#omicron zone

[jackoftheace]

LANCAE

[sirensongsea]

ᴅᴏ ᴀɴᴅʀᴏɪᴅꜱ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴏꜰ ᴇʟᴇᴄᴛʀɪᴄ ᴋᴀʀᴀᴋᴜʟ?

[thesmollestnerd]

All of this not to mention we're seeing that trust slowly being rebuilt. It takes time. The more Cross opens up to the Batch about what happened, the more trust is there.

For the people who keep hating on Hunter: yall need to realize this poor man has been traumatized too. Hunter has probably been trained/conditioned out of expressing his emotions deeply, because he had to prioritize the safety of his squad, he had to be the level head. I cannot begin to tell you how much that fucks with your psyche to put everyone's needs before your own.

For fucks sake, you think he didn't internalize Crosshair's 'betrayal' as a reflection on himself? You think he wasn't shattered by the loss of Tech? Worried sick and terrified for Omega?

He might be cautious around Cross bit it's clear he loves his brother so damn much, even if he was hurt, even if he doesn't initially trust him.

I really really do not think Hunter is jealous of the attention Crosshair is getting from Omega. That’s not how that scene registered with me at all. He’s not insecure like that and, despite widespread fanon beliefs, he doesn’t have this unjustified vendetta against Crosshair. He has legitimate grievances and valid reasons to not trust him.

I think he really values Omega’s opinion. He knows she’s just a kid but he also knows how smart she is. What she thinks matters to him, so if he can see that she genuinely trusts Crosshair enough to copy his mannerisms, it might make him reconsider how much of his own trust he can give back to Crosshair too.

At the same time, he’ll also just be worried about her. He wants her to be right about Crosshair, but he’s not willing to risk losing her again on the off chance she isn’t.

So it’s a bit of both. He wants to be able to trust Crosshair again, but he’s still being cautious and that is completely understandable.

People want Hunter to be a terrible person so bad and it baffles me. He’s never done anything other than act like a human and that means he’ll make mistakes, sure, but at his core he’s a genuinely good person. He’s just tired of losing people and isn’t willing to take as many chances anymore.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Do not give them Toys

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

When the human government wished to initiate trade with the Filthrax Conglomerate the Filthrax were understandably cautious. They had always been sensitive when it came to sharing technology with other species. To that end they had an extensive amount of restrictions on what could and couldn’t be traded; excluding much of their more advanced technology from ever reaching the market.

The humans in comparison were technologically inferior to the Filthrax in nearly every aspect so they pictured the humans to heavily lobby for advanced technology to be made available. So it was with some surprise that when negotiations began the humans did not lobby for advanced technology, they instead seemed deeply invested in obtaining the Filthrax toys.

This was not something the negotiators had expected. Research into human culture had showed a deep rooted sense of aggression, towards outsiders and themselves when promoted, which made them believe that the first opening bid would be towards military grade technology.

Sensing the discord, the human diplomats explained that while they would like more advanced technology to be an option, they understood the hesitance and reluctance to trade such dangerous items. They said they would be fine earning the Filthrax’s trust over an extended period of time through trade. It seemed that several human enterprises had their eyes on Filthrax toys and they seemed like a safe enough items to begin trade. The Filthrax agreed and so trade lines were opened between the great powers.

What the aliens saw as a harmless deal was in fact the first foot in the door that could never be closed.

Several million orders for toys were placed almost overnight and the economic boon was felt overnight throughout the Filthrax Conglomerate. None of them understood the fascination humans had with their trinkets but if they were willing to pay then they would be more than happy to sell. It wasn’t until the Nexus Wars began that the Filthrax would come to understand their folly.

The “Nexus” was a series of star systems that held the majority of trade lanes between the core worlds and the far flung resource rich outer zones. Trade through these lanes was deemed to be the most stable for long distance transportation so whoever controlled these regions would make considerable wealth from their stewardship.

Current stewardship fell to the Omicron Empire who had held the systems for the last several hundred years and as such used the profits it generated to fund their empires expansion. The humans wished to control these routes to fund their own imperial ambitions but had never leveled the playing field with the Omicron military to make such a transgression possible.

Then, without warning, the human military launched a series of strikes against Omicron bases and fleets in the Nexus systems triggering the “Nexus War”. The Omicrons raised their fleets and armies and dispatched them to the systems with the full intention of repelling the humans and then carrying on their counter offensive into human space. What they met however was a suddenly technologically advanced human military spouting drastic advances in military equipment not seen.

Human soldiers now carried portable shielding units that blocked everything less than a direct hit from a hover tank, while their ships launched fusion bombs carrying a heavy enough payload to shatter Timbar class battleships in half.

With this new technology, the human military had taken control of half of the Nexus systems within five months of the wars start. Other powers dotting the stars took notice of the sudden prowess of the human military, as well as the calculations predicting that within another five months the Omicron Empire would be driven from the Nexus systems. Some cheered at seeing their old rivals in the Omicron’s brought low, others sent delegations to the human government pledging alliances and treaties, many more came to join the war effort now sensing blood amongst the stars; but to the Filthrax, they quickly came to realize the part they had played in this war.

