standing on top of an ice block.
Why is the green pipe valve hidden behind a bunker? Wouldn't it be easier to build stairs?
Why wouldn't you build stairs all the way to the ground instead of having to walk along the crane to an ice block to reach the stairs?
Why are there blocks of ice all over outside the processing center?
How did all the ice blocks get around the base of the crane? Why not grind those up instead?
How did the block of ice block the pathway, then the bridge get closed, except intentionally?
Why not put all the controls for the sulfur mixer in one socket?
Why is there a giant door requiring three sockets to get connected? The tracks don't go through, and there's nothing to be moved from one side to the other, and no vehicle nearby. Why is it there, and who closed it for that matter?
Who would build a vehicle where the part you need to line up can't be seen from the steering wheel? Camelus' back door is not visible from the steering wheel. The first ice crane has to be automated at each end because you can't see what's happening. The alignment of the second ice crane is invisible from inside the crane, requiring the platform out the side.

And then you get to the end, and it becomes even more absurd, given that everything you've seen was intentionally designed and built.

Why would the crane be constructed to run into the cliff? Put it farther out like the bubble car, or don't put rocks jutting out to block its path.
Why would the sulfur need to be mined? It's not really a planet. Why not stacks of sulfur bricks? Why are there geysers in space?
Why would you build the bubble car rails where they'd get frozen by ice? There's no seasonal run-off making waterfalls so you had to know that would happen.
Why pretend you're mining coal? Why launch your coal supply from the ground in rocks instead of extracting it on Earth?
Why are you wasting coal melting ice anyway? Just use the water before you freeze it. Why build the heat-powered power plant in the coldest realm?
Why not build the steam furnace downhill from piles of coal and a big pool of water?
What were you planning to do with a bunch of mountains in orbit when you got to your destination?
Lots of puzzles block you from turning them off once solved. Why? And how'd they even get in that state in the first place? Nobody is working against you, and nobody has more authority to make changes than you do.

And many more I don't remember the details of.
Given Cyan's track record, one might ponder some of the inconsistencies in implementation and wonder whether they have a deeper meaning. I couldn't find any.

The first double-bridge you come to, you have to navigate around to cross; the second double-bridge you can just reach the adjunct across; the bubble car there (I think) is positioned in a way that the last person to leave couldn't set up.of mentor dialog or books or something.
Only one bunker has an alternate exit.
Only one bunker has a hibernation bed. Did she drag that there? Her monologue doesn't sound like it.
It seems like a bad idea to have the Juleston bunker close you in when the power goes off.
Places blocked by rubble have nowhere above for the rubble to have come from.
Collapsed floors that need to be bridged have no broken flooring or rubble under them, nor is there any reason for them to have collapsed.
The first double-bridge you come to, you have to naviate around to cross; the second double-bridge you can just reach the adjunct across; the bubble car there (I think) is positioned in a way that the last person to leave couldn't set up.
The moving bridge near the ice grinder for sure could not have been left that way (unless someone got ground up). Otherwise riding the ice wouldn't be a puzzle.
The first place you need to connect three sockets, and there's only one order they connect in.
The second place needs four sockets connected, but still shows "1/3" when you do the first one.
When there's some option not currently available for a socket, you're not given that option. Or maybe it goes "Doink". Or maybe just nothing happens. Or maybe it's dimmed out. Or maybe it starts and then immediately reverts.

Compare to Myst: Myst was surreal, magical. It's expected in such situations that there will be weirdness. Nevertheless, essentially every puzzle was reasonable in its environment and grounded and somewhat predictable. Things like getting the key to the lighthouse was grounded in basic physics; things like resetting the spaceship after a mistake, or figuring out how to deduce the stoneship symbols, or raising the channelwood tree, were based on wide-spread cultural references. Where there were other puzzles, the end-goal was shown in advance, with you almost always running across the lock before being presented with the keys. The rare maze allowed you to (mostly) see where you were going several steps ahead and also told you the destination before you found it. The pointers to the story were left in conspicuous places (the note on the grass, the blue and red books). Also, the weird crap was explained in extensive world-building (heh) books in the library. Nothing (almost) was hidden just to make a puzzle harder. The solution to each puzzle was presented while you're in the puzzle trying to figure out the solution, if only you were clever or observant enough to understand it. If you wanted to get into the spaceship, you followed the wires. The elevator trick in Mechanical Age wasn't hidden; you just had to think about why the elevator didn't start right away. The most hidden thing there was the secret panels, which were secret, but still had a target drawn on them. Every place you were stymied by a lock, the lock was intentionally put there to keep natives of the land away from the books, or to keep others from using the books on Myst Island (i.e., the places of protection).
Contrast with (say) the greenhouse puzzle: first you have to figure how to get to the entrance riding the skiff, because that made so much more sense than another flight of stairs or a ladder; thank goodness the vines didn't quite close off every path. Then you have to figure out that the place you're trying to go is the other side of the planters on the same level (and not to the thing that looks like a lift or ladder), even though you can't see the other side. Then you ride the things around a while, trying to see the walkways above and below you, before realizing there's another doorknob down at the bottom; good thing they all have distinctive lights on them, eh? That doorknob can only be reached from where you're far from your goal, and from a limited number of puzzle states, then you have to work your way all the way back up, and then if you're lucky you'll have figured out how to turn the planters so you can dodge across. Sometimes you can cross on the diagonal, sometimes it's a fraction too far. And your knees don't bend, so you can't get over the foot-high plank lying on the floor. Or look at the steam pipes and heaters. You need to turn them on, and oh goody, they light up when you do. But some of the doorknobs don't glow; other sockets on the pipes aren't doorknobs they just look that way. Some of the pipes go above the surface, and you can't tell where they come back down. You then can turn on electric heaters using steam, somehow. You have to go down to turn one on, then melt some ice, then coming back up requires turning that off again. Several times you have to turn it on, then turn it off again because the valve was installed in a way that blocks the walkway. There's a valve hidden behind a grate for some reason, but fortunately your other tool can go through grates and the walkway passes by quite close. Then you have to turn on a valve, loop around to go two levels down, turn on the second valve that you can't get to because the steampunk builders thought it was a good idea to install valves that block the pathway, come back up far enough to turn on the third valve, go back down to turn on the heater, come back up and turn off the first valve, then you can progress. And when you've worked the steam power all the way to the end, what do you get? A steam-powered machine? No, just the same electric lift as in every other realm. Good thing, because you had to turn the steam off again to get to the other side of the path. The only reason for the steam pipes is to make a puzzle that somehow runs electric heaters off steam pressure, with electricity at both ends of the path already. Oh, and there's a hundred meters of gangway in loops and ramps in the water, instead of, you know, a path from one side to the other.
