#wait no that's an array arrays are a data structure i can just say array

[ghomanimation]

queue but if my true heart longs for an item enough it gets to go further in front but never in the first spot also if one of them is my least favorite child I'm allowed to destroy them

how do you decide which project or thing to do next?

queue - continue the thing you started earliest

stack - continue the thing you started most recently

tape - other system

[a-lil-perspective]

The Bad Batch and Axe/Knife Throwing

A/N: Uhhh I’ve had this in my drafts for weeks. I don’t actually know what this is. Just funky bro stuff that spiraled into like 2.5k words because I just don’t know when to stop, do I. The working title for this was “Bullshit and Bullseyes”, if that puts anything into perspective (I nearly made that the actual title haha). Anyway. Enjoy?

Technically, no; they didn’t need to spend credits on booking the space. By all accounts, there’s nothing wrong with chucking weapons against the Havoc Marauder’s hull. You wouldn’t believe the damage it’s withstood over the years.

Nevertheless, its walls had been taking quite the beating lately (honestly how many times has it actually been said “no weapons in the house”?) and quite frankly, Hunter was getting sick of grousing about the fact.

But when you’ve been cooped up in the vacuum of space for days as the Bad Batch has, you become acutely aware of the perpetual sensation of losing your mind—and of the stagnant air beginning to fester.

Let’s put it this way: Intelligence work is not kind to four Super Commandos, who’d just as soon wrangle a herd of Gundarks than allow anymore strategic analysis to keep them huddled around a comm system for days on end with no intermission in sight. It can’t be stressed enough the way this work was far, far beneath them. They’d just as soon tell High Command to get on with the invasion already (where their skill sets actually applied) and that if they want Clone Force 99’s help, they had best find a better way to hold their attention, because “tapping into enemy comm channels” ain’t worth a damn.

But, until then: there were other things that would do the trick.

Back within the planet’s gravitational pull once again, the Bad Batch prioritized their short timeframe of respite by not actually participating in the act of respite at all, instead seeking out the nearest weapons range. It felt something like freedom upon discovery.

The axe throwing establishment was practically empty when they arrived, which was the driving force in their eagerness, having booked the last session of the night. More room to work.

And, no one to tell you you can’t bring your own arsenal.

Hunter removed the strap of his weighty knife bag from his shoulder and set it down as the boys settled in their designated lane. While Wrecker and Crosshair dove for the bag like deprived womp rats, Tech had more gracefully found a spot on the nearest bench and planted himself to it, tapping away at the little box atop his vambrace. Predictable.

“Don’t even give me that look, Hunter,” Tech didn’t even look up, already privy to the quizzical gaze while fixated on his slew of technology. “You knew good and well I would be taking notes and collecting data during this session for the purpose of enhancing our overall performance going forward.”

As if he hadn’t been taking an infinite amount of notes the past five days.

“How ‘bout you take some notes on how to have fun,” Crosshair mumbled through the toothpick he anchored to the corner of his lip (Hunter always felt nervous when he worked out or trained with that thing in, just waiting for the day he finally chokes). The sniper didn’t bother looking back at Tech as he rummaged through Hunter’s bag in search of knives he deemed fit. He grinned wickedly at a particular set of five, all of them airy and tapered and perfect for his nimble fingers to sidle around. They were similar in size, if only a few inches wider, to the darts he usually threw in his quarters. He considered them with a sleight of hand, quickly piecing together an accurate projection of air velocity and the weapons’ overall weight.

Crosshair would make his mark. He always did.

It further came as no surprise that the Sergeant excelled in his turns from the get-go. He wasted no time in nailing bullseye after bullseye with a variety of weapons big and small. It was comical, the way Tech would make sounds of marvel and adjust his recording lens accordingly when Hunter would nail a pair of axes with a backwards throw or something of dramatic flair.

And Wrecker, oh, Wrecker.

Let’s say his turn was cut rather short—as were the rest of his brothers—when his very first throw, bearing as much care a demolition expert could muster, drove straight through the target in its entirety and brought the entire structure down wall-to-board. Hunter shuddered, grimacing instinctively at the harsh clang of colliding metals and wood that ended in a timbering heap.

Wrecker merely flashed a sheepish smile.

Hunter bit back his frustrated sigh, but the one expelling behind him was unmistakable. He whirled around to find the sensation to be correct, and that the expression marring the Devaronian’s features was unsightly.

Great. The owner of the establishment.

“I’ll pay for that,” Hunter offered immediately, gesturing awkwardly to the ghastly pile of materials. It was an auto-pilot response, really; Hunter was used to cleaning up after his rowdy bunch by now.

“Got that right,” the Devaronian rumbled, cracking his brooding knuckles as a statement that seemed more mindless than anything; he must’ve realized it foolish to get into it with four Super Clones. He turned around and stalked off, but not before grumbling something about the Clones being “mindless rank weeds” and “no better than droids”.

Wrecker must not have heard thank the Maker, otherwise the entire building could’ve been brought down on their heads in nothing short of an emotional outburst. Crosshair simply threw a crude gesture to the Devaronian’s retreating backside. It was either that or the knife in his hand.

“Cross, put your finger down dammit, we’re trying not to cause trouble here,” Hunter hissed. “You really wanna piss off a Dev?”

“You really wanna piss off a Crosshair?” Wrecker interjected with a wicked chuckle, always at the ready to tango with Crosshair and trouble.

He had a point, though.

Crosshair made a deep scoffing noise in his chest and simply turned his attention back to the dilapidated target. The sniper with no fear. Or so he’d like everyone to believe.

“Sorry, Sarge,” Wrecker rubbed at the back of his thick neck, having gone back to anxiously surveying the damage.

“Let’s just switch lanes,” Hunter countered coolly, helping Tech gather up their weaponry and move over one. It’s not like the owner would let him (or his pocket) forget, so there was no use worrying about it.

With a fresh target and a fresh turn at the ready, Wrecker eagerly began to ask for a re-do with the axes he skewered with moments ago only to be let down—gently, of course. Hunter wasn’t a mean brother, for fierfek’s sake.

He felt a bit guilty over limiting Wrecker’s turns but honestly, what was he thinking, bringing them to a place like this? It’s too... normal for Commandos—whatever ‘normal’ is. They would’ve been better off back on the Marauder.

No they wouldn’t have.

Maybe that’s why Hunter willingly ventured out on a weekend evening in the Coruscanti Districts for that sense of normality for he and his brothers; as if it could actually be found in the bustle of city life and whatever resided within.

It’s not that he wanted them to fit in, per se—Hunter can speak for the four of them in that they’re secure in their abilities and standings. But it’s as if he wanted something... grounding. In the middle of a war. Certainly a foreign term to both soldiers and citizens alike.

Grounding. Something to give the boys a sense of fulfillment and a taste of youth, even if only for the night. No expectations, no methods. Just Serotonin and sibling rivalry. Fulfillment.

Wrecker was certainly feeling fulfilled over the knives he opted to throw instead, much lighter and more controlled than the axe—which was a shame, really; he was very good at them. You haven’t quite lived until you’ve seen Wrecker at full capacity in his brute strength. The axes were just an inkling of his potential. Despite the fact that the majority of knives completely disappeared in his wide expanse of palm, he could still stick them with deadly force. Tech especially made relevance of the fact, insisting he show Wrecker a recap of his feats later.

When he wasn’t recording and plugging in data for the other throwers, Tech went a few rounds with Hunter’s smallest knives: quick and sleek and agile, much like the goggled member himself. The preference of axe or knife was divvied between the group: axe’s were more Hunter and Wrecker’s thing while knives were more Tech and Crosshair’s.

It took a bit of encouragement for Tech to actually complete his turn, as he was more concerned with the preliminaries and technicalities instead of the actual throwing. He’d stand there for what felt like several minutes, considering and trying to incorporate the use of his tech until Crosshair—how dare he—cut through his concentration with a sharp demand to “Just. Throw.”

It was rather unfortunate that there was only one target available to four people wanting to use it simultaneously. It seemed the members of the elite Commando squad still hadn’t mastered the art of patiently waiting their turn.

Hunter couldn’t help but find the hilarity in that Tech managed to land several of the knives as ‘butt sticks’: handle side in. He chuckled to himself. Only Tech.

The engineer claimed the act was wholly intentional. Hunter thought his witty brother was just trying to excuse a simple over-rotation. Tech had the aptitude for speed under his belt, but sometimes he had trouble controlling his speed. But if you thought that hindered Tech’s ingenuity or prowess in the slightest, you were sorely mistaken.

It’s times like these Hunter felt that familiar swell of pride in his chest as he relish his brothers’ unique array of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunes. All of it played a monumental part. The Sergeant in him couldn’t ask for a more proficient squad. The brother in him couldn’t ask for more unique siblings.

In no time, all four men had each accumulated their own sheen of sweat, the byproduct of a solid hour’s workout—no, two hours (Hunter should know by the way he grudgingly dumped another handful of credits into the Devaronian’s on the hour), their allotment extended all because the bros refused to be done, reduced to acting like petulant children because of.

Speaking of petulant.

“Who’s in the lead now, Tech?” Crosshair asked through a lingering pant, breaking from his turn as he took a seat next to the human scoreboard. He accepted the cool rag Tech handed him with a curt nod and slung it over the back of his neck to soak up the sweat, rolling his toned shoulders and shaking away the thought of potentially having to break from the rifle tomorrow because of how much he overdid it with the knives. Sore shoulders made for shit shots.

Tech chewed his lip and shot a single, timid glance up to Cross, who suddenly realized that maybe the gifted rag rapidly warming behind his neck was actually just an act of grooming for the disappointing news to come.

Tech cleared his throat. “In the current overall standing, it appears that Wrecker takes the lead, with Hunter a very close second, me of course making the ranks, and you being last—”

“Aw hell no,” Crosshair yanked the rag off and threw it to his feet as he pulled the toothpick out from between his now grit teeth, jabbing it around the room in emphasis. “I’ve easily got the best aim around here, I ain’t the one who destroyed an entire target and I didn’t miss one damn time—”

“It is not about missing, Cross; there are many factors to consider in the overall performance,” Tech answered matter-of-factly, with maybe the slightest hint of sympathy (more like irritation) laced within.

“And that includes humility,” Hunter chimed in, crossing his arms.

Wrecker and his lack of knowledge on appropriate social cues left him cheering over his victory, and Hunter forced himself to swallow the smile tugging at his lips. Few things in life filled him as much as Wrecker’s youthful exuberance. It was infectious.

He gave a light shove to the solid mass of man. “That means you too, Wreck.”

“Bullshit...” Crosshair sulked, numbingly processing his loss. He found himself leaning into Tech’s supportive pat on the back, suddenly too tired to care about his dwindling dignity or even any of his prior winnings in the past. He’ll forever be consigned to his dangerous competitive streak and that’s that.

“You’re just a sore loser!” Wrecker was grinning wide again, all teeth and triumphant. Crosshair scowled further and yes, he was actually pouting up from his spot on the bench thank you very much. Blackmail him later.

“The only thing that’s gonna be sore is your ass when I shove my foot up it.”

“Hey.” Hunter’s cue to intervene. “Settle it down. We had a good run tonight, blew off some steam, got a nice workout and stretched the legs. Let’s head back home, yeah?”

Hunter received murmurs of agreement save for Crosshair, who responded with silence, which was his answer.

The Bad Batch gathered their things and headed out, with Hunter paying the owner for the property damage on the way (reaching up to smack Wrecker in the back of the head just for good measure), and the alien made no attempts at subtlety in his relief over the way the chaotic bunch were finally departing. Apparently, the Bad Batch showcased some of the more poorer examples of decent clientele.

Funny that one might assume ‘decent’ and ‘Coruscant’ actually go together.

As they emerged back into the flow of the planet-wide city, the near-midnight breeze quickly catching in all of the sweat spots, Wrecker stopped in his tracks, having been eyeing a dejected Crosshair on the way.

“Hunter?”

“Yeah, vod?”

A timid pause. “Can we get ice-cream? I think Cross here could use some. With sprinkles and a starcherry on top, just how he likes it.” Wrecker scooped up the lanky brother in question, who squawked in protest. “And a nice, squishy Wrecker hug.” He pet Crosshair’s head. “That always helps him feel much better about me winning.”

[reseptivaras]

Hi I do JavaScript recreationally and occasionally professionally. Here's some uhh things they might be called thoughts I had reading the list. I have a lot to say and I'm doing this all in the tumblr reblog editor so this is structured like hell. Also you might not know some or any of the terms I use. If that's the case just skip the paragraph.

Firstly, you might've heard of TypeScript and yeah it definitely exists. My general idea of it is that it helps with organizing large codebases. But if you're doing front-end JS you don't need to worry about it. If you're doing back-end JS or "full-stack" like most of us, you might want to worry about it. Especially if you're coming from a typed, "real programming" language. (Tip: nodemon and others can run .ts without compiling it first) But if you're new and just want to learn how to do the script of the java then don't worry about it.

From the top, if / else is essential to learn but most of the time you will just use if. Using guard clauses (short but kinda handwavy explanation video) you can remove nesting from your code. JavaScript functions can return at any point, terminating the execution of that function. You might've been taught to never use multiple return statements but doing so can help simplify your code a lot. You could also throw an error instead of logging and returning nothing.

If working with any data from an external source (you will be) like a database or an API or a game server or anything like that, learn the difference and similarities between callbacks, promises and async/await. A lot of libraries have been made and the one you want to use might still use callbacks but if you know how promises work you can wrap callback based libraries to work with async/await.

The list mentioned AJAX which I believe shouldn't even be used as a term anymore, XML is a thing of the past and it's just confusing to research what exactly "ajax" means. We did multiple assignments under the concept of AJAX in school, yet we never used XML or XMLHttpRequest. The proper name for the concept is just asynchronicity, things happening at the same time (event loop) or at an unspecified time (waiting for a server response).

If you need to make web requests, use the browsers fetch API, it's the best. If you're already used to axios, just learn fetch. If you're on node.js then uhhh use axios lmao

Also if you're a nerd learn generator functions they're neat

Arrow functions and normal functions have differences. But they also have similarities. Arrow functions can be named if you need recursion. Normal functions can be anonymous if you're just supplying it as a parameter. Both can be asynchronous.

About destructuring, when you first learn about it you will want to use it everywhere. And you should! It's amazing. Don't worry about people who say it's not performant or it's syntactic sugar for a loop, premature optimization is the devil and if your code runs fine just go ham, destructure everything.

Lastly, Array.forEach is great but there's one thing it can't do. Asynchronicity. Yeah it's always async this async that isn't.. But no worries you can use for..of instead! The for..of loop can use await inside of it. Also, if you're using Array.forEach a lot, look up Array.map and Array.reduce too, you might do better with those. Map does an operation to every item in the array and returns a new array with the modified items, reduce reads every item and uses them to "reduce" the array into a singular object or value.

A structured way to learn JavaScript.

I came across a post on Twitter that I thought would be helpful to share with those who are struggling to find a structured way to learn Javascript on their own. Personally, I wish I had access to this information when I first started learning in January. However, I am grateful for my learning journey so far, as I have covered most topics, albeit in a less structured manner.

N/B: Not everyone learns in the same way; it's important to find what works for you. This is a guide, not a rulebook.

EASY

What is JavaScript and its role in web development?

Brief history and evolution of JavaScript.

Basic syntax and structure of JavaScript code.

Understanding variables, constants, and their declaration.

Data types: numbers, strings, boolean, and null/undefined.

Arithmetic, assignment, comparison, and logical operators.

Combining operators to create expressions.

Conditional statements (if, else if, else) for decision making.

Loops (for, while) for repetitive tasks. - Switch statements for multiple conditional cases.

MEDIUM

Defining functions, including parameters and return values.

Function scope, closures, and their practical applications.

Creating and manipulating arrays.

Working with objects, properties, and methods.

Iterating through arrays and objects.Understanding the Document Object Model (DOM).

Selecting and modifying HTML elements with JavaScript.Handling events (click, submit, etc.) with event listeners.

Using try-catch blocks to handle exceptions.

Common error types and debugging techniques.

HARD

Callback functions and their limitations.

Dealing with asynchronous operations, such as AJAX requests.

Promises for handling asynchronous operations.

Async/await for cleaner asynchronous code.

Arrow functions for concise function syntax.

Template literals for flexible string interpolation.

Destructuring for unpacking values from arrays and objects.

Spread/rest operators.

Design Patterns.

Writing unit tests with testing frameworks.

Code optimization techniques.

That's it I guess!

[vernyhore]

I saw the devil (in me) - chapter 7

ao3 I chapter 1 I chapter 2 I chapter 3 I chapter 4 I chapter 5 I chapter 6

To Takemura’s surprise, it didn’t take much convincing to get Viktor to come with him to see the netrunner. At first, the ripperdoc was hesitant, gently suggesting that Takemura should just wait for his hand to heal, there was no need to jump into netrunning and that he’s free to stay at the ripperdoc’s place for as long as he needs to, but something about the other man’s tone made him yield and here they were, a few days later, walking down the slippery stairs on the edges of Charter Hill. 

The temperature has risen just enough for the ice encasing the steps to melt, making the simple ordeal of walking down that much riskier, but eventually, they managed without slipping. Viktor had already closed the clinic for the night and just as Takemura had before, they’ve decided to just walk the distance between Misty’s shop and Akiko’s basement. Despite the foul weather, Takemura found the experience rather enjoyable, the way Viktor shared his anecdotes and took in Takemura’s comments. He had to admit, he never knew small talk could be this easy. Takemura would by no means call himself awkward, taking great pride in being able to navigate a wide array of social settings, but the point of such conversations often escaped him; instead, he preferred to get straight to the point, without wasting time on chatter devoid of any clear purpose. With Viktor, it was different, he’d go as far as to say that the meaningless exchange felt almost natural - nothing needed to be reviewed, decided, or discussed, leaving them with an opportunity to just enjoy each other’s presence.

Takemura pushed the heavy door open, leading the way as they both walked into the familiar, dark corridor. Leaving muddy footsteps on the concrete floor, they walked further into the building, and eventually, they reached the bigger room. Takemura noticed that Akiko was no longer busy tinkering with her hardware, but sitting in front of one of the many monitors, face furrowed in concentration as she typed away at the keyboard. She lifted her eyes and waved at Takemura, beckoning him to come in before she got up, typing in some last commands before she finally allowed her hands to get away from the keyboard and started walking up towards Takemura to properly greet her client. Suddenly, without an apparent reason, Akiko stopped halfway, her smile dropping almost immediately.

Perplexed, Takemura turned his head just in time to see Viktor freeze. The ripperdoc was staring at the woman as if he saw a ghost, throat jumping as he swallowed heavily.

“Viktor.” she spat out his name through gritted teeth like it was some kind of a curse, her brows furrowed in a clear expression of disgust.

“Akiko,” he echoed, still standing at the door, seemingly not daring to step inside the basement. Takemura couldn’t quite make out his eyes from behind the tinted shades, but the man’s voice told him he wasn’t trying to match the amount of venom Akiko managed to put in a single word. Quite the opposite, Viktor’s tone was almost apprehensive, gone was his usual steady confidence he carried himself with on their way here, The silence that fell on the netrunner’s workshop was almost palatable, so Takemura opened his mouth to say something, anything to break it, but Akiko was faster.

“You got some nerve, showin’ up here.”

“Listen, I-” before Viktor could finish, the woman turned her piercing gaze to Takemura.

“I tell you to bring in someone you trust and that’s who you go for?” Akiko scoffed. “Bold choice.”

Takemura had to admit, he was surprised by her reaction to the other man’s presence but didn’t let it reach his face. A sudden irritation swelled up in his chest upon hearing her words and he didn’t even think before words started escaping his mouth:

“Nevertheless, I stand by it.” Takemura replied, his tone colder than intended. “He saved my life, more than once. If that isn’t enough, you still owe me. I do not think there is much room for discussion here.”

“Goro, I don’t think this is necessary.” Viktor’s voice came from behind him.

“I happen to think it is.” the other man replied, eying the netrunner, his silver optics glistering. Akiko was still standing with her arms crossed over her chest, a stern expression on her face. She refused to break eye contact, not allowing herself to be beaten in this small, meaningless game of wills, but eventually, let out a sigh.

“Fine.” she finally said. “ but afterward, you’ll never bring him here again. Wear this,” she tossed a netrunning suit at him. “and get in the damn chair.”

                                                              ***

“So what, you fry his brain? With no active cyberware, his output capacity for netrunning is-”

“Perfectly fine for a short dive like that.” she snarled, firing up one of the monitors.

“So you’ve done this before?” mockery rang in Viktor’s voice, a tone so unfitting to him it made Takemura cringe.

“There is always a risk of-” this time, Akiko was on the defensive, angrily smashing her fingers on the interface, not even looking away from the screen as she spoke.

“Then how about, for once, you actually-” Viktor started, but Takemura swiftly cut him off mid-sentence.

“Enough! Do not talk about me like I am not here. I do not know what it is between you two, but I would appreciate it if you could put it aside, just for a second.”

They both looked at him surprised, but dropped the banter, limiting themselves to exchanging glares and singular words as each set up their respective equipment. After a few more minutes, Akiko hopped onto the other chair, adjusting a few parameters on the screen above it before finally pushing it aside and plugging her personal link into the port.

“Let’s get this over with.” with that, her eyes rolled back into her skull, whites glistering. Takemura could see a soft glow that her eyelids didn’t manage to block and looked over to Viktor, netrunning cord in hand.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” the ripper said, pushing up the glasses with his free hand.

“You were not this hesitant when I first asked.” Takemura pointed out.

“I know, but-” Viktor started, but just shook his hand. “anyway, you’ve made your decision, I don’t really have a say beyond giving you advice.”

“Is it medical advice or a friendly one?”

“Between you and me, a bit of both,” Viktor said, but seeing the other man’s expression, he just handed him the cord. Takemura plugged it in without a word and allowed himself to lay back, resting his head on the leather headboard.

For a brief second, his vision glitched. Takemura turned his head to look at Viktor once more, but before he could say anything else, the image started to blur and then bleed over, warping the room into an unrecognizable array of colors and shapes before that, too, was replaced by pitch darkness. Takemura felt as if the soft leather of the chair he was lying on had melted away, replaced by pure nothingness as he felt himself fall, gaining momentum with each passing millisecond. He tried moving his hands, just to see if he could, if not to stop the fall, but before he managed to force his limbs to move, it came to an abrupt stop. When he looked down, the floor he was standing on lighted up with soft, blue light with each step he took. Takemura turned his head to look around, the illuminated structures rising right in front of his eyes. He could see them shifting, thousands of lines of code wriggling like a can of worms, a perfect military unit, moving into position.

When it finally settled, he wasn’t sure he was seeing it right.

The stairs he had been standing on were bare, no handle or barrier to stop an eventual fall. Looking behind his shoulder in search of Akiko, Takemura started walking up, passing the rigid structures of scaffolding around the construction site until finally, he reached a rooftop. Before he had a chance to take in his surroundings, his eyes landed on a figure standing on the edge, the red strings of code of her silhouette contrasting sharply with the blues and blacks surrounding them. The woman had her arms crossed over her chest and she was casually leaning on the railing. Had they been in a different place, Takemura would say she was admiring the sunset, but since there was nothing of this sort to speak of in this bottomless pit of data, only darkness beneath them, it was only a brief thought. He walked in closer, his footsteps echoing on nothing. With every step he took, he felt his stomach sink further as the women’s silhouette materialized in more and more detail. Her short, frizzy hair stood out in every possible direction, strands moving slightly with the nonexistent wind.

“V?” his voice came out coarse, but the syllable carried through the empty space between them. The woman stirred but did not turn, eyes fixed on something far in the horizon, something only she could see. He took a few more steps forward, closing the distance between them, and stood next to her, putting his arms on the railing. The area beneath them was no longer empty, the second he laid his eyes on the digital landscape, data started pouring together to form shapes, an intricate composition of buildings. It was only a draft of the real thing, devoid of any real detail, but it was more than enough. They were looking at a shadow of Arasaka Industrial Park.

Takemura turned his head to V, or rather to whatever digital footprint of her remained. She was still not acknowledging his presence, but as she stared far into the complex beneath them or at the sunset which beauty he could not see, she was smiling.

“Takemura.” it came from somewhere behind him. He turned, startled, and saw Akiko approaching him from the other side of the platform. When he looked back to where V was standing, he saw she was no longer there. A fleeting memory.

“Why are we here?” he asked, voice echoing against the nonexistent walls.

“It highly depends on what is that ‘here’ you’re speaking of.” Akiko raised her eyebrows, though something in her expression told him she knew perfectly well what he had in mind.

“So it looks different to you?”

“Yeah. What you’re seeing is just your brain’s attempt to visualize the plethora of data going through it. It fishes for a familiar place to ease the neural strain. Now come on, let’s go get what we came here for, no need to linger.”

                                                               ***

His vision still hadn't cleared by the time he and Viktor gathered up to leave, a slightly blurry notification popping up on his interface informing him of an incoming transaction. He accepted with a flicker of the eye and watched as his account balance quadrupled with the money he and Akiko recovered. It should be just enough to get him back on his feet, at least until he figures out what to do next, but first things first, he had to pay Viktor back.

“And Takemura?” Akiko shouted behind him right as they were about to leave. “We’re even.”

They walked back to Viktor’s apartment in complete silence, snow creaking beneath their boots as they turned each corner, both lost deep in their own thoughts. By the time they reached the megablock, it was well past midnight, but it didn’t mean the social hubs of the building were any more empty. They passed through them quickly and eventually found themselves back in Viktor’s place, shedding off their coats and throwing them over the desk’s chair almost in unison.

It was Viktor who finally broke the silence.

“Let me rewrap that for you.” Viktor gestured toward the other man’s arm. “Afterwards, we can sit down and talk, maybe crack a beer or two open. Reckon it’ll do both of us some good” Takemura nodded and watched the ripperdoc walk away from the table towards the bathroom. Takemura could hear the rattling of medical supplies as Viktor gathered everything he needed from a small cabinet above the sink. Still intrigued by whatever went down between Viktor and Akiko back in her lair, Takemura took a seat at the counter, quickly unbuttoning the cuffs and rolling the shirt’s sleeve up to reveal the bandaged arm. He didn’t have much time to ponder before Viktor finally emerged and put the supplies on the counter in front of them before hopping onto the chair himself.

There were more cuts than he remembered, places where Viktor went in with a scalpel to replace some of his ruined cyberware. The cuts were still angry red, but in much better condition than they had the right to be after such a short time, neat stitching pulling the broken skin together. Takemura knew they’re going to scar, but at the very least he still had an arm. He watched silently as Viktor worked, cleaning the wounds with an antiseptic before putting fresh gauze over them.

There was something about Viktor that made Takemura want to lean into the touch. He was used to doctors, having been injured countless times in the course of his service to the Arasakas, but there was a jarring difference between the way the ripperdoc was looking over the cuts, none of the impersonal, clinical touch that Takemura was accustomed to. He took a deep breath in, dismissing the thought and pushing it as far down his consciousness as it’d go. It was not the time for such indulgences.