While Filthrax toys were rather unremarkable, they were unique in the way that their power sources could last an entire lifetime. Through controlled energy distribution, the Filthrax had created a rudimentary power source that, while considered basic in their society, was light years ahead of any neighboring species.

The humans were well aware of this feature.

They knew before negotiations even began that the Filthrax would never part with their advanced weaponry or technology, but they would be willing to part with something they considered nothing more than a toy. Toys that were then torn apart to get to the power source, reverse engineered, and then used to power weapons and machines of human design.

Filthrax toys were now forming the basis for a new galactic power, and they had been fooled into giving them away for nothing more than currency.

The sudden realization sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Filthrax. If they admitted this they would be not only be publically humiliated on a galactic scale; but also be portrayed as cobelligerents in the war. Not only that, it would invalidate their own standing treaties with other species which specifically stated they would not trade anything that could be repurposed for war. They could see trade agreements torn asunder for a dozen species with even embargos placed upon their territories. Worse yet was if they did cease trading with the humans the human government could release the information and still black list them to the wider galaxy.

So they sat and watched the war from the sidelines, contemplating that their bobbles may have very well just doomed the universe.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Rob Wallace

From summer into fall, SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, ran up another epidemiological spike just as the feds sunset their pandemic control program.

While the virus continues along a loop of boom and bust repeatedly reset by its capacity for evolutionary escape, putting people in the hospital and out of work at a steady clip, U.S. officials and well-connected epidemiologists have abandoned public health in both practice and concept.

Alongside entrapping millions of Americans in a Long COVID vortex, such dereliction of duty places the U.S. in danger should other diseases arise, including, but not limited to, an avian influenza strain that even now is moving beyond cow herds and poultry flocks and beginning to spread in humans.

The COVID-19 pandemic that some of our most august epidemiologists pretend is over portends a broader decline in the very notion of the public commons upon which any functional society depends.

The State of the COVID Nation What’s the present state of the U.S.’s COVID-19 outbreak?

The National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) reports a large majority of its data set of viral load in sewage plants tracked from September 9 to 23 to be in the orange and red zone of 60 percent or more of all the samples taken nationally since December 2021. That is, all those hot points on the NWSS map tell us the viral load in populations across the U.S. is now as high (and widespread) as any previous COVID peak.

On the other hand, the more acute NWSS measure of changes in SARS-2 sewage loads over the 15 days leading up to September 23 shows a mosaic of declines and increases, indicating differences at the sewershed level we still don’t understand.

NWSS tracks only 1,479 of the 16,000 publicly owned wastewater plants, which together serve at best 80 percent of the U.S. population. So, consider the NWSS map of SARS-CoV-2 loads just a snapshot.

The Walgreens COVID-19 Index of national test positivity covers both rapid tests and the more gold-standard polymerase chain reaction tests little available at this point. As of September 29, we see a decline to 21.8 percent of all tests Walgreens processes nationally from 40 percent earlier in the summer, but still as high as most points in the pandemic. The number of tests remains comparatively high, which at this late date in the pandemic may in itself serve as a measure of incidence. People are getting tested because they’re feeling sick.

There’s a geography to this. For late September, we see increases in test positivity in order of sizes of increase, in New Hampshire, Idaho, Oklahoma, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, among other states, with New York presently hovering at 35.9 percent positive. These numbers were once available down to the county level until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) abandoned such mapping.

Syndromic surveillance offers another view of the pandemic. We see from Epic Research hospital reports of ICD-10 codes mapped between August 25 and September 7 for COVID infections per 100,000 hospital tests, states in the South and Appalachia are getting hit relatively hard, with the national hospital positivity rate at 16 percent. Hospitals across the U.S. were once required to report in such incidences on a weekly basis. Now only a few voluntarily report.

With such reporting now blacked out, infectious disease modeler J.P. Weiland is using wastewater data from Biobot Analytics and available CDC seropositivities to project COVID cases per day in the U.S. He reports we were at over 589,000 new COVID infections for the single day of September 19.

This summer’s peak isn’t the 5 million infections a day of the first Omicron wave that Weiland estimated in late 2021, but nearly a million infections a day in early August is well within the range of nearly every other COVID peak so far. COVID isn’t tailing off one peak to the next.

Weiland hasn’t released a detailed methodology, which makes the projection’s validity unconfirmed, although the general gestalt of his time series is probably on point. If these estimates are anywhere close to reality, much more forgiving global and U.S. data should now be rated “junk” and the pandemic considered still at strength — especially, as we previously described, as the virus has been given the public health green light to continue to explore its evolutionary possibilities.

Indeed, we see the outbreak stateside continuing to evolve, with a broad mix of 22 sublineages in play, and, as projected September 28, varieties of global variant of concern KP.3 and LB.1 leading the way.