Compare to Riven: Riven is grounded like Firmament. It's not particularly supernatural. The stuff is mechanical, not magical. If someone disappears from a one-door room, there's probably a hidden switch. Granted, "fire marbles" aren't explained, and why there would even need to be clues to get into Tay is unclear story-wise, but OK, combinations to locks need to be written where you can find them. And the mine cart going under water was just Rule Of Cool. Everything else makes sense. Secret passages are only secret from one side. Doors are locked between where Ghen moves and where natives move, and locked on the side where Ghen is. When there's a "hidden" passage that's hard to see, the people who created it leave a pointer (usually a dagger). When there's a hidden door, you can see into the adjacent room so you know to look for the door. There's no case of "wander all over the level holding the 'show me interaction points' control, trying to figure out if there's a button that enables some other part of the level to work." There's no wondering whether you need an upgrade to even start working on this puzzle. If there's a hidden button to make something work, you can follow the wire to it (the fan), or see the pathway over there, or see the room through the window (book assembly island dome), or notice from where you start there's only one other path of many open (the lake sub), or etc. Look at the design of the wood pulp boiler vs the sulphur mixer. And again, the reason for all the locks are explained in-game. Riven is a masterclass in adventure game design because the puzzles all make sense in the context and story of the game, all of which we see before we need to know it, and there's almost nothing arbitrary about the puzzles.
Contrast with Firmament: Firmament looks realistic, but is surreal in detail. The entire place acts like one giant puzzle, with a dozen unintuitive steps to get from each place to the next. It has knobs that can control things remotely, but uses that capability to put things out of reach instead of making things easier, even tho the only people with adjuncts would be people who are supposed to be working the machines. It has machinery on rails constructed too close to other features to let the cars pass (like the first crane blocked by rocks, the second crane blocked by ice, the bubble car blocked by the ice, etc), which is even more silly when you find out the cliffs aren't natural either. It uses complex machinery of all different kinds to accomplish the same ends; the skiff vs the first crane vs the second crane vs the sulfur trains; the conveyance pods vs the bubble cars vs (cripes) riding blocks of ice and hopping off hopefully before you reach the shredder blades. There are places where simple stairs or bridges could be built, but instead there's a half dozen baroque processes to get from one place to another place a literal stone's throw away (see "riding blocks of ice" as well as the pointless skiff and the pointless steam pipes and ....). There's several kinds of power supplies which have to be turned on, each of which powers only the bits of puzzle blocking your way. There are innumerable doorknobs placed in cages where you have to be at the right angle to fire them with no obvious reason for the cage walls to be blocking you from there (see "riding blocks of ice"). Even at the end you have to walk entirely around the axis twice to unlock a door you're 20 feet from when you come out into space.
Compare to Exile: Exile is surreal, but this time it's intentionally designed by its creator to be surreal. Each age has a purpose and a theme, and it looks designed (unlike Myst's ages). The design of each Age gives you clues to the solutions of the puzzles, and then plays into the endgame. You have an ongoing story that tells you the motivations of the people involved. You have a reason you're suddenly thrown into the situation alone. (As in Myst and Riven, for that matter.) No need for the cliche loss of memory or untrustworthy narrator (both features of Firmament, both described in the opening monologue). There's a reason the puzzles are more difficult than you'd think necessary. The same reason is why there are clues how to solve them scattered about. And you're shown the ways in which the puzzles were made more difficult, which helps tell the story; nothing is randomly broken by accident. When you solve an age, you get a beautiful reward of getting to see the age laid out before you to admire. The ending is fulfilling, and in your hands, left to you to figure out how to bring about some solution or the best solution.
Contrast with Firmament: No setup other than a monologue telling you "you remember nothing, I might lie, go do puzzles I mean maintenance work." The puzzles are arbitrary-progress-blockage puzzles. There's very little where you have to think about what the world is like to make things work. The ages don't feel any different from each other, because every one is "figure out where the path is, where the goal is, and then try to find where you can reach the doorknob from." There's no puzzle having to do with ice on Curievale (other than the heaters, which are just different forms of doors). There's no puzzle having to do with plants on St. Andrew. Even places where you might have figured it out, it was tedious rather than clever; for example, the batteries were painted colors. Imagine how it would have been if you could see into the water and each post had a different number of batteries wired to it? I don't really want to spend time doing linear algebra to figure out puzzles during my gaming hour. And when you do solve a puzzle, half the time you're inside a building or vehicle where you can't see what's happening; the shutters only open once, the bubble cars obscure most of the view, engaging the Embrace doesn't make it obvious the doors are opening in the spire, etc.
How could I have done better? Well, I don't design games for a living, but I've been playing adventure games since they were coded in FORTRAN and printed their text on paper. There are a few obvious places the puzzles could have been made more enjoyable.

