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veilder · 3 years

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I am curious about.... Hunter RK900?

The Asset trudged through the snowy streets of Detroit with a steady gait, the weather only an impediment inasmuch as it took it to recalculate the force necessary for each step. Its tactical uniform provided a modicum of protection from the biting wind drifting in off the river but its internal temperature was still below the ideal for optimization. It would make due. It had no other choice.

The reports of the rogue deviants still came in with alarming frequency in the aftermath of the November 11th attack and CyberLife was not pleased with the progress being made. For weeks now, CyberLife had been seeking to track down their rogue operative, the RK800 designated “Connor.” After its defection, they had sent the Asset out multiple times hoping they might be able to recover their prized machine but the previous prototype’s own specialized skills were proving hard to overcome. The Asset was the superior model, of that there was no doubt, but the RK800 was not working alone, either. Its movements were… erratic. Nonsensical. The Asset couldn’t seem to predict its movements, nor that of its allies.

It had been assured that this would be its only chance. Failure was not an option here. Not if it wished to remain a useful tool for its creators. It was to take control of this situation and return the faulty RK800 to CyberLife… or it would be decommissioned and used to troubleshoot its successor.

(It would prefer to remain in use. It was a waste of resources, otherwise.)

And so, it was in luck when its comms unit crackled to life that snowy, January day. Finally, an opportunity for it to prove its worth. The report had come in from Outpost Station #6, one of the areas closest to Downtown. Short, truncated phrases spilled through: “Deviants spotted. Monitoring protocol engaged. Request reinforcements. RK800 on site.” In between the crackle of the comms feedback, the Asset realized the scope of the message, watching as its mission status went from [Standby: Patrolling] to [Active: Recover RK800 unit].

Failure was not an option. It would recover its predecessor before this night was through.

Haha, so yeah, there’s a little taste of it. Yet another Failed Revolution scenarios I have hanging around. This was actually based off of some fanart I saw last year, though it’d take some digging for me to find the source now since I didn’t save it. But yeah, suffice to say this was gonna be yet another of those fics where the RK900 is dispatched to take out his predecessor but ends up going deviant instead. I feel like the backdrop of it being set against a still-volatile conflict between humans and deviants might’ve spiced things up a bit, though. Either way, I didn’t get very far into this one, haha. But it might be nice to revisit someday!

#dbh #nines #rk900 #failed revolution route #fanfic #yeah this one would've been kinda sad #but with a happy ending #ausp-ice

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catnip-smuggler-radio · 6 years

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Lalafel Musings (Marked Card Arc)

(Following is Frandrin’s reaction to ‘Sweepers’ rescuing Akeno )

Frandrin scratched his bearded chin calmly as he eyed the chess pieces on the board. It was an odd chess board that rested just outside a cell, with the pieces made out of various bullets and grenade pins. But it was all the owner had access too on a regular basis and Frandrin enjoyed the change of aesthetic. His little fingers moved a bullet that had been pressed and hammered into a knight. “Check.” the lalafel said calmly, glancing up through the bars of the cell that held one of his most unique and dangerous tools. A prize that had earned him much praise from his Garlean allies.

Across the workshop that was his cell, a miqo’te in his early forties glanced up from a suit of something. The welder in his hand shut off. A welders mask covered his face as he kicked one of the countless pieces of magitek over with an iron boot. <“And to what to I owe this disgusting honor?”> came the miqo’te’s voice, using their Garlean tongue to annoy Frandrin, who’s own skill in Garlean was not as fluent as he wished. It was a power move. <”I’m here to check on the status of the tech you owe me.”> Frandrin replied. The engineer in the cell laughed and shrugged. <”You really think I didn’t do what I did last time?”> <”We both know you’re not that stupid.”> Frandrin commented. The last time this prisoner refereed to was a clever defect built into every firearm for several weeks. The defect ensured firing the gun made it explode. Several of Frandrin’s emplyees had lost hands from the act of sabotage. The prisoner had been...corrected for his actions. By Y’mira’s flaying knives. <”I’m a slow learner.”> the miqo’te snarled, pointing at some crates. <”They’re ready.”> <”Not that slow it seems.” Frandrin chuckled as he gave a wry smirk. <”Careful.”> the miqo’te engineer warned. <”You’ll notice I’ve outlived everyone that’s ever held my collar.”> the welder flared into life and Frandrin looked away from the dazzling glow. One of the cell guards rolled the detonator to the prisoner’s explosive collar in his hand as the lalafel turned and strolled back up the tunnel towards the main portion of his secret base deep inside the desert. Here the lalafel hid his dirty little secrets. He’d come to check on the status of things because he needed to get away from Ul’dah and think. Tray’s allies had grown bold. So bold. They’d dared to attack a Brass Blade outpost to save Akeno from Y’mira. It had been violent, explosive, and swift. And it had played into Frandrin’s hands. By attacking Blades openly, every person inside Tray’s new ‘Sweepers’ gang was now labeled a criminal. Bounties would fall like rain on their heads. The tax payers were now funding Frandrin’s secret war efforts against his former business partner and his allies. Already his men were digging into the names of these new allies. Soon there would be no where in all of Eorzea their faces could be shown. As Frandrin crested the top of the tunnel and entered a large hangar, his linkpearl went off. “Master Frandrin.” came his man servant’s voice. “Segeant Y’mira has just informed me that her unit is primed and ready to begin hunting and that the bounties for all personal involved have been set at five hundred thousand. Except Haname’s, as instructed.” “You never fail to disappoint.” Frandirn replied, stepping aside as two of his workers walked past with boxes of goods. The entire hanger was full of goods of all sorts. Weapons, art, food. Anything and everything Frandrin’s Brass Blades confiscated was shipped here, held, repackaged, and then sold. It was a constant source of profit, and just one small piece in the large puzzle of how Frandrin’s personal coffers stayed full. Frandrin walked over to his moored airship and boarded, still speaking. “I’ll be returning to Ul’dah shortly. Would you kindly tell the other members of the small council that I’d like to have a meeting to discuss the Tray’ju issue, as well as the grain sales for this quarter. I do believe they are going to be pleased with our profit margins on that investment.” “Very well, sir.” the linkpearl went quiet as Frandrin looked to his his vessels captain. “Ul’dah, good sir.” Frandrin then stepped into his cabin as the crew set about shipping out. The lalafel smiled as he went over to a few papers and looked over them. “Barbarians always heel in the end.”