Molecular biologist Raj Rajnarayanan’s 30-day mosaic shows all the genetic sequences of detected sublineages in the U.S. as of September 27, including their geographic origins. We see the near entirety of the country hosting variant JN and its infectious FLiRT offspring, the LBs and KPs 1, 2 and 3. We see the arrival of yet another new lineage, the highly transmissible XEC.

The Real Damage of Long COVID Remains A pandemic’s outcome is a matter of pathogen and host alike. So, while we see the SARS-CoV-2 virus still chugging along, the host population it infects has largely chosen to drop out of the pandemic fight.

While COVID death rates aren’t approaching those of 2020, we are nowhere near a 2019 world as the near entirety of the U.S. establishment pretends. The Swiss Re Institute reports U.S. and U.K. excess mortality rates still at 3 percent and 2.5 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

But here we have both U.S. political parties — and both presidential candidates — placing the ongoing pandemic behind us for good, save for scoring electoral points. The feds are sunsetting bridge funding for COVID antivirals and vaccines, the latter suddenly costing $200 for the uninsured. No wonder, as Science Communications Director Lucky Tran posts, half the Americans in a recent Ipsos poll incredibly expect never to get infected again.

The mass leap away from the reality of a still deadly infection is more from a push from a government that ostensibly holds the monopoly on national health intervention. The U.S. population would likely respond otherwise if signaled so from its elected leadership. Tran reminds us that a 2022 CDC report showed people are more likely to mask when alerted about local outbreaks by public health authorities. Without alerts, on the other hand, Americans are erring on the side of little to no masking.

The resulting health toll continues to beat up the population. Health analyst Mike Hoerger of the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative — whose models for daily COVID incidences typically run hotter than Weiland’s at 669,000 as of September 30 — projects 1 million to 4 million new Long COVID cases coming out of infections this past month alone.

Previous work showed and estimated that between 5 percent and 30 percent of people infected enter the whirlpool of a Long COVID syndrome for which few tests are available for diagnosis, and there are few prophylaxes available or in development to treat current patients.

A Patient-Led Collaborative Group preprint reporting the results of a survey of 3,300 participants found that increasing the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections a person gets increases the risks of Long COVID, worse Long COVID symptoms and greater overall impairment. Reinfections also appear to diminish the protective effects that vaccination may offer against Long COVID. Few of the surveyed reported Long COVID remission.

The damage extends beyond bodily health. The Wall Street Journal, focusing on the professional-managerial class, ran a story headlined “Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths.”

Understandably, the article was widely retweeted by professionals who lamented their previous 60-hour work weeks and personal bests and marked how far they had fallen. Their work ethic proved no prevention against Long COVID’s siege of microclots, brain damage, cognitive collapse and post-exertional malaise that made some unable to get out of bed for weeks.

Long COVID also impacts many on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum. A new survey of 7,000-plus adults found low-income Long COVID patients suffered greater food insecurity, especially those who didn’t participate in public food assistance programs.

It isn’t just adults suffering. New research out of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) RECOVER program found similar but distinguishable differences in symptoms between children and adolescents among the 5,300 youth it studied, leading RECOVER to declare Long COVID “a public health crisis” for a population some epidemiologists expediently presented as little affected by the infection.

Acknowledging Failures to Keep Them Going Noting that recent COVID deaths in the U.S. were double those of last spring, this New York Times piece from August took a meta view of the failure to see, observing that we no longer observe: “We Have Largely Moved on From Covid, but Covid Isn’t Done With Us” reads the print edition.

But such a gesture at the gap in reality that the newspaper itself helped condition offers the ruling class that effectively ended the COVID campaign permission to continue to ignore the duly noted failure.

The Times interviewed epidemiologists at the highest professional levels about the gap:

"Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the newfound complacency can as much be attributed to confusion as to fatigue. The virus remains remarkably unpredictable: Covid variants are still evolving much faster than influenza variants, and officials who want to “pigeonhole” Covid into having a well-defined seasonality will be unnerved to discover that the 10 surges in the United States so far have been evenly distributed throughout all four seasons, he said. Those factors, combined with waning immunity, point to a virus that still evades our collective understanding — in the context of a collective psychology that is ready to move on. Even at a meeting of 200 infectious disease experts in Washington earlier this month — a number of whom were over 65 and had not been vaccinated in four to six months — hardly anybody donned a mask."

And how did officials and the public arrive at such a confusion? After all, other scientists and practitioners standing outside the establishment’s umbrella of respectability debunked the notion that all was well and repeatedly alerted the world to the broader system’s complicit silence.

I wrote in August 2022 that Osterholm himself helped inculcate the confusion:

"Mike Osterholm, who the Times failed to identify as part of the administration’s COVID Advisory Board, converged on this courageous line: “I think [the CDC] are attempting to meet up with the reality that everyone in the public is pretty much done with this pandemic.” A reality the administration worked hard to help manufacture by deft incompetence."