“I apologize,” Takemura finally said. “Perhaps I should not have acted this aggressively. I should not have intervened between you two to reach my own goal, since it was clearly a personal matter.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m glad you spoke up before we had a chance to jump to each others' throats,” the ripperdoc said, not lifting his gaze, still fixed on the other man’s arm. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“I have to admit I am curious,” Takemura said, this time choosing his words carefully. “but you do not owe me anything. If you prefer to keep this a private matter, it is fine. I would not hold that against you.”

“Don’t worry,” Viktor replied, pinning the fresh bandage in place. “I have to warn you, though. It’s a long one, so we might as well move to the couch. Let me grab some beer from the fridge.” and with that, he hopped off the chair. Takemura followed and settled on the sofa, Viktor soon joining him and handing him a bottle before sitting down.

“By the 60s, my boxing career was coming to an end. You see, cyberware in sports wasn't strictly regulated until not even a decade ago and more than a few lads took advantage. New guys came in, with implants padding their brains, and with how expensive those things used to be back then, there was no way I could afford even the smallest piece of cyberware. Soon enough, I found myself patching the guys on ringside more often than throwing punches and that’s when someone from Trauma noticed me. You have to understand that for a guy from Heywood, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. Most of the guys there are ex-military, so I was an odd one, but I didn’t allow myself to lag behind. Most of the time I didn’t feel like socializing, but I brought enough practical skills to the table that the others respected me.

A few months into the program, they added another guy to our unit. His name was Takeshi and he moved to Night City shortly before that, from the Kyoto branch of Trauma. Still had a few months of basic training to do, so they placed him with us. Takeshi was off to a rough start, dropped into our group a few months in, everyone already a part of their own little clique. Some of them didn’t take too kindly to a newcomer and I can’t blame them, considering the way Trauma medics are trained to work like one organism. It takes trust to build this level of coordination, so Takeshi had a lot to prove” Viktor paused, taking a sip from the bottle. “and let me tell you, he delivered.”

“That is him in the photo, yes?” Takemura asked, gesturing toward the small collection of pictures to their right. Viktor nodded.

“I never quite dropped boxing, it was an excellent way to stay in shape for a job like that, so I’d always stay behind in the gym to practice after the place emptied in the evenings. One night, Takeshi stayed behind too, watching me for a good while. I didn’t make anything of it, figuring he’ll eventually get bored and leave, but instead he asked me for a sparring.” Viktor chuckled at the memory. “my first thought was that he was joking. The guy was way smaller than me and the insinuation that he’d be able to take me on was laughable and that’s what I did. Presumptuous, I know.” he added, noticing Takemura’s expression. “but I didn’t know any better back then. I thought we’d be done in seconds.”

“And were you?” Takemura asked, taking a sip from his own bottle. The beer had a rich, somewhat spicy taste that lingered after. He could feel his lips smirking against the cold glass, already knowing where Viktor’s story was going.

“Oh, we were. With me sprawled on the ground.” the ripperdoc let out a short laugh. “As you see, I made the mistake of underappreciating him. After that, we’d often stay behind together practicing. Soon enough, we started to meet outside of it too, often spending weekends going from bar to bar. As it turned out, he wasn’t the quiet guy I took him for, turning out to be quite chatty. He’d tell me all about his life back in Kyoto, not to mention he was quite opinionated about Night City, especially the local food, just as you are.” Takemura opened his mouth to ask how Viktor could possibly know that, but then it hit him. V must’ve told him all about the time they spent together.

“Doing a gig for Trauma was the fastest way for him to get a medical license and stay in the US for good, but he was probably the least trigger happy person I’ve ever known. Would make a great hospital doctor, with his bedside manner, but bureaucracy made it impossible for him to just hop positions like that. Months went by and we graduated, by dumb luck ending up in the same unit. Two years down the line and he comes to me, the stupidest grin on his face, telling me he met a girl.”

“Akiko?”

“Yeah. She was starting at Arasaka back then, climbing her way up the information security department. She never really liked me, but they hit it right off, another two years pass and he invites me to their wedding, even asked me to be his best man. Best party I’ve ever been to. It all seemed to be working out for us, he was happily married and we both landed great jobs. That is, before corporate started rubbing their hands all over it.”

“Isn’t Trauma a private corporation in and on itself?

“It is, but bear with me. When you’re a regular armed medic, you don’t really feel all the pressure coming from above, but the higher up you go, the more entangled you get. I’m sure you know what I mean.

“You might say so.”

“Then I’m sure you know, most likely better than anyone else, that it’s just a matter of time before those things start to get complicated. But that’s a whole different story, a less happy one, but it explains why Akiko reacted the way she did when she saw me this evening.” Viktor said, leaning back on the sofa and taking another swing from the bottle. “but I guess neither of us has anywhere else to be right now.”

“I believe so,” Takemura replied, placing his beer on the small coffee table in front of them.

“Alright then. You know, I’m not superstitious, but that day, I knew something bad would happen. I just didn’t think it'd be like this.”

[keeroo92]

Be My Nightmare Ch5

A Matter of Timing

IT’S BACK BABY!!! This chapter has a lil spice partway through, mentions of violence and such as per usual.

Word count - 3,901

~~~Previous Chapter~~~

___________

You waved goodbye to Kotomi and headed for Dr. Malphas’ office. It was time to give him an update, per protocol. You sighed and rubbed your wrist against your pants again, trying to get the last few flecks of charcoal off to no avail. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.

The heavy door was already open when you arrived. A good sign, he never left it open unless he was in a good mood.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Malphas. I’m here to give you an update on V,” you began with a smile.

Familiar grizzled features greeted you from behind the oak desk. A wrinkled hand indicated the leather armchair across from him and you obediently took your seat, offering the charts you brought along for his review.

“Right on time, as always. How’s the patient adjusting?”

Now for the hard part – how much to tell him. You paused to consider as he flipped through the pages, skimming your various notes and assorted data. What was safe to leave out? What did he need to know in order to treat the artist effectively? Certainly not everything. Definitely not the handshake.

“After a catatonic episode on day one and several auditory hallucinations, patient has stabilized enough to be left unrestrained at night. No further violent incidents have occurred since his admission.”

Malphas shifted in his chair to lean forward, his kind eyes locked on yours. “And he passed the G.O.A.T. a few hours ago, correct?”

You nodded and folded your hands in your lap, keeping the smudge out of his line of sight.

“In that case, it might be time to bring him to a group session,” Dr. Malphas said.

A group session. With other patients and access to a full array of art supplies. The idea of V around other patients felt unimaginably dangerous, but why? All you had was a knee-jerk reaction of abject dismay, no medical reasoning or evidence to support your hesitance. Only anecdotes and hearsay. What logical reason could you offer to keep him isolated?

None.

You swallowed and pursed your lips, trying not to fidget. “I agree. Which group has room?”

His eyes drifted to a slip of paper taped to his monitor and you took the opportunity to reposition your hands. “Looks like group three, they meet at four pm.”

A distant rush echoed in your ears as your heartbeat accelerated. “Today?”

Dr. Malphas met your gaze with an inquisitive expression, one grey eyebrow lifted high. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

Shit. What do I do?

If the artist wasn’t ready, it was your job as his doctor to know and inform the director. Failure to do so would reflect poorly on your abilities, not to mention the potential injuries the man might inflict. Someone could get hurt, someone could die.

Could. It’s equally possible nothing will go wrong.

You hated gambling. Certainty and planning were far more effective methods; taking chances wasn’t necessary if one foresaw any potential problems. Rolling the dice, letting the chips fall where they may… it turned your stomach.

But what was the alternative? Admitting you withheld potentially crucial information on your patient, risking everything you worked so hard to achieve? Not to mention Malphas would probably want to see the sketch, maybe even reassign V to Kotomi or Mustafa.

I’ve already made so much progress. It wouldn’t be fair for him to have to start over with a new doctor. It’s in his best interest for me to preserve the status quo.

“Dr. Waras? Are you all right?”

You blinked away the conflict and forced a smile onto your lips. It wouldn’t do to show any reason for concern.

“Yes, I’m fine. As I said, I have no reason to keep him in isolation. The medication seems to be working and he hasn’t shown any signs of aggression.”

He hummed and leaned back, making a note on V’s chart. “Excellent, see that it’s done, then. Good work.”

“Thank you, sir,” you said as you stood.

He finished his note and closed the folder, returning it to you with a kind smile. With the arm not streaked with charcoal, you accepted it with a smile of your own and turned to leave. The sooner you were gone, the better.

---V---

Never had he been more grateful for the freedom to pace. His legs tingled at first, unused to the activity after so long, but soon enough the sensation faded away. There wasn’t much room; four of his long strides took him from the door to the window.

The view wasn’t great. Through the metal bars, he found a plain grey structure with a matching barred window every few meters. At ground level, several trees lined the walkway that led to the intake area. Crows and robins flitted by occasionally, but other than that he saw no living creatures. A barren yet manicured area, to be sure.

If he’d designed it, a spectacular fountain would feature prominently. Filled with blood, of course. Water was so boring.

Other changes popped into his mind, but none quite so brilliant.

With his daily therapy session already complete, hours of solitude separated him from the next interaction. Plenty of time for planning. Schemes and machinations filled his mind, all the information he gathered so far serving to flesh out the vaguer details.

The importance of your eventual allegiance couldn’t be overstated; without you, he had almost no chance of escape. Kevin may also come in handy, depending on the timing. Once the fool served his purpose, he’d make an excellent canvas for you to practice on.

He shuddered as images of your future exploits flashed into existence. How lovely you’d look streaked in crimson, blade in hand and wearing a wide smile. Kevin’s screams would serve as an excellent soundtrack, mixed with your laughter. Sheer decadence.  

Heat gathered in his gut and his steps halted. Lithe fingers clenched as he tried to focus on his plotting, but his mind refused to cooperate. It was too alluring to imagine you bare and panting, begging him on your knees as he withheld his embrace.

Better yet, as he displayed his carnal skills on another woman, taunting you with every roll of his bloody hips. He’d take your hand and guide you as you flayed the flesh from her bones, sending her into shock. Blood would pool in every crevice of her body and coat his length. A magnificent hue only made more glorious by the canvas that displayed it.

Do it, you know you want to.

Nobody’s watching, you don’t have to hold back.

“Fuck…”

The plans could wait. His need couldn’t.

Softly slippered feet carried him to the camera’s blind spot, turned slightly toward the door. Slim fingers dove under the coarse fabric of his pants, wrapping around his hardening length and drawing it out. His breath hitched at the first contact, a deep groan following soon after as his hand moved.

What would your masterpiece look like? What vision would you strive to manifest, what tableau would you birth? A poetic arrangement of human hands, perhaps. Or a mosaic of molars, maybe a tower of tibias.

His thumb spread the first beads of his arousal over his head and he braced his other forearm against the wall. At this rate, he’d need the extra support.

He’d teach you everything he knew, every technique and method he learned at that ostentatious university. With every lesson, your devotion would grow. If you performed particularly well, perhaps he’d reward you with his tongue. What might you taste like?

His hand quickened, quiet gasps spilling from his lips as he leaned into his palm.

If you tasted even half as good as you smelled, he’d lose himself in lapping at your folds. Your subdued cries and spasming muscles would only motivate him more, especially if you tangled your hands in his hair. How high did your voice go? What pitch would make it break?

He rested his forehead on his braced arm, emerald eyes locked on his pumping fist. How he wished it was yours, with those delicate digits so soft and smooth…

A harsh clatter stole his attention as the door to his room swung open. He tried to turn away and compose himself, but he was far too slow.

Shit…

Worst timing ever, eh, Van Gogh?

There you stood, slack jawed and staring. What were you even doing here, he should’ve been alone for hours!

“Uh… s-sorry,” you stammered, closing your eyes and turning away.

Be careful. Don’t scare her.

The artist grimaced and covered himself. He’d really done it now, how was he going to fix this? Not with an apology, he couldn’t afford to appear weak. Not to mention he hadn’t done anything wrong. It was his room; he should be able to indulge himself if the desire struck.

A joke, then, to break the tension.

“You have the most unfortunate timing, Y/N. I was almost finished.”

A nervous chuckle rewarded his response, but it was clear in the slope of your shoulders you were still on edge.

“You can look, now. I’m decent.”

“R- right. Okay,” you replied, turning ever so slowly toward him. A faint blush stained your cheeks and you kept glancing away, unable to hold his gaze.

Honestly. It was just a cock, why were you acting so strange? Half the population had one, and he doubted it was the first you’d ever seen. You weren’t like most people, but not in that way. Why did you seem so embarrassed?

Unless…

His lips stretched into a wicked grin. You were embarrassed because you liked it. Perhaps you’d indulged in your own fantasies, imagining him doing unspeakable things to your body. How perfect, his machinations were bearing fruit already. Goosebumps erupted on his arms at the tantalizing idea.

Focus, you fool.

“Shut up, Vergil! I know,” he hissed under his breath, but your ears were too keen.

“What’s Vergil saying?”

Damn.

The artist moved to sit on the edge of his thin mattress, brushing strands of black out of his eyes. A deeper voice rumbled from the hall, probably Kevin’s by the sound of it. Yet another reason to tear him to pieces. Why must the idiot interrupt every moment he shared with you?

“Nothing that bears repeating,” he replied with a resigned sigh. “Why are you here?”

Shuffling feet drew closer and familiar meaty hands clicked a pair of cuffs in place on his wrists. What was going on? Was he being moved?

“You’ve been approved for group therapy. We’re here to escort you,” the accursed man answered.

Interesting… perhaps you’ll meet someone useful.

V bit his lip to keep from responding. What exactly group therapy entailed, he couldn’t say, but the term implied others were involved. An opportunity, then, at the very least. More tools to utilize in his plans. He stood with a restrained smile, humming his understanding.

“It starts in less than ten minutes, let’s go,” you said.

Kevin followed his every move as he joined you in the hallway. You still refused to meet his eyes, but the blush was already gone. What a shame.

As always, he paid special attention to the security checkpoints and any noteworthy details. It never hurt to gather more information. A fire extinguisher and alarm caught his interest, just on the other side of the first pair of gates.

Not a word broke the silence as you led him to the stairwell, descending a single flight before scanning your badge and opening the door to the second floor. He barely had time to glance outside before Kevin ushered him into a room a meter away. The journey took less than three minutes; obviously you could have easily left him to finish his activities and still brought him in time.

How inconsiderate…

Yet at the sight of the room, his frustration vanished. A plain-looking desk and chair sat in the far corner, a couch identical to the one in your office against the opposing wall. Counters lined the far wall, a sink and drying rack beside it.

But what stole his breath was the trio of easels standing nearby, a healthy variety of brushes and colorful tins of paint arranged on a round table to his right.

Tears of joy prickled at his eyes. A chance to paint, to create not with a discarded lump of charcoal but with actual brushes and whatever colors he pleased. He could scarcely believe his eyes.

“We’re a little early, so you get first pick of the easels. Kevin will be right beside you the whole time,” you said.

No doubt Kevin was intended to stop him, should he try anything rash. Unlikely; he was far more interested in painting.

Jeez, chill out Van Gogh! Try not to piss yourself.

He grunted but didn’t speak, too aware of his audience. Griffon had a point, though. It would be terribly foolish to let his guard down.

Still, his legs trembled in excitement as he approached the easels, selecting the one with the best view of the room as his own. Kevin brought over an assortment of supplies. The artist expected the man to restrain him somehow, but he only offered a smile and set up the items. The cuffs still held his wrists closer together than he would’ve liked, but he was free to stand and stretch.

His fingers itched to begin. What should he do? With such an array of tools, the possibilities were near limitless.

“Hello, Ken. This is V, he’ll be joining us from now on,” your gentle voice said.

The artist’s eyes darted to asses the new figure, a man of average build with tired eyes and a thin tuft of hair. His features twisted in anxiety, his fingers fidgeting as he took the next easel. A sturdy fellow dressed identically to Kevin shadowed him; so, each patient had their own minder.

“And here’s our last member. How are you feeling, Kelly?”

A rotund woman shuffled forward, eyes downcast and partially hidden behind a curtain of limp hair. Another agent of averageness, barely worth his notice under ordinary circumstances.

“I’m okay, Dr. Waras.”

Even her voice spoke of mediocrity. If she proved useful, it would be quite a shock.

“All right, everyone. Today I’d like you to paint me something that makes you feel angry. Go ahead and start whenever you’re ready.”

Wait, he had to follow a theme? Absurd, how dare you limit him. He’d paint whatever he pleased, and there was nothing you could do to stop him.

Yeah, how’s she supposed to know if something makes you mad? She’s gotta take your word for it!

A cough covered his amusement. The man to his left, Ken, jumped at the noise and he almost repeated himself. This was going to be such fun.

---Reader---

The assignment was of your own design, meant to grant you new insights into the artist in particular. Kelly and Ken, you already understood. They no longer held your interest.

Speaking of interesting things…

No! Stop thinking about it.

You honestly didn’t mean to interrupt V’s activities. When you peered through the small window, he was leaned against the wall and moving in a way that didn’t quite click. In your foolishness, you thought he was having an episode or perhaps a seizure. Not until the door opened and his full body was visible did you realize what he was doing.

You pursed your lips. Mixed with your embarrassment was anger at yourself for your reaction. Just standing there, gaping like a fish at his admittedly impressive length. Even such a brief glimpse left lingering images behind of his glistening head and stroking fingers.

How were you supposed to handle something like that? It’s not like you could pretend nothing happened, not with his teasing words making fun of you. Ridiculous, he should’ve apologized to you, not the other way around.

You forced it from your mind and took your usual spot at the desk, observing your three patients with a critical eye. Kelly hadn’t even picked up a brush yet, but Ken had a few streaks of blue on the canvas. V was still busy mixing colors together. Heat flooded your face as his fingers smoothly combined red and purple, the same hand he used to-

Stop thinking about it!

And he hadn’t washed his hands.

You shifted your weight, refusing to acknowledge the faint stirring inside you. You’d have to be a complete lunatic to indulge that line of thought.

An irritated huff drew your attention back to the artist. He was glaring at the mixture on his palette as if its very existence offended him. Kevin’s shoulders tensed as he noticed the hostility, bracing to intervene the moment it became necessary.

“This is unacceptable.”

Ken snuck a peek, his suspicion and curiosity obvious. The poor man had serious issues with sudden changes. It would’ve been better if you’d been able to tell him V was joining beforehand, but it didn’t matter at this point. The damage was done.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

The artist met his eyes with a scowl. “This color, it’s not right. Far too bright.”

Maybe you should’ve expected this. The man went to school for this, for heaven’s sake. Of course he’d be picky about his materials, given the chance.

“Oh. Okay then. Can’t you just add some black or something?” Ken replied.

This could be bad…

Ken’s words could easily be taken poorly, as an insult to the artist’s skills. You leaned closer, darkly curious how he’d react. Kevin was right there if he attacked, though he may do some damage if he aimed for the eyes. If not, it might be a sign of serious progress. Either way, an interesting development.

“No, that would make it too dark. Here, I’ll show you,” the black-haired murderer said calmly.

Huh.

Ken narrowed his eyes but listened as V patiently showed him the basics of mixing. It was incredible, a whole new facet of his personality you’d never seen before. He reminded you of a college art teacher, his every word laden with knowledge and enthusiasm. You thanked your lucky stars the room featured two cameras, allowing you to observe without worrying about taking down any details.

Even Kelly listened, showing more interest than you’d ever seen from her. He answered their questions and demonstrated some simple techniques, all with a total lack of hostility.

It filled you with regret. So much potential, wasted. He could’ve done so much if he took a different path. What a goddamned shame.

“Why don’t you try it now?”

Ken selected a blinding shade of yellow and a forest green, mixing them together with a spark of delight in his eyes. To your amazement, he actually laughed and thanked the artist for his explanation before turning back to his own easel.

Then V’s clever eyes met yours and he winked, a knowing smirk twisting his lips.

---V---

Winking might have been going too far, but he couldn’t resist. Not with that gob smacked look on your face. He knew you probably expected him to react differently, but Shadow’s warning roar broke through the haze of fury before it was too late. She truly was the best of them.

Ken was tolerable enough. He’d make a decent ally, when the time came. Perhaps during the next group session, he’d try to learn why the man was here, what made him tick. How to manipulate him.

Kelly was far less appealing. She lacked energy, the poor thing. She might serve as a decent canvas, but nothing more. What a shame.

He returned his focus to his easel. The color still refused to cooperate, but he’d have to make do. Enough time wasted on lesser pursuits; it was time to paint.

The first stroke of his brush was sheer bliss. His heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings as the bright crimson streak marked his canvas. A euphoric grin split his lips and one of his knees started bouncing in delight.  Oh, what perfection, to be able to hone his skills once again.

He tilted his head, assessing angles and planning the next several additions in advance. Time lost meaning as more and more layers covered the plain white foundation of his work, shades of red and purple and blue forming the shapes in his mind.

He was a conduit for a higher purpose, tapping into something far larger than himself. This was his purpose. Every mark he added brought him closer to nirvana, his arm flying across with practiced ease.

A deep cough shattered his trance. Rage pulsed under his skin as he shot a glare at Kevin, only just resisting the urge to drive the handle of his brush through his nostril and deep into his brain. The time would come, but this wasn’t it.

Destroying the fool held almost as much appeal as burying his cock in your core.

“We’re almost out of time, guys. Ten more minutes,” you announced.

Panic bloomed in his chest. It was too soon, he needed more time. He couldn’t bear the thought of being locked in that small room for however long, cut off from his purpose once again.

You have no choice. Focus.

Vergil was right. He lacked the means to fight back, for now.

The artist sighed and gauged his work. Not even close to his high standards, but he hadn’t used such mediocre supplies in years. He couldn’t expect perfection, not with such lackluster tools. All he could do was add a little bit more purple, perhaps a touch of yellow…

The final touch was two rapid strokes of black, meeting in the lower right corner. He smirked, remembering the day he changed his name. The one his parents granted him at birth didn’t befit him, far too mundane to be attributed to his masterpiece. It would’ve been such a chore signing such a complicated string of letters, he much preferred his chosen moniker.

“We’re out of time, everyone. Let’s see what you made.”

You approached Ken’s easel first, praising his use of color. V allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation for his teaching before taking a look. He had to bite his cheek to contain his laughter, but even so a snort slipped free.

The man painted a cat.

A cat with a pistol.

What the…

My sentiments exactly.

How did you maintain your composure? It baffled him, a cat with a gun did nothing to you, yet the sight of his cock made you stutter. Unbelievable. You definitely broke the mold.

Kelly’s canvas showed a poorly executed portrait, splotchy blobs for eyes and a thin line of pink forming what he assumed to be a mouth. Pitiful, yet you offered her praise as well.

Then you came to his.

“Oh… Um, very nice work, V. Very detailed,” you offered.

“Thank you, Dr. Waras. Would you like to keep it?”

You pursed your lips and shook your head, fingers tapping on your thighs. “That’s all right. Go ahead and escort them back to their rooms, please. I’ll clean up.”

The artist shrugged as if he didn’t care and allowed Kevin to lead him from the room. The last sight before he turned the corner was of your face, staring at his creation as if it held the secrets of the universe.

~~~Next Chapter~~~

[oracleofbullshyt-blog]

Chapter 3 - Dinner Time

This has to be my favourite chapter so far so i hope you guys enjoy it, it gives a nice introduction to the crew.

The next chapter is proving difficult to write so while i struggle away maybe ill write a short story? Send in your asks.

---------------

Looking up from his Holopad Vahatu scanned the busy common room from his seat on the couch, this ship was unlike anything he had worked on before. The crew of Leonidas’s Shield often came to the common room after shift to interact with one another and ‘relax’ as the captain had put it, and today was no different.

In the far end of the common room Ben the cook was busy preparing the nights various meals for the crew, he took delight in meeting each crew members dietary requirements, unlike other ships the nutrient dispensers had been replaced with a real ‘Oven’, because as Ben had told him ‘’there’s no way I’m going to be stuck in a flying bathtub and have to suck on flavourless filth every day, I want a real home cooked meal.’’ Vahatu hadn’t understood half of this statement and it had seemed very inefficient to cook meals for every different species aboard, until he saw the boost in moral and how it made everyone come together each shift.

 He chuckled and felt his scales pulse a light yellow in amusement as he saw the Fenris’ulfr stalk towards the Oven on all fours as low to ground as he could be, the captain had introduced him as Wolfs (his real name was a series of growls and yips that no one but the mimic on the crew could successfully repeat), waiting for Ben to turn around Wolfs leant over the counter and reached into the pot. Only to be hit on the elbow by an unnecessarily large spoon by the cook who had since seen him, wolfs had released a decidedly unpredatory yelp at that.

 Sitting at the large dining table playing a human game called ‘Poke-her’, as to who they were poking and where she was eluded Vahatu as the game was actually played with cards, were the two Avisxian’s, their large feathered wings tucked behind their backs and their burght colouring eluded to their evolution from some sort of Avian prey descent. Joining them was the Mantideias, a predatory insectoid that the cook referred to as Mantis, its mandibles clicking as it looked at its deck of cards. The Cephapodosa caught his eye and gave him a wink as they played their hand triumphantly, at the outrage of the others at the table he extended a few of his many tentacles he used for manipulation to pull the chips towards himself. Vahatu had made fast friends with the Cephapodosa that worked in navigation as they both could manipulate their colourings; their colour languages were different but not altogether undecipherable.

Vahatu went back to his holopad, looking through the real time schematics of the ship trying to make sense of the haphazard construction of its systems when the Dheigat fell into the seat opposite him and stretched out.

‘’You know the captain spent the time explaining the idea of relaxing to you, so that you could try it out sometime? The days over you can put the holopad down now’’.

Initium’s silvery voice flowed over him as he looked up at her, her bipedal form quite closely resembled a human, however there the similarities ended. Her skin was covered in small scales that were a purple so pale she was almost white, except along her tail where the purple got deeper towards the end, her colouring the result of her matriarch’s death and the grief she went through.

‘’I do try, but how anyone feels safe travelling on a ship in this condition is beyond me. The fusion drive’s service light has been on for 38 jumps, its supposed to be seen to within 4, and for some reason it’s deemed perfectly ok to just seal off rooms with hull breaches and not fix them if they aren’t currently being used. Twice now I’ve nearly been pulled out the ship you know.’’

Vahatu’s scales settled on a light green as they conversed, Initium was one of the first to accept him on the ship and because of their shared status as outcasts she made him feel secure with her presence.

 The cook rang the buzzer to say the food was ready, which sent everyone scuttling for the benches around the table eager to see what was on the menu tonight. The captain came walking in with the android who called himself Omni, closely followed by the ships Yemmae. Just like the ship the android was asymmetrical, its body made up of scavenged parts that had been found throughout their travels, its left arm slightly larger and lower hanging and its right leg thicker than its left, its visual sensors uneven in both number and size on its metallic face.

It never ate but always sat with them at dinner, joining in conversation with each member of the crew in their native tongue. Omni’s core took up two crew rooms, responsible for his back up and very personality it was a confusing mess of information stacks and wires, he was plugged directly into all aspects of the ship in order to minimise the crew needed for operations. Vahatu had noted that he had an insatiable appetite for knowledge always asking the crew to find him data chips at markets when they docked, and always asking questions.