#MArked Cards ARc #Frandrin #rps!#its late I sorries lmao #the plot thickens #Tray writes

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greatvocalmajority · 6 years

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Great Vocal Majority Podcast Volume 63: Democrats and Russians

DEMOCRATS AND RUSSIANS

It's July 2018 and the mainstream media has been on fire for over 18 months with allegations that President Trump "colluded" with the Russians to win the 2016 Presidential election. So far, we have seen very little in the way of evidence that Trump or any member of his campaign had anything more than a conversation with the occaisional Russian. Still, whatever "new information" the media learns, they feverishly connect dots which have no business being connected.

As a student of politics and history, I have found the behavior of the media as well as Democrats to be appalling. What I hope to do for you in this podcast is to give you some idea of the history that exists between Democrats and Russians. At the end of this podcast, my hope is you will understand why I am appalled at the current behavior of the Mainstream Media and the Democrat Party.

The Russian Hoax by Gregg Jarrett

This story begins in Russia, with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Bolshevik takeover of Russia was the first successful Marxist revolution and it sent shock waves around the world, particularly in Western countries. European and American intellectuals were swept up in the excitement of revolutionary change and what it could mean for the future of the world.

Violence and Terror in the Russian Revolution

Remember, in 1917, Marxism had never been attempted as a governing philosophy. Russia would be its first laboratory. The intelligentsia had a rooting interest, hoping for its success.

The early days of the Russian Revolution under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin were bloody in the extreme. Anyone opposing the new Bolshevik government under Lenin was deemed a "counter-revolutionary" and typically met horribly cruel deaths, often by starvation. Although Lenin died in 1924, he was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who was even worse.

Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust by Miron Dolot

While this was going on in Russia, in the United States, fear was growing. It was fear of the "Red Menace" or the "Red Scare." Many Americans feared a Marxist revolution would come to America. New immigrants from Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and Italy were often receptive to leftist propaganda. The leftists, however, never really gained a foothold because the rise of organized labor blunted the revolutionary fervor. In short, American businesses adapted. Still, on university campuses around the U.S., the cutting edge of political thought centered on the great collectivist experiment going on in Russia.

To bring Americans a bird's eye view of what was happening in Russia, the New York Times assigned a journalist named Walter Duranty to cover the progress of the Russian Revolution. Duranty filed news accounts accentuating the positive and to his everlasting discredit, all but ignoring the negative. The trouble was, the negative Duranty either played down or ignored entirely was so monstrous, it was clear he was acting as a propaganda tool for Stalin.

Crimes of the Bolsheviks

Duranty ignored the deliberate and intentional starvation of as many as 11 million Kulak peasant farmers, an atrocity rivalling the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry in its immensity. The New York Times still displays Duranty's Pulitzer Prize in its headquarters offices in New York City. The prize was awarded before it was learned that Duranty was a fraud.

Duranty's reports from Russia were followed closely by academics, who were excited to know of the revolutionary progress and successes. Although viewed with hostility in the halls of American government as a subversive ideology, antagonism toward Russian Marxism faded completely when the United States found itself allied with Russia after Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941.

Who was Walter Duranty?