The Times also interviewed epidemiologist Bill Hanage to the effect scientists were themselves confused and that allowed him the freedom of an argument by ex falso quodlibet, a principle from which any proposition can be derived from a contradiction:

"Epidemiologists have long predicted that Covid would eventually become an endemic disease, rather than a pandemic. “If you ask six epidemiologists what ‘endemic’ means, exactly, you’ll probably get about 12 answers,” said Bill Hanage, associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “But it certainly has a sort of social definition – a virus that’s around us all the time – and if you want to take that one, then we’re definitely there.”"

Ugly sophistry. In actuality, the time series of COVID outbreaks stateside in no way represent the kind of evolutionarily predictable seasonal variants we find in endemic influenza.

And the “socially defined” endemicity to which Hanage alludes was in part of his own making. In one CNN report, we find Hanage alongside Osterholm providing Biden’s CDC cover for dropping recommendations for quarantining at home and testing people without symptoms, brandishing another fallacy:

"Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agrees that the new guidance shows that the CDC is trying to meet people where they are. “I think that this is a point where you actually have to sort of get real and start giving people tools they can use to do something or not. Because otherwise, people will just not take you seriously,” Hanage said."

An appeal to popularity is no epidemiological principle on which to base a response to a pandemic that’s killed anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million Americans.

Public Health Rebellion From Below In other words, Osterholm and Hanage and others aren’t the neutral observers they pretend to be, along with the Times.

Rather, they track disease only up to the point the political class can bear, helping bury the problem when it’s inconvenient. Liberals who are upset that science is met with public distrust might ask whether anyone concerned about outbreaks would listen to these brilliant scientists without suspicions they’re catering to other (well-funded) objectives.

How many times will these “men who stare at vaccines” ask us to run into our epidemiological walls — to reference the George Clooney movie about the Pentagon’s First Earth Battalion — as if our reductionist atoms can just pass through those of SARS-CoV-2, avian influenza, mpox, and the queue of other pathogens emerging out of an alienated nature and expropriated circuits of global production?

Vaccines are always only a part of any public health campaign, and their successful deployment depends on the very nonpharmaceutical interventions and structural changes the feds have insisted we abandon.

Figures of authority across local jurisdictions have similarly blanched. Political leaders — turning now to punishing people who continue to mask — are feeding their own health into the COVID maw held agape by establishment epidemiologists.

The best way to contact the dead in the data, these scientist “seancists” signal, is to help usher a public of biased optimists they’ve cultivated to their graves. The CDC continue to invite Americans “just this way, please,” once again adjusting down its color code scheme for its maps to imply we’re in less danger than we are.

Bipartisan rounds of strategic obfuscation follow each new COVID wave as if set as an algorithm. At this end of the U.S. cycle of accumulation, when capital cashes out and disinvests from the public commons, it’s only such manipulation that’s now endemic.

As the Pandemic ThinkTank described early in the pandemic, abandoned by the feds, we need to pursue a revolt from below. Community groups and local public health departments need to work together to reconstruct our public commons to handle the diseases and other disasters already here or on their way.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

[verysmallcyborg]

I feel compelled to tell you I dreamt about Ultima Thule (because I've spent AGES there lately IG) and in that dream, Fornax and their spouse were helping Omicrons rebuild a section of flooring and Fornax looked amazing in the dream lighting.

blessed by the dream versions of fornax and ryss.......!!

it's quite accurate that fornax would help the omicrons rebuild some things! this sounds like a sign for me to pose them in UT some day....... 🤔 that zone has some of my favorite background colors

[motheatenscarf]

oOOOH MY GOD, FINALLY

I found out about Beast Tribe quests back when I was still in ARR, tried doing them, realized what a miserable slog it was gonna be, and then avoided them like the plague until I got to Shadowbringers and loved the Pixies SO MUCH that I would do literally anything just to get more of them. Started doing some others too because I liked them, Namazu (my exact brand of like, goblin muppets kind of stupid, i love them so much), Ananta, Omicrons, etc, basically anybody who didn't want me to craft and wasn't from ARR.

Maxed out like 4 or 5 that way but then I found out that there are allied beast tribe quests that give you special emotes, but you can't do those until you max out EVERY faction from a specific expansion.

And I went, oh no, I'm going to have to CRAFT.

So then I spent 2 months grinding all crafting to get to omnicrafter, and figured, well, I'm suffering and determined already, and I know I can withstand a lot of punishment NOW for a good reward later, but I might lose resolve after too long of this, may as well get these done in chronological order.

So I spent every day doing 12 missions a day for the FUCKING IXAL. I am not gonna lie, y'all... I just started skipping cutscenes halfway through. I was so burnt out. I hated them by proxy. I have no idea what happened there.

And then I had to do the others. Amalj'aa quests are alright. Would love to introduce Loonh Gah to uh, clothes, eventually. And not in the condescending way the Allied Tribe quest does. Slyph quests were cute, I like the Sylphs, they're like bargain bin pixies. Kobolds were also cute, the least awful grind imo because all their quests were like, right there, and nobody made me go tear assing off to the other side of the map on special mounts or timed mission carries where I had to click a stupid mushroom to make it in time or some bullshit. And then the Sahagin, who were my personal favorites, because it's the #1 fish dad and his army of idiot children and one of them sings Golem's fish song and also he said he'd be my dad too and I love all of my idiot fish brothers.