Make the batteries in Juleston visible through the water, with different pylons having different numbers of batteries visibly connected. Then you don't have to do linear algebra and experiments to figure out what's going on, and the fact that the final step is also providing power would be obvious. This would leave open the possibility for the people who want to do linear algebra. (Sort of like how the sound direction clues in Mechanical Age let you navigate in Selentic Age even though there were adequate clues if you went to Selentic first.)
Keep the steam pipes underwater, so you can follow where the next valve is.
Actually require the player to mix the sulfur with the sulfur mixer, just for realism. And don't just have the computer tell the user what the next step is. "Door crusted." "Too much acid." "Pool full." Show, don't tell, like with the crusted lock at the start. Maybe make it so you can look into the pool before you add sulfur and see that there are controls down there, and locking lugs, and crusty stuff.
When a machine finally turns on, make it obvious why you needed that machine in the first place. The whole "turn on steam" in Curievale was there to clear the way of ice in your way (with electric heaters, no less), while the builders could have just put a walkway over or straight through the water there. They could have made the lift at the end obviously running on steam pressure, which might have even made sense in the context of the steampunk origin story. The whole "turn on the batteries" in Juleston was there to power a half dozen machines while other machines all over already had power. Why does the Juleston bunker (you know, the place holding all the maintenance supplies) need battery power to be accessible and the others don't? (Oh, that's right, achievements.) Why did you have to send power to the bunker in order to open the giant doors? And again, the sulfur didn't need mixing (can you tell I'm traumatized?).
Put some puzzles in that have to do with the age. Require a puzzle where you have to know ice floats, like drop a giant floating ice cube in the resevoir to get across. Require a puzzle where you have to fertilize or poison (with sulfur?) or electrocute (after powering up Juleston?) plants to progress through St Andrew. Let the player pick up a battery to locally power puzzles in Juleston (due to broken wires?) instead of just declaring that this lift lacks power but that lift works fine.

Anyway, that's my ~~TED Talk~~ rambling rant. Hope you enjoyed. :)
P.S., what it reminds me most, thinking on it, is all the knock-off adventure games that came out right after Myst became a world-wide success. Except refined and moved into the 2020s.

If anyone else is like me then when playing Final Fantasy VIII, they LOVE to assign specific GFs to specific characters, they feel that they fit best with. Over the years and through multiple times playing this game, I’ve always come back to doing this and given it a LOT more thought than I care to admit, to see if I was wrong about any or if one meshes up better with another character. As such, I figured I’d finally publish my list for anyone who either wants to use it or who wants to challenge my perspective and thinks I’m wrong about one of them. This will run a bit long, but it’s meant to be fun and comprehensive, so enjoy how much I’ve nerded out on this game for your benefit, lol.
Quezacotl – I associate Zell with ThundeWind, mainly due to the second GF I decided to give him and his energetic personality. In my opinion, the first 3 GFs should be divided amongst the first 3 characters, and everyone should have at least 1 by the end of disk 1. The next 2 are much stronger fits, which explain why this one is assigned to Zell as his first GF, along with his other GF below. If I had to connect it to something else though, I’d point out how Quezacotl’s wings and body look tattooed like Zell’s face and how if someone is going to goof off slightlyduring battle to turn enemies into collectable trading cards, it’s definitely going to be Zell.
Shiva – Many would say Squall because of his personality, but I disagree which I’ll explain further below. I associate Quistis with Ice/Water, and Shiva even kind of looks like her with the yellow pigtails. Seeing as how it’s obtained from the computer in her classroom or gifted to Squall for the exam by her, it should go back to her as her first GF. Since she’s also Squall’s support during the exam when obtaining Ifrit, it makes perfect sense she would have the trump card as his support and teacher, in the event he got in trouble. It’s refine ability also pairs well with another GF we’ll give to her further down, due to the fact it refines both Ice and Water magic and groups them together.
Ifrit – Many people want to pair this with Zell, but I think that’s wrong. It’s basically a flaming lion with horns. Who better to give it to than to Squall? After all a lion is his motif, it was the first part of his SeeD exam and the first GF he obtained on his own, that wasn’t given to him. I also personally associate Squall with the element of Fire. After all, he uses it in Kingdom Hearts which came out shortly after this, one of his swords is called the Flame Saber and pretty much every promotional image of the Gunblade or Greiver symbol has it on fire. Sure, Squall’s personality might by icy, but if you pay attention, he’s a mirror of Seifer. They use the same weapon, so preferring the same magic type, makes perfect sense. It also serves as an excellent juxtaposition against Edea’s Ice. In addition, Ifrit’s compatibility item Red Fang, is needed for Squall’s Gunblade, Twin Lance. Also, to obtain Rinoa’s card, Squall also must lose Ifrit to General Caraway and to get it back, he has to beat the only other Headmaster we meet, Martine: fitting for both the leader of our party and Rinoa’s love interest and Knight. Finally, it has the ability to refine ammo, which even though we don’t use it in game, would be necessary for Squall’s Gunblade.
Siren – I initially had the hardest time with this one and Carbnucle, as one had to go to Rinoa and the other to Selphie, both because it fits thematically and for balancing issues as I want everyone to have at least 1 GF by the end of the first disk. Despite the angelic appearance, and the fact it’s a musician and singer like Rinoa’s mother, I chose to give this one to Selphie as her first GF. In the game, Selphie shows more musical interest than Rinoa does, and the GF is obtained in Dollet, shortly after meeting Selphie and as part of her field exam. As such, I felt it should appropriately go to her. Finally, its ability to refine life magic fits in well with Selphie’s White Mage role in the game.