 Whilst the cook was carrying the pots of food to the table the captain stood up and gathered everyone’s attention, looking around the table he frowned, ‘’Before we begin where’s slugs? He’s late.’’

‘’He’s coming now I can hear him down the halls’’, Wolfs auditory sensors were the best on the ship, and true to form Slugs the mimic came crashing down the hallway. Affectionately dubbed slugs by the crew, he was in fact a mimic. A being made up of several thousand small worm like creatures from the same species, when enough of these beings came together they created a hive mind acting as one. They can change their shape, colourings and very molecular structure at will for whatever purpose they see fit. Vahatu could see that Slugs however was agitated and scared, fleeing from unseen danger, charging down the hallway he was rapidly flashing between different forms trying to get an advantage on whatever was chasing him. Four legs. Now six. Now two. Charging into the room he grabbed the door with three outstretched appendages and used his momentum to swing himself at a near ninety degree angle, an amorphous shape that now clung to the wall. Finally settling on a large reptilian creature with too many legs to be natural, slugs skittered up the wall onto the ceiling. His assailant finally appeared at the entrance to room. Slowly stalking its prey.

 The crew broke down in laughter, the cook lay on the floor unable to move wracked with convulsions as the small cleaning unit with a knife strapped to it rolled in. Major Stabby. Vahatu’s scales pulsed yellow in amusement as Omni the ships android sighed heavily as he got up to salute the cleaning robot which only set the crew off further into hysterics.

Vahatu was still unsure of why Omni had to salute the cleaning robot, or why and how it achieved the rank of major without being sentient, and furthermore why for a pre-programmed robot with no emotion did it hate Slugs so much, not to mention the knife strapped to it. As Fenris’ulfr pointed out when he had asked this, nothing makes sense when you work with humans. Especially Ben, who seemed to have a penchant for the ludicrous.

Once the cleaning robot was taken out of the room and Slugs was convinced to come off the ceiling the captain stood up again,

‘’Alright enough, everyone settle down now. Tomorrow we’re heading into the outer Sagittarius arm, I’ve finally found a friendly enough re-fitter who’s willing to service the ship and keep it off their records. After that we’re headed off to go get a very special piece of tech for our friends in the nebula.’’

 Vahatu lay in his hammock looking at the ships service history preparing for the refit that was coming. His clearance got him through a few barricades in the ships logs and what he found was astounding.

Leonidas’s Shield was born to the Shipyards orbiting Mars as stealth exploration vehicle, one of the first infiltrator class ships that Humanity built. It was outfitted with humanities most cutting-edge weapons and armaments, and a two-metre-thick Mangalloy steel front shield extension.

During the war for Earth it affectively neutralised a capital ship by itself and then chased down multiple long-range rocket salvo ships.

The bridge had been destroyed by a fighter’s torpedo, eventually all four auxiliary engines were damaged leaving only the jump engine, and the crew were forced to work in zero gravity with full life suits due to the damage the main systems of the ship had taken. Yet she still fought. Using her cloaking device to scramble the weapons locked on to the ship, they alternated between firing off the ships salvos and then cloaking to break off and get away from the return fire.

Their cloaking system malfunctioned, and they were stuck in stealth mode, their coms array to damaged to get off an SOS. The acting captain ordered all lifeforms off the ship and into life pods as the planet was split into two, and they were picked up by other escaping ships as they retreated.

 Vahatu could see his purple tipped scales lighting up the room as he pondered on what he was seeing. There was no record of the ship being apart of humanities wandering fleet, or of the ship sending out a distress signal, so how could the ship have escaped? The captains name wasn’t on the officers list either so where did he fit in?

Vahatu’s scales changed to a harsher maroon as he read the rest of the service history, the ships mystery strayed from his mind after a while as he continued. The Captain had added multiple non-standard secondary systems, and personal touches it seemed. Leonidas’s Shield was a flying short circuit and barely one energy bolt away from the fission core venting itself into the crew quarters, but now Vahatu had to try get the ship ready with the help of a few backwards black-market ship servicers.

[entropy-game-dev]

Heya, I was wondering if you could help explain the data structure side of battle menu systems. Do you use ds_maps/grids to hold your submenus for items, etc? And even, lets say you use a ds_map for items, how do you factor in their uses during battle data-wise? I find it hard visualizing/grasping how it all works.

This is actually a super timely question because I’m going to be revising part of my battle system (but I’ll save that for another post). Just to preface, I’ve read quite a lot of articles and posts where it is suggested to nest data structures within data structures, but I honestly find this to over-complicate matters. 

So, the main battle menu (with fight, defend, inspect, items, and escape) is not any sort of data structure, but rather a hard-coded set of options, which conditionally activate one of the other battle substates based on the menu position (a number from 0 to 4). 

The attack and item menus are probably the most complex and are handled similarly, so I’ll go through those first. Upon adding a party member to a slot, I generate a ds_grid containing all of their move information. This includes the move id and move name, but more importantly, the move costs and modifiers (which are local to the specific character instance, as they can change over time depending on what status effects/equipment is affecting them. 

Now, when you press ok on the attack option, say, two things happen. The first is that a sub-menu object is created, which takes the current player’s id as an argument. This menu object has code that handles the display of the current id’s move grid. It also handles the controls and selection of this. In the meantime, the main battle controller goes into a waiting mode, and simply calls a function each step that monitors the sub-menu for when a valid item (as in, you have enough resources to cast it and it’s off cooldown) has been selected. After this, the sub-menu becomes inactive and hidden (but still retaining all the information) and the battle controller becomes active again, and swaps to the targeting substate.

Here, the returned move’s id is used to query the main moves database for targeting information and is displayed on the screen with the appropriate controls. Targeting information is stored in a 2x5 array, naturally facilitated by the grid-based nature of the battle system. If you press cancel, the battle controller reverts to the previous state, and reactivates the sub-menu. If you press ok, all the relevant move information (who is using it, move id, which squares are affected) are saved into a move grid. The sub-menu is also destroyed, and then the next person in the party becomes active, and the controller changes to the main menu selection substate again. If you press back at this point, the controlled stays at this substate but deletes the most recent row in the move grid.

Items are handled similarly, except instead of the sub-menu getting the target id, it just gets the move information directly from the item database.

For defending and escaping, instead of the sub-menu being brought up, a simple yes/no sub-menu appears. Again, the main battle controller switches to a waiting mode, and waits for the yes/no menu to return a valid response. Depending on that response, the battle controller will switch states accordingly.

Finally, the inspect option skips the sub-menu and goes straight to the targeting state. Here, a dummy move is called that has the targeting properties of a single cell. The targeting states knows the previous state, so if the previous state was the main menu and NOT one of the sub-menu waiting states, confirm does not save the dummy move to the move grid and instead brings up info about the selected target.

I’ve got a diagram that basically summarises what I’ve written up here, but can hopefully help you see what is managed by the battle controller, by external menu objects, and what data structures are used in the process. The two sub-menu bubbles are the same object with same arguments (and so are the two yes-no menu bubbles). However, the main idea is that few data structures are actually used to store the MENUS themselves. Rather, the intermediate and final outcomes of the choices of those menus are stored and referred to as needed. I really hope this helps you out - let me know if anything’s not clear or you’d like me to go into a bit more detail! Thanks for the ask!!!

[harrisongreeves-blog]

Laravel 6.0: What You Should Know

Since the inception of Laravel 5.0 around 4.5 years ago, the Laravel ecosystem has blossomed into something that leaves users nothing to complain about, to say the least. Laravel Nova, Laravel Horizon, Laravel Echo, Laravel Scout, and Laravel Passport are just some of the tools that have been introduced since then. At the time of this writing, we’re on Laravel 5.8 and Taylor Otwell has decided to skip past 5.9 on to 6.0 on the 3rd of September. Previously, Taylor has stressed that this won’t be a major paradigm shift for Laravel and the most significant change will be the transition to semantic versioning. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of new features worth talking about.

Let’s dive into some of the smaller changes first.

The Smaller Things

Authorization

Authorization messages can now be made easier for users to understand. Before Laravel 6.0, the infrastructure wasn’t in place to easily give a specific response to a user when they were given an authorization-related error. The status code could be given fairly easily, but giving a custom error message was more complicated back then. Giving a custom messaged required the developer to create a new file and write their own exceptions.

Now, to get a customizable authorization response, you can simply use the Gate::inspect method when linking to the function that enables you to receive the response. Delivery of the message to the front-end is also easy to organize. Simply add $this->authorize or Gate::authorize to a suitable route or controller.

No More Default Front-End

The typical front-end setup you are given when you first start a Laravel project is now gone. This means the Vue and Bootstrap code you would usually see, would have now been removed. What it’s been replaced with is unknown. Perhaps, it hasn’t been replaced. Strangely, the make:auth command, used to provide the login system scaffolding is now not a part of the original Laravel install either. To be honest, the rationale behind this change is unclear to me. However, given Laravel’s versioning adjustment, it makes sense that third-party technologies like Vue and Bootstrap that haven’t recently undergone the same changes could cause conflict. Though, this is merely speculation.

If you want access to the old UI, you can extract a composer package that contains it with the CLI: composer require laravel/ui and php artisan ui vue --auth.

Lazy Collections

This is one of the more interesting additions. If you’re new to Laravel, Collections are tools that make it easier for you to manipulate arrays. Eloquent, one of the two main tools in Laravel used to communicate with databases, returns its queries as Collection instances. Check out the docs for Collections if you think you’re gonna lack context in a moment. https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/collections

So, what are Lazy Collections? Traditional Collections are often used for working with large amounts of data. When they run into data-heavy files, they’ll try and store all of that data at once. This may sound quick and convenient but the downside is that this is very memory-taxing. Lazy Collections solve this problem by only storing the part of the file they need, and thus, save memory usage and boost performance.

If you understand how lazy loading works then you’ll be familiar with my previous explanation. Lazy loading works the same way. When you make a request to the server with lazy loading implemented, the browser will only return the part of the web page it knows you’re going to use immediately. Then, when the user scrolls down the page or clicks on an internal link, the server will provide you the necessary content it knows you need. This way, only memory that is needed at that particular moment is being used. This method increases speed. Lazy Collections is kind of like lazy loading but with arrays from a database and not content on a webpage.

The Bigger Things

Laravel Ignition

So yeah, the new error page for Laravel is called Ignition and it looks awesome. It’ll be the default error page for Laravel when 6.0 releases. However, if you don’t feel like making the switch to 6.0 just yet, that’s fine, you can still install Ignition on previous versions. Let’s talk about what Ignition brings to the table.

With Whoops (the current default Laravel error page), stack traces and relevant code snippets are shown in an error page, but this doesn’t always lead the developer to the solution. Worse, sometimes the stack traces just reference compiled paths. This can it make it difficult to find the necessary non-compiled files to fix because they aren’t listed anywhere on the error page. Thankfully, this isn’t a problem with Ignition, it can display to you the non-compiled file where the problem actually exists. By clicking on a pencil icon, you can go directly to the file in your chosen editor.

The second coolest feature of Ignition is that it can display potential solutions when displaying an error message. Most error pages just leave you with the error. For example, if the error is that you misspelled a property name, Ignition will tell you that the property has been misspelled and offer you the correct spelling. Solution suggestions can be way more sophisticated than this, I’ll link you to the source down below. Your suggestions are even customizable!

You wanna know the coolest feature? These solution suggestions are actually runnable!

Yes, really. Take a look at this short demo by one of the creators, Freek Van der Herten.

https://youtu.be/EZu0-CwTU9Q

Also, you can add your own runnable solutions too! This is great as Ignition is open source so people in the Laravel community will undoubtedly contribute their own solutions for everyone to use.

There’s a bunch of other cool features too such as creating your own tabs (yes Ignition has tabs) and sharing your error messages with other people. This is done using Flare, a tool that comes with Ignition.

For everything about Laravel Ignition and Flare, visit https://freek.dev/1441-ignition-a-new-error-page-for-laravel.

Laravel Vapor

Another big one. Laravel Vapor is a serverless deployment platform for Laravel. But wait, why do we need a deployment platform? We already have Laravel Forge, right? As beloved as Forge is amongst the Laravel community, it does have its limitations. It doesn’t have autoscaling to deal with large sudden increases in traffic that prevent your site from crashing. Also, configuration is required when OS or PHP updates occur. Vapor has autoscaling, so, you don’t have to worry about sudden spikes in your traffic causing website downtime. In addition, because of the serverless structure of Vapor, it also handles all the updates you may stress about when using Forge.

Vapor’s website is very clean looking and everything seems easy to find. When you deploy a project, you can see the different stages of the deployment process loading on the UI. I find this to be very reassuring and comforting. You can also rollback your application with a click of a button. Just click on “rollback” and it’ll do just that. Pretty neat. Same deal if you want your app to undergo maintenance. Just click on the “maintenance mode” button.

Another cool feature of Laravel Vapor is that you’re able to set alarms. What do I mean by that? For example, to know when your website traffic suddenly blows up, you can set a certain amount of HTTP requests per minute, and if your website hits that limit, the alarm will go off, informing you of the surge in traffic. Taylor Otwell showcases this and other conditionals in his Laravel Vapor demo which I’ll link to below.

There’s so much to cover with Laravel Vapor and the Laravel update itself. Because of this, I didn’t really want to dive into the complexities too much in this post. To learn more about the technical aspects of Laravel 6.0, you can take a look at the release notes here https://laravel.com/docs/6.0/releases. For more info on Laravel Vapor, visit this video by Taylor Otwell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsPeWjKAUt0&t=362s.

[orokinarchives]

Fortuna ARG

Background

On Thursday, 22 October 2018, 17 days before Fortuna was released on PC, a Discord server was created named Solaris United. The user who managed the server and conducted the ARG (alternate reality game) was named The Business. Initially there was only the channel #solarisunited, but within a few days the #cache, #intel, and #open-comms channels were created. Most of the ARG was conducted in the #solarisunited channel, with some information divulged in #cache and #intel. The #open-comms channel was for The Business to link to tweets or other community engagement during the course of the server, and occasionally, the channel would be opened for members of the server to post in.

Access to the Discord server was initially limited, with temporary invites as the only way to access it for some time. Later, a universal invite link was shared: https://discord.gg/lifttogether

Below are described the events of the ARG and the contents of the Discord server. All times are in UTC.

22 October

[18.04, #solarisunited] ========================== |==:: Version 5.24 starting up ::==| ==========================

Transmission protocol initiating… :::... Tapping into Corpus frequencies… :::... Connecting to data structures… :::...

…Complete

[18.11, #solarisunited] How do you do, Outworlders?

They call me 'The Business'. I need your help.

I've scuffled with my share of scoundrels, but Nef Anyo and the Corpus – or 'the Taxmen,' as they're known around here in Fortuna – are the worst of 'em.

There was a time we openly fought back against the Taxmen, until things went south after the incident. We've lived in the shadows ever since.

Outworlders, we must rebuild Solaris United. We must, once more, fight for our freedom.

Will you help us?

Some of us still act on behalf of the old Solaris United – what little of it remains.

We have agents tracking Corpus shipments on the Vallis: resources we can steal to help our people make payments and clear debts.

Help me recruit members for Solaris United, and I'll add your cut of the bounty to a cache. I've created a #cache channel to track your share.

Tell your fellow Outworlders we aren't giving up without a fight. We are Solaris, and down here, we all lift together.

I'll contact you again soon. Stay sharp.

[18.23, #cache] ========================== |==:: Version 5.24 starting up ::==| ==========================

Transmission protocol initiating… :::... Tapping into Corpus frequencies… :::... Connecting to data structures… :::...

…Complete

[18:26, #cache] Welcome to the #cache channel, Outworlders. Here, I'll deliver the latest information on your cut of the bounty as we steal from the Corpus. It'll take time to put your share together, so I'll let you know when you can pick it up.

23 October

[16.25, Twitter] From 16:25 to 17:54, ten tweets were sent from the official Warframe twitter account to various Warframe Partners. The messages were phrased as cryptic questions typed in corrupted text, which the Partners attempted to answer.

Who sent you? The ___ wakes first. Three Taxmen walk down an alley. What happens? Where is the keeper? Who can we call? Who controls the sun? Which three days are the best for contemplation? What controls the flash? Where does the coolant flow? Where is the tower?

Once each Partner attempted to answer the question (seriously or not), the Warframe twitter account would reply, "Code accepted. Agent confirmed. Check your messages." Each partner received a single-use invite to the Discord server.

[18.00, #solarisunited] Outworlders, you've done well in recruiting new members for the cause. Because of your efforts, I'm opening a new channel, #intel. I will deliver additional information to you there. Stay sharp.

[18.02, #intel] ========================== |==:: Version 5.24 starting up ::==| ==========================

Transmission protocol initiating… :::... Connecting to data structures… :::...

…Complete

[18:04, #intel] Welcome to the new #intel channel. As you continue to recruit new members for Solaris United, I will trust you with new information.

[18:13, #intel] Repossession. Nasty business.

The Solaris need cybernetic upgrades to protect themselves from the hostile Vallis climate. And guess who supplies the upgrades?

Nef Anyo and the bloody Taxmen. We're forced to do the work, and then we pay the Taxmen for the 'pleasure' of hard labour.

Because of these mandatory body mods, we all live in debt to our Corpus overlords.

It's a vicious cycle we cannot escape through obedience.

In Fortuna, we live in fear of 'repossession.'

At any hour of the day, Nef can send one of his vile repo squads down here to 'take back what's theirs'.

Limb by limb, piece by piece, the Taxmen will rip out your cybernetics until there's nothing left of you.

We must fight back, Outworlders. Because if we lose, we lose everything.

[(Translations for the intel images are on the Fortuna ARG Intel page.)]

24 October

[15.54, #solarisunited] We've seen a large influx of new recruits. Well done, Outworlders.

To aid in your recruitment effort, I'm adding our sigil to the #cache channel.

Wear this sigil to display your allegiance to Solaris United and guide new members to the cause.

Share this far and wide today. We need all the help we can get.

[15:58, #cache] So far, you've brought in a great number of trusted Outworlders to join the cause.

Attached to this message is an insignia – the symbol of Solaris United.

Our calling card. Our symbol of hope.

Wear this sigil to display your allegiance to Solaris United and guide new members to the cause.

We need all the help we can get.

[The code SOLARISUNITED would unlock the Solaris United sigil for players to wear. At the time, this code worked for PC accounts only.]

[16.00, #solarisunited] I'm worried we may have Corpus spies in our midst. I can only keep the comms channel open for a limited time after you hear from me. Stay sharp.

[16.09, #solarisunited] ============================== |==::: Version 5.24 starting output :::==| ==============================

Adding node to communications array… :::...

…Complete

Output:

=============================== https://discord.gg/JxdcE Self-destructs in one hour. Please share. ===============================

[18.12, #solarisunited] Wear your sigil and share it on public social channels using #lifttogether.

I'll post the most inspiring images in #open-comms.

Word of your efforts is spreading.

There's hope again. Keep it up.

[20.13, #solarisunited] More and more of you are joining the cause. Excellent. This operation carries risk, but with you on our side, there's hope for a free Fortuna.

Share this message with #LiftTogether and help me recruit more members for Solaris United.

[A video transmission was posted to the channel, consisting of a message from The Business.]

The Business: "Outworlder, it pains me to say this, but, I need your help. They call me 'The Business'. Time was, I'd get my hands dirty and deal with Nef Anyo myself. But my hands are tied now. Down here in Fortuna, everyone lives in fear of the Taxmen. Solaris are in debt and, by proxy, enslaved. If someone misses a payment, Nef sends his repo squads down here to… well, it's not pleasant. That's why I need your help. We used to fight back, no matter the odds. But those days are over. Outworlder, help me reignite the flames of rebellion. Help me rebuild Solaris United. To deliver this message, I managed to slip inside a Corpus research facility. I've hijacked their frequency to create a back-channel for further communication. Attached to this message is a link to the channel. You'll hear from me again soon. As they say in Fortuna, we all lift together. Stay sharp."

[20.58, #solarisunited] A resource shipment is flying into the Vallis tomorrow.

Intel suggests it may contain Nitain extract.

I'm sending two agents there to relieve the Corpus of this burden.

They'll report back tomorrow, so I'll have more information for you then.

Keep sharing the sigil using #LiftTogether, and we'll cut you in.

25 October

[03.12, #solarisunited]

============================== |==::: Version 5.24 starting output :::==| ==============================

Adding node to communications array… :::...

…Complete

Output:

=============================== https://discord.gg/H3Zh6 Self-destructs in one hour. Please share. ===============================

[18.26, #solarisunited] Our agents in the Vallis haven't reported in.

With a task this dangerous, I'm worried.

I'll let you know as soon as I have more information.

[18.36, #solarisunited] Whispers are spreading around Fortuna.

Rumours of the Solaris United insignia being seen in Relays and around the Origin System.

For the first time since Deck 12, there's hope for Solaris United.

More than 8,000 of you reported in to say you wore the sigil.

I'm speechless. Thank you, Outworlders.

I'll have a new objective for you today. Stay sharp.

[21.44, #solarisunited] Recently, you may have noticed us in the Relays.

Very few places are safe for us in the System.

You don't have to hide in the shadows like we do….

Your next objective: head to the Relays and show your support for Solaris United.

Flood the Relays. Flash the sigil. Recruit more members.

I can only keep this invite code active for a limited time, so I'm trusting you to choose the right people.

PC sigil code: SOLARISUNITED

I have bigger plans for us soon, but for now, I need as many members as I can get.

Stay sharp.

=================================== https://discord.gg/fRrB5 Self-destructs in thirty minutes. Please share. ===================================

26 October

[04.30, #solarisunited] We have trouble. One of our agents is missing.

We believe he's been compromised by the Taxmen. We don't know where they're taking him.

He was one of the agents trying to steal Nitain for us.

The other agent on the job is still in the field. He's keeping his head down.

I've sent a team out there to bring them both home and recover the resources to add to your cache.

I'll report back tomorrow. Keep your head to the wind.

[18.03, #solarisunited] Our rescue team made it back.

We lost a great agent today. He's… he's sure to be brain-shelved, I'm afraid.

We're 22,000 strong now, but the loss of one agent still pains me.

Thankfully, Agent HR-67 made it home safe along with the stolen Corpus shipment.

Crates upon crates of Nitain, just waiting to be plucked from those Taxmen muckers. We also found Ducats and Orokin Cells inside.

We'll launder what we can to safely pay off debts for people here in Fortuna.

There's too much for us to safely spend – I'll keep the rest in holding to share with you later.  You can keep an eye on #cache to see your cut.

[18:04, #cache] Agent HR-67 made it home safe with the stolen Corpus shipment.

We stole crates upon crates of Nitain, Ducats and Orokin Cells from those Taxmen muckers.

We'll launder what we can to pay off debts for people here in Fortuna.

I'll keep your share of the first bounty safe here. Keep recruiting more members for Solaris United, and I'll keep cutting you in. This is just the start. Once we've amassed more, I'll find a way to get it to you.

With the Taxmen missing a shipment, security is bound to be tighter now. We'll need all the help we can get when the time comes.

=============================== https://discord.gg/SwmDF Self-destructs in 12 hours. Please share. ===============================

[18.12 #solarisunited] We found a Corpus shipping manifest among the crates.

I've circled the shipments with the biggest payloads.

If we get our hands on these, think of how many people we can save.

How much debt we can clear.

With the Corpus missing a shipment, security is bound to be tighter now.

When the time comes, I may need to ask for your help.

[The manifest reads: SHIPMENT CODE: PRIORITY. DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED. ITEMS DETAINED EN ROUTE. RETURN TO VENUS. ENGINEERING SAMPLE FOR DISASSEMBLY AND CATALOGUE. MANIFEST]

[21.21, #solarisunited] As the movement grows, our most dedicated agents are finding ways to represent the cause.

Some of you haven't been able to obtain the sigil yet, but you're finding your own ways to bring it to life.

Time was, the symbol of the Solaris United could be sighted across Fortuna. With your support, it won't be long before that time comes again.

Support them however you can.

27 October

[20.40, #solarisunited] We are 41,000 strong now. Excellent work, Outworlders.

I know you're eager. I am, too. But I can't say more now.

Keep your head to the wind, and stay sharp.

============================= |==:: Version 5.24 starting output ::==| =============================

Adding node to communications array…

…complete!

Output:

===================== | https://discord.gg/ppqNb | Self-destructs in 6 hours. =====================

28 October

[05.17, #solarisunited] ============================= |==:: Version 5.24 starting output ::==| =============================

Adding node to communications array…

…complete!

Output:

===================== | https://discord.gg/cQe77 | Self-destructs in 6 hours. =====================

[22.51, #solarisunited] ============================= |==:: Version 5.24 starting output ::==| =============================

Adding node to communications array…

…complete!

Output:

======================== | https://discord.gg/nbkPf | Self-destructs in 6 hours. ========================

29 October

[18.45, #solarisunited] Great work over the weekend, Outworlders.

You've helped us reach 50,000 members.

I have new intel for you.

Unfortunately, the Corpus have encrypted the file.

Outworlders, work together to help me break the encryption.

Share the final message with me using #LiftTogether.

============================== https://discord.gg/B4pQu Self-destructs in 6 hours. Please share. ==============================

[An audio file, Encrypted_Intelligence.wav, was sent to the server. This audio file contained a series of DTMF tones – the sounds played when dialling a number on a conventional telephone – masked by static. The tones, when matched to their respective numbers, sounded out the sequence 24859 782887 7435833. When decoded (by matching the numbers to letters, as on a phone keypad), the message read BITLY STATUS SHELVED, which allowed players to reconstruct the shortened URL http://bit.ly/statusshelved, which lead to the image, shortly afterward posted in the #intel channel.]

[22.29, #solarisunited] Good work cracking the code… despite the bad news that it brings.

Agent HC-85 is the agent we lost during the first shipment.

Brain-shelved. Just as I feared.

I'll share what you found in #intel.

Thankfully, Nef doesn't suspect Solaris United was involved in stealing the shipment.

That's the one bit of good news here.

Still, I'll need to keep this off Eudico's radar. Rumours spread fast here.

We lost a good one, Outworlders.

Thank you for the closure. Take a moment today to honour him.

I'll talk to you tomorrow.

[22:33, #intel] The Taxmen have a disturbing protocol they call 'brain-shelving.'

For major debts or acts of defiance, the repo squad will tear you apart and keep your brain 'tanked' in a storage facility.

Your brain will stay there until your friends or family can clear away your initial debt.

Then the Taxmen will graciously release what's left of you.

And when – and only when – your loved ones can afford to buy a new rig to house your brain, you'll return to a functional, conscious life.

Absolutely dreadful.

30 October

[04.58, #solarisunited] ============================== https://discord.gg/sHQcp Self-destructs in 6 hours. Please share. ==============================

[19.12, #solarisunited] Outworlders, I need your help.

We have an agent returning to Orb Vallis. She's bringing a shipment of stolen Catalysts and Reactors, but security here in the Vallis is tight since the Taxmen caught one of our agents.

I need you to create a distraction long enough so she can fly in undetected.

Your mission:

Work together to coordinate an assault on V Prime, Venus.