So after all that I did the allied quests and met uh... bargain bin catboy Zenos?

Complete with "weirdly misogynistic introductions," except he doesn't even get redeemed by going off the rails bugfuck insane. Oh well. At least now the ARR tribes have figured out intersectional solidarity so that one scene in Endwalker feels more earned.

Now I just have to do the Vath, the Moogles, and the Vanu, who are all located in 3 of the worst zones for getting around easily in the game.

I love Moogles so I really hope they'll remind me what joy feels like as I get through the rest of these. I miss the Pixies and Namazu so much...

[starrysnowdrop]

Top 5 Locations! :D

Also asked by @ishgard!! Thank you both so much for the asks! 🥰💖

Alright, Top 5 locations, here we go! (Don’t worry, I will spare you all from showing off pictures of each location, so I’ll just do the #1.)

1) Ishgard

Is anyone surprised? You shouldn’t be if you’ve followed me long enough! 😉 Ishgard stole my heart all the way back when HW debuted, and I still love this city above all others. It’s mainly due to my obsession with FFXIV starting with HW, and I have many fond memories there. It’s also Hali and Aymeric’s home, soooooo there’s that too.

2) Old Sharlayan - Hali’s hometown and in my opinion, the most beautiful city in the game. I can’t stop taking pictures here because it’s so damn pretty everywhere I look.

3) Ultima Thule - I am in LOVE with outer space, so you give me a whole zone at the edge of the universe?? I’m in heaven. And it’s the main reason why I’ve almost maxed out the Omicrons tribe quests before any other tribe. I can’t stop going there!

4) Elpis - I don’t think a lot has to be said for this. The beauty, the feels, and story significance put it on the list.

5) Amaurot - Everything I said before about Elpis applies here, but I just find Elpis way more beautiful to look at personally. But Amaurot is a winner for the feels alone in my opinion.

Honorable Mentions - In no particular order: Labyrinthos, Mare Lamentorum, Il Mheg, Ahm Araeng, Kugane, Azim Steppe.

[jakey-beefed-it]

Dawntrail spoilers under the cut; unless you're halfway through the last zone, don't click the read more

So I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Varian, who has struggled with his identity as the Warrior of Light meaning one thing to his allies (hero, comrade) and another entirely to himself (world champion of murder), who did the Omicron quests in Ultima Thule and agreed with its thesis that recreated memories or no, those beings are *alive* and deserving of the same respect as anyone, hearing from Estinien as he walks through the gate to the Golden City "do what you do best" and immediately understanding that he can only mean Murder (takes a killer to know a killer, he and Estinien have that understanding), then going forth to deliberately erase countless stored memories, thereby committing essentially genocide against the Endless.

He's killed before. He's killed a lot. To paraphrase from some western or another he's "killed damn near everything that walks, crawls, swims, or flies."

He's never killed innocents before. Definitely never children.

This is gonna FUCK him UP for a WHILE. Fishing therapy isn't gonna cut it, especially as the narrative doesn't seem to give it the same weight as he does. Even your allies are like, "It's... sad, but they're not really alive, right?" And Varian would have to be like "Right. Of course not," just so THEY could live with themselves, even though he knows better.

Immediately after finishing the last trial, because I'd done it in a group with my sister and we were standing around the same spot as the story spat us out, I jokingly turned around without a word, hit / to RP walk, and walked Varian directly into the ocean. It was a joke, but like, he's definitely thinkin' about it. He won't, because he's a) not gonna do that to his loved ones and b) too ornery to die to anything short of Black Rose in an alternate future.

Alright, that's enough heavy stuff for now, here's picture evidence that in Varian's canon, at least, Ser Otis is totally a shard of Azem, based on the 'sometimes there's a resemblance' tidbits you get about Ardbert and Default WoL.

[jackoftheace]

hello nerds i am alive i was just sick as shit

i have Zone Things™️

gotta make 2 posts bc tumblr is a coward and wont let me post 10+ images i use mobile cri

[toadeyes-miqote]

Do cosmic jellyfish swim in the end of the universe?

Slowly doing Omicron society (3 every day or 3 every few days if I can't be bother to return from Tural), its the last and longest one on account of being in the most depressing and energy sucking zone to be in in game or out.

And I had to make sure to log Hylnyan out with certain NPCs who I consider to be emotionally uplifting to be around (ideally Thancred or G'raha. or Tataru, or F'lhaminn but certain Gridanians or Ishgardians will do in their absence)

One more level to go.

I gotta go fix my tribal tag.

Current point in DT is the start of the Wild Wild West so..... my NPCs of choice aren't around.

[astralartefact]

A collection of thoughts about the Dawntrail Launch Trailer as always I fail to be normal about this

I'm talking about the Sexy Robot, the White Lady and... yeah that's pretty much it.

if Solution 9 has nothing to do with the twelfth shard/lightning calamity then what are they doing putting references to lightning in the text of the trailer

Why are they so allergic to showing the Pictomancer Limit Break, no let's just show the mid Viper LB again.