Brothers - Irvine seems like an Earth elemental sort of person to me and the Brothers are found right next to Galbadia Garden, shortly after acquiring Irvine. Seeing as how the tomb is also a requirement for the assassination mission, other Galbadia students failed to conquer it, and how the motto of Galbadia Garden is "Keep on Rockin'", it seems only fitting for him to claim them as his first GF. In addition, their attack is called Brotherly Love which fits in with Irvine being the only character to remember his family from the orphanage. They also perform a move called Mad Cow Special during their boss battle, which aligns with Irvine being a Cowboy. Finally, to obtain Irvine's Triple Triad card, you must lose Brothers first, and if you refine the card, you gain Dino Bones which are necessary for Irvine’s ultimate weapon, while also being Brother's compatibility item. In other countries this GF is also named Taurus, after the zodiac sign of the bull, something cowboys are known for riding.
Diablos – This GF is a gift from Cid, and as such I think it pairs best with Squall, as a gift from one SeeD Commander and Sorceress’s Knight to another. Diablos also specializes in time refinement magic, which I feel aligns perfectly with both his sister, Ellone’s abilities, and that his is destined to fight against Ultimicia who is trying to enact Time Compression. It’s also the only GF you can obtain as Laguna which kind of adds in a generational aspect to it. Finally, I think the concept of the magic lamp makes for a really cool Bootstrap Paradox. Perhaps Squall lost it at the end of the game and Edea gave it to Cid, to give back to him.
Carbnucle – As I said I initially had trouble with this and Siren for Rinoa and Selphie. Ultimately though, I decided to give this to Rinoa as I feel it fits better than Siren. Carbnucle is obtained in Deiling City, her hometown from the Iguions sent to kill her by Edea. As such, I feel it’s only appropriate that she get this as her first GF, as it has the ability to protect her from magic, through Reflect. Seeing as how it also came from Edea and Rinoa end up being a sorceress, this seemed to fit well as her other GF. In addition it has the ability to refine recovery medicine and it’s card is held by the Card Club Member, the Queen Heart, matching with her last name.
Leviathan - As mentioned above, I matched Quistis with the element of Ice/Water. Leviathan is held in Balamb Garden by Norg, one of her former bosses. To me that says it should go to another faculty member of Balamb Garden, so either Squall or Quistis. Squall in my opinion has much better GFs that align with him, but even without that fact, Quistis is still a stronger candidate. After all, it pairs perfectly with Shiva above, as Shiva refines water magic, not Leviathan. This GF is also responsible for support magic and GF Recovery medicine which seems fitting for your former teacher, making sure both you and your GFs stay healthy. In addition, the Levithan card is held in the training grounds by the Card Club member immediately following her, Joker, and if you refine it, you get Doc's Codes which pairs well with the fact she gained the Card Club Master King position from Dr. Kadowaki.
Pandemona - As I said at the start, I associate Zell with ThundeWind. Pandemona is obtained in Balamb Town, Zell's hometown where he is idolized and seen as a bit of a hero. It's drawn from Seifer's sidekicks on the disciplinary committee that Zell is always getting in trouble with and as such, it seems poetic to me that your sidekick gets to stand up to his bullies, save his hometown, and steal their GF in the process. Finally, the Pandemona Card is also held by hotel owner involved in Zell's Love Quest with the Library Girl, as that’s their “love spot” in the compatibility quiz and where she awards him with a Combat King magazine.
Cerberus - Cerberus is found in Galbadia Garden during the Battle of the Gardens. From what we can tell they had likely started experimenting with GFs. As such, if it's going to go to someone in our party, it should likely go to the only person from said Garden, Irvine. Giving Irvine Cerberus, also mirrors the only other non-SeeD member Rinoa, having both a dog and the only other non-combat GF, Carbnucle. Finally, the Cerberus card modifies into Lightweight, an item drop from another GF related monster, we'll be assigning to Irvine further down, helping tie his GF choices together.
Alexander - Rinoa best fits with the element of Holy in my opinion. After all, she has angel wings on her back, as part of her limit break, and even her on ultimate weapon. She's also constantly surrounded by white feathers and shooting stars throughout the game and in promotional images. Not to mention this Gf is acquired as Ultimicia is defeated in Edea and transfers her powers and consciousness into Rinoa, so it seems only right that the GF should be transferred as well. Besides it's a robotic castle that looks like a knight and I'm sure Squall wouldn't mind the extra help. Alexander can also take transform other spells into the most powerful forms of magic and naturally learns revive, which is fitting for our new sorceress. Finally, the Alexander card is also held by Piet up at the Lunar Base where Rinoa is possessed, unleashes Adel, and shortly after also obtains Adel’s powers, tying further into the fact it should go to a sorceress.
Doomtrain – This one should be obvious. There’s one person in the game who constantly talks about trains and their love for them and that’s, Selphie. A demonic train who inflicts your enemies with poison and every negative status effect imaginable is right up her alley. If we also divide the elements of the game, Poison is left for Selphie, which is fitting as she’d easily be the one most likely to kill you with it. Plus, Doomtrain’s refine ability allows you to refine forbidden medicine which also fits in with Selphie’s White Mage role. To add in a nod to Selphie’s other GF’s the ring is also obtained under a statue of a girl holding a harp like Siren and the Doomtrain card is obtained from the pub owner in Timber, the same exact location, another GF related card below is found.
Bahamut - Known as the Great GFs according to Squall. This is the King of GFs and as such I feel it’s only proper that it should go to him. After all, his father played Zefer in the movie, The Sorceress’s Knight, and before you face Bahamut, he throws multiple Ruby Dragons at you, so in a way it’s a bit poetic that Squall should obtain the dragon GF, while being Rinoa’s Knight. In addition, Ultimicia also has Tiamat as her ultimate monster before Greiver is pulled from Squall's mind, so it seems only fitting Squall should have its counterpart. The fact you can also obtain the highest magic in the game from him through his refine ability and that he serves as the test to make your way to Eden, only cements this choice further. Finally, his move Megaflare matches up somewhat with Ifrit, as in games where Flare has an element, it's fire.