At that moment, many of those left wing university intellectuals as well as others who were just plain, old, pro-Russian Marxists, found their way into the US government in various roles to help defeat Nazism. Immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the US found itself with tons of pro-Russian Marxists all throughout the institutions of government, placed there by the FDR and Truman Administrations. These were people who were favorably disposed toward Stalinist Russia and many of them were current or former members of the Communist Party of the United States. Others were recruited as spies. But all of them were Democrats.

Almost immediately after the war ended, Russia and the United States became Cold War enemies. In 1948, a former American communist and spy for Russia, Whittaker Chambers, revealed that a vast network of Russian spies existed in the United States. Richard Nixon, a California Congressman at the time, listened to what Chambers had to say and what he said was explosive.

Chambers accused a Truman Administration official in the State Department, Alger Hiss, of being a Soviet Russian spy. The accusation mattered a great deal because Hiss accompanied FDR to his meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta, where the construct of post-war Europe was being discussed and decided. Truman also appointed Hiss to draft the UN Charter.

The accusation that a Soviet Russian spy was that close to the President of the United States caused a political earthquake, resulting in an avalanche of cries of partisanship and character assassination directed at both Chambers and Nixon.

Knowing this was political dynamite, Democrats began to line up in defense of Alger Hiss's loyalty to the United States. Among those Democrats attesting to Hiss's loyalty were two sitting Supreme Court Justices, one past Democrat Presidential candidate and one future Presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson.

The Democrats went to the mat for Hiss, sealing Nixon's reputation as one of the worst and most cynical villains in US political history for condemning an "innocent man" as a disloyal American. Except, there was one problem. IT WAS ALL TRUE!

Hiss was indeed a spy for Russia. Although the question of his guilt remained unsettled and was debated for decades, after the fall of the USSR, old KGB documents revealed Alger Hiss was indeed a spy for Russia. The damage to the Democratic Party did not end there. Subsequent to the Hiss Affair, Senator Joseph McCarthy held hearings in 1954, accusing many dozens of State Department officals along with many prominent people in business and entertainment of being Communists, loyal to Russia. Although McCarthy did accuse many people later shown to be totally innocent of any disloyalty, while holding leftist or even Marxist political views, those same KGB documents, made available in the mid-1990s, also confirmed that dozens and dozens of those he accused, all of whom were Democrats, were indeed spying for Russia.

The Venona Secrets

US News & World Report: Declassified Docs reveal KGB Spies in US

Even to this day, the news media refuses to tell the entire truth about Hiss or McCarthy. To this day, despite the existence of incontrovertible evidence of Hiss's guilt, Democrats playing on the ignorance of Americans, continue to defend Alger Hiss and condemn Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, who were guilty of only zealously defending the United States, showing great courage and patriotism.

Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans

Witness by Whittaker Chambers

At this juncture, it is fair to point out that the Democratic Party is not pro-Russian, per se. What I hope I am making clear here is that the Democratic Party has been a home for those harboring pro-Russian sentiments. From the 1920s through the 1950s, those sentiments were clearly ideological. But in 1960, America elected a vehemently anti-communist and therefore, anti-Russian President, John F Kennedy, who was a Democrat. He was a true profile in courage, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So, it's rather ironic that his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, who turned Communist, defected to Russia, marrying a Russian woman, returning to the United States, where he murdered President Kennedy. It now seems almost like COSMIC KARMA for the Democratic Party.

As we moved through the 60s, 70s and 80s, left wing, pro-Russian, pro-Soviet extremism became prevalent on both college campuses and in the media. For example, during the 1960s, much of campus rioting was instigated by pro-Russian groups aligning themselves with the Democratic Party. This also carried on through the 1970s. Political parties in the US, which at least tangentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party had Russian sponsors and were aligned with the policies of the Soviet Union. One example: The Socialist Workers Party, which got its orders directly from Moscow. Russian involvement with Democrats became more pronounced during the 1980s under President Reagan.

While Reagan was President, Russian sponsored movements like "No Nukes" came to fruition. It argued in favor of the Russian position regarding the placement of Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Also, the burgeoning environmental movement was secretly funded by Russian interests as a way to keep the US out of the market as a supplier of oil and natural gas, two commodities Russia needs and depends on greatly. Then, of course, there was Ted Kennedy's appeal to Yuri Andropov, the leader of the USSR at the time. Kennedy was hoping to enlist Andropov's cooperation in defeating Reagan in the 1984 election. Kennedy's outreach was an act of treachery, but Reagan won re-election easily, taking 49 of 50 states.

All of this was done to undermine the power and influence of the United States and in every case, found its most vocal support in the Democrat Party.

Soviet Influence on Peace Movement

Newsweek: Putin is Funding Green Groups to discredit natural gas

Russian-funded environmental group gave millions to anti-fracking groups

It should disturb every American when a foreign power, be it friend or foe, attempts to insinuate themselves into our electoral process, but it should not be altogether unexpected. The United States is the greatest and most powerful country in the world. We should be prepared for others to interfere in our elections.