I have a thought where the Area we fight the Eliminator is (not convinced Eliminator is a trial tbh - this might be a Ranjit Solo Fight Situation) - I think this is in the original Golden City (well, at least one of them. clearly there's more than one given tuliyollal is also one symbolically) and that hole in the ceiling also makes me think that that might be the holes in the new Solution 9 artwork and that Solution 9/Heritage Found were literally built on top of the Golden City, taking advantage of it or something?

Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! knew they would do it!!!

I wonder what creature/battle-able force this thing (the golden core looks very very Ancient btw) is going to release upon the world... and if it's the Second Trial or the Final Boss (no idea what it could be lol, i don't know FF6 nor 9)

Also, given it's prominently called a key I wonder what door it opens. Clearly not just Solution 9. I think it would be much more interesting to let that door open and let us look inside, maybe :) (bc if this is the second trial then maybe the final zone is the destroyed 12th and we learn that rejoinings leave traces or something) (and i don't care if that doesn't make sense in the lore, myths of the realm did break the lore worse for less pay-off)

i am so unnormal about her. i hope she's a ultimately good but misguided genocidal pure little lady. and i desperately need the community at large to hate her. also pls be voiced by azusa tadokoro so i can keep calling you marie nier reincarnation it could be her but i'm not sure

If the Eliminator really is her Gundam I'm going to throw up. God. Please give her the Sexy Gundam.

as for speculation on who she is - probably one of the three ascians we don't know yet and/or their 'shard' (i still want them to go deeper into what it does to a person to learn they're a shard and to have to live with that sort of agency-crushing legacy but looking at gaia just shrugging it off we will probably never get that)

i also really hope she's genuinely a 'good' ascian even if she's the antagonist, i think it's boring to think none of them could be reasonable and accept/get over the fact that their world is gone. it's been 12000 years. also keep in mind they rewrote deudalaphon's lore in the newest lore book for no good reason, they have never been called an architect before i would know that so they're probably going to show up somewhere too at some point.

Speaking of which, friendly reminder that the Raid is literally called Arcadia in JP and up until now everything that was called after a fictional Utopia (Amaurot, Eden) had to do with Ascians (also no i won't recognize that red thing in the raid artwork as an ascian sigil it looks nothing like the other ones)

Solution 9 giving people eternal life gave me one (1) fear. If this Expansion is about how dying is good actually and necessary for humans to [gestures to whatever Venat's whole thing and the Omicron quests were about] - I'm not going to froth at the mouth about it like how I'm doing it for Myths of the Realm (Fuck Eulogia), but I am going to roll my eyes at it. Like, can we stop romanticizing the limitations of the human race. I think it's honestly boring to arrive at the take 'Well, Humanity would be worse if we took away one of its limitations' - No, It would probably just be different and that's fine. Both would be fine. And like, who cares at this point. You talked about this three times already. Get new material.

Also, the German Dub was... pretty good??? At this point I'm watching it to avoid the English Dub (you people are weird, you like that???) but I'm surprised about how little I cringed about it! It's still a little bit stilted and stuff (like how Erenville's Narration does the thing where. he. speaks. every. single. word. on. its. own.) but I didn't mind it that much! Another Win for the German Localization!

[college-girl199328]

Overturned acquittal could have impact on convoy protest case: expert | Ottawa Citizen

An Ottawa criminologist said the Ontario court’s order to retry a convoy protester could have implications for the ongoing trial of the protest’s two key organizers. Superior Court Justice Narissa Somji ordered a retrial last week for Allen Remley, a convoy participant who had been acquitted on a mischief charge. Remley was by Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, also presiding over the criminal trial for organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. The court ordered a retrial after concluding Perkins-McVey didn’t adequately context of the protest.

Protesters flooded the capital in 2022 at the tail end of the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most said they were there to demonstrate against public health restrictions and vaccine mandates, though many also railed against the government.

The protesters stayed in Ottawa for three weeks, blocking downtown roads around Parliament Hill with big rigs and other vehicles, blaring horns at all hours, blasting music over loudspeakers, and setting off fireworks in the street. In Remley’s case, Perkins-McVey found the Crown had failed to adequately prove that he was engaged in mischief during the protest.

Police accused him of being involved in a “mobile gas station” — a children’s wagon filled with jerry cans. His truck was also illegally parked.

In the absence of more evidence, doubts persisted about whether he was committing a crime, or even shared the same aims or political beliefs as the protesters, she said. Somji agreed that simply being at the scene wasn’t enough to prove guilt, but found the decision didn’t take into account “the evidence as a whole, including evidence of the ongoing protest.”

In another convoy-related case last year, Crown prosecutors successfully appealed an acquittal on mischief charges involving protester David Romlewski. In that appeal, Superior Court Justice Adriana Doyle found the trial judge erred in Romlewski’s acquittal by imposing a higher burden of proof on the Crown than was necessary to reach a finding of guilt.