Cause as much mayhem as you can.

If we take down enough Corpus in one area, we can shift their focus away from the Vallis so she can return here.

Keep it going for as long as you can.

Complete this mission, and everyone here will get a cut of the shipment.

Your share will be added to the #cache.

Good luck, and stay sharp.

=============================== https://discord.gg/c3TjG Self-destructs in 12 hours. Please share. ===============================

[22:20, #cache] Rumours are spreading online.

Outworlders are saying that anyone can wear the sigil now.

PC, XBOX, PS4 Code:  SOLARISUNITED

[22.22, #solarisunited] First reports are in. More than 7,000,000 Taxmen have been eliminated on V Prime so far.

The assault is off to a good start, but we need more help.

Let's make this a day the Corpus will never forget.

[23.45, #solarisunited] Outworlders, as you're distracting the Taxmen on V Prime, we're taking this opportunity to steal new intel.

We found this text in a Corpus database.

Work together to help us decipher it.

I'll keep an eye on #LiftTogether for what you find.

[A large text file, data.txt, was sent to the server, containing gibberish characters. When run through a base64 converter, the text file was shown to be an image, consisting of the same two images – one an exterior shot of the Orb Vallis, the other an interior shot of Fortuna – repeated in a random sequence.]

[The series of interior and exterior images could be converted into binary, with interior as 0 and exterior as 1. resulting in:]

011010010110110101100111011101010111001000101110011000110110111101101101001011110111010101110100010110010100100001111000011100110100110000101110011010100111000001100111

[This translated into an imgur link: imgur.com/utYHxsL.jpg. The image from imgur was shortly afterwards posted in the #intel channel.]

31 October

[00.43, #solarisunited] Very impressive, Outworlders.

The Corpus may need to hire new intel officers after this is over.

I'll share what you deciphered in #intel.

[00:47, #intel] Little Duck.

One of our best agents.

My former protégé.

Just look at that rap sheet!

If our distraction works, she'll fly in tonight with those Reactors and Catalysts.

[03.53, #solarisunited] You are causing quite a stir, Outworlders.

I'd be shocked if this wasn't the most activity the Corpus have ever seen on V Prime.

Little Duck is on her way.

Wear your sigil. Keep it going.

[07.06, #solarisunited] Your distraction worked. Our agent – Little Duck – is on her way with the shipment of Orokin Catalysts and Reactors. Nice work.

[19.09, #solarisunited] The assault on V Prime was a resounding success.

More than 30,000 of you came together to help us secure this shipment.

Taxmen chatter is saying you caused 31 times more destruction than usual on V Prime.

That's sure to make a dent in their profit margins.

Good work, Outworlders.

Little Duck arrived unscathed with the shipment of Reactors and Catalysts.

I've added your share of the shipment to your #cache.

If we can sell these on the black market, we can repay a great amount of Solaris debt.

[19:10, #cache] Thanks for your help, Outworlders.

Because of your distraction on V Prime, Little Duck was able to deliver these to us.

I've added your cut to the cache for you to pick up when this is all over.

An all-platform Cache code will be shared once all shipments have been stolen.

[19.12, #solarisunited] =============================== https://discord.gg/2DG5D Self-destructs in 12 hours. Please share. ===============================

01 November

[18.45, #solarisunited] I have a new update for the server that should upgrade the comms channel and fix a few bugs. You'll need to accept the download on your end.

[19.39, #solarisunited] [A text file, errorlog.txt, was sent to the server. It contained random characters and punctuation, but, when word-wrapped in a particular way, the file could be shown to contain Roman numerals depicted in ASCII art. The sequence of numbers was 1, 22, 23, 24, 65, 84, 85, 103, 142, 143, 146, although this sequence was apparently incorrect and needed to be amended on Prime Time #224, which also aired that day. During Prime Time, the sequence was shown on screen for a few seconds at the end of the stream, where it was corrected to 11, 22, 23, 24, 65, 84, 85, 103, 142, 143, 146, 161.]

[19.48, #solarisunited] [A PDF file, 6rhe84.pdf, was sent to the server. It was protected by a password and could not be opened without it. A tweet by the Warframe twitter account contained the following text:]

feｅｌｔｈeｗeightｏfｗhaｔｗｅoｗeｆeeltｈeweigｈtοfｗhatweоｗｅfｅelｔhewｅⅰghtofwhatweowefeeltheweightofwhatweowefeeltheweightofwhatweowefeeltheweightofwhatweowe

["Feel the weight of what we owe" is a line from the Solaris song "We All Lift Together", but some of the letters have been replaced with homoglyphs – characters which look the same but are read as separate characters by computers. This technique is a form of steganography. Using a decoder such as http://holloway.co.nz/steg/, the string "openthehorn" could be extracted from this tweet, which was the password to opening the PDF. The document contained nonsensical text, but when this text was copied into another word processing application, a hidden paragraph was revealed:]

The right group of Outworlders creates a tribe, one that is full of ambition and zeal. Take to the snow, show them who we are. Assemble and bring back the flare. First and only first. Head these words.

[The series of numbers extracted from the error log could be read as a book cipher, with the hidden paragraph from the PDF serving as the reference text. For example, the first number 11 referenced the first letter (1) of the first word (1) in the paragraph, "t". This decryption resulted in "tightbeambiz", which could be converted to the link http://tightbeam.biz. The link (no longer active) led to a minigame where players had to click on a moving target as quickly and accurately as possible. A meter at the bottom of the page tracked cumulative attempts, and inspection of the page elements revealed that the game was set to continue until it had registered 300,000 successful attempts across all users. The link now redirects to a transmission from The Business from later in the ARG.]

03 November

[19.12, #solarisunited] /// TRANSMISSION JAMMER DEACTIVATED /// /// UNAUTHORISED USERS REMOVED ///

[19.40, #solarisunited] You did it, Outworlders!

When the Corpus jammer went up, I feared the worst. I didn't think we would speak again.

But you made quick work of a challenging situation.

I did what I could to help you take down the jammer, but your efforts were extraordinary.

Tracking hacks in real-time. Sharing scripts. Spreading the word.

When I called out, I didn't imagine agents of your calibre would answer.

Well done, Outworlders. Well done.

Our team stole a shipment of Fieldron and Articulas while we were busy with the jammer.

I've added your cut to the #cache.

And thanks to your efforts, this server is now open for anyone to join.

Share this link far and wide.

https://discord.gg/lifttogether

We have agents reporting back today about the final shipment.

This is it. Stay sharp.

[The Discord server now had a universal invite code that did not expire, and anyone could join the server using the new link.]

[19:52, #cache] While the Corpus jammer was up, our agents managed to steal a shipment of Fieldron. We also found a crate of Articulas stored away in there.

I've added your share to the cache.

Good work, Outworlders.

An all-platform Cache code will be shared once all shipments have been stolen. Our agents are reporting back today about the final shipment. Stay sharp.

[20.33, #solarisunited] Urgent message, Outworlders… I have new intel.

The final shipment is missing. Help us track down the tags so we can secure it.

[A video transmission was posted to the channel, consisting of a message from The Business.]

The Business: "We have a situation. The bloody Taxmen are on full alert. I need your help now more than ever. We can't find the final shipment. The Corpus must have moved it after the jammer went down. The Ventkids know where it is, but it'll be a warm day on the Vallis before they do something completely useful. They're giving us the name through coded tags, in a few different locations. Something about… "sticking it to the Taxmen". [chuckles] Well, they should know where to look for the tags. Find them, figure out the code, and give me the location in the #comms channel. And, of course, I'll make it worth your while. Stay sharp."

[A video was posted to the Warframe YouTube channel, consisting of the first transmission from The Business on 24 October, but in the description of the video was an imgur link. This image was of a scrambled piece of text that read "Where Agent 101 greets Agent 36". This was interpreted as the highways US Route 101 and California State Route 36, which meet in the town of Fortuna, California. A second video was posted on YouTube, consisting of The Business' other transmission from today, with another imgur link in the description, this being a depiction of the shape of Fortuna, CA.]

[A PDF file was also posted in the server, bee7ab59801cce47.pdf. This was protected by a password, which turned out to be the ZIP code of Fortuna, CA (95540). The PDF was a manual on road signs and driving laws, but contained hidden text much like the last PDF: a string of Morse code.]

....- ----- ·-·-·- --........ ...-- ----. --... --.. -. ..- ... --... ...--·-·-·- ----. ---.. ...------- .----...-- --... ·-·-·- --... ....- ----- ..---...-- -- .. -. ..- ... .---- ..--- ..--- ·-·-·-....- ----- ----- -.... .----

[Additional Morse code strings were found in the metadata of the PDF file if one inspected the properties. The Morse code, when translated, led to a series of GPS coordinates.]

40° 45' 14.3" N, 73° 58' 58.8"W [Bryant Park, New York, NY] (no letter, likely error)

37° 44' 24.8" N, 122° 24' 2.2"W [Oakdale Avenue, San Francisco, CA] (F)

39° 57' 7.2" N, 75° 10' 24.6"W [Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA] (T)

40° 46' 13.9" N, 73° 55' 6.0"W [Hoyt Avenue, Long Island City, NY] (no letter, likely error)

[At each of the locations in real life was a billboard advertising the pending Fortuna update for Warframe. Each billboard had a Corpus letter spray-painted in the corner (in bold next to each coordinate). Players had to find the billboards, take a picture of them, and post them to social media using the hashtag #LiftTogether, at which time The Business, using official Warframe social media accounts, would reply and confirm the correct billboard. Two of the locations had no billboard, or a billboard without a letter tag, which was later acknowledged as a mistake.]

[Example from San Francisco.]

04 November

[22:02, #solarisunited] Not sure where this came from, but if I had to wager, it'd be the Ventkids.

Hmm, it looks like some sort of code.

Work together to figure it out. It might lead to more of those tags.

Be quick, and stay safe, Outworlders.

[A text file, Note.txt, was posted in the server. It consisted of a series of words – the names of characters, such as "underscore" and "backslash" – with whitespace filled in by # symbols. When the words were replaced with the characters they represented, a new set of coordinates was revealed, written in ASCII art.]

41° 51' 32.4" N, 87° 37' 26.4" W [Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL] (T)

40° 46' 13.9" N, 73° 55' 5.9" W [Hoyt Avenue, New York, NY] (repeat coordinate, no letter)

40° 46' 24.0" N, 73° 57' 16.0" W [79th Street, New York, NY] (L)

40° 46' 41.9" N, 73° 57' 45.8" W [5th & 81st, New York, NY] (no letter, likely error)

[Like the other coordinates, these represented billboards that had to be sought out for the Corpus letters they displayed.]

05 November

[23:21, #solarisunited] Looks like the Ventkids hid the final batch of coordinates somewhere in here:

https://www.warframe.com/fortuna/info

Knowing them, some of these coordinates won't lead to tags.

Work together to find them and decipher the code.

I'll keep an eye out for the final location name on #LiftTogether.

Good luck, Outworlders, and stay sharp.

[The Business provided a link to the hype site for Fortuna. One of the section headers, "Orb Vallis, Venus", had a hidden link to https://www.warframe.com/fortuna/ecprifoeomrdef, which displayed a message.]

Wake up, Tenno…

It's all been building to this…

Follow the red fish.

[After the message played, a Norg was shown on-screen and a rendition of We All Lift Together played. Rearranging the letters in the URL gave https://www.warframe.com/fortuna/priceoffreedom, which showed a ticker of various letters, as follows:]

FP▲JUPBX MC▼OQKD VP▲MMCDV UC▼LTVFN RP▲UMCYN JE▼OTURB VP▲JGXND MD▼OKYLL FP▲MQLRS UR▼PPAEO DW▲JMRZU OH▼JOYNI FP▲JILOK UD▼LMGMV RP▲MIIOB JC▼OMVEZ RP▲UKLPX MC▼LJYCR VP▲MGZON JC▼OJLMJ FP▲MTAXC MD▼OIPMZ FP▲JXQEK UE▼LLUJA VP▲MQODK JC▼OLORZ CF▲POSEM QZK▼CVFXT DF▲PHXPL ZAI▼CVUGZ EW▲JFNZL OY▼MLGSY

[By converting the letters to numbers using a QWERTY keyboard (where Q, A, and Z all equal 1; W, S, and X equal 2; and so forth), and converting the arrows to decimal points, another set of GPS coordinates was uncovered:]

40° 46' 13.9" N, 73° 55' 5.9" W [Hoyt Avenue, New York, NY] (repeat coordinate, no letter)

40° 46' 24.0" N, 73° 57' 16.0" W [79th Street, New York, NY] (repeat coordinate, L)

40° 46' 25.2" N, 73° 57' 26.8" W [3rd & 78th, New York, NY] (no letter, but a billboard with the letter P was found at 3rd and 178th, so this may have been a typo)

40° 45' 9.5" N, 73° 59' 13.2" W [38th & 6th, New York, NY] (no letter)

40° 43' 9.9" N, 74° 0' 5.0" W [Canal & Broadway, New York, NY] (no letter)

32° 46' 27.0" N, 96° 47' 48.0" W [Akard Street, Dallas, TX] (no letter)

40° 47' 23.9" N, 73° 58' 32.7" W [89th & Broadway, New York, NY] (M)

40° 47' 20.2" N, 73° 58' 27.5" W [88th & Amsterdam, New York, NY] (P)

40° 47' 20.5"N, 73° 58' 34.8" W [87th & Broadway, New York, NY] (M)

40° 45' 7.0" N, 73° 58' 47.2" W [41th & Madison, New York, NY] (F)

40° 45' 4.4" N, 73° 58' 50.6" W [39th & Madison, New York, NY] (E)

40° 43' 17.0" N, 73° 59' 51.8" W [Lafayette & Kenmare, New York, NY] (no letter)

40° 43' 9.8" N, 73° 59' 57.9" W [Lafayette & Howard, New York, NY] (no letter)

34° 5' 32.5" N, 118° 20' 39.3" W [La Brea & Lexington, Los Angeles, CA] (no letter)

34° 3' 43.5" N, 118° 20' 51.0" W [Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles] (O)

32° 44' 46.3" N, 96° 47' 42.9" W [11th Street, Dallas, TX] (no letter)

[Like the other coordinates, these represented billboards that had to be sought out for the Corpus letters they displayed. In all, the letters found on billboards were: F, T, T, L, P, M, P, M, F, E, and O. In addition, billboards were found in Philadelphia and Los Angeles at coordinates not specified by the data, with the letters O and R, respectively. Rearranging the letters gives the phrase TEMPLE OF PROFIT if one adds an extra E and I – likely meant to have been on some of the earlier billboards – and drops the extraneous M.]

06 November

[03:57, #open-comms] Nice work, Agent Nub. That sounds like a location here in the Vallis.

Let me send a team up there to investigate.

I will let you know more as soon as I get confirmation.

Rest up and stay sharp, Outworlders.

[Replying to a tweet by @PrimeNub asking about the Temple of Profit.]

[16:11, #solarisunited] You were right! The final shipment went to the Temple of Profit.

Our team just came back with it. Tons of Forma just waiting to be snatched.

The debts we'll pay off with these….

We couldn't have done it without your incredible effort.

On behalf of the Solaris, thank you, Outworlders.

I will add your Forma cut to the #cache.

The Ventkids also sent along a Scrawl for your K-Drive to thank you for your efforts – something to give it more flair.

They don't hand these out to just anyone, so consider yourself lucky!

[16:15, #cache] As promised, I've added your Forma to the Cache.

I'll send you the code to your cache once the first Outworlders arrive in Fortuna later this week.

I'll also keep your K-drive Scrawl safe until you arrive in Fortuna.

An all-platform Cache code will be shared when Fortuna launches this week.

A PC K-drive Scrawl code will be shared when Fortuna launches this week.

A console K-drive Scrawl code will be shared when Fortuna launches on console.

[16:23, #solarisunited] We've racked up quite a bounty in our short time together.

I'll give you your code to claim your share once the first Outworlders arrive in Fortuna later this week.

Make sure to claim it quickly as access will only be open for a limited time.

I can't wait to work together in person.

But when you get here, it's Eudico you'll need to talk to.

I have more intel to share on the people you'll meet down here.

I'll be in touch before you get here.

Thanks again for all of your help, Outworlders. 

Until we speak again, stay sharp.

[21:17, #solarisunited] Before we meet in person, I have some new intel I'd like to share with you.

I think you'll find this valuable.

There's a layer of encryption to keep its contents safe – answer my questions using #LiftTogether.

What controls the flash? [Answer: Those who lift together] What was the original server version? [Answer: 5.24] Who controls the sun? [Answer: He who waits behind the wall] Who did we lose? [Answer: HC-85] The ___ wakes first. [Answer: dreamer] Final question: What do we fear? [Answer: Repossession. Soon, nothing.]

[Players attempted to answer the questions on social media using the hashtag #LiftTogether. The correct answers were linked by The Business in the #open-comms channel with the acknowledgement "Response confirmed." Those who responded correctly soon received fragments of another debt portfolio. Once all the pieces were brought together, The Business posted the complete image in #intel.]

[22:28, #solarisunited] Good work, Outworlders.

I'll add what you put together in #intel.

[22:29, #intel] Poor Thursby. First he loses his parents on Deck 12, then he inherits their debt.

Now he's facing repossession.

I need to tell Eudico about this.

08 November

[00:35, #solarisunited] An agent has intel for us. He's an Outworlder, like you. 

He'll be waiting for you somewhere in the Origin System.

Instructions are enclosed in this document. You'll have to decipher the password: TQIRFYJ

Stay sharp.

[A PDF file, Note.pdf, was sent to the server. "TQIRFYJ" turned out to be a Caesar cipher that translated to "OLDMATE", which was the password to open the PDF. The content of the PDF was hidden, coloured white, but could be read by copying it and pasting it into another word processing application.]

Nice to meet you. Got some intel to share with ya. Supposed to give it to you in pieces. You should share this with our, uh, mutual friend. 1. Wear your Sigil. 2. Find me in Cetus on PC. 3. Deep Bow twice to confirm your identity.

[On Cetus, there would be a player with the name [FRIENDOFSOLARIS] in a Mag warframe. If this player was approached by another player wearing the Solaris United sigil, and was Deep Bowed twice to, they would say a message such as "qYDRDVq" into Cetus chat, and leave, going to another Cetus instance. Players had to find which instance of Cetus the Friend of Solaris was in, find them, and approach them to receive another code. The codes turned out to be imgur links (ie https://imgur.com/qYDRDVq), which were pieces of another debt portfolio. Once all the pieces were collected and assembled, The Business posted the complete picture in #intel.]

[03:06, #solarisunited] Remarkable work, Outworlders.

Ah, this is about Zuud.

I'll add what you deciphered to #intel.

[03:07, #intel] Zuud's a few circuits short of a full board, but I can't blame her.

Another Deck 12 survivor. A night of horrors, to be sure.

Precious few of us escaped alive, none of us intact, fleeing to the shadows.

Zuud lost her entire family in the flames. All six of her sisters.

Eudico still blames herself.

[05:10, #solarisunited] I couldn't help but notice something last week.

When I mentioned my former protégé, you seemed to recognise her.

That doesn't surprise me. Her dealings around the System leave her well-connected.

More so than I ever was.

Little Duck deals in wares you might find interesting.

You can find her down here in Fortuna… if you know where to knock.

And maybe you'll learn our truth when you get here.

[18:42, #solarisunited] This is it, Outworlders. There's one last piece of intel for us to decipher.

Work together to solve it and report back to me.

Our time together here is almost over, but on the bright side… it won't be long until we meet in Fortuna.

[A picture, showing the Solaris United logo in ASCII art, and a password-protected PDF file, Final_Intel.pdf, were sent to the server. Some of the dots underneath the Solaris United logo are filled in (while the majority are empty); the dots form a phrase in Braille that reads "howzit glinty". This is the password for the PDF. The PDF was a hype image of Fortuna, but with some strange purple- and blue-coloured bars running down the image. If these bars were separated and overlaid on the Solaris United logo, they highlighted certain blocks of characters, as shown below.]

[Counting the number of characters in each column gives 17, 17, 10, 26, 18, 4, 14; 7, 11, 14, 1, 16, 25; and 7, 22, 14, 18, 5, 21, 10. Converting the numbers into letters, based on their position in the alphabet (where A=1, B=2, and so forth) gives the strings QQJZRDN, GKNAPOY, and GVNREUJ. These are imgur links (ie https://imgur.com/QqJZrDN), which show pieces of yet another debt portfolio. Once the image was put together, The Business posted the complete image in #intel.]

[19:36, #solarisunited] Outworlders, today is the day we've been waiting for. You know what's at stake now.

As we open our home to you, help us spread the word.

Report in with your Agent name and let everyone know that today, we all #LiftTogether.

https://discord.gg/lifttogether

[19:45, #solarisunited] Excellent work, Outworlders. This intel is about Eudico.

I'll share your final deciphered information in #intel.

[19:46, #intel] Eudico. Nef Anyo's loyal floor boss.

Or so it would seem from her report. Clean as a whistle on paper.

Her reputation is why we're still alive.

We'll all get brain-shelved if Nef finds out she's the leader of Solaris United.

Well… she was our leader.

Eudico put an end to Solaris United after Deck 12.

"No more muckin' blood on my hands," she said.

Outworlders, when you get here, Eudico is the one you'll need to talk to first.

We need to move past Deck 12.

Help me convince her to bring back Solaris United.

[20:36, #solarisunited] Looks like some of you made it down here to Fortuna.

Thanks for all of your hard work, Outworlders.

This is the last you'll hear from me here, but there's still work for us to do.

Here's the universal code for the cache: EARSON

And here's the PC code for the K-drive Scrawl: TERMINALBIGFLIP

Make sure to claim them quickly as access will only be open for a limited time.

Restarting Solaris United is just the first spark of the rebellion.

With your help, the flames of hope will burn bright in Fortuna once again.

I'll see you in Fortuna.

This writeup used material from the ARGrakata Discord server's account of the ARG, as well as the Forum megathread for the ARG.

[Navigation: Hub → Other → Fortuna ARG]

[bluerose5]

In a Past Life

(Warning for severe illness, lack of editing, and transfer of consciousness.)

Summary: Connor gets the feeling that he met the deviant leader before the events of Detroit. Word Count: 1,395. Rated T.

The first time that Connor saw Markus, he nearly bit his tongue off from the shock.

What he was shocked about? He couldn't exactly say. All he knew was that, deep down, he had seen that deviant before.

Flashes of various images had passed him by, there and gone within a second. The feeling was disorienting, his senses were overwhelmed, and the room wouldn't stop spinning for anything. As he stared at the screen before him, his vision focused in on the RK200's facial structure, trying to figure out where he knew him from.

Of course that would be the moment that Hank approached him, asking whether he found anything of interest.

Before Connor could even think, the words were already spilling out of his mouth, dismissing Hank's concern.

Apparently, he came across as a bit too defensive because it was nearly impossible to miss the suspicious glance thrown his way.

Connor ignored the churning of his gut, continuing on with their investigation.

Only the flashes didn't stop there.

With each passing day —hell, with each passing hour— more and more of the flashes invaded his mind, the strange images growing impossibly more intense with each encounter. All it took was one thing to trigger them. It could be something as simple as a random coffee shop, or it could be another news coverage on the deviant named Markus.

When he and Hank eventually visited Elijah Kamski himself, the images remained at their clearest throughout Connor's entire stay. He would constantly raise a hand to his throbbing temple, massaging his LED in confusion, but every time he did so, Elijah would merely stare at him in amusement.

After the whole "Kamski Test" ordeal, Hank rushed him out of there as quickly as possible, but the images refused to go away.

From then on, they were a constant nuisance, a stubborn thorn in Connor's side that he would rather ignore.

Following that, he threw himself into his work without abandon, a tactic which eventually paid off. With Hank's help, of course.

Connor didn't know what he expected out of that exchange with Markus, but he definitely didn't expect for all of the images to come crashing down on him at once.

And when he comes to, he definitely doesn't expect to be transported to a different world.

No, not another world, but... a memory?

Your memory, his mind corrects him, but no. That's impossible. He has no recollection of this.

Everything around him is overwhelming. It's like all of his systems are being bombarded at once, overloaded by an endless array of sensory data. The sounds, the smells, the tastes...

Wait, no, androids can't taste.

Wrong. Wrong. This is all wrong.

But Connor can remember it all, as clear as day. The sweet taste of his favorite chocolates on his tongue, the teasing press of another's mouth against his own, a smile forming on the human's lips.

A human that beams back at him with mismatched eyes.

Before Connor can get his bearings, though, he's thrown haphazardly into another vision, launched into a free fall before he crashes through another portion of his programming.

This time, he's in an apartment, yelling through a closed door, his mouth moving without his consent.

"Markus, please," he begs, tears streaming down his cheeks. Desperate and afraid, he clutches tighter at the phone in his hand, a recent email open on display. "This is our last chance. He's offering us a solution."

"Bullshit. He's offering for us to be his guinea pigs," Markus calls out, followed by some strained, gurgling coughs.

Then silence.

Connor feels his heart sink in his chest, and he starts pounding on the door, his nails scratching viciously at the wood.

He doesn't even notice when he starts bleeding.

"Markus?!" he yells.

No answer.

Connor feels his stress levels skyrocket to hazardous levels, his LED turning a deep red.

Followed by an endless display of notifications.

Software Instability ▲

Software Instability ▲

Software Instability ▲

[IN%EGR@%ION C@MPLE#E]

What? What integration?

There's not even a warning before he's thrown back into the fray.

Connor continues to bang on the door, dropping to the floor to peak underneath.

"Come on," he whimpers, swiping furiously at his tears.

It clears his eyes long enough to spot Markus' form, still and lifeless on the floor.

Connor can't breathe.

He can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe...

The room goes dark around him, just for him to reappear in  yet another memory.

This time, he's in a hospital of some kind, surrounded by sterile white walls on all sides while an incessant beeping drones on in the background.

Connor sits by an occupied bed, his leg bouncing, fingers tented thoughtfully over his mouth.

And Markus lays silently before him, staring resolutely at the ceiling, his breathing shallow, eyes droopy and frame emaciated. At this point, he can barely stay awake, so he nods off on multiple occasions, unable to keep his head upright. Connor uses his sleeve to wipe away the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. Summoning what remains of his strength, Markus reaches up to grasp comfortingly at his hand.

A white gold band shines brightly in the lights.

The door opens, and Connor glances up at their visitor in relief. Markus takes the time to appraise him as well, his lip curling with  disdain.

Elijah Kamski stares at them, rewarding them both with an appreciative nod.

"Thank you two for agreeing to participate," he says, calm and collected.

Holding in another cough, Markus glowers, squeezing weakly at his husband's hand. "Let's get one thing straight. I'm only here for him. This never was and never will be about you."

Kamski holds his hands up in surrender, smirking victoriously. "Crystal clear. Although, I have to admit that I was surprised by your sudden willingness to participate."

"Nothing like a good change of heart," Markus deadpans.

Connor takes a deep breath, trying to keep himself from falling apart at the seams.

"You wanted someone with my level of intellect to perform your procedure on," Connor states. "If you want my cooperation, then this is my condition. Save him first, and then you'll get the prototype you always dreamed of."