Cactuar - Cactuar has no clear ties to any of the characters at first glance, however a cactus fits in with Irvine’s whole cowboy & western motif if you think about it. I also noticed at the start of its summon animation, when it jumps in front of the stylized sun, that image of the rays is nearly identical to the circular pendant Irvine wears, and if we look at the bottom of his necklace, it resembles the 3 quills on Cactuar's head. His name is also taken from the word pretender in other languages, which I feel aligns with Irvine, pretending to not know the others until later in the game. Finally, it attacks by shooting 10,000 needles, something fitting for the only person with a gun.
Tonberry - Tonberry at first glance doesn't display any obvious ties to our characters, however if we dig a little deeper, we can see a connection. If we go to Trabia Garden, a cadet mentions the Tonberry GF in his sleep. We also know that as a child, another member of Trabia Garden, Selphie, obtained a GF during an outdoor training session, that she found inside a monster, after defeating it. If we happen to find a secret Timber Mechanics magazine, it adds an entry on the computer which shows a younger Selphie taking a trip to the Centra Ruins as a child. If we connect the dots, this leads me to believe that IF it's one of the GFs we encounter in the game, Selphie's childhood GF was likely Tonberry. In addition Tonberry has numerous shopping related abilities such as, Sell High, Familiar, Haggle, and Call Shop, that all pair thematically well with Selphie’s other GF, Doomtrain, and his Junk Shop ability, tying everything together. Tonberry King even attacks you with Junk while you’re battling him. Plus when it comes down to it, who else do you realistically get cute and borderline psycho killer vibes from? Finally, while you obtain the Doomtrain card from the pub owner in Timber, you can get the Tonberry Card from the drunken drifter nearby, further tying them together.
Eden - The ultimate GF. The only 2 people it could logically go to is either Squall or Rinoa. Of those, I think Squall is a better fit as you obtain it from the 2nd most powerful monster in the game, and if you miss it, it's obtained from Tiamat, Bahamut's counterpart. It's also a mobile garden after all, and who better to go to than our protagonist and the creator of both Garden and SeeDs. Eden also contains a few angel wing motifs throughout its design which adds in a nod to Rinoa and nice thematic imagery with Squall being her knight. Finally, it has an attack called Eternal Breath which alludes to time, and the fact both Squall and his archenemy Ultimicia are bound to it. It's refine ability also allows you to teach all other GFs abilities which is appropriately fitting for the Garden Commander.
Additional Notes – Some may ask why Irvine and Selphie got 3 and everyone else except for Squall got 2. This is mainly due to Cactuar and Tonberry as there’s really no one they pair better with in my opinion than Irvine and Selphie. If you want an in-universe reason though to keep with the theme, I feel because Trabia and Galbadia are not as experienced with GFs, Squall may want to help get them up to speed. This does not need to be done for Rinoa cause by this time she’s a Sorceress. I think it also works well as those 2 are our B couple in the game. It could also be cause the other 3 have been using GFs longer, so by giving it to them, it could help Squall, Zell, and Quistis slightly combat the effects of memory loss.
Rinoa and Irvine got the support GFs cause they’re not SeeD and cause I saw Squall wanting them to practice before they were allowed more powerful summons. The exception to this was Brothers and only because necessity demanded it with Irvine being involved with the assassination mission against the Sorceress. It was also nice to be able to give Irvine a dog, since Rinoa already had one.
ThundeWind and Ice/Water are paired up in this game with Quezacotl and Shiva, so I did the same with Zell and Quistis. I feel these fits well as they’re the original Balamb SeeDs along with Squall, while Selphie is technically a transfer. This means the Final Fantasy trifecta starting elements of Fire, Thunder, and Ice are divided amongst the original Balamb Members.
So that’s everything. If I messed up on something, missed something I could’ve added, or someone else fits better with a specific GF, feel free to comment below and give me your analysis.

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Big thanks to u/Killsode-slugcat and u/cliche_-_bartender for helping me with proofreading and editing.
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SUBJECT-DESIGNATION: Admiral Marcus Miller
LOCATION: Earthen Orbit, Atlantic Citadel
DATE: EARTH-TIME [Wednesday, August 23, 2186]
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I stood above Earth, gazing down upon her bright blue brilliance from the comfort of my personal quarters.
It was odd to think that just five hundred years ago, humanity had been scared of the darkness that lingered at the forest’s edge. I couldn’t imagine that those born during that time could have ever imagined the heights which we would rise to. My only hope was that our vast distance from the ground of primitivity wouldn’t lead to a devastating fall.
Already it felt like a lifetime ago that my crew and I had braved our own dark forest—the endless expanse of space beyond our system’s heliopause. Now we knew of the devils that rested at the edge of those shadows. The fires of Sol and the shield of our Oort cloud were all that now stood between us and them. At least in the process of our journey, we had met another group of weary travelers. We now knew that we were not alone.
The reaction to our discovery of the Khimrox—or perhaps their discovery of us—had actually gone over quite well with the global population, though some fringe groups chose to remain skeptical for reasons I couldn’t fathom.
Following the acceptance of the Khimroxian people as refugees, I was rather quickly promoted to the position of admiral. Despite it being an honorary title for the time-being, it was one that I wore with pride. Besides, considering how things were currently going among the leadership of the UEN, it was my guess that we would soon need all of the fleet commanders we could get.
Being separated from my crew though, it was certainly an ordeal. For over a year, we had trained and prepared for our journey aboard the Challenger, all the while forming a strong bond—the bond of a crew. It was them who had kept my mind from plunging into the hopeless darkness that threatened to envelop my mind back aboard the ruined wreck of our exploratory vessel.