Justice Robert Wadden, the trial judge, had acquitted Romlewski after ruling he was not a trucker and didn’t bring a vehicle into the city, he was not a convoy organizer or in contact with organizers, and the judge said there was no documentary evidence linking Romlewski to the protest. Prosecutors successfully overturned that verdict, with Justice Doyle saying Romlewski’s presence in a designated “Red Zone” during a highly-publicized police operation went beyond “mere presence,” and was “aiding and abetting” the mischief.

The facts of the Lich and Barber case are slightly different since they spent most of their time organizing the protest, fundraising, and sharing updates on social media from a “command center” set up in a local hotel. The Crown has argued Perkins-McVey need only consider whether streets were blocked and property was interfered with, and whether Lich and Barber were party to those crimes.

While Remley’s trial lasted only three days, Lich and Barber’s case is still ongoing after months of testimony, evidence, and legal wrangling. Their trial paused last month and is expected to resume in March.

Rents for Canadian military personnel to increase | Ottawa Citizen

Rents for Canadian military personnel in accommodations used by National Defence will be going up in April. National Defence confirmed information that was leaked to this newspaper by soldiers who questioned why rents were going up for troops when the military is struggling to keep personnel in the ranks.

Under Treasury Board policy and Department of National Defence regulations, “shelter charges” for all Crown-controlled housing are reviewed and adjusted annually to reflect market changes, she added. This process is administered by the Canadian Forces Housing Agency as the managing authority for the residential housing portfolio on behalf of the department, Poulin noted.

Updated rental fees for 2024-2025 will be available online by April 1. The rates vary depending on the type of accommodation and location. Poulin said rents for National Defence housing units are established based on a market analysis of dwellings of similar age, size, type, condition, and location.

In October 2023, this newspaper reported on internal military documents that acknowledged that Canadian Forces personnel were increasingly leaving the ranks rather than moving to a new military base where they couldn’t afford housing. Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis, but some members of the military are particularly vulnerable as they are required to often move around the country for their jobs.

In some locations “average cost to purchase or rent housing now exceeds incomes of several CAF working rank levels,” a June 14, 2023 briefing by Brig.-Gen. Virginia Tattersall pointed out. Military personnel can also try to rent accommodation from the Canadian Forces Housing Agency, or CFHA, but there are shortages of those units.

The CFHA manages the largest housing portfolio in the government of Canada at 27 locations across the country. Its portfolio consists of single, semi-detached, and row houses, as well as barrier-free accessible houses and apartments, according to National Defence. However, the department has noted that thousands are on the waiting list for such units.

In addition, the Canadian Forces has identified the need for at least 5,000 more housing units to be built at its facilities around the country. In 2022, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre acknowledged that a lack of affordable housing has emerged as one of the main complaints made by military personnel to senior officers.

Military personnel are increasingly becoming frustrated with the lack of action by the Canadian Forces' senior leadership on the housing situation, according to defense sources.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Outbreak investigation of airborne transmission of Omicron (B.1.1.529) - SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern in a restaurant: Implication for enhancement of indoor air dilution - Published Feb 24, 2022

Highlights •SARS-CoV-2 is considered as a hazardous material.

•Omicron variant is transmitted by airborne route.

•Restaurant is a high-risk area for SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

•Enhanced indoor air dilution minimizes the number of infected cases.

Abstract Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been increasingly recognized in the outbreak of COVID-19, especially with the Omicron variant. We investigated an outbreak due to Omicron variant in a restaurant. Besides epidemiological and phylogenetic analyses, the secondary attack rates of customers of restaurant-related COVID-19 outbreak before (Outbreak R1) and after enhancement of indoor air dilution (Outbreak R2) were compared. On 27th December 2021, an index case stayed in restaurant R2 for 98 min. Except for 1 sitting in the same table, six other secondary cases sat in 3 corners at 3 different zones, which were served by different staff. The median exposure time was 34 min (range: 19–98 min). All 7 secondary cases were phylogenetically related to the index. Smoke test demonstrated that the airflow direction may explain the distribution of secondary cases. Compared with an earlier COVID-19 outbreak in another restaurant R1 (19th February 2021), which occurred prior to the mandatory enhancement of indoor air dilution, the secondary attack rate among customers in R2 was significantly lower than that in R1 (3.4%, 7/207 vs 28.9%, 22/76, p<0.001). Enhancement of indoor air dilution through ventilation and installation of air purifier could minimize the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the restaurants.