Kamski considers the offer for a weighted moment, then nods his final consent.

"Well, gentleman," he says, clasping his hands together with glee. "Ready to make history?"

"No."

That one word is enough to snatch Connor immediately back to the present.

Meanwhile, those memories —his memories— continue to sort themselves in the background, but it doesn't end there. It isn't a simple replay of events, but it's a total integration of the experiences. Emotions, thoughts, actions... All of it is transferred over.

All of it is his.

Not only that, but all of the other missing pieces return. Pieces that were supposed to be lost with each new transfer into another "Connor" android. Fifty predecessors, but he's the first to come full circle.

He's the first to fully adopt the original Connor's consciousness.

A human consciousness.

The words pop up unexpectedly.

[I AM DEVIANT.]

Oh no.

He shakily drops his gun, grasping desperately at his skull.

Too fast. This is all happening too fast.

He feels like he's drowning, suffocating. His legs can barely hold him up, and his chest feels as if it is collapsing. He keels over, dry heaving onto the floor.

Pain. This is pain. Why can he perceive pain?!

[STRESS LEVEL: 96%]

A notification pops up, warning him of potential self-destruction.

Coughs wrack his body, and a bitter taste clings to the inside of his mouth.

What has he done?

Hands settle roughly on his shoulders, but Connor can't even find it within himself to look up.

His voice is still the same, calm yet passionate, able to make a person believe anything.

Able to convince an entire people to stand by his side, even in the face of death.

Connor curls in on himself.

Why now? Why did it all have to come back to him now, of all times?

Why couldn't this have happened at Stratford Tower, before the worst of the damage had been done?

"Connor," Markus whispers, his voice filled with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

Too bad Connor is going to have to break his heart.

It only takes five words.

"They're going to attack Jericho."

[bountyofbeads]

Elizabeth Warren Is Completely Serious https://nyti.ms/2KlW3oV

PLEASE READ and SHARE this FASCINATING, IN-DEPTH expose on Elizabeth Warren's life, her DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS and excellent POLICY prescriptions to ADDRESS INCOME INEQUALITY, CORPORATE POWER and CORRUPTION in policies. She is an AMAZINGLY INTELLIGENT strong woman.

#2020PresidentalCandidates

#2020Vision #VoteBlue2020 #2020PresidentialElection

Elizabeth Warren Is Completely Serious

About income inequality. About corporate power. About corrupt politics. And about being America’s next president.

By Emily Bazelon | Published June 17, 2019 | New York Times | Posted June 17, 2019 |

The first time I met Elizabeth Warren, she had just come home from a walk with her husband and her dog at Fresh Pond, the reservoir near her house in Cambridge, Mass. It was a sunny day in February, a couple of weeks after Warren announced her candidacy for president, and she was wearing a navy North Face jacket and black sneakers with, as usual, rimless glasses and small gold earrings. Her hair had drifted a bit out of place.

The dog, Bailey, is a golden retriever who had already been deployed by her presidential campaign in a tweet a week earlier, a pink-tongued snapshot with the caption “Bailey will be your Valentine.” Warren started toweling off his paws and fur, which were coated in mud and ice from the reservoir, when she seemed to realize that it made more sense to hand this task over to her husband, Bruce Mann.

In the kitchen, Warren opened a cupboard to reveal an array of boxes and canisters of tea. She drinks many cups a day (her favorite morning blend is English breakfast). Pouring us each a mug, she said, “This is a fantasy.” She was talking about the enormous platform she has, now that she’s running for president, to propagate policy proposals that she has been thinking about for decades. “It’s this moment of being able to talk about these ideas, and everybody says, ‘Oh, wait, I better pay attention to this.’” She went on: “It’s not about me; it’s about those ideas. We’ve moved the Overton window” — the range of ideas deemed to merit serious consideration — “on how we think about taxes. And I think, I think we’re about to move it on child care.”

Her plan, announced in January, would raise $2.75 trillion in revenue over 10 years through a 2 percent tax on assets over $50 million and a higher rate for billionaires. Warren wants to use some of that money to pay for universal child care on a sliding scale. As she talked, she shifted around in her chair — her hands, her arms, her whole body leaning forward and moving back. Onstage, including at TV town halls, she prefers to stand and pace rather than sit (she tries to record six miles a day on her Fitbit), and sometimes she comes across as a little frenetic, like a darting bird. One on one, though, she seemed relaxed, intent.

Warren moved to Cambridge in 1995 when she took a tenured job at Harvard Law School, and 11 years later, Mann, who is a legal historian, got a job there, too. By then they had bought their house; Warren’s two children from a previous marriage, her daughter, Amelia, and son, Alexander, were already grown. The first floor is impeccable, with a formal living room — elegant decorative boxes arranged on a handsome coffee table — a cozy sunroom and a gleaming kitchen with green tile countertops. When Warren taught classes at Harvard, she would invite her students over for barbecue and peach cobbler during the semester. Some of them marveled at the polish and order, which tends not to be the norm in faculty homes. Warren says she scoops up dog toys before people come over.

For her entire career, Warren’s singular focus has been the growing fragility of America’s middle class. She made the unusual choice as a law professor to concentrate relentlessly on data, and the data that alarms her shows corporate profits creeping up over the last 40 years while employees’ share of the pie shrinks. This shift occurred, Warren argues, because in the 1980s, politicians began reworking the rules for the market to the specifications of corporations that effectively owned the politicians. In Warren’s view of history, “The constant tension in a democracy is that those with money will try to capture the government to turn it to their own purposes.” Over the last four decades, people with money have been winning, in a million ways, many cleverly hidden from view. That’s why economists have estimated that the wealthiest top 0.1 percent of Americans now own nearly as much as the bottom 90 percent.

As a presidential candidate, Warren has rolled out proposal after proposal to rewrite the rules again, this time on behalf of a majority of American families. On the trail, she says “I have a plan for that” so often that it has turned into a T-shirt slogan. Warren has plans (about 20 so far, detailed and multipart) for making housing and child care affordable, forgiving college-loan debt, tackling the opioid crisis, protecting public lands, manufacturing green products, cracking down on lobbying in Washington and giving workers a voice in selecting corporate board members. Her grand overarching ambition is to end America’s second Gilded Age.

[Elizabeth Warren has lots of plans.Together, they would remake the economy.]

“Ask me who my favorite president is,” Warren said. When I paused, she said, “Teddy Roosevelt.” Warren admires Roosevelt for his efforts to break up the giant corporations of his day — Standard Oil and railroad holding companies — in the name of increasing competition. She thinks that today that model would increase hiring and productivity. Warren, who has called herself “a capitalist to my bones,” appreciated Roosevelt’s argument that trustbusting was helpful, not hostile, to the functioning of the market and the government. She brought up his warning that monopolies can use their wealth and power to strangle democracy. “If you go back and read his stuff, it’s not only about the economic dominance; it’s the political influence,” she said.

What’s crucial, Roosevelt believed, is to make the market serve “the public good.” Warren puts it like this: “It’s structural change that interests me. And when I say structural, the point is to say if you get the structures right, then the markets start to work to produce value across the board, not just sucking it all up to the top.”

But will people respond? Warren has been a politician for only seven years, since she announced her run for the Senate in 2011 at age 62. She’s still thinking through how she communicates her ideas with voters. “The only thing that worries me is I won’t describe it in a way that — ” she trailed off. “It’s like teaching class. ‘Is everybody in here getting this?’ And that’s what I just struggle with all the time. How do I get better at this? How do I do more of this in a way that lets people see it, hear it and say, ‘Oh, yeah.’”

In the months after Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016, Warren staked out territory as a fierce opponent of the president’s who saw larger forces at play in her party’s defeat. While many Democratic leaders focused on Trump himself as the problem, Warren gave a series of look-in-the-mirror speeches. In the first, to the executive council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. on Nov. 10, she said that although there could be “no compromise” on standing up to Trump’s bigotry, millions of Americans had voted for him “despite the hate” — out of their deep frustration with “an economy and a government that doesn’t work for them.” Later that month, she gave a second speech behind closed doors to a group that included wealthy liberal donors and went hard at her fellow Democrats for bailing out banks rather than homeowners after the 2008 financial crisis. In another speech, in February 2017, to her ideological allies in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Warren said: “No matter how extreme Republicans in Washington became, Democrats might grumble or whine, but when it came time for action, our party hesitated and pushed back only with great reluctance. Far too often, Democrats have been unwilling to get out there and fight.”

Warren fought in those early months by showing up at the Women’s March and at Logan Airport in Boston to protest Trump’s travel ban. On the Senate floor, opposing the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be Trump’s first attorney general, she read a letter by Coretta Scott King criticizing Sessions for his record of suppressing the black vote in Alabama, and Republican leaders rebuked her and ordered her to stop. The moment became a symbol of the resistance, with the feminist meme “Nevertheless, She Persisted,” a quote from the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, defending the move to silence her. Warren helped take down Trump’s first choice for labor secretary, the fast-food magnate Andy Puzder (he called his own employees the “bottom of the pool”), and she called for an investigation of the Trump administration’s botched recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

But somewhere along the way to announcing her candidacy, Warren’s influence faded. She was no longer the kingmaker or queenmaker whose endorsement Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders avidly sought during their 2016 primary battle. When Warren failed to endorse Sanders, the left saw her decision as an act of betrayal, accusing her of propping up the Democratic establishment instead of trying to take it down. (When I asked Warren if she had regrets, she said she wasn’t going to revisit 2016.) Sanders emerged as the standard-bearer of the emboldened progressive movement.

Trump, meanwhile, was going after Warren by using the slur “Pocahontas” to deride her self-identification in the 1980s and ’90s as part Native American. In the summer of 2018, he said that if she agreed to take a DNA test in the middle of a televised debate, he would donate $1 million to her favorite charity. Warren shot back on Twitter by condemning Trump’s practice of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border (“While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas”). But a few months later, she released a videosaying she had done the DNA analysis, and it showed that she had distant Native American ancestry. The announcement backfired, prompting gleeful mockery from Trump (“I have more Indian blood than she has!”) and sharp criticism from the Cherokee Nation, who faulted her for confusing the issue of tribal membership with blood lines. Warren apologized, but she seemed weaker for having taken Trump’s bait.

Sanders is still the Democratic candidate with a guru’s following and a magic touch for small-donor fund-raising, the one who can inspire some 4,500 house parties in a single weekend. And he has used his big policy idea, Medicare for All, to great effect, setting the terms of debate on the future of health care in his party.

With four more years of Trump on the line, though, it’s Joe Biden — the party’s most known quantity — who is far out in front in the polls. Challenging Biden from the left, Warren and Sanders are not calling wealthy donors or participating in big-money fund-raisers. Sanders has been leading Warren in the polls, but his support remains flat, while her numbers have been rising, even besting his in a few polls in mid-June. Warren and Sanders are old friends, which makes it awkward when her gain is assumed to be his loss. Early in June, an unnamed Sanders adviser ridiculed Warren’s electability by calling her DNA announcement a “debacle” that “killed her,” according to U.S. News & World Report. A couple of weeks before the first Democratic primary debates, on June 26 and 27, I asked her what it was like to run against a friend. “You know, I don’t think of this as competing,” she responded. It was the least plausible thing she said to me.

In March, Warren demonstrated her appetite for challenging the economic and political dominance of corporate titans by going directly at America’s biggest tech companies. In a speech in Long Island City, Queens — where local protesters demanded that Amazon drop its plan to build a big new campus — Warren connected the companies’ success at smothering start-up rivals to their influence in Washington. She remarked dryly that the large amounts that businesses like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple spend on lobbying is a “good return on investment if they can keep Washington from enforcing the antitrust laws.” She wants to use those laws to break up the companies instead — a move that no other major American politician had proposed.

After Warren started talking about the four tech giants, along with other critics, the Trump administration let it be known that it was scrutinizing them for potential antitrust violations. Conservatives have suspected social media platforms of bias against them for years, and with concerns about privacy violations escalating, big tech was suddenly a bipartisan target. Warren has specifics about how to reduce their influence; she wants to undo the mergers that allowed Facebook, for example, to snap up WhatsApp, rather than compete with it for users. Warren could unleash the power to bring major antitrust prosecutions without Congress — an answer to gridlock in Washington that’s crucially woven into some of her other plans too. (Warren also favors ending the filibuster in the Senate.) Warren wants to prevent companies that offer an online marketplace and have annual revenue of $25 billion or more from owning other companies that sell products on that platform. In other words, Amazon could no longer sell shoes and diapers and promote them over everyone else’s shoes and diapers — giving a small business a fair chance to break in.

“There’s a concerted effort to equate Warren with Bernie, to make her seem more radical,” says Luigi Zingales, a University of Chicago economist and co-host of the podcast Capitalisn’t. But Wall Street and its allies “are more afraid of her than Bernie,” Zingales continued, “because when she says she’ll change the rules, she’s the one who knows how to do it.”

Warren’s theory of American capitalism rests on two turning points in the 20th century. The first came in the wake of the Great Depression, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt seized the chance to protect workers and consumers from future economic collapse. While the New Deal is mostly remembered for creating much of the nation’s social safety net, Warren also emphasizes the significance of the legislation (like the Glass-Steagall Act) that Democrats passed to rein in bankers and lenders and the agencies (the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) that they put in place to enforce those limits. Warren credits this new regulatory regime, along with labor unions, with producing a golden era for many workers over the next four and a half decades. Income rose along with union membership, and 70 percent of the increase went to the bottom 90 percent. That shared prosperity built, in Warren’s telling, “the greatest middle class the world had ever known.”

Then came Warren’s second turning point: President Ronald Reagan’s assault on government. Warren argues that Reagan’s skill in the 1980s at selling the country on deregulation allowed the safeguards erected in the 1930s to erode. Republicans seized on the opening Reagan created, and Democrats at times aided them. (Bill Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999.) That’s how the country arrived at its current stark level of inequality. “The system is as rigged as we think,” Warren wrote in her 2017 book “This Fight Is Our Fight”— in a riposte to Barack Obama, who insisted it was not, even as he recognized the influence of money in politics. This, Warren believes, is what Trump, who also blasted a rigged system, got right and what the Democratic establishment — Obama, both Clintons, Biden — gets wrong.

The challenge for Warren, going up against Trump, is that his slogan “drain the swamp” furthers the longstanding Republican goal of discrediting government, whereas Warren criticizes government as “a tool for the wealthy and well connected,” while asking voters to believe that she can remake it to help solve their problems. Hers is the trickier, paradoxical sell.

Warren faces a similar challenge when she tries to address the fear some white voters have that their economic and social status is in decline. Trump directs his supporters to blame the people they see every day on TV if they’re watching Fox News: immigrants and condescending liberal elites. Warren takes aim at corporate executives while pressing for class solidarity among workers across race and immigration status. Trump’s brand of right-wing populism is on the rise around the world. As more people from the global south move north, it’s harder than ever to make the case to all workers that they should unite.

It’s a classic problem for liberals like Warren: Workers often turn on other workers rather than their bosses and the shadowy forces behind them. “Populism is such a slippery concept,” Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University and author of “The Populist Persuasion: An American History,” told me. “The only real test is whether you can be the person who convinces people you understand their resentment against the elites. Trump did enough of that to win. Bernie Sanders has shown he can do it among young people. Can Elizabeth Warren pull it off? I’m not sure.”

It’s an inconvenient political fact for Warren that she’s far more associated with Harvard and Massachusetts, where she has lived for the last 25 years, than with Oklahoma, the childhood home that shaped her and where her three brothers still live and her family’s roots are multigenerational. If you include Texas, where Warren lived in her early 20s and for most of her 30s, she spent three formative decades far from the Northeast.

When she was growing up, Warren’s father worked as a salesman at Montgomery Ward and later as a janitor; neither of her parents went to college. (White women in this group broke for Trump by 61 percent in 2016, and white men supported him by 71 percent.) In the early 1960s, when Warren was 12, her father had a heart attack and lost his job in Oklahoma City. One day, after the family’s station wagon was repossessed, her mother put on the one formal dress she owned, walked to an interview at Sears and got a job answering phones for minimum wage. This has become the story that Warren tells in every stump speech. She uses it to identify with people who feel squeezed.

There’s another story that Warren tells in her book about the implications, for her own life, of her family’s brush with financial ruin. Warren was going to George Washington University on a scholarship — “I loved college,” she told me. “I was having a great time” — when an old high school boyfriend, Jim Warren, reappeared in her life.

He asked her to marry him and go to Texas, where he had a job at IBM. Warren knew her mother wanted her to say yes. “It was the whole future, come on,” she told me. “I had lived in a family for years that was behind on the mortgage. And a secure future was a good man — not what you might be able to do on your own.”

Warren dropped out of college to move to Houston with her new husband. “It was either-or,” she said. Many women who make this choice never go back to school. But Warren was determined to become a teacher, so she persuaded Jim to let her finish college as a commuter student at the University of Houston for $50 a semester. After her graduation, they moved to New Jersey for Jim’s next IBM posting, and she started working as a speech therapist for special-needs children.

Warren was laid off when she became pregnant, and after her daughter was born, she talked Jim into letting her go to law school at Rutgers University in Newark (this time the cost was $450 a semester). After she had her son, she came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t cut out to stay home. “I wanted to be good at it, but I just wasn’t,” she told me.

In the late 1970s, she got a job at the University of Houston law school. She and her husband moved back to Texas. A couple of years later, when their daughter was in elementary school and their son was a toddler, the Warrens divorced. In her book, Warren writes about this from Jim’s perspective: “He had married a 19-year-old girl, and she hadn’t grown into the woman we both expected.” (Jim Warren died in 2003.)

Two years later, Warren asked Mann, whom she had met at a conference, to marry her. He gave up his job at the University of Connecticut to join her in Houston. At the university, Warren decided to teach practical classes, finance and business. In 1981, she added a bankruptcy class and discovered a question that she wanted to answer empirically: Why were personal bankruptcy rates rising even when the economy was on the upswing?

At first, Warren accepted the assumption that people were causing their own financial ruin. Too much “Tommy, Ralph, Gucci and Prada,” a story in Newsweek called “Maxed Out”later declared. Along with two other scholars, Jay Westbrook and Teresa Sullivan, Warren flew around the country and collected thousands of bankruptcy-court filings in several states. “I was going to expose these people who were taking advantage of the rest of us by hauling off to bankruptcy and just charging debts that they really could repay,” she said in a 2007 interview with Harry Kreisler, a historian at the University of California, Berkeley. But Warren, Westbrook and Sullivan found that 90 percent of consumer bankruptcies were due to a job loss, a medical problem or the breakup of a family through divorce or the death of a spouse. “I did the research, and the data just took me to a totally different place,” Warren said.

That research led to a job at the University of Texas at Austin, despite the doubts some faculty members had about her nonselective university degrees. (Mann worked at Washington University in St. Louis.) They finally managed to get joint appointments at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, and she stayed there until 1995.

During this period, Warren was registered as a Republican. (Earlier, in Texas, she was an independent.) Her political affiliation shifted around the time she began working on bankruptcy in Washington. More than one million families a year were going bankrupt in the mid-’90s, and Congress established the National Bankruptcy Review Commission to suggest how to change the bankruptcy code. The commission’s chairman, former Representative Mike Synar of Oklahoma, asked Warren, now at Harvard Law School, to be his chief policy adviser. “I said, ‘No, not a chance, that’s political,’” Warren said in her interview with Kreisler. “I want to be pure. I want to be pristine. I don’t want to muddy what I do with political implications.”

But Synar persuaded Warren to join his team. It was a critical juncture. Big banks and credit-card companies were pushing Congress to raise the barriers for consumers to file for bankruptcy and harder for families to write off debt. Bill Clinton was president. He had run — much as Warren is running now — as a champion of the middle class, but early in his first term he began courting Wall Street. He didn’t want to fight the banks.

Warren flew back and forth from Boston to Washington and to cities where the commission held hearings. It was her political education, and the imbalance of influence she saw disturbed her. The banks and lenders paid people to go to the hearings, wrote campaign checks and employed an army of lobbyists. People who went bankrupt often didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, and by definition, they had no money to fight back.

By 1997, Warren had become a Democrat, but she was battling within the party as well as outside it. In particular, she clashed with Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware. Biden’s tiny state, which allowed credit-card companies to charge any interest rate they chose beginning in 1981, would become home to half the national market. One giant lender, MBNA, contributed more than $200,000 to Biden’s campaigns over the years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Biden strongly supported a bill, a version of which was first introduced in 1998, to make it more expensive to file for bankruptcy and more difficult to leave behind debt. He was unpersuaded by Warren’s charts and graphs showing how the change would increase the financial burden on families. “I am so sick of this self-righteous sheen put on anybody who wants to tighten up bankruptcy,” Biden said during a Senate hearing in 2001.

The bankruptcy battles continued, and when Warren testified against the proposed changes to the bankruptcy code before the Senate in 2005, Biden called her argument “very compelling and mildly demagogic,” suggesting that her problem was really with the high interest rates that credit-card companies were allowed to charge. “But senator,” Warren answered, “if you are not going to fix that problem” — by capping interest rates — “you can’t take away the last shred of protection from these families” that access to bankruptcy offers. The bill passed two months later.

Biden’s team now argues that he stepped in to win “important concessions for middle-class families,” like prioritizing payments for child support and alimony ahead of other debt. When I asked Warren in June about Biden’s claim, she pursed her lips, looked out the window, paused for a long beat and said, “You may want to check the record on that.” The record shows that Warren’s focus throughout was on the plight of families who were going bankrupt and that Biden’s was on getting a bill through. He supported tweaking it to make it a little less harmful to those facing bankruptcy, and the changes allowed it to pass.

In the years since it became law, the bankruptcy bill has allowed credit-card companies to recover more money from families than they did before. That shift had two effects, Matthew Yglesias argued recently in Vox. As Biden hoped, borrowers over all benefited when the credit-card companies offered slightly lowered interest rates. But as Warren feared, the new law hit people reeling from medical emergencies and other unexpected setbacks. Blocked from filing for bankruptcy, they have remained worse off for years. And a major effort to narrow the path to bankruptcy may have an unintended effect, according to a 2019 working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, by making it harder for the country to recover from a financial crisis.

In 2001, a Harvard student named Jessica Pishko, an editor of The Harvard Women’s Law Journal, approached Warren about contributing to a special issue. She didn’t expect Warren to say yes. Students saw Warren as an example of female achievement but not as a professional feminist. “She didn’t write about anything that could seem girlie,” Pishko remembers. “She wasn’t your go-to for feminist issues, and she was from that era when you didn’t put pictures of your kids on your desk” to show that you were serious about your work. But Warren wanted to contribute. “She said: ‘I’m doing all this research on bankruptcy, and I want to talk about why that’s a women’s issue. Can I do that?’”

The paper Warren produced, “What Is a Women’s Issue?” was aggressive and heterodox. In it, she criticized the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund for singling out Biden for praise in its annual report because he championed the Violence Against Women Act, which made it easier to prosecute domestic abusers. Warren thought his support for that law did not compensate for his role in pushing through the bankruptcy legislation, which she believed hurt women far more. “Why isn’t Senator Biden in trouble with grass-roots women’s groups all over the country and with the millions of women whose lives will be directly affected by the legislation he sponsors?” she asked. The answer raised “a troubling specter of women exercising powerful political influence within a limited scope, such as rape laws or equal educational opportunity statutes.

Warren wanted feminism to be wider in scope and centered on economic injustice. She urged students to take business-law classes. “If few students interested in women’s issues train themselves in commercial areas, the effects of the commercial laws will not be diminished, but there will be few effective advocates around to influence those policy outcomes,” she wrote. “If women are to achieve true economic equality, a far more inclusive definition of a women’s issue must emerge.”

She challenged standard feminist thinking again when she published her first book for a lay audience (written with her daughter), “The Two-Income Trap,” in 2003. Warren argued that in the wake of the women’s movement of the 1970s, millions of mothers streamed into the workplace without increasing the financial security of their families. Her main point was that a family’s additional income, when a second parent went to work, was eaten up by the cost of housing, and by child care, education and health insurance.

Conservatives embraced her critique more enthusiastically than liberals. Warren even opposed universal day care for fear of “increasing the pressure” to send both parents to work. She has shifted on that point. The child-care proposal she announced this February puts funds into creating high-quality child care but doesn’t offer equivalent subsidies to parents who stay home with their children. Warren says she’s responding to the biggest needs she now sees. More and more families are squeezed by the cost of child care; not enough of it is high quality; the pay for providers is too low. Warren is framing child care as a collective good, like public schools or roads and bridges.

“The Two-Income Trap” got Warren onto “Dr. Phil,” giving her a taste of minor stardom and the appeal of a larger platform. When the financial crisis hit, she moved to Washington’s main stage. At the invitation of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader at the time, Warren led the congressional oversight panel tasked with overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that Congress created to save the financial system. In public hearings, Warren called out Timothy Geithner, Obama’s Treasury secretary, for focusing on bailing out banks rather than small businesses and homeowners. Through a spokeswoman, Geithner declined to comment for this article. In his memoir, he called the oversight hearings “more like made-for-YouTube inquisitions than serious inquiries.”

But Warren could see the value of the viral video clip. In 2009, Jon Stewart invited her on “The Daily Show.” After throwing up from nerves backstage, she went on air and got a little lost in the weeds — repeating the abbreviation P.P.I.P. (the Public-Private Investment Program) and at first forgetting what it stood for. She felt as though she blew her opportunity to speak to millions of viewers. Stewart brought her back after the break for five more minutes, and she performed well, clearly explaining how the country forgot the lessons of the Great Depression and the dangers of deregulation. “We start pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric,” Warren said. She listed the upheavals that followed — the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the collapse of the giant hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 and the Enron scandal a few years later. “And what is our repeated response?” Warren said. “We just keep pulling the threads.” Now that the government was trying to save the whole economy from falling off the cliff, there were two choices: “We’re going to decide, basically: Hey, we don’t need regulation. You know, it’s fine, boom and bust, boom and bust, boom and bust, and good luck with your 401(k). Or alternatively, we’re going to say, You know, we’re going to put in some smart regulations ... and what we’re going to have, going forward, is we’re going to have stability and some real prosperity for ordinary folks.”

Stewart leaned forward and told Warren she had made him feel better than he had in months. “I don’t know what it is that you just did right there, but for a second that was like financial chicken soup for me,” he said.

“That moment changed my life,” Warren later said. Stewart kept inviting her back. In 2010, Congress overhauled and tightened financial regulation with the Dodd-Frank Act. In the push for its passage, Warren found that she had the leverage to persuade Democratic leaders to create a new agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its job is to safeguard people from malfunctioning financial products (like predatory loans), much as the government protects them from — to borrow Warren’s favorite analogy — toasters that burst into flames. Warren spent a year setting up the C.F.P.B. When Obama chose Richard Cordray over her as the first director because he had an easier path to Senate confirmation, progressives were furious.