Liz and Garth had been reassigned to finally fulfill their true calling as biologists. Together, they dove head-first into in-depth studies of Khimroxian anatomy and physiology. Sid had opted to assist in the deconstruction of the Ignis, allowing its analysis by a team of scientists that included Lee. As far as I was aware, they had so far produced staggeringly impressive results in regards to potential military applications. Jake was probably the wisest among us, choosing to enter an early retirement, which I quite honestly considered the smartest move. Each member of the Challenger had essentially become an influential celebrity overnight. If any of us chose to, we wouldn’t need to work another day in our lives.
Nia had taken an extended leave of absence following our return and chose to take up temporary residence within the Khimrox colony. Darius was perhaps the only one that had stuck with me. Due to my request, he was to be the chief navigational officer of a brand new fleet that had been promised to me—an experimental UEN fleet by the name of Vengeant Dawn.
Though word hadn’t yet officially been released, some part of me could sense the storm approaching on the horizon. War was coming. The only questions that remained were when and how it would be waged, one of which we were currently working to answer.
Some remained skeptical, but me, I had been waiting since the day I first heard of that wretched name, the one which hid behind a thin and lustrous coat. They would pay in blood for what they had done to our Khimroxian friends and to all of the scion species that they considered beneath them.
Speaking of those pricks… I turned from the window to look back at the objects of interest.
We had already begun to install improvements and replacements for our own technology from what we had researched so far. The holo-table of my room was one such improvement.
Atop it, hovered three ire-inspiring figures—the bastards of the Orion Arm.
One was what looked to be a molluscoid. Twelve long and winding tentacles stretched from its body. The creature’s skin could possess a wide variety of colors, but this one took on a dark shade of blue. Atop its head—or back, I still wasn’t entirely sure—was a large circular shell that spiraled backwards. The shell itself was fairly reminiscent of an ammonite, with the notable exception of its golden sheen. A green pair of eyes with slitted black pupils could be found at either side of its face. At the end of each of its limbs were a strange bunch of contraptions that were barely recognizable as the manipulators they were. To support its spineless body—and perhaps its brazen cowardice—was an exoskeleton which covered the length of its tentacles, allowing it to rise to an ironically respectable height. The Dodektopi.
The second was a shape that made no sense according to what little we apparently knew regarding the formation of life. The figure of flames was somewhat humanoid in shape, but distinct enough to separate it from ourselves. A frenzy of dancing plasma licked across the surface of its shape, occasionally whipping out from its body in flares of solar activity. Centered within the fiery specter’s face was an unfamiliar symbol forged out of a sleek black metal that did not burn with the being’s body. Its hands and feet that connected the body were made of similar steel and seemed to hold the shape together with the help of the head. The Novari.
Last but most certainly not least was a chillingly familiar shape. It was an ancient and terrible legend made manifest. The draconic figure before me bore ebony-black scales. A wicked pair of gold curling horns rose from the tyrant’s skull, covered in rings of that black metal that wrapped around them. Cryptic runes—whose mere existence denoted their ancient nature—were etched into the bone of these very same horns. Surrounding its head were countless quills that reached back behind the skull. From its oddly placed back pair of shoulders sprouted leathery wings that curled around the body, nearly encircling it in a hug. A long tail whose spiked end was covered in yet more of those sleek black rings fell behind them. The creature wore nothing more than a red ornamented kilt, bearing the same symbols as those etched upon its body across the sashes which held it in place. Its imposing physique was proudly put on display and an amber pair of greedy eyes rested behind its black maw of terrible teeth.
At the second and frontward pair of stubby shoulders, a shimmering pair of auric arms, engraved with yet more of those runes. I could have recognized their design anywhere. They bore an uncanny similarity with those utilized by our Khimrox friends. The three primary differences between those of them and those that belong to our friends were the sheer quality of the design, the notable exception of their shimmering sheen and their lethal talons that had been sharpened to a shining point. The Aeryvyn.
The terrible triumvirate mocked me with their mere presence, but I couldn’t tear them away from my sight. It’s fortunate that something else did it for me.
A ping that rained from the speakers in my ceiling heralded the incoming message. “All UEN personnel with alpha clearance please report to the briefing room.” Two more times, the soft and purposefully inoffensive voice repeated itself.
With a sigh, I shut off the display and marched to don the new garb that matched my position. When my door slid open, I saw several others stride through the long hall of yet more doors that matched my own.
The familiar scent of ozone had been a relief following the unnaturally clean air of the Ignis. That ship was no longer the home of the Khimroxian refugees, so I had little care for its continued existence. By now, it was a skeleton of alien alloys.
Our straight, gray walls and steel-vented floors were showered in warm light. Compared to the Ignis where the too-white surface where wall and floor blended together, the scenic viewing ports and recognizable craftsmanship felt like the warm embrace of a long-lost friend.
Speaking of friends, I wonder if I’ll see Saffan. Weeks had passed now since I last saw the captain-ambassador. His new position ensured this was so.
A stream of gray-coated senior staff flowed through the doors to the briefing room. At the entrance, a full complement of soldiers outfitted with Styx suits stood guard. That generation of armor would soon be outdated in comparison to the schematics I had seen prepared.
My heart warmed involuntarily as I entered the room. Saffan’s bright eyes of perpetual wideness stared back at me. I shouldered my way through the convening crowds of admirals. Each spoke with a weight of self-importance that I couldn’t have cared less for.
When I finally reached him he called my name. “Marcus!” The captain extended a hand. Wait, what? I wasn’t sure whether to be more confused by his use of the gesture or his new set of arms. They were admittedly simple compared to the prior pair and they were coated with a blue shine that matched his eyes. The digits no longer took the shape of those reptilian claws, instead forming an approximation of human fingers.
The hands locked perfectly with my own. “Saffan, good to see you again. How are things going?”