[scienza-magia]

Gene di Neanderthal causa dei contagi nella Bergamasca

Covid in Val Seriana favorito dai geni di Neanderthal. Studio dell'Istituto Mario Negri pubblicato su 'iScience'. I geni ereditati dall'antenato uomo di Neanderthal hanno giocato un ruolo rilevante nel determinare la strage a causa del Covid-19 che ha segnato la Val Seriana nella Bergamasca, con migliaia di vittime. Uno studio dell'Istituto Mario Negri getta infatti una nuova luce sulle cause dell'alto tasso di mortalità registrato in quelle zone, attribuendo un peso decisivo proprio alla predisposizione genetica della popolazione. Un passo avanti importante nelle conoscenze scientifiche sul virus SarsCoV2 che arriva mentre ci si prepara alla nuova campagna vaccinale, con i vaccini aggiornati che saranno offerti gratuitamente a tutti coloro che vorranno effettuare la somministrazione. Dallo studio Origin, pubblicato sulla rivista iScience, si evince che una certa regione del genoma umano si associava in modo significativo col rischio di ammalarsi di Covid e di ammalarsi in forma grave nei residenti delle aree della Bergamasca più colpite dalla pandemia durante la prima ondata. "La cosa sensazionale - ha sottolineato Giuseppe Remuzzi, direttore dell'Istituto - è che 3 dei 6 geni che si associano a questo rischio sono arrivati alla popolazione moderna dai Neanderthal, in particolare dal genoma di Vindija che risale a 50 mila anni fa. Una volta forse proteggeva i Neanderthal dalle infezioni, adesso causa un eccesso di risposta immune che non solo non ci protegge ma ci espone a una malattia più severa". Le vittime del cromosoma di Neanderthal nel mondo, ha aggiunto, "sono forse un milione e potrebbero essere proprio quelle che, in assenza di altre cause, muoiono per una predisposizione genetica". Allo studio hanno aderito 9.733 persone di Bergamo e provincia che hanno compilato un questionario. I risultati della ricerca, ha commentato il presidente della Regione Lombardia Attilio Fontana, "danno una risposta a uno dei quesiti che chiunque di noi si è posto: perché alcuni contraggono il virus in modo asintomatico e altri in forma grave?". Ai progressi della scienza, si affianca la macchina organizzativa che vede al lavoro ministero della Salute e Regioni in vista della prossima campagna vaccinale anti-Covid - che quest'anno sarà concomitante a quella antinìfluenzale - che partirà dagli inizi di ottobre. I nuovi vaccini aggiornati contro la sottovariante Xbb di Omicron, attualmente dominante, arriveranno in Italia entro una quindicina di giorni, ha confermato il ministro della Salute Orazio Schillaci. E proprio oggi l'Agenzia europea dei medicinali Ema ha dato il via libera anche al vaccino aggiornato di Moderna, dopo aver dato disco verde nei giorni scorsi a quello di Pfizer-BioNTech, poi autorizzato anche dall'Agenzia italiana del farmaco Aifa. Ma proprio l'accesso ai nuovi vaccini è stato per qualche ora oggetto di polemica, non risultando chiaro se le nuove dosi potessero essere offerte gratuitamente a tutti. In serata, dal Tg1 delle ore 20.00, lo stesso Schillaci ha però chiarito che il vaccino aggiornato sarà gratuito per tutti coloro che vorranno effettuare la somministrazione, e non soltanto per le categorie più a rischio alle quali la vaccinazione è raccomandata nell'ultima circolare ministeriale del 14 agosto, ovvero over60, soggetti fragili, donne incinte e operatori sanitari. Intanto, guardia alta anche sul fronte della scuola: al ministero dell'Istruzione e del Merito si è tenuto oggi un incontro per discutere, con i sindacati della scuola, l'evolversi della situazione epidemiologica ed il ministero monitora con attenzione. Il ministro Schillaci, dal canto suo, rassicura: "Siamo molto tranquilli, stiamo lavorando con il ministero dell'Istruzione per tranquillizzare tutti. C'è stato - commenta - un allarmismo forse esagerato su questo argomento". Una raccomandazione arriva dalla direttrice del Centro europeo per la prevenzione e il controllo delle malattie Andrea Ammon: "Le infezioni da Covid aumentano in Europa, ma per ora la situazione non è neanche lontanamente paragonabile a ciò che abbiamo visto negli anni. Quindi la cosa più immediata da fare è stabilire un monitoraggio rafforzato e congiunto di Covid, influenza e virus sinciziale respiratorio". Immagini dell 'emergenza Bergamasca   Read the full article

[kingedbishop]

Bishop considered offering to carry the water battles in his bag, but decided to leave him to his devices for now.

The audio logs were for more interesting anyway. It wasn't clear who Dahl was recording those messages for— Most likely the third Carthage employee. Truly, a pointless exercise. But it shed some light on Ross' mutations and the end of Omicron.

"Delenda est…" Rook muttered quietly. She stumbled backwards, before seemingly zoning out.

"You would expect to hear those words from a more proactive person." Bishop mused, looking at the corpse with disdain, "But I suppose we now have confirmation that Alpha exists. Are we ready to head down in the abyss?"

He expected to hear loud protests, but Rook seemingly had none.

Bishop eventually grew impatient and made his way over to see just what Strasky was up to. "Would you mind sharing the current objective with us?"

So they wouldn't waste any more time. He eyed Rook, who was still keeping her distance. A pathetic sight, really. But at least she wouldn't cause trouble for a while.

"We already established you shouldn't bear all the weight and allow others to assist, haven't we?"