Warren was an unusual political phenomenon by then: a policy wonk who was also a force and a symbol. In 2012, she was the natural choice for Democrats recruiting a candidate to run against Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, a Republican who had slipped into office, after Ted Kennedy’s death, against a weak opponent. Warren had another viral moment when a supporter released a homemade video of her speaking to a group in Andover. “You built a factory out there?” Warren said, defending raising taxes on the wealthy. “Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.” Brown called Warren “anti-free enterprise,” and Obama, running for re-election,  distanced himself in an ad shot from the White House (“Of course Americans build their own businesses,” he said). But Warren’s pitch succeeded. She came from behind in the race against Brown and won with nearly 54 percent of the vote.

Voters of color could determine the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the primaries, African-Americans constitute a large share of Democrats in the early-voting state of South Carolina and on Super Tuesday, when many other states vote. In the general election, the path to the presidency for a Democrat will depend in part on turning out large numbers of people of color in Southern states (North Carolina, Virginia, possibly Florida) and also in the Rust Belt, where the post-Obama dip in turnout among African-Americans contributed to Hillary Clinton’s squeaker losses in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Warren has work to do to persuade people of color to support her. In the last couple of Democratic primaries, these voters started out favoring candidates who they thought would be most likely to win, not those who were the most liberal. Black voters backed Hillary Clinton in 2008 until they were sure Barack Obama had enough support to beat her, and in 2016 they stuck with her over Bernie Sanders. This time, they have black candidates — Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Wayne Messam — to choose from. And voters of color may be skeptical of Warren’s vision of class solidarity transcending racial division. As it turned out, Warren’s case that most white people voted for Trump because of economic distress, and “despite the hate,” as she said right after the election, didn’t really hold up. A study published last year found that among white voters, perceived racial or global threats explained their shift toward Trump better than financial concerns did. What does that say about the chances of winning as a liberal who tries to take the racism out of populism?

When Warren makes the case about what needs to change in America by leaning on the period from 1935 to 1980, she’s talking about a time of greater economic equality — but also a period when people of color were excluded from the benefits of government policies that buoyed the white middle class. In a video announcing that she was exploring a presidential bid, Warren acknowledged that history by saying that families of color today face “a path made even harder by generations of discrimination.” For example, the federal agency created during the New Deal drew red lines around mostly black neighborhoods on maps to deny mortgage loans to people who lived in them.

Warren spoke about this problem years before she went into politics. Redlining contributed to the racial wealth gap, and that had consequences Warren saw in her bankruptcy studies — black families were more vulnerable to financial collapse. Their vulnerability was further heightened by subprime and predatory lending. In “The Two-Income Trap,” Warren called these kinds of loans “legally sanctioned corporate plans to steal from minorities.”

In March, Warren took a three-day trip to the South. She started on a Sunday afternoon, with a town hall — one of 101 she has done across the country — at a high school in a mostly black neighborhood in Memphis. It’s her format of choice; the questions she fields help sharpen her message. The local politicians who showed up that day were African-American, but most of the crowd was white.

The next morning, Warren drove to the Mississippi Delta. Her husband, Mann, was on spring break from teaching and along for the trip. Warren’s staff welcomes his presence because Warren loves having him with her and because he’s willing to chat up voters (who often call him “Mr. Warren”). In the small town of Cleveland, Miss., Warren sprang out of her black minivan in the parking lot of a church to shake the hand of an African-American state senator, Willie Simmons. They were meeting for the first time: He had agreed to take her on a walking tour after her campaign got in touch and said she wanted to learn about housing in the Delta.

Simmons and Warren set off down a block of modest ranch houses, some freshly painted, others peeling, preceded by TV crews and trailed by the rest of the press as her aides darted in to keep us out of the shot. The scrum made conversation stagy, but Simmons gradually eased into answering Warren’s questions. He pointed out cracks in the foundations of some houses; the lack of money to repair old buildings was a problem in the Delta. They stopped at a vacant lot. The neighbors wanted to turn it into a playground, but there was no money for that either.

Warren nodded and then took a stab at communicating her ideas to the local viewers who might catch a few of her words that night. She hit the highlights of the affordable housing bill she released in the Senate months earlier — 3.2 million new homes over 10 years, an increase in supply that Moody’s estimated would reduce projected rents by 10 percent. When the tour ended, Simmons told the assembled reporters that he didn’t know whom he would support for president, but Warren got points for showing up and being easy to talk to — “touchable,” he said.

That night, Warren did a CNN town hall at Jackson State University, the third historically black college she has visited this year. Warren moved toward the audience at the first opportunity, walking past the chair placed for her onstage. She laid out the basics of her housing bill, stressing that it addressed the effects of discrimination. “Not just a passive discrimination,” Warren said. “Realize that into the 1960s in America, the federal government was subsidizing the purchase of homes for white families and discriminating against black families.” Her bill included funds to help people from redlined areas, or who had been harmed by subprime loans, buy houses. The audience applauded.

Warren also said that night that she supported a “national full-blown conversation” about reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. She saw this as a necessary response to the stark wealth gap between black and white families. “Today in America — because of housing discrimination, because of employment discrimination — we live in a world where the average white family has $100 and the average black family has about $5.” Several Democratic candidates have said they support a commission to study reparations. Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the influential 2014 Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations,” said in a recent interview with The New Yorker that Warren was the candidate whose commitment seemed real because she had asked him to talk with her about his article when it came out years ago. “She was deeply serious,” Coates said.

Warren is often serious and doesn’t hesitate to convey her moral outrage. “I’ll own it,” she told me about her anger. She talked about women expressing to her their distress about sexual harassment and assault. “Well, yeah,” Warren said. “No kidding that a woman might be angry about that. Women have a right to be angry about being treated badly.”

Trump gets angry all the time; whether a woman can do the same and win remains a question. Warren’s campaign is simultaneously working in another register. On Twitter, it has been posting videos of Warren calling donors who have given as little as $3. They can’t believe it’s her. When the comedian and actress Ashley Nicole Black tweeted, “Do you think Elizabeth Warren has a plan to fix my love life?” Warren tweeted back and then called Black, who finished the exchange with a fan-girl note: “Guess who’s crying and shaking and just talked to Elizabeth Warren on the phone?!?!? We have a plan to get my mom grandkids, it’s very comprehensive, and it does involve raising taxes on billionaires.”

After Trump’s election, Warren and Sanders said that if Trump followed through on his promise to rebuild the economy for workers and their families, they would help. If Trump had championed labor over corporations, he could have scrambled American politics by creating new alliances. But that version of his presidency didn’t come to pass. Instead, by waging trade wars that hurt farm states and manufacturing regions more than the rest of the country, Trump has punished his base economically (even if they take satisfaction in his irreverence and his judicial appointments).

Warren has been speaking to those voters. In June, she put out an “economic patriotism” plan filled with ideas about helping American industries. By stepping into the vacuum for economic populism the president has left, Warren forced a reckoning on Fox News, Trump’s safe space on TV, from the host Tucker Carlson. Usually a Trump loyalist, he has recently styled himself a voice for the white working class.

Carlson opened his show by using more than two minutes of airtime to quote Warren’s analysis of how giant American companies are abandoning American workers. Carlson has warned that immigrants make the country “poorer and dirtier” and laced his show with racism, but now he told his mostly Republican viewers: “Ask yourself, what part of the statement you just heard did you disagree with?” He continued, “Here’s the depressing part: Nobody you voted for said that or would ever say it.” The next day, a new conservative Never Trump website called The Bulwark ran a long and respectful essay called “Why Elizabeth Warren Matters.”

A month earlier in Mingo County, W.Va., where more than 80 percent of voters cast a ballot for Trump, Warren went to a local fire station to talk about her plan for addressing the opioid crisis. It’s big: She wants to spend $100 billion over 10 years, including $50 million annually for West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of deaths from drug overdoses. In Trump’s latest budget, he has requested an increase of $1.5 billion to respond directly to the epidemic. Against a backdrop of firefighters’ coats hanging in cinder-block cubbies, Warren moved among a crowd of about 150. Many hands went up when she asked who knew someone struggling with opioids. She brought up the role of “corporations that made big money off getting people addicted and keeping them addicted.” People with “Make America Great Again” stickers nodded and clapped, according to Politico.

If Warren competes for rural voters in the general election (if not to win a red state then to peel off enough of them to make a difference in a purple one), her strong support for abortion rights and gun control will stand in her way. Lately, she has framed her argument for keeping abortion clinics open in economic terms, too. “Women of means will still have access to abortions,” she said at a town hall on MSNBC hosted by Chris Hayes of the effects of new state laws aimed at closing clinics. “Who won’t will be poor women, will be working women, will be women who can’t afford to take off three days from work, will be very young women.” She finished by saying, “We do not pass laws that take away that freedom from the women who are most vulnerable.”

Biden and Sanders have been polling better with non-college-educated white voters than Warren has. David Axelrod, the former Obama strategist and political commentator, thinks that even if her ideas resonate, she has yet to master the challenge of communicating with this group. “She’s lecturing,” he said. “There’s a lot of resistance, because people feel like she’s talking down to them.”

Warren didn’t sound to me like a law professor on the trail, but she did sound like a teacher. Trying to educate people isn’t the easiest way to connect with them. “Maybe she could bring it down a level,” Lola Sewell, a community organizer in Selma, Ala., suggested. “A lot of us aren’t involved with Wall Street and those places.”

Warren may also confront a double bind for professional women: To command respect, they have to prove that they’re experts, but once they do, they’re often seen as less likable. At one point, I asked Warren whether there was anything good about running for president as a woman. “It is what it is,” she said.

When I first talked with Warren in February, when her poll numbers were low, I wondered whether she was content with simply forcing Democratic candidates to engage with her ideas. During the 2016 primaries, when Warren did not endorse Sanders, she wanted influence over Hillary Clinton’s economic appointments should she win the presidency. Cleaving the Democratic administration from Wall Street — that was enough at the time. She could make a similar decision in 2020 or try to get her own appointment. If Warren became Treasury secretary, she could resuscitate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Trump has worked to declaw, and tip all kinds of decisions away from banks and toward the families who come to her town halls and tell her about the loans they can’t pay.

By mid-June, however, when I went to Washington to talk to Warren for the last time, she was very much in the race. New polls showed her in second place in California and Nevada. She had more to lose, and perhaps as a result, her answers were more scripted, more like her speeches.

Warren, like everyone in the race, has yet to prove that she has the political skills and broad-enough support to become president. But a parallel from another country suggests that perhaps bearing down on policy is the best strategy against right-wing populism. Luigi Zingales, the University of Chicago economist, comes from Italy, and he feared Trump’s rise back in 2011, having watched the ascension of Silvio Berlusconi, the corrupt billionaire tycoon who was elected prime minister of Italy in the 2000s as a right-wing populist. After Trump’s victory in 2016, Zingales pointed out in a New York Times Op-Ed that the two candidates who defeated Berlusconi treated him as “an ordinary opponent,” focusing on policy issues rather than his character. “The Democratic Party should learn this lesson,” Zingales wrote. He now thinks that Warren is positioned to mount that kind of challenge. “I think so,” he said, “if she does not fall for his provocations.”

Warren and I met in her Washington apartment. The floor at the entrance had been damaged by a leak in the building, and the vacuum cleaner was standing next to the kitchen counter. I said I was a bit relieved by the slight disarray because her house in Cambridge was so supremely uncluttered, and she burst out laughing. She sat on the couch as we spoke about the indignities to come, the way in which her opponents — Biden, Trump, who knew who else — would try to make her unrecognizable to herself. What would she do about that? Warren leaned back and stretched her feet out, comfortable in gray wool socks. “The answer is, we’ve got time,” she said. “I’ll just keep talking to people — I like talking to people.”

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for the magazine and the author of “Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration.”

[s-c-i-guy]

Neutron-Star Collision Shakes Space-Time and Lights Up the Sky

A neutron star collision led to a rumble of gravitational waves and a worldwide race to spot the resulting kilonova. The dozens of studies coming out of the effort will “go down in the history of astronomy.”

On Aug. 17, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected something new. Some 130 million light-years away, two super-dense neutron stars, each as small as a city but heavier than the sun, had crashed into each other, producing a colossal convulsion called a kilonova and sending a telltale ripple through space-time to Earth.

When LIGO picked up the signal, the astronomer Edo Berger was in his office at Harvard University suffering through a committee meeting. Berger leads an effort to search for the afterglow of collisions detected by LIGO. But when his office phone rang, he ignored it. Shortly afterward, his cellphone rang. He glanced at the display to discover a flurry of missed text messages:

Edo, check your email!

Pick up your phone!

“I kicked everybo­dy out that very moment and jumped into action,” Berger said. “I had not expected this.”

LIGO’s pair of ultrasensitive detectors in Louisiana and Washington state made history two years ago by recording the gravitational waves coming from the collision of two black holes — a discovery that earned the experiment’s architects the Nobel Prize in Physics this month. Three more signals from black hole collisions followed the initial discovery.

Yet black holes don’t give off light, so making any observations of these faraway cataclysms beyond the gravitational waves themselves was unlikely. Colliding neutron stars, on the other hand, produce fireworks. Astronomers had never seen such a show before, but now LIGO was telling them where to look, which sent teams of researchers like Berger’s scurrying to capture the immediate aftermath of the collision across the full range of electromagnetic signals. In total, more than 70 telescopes swiveled toward the same location in the sky.

They struck the motherlode. In the days after Aug. 17, astronomers made successful observations of the colliding neutron stars with optical, radio, X-ray, gamma-ray, infrared and ultraviolet telescopes. The enormous collaborative effort, detailed today in dozens of papers appearing simultaneously in Physical Review Letters, Nature, Science, Astrophysical Journal Letters and other journals, has not only allowed astrophysicists to piece together a coherent account of the event, but also to answer longstanding questions in astrophysics.

“In one fell swoop, gravitational wave measurements” have opened “a window onto nuclear astrophysics, neutron star demographics and physics and precise astronomical distances,” said Scott Hughes, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “I can’t describe in family-friendly words how exciting that is.”

Today, Berger said, “will go down in the history of astronomy.”

X Marks the Spot

When Berger got the calls, emails, and the automated official LIGO alert with the probable coordinates of what appeared to be a neutron-star merger, he knew that he and his team had to act quickly to see its aftermath using optical telescopes.

The timing was fortuitous. Virgo, a new gravitational-wave observatory similar to LIGO’s two detectors, had just come online in Europe. The three gravitational-wave detectors together were able to triangulate the signal. Had the neutron-star merger occurred a month or two earlier, before Virgo started taking data, the “error box,” or area in the sky that the signal could have come from, would have been so large that follow-up observers would have had little chance of finding anything.

The LIGO and Virgo scientists had another stroke of luck. Gravitational waves produced by merging neutron stars are fainter than those from black holes and harder to detect. According to Thomas Dent, an astrophysicist at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany, and a member of LIGO, the experiment can only sense neutron-star mergers that occur within 300 million light-years. This event was far closer — at a comfortable distance for both LIGO and the full range of electromagnetic telescopes to observe it.

But at the time, Berger and his colleagues didn’t know any of that. They had an agonizing wait until sunset in Chile, when they could use an instrument called the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Victor M. Blanco telescope there. The camera is great when you don’t know precisely where you’re looking, astronomers said, because it can quickly scan a very large area of the sky. Berger also secured use of the Very Large Array (VLA) in central New Mexico, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory. (Other teams that received the LIGO alert asked to use VLA and ALMA as well.)

A few hours later, data from the Dark Energy Camera started coming in. It took Berger’s team 45 minutes to spot a new bright light source. The light appeared to come from a galaxy called NGC 4993 in the constellation Hydra that had been pointed out in the LIGO alert, and at approximately the distance where LIGO had suggested they look.

“That got us really excited, and I still have the email from a colleague saying ‘Holy [smokes], look at that bright source near this galaxy!’” Berger said. “All of us were kind of shocked,” since “we didn’t think we would succeed right away.” The team had expected a long slog, maybe having to wade through multiple searches after LIGO detections for a couple of years until eventually spotting something. “But this just stood out,” he said, “like when an X marks the spot.”

Meanwhile, at least five other teams discovered the new bright light source independently, and hundreds of researchers made various follow-up observations. David Coulter, an astronomer at University of California, Santa Cruz, and colleagues used the Swope telescope in Chile to pinpoint the event’s exact location, while Las Cumbres Observatory astronomers did so with the help of a robotic network of 20 telescopes around the globe.

For Berger and the rest of the Dark Energy Camera follow-up team, it was time to call in the Hubble Space Telescope. Securing time on the veteran instrument usually takes weeks, if not months. But for extraordinary circumstances, there’s a way to jump ahead in line, by using “director’s discretionary time.” Matt Nicholl, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, submitted a proposal on behalf of the team to take ultraviolet measurements with Hubble — possibly the shortest proposal ever written. “It was two paragraphs long — that’s all we could do in the middle of the night,” Berger said. “It just said that we’ve found the first counterpart of a binary neutron star merger, and we need to get UV spectra. And it got approved.”

As the data trickled in from the various instruments, the collected data set was becoming more and more astounding. In total, the original LIGO/Virgo discovery and the various follow-up observations by scientists have yielded dozens of papers, each describing astrophysical processes that occurred during and after the merger.

Mystery Bursts

Neutron stars are compact neutron-packed cores left over when massive stars die in supernova explosions. A teaspoon of neutron star would weigh as much as one billion tons. Their internal structure is not completely understood. Neither is their occasional aggregation into close-knit binary pairs of stars that orbit each other. The astronomers Joe Taylor and Russell Hulse found the first such pair in 1974, a discovery that earned them the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. They concluded that those two neutron stars were destined to crash into each other in about 300 million years. The two stars newly discovered by LIGO took far longer to do so.

The analysis by Berger and his team suggests that the newly discovered pair was born 11 billion years ago, when two massive stars went supernova a few million years apart. Between these two explosions, something brought the stars closer together, and they went on circling each other for most of the history of the universe. The findings are “in excellent agreement with the models of binary-neutron-star formation,” Berger said.

The merger also solved another mystery that has vexed astrophysicists for the past five decades.

On July 2, 1967, two United States satellites, Vela 3 and 4, spotted a flash of gamma radiation. Researchers first suspected a secret nuclear test conducted by the Soviet Union. They soon realized this flash was something else: the first example of what is now known as a gamma ray burst (GRB), an event lasting anywhere from milliseconds to hours that “emits some of the most intense and violent radiation of any astrophysical object,” Dent said. The origin of GRBs has been an enigma, although some people have suggested that so-called “short” gamma-ray bursts (lasting less than two seconds) could be the result of neutron-star mergers. There was no way to directly check until now.

In yet another nod of good fortune, it so happened that on Aug. 17, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) were pointing in the direction of the constellation Hydra. Just as LIGO and Virgo detected gravitational waves, the gamma-ray space telescopes picked up a weak GRB, and, like LIGO and Virgo, issued an alert.

A neutron star merger should trigger a very strong gamma-ray burst, with most of the energy released in a fairly narrow beam called a jet. The researchers believe that the GRB signal hitting Earth was weak only because the jet was pointing at an angle away from us. Proof arrived about two weeks later, when observatories detected the X-ray and radio emissions that accompany a GRB. “This provides smoking-gun proof that normal short gamma-ray bursts are produced by neutron-star mergers,” Berger said. “It’s really the first direct compelling connection between these two phenomena.”

Hughes said that the observations were the first in which “we have definitively associated any short gamma-ray burst with a progenitor.” The findings indicate that at least some GRBs come from colliding neutron stars, though it’s too soon to say whether they all do.

Striking Gold

Optical and infrared data captured after the neutron-star merger also help clarify the formation of the heaviest elements in the universe, like uranium, platinum and gold, in what’s called r-process nucleosynthesis. Scientists long believed that these rare, heavy elements, like most other elements, are made during high-energy events such as supernovas. A competing theory that has gained prominence in recent years argues that neutron-star mergers could forge the majority of these elements. According to that thinking, the crash of neutron stars ejects matter in what’s called a kilonova. “Once released from the neutron stars’ gravitational field,” the matter “would transmute into a cloud full of the heavy elements we see on rocky planets like Earth,” Dent explained.

Optical telescopes picked up the radioactive glow of these heavy elements — strong evidence, scientists say, that neutron-star collisions produce much of the universe’s supply of heavy elements like gold.

“With this merger,” Berger said, “we can see all the expected signatures of the formation of these elements, so we are solving this big open question in astrophysics of how these elements form. We had hints of this before, but here we have a really nearby object with exquisite data, and there is no ambiguity.” According to Daniel Holz, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, “back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that this single collision produced an amount of gold greater than the weight of the Earth.”

The scientists also inferred a sequence of events that may have followed the neutron-star collision, providing insight into the stars’ internal structure. Experts knew that the collision outcome “depends very much on how large the stars are and how ‘soft’ or ‘springy’ — in other words, how much they resist being deformed by super-strong gravitational forces,” Dent said. If the stars are extra soft, they may immediately be swallowed up inside a newly formed black hole, but this would not leave any matter outside to produce a gamma-ray burst. “At the other end of the scale, he said, “the two neutron stars would merge and form an unstable, rapidly spinning super-massive neutron star, which could produce a gamma-ray burst after a holdup of tens or hundreds of seconds.”

The most plausible case may lie somewhere in the middle: The two neutron stars may have merged into a doughnut-shaped unstable neutron star that launched a jet of super-energetic hot matter before finally collapsing as a black hole, Dent said.

Future observations of neutron-star mergers will settle these questions. And as the signals roll in, experts say the mergers will also serve as a precision tool for cosmologists. Comparing the gravitational-wave signal with the redshift, or stretching, of the electromagnetic signals offers a new way of measuring the so-called Hubble constant, which gives the age and expansion rate of the universe. Already, with this one merger, researchers were able to make an initial measurement of the Hubble constant “in a remarkably fundamental way, without requiring the multitude of assumptions” that go into estimating the constant by other methods, said Matthew Bailes, a member of the LIGO collaboration and a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. Holz described the neutron star merger as a “standard siren” (in a nod to the term “standard candles” used for supernovas) and said that initial calculations suggest the universe is expanding at a rate of 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec, which puts LIGO’s Hubble constant “smack in the middle of [previous] estimates.”

To improve the measurement, scientists will have to spot many more neutron-star mergers. Given that LIGO and Virgo are still being fine-tuned to increase their sensitivity, Berger is optimistic. “It is clear that the rate of occurrence is somewhat higher than expected,” he said. “By 2020 I expect at least one to two of these every month. It will be tremendously exciting.”

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.74

“Now Darkness Falls”

A/N: Takes place during episode 10, "Despite Yourself." I apologize to those of you who have not seen the entire show but are reading this. (There’s 2-4 of you out there, I know.) This may feel like having the rug pulled out from under you. Those of you who have watched the show may also feel the same about certain details. All I can say is, I don't take the trust you've placed in me by reading this far lightly, and while we are absolutely nearing the end, the story is far from over. The things you seek, they shall be found.

The last scene in this chapter was one that was written months—months!—ago that I was desperately trying to reach before the show did the reveal. If you had told me it would take this long to get here... I still wouldn't change a word. It turns out, all these words are important.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 73 - Where Once Was Light 75 - The Truth Must Out >>

They had suffered minor structural damage but Discovery was intact, all decks and departments reporting. Lorca rose from the captain's chair and approached the flickering display of the viewscreen. The stars beyond were beautiful specks of light floating in a sea of black tinged with clouds of blue and purple interstellar gases. Between Discovery and the distant stars lay a field of ship debris.

"Mr. Saru?" demanded Lorca. "What am I looking at?"

Saru shook his head, not understanding. "I, uh, I'm not quite sure. I'm unable to confirm our position using standard procedures. Sensors are going haywire!"

"Where is our starbase?" mused Lorca.

"Not where it should be," managed Saru.

The ship debris around them was Klingon, but the hull densities were wrong. Saru reported the navigational array was malfunctioning. They appeared to be at their intended coordinates based on stellar cartography, but nothing else was where it should have been. The spore drive was offline because its navigator was presently laying on the floor of the engineering bay, unresponsive.

A Vulcan cruiser appeared on their sensors. Rather than answer their hails, it fired on them, raising even more questions. As the Vulcans came about for a second strafing run, Discovery prepared to fire in response, but another volley of fire smashed against the Vulcan's hull from the side. It was another ship, the Cooper, and another mystery: the Cooper was supposed to be undergoing a refit after sustaining crippling damage in a battle three days earlier.

The voice on the other end of the communication channel was unfamiliar. "Spooked by rebels, Discovery? You're losing your edge. Don't worry, we'll take care of them. Cooper out."

"Vulcan rebels?" asked Burnham, verbalizing the question on the minds of the bridge crew. "Firing on Starfleet?"

"I may have something," said Saru at last. "The quantum signature of the Cooper, as well as that of the Vulcan cruiser, are inconsistent with ours."

"That's not possible," said Burnham. "All matter native to our universe resonates with the same quantum signature, nothing can change it."

"That's true," said Lorca. "Unless..." He paced towards the viewscreen, turning to address the whole of the bridge. "...This is not our universe."

"That is not possible," said Burnham again, but her protest fell far short the second time around.

He brought Saru and Burnham into his ready room and presented them with the original finished map and the proposition of a parallel universe. Burnham quickly realized the significance and summarized the mycelial network as it truly was: "A vast system underpinning all quantum realities."

"But the exact coordinates of some of the more esoteric destinations eluded us," said Lorca. "Apparently the hundred and thirty-three jumps we made filled in the gaps."

"An extraordinarily fortunate coincidence," said Saru, in a way that suggested he had a glimmer of something beyond coincidence.

"I'd say unfortunate, wouldn't you, number one?" asked Lorca sharply.

Burnham immediately realized they were not going to be able to deliver the cloak-breaking algorithm Starfleet was waiting for.

"That's why we have to make it back," said Lorca. "Otherwise the war's as good as lost."

"Well, Stamets, brought us here accidentally, so we should examine the spore drive's navigational logs more closely—"

"I just pushed Stamets too hard, the number of jumps scrambled his ability to hold the coordinates for Starbase 46 in his head," explained Lorca. "Now what we need to do is understand where we are and how to survive, and then we'll find a way home." He looked at Burnham and Saru, a silent plea in his eyes. "Recalibrate the sensors and you start looking at the records, see if there's something we can learn."

"Yes, captain," said Burnham.

Saru and Burnham hastened to carry out his orders and Lorca checked the Lab 26 security feed. Empty, but the computer said Mischkelovitz was in there. She had probably startled at the jump gone awry and hidden herself in the wall. "Lorca to Mischkelovitz." There was no answer. He looked at the communications display. The channel was open. "You there?"

"Yes," came the tentative answer.

Lorca's tone was grave but calm and patient. "Mischka, we have a problem."

"That jump wasn't right," she said.

"No, it was not. The coordinates of that universe we were going to use as proof? Somehow they overwrote the default coordinates."

He heard the faintest whimper. "Then..."

"Either I did something wrong when I encrypted it, or..." A pause, then a dramatic and portentous inhalation. "Whatever you did to get those coordinates so quickly."

She gasped and covered her mouth. One tiny slip-up with the computer and it was entirely possible she had done just that. She could certainly believe it. If anyone found out how she had gotten those coordinates...

Lorca suspected there were tears on her face. In the same even, reassuring tone he had been employing since this call began, he said, "Don't worry. I overwrote the coordinate system with the original settings. No one will ever find out it was you. I'll take the blame before I let that happen."