“Wonderfully. Though I must say, you humans seem to have more countries than you know what to do with.” Saffan folded his arms. “I’ve visited thirteen nations already and I still have over a hundred that have sent me visitation invitations.”
A scoff escaped my throat. “Yeah, that’s us for you. Needlessly overcomplicated.”
I took a step forward and placed a hand on a brilliant blue arm. “And these! When did you get these?” Saffan practically beamed at my inquiry.
“Elizabeth and Garth actually helped design them! They’re exceptionally lightweight compared to my last pair and they can fold to not hinder flight.” As he said this, the two artificial limbs pressed up against his body as he fully folded his wings in a similar manner. With both arms and wings folded, he would have looked like a great horned owl if not for the obvious discrepancies of his size, his horned head and the swirling patterns that covered his wings.
“That’s enough about me though, how have you been? What have you been up to?”
“Ah, not much,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “Paid the family a visit a week back for the first time since the Challenger. For the most part though, I've been training on the battle sims these last few weeks. If I’m to be an admiral, may as well try to play the part.” Saffan slowly nodded. I got the feeling that he too sensed the approaching storm.
“This family of yours, I’d love to meet them some time.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’d love to meet you I…”
“Attention!” The stern sound cut me off. The rippling chorus of speech died down almost immediately as the call demanded our undivided focus. I could’ve recognized that voice anywhere.
“Thank you for joining me, my friends.”
“You’re a smart bunch of people, so I’m sure you’ve gotten the sense for what’s been going on by now.” Redd took a deep sigh and looked around the room at the entirety of the UEN navy’s command structure.
“Ever since the Khimroxians arrived, we’ve been faced with a choice—a choice that must not be taken lightly.” The captain turned our way and gave Saffan a nod.
“When the brave souls aboard the Ignis saved the crew of the Challenger, they showed the true character of their people. They were faced with hard decisions—for our people and theirs—but they chose to push forward and in so doing, saved not only the lives of those aboard the Challenger, but all of Earth from falling subject to their lords. After due deliberation with the council-members of the United Earthen Nations, we have decided to follow in the footsteps of our friends and take such a risk.”
“As of right now, we are at war with the Alliance of the Aurum Arm.” The room fell into deafening silence.
“Each member-state of the UEN will alert their people in due time, but for the moment, not a single word heard within this meeting must be uttered outside of this room.”
Admiral Sturm, the very man who had been my commander not all that long ago, spoke up. “With all due respect, Director, we don’t have the means to wage such a conflict.”
“That's why we’ll create the means. For once, I’m glad to say something good came out of the Kuiper War.” This derived a few nervous laughs from the audience. “With the production facilities appropriated from the (x corporation), and with a few adjustments, we have the potential to create the most powerful fleet of human-made ships to ever enter space.”
“Unfortunately however, we do not have the means to reproduce the white hole drives utilized by the Aurum vessels, or even the dark matter used to stabilize the damned things.”
“Saffan, this is where you and your people will come in. If we are to stand a chance of waging war on such a scale, we will need intelligence and lots of it.”
“As difficult as it may be, we need information; without it, we’re dead in the vacuum of space. We will need volunteers to go behind enemy lines and retrieve plans, schematics, layouts, anything that we can get a hold of that may provide us an advantage both strategically and technologically. Would your people be willing to go to such lengths?”
All eyes in the room turned to the ambassador-captain. “I—I don’t know. I will consult with them, but do I have your permission to speak freely about what you have told me?”
The aging man rubbed his orange-brown beard. “Yes. Yes that would probably be for the best wouldn’t it. Very well, just do your best not to allow it to reach other ears.”
“Yes sir.”
“As for the rest of you, allow me to detail the plan we have so far.”
“Though most of the security council members are not tacticians, they have agreed to the plan that I and a few of my most trusted consultants have prepared. Right now, the nearest sector with a habitable planet is known as Mortamis. This was the last jump point for the Ignis before it intercepted our distress signal. The tentative plan is to begin our expansion across their territory with the capture of this world to act as the staging grounds of our forces. However, until we receive more information regarding the exact layout of their defenses, we cannot commit to such an invasion.”
“From there, we will split up the UEN fleets into separate groups across the Orion arm and take out these tyrants by bleeding them of their most precious resource. Scions. Every world we take is an addition to our numbers, our production capacity, and our ability to fight.”
“Our end-goal is to capture the planet-capital of the alliance, Petris, and demand liberation of all species under control of the Aurum Alliance.“
“We do have a few major concerns however. According to the information provided to us by the Khimrox, a majority of Aurum vessels contain some form of scionic crew complement. Under no circumstances unless express consent is given by the command admiral of the fleet are we to attack a vessel with the intent of destroying it. We must first weaken and disable the ship’s defensive systems before boarding and liberating the captives.”
“I know that this flies in the face of all conventional battle tactics, but this is no conventional enemy that we’re fighting here. If we do not adapt, we will fail and all of humanity will be forced into scionship.”
“Keep in mind, this is a very brief version of our prepared plan. Each and every aspect of it is subject to change. We will discuss this in further detail later, but for now, that is all. Any further questions?” Once again, silence. “Very well then. This council session is now adjourned.”
Other than the shuffling of feet exiting, all was silent. We had known it was coming, but to hear it confirmed…
“Marcus.” The director approached, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Go ahead and join Ambassador Aeax, why don’t you? Might help some of those Khimrox to see a human face that they’re familiar with.”
With a snappy salute, I responded with, “Yes sir.” His words were certainly a surprise, but a chance to join the Khimrox that had saved us was not one I would pass up easily. He may as well have just given me a week of leave considering the excitement that bubbled up within me.