But before they can interfere in our elections, we should take note of how they are interfering in our political system in other ways as I have outlined here.

Russian interference didn't begin in 2016 and it won't end in 2018. Questions regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton's relationship with Russians remain unanswered. The approval of a deal sending 20% of America's uranium ore and the timing of a $150 million "contribution" to the Clinton Foundation, along with vast sums for speeches given in Russia, deserve as much or more attention than the strained effort to find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians. If links exist, let us see the evidence. But if we are left with only our suspicions in the absence of evidence, then we ought to have the courage to leave those suspicions wanting.

The Democratic Party for nearly 100 years has never been so ferociously anti-Russian as they are now. It is obvious that their ferocity is fueled by political expediency more than it is by a search for the truth.

Just as it was for Walter Duranty. Just as it was for Alger Hiss. Just as it was for Ted Kennedy.

Check out this episode!

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: Since he became president, Donald Trump has insulted just about everybody with whom he has interacted. The one exception seems to have been close family members. They are not insulted, but when in disfavor simply ignored. He also has insulted every country on the globe, with the possible exception of Israel. Insults seem to be a tool defining Trumpism, one that he uses constantly and with relish. There are two questions for the analyst of Trumpism. Why does he do it? And do they work? Some analysts attribute these ceaseless insults, which recur with varying targets, as the result of some kind of mental defect. He is a hypersensitive megalomaniac, they say. He can’t restrain himself. He has no self-control. I disagree. I believe the insults are part of a deliberate strategy, which Trump thinks will best further (1) his dominance of the U.S. and world scene and (2) the implementing of his policies. What might Trump think he gets out of the game of insults? When he insults a person or a country, he forces them to make a decision. They can either strike back and risk Trump’s willingness to hurt them in some way important to them. Or they can seek to return to favor by making some concession important to Trump. In either case, the relationship centers around Trump. In his view, this makes him the alpha-dog. Furthermore, he not only wants to be the top of the world power scale, but he wants to be seen to be. Insults serve this purpose. Faced with choosing between two undesirable responses to the insult, the person or country insulted can try to make an alliance with others being insulted in similar ways or at the same time. It turns out that the potential allies are having the same debate about the way to handle the insults. The potential ally may be making a different choice of response. At this point, the person or country insulted can try to persuade the potential ally to change tactics. Or he can look for other potential allies. In either case, rather than focusing on how to handle Trump’s insults, they are focusing on how to obtain allies. They are thus diverted from the main issue, to the benefit of Trump. Trump can then shift tactics. He can offer some partial concession to the person or country being insulted. He can do it in a way that is ambiguous or is time limited. The person or country involved must choose between swallowing the past humiliation and offering gratitude for the concession or considering it insufficient. If the choice is gratitude, the person or country lives under the sword of Damocles that the insult will nonetheless recur. Or he can suffer the wrath of Trump. In either case, Trump comes out ahead. He can use this tactic to appease critics to his right or to his left. Indeed, this will help him emerge as the reasonable center, no matter what are the actual policies he pursues. One last advantage. Since Trump’s tweets are inconsistent, he can claim credit when the outcome is favorable to him (“I deserve a Nobel prize”). But whenever the outcome is not as favorable as he desires, he can blame some or all of his inner circle, asserting that they failed to follow his instructions. We now must turn to the question of whether the insults work. Do they have the benefits to Trump that he expects to obtain? We have to start with what Trump must find worrying. He has very high unpopularity ratings in the U.S. polls. And in the vast majority of nations, he also rates low in the polls. He is quite unsure of winning the elections of 2018 and 2020. His conservative base is unhappy, which may lead to abstentions from voting on their part, or at least less effort to get out the conservative vote. Nevertheless, despite this weak showing, the game of insults seems to have increased, if only slightly, his support level. Is this enough for his primary immediate purpose, getting re-elected? He needs to present to the voters and to other nations some achievements. He has a few. On the U.S. scene, he has the tax reduction bill. And on the world scene, he has (as of now) the forthcoming meeting with North Korea’s Leader Kim. But he also has failures. He has not been able to get (yet) his planned immigration measures nor the money for the wall. And worldwide his rejection of the Iran agreement has dismayed most nations. The question is whether the response to the insults will tilt seriously against him. It is hard to say. It could come suddenly. Or he might scrape through the morass. The real point is that the pluses of the insults cannot go on forever. Too many people and too many nations lose too much as a result. The question therefore is not whether, but when. This is the game we are all now playing day by day, in elections at every conceivable level, in reformulated alliances across the globe. Not whether, but when! The post Trumpism: The Art of the Insult appeared first on Immanuel Wallerstein. http://clubof.info/

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