"Thank you, captain," she said in a tiny, delicate voice. Lorca smiled faintly at the empty air.

"We'll get through this, Mischka. Don't you worry. One step at a time."

He closed the channel and glanced at the bowl of fortune cookies, pulling one out. You are careful and systematic in your business arrangements. Whether or not it was a proper fortune was up for debate, but there was no doubting the fact it was true. He looked out the ready room window at the stars. Cornwell and Terral were a universe away and he still had the view.

They found a data core in the debris field surrounded by the bodies of Klingons, Vulcans, and Andorians. All three species had apparently been together on the Klingons' destroyed ship. The reason soon became clear. In this universe, there was no Starfleet. There was no United Federation of Planets. The whole of the known galaxy was controlled by a single entity, and there were only two key forces at play within it: humans, and everyone else.

It was called the Terran Empire. There were a thousand worlds and species subjugated under its rule. It was the antithesis of the Federation in every way. Xenophobic, warlike, oppressive. An entire galactic culture based on the unconditional hatred and rejection of anything non-human. At its center ruled a nameless, faceless emperor with an unparalleled reputation for savagery. Against this fascist, monopolistic threat, a handful of alien races fought in a feeble but enduring rebellion.

The data core contained a vast quantity of stolen caches of information on the Terrans: their weapons, their power, their personnel. Personnel that had the same names and faces as people aboard Discover. It proved conclusively they were in an alternate version of their universe—one where they could literally meet an alternate version of themselves. It was like gazing through a dark mirror.

As Lorca listened to this summation, he marveled at how foreign it felt. "No way we're asking these neighbors for a cup of sugar," he quipped.

Then the Cooper returned from its hunt and hailed them again, sending the bridge into a small frenzy as they tried to figure out exactly how to respond. "What intel do we have!" Lorca demanded. They had only just begun to brush the surface of the data in that core.

Saru hastily provided a key point of information: "The rebel logs show their ships being attacked by a vessel with a warp signature matching our Discovery, but a quantum signature matching this universe. That signature seems to have vanished at the same coordinates where we popped in. It is possible we switched places with their Discovery."

"I'm gonna run with Mr. Saru's theory and hope that we don't run into ourselves and blow our cover," announced Lorca. Burnham quickly modified their ship's signature with the deflector to match the signature of the Discovery that was supposed to be in this region of space.

This took precious time. The Cooper began to get impatient. "They're saying if we don't respond that we should prepare to be fired on," reported Bryce at the comms.

"Open a channel, audio only," said Lorca.

"Belay that," said Burnham. "I'm sorry, but you can't take it, sir. I'm examining the crew manifest of mirror Discovery, you're not its captain."

"Who is?" asked Lorca.

Burnham put the image up on the main viewscreen. It was Sylvia Tilly. Not as they knew her, with the frizzy red hair and the quick smile. Clad in golden armor and with straight, blonde hair. Her image stared across the bridge with a ferocious intensity.

"Uh, that's me," said Tilly helpfully. "That's me!" And yet, in almost every way that counted, it clearly was not.

"That's absurd," said Lorca, summing up this turn of events perfectly. "Cadet, looks like you're taking this." He spun the captain's chair towards Tilly.

"Uh, wh... uh, wh-what—what do I say?" stammered Tilly as she sat down, immediately panicking.

There was no way Tilly was doing this without help. Lorca fixed his full attention on her with an intensity that drew her attention to him in kind. Despite his annoyance at this turn of events, he was calm and firm as he instructed her on what to do. "You just get rid of them as fast as possible and you talk as little as possible."

Tilly looked up at him from the chair fearfully. "That—that might be a little hard. Have you noticed that I talk a lot?"

"Defy your every instinct," said Lorca.

They opened the channel.

For a moment, Tilly just looked around the bridge. Then: "Hello, this is Captain Tilly. What the heck—h-hell? Hold your horses!" She looked at Lorca apologetically.

"Why the delay in responding, Discovery?" asked the Cooper.

"I was..." Tilly kept her eyes focused on Lorca. He tried signaling her, mouthing at her. "...Indisposed."

Everything that was coming out of her mouth was wrong. Lorca marveled at it as much as he scowled.

"Any reason you're still hanging around?" asked the Cooper.

"We're experiencing mechanical issues," managed Tilly. Lorca nodded at her in encouragement.

"Need a hand? We're not far."

Lorca signaled her as clearly as he could without making a sound: No! But Tilly was flustered and did not answer quickly enough to stave off the Cooper's next question:

"And why are you not on screen!?"

"M-Mechanical issues?" she asked, and looked pleadingly at Lorca. "Here's my chief engineer."

Burnham rushed over and touched Lorca's back. "I don't know who you are over here just yet," she warned, "so conceal your voice just in case."

It was hard to be too angry at Tilly for failing to come across as a captain because Lorca made a lousy engineer. "How you doing, captain?" Lorca asked, finding himself mimicking a Scottish accent. "Everything's squared away here. We've got, uh, wee bit of trouble with our visual emitters and the starboard nacelle, but a bit of tweaking, we'll be good to go, all right?"

Despite the fact this was the worst engineering jargon possible since the beginning of time, the captain of the Cooper apparently knew as much about engineering as Lorca did. It worked.

"Happy hunting. Long live the Empire!"

Lorca mouthed at Tilly: Long live!

"Long live the Empire!" blurted Tilly. Lorca reached over and closed the comm via the armrest console.

"Good," he said simply, forgiving even, though that had been almost entirely awful. It took Tilly a moment, but she got out of his chair. Lorca addressed the bridge. "Next time, we might not get away with audio only. If we want to live to get back home, we have to make it so we look and act like we belong here. Mr. Saru, while we get up to speed with this universe, see to it that this ship, its crew, it's captain"—he looked at Tilly—"are prepared."

"Yes, sir," said Saru.

Lorca looked at Tilly and only Tilly. "I mean fully prepared."

Tilly still looked startled as a deer in the headlights, but now that they all knew what they were walking into, next time would go better. It had to. This was not the sort of universe that would easily forgive mistakes.

Burnham was assigned the task of unraveling everyone's mirror identities from the files in the data core. It was not necessary for her to brief every member of the crew directly, but some figures were of key note in this universe and merited personal attention. She found herself standing in the hallway before the assembled personnel of Lab 26: O'Malley, Mischkelovitz, Groves, Larsson, and Allan. "Colonel O'Malley. You are an interrogator in the service of the Emperor," she announced, transferring the details of O'Malley's mirror identity to his padd.

"Whizz-bang," said O'Malley, annoyed as he skimmed the top of the file. He doubted "interrogator" entailed the same methodology he applied in their universe. One thing was for certain: his mirror counterpart had just as many freckles. The other O'Malley looked grim and intimidating in his black uniform in the file photo. As much as O'Malley knew it was his own face, he had real trouble recognizing it.

Burnham turned to go. "What about us?" asked Groves.

"I'm only delivering priority one identity information," said Burnham. This was the designation they had given to "people they might encounter who held substantial Terran rank or played a significant role in Terran government."

"Really?" said Groves. The word could have been pejorative, but coming from Groves, it sounded more mildly bored than anything else. "After all those games of chess we played, this is the thanks I get?"

That gave Burnham pause. "You're Rove," she realized.

"In the flesh," said Groves. "Which is why I find it hard to believe that I'm not a priority one person." O'Malley rolled his eyes at that, but since everyone was facing Burnham, she was the only one who saw it.

Burnham glanced at the padd in her hand. "Lieutenant Larsson, you were aboard the Buran when it was destroyed in this universe."

Larsson barely reacted. "Ah," he said, as if this were no particular surprise. "We must not have met the lului, so I never wrote my book. Then I would have been on the Buran." It was strange to think that this held true in their universe as well: if they had not met the lului, he would have died on the Buran there, too.

Burnham wondered what "the lului" were, but she had enough mysteries on her plate for the moment. "Unfortunately, I was unable to—"

Groves pointed to himself, then Mischkelovitz. "John Francis Narvic, Emellia Petrellovitz." He spelled the surnames for her.

Burnham checked again. She found them both in the same file. "John Narvic died in 2238 at a research colony in the Mizar sector called 'Qorya.'" She mispronounced it, as people did when seeing the word for the first time.

"Damn," said Groves. "Really? Afterlife fist bump?" He offered a fist to Larsson. Larsson only glowered at him. They were roommates, not friends.

Burnham turned to Mischkelovitz and addressed her with an entirely more measured approach. "Doctor, you were... senior science officer aboard the Buran."

Mischkelovitz blinked. "I was... I was a bridge officer? On the Buran? With Captain Lorca? I was the captain's science officer? I was..." She suddenly looked so happy. "I was a bridge officer! And then, did I die?" Her voice was a happy exclamation. Even the prospect of her own demise seemed unable to diminish her glee at this information.

Burnham glanced down and discovered a small surprise. "No, you are currently in prison for treason."

"I'm Gabriel's senior science officer! Me!" She looked at Groves and O'Malley for affirmation. Groves shrugged, not caring because he was dead, but O'Malley managed a weak smile of dubious support.

"I'm... glad for you," said Burnham stoically, because she did not know what you were supposed to say when someone reacted to this sort of information with the level of unrestrained joy Mischkelovitz was displaying. Burnham looked at Allan. "Do you also have another name?"

"Me?" said Allan, surprised. "No. Just 'John Langley Allan.' Same as it's ever been."

"I was unable to find any record of you or your parents. It's possible you were never born."

"Oh, well that's comforting," said Allan. "A whole universe of evil and I'm the only one not in it."

Burnham tilted her head, trying to determine if that was sarcasm. "Major?"

"I'm too good for this universe. Literally too good for it!" He grinned at Mischkelovitz and she pressed her hands together and smiled back coyly, fighting the urge to laugh.

Burnham sighed. At least two people could find positives in this abysmal situation. "The rest of you will need to lay low to avoid causing suspicion." She turned to leave again.

"Wait!" said Mischkelovitz. "What about Mischka?"

O'Malley reacted to this request with alarm. Groves seemed piqued. "Milosz Mieszała," Groves supplied.

"I'm not sure," O'Malley began to say, but Burnham had already located the record without even needing to ask Groves how Milosz's name was spelled.

"He also died in 2238."

Mischkelovitz was immediately grief-stricken. She turned and pressed her face against O'Malley's shoulder and he put an arm around her in sympathy, but truthfully he was relieved. As tragic as that information was, it was better than having Mischkelovitz attempting to chase down Milosz's living ghost somewhere in this universe.

"What the hell happened in 2238?" wondered Groves aloud.

"I don't have any information about that," lied Burnham. The answer was plainly written on the padd in her hand. In 2238, at the age of fifteen, Emellia Petrellovitz had killed eighteen people, ten of them children. Listed among the dead were John Francis Narvic and Mischkelovitz's former husband in the other universe, Milosz Mieszała.

Lorca stood in his ready room doing his own delve into the core data. The bridge now belonged to "Captain Killy" as far as he was concerned (what a nickname that was; Tilly's mirror counterpart had really gone out of her way to earn it), but it suited him fine, because he liked the quiet dimness of his ready room.

As soon as Burnham appeared, Lorca began to pepper her with questions. "Are we civilians? Do we get uniforms? What?"

The answer was not pleasant. Neither he nor Burnham were presently part of the Terran command ecosystem. Burnham was presumed dead and Lorca was wanted for her murder.

Lorca swallowed. "Well, what happened?"

"It appears that you and I both enjoyed immense prestige here. I was the captain of the Shenzhou. And you had the Buran here, too, sir."

Lorca asked the question because it had to be asked, but his reluctance was clear. "And, my crew—they alive?"

"No," said Burnham. "You attempted a coup against the emperor. I was sent to stop you. In the process, my shuttle was destroyed by one of your followers and I was killed. And the emperor laid waste to your ship in retaliation. It's believed you escaped."

Lorca shook his head. That was not right, not at all. "Well, there's me hoping I'd find a better version of myself over here," he said, and smiled in thanks at Burnham. Then he turned to the window. "Look out there. Come on." He jerked his head for her to join him at the window and she obliged. Their reflections stood side by side against the backdrop of stars. "Amazing, isn’t it? Different universe, but somehow the same people had a way to find each other." He looked away from the stars a moment, smiled at her. "The strongest argument I've ever seen for the existence of destiny."

"I'm not sure if I believe in destiny," said Burnham.

"Well, is that so?" asked Lorca. "Sitting in that cell all alone, facing a life sentence of solitude, future full of misery... A little part of you had to know that wasn't the end of your story. You were destined for something more."

"Destiny didn't get me out of prison, captain," she countered, and for a moment he felt every bit of that cold, Vulcan upbringing. Then her voice broke into something warmer. "You did that."

"Well. Let's agree to disagree. For now." He looked at Burnham, her eyes fixed on the stars. "Maybe it's not a bad thing that you and I are ghosts. I found something curious in the data here. A potential way home. I didn't know how to exploit it till right now, but I think you might end up saving us all."

According to rebel files, theirs was not the first ship from their universe to end up here. The USS Defiant, a Constitution-class, had slipped into this universe as well. The difference was, it had not done so with a spore drive. That meant there was another way to traverse between the worlds.

As they reviewed the data and formulated a plan, Lorca handed Burnham a cookie. "You have a reputation for being straightforward and honest," it read.

He also took one for himself. "Your principles mean more to you than any money or success." He snorted in laughter.

"Is that funny?" asked Burnham, who tended to miss jokes because of her childhood on Vulcan.

"The last person who got this fortune hated it," Lorca recalled. "But I like it just fine." He smiled and tucked it into his pocket.

Ultimately, their plan was elegantly simple. Posing as their Terran counterparts, Burnham—whose body had never been found—would bring in the Empire's most wanted fugitive, Gabriel Lorca, and gain access to the Shenzhou. From there, they would download every bit of data available on the Defiant, and finally return to Discovery and figure out how to apply this information towards their situation. A simple mission, in and out. Tyler would pose as Burnham's personal guard for an added level of backup security.

"Let's get us home," Lorca said.

First, though, they were all going to need a very good night's sleep.

The message came through brig chess and it was two words: "NEED SPORES." Tilly looked at it and frowned and bit her lip.

She should have been reviewing her own personnel file, or better yet, sleeping, but the vicious achievements of her mirror counterpart, "Captain Killy," scared her and she was too jumpy to sleep. Instead, she was in the engineering bay, trying to pinpoint the source of the aberration that had dropped them into another universe. Other people were hard at work on the problem, too, and likely the answer was simply what everyone suspected—the enduring toll jumping had taken on Stamets—but Tilly had been the one actively at the controls. She kept going over everything in her head. Where had they gone wrong? Could she have done something to prevent this? How were they going to get home?

There was no way she would solve these questions tonight, but working on a technical problem was a comfort to the engineering portion of her brain.

The two-word message concerned her. It was possible this entire thing had not been Stamets fault at all. Possibly it was hers because she had been supplying Mischkelovitz with spores.

Well, she decided. No time like the present to practice being captain. She headed towards the lab.

"Oh my god," said O'Malley when he saw her. She looked the very image of her mirror counterpart. Gold armor over a black uniform, long blonde hair flowing straight down to her shoulders instead of the familiar mess of red frizz. He was in a Terran uniform, too, but his had black armor instead of gold, so was much less showy, and his hair had not changed.

O'Malley's response threw Tilly, but she quickly recovered. "Is that how you address your captain!"

O'Malley stared at her, blinking in disbelief.

Tilly shrunk apologetically. "Sorry," she said. "Practicing being the scary version of me!" She threw her hands up in a display of helplessness.

"No, that was... good," said O'Malley. "You just look so..."

The expression on O'Malley's face did not seem very appreciative of the new look. Tilly self-consciously pulled at her straightened hair. "You don't like it?"

"I realize it's bad form to tell a woman she doesn't look good, but..." He frowned. He was clearly thinking it.

"Really? It's not sexy?" O'Malley's eyebrows shot up. Realizing how that sounded, Tilly immediately blurted, "Not that I meant—I mean—"

"Me neither!" exclaimed O'Malley. "Not that you're not—" They were both getting entirely flustered. "I'm much too old for you! And married!"

Tilly held up her hands again, this time pointing upward and spinning her index fingers in a request to pause the conversation. "Let's rewind and start over!"

O'Malley squinted at her because he did not believe in do-overs. "I just meant, I think you look perfectly fine as yourself, and this is..." He waved his hand at her look. "A lot."

"I don't want you to think I'm sexy," said Tilly, embarrassed. "You're very nice, colonel, but..." She shook her head. That thought had never entered her head until now and it held no appeal.

O'Malley turned his gaze to the ceiling and sighed, partly because no one liked being rejected no matter how many times it happened or how right the rejection was, and partly because Tilly was rather young and probably lacked some awareness as to what qualities she had to offer in this regard. "The sexiest thing a person can be is themselves," he declared. "And everyone's most attractive feature is their mind. Now let's call this topic closed forever."

"Forever," agreed Tilly.

Inside, Mischkelovitz was also surprised by Tilly's new appearance, but made no attempt to comment on it. Her own Terran uniform (they all had them in case of some sort of unfortunate Terran incursion) lay draped halfway across a table on the far side of the room, essentially abandoned.

"Where are the spores?" was Mischkelovitz's greeting. She had not really warmed up to Tilly despite the regular spore deliveries.

"I need you to tell me what you're doing with them," said Tilly.

Mischkelovitz shook her head forcefully enough it seemed to make her dizzy and bumped into her worktable. "I can't!"

Tilly took a breath and focused herself. "I've been bringing you spores for weeks now, and that last jump we ended up in parallel universe. How do I know that wasn't because of the spores I gave you?"

Mischkelovitz recalled what Lorca had said. You had to find the truth in what you were saying. The truth was, Mischkelovitz knew how they had gotten here, but that was a secret. It was also true she knew her work with the spores was entirely not the cause of it. Not everything you could do with spores involved traveling places. "I promise you," said Mischkelovitz, "it wasn't that. I need spores, though, I really do. Please." Her eyes began to water.

Tilly hated to see anyone cry. She knew too well what it felt like. "Why is it so important? Why can't you tell anyone?"

"Because," trembled Mischkelovitz, "it's Mischka's secret!" Her breathing became erratic.

"You mean... Lieutenant Mischkelovitz? Your..." Thankfully, Mischkelovitz nodded, erasing the need for Tilly to probe for further confirmation. "But he didn't work with spores. I've read every single thing I could find about his research, and he never..." Milosz had not worked with spores or mushrooms, he had no interest in biology, and would have found Stamets' physics-as-biology assertions impossibly simpleminded and pedestrian, but he had worked with things that could possibly interact with spores that had the properties belonging to Prototaxites stellaviatori.

Tilly spoke aloud what she thought Mischkelovitz was doing. The way Mischkelovitz's eyes went wide was answer enough. "But that could totally have affected the jump!" exclaimed Tilly.

"No!" insisted Mischkelovitz. "It couldn't, because look!" She ran to the nearest wall and began pulling open the panels. Every element of the walls was a panel, and behind every panel were transparent conduits. A thin line of blue dust lay in the bottom of the conduits, but they were otherwise empty. "It was like this before the jump!"

"Then you already..." Tilly's eyes widened. "Did it work?"

"Yes!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

Tilly accepted that, if Mischkelovitz was telling her the truth, there really was no way Mischkelovitz's work had interfered with the spore jump. At least that meant Tilly's conscience was now a little clearer. Her secret spore deliveries had not been the cause of this mess. Which did not absolve her of any responsibility from being the one at the drive's controls.

"So will you get me more spores?"

Tilly's brow knit as she frowned in thought. "Okay," she decided. "But I can't do it right now. The lab is under a lot of scrutiny because of what happened."

"So what? Aren't you the captain now?" asked Mischkelovitz. Tilly stared. Surely Mischkelovitz did not think this play-acting was indicative of any actual change in rank. "I'm a bridge officer, you know. On the Buran. Maybe I should just go and—"

"No!" Tilly said quickly. "I promise I'll bring more spores soon. Just hang tight until I do. Promise me you won't try to get any yourself."

As displeased as Mischkelovitz was to have to wait, she agreed. "But listen to me, you can't tell anyone what I’m working on, understand? Not a single person. If word gets back to anyone..."

"I understand," said Tilly, even though she did not. Science was better when people were working together in her opinion, not territorially hiding their work.

It struck Tilly as she was standing in the access chamber, preparing to open the outer door. They might never get out of this strange universe. Exactly who was Mischkelovitz worried word would get back to?

As Lorca entered his quarters, his mind was already pouring a drink.

"Gabriel."

He almost jumped out of his boots in surprise. Lalana was sitting in the middle of the room waiting for him. He hastily shut the door before anyone saw her, never mind that the hallway outside was empty. "Lalana, what... How?"

She tilted her head and spun her hands. "How do I usually get into your room?"

In the past, he knew the answer to that question had been Einar Larsson, but that could not be the answer now. Larsson did not have full security clearance aboard Discovery and the door to Lorca's quarters, like the door to his study, had been set to unlock only for him.

"Did you forget?" she asked. "You gave me your room codes many years ago. 'Fate has shown you what you were not to see.'"

That was indeed the code. It had been transferred along with every other personal setting on file from the Buran. It was also the code to his personal study. There was a more pressing concern. "Did anyone see you?"

"Of course not. I was very careful. Einar hid me in the halls." There was Larsson's participation, right on cue. Lorca was beginning to realize the two of them were thick as thieves.

He shook his head faintly in amazement. "All right, well, you're welcome to stay the night, but I'm dog-tired." He moved towards the bed, unfastening his collar and pulling open the front of his uniform jacket with a groan of exhaustion.

"Now that we are in this universe, do you still need the phaser under your pillow?"

"I'll put it somewhere else," he agreed.

He was agreeing to a request she had not made. "Oh, no, I do not mind it, I simply wondered if being here was comfort enough so as to render the phaser unnecessary."

Lalana seemed to have missed the memo on what "here" was like. "Why the hell would being here..." He rubbed his eyes. He was tired and not entirely sure how to phrase it.

"Because of San Francisco."

Lorca did not follow. He sighed, shook his head, and went for the whiskey. "I'm not in the mood for any riddles tonight," he warned her, pouring a glass. "Maybe you should go."

"In San Francisco, you kept reaching under your pillow and waking up when you could not find the thing that was missing. If I had known a phaser was the thing you were reaching for, I would have brought you one. As it was, I did not know how to help you and I find myself in that position again."

Lorca moved towards the window and stared out at the stars. "It's great that you want to help, but we've already got a plan to get us out of this universe, so unless you're hiding a clone of Stamets..." He turned from the window, smiling at her in jest.

Lalana did not click her tongue. She tilted her head. "I think you have heard the opposite of my meaning."

"Oh?" he prompted, sipping his drink and turning away from the window to listen.

"I am not interested in helping the crew get home, I am interested in helping you with your plan. You have one, do you not?"

She had proven herself an excellent sounding board on several occasions, so he explained the plan to gain access to the Shenzhou and steal intel on the Defiant.

She stopped him. "This is very interesting, but you cannot expect me to believe you came back here for the purposes of leaving again? Is it that you need to pick something up?"

For a moment, he was again confused, but then there was a glimmer in the back of his mind. He felt a sudden rush of something approaching panic. The surge of adrenaline kicked him wide awake. "What the hell are you talking about," he said flatly.

"The particles here, they match you in resonance. So we are in your home now, are we not?"

"This is..." He shook his head as if clearing it. This was not happening. "I'm from Earth, Lalana. You know that."

"Yes, but not the Earth my Gabriel was from. There must be an Earth here as well, then."

"Your..." She knew. She knew. How could she possibly know? She couldn't. "What are you saying?"

"What part of what I have said is confusing?"

He was still desperately trying to stick to the script. "All of it! Lalana, we're in a different universe, not the one we're from."

"My eyes see more than you will ever know. As I have said repeatedly to humans, and yet still you seem to have trouble understanding. Gabriel, I knew you weren't Hayliel the moment I saw you, because you are a different color."

Lorca sat down heavily on the bed and considered grabbing the phaser under his pillow. Not yet. Not until he understood what was going on. He downed the remaining whiskey in his glass and tried to return to the lie one more time. "You're confused, that's all. That jump must have messed up your eyes. Let's get Mischka to take a look."

"I even tested you, do you recall? I asked you what the last message Hayliel sent me was about, and you could not tell me, because you did not send it."

He dimly remembered that. "But..."

"Then there was the time you said we were not animals, when I brought you the octopus. My Hayliel understood very well that we are."

That incident he recalled vividly because a whole, live octopus from the San Francisco Bay was not an easy thing to forget.

Lalana continued, "When I was helping Dr. Li with her investigation, she shared with me the notes of the medical doctor who served with her uncle. He examined the body of a member of the Suliban Cabal. We have similar eyes, did you know? The Suliban were genetically enhanced with lului eyes because lului eyes can see particle resonances in waves outside of light."

Something clicked in his mind. He put the glass down on the bed next to him. "The halo of stars."

Her hands spun twice in approval. "Yes, I believe that is another aberrant resonance. But yours it not a halo. It is... darker somehow. That is why I call you the space between the stars. And now, we are in a world where everything is the space between the stars. So, this must be the world you are from. It matches you."

His heartbeat was pounding in his ears. "This entire time, you knew..." He could not finish the sentence and say what she knew because admitting it even after exposure still went against his every instinct.

"Of course. That is why I have been helping you." She had helped him, repeatedly. She had given him details and insights above and beyond, which had never made much sense at the time except she seemed to enjoy talking and telling him things. "Why do you think I told you my story?"

Lorca stared. He had thought she was just trying to comfort the person she knew as her Gabriel by retelling their story. Something to get him through the tragedy of losing a ship. Not as an instruction manual, but that was how he had used it, and apparently exactly as she intended.

It struck him, the truth. "You told me the story so I'd keep you around." Lorca pulled at his mouth with his hand. It was impossibly crazy to think this whole time she had been on his side and known exactly who he was. He felt himself shake faintly at the magnitude of it.

"But of course. I was surprised how readily you believed me. My Hayliel understood, as you have failed to, that I am constantly repurposing truths, yet you 'take me at face value' even though you cannot read my face. Perhaps you thought there were no liars like you in my universe. But mostly, Gabriel, I told it to you because you are always so afraid. It is written on you as clearly as words are in a book. It is etched into you. My Hayliel had fears, but they did not govern him the way they govern you. He found the way to escape them."

"I'm not afraid," Lorca said with a sneer, because in this universe, that was not something you admitted.

Her head tilted. "Aren't you? Aren't you terrified right now? And are you not running away?"

He stood firm—figuratively, because he was still sitting on the bed and was not sure his legs would hold if he did get up. "I'm not afraid of anything. And I don't run."

"You are not a very good liar."

That statement hung in the air long enough for Lorca's face to cloud with anger.

Lalana's head straightened. "It is as it is. You do not need to admit anything. I am here to admit things to you, Gabriel. You are not him, but you are. You are funny and clever and you come up with the most amazing plans. You inspire people, to your own ends, but you inspire them all the same, and make them better. You take command of the world around you and shape it to your will, just as he did. I appreciate how you have attempted to become Hayliel. It is like you ate him, which is a very lului thing to do. You did not let his death go to waste."