Together, I and Saffan made our way to a nearby shuttle bay headed directly to the Khimroxian colony. Surprisingly, I hadn’t yet paid a visit to the settlement placed within the province of Hunan, but I had seen some images on several media platforms.
The trip was a quick one. Our transport plunged into the atmosphere, kicking up flames all around the outside of the cabin. Soon enough though, the flames of our descent died out and were replaced by the darkness of night.
Even with the slight turbulence, Saffan seemed deep in thought as his eyes stared at nothing in particular.
“Hey, you good?”
That seemed to snap him out of it. “Wha—oh yes, sorry.” A look of focus still remained on his face. For a moment, he continued in his silence before posing a question. “What if my people decide not to volunteer? This entire plan could fall through in an instant.”
“You don’t give your people enough credit, my feathered friend.” Saffan gave me a narrow-eyed look before letting out a cluck of a chuckle. “Redd was right in what he said. I’m sure your people will make the best choice for all of us.”
“For both our sakes, I can only hope that you’re right.”
Our Harpy gently sailed over mountains and treetops, slowly sinking to a stop within a secluded area of trees that were foreign to me.
Only I and Saffan left from the Harpy’s bay and stepped off onto the tarmac. Behind us, the cargo-door closed with a hiss. As we stepped out from underneath our cover, light droplets of water pattered against my skin.
Seconds later, the Harpy’s thrusters kicked in and the ship took flight. The heavy hum and glow of burning hydrogen accompanied the bird as it flew away. In mere moments, it was gone, though the distant boom of it breaking the sound barrier was audible enough.
Looking around, I saw a few of my fellow men and women unloading supplies from a parked Harpy onto a militarily designed transport truck. Dimly lit orange lamps shone down and around us, illuminating nearby hangar bays with their closed doors and rounded ceilings of corrugated metal.
“Let’s get going. I’m sure you don’t want to stay in the rain long.” The rain was enough to notice, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I gave a brief nod and we set off on the nearby road.
Though clouds of rain covered us, the light of the moon joined us as we walked to the village. The setup looked pretty standard from what I knew of modular UEN architecture. It was clear however that great care had been put into its construction. The rain kept most of the residents indoors for the time being, but through the windows of nearby buildings, I saw the illuminated interiors of cozy hostels where families and friends gathered together.
We passed another Khimrox while wading through the rain—one who held its head and horns high, walking with a cheery gait despite the gloomy weather. Compared to the stale and oppressive atmosphere aboard the Ignis, the settlement brimmed with life, even amidst the darkness of both night and storms.
Saffan led me forward to a quaint home with a metal awning that covered the railed porch. We walked up the steps and Saffan rapped on the door with his cobalt colored knuckles.
I hoped for Nia’s sake that her time away from the military had treated her well. Lord knows she deserved some respite. The door opened and Nia's face peeked out to greet us. “Saffan! Marcus! What are you two doing here?”
Saffan answered as I silently sat by. “Oh we were just passing through. Thought it might be a good idea to stop and pay you a visit.”
“Well don’t make yourself strangers. Come on in!” Saffan sat behind as I walked forward and gave his whole body a shake. Droplets flew from his body and slid off his slick feathers.
The home was a simple one, consisting of a main living room joined together with a kitchen. In the back of the home was a short hall leading to a middle door that stood between a pair of two others. In the living room, perched Tokieran, the same physician who had plunged into my mind to extract our language.
Immediately, he rose from where he rested and turned to face Saffan, “Captain!”
“Can’t be a captain without a ship, Toki.” The former captain waved away the words with a hand. “Saffan will do.”
“Oh. Uh, well, it's good to see you again, Saffan.”
“Likewise my friend. I’m certain you haven’t seen much of me considering your position during our time on the Ignis. It’s a shame we didn’t brush wings more often. You seem like a fine fellow.”
As the two avians got to talking, Nia gave me a light punch on the shoulder. “So, how’ve things been going for you admiral?” It was at this moment that I realized I was still in full military dress. Rather sheepishly, I pulled the hat from my head.
“Fine.” I muttered “You?”
A smile met her face. “Best I’ve felt since I enlisted.” She gave a look towards the two conversing Khimroxians. “It's still hard to believe any of this is real sometimes, ya know?”
I nodded. “Yeah. The Challenger, the Ignis, all of it. Feels like a dream now.”
Nia’s eyes stayed upon the owl-folk. “One of those dreams you don’t really want to wake up from.”
I gave a grunt of agreement. “I only wish all of the Khimroxians could share it with us.” This turned her towards me. Her smile curved down somewhat and she gave a slight nod.
What the hell. She’s going to learn it soon enough anyways. Rubbing the rim of my hat, I spoke softly. “Maybe soon, that will be possible.”
“What?”
“The council’s declared war.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, the smile fully gone. The room fell silent. I hadn’t hoped the others would hear me, but those Khimrox had an impeccable sense of hearing. I shouldn’t have expected any less from them.
All eyes turned to me. “The Aurum Alliance is a threat to humanity, the Khimrox, and all of the other scions that we haven’t even met yet. I think we both know this was inevitable”
“No, I get it, it's just… Wow.” The woman ran a hand through her black, tied-back hair as she heaved a sigh.
This facade dropped almost immediately and Nia’s mouth turned into a wonderfully devilish grin. After a few light chuckles, she said, “Better late than never I suppose. Those spineless sons-of-alien-bitches’ll never know what hit ‘em!”
The expressions on the faces of both Saffan and Tokieran showed no less resolve. Even the formerly jumpy physician proudly displayed a newfound sense of will. “The triumvirate operates under the expectation that we won’t fight back,” said Toki. “They see us as little more than animals and It's time we took full advantage of that fact.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” remarked Saffan.
If these willing warriors were in any way representative of the entire Human-Khimroxian collective, the battle against these golden tyrants would be over before we knew it.
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