To call that sentiment alien was an understatement.

She took a step towards him. "Mostly, you are the only thing I have left of him. I would do anything to keep you safe and make you happy."

Lorca's face darkened at her approach. He had read the lului reports. He knew the damage she could do on a cellular level. He knew it firsthand, though damaging was not the way she had used that skill during the single night they had spent together. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I have been your ally all this time in my world, but now that we are in yours, I wish to know. How may I help? What is your plan?" She stepped towards him again.

Given the words she used to describe it, she must have realized what he had done to the Buran captained by her Lorca. He reached for the phaser then. Stretched back and grabbed it from its hiding place under his pillow quick as he could and pointed it right at her. "Stay back. I see exactly what you're doing. You're trying to trick me, get me to let my guard down so you can avenge your precious 'Hayliel.' Well, I'm not falling for it." His finger tightened on the trigger.

"Oh, Gabriel. Killing you will not bring him back. You are the closest thing to him I have. I would not sacrifice that for anything. That is why I have been helping you. Because I still love your face, and I will always love your face. But I do not know this world or how to help you here. So tell me. What do we do next?"

He lowered the phaser and took a deep breath. He understood what she meant entirely because he knew it was true. When you had lost the person you loved most in the universe, it meant everything to be able to see their face again, even as another person. He knew it because he had lived it himself. He stared at her, looking forlorn. "I can't."

"Yes, you can. I know you can tell me because Hayliel could do anything he set his mind to, and you are him from another universe. Let me help you, Gabriel, the way I helped him." She took the last step towards him and placed her tail upon his hand in comfort and pressed her chest against his knee in companionship. "I have kept your secret. You can trust me."

So he told her.

Part 75

[frankkjonestx]

This year’s SN 10 scientists aim to solve some of science’s biggest challenges

In the midst of a pandemic that has brought so much worry and loss, it’s natural to want to help — to do some small part to solve a problem, to counter pain, or to, importantly, remind others that there is beauty and wonder in the world. Scientists have long been doing just that. Many are chasing answers to the myriad challenges that people face every day, and revealing the rewards in the pursuit of knowledge itself. It’s in that spirit that we present this year’s SN 10: Scientists to Watch.

For the sixth consecutive year, Science News is featuring 10 early- and mid-career scientists who are pushing the boundaries of scientific inquiry. Some of the researchers are asking questions with huge societal importance: How do we prevent teen suicide? What are the ingredients in wildfire smoke that are damaging to health? Is there a better way to monitor earthquakes to save lives? What about finding new ways to diagnose and treat diseases?

Others are trying to grasp how weird and wonderful the natural world is — from exploring how many supermassive black holes are out there in space to understanding the minuscule genetic details that drive evolution. For instance, SaraH Zanders, one of this year’s SN 10, is unveiling the drama that unfolds when life divvies up its genetic material.

A couple of the scientists on this year’s list have also taken steps to support people from groups that are underrepresented in the sciences. These researchers see how science benefits when people from diverse backgrounds contribute to the pursuit of answers.

All of this year’s honorees are age 40 and under, and all were nominated by Nobel laureates, recently elected members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences or previous SN 10 scientists. The world feels very different than it did at the start of 2020, when we first put out our call for SN 10 nominations, but the passion these scientists have for their work endures. The curiosity, creativity and drive of this crew offers hope that we can overcome some of our biggest challenges.

Though it often takes time, out of crisis comes action. Also out of crisis comes a renewed appreciation for small pleasures that give life meaning. These researchers find joy in the search for scientific answers. Here’s how Zanders describes what motivates her work: “It’s just I like to solve puzzles.” — Elizabeth Quill

The 2020 SN 10: Scientists to Watch

Tonima Tasnim Ananna

Alessandra Corsi

Emily Fischer

Prashant Jain

Anna Mueller

Phiala Shanahan

Mikhail Shapiro

Bo Wang

SaraH Zanders

Zhongwen Zhan

Black hole hunter seeks a cosmic census

Credit: Eli Burakian/Dartmouth College

Tonima Tasnim Ananna, 29 Astrophysicist

Affiliation: Dartmouth College Hometown: Dhaka, Bangladesh Favorite black hole: Cygnus X-1

Standout research

Tonima Tasnim Ananna is bringing the heaviest black holes out of hiding. She has drawn the most complete picture yet of black holes across the universe — where they are, how they grow and how they affect their environments. And she did it with the help of artificial intelligence.

As far as astronomers can tell, nearly every galaxy stows a black hole at its center, weighing millions or billions of times the mass of the sun. Though these supermassive black holes can heat surrounding material until it glows brighter than all the galaxy’s stars combined, the light can be concealed by gas and dust also drawn in by the black hole’s pull. High-energy X-rays cut through that dusty veil. So for her Ph.D., completed in 2019, Ananna gathered surveys from four X-ray telescopes, more datasets than any previous study had used. Her goal was to create a model of how black holes grow and change across cosmic history. “It was supposed to be a short paper,” Ananna says. But models that explained one or a few of the datasets didn’t work for the full sample. “It stumped us for some time.”

To break the gridlock, she developed a neural network, a type of artificial intelligence, to find a description of the black hole population that explained what all the observatories saw. “She just went off and taught herself machine learning,” says astrophysicist Meg Urry of Yale University, Ananna’s Ph.D. adviser. “She doesn’t say, ‘Oh, I can’t do this.’ She just figures out a way to learn it and do it.” One early result of the model suggests that there are many more active black holes out there than previously realized.

Big goal

Black holes could be gobbling down gas as fast as theoretically possible.

Galaxies live and die by their black holes. “When a black hole puts out energy into the galaxy, it can cause stars to form,” Ananna says. “Or it could blow gas away,” shutting down star formation and stunting the galaxy’s growth (SN: 3/31/20). So understanding black holes is key to understanding how cosmic structures — everything from galaxy clusters down to planets and perhaps even life — came to be. Ananna’s model is built on data describing black holes at different cosmic distances. Because looking far in space is like looking back in time, the model shows how black holes grow and change over time. It could also help figure out how efficiently black holes eat. Early hints suggest black holes could be gobbling down gas as fast as theoretically possible, which may help explain how some got so big so fast (SN: 3/16/18).

Inspiration

When Ananna was a 5-year-old in Dhaka, Bangladesh, her mother told her about the Pathfinder spacecraft landing on Mars. Her mother was a homemaker, she says, but was curious about science and encouraged Ananna’s curiosity, too. “That’s when I realized there were other worlds,” she says. “That’s when I wanted to study astronomy.” There were not a lot of opportunities to study space in Bangladesh, so she came to the United States for undergrad, attending Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She chose an all-women’s school not known for a lot of drinking to reassure her parents that she was not “going abroad to party.” Although Ananna intended to keep her head down and study, she was surprised by the social opportunities she found. “The women at Bryn Mawr were fiercely feminist, articulate, opinionated and independent,” she says. “It really helped me grow a lot.” Traveling for internships at NASA and CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, and a year at the University of Cambridge, boosted her confidence. (She did end up going to some parties — “no alcohol for me, though.”)

Now, Ananna is giving back. She cofounded Wi-STEM (pronounced “wisdom”), a mentorship network for girls and young women who are interested in science. She and four other Bangladeshi scientists who studied in the United States mentor a group of 20 female high school and college students in Bangladesh, helping them find paths to pursue science. — Lisa Grossman

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Pioneer pairs light with gravity waves

Credit: Texas Tech Univ.

Alessandra Corsi, 40 Astrophysicist

Affiliation: Texas Tech University Hometown: Rome, Italy Favorite telescope: Very Large Array, New Mexico

Standout research

On September 3, 2017, Alessandra Corsi finally saw what she had been waiting for since mid-August: a small dot in her telescope images that was the radio afterglow of a neutron star collision. That stellar clash, discovered by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory team, or LIGO, which included Corsi, was the first direct sighting of a neutron star collision (SN: 10/16/17). The event, dubbed GW170817, was also the first of any kind seen in both gravitational waves and light waves.

Telescopes around the world spotted all kinds of light from the crash site, but one particular kind, the radio waves, took their sweet time showing up. Corsi had been waiting since August 17, when the gravitational waves were spotted. “Longest two weeks of my life,” Corsi says. The radio waves were key to understanding a superfast particle jet launched by the colliding stars.

Early on, the jet appeared to have been smothered by a plume of debris from the collision (SN: 12/20/17). But follow-up radio observations made by Corsi’s team and others confirmed that the jet had punched through the wreckage (SN: 2/22/19). This jet was the first of its kind to be seen from the side, allowing Corsi and colleagues to probe its structure. The jet almost certainly would have gone unnoticed if the gravitational waves hadn’t clued astronomers in.

Big goal

Corsi is a pioneer in the new field of multimessenger astronomy, which pairs observations of light waves with spacetime ripples, or gravitational waves. The pairing is like having eyes and ears on the cosmos, Corsi says. “You cannot learn all that you could with only one of the two.” In the case of GW170817, gravitational waves revealed how the neutron stars danced around each other as they spiraled toward collision, and light waves unveiled the type of material left in the aftermath (SN: 10/23/19). Using this multimessenger approach could also give astronomers a more complete picture of other cataclysms, such as smashups between neutron stars and black holes, and the explosive deaths of massive stars. Such spectacular events “reveal some of the most fundamental physics in our universe,” Corsi says.

If gravitational wave signals were converted into sound, they would create their own kind of music.

Most researchers specialize in either gravitational waves or light, but Corsi “is very well-versed in both messengers,” says Wen-fai Fong, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “That makes her extremely versatile in terms of the types of multimessenger science she can study.”

What’s next

Corsi has now built a computational tool to scan LIGO data for gravitational waves stirred up by whatever is left behind in a neutron star merger. The tool is based on a paper she published in 2009 — years before LIGO scored its first gravitational wave detection (SN: 2/11/16). The paper describes the gravitational wave pattern that would signal the presence of one possible remnant: a rapidly spinning, elongated neutron star. Alternatively, a neutron star smashup could leave behind a black hole. Knowing which “tells us a lot about how matter behaves at densities way higher than we could ever explore in a lab,” Corsi says.

Inspiration

Corsi taught herself to play the piano in high school, and now enjoys playing both classical music and tunes from favorite childhood movies, like Beauty and the Beast. The audio frequencies of piano notes are similar to the frequencies of spacetime tremors picked up by LIGO. If gravitational wave signals were converted into sound, they would create their own kind of music. “That’s the thing I like to think of when I’m playing,” she says. — Maria Temming

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What’s in smoky air?

Credit: Bill Cotton/Colorado State Univ.

Emily Fischer, 39 Atmospheric chemist

Affiliation: Colorado State University Hometown: Richmond, R.I. Favorite outdoor activities: Cross-country skiing and gardening

Motivation

Emily Fischer has always cared about air pollution. “It’s innate.… It’s a calling,” she says. Exposure to air pollution raises your risk for many common ailments, such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, diabetes and obesity. But unlike some other risk factors for these diseases, “you can’t choose not to breathe, right? You have to have clean air for everyone.” In her youth, she organized rallies to clean up the cigarette smoke–filled air of her Rhode Island high school. That interest led Fischer to study atmospheric chemistry and motivates her current work as a self-described air pollution detective. Air pollution may conjure images of thick black plumes billowing from smokestacks, but Fischer says most air pollution is invisible and poorly understood. She combines analytical chemistry with high-flying techniques to understand where air pollution comes from and how it changes as it moves through the air.

Bold idea

Wildfire smoke like that filling the skies in the American West this season is a major, but still mysterious, source of air pollution. Thousands of different solids, liquids and gases swirl together to form wildfire smoke, and its chemical composition changes as it blows through the atmosphere. This dynamic mixture, which is also affected by what’s burning on the ground, is tricky to measure, since each of its many components requires highly specialized equipment and expertise to assess. The equipment also has to be airborne, typically lofted into the air via planes or balloons. “There has been beautiful work on wildfire smoke,” Fischer says, “but in most studies, we just have not had all the measurements needed to really interpret things.” 

“You can’t choose not to breathe, right? You have to have clean air for everyone.”

Emily Fischer

To get a fuller view, she dreamed big: “Why not try to measure everything, and measure it systematically?” She pulled together a diverse team of 10 lead researchers, and scores more graduate students and postdocs, to pull off the most comprehensive analysis of wildfire smoke ever attempted, a project dubbed WE-CAN. During the summer of 2018, Fischer led over a dozen six-hour flights over the West, chasing wildfire smoke plumes and systematically measuring the air in and around smoke plumes with nearly 30 different instruments crammed into the cargo hold of a C-130 plane.

“[WE-CAN] is a big collaboration,” says Ronald Cohen, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, Berkeley. He says success stemmed in large part from the team that came together.

“Making an environment for successful collaboration is really satisfying to me,” Fischer says.

While team members are still analyzing the data, the project is already revealing some of the smoke’s secrets. For example, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide — two chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems — are abundant in wildfire smoke. Recent wildfires show how important it is to understand the role of climate change in fires, Fischer says, and “who is most vulnerable in our society, and how we can best prepare and protect those communities.”

Fisher is also planning to adapt some of what she’s learned from WE-CAN to track ammonia emissions from farms and feed lots, which are another major source of air pollution.

Big goal

Fischer is deeply committed to bringing more undergraduate women, especially women of color, into the geosciences. And she’s using science to figure out how. She brought a team of social scientists and geoscientists together to study how different interventions can help. She and colleagues found that for every female role model a student has, her probability of continuing on in her geosciences major roughly doubles. Having someone to look up to who looks like them is key to building a sense of belonging and identity as a scientist, Fischer says. To help build that network, Fischer started PROGRESS, a workshop and mentorship program that aims to support undergraduate women in the geosciences. Started at Colorado State University in 2014, the program has since expanded, reaching over 300 women at institutions across the United States.

For her own mentees, Fischer tries to instill a willingness to take risks and go after big, bold questions. “The easy things are done,” she says. Pushing forward our understanding of pressing questions means chasing research projects that might lead nowhere, she says, or might crack open a new field of research. “It’s OK to be wrong, and it’s OK to take risks. That’s what science needs right now.”  — Jonathan Lambert

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Taking chemistry lessons from nature

Credit: L. Brian Stauffer/UI News Bureau

Prashant Jain, 38 Physical chemist

Affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Hometown: Mumbai, India Favorite element: Gold

Big goal

Prashant Jain explores how light interacts with matter — such as how plants use sunlight to photosynthesize — and applies that knowledge to new problems. He recently took lessons from nature to convert carbon dioxide into other useful molecules. In a paper last year in Nature Communications, Jain and Sungju Yu, also at Illinois at the time, reported using gold nanoparticles as a catalyst to drive chemical reactions between carbon dioxide and water.

When light hit the nanoparticles, it set off a series of reactions that converted carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels such as methane and propane. In essence, the process not only sucked carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — out of the air, but it also made that carbon into fuel. No wonder the oil giant Shell is funding Jain’s work. The whole process isn’t very efficient, so Jain is working to improve how much carbon dioxide gets used and how much fuel gets produced. But along the way he hopes to learn more about how nature uses energy to make matter — and to inspire his lab to create more sustainable and renewable energy technologies.

“I am myself still a student.”

Prashant Jain

In another example of using chemistry to push toward future technologies, Jain and colleagues shined light on gold and platinum nanoparticles and triggered reactions that liberated hydrogen from ammonia molecules. Hydrogen is important in many industries — fuel cells for zero-carbon vehicles use it, for example — but it can be dangerous to transport because it’s flammable. Jain’s discovery could allow workers to transport ammonia instead, which is safer, and then free the hydrogen from the ammonia once it has arrived where’s it needed. The work was reported online in July in Angewandte Chemie.

Superpower

Jain has a remarkable ability and optimism to see unsuccessful laboratory experiments as successful steps toward understanding the natural world, says Karthish Manthiram, a chemical engineer at MIT. As a first-year graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Manthiram remembers being frustrated that his experiments weren’t turning out as expected. But Jain, a postdoctoral fellow in the same lab, stepped in to help and recast the problematic results. “He’s always viewed what others see as failure as moments of clarity that build up to moments when things make more sense,” Manthiram says. “For me that was an important lesson in how to be a scientist.”

Inspiration

Growing up in a family that worked mostly in business and finance, Jain fell in love with science as a preteen — inspired in part by watching the movie Jurassic Park and its fictional depiction of what might be possible through understanding the molecular world. Soon he spotted a physics textbook for sale from a street vendor and bought it. “I tried to read the book, nothing much made sense,” he says. “I wanted to be the one to figure out all these mysteries of nature.” He chose to major in chemical engineering in college (inspired in part by a magazine published by the chemical company DuPont), and then switched to physical chemistry when he moved to the United States to get a Ph.D.

Promoted this year to full professor, Jain has never stopped pushing to acquire new knowledge; when he finished teaching this last spring semester, he enrolled in an online MIT course on quantum information science. “I am myself still a student,” he says. — Alexandra Witze

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Challenging ideas about youth suicide

Credit: Sarah Diefendorf

Anna Mueller, 40 Sociologist

Affiliation: Indiana University Hometown: Houston, Texas Favorite fieldwork: Observing rituals

Standout research

Between 2000 and 2015, at a high school of about 2,000 students in the town of Poplar Grove (a pseudonym), 16 former and current students died by suicide; three other similar-aged individuals in the community, mostly at private schools, also took their own lives. A clinician who had grown up in the town reached out to Anna Mueller for help breaking the cruel cycle. Before that e-mail in fall 2013, Mueller was using big data to understand why teen and young adult suicide rates in the United States were spiking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that suicides among 10- to 24-year-olds jumped 56 percent between 2007 and 2017.

Scholars theorized that suicidal people attracted other suicidal people. But Mueller’s work undercut that idea. In 2015 in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, for instance, she reported that merely having a suicidal friend did not increase a teen’s suicide risk. A teen’s risk only went up with awareness that a teenage friend had made a suicide attempt. “Knowledge of the attempt matters to transforming … risk,” Mueller says. She carried an understanding of that contagion effect to Poplar Grove, where she worked with sociologist Seth Abrutyn of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the half of the duo who is more focused on the theoretical.

Anna Mueller’s long-term goal is to create a sort of litmus test that identifies schools that could be at risk of a suicide cluster.

The team conducted 110 interviews and focus group meetings, lasting from 45 minutes to four hours, with Poplar Grove residents, plus some individuals outside the community for comparison. The team’s research revealed that teens felt an intense pressure to achieve in their affluent, mostly white town, where everybody seemed to know everyone else. While teens and young adults in a first wave of suicides might have had mental health problems, peers and community members often attributed those deaths to the town’s pressure cooker environment. That narrative, however incomplete, was especially strong when the youth who killed themselves were classic overachievers. Tragically, over time, that script became embedded in the local culture, making even youth who weren’t previously suicidal see suicide as a viable option (SN: 4/3/19), Mueller says.

Mueller and Abrutyn were among the first researchers to start chipping away at the underlying reasons for why suicide rates have been rising in high schoolers, particularly overachieving girls without obvious underlying mental health problems, says Bernice Pescosolido, a sociologist at Indiana University in Bloomington who helped bring Mueller into the school’s sociology department. “What Anna and Seth have really been able to show is how imitation works and what the contagion effect looks like on the ground.”

Big goal

Mueller’s long-term goal is to create a sort of litmus test that identifies schools that could be at risk of a suicide cluster. That way, school and community leaders can intervene before the first suicide and its resulting firestorm. Since fall 2018, she has been researching suicide trends in school districts in Colorado that are more diverse than Poplar Grove. When it comes to school culture, her early work shows, there’s often a trade-off between academic or athletic excellence and a supportive environment.

Top tool

In anticipation of her work in Poplar Grove, Mueller knew she needed a more boots-on-the-ground approach than her big data training allowed. So she trained in qualitative methods, including how to design a study; interview techniques, such as how to write questions to elicit desired conversations; and the detailed data analysis required for this research tactic.  

Mueller also sees the value in observing interactions, a common sociological approach. This spring, with the pandemic in full swing, she spent a lot of time on her home computer watching socially distant graduation ceremonies in her Colorado schools. She found that a school’s culture showed in the details, such as whether valedictorians addressed hot-button issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, in their speeches. “Of all of my moments in the field, rituals are the ones that tug at my own heartstrings because I’m watching kids graduate and that’s just inherently beautiful, but it also is a very powerful data moment,” she says. — Sujata Gupta

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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The inner lives of protons and neutrons

Credit: P. Shanahan

Phiala Shanahan, 29 Theoretical physicist

Affiliation: MIT Hometown: Adelaide, Australia Favorite subatomic particle: The gluon

Big goal

When Phiala Shanahan was a graduate student, she was shocked to learn that experiments disagreed on the size of the proton (SN: 9/10/19). “Protons and neutrons are the key building blocks of 99 percent of the visible matter in the universe,” she says. “And we know, in some sense, surprisingly little about their internal structure.”

“If there’s something I don’t understand, I’m extremely stubborn when it comes to figuring out the answer.”

Phiala Shanahan

That ignorance inspires her studies. She aims to calculate the characteristics of protons and neutrons based on fundamental physics. That includes not just their size, but also their mass and the nature of their components — how, for example, the quarks and gluons that make them up are sprinkled around inside. Such calculations can help scientists put the standard model, the theory that governs elementary particles and their interactions, to the test.

Standout research

Shanahan is known for her prowess calculating the influence of gluons, particles that carry the strong force, which binds the proton together. For example, when gluons’ contributions are included, the proton is squeezed to a pressure greater than estimated to exist within incredibly dense neutron stars, she and a coauthor reported in Physical Review Letters in 2019. “It’s a very remarkable calculation,” says physicist Volker Burkert of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va. “That’s very fundamental, and it’s the first time it has been done.” Because they have no electric charge, gluons tend to elude experimental measurements, and that has left the particles neglected in theoretical calculations as well. Shanahan’s gluon results should be testable at a new particle collider, the Electron-Ion Collider, planned to be built at Brookhaven National Lab in Upton, N.Y. (SN: 4/18/17).

Superpower

Persistence. “I hate not knowing something,” she says. “So if there’s something I don’t understand, I’m extremely stubborn when it comes to figuring out the answer.”

Top tool

A technique called lattice QCD is the foundation for Shanahan’s work. It’s named for quantum chromodynamics, the piece of the standard model that describes the behavior of quarks and gluons. QCD should allow scientists to predict the properties of protons and neutrons from the bottom up, but the theory is incredibly complex, making full calculations impossible to perform even on the best available supercomputers. Lattice QCD is a shortcut. It breaks up space and time into a grid on which particles reside, simplifying calculations. Shanahan is leading efforts to use machine learning to rev up lattice QCD calculations — putting her persistence to good use. “We don’t have to rely on computers getting better. We can have smarter algorithms for exploiting those computers,” she says. She hopes to speed up calculations enough that she can go beyond protons and neutrons, working her way up to the properties of atomic nuclei. — Emily Conover

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How to engineer cellular helpers

Credit: Caltech

Mikhail Shapiro, 39 Biochemical engineer

Affiliation: Caltech Hometown: Kolomna, Russia Favorite protein: He can’t pick just one

Bold idea

Mikhail Shapiro believes that in the future, “we’re going to have smart biological devices that are roaming our bodies, diagnosing and treating disease” — something akin to the submarine in the 1966 classic sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage. As the shrunken sub entered and repaired the body of a sick scientist, commanders on the outside helped control it. “Similarly, we’re going to want to talk to the cells that we are going to send into the body to treat cancer, or inflammation, or neurological diseases,” Shapiro says.

Shapiro and his colleagues are working on building, watching and controlling such cellular submarines in the real world. Such a deep view inside the body might offer clues to basic science questions, such as how communities of gut bacteria grow, how immune cells migrate through the body or how brains are built cell by cell.

Despite his futuristic visions, Shapiro is often drawn to the past. “I like science history a lot,” he says. Right now, he’s in the middle of rereading the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Just before that, he read a biography of Marie Curie.

Standout research

“There is not a protein that I learn about that I don’t think about ways to misuse it,” Shapiro says. But he’s especially fond of the proteins that build the outer shell of gas vesicles in certain kinds of bacteria. These microscopic air bags “have so many uses that were totally unanticipated,” Shapiro says.

In addition to letting bacteria sink or float, these bubbles provide a communication system, Shapiro and colleagues have found. Over the last several years, they have coaxed both bacterial cells and human cells to make gas vesicles and have placed such cells within mice. Because the air-filled pockets reflect sound, the engineered cells can be tracked from outside a mouse’s body. Using patterns of sound waves, the researchers can also drive bacterial cells around in lab dishes.

“There is not a protein that I learn about that I don’t think about ways to misuse it.”

Mikhail Shapiro

In another nod to Fantastic Voyage, scientists can weaponize these cellular submarines. “We’ve essentially turned cells into suicide agents triggered by ultrasound,” Shapiro says. This explosion could release chemicals into the surroundings and destroy nearby cells. This sort of targeted detonation could be damaging to tumors, for instance. “Complete warfare is possible,” he says.

By seeing the potential in these esoteric gas vesicles, Shapiro was “ahead of his time and hugely innovative,” says Jason Lewis, a molecular imaging scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what his work will do in terms of a greater impact.”

Motivation

“Frustration,” Shapiro says, is what made him switch to engineering after studying neuroscience as an undergraduate at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He realized that existing tools for studying processes inside the brain fell short. “And I didn’t see enough people making better tools.”

But he didn’t stop at developing new neuroscience technologies. “Oddly enough, once I got into the engineering part of things, I got so fascinated with weird proteins, and magnetic fields, and sound waves, and all the more physics-y side of things. That’s become as much, if not more, of my passion as the original neuroscience.” In his Twitter bio, Shapiro describes his expertise as succinctly as possible: “Bio-Acousto-Magneto-Neuro-Chemical Engineer at Caltech.” — Laura Sanders

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Regeneration through an engineer’s eyes

Credit: Stanford Medicine

Bo Wang, 39 Bioengineer

Affiliation: Stanford University Hometown: Nanjing, China Favorite organism: Planarian

Inspiration

Planarians are the most charismatic of all flatworms, Bo Wang says. “They have this childish cuteness that people just love.” But the adorable facade isn’t what drew Wang to study the deceptively simple worms, which resemble little arrows with eyes. It was planarians’ superpower: regeneration. Slice a planarian into pieces and, within a week or two, each chunk will grow into a new flatworm — head and all. Studying the cells that drive this process could offer lessons for turning on regeneration in human tissues, to treat various diseases, regrow limbs and grow organs for next-generation transplants.

Bold idea

Wang uses statistical physics to figure out how planarians regenerate entire organs cell by cell. Newly formed brain cells, for instance, must physically position themselves to avoid turning into “amorphous aggregates,” Wang says. His interest in how things fit together began in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There, Wang trained as a physicist and worked on self-assembling materials. Wang now works to uncover the physical rules that living cells follow. “I’m fascinated by how molecules arrange themselves seemingly randomly, but there are still statistical rules that those molecules will follow,” he says.

Bo Wang works to uncover the physical rules that living cells follow.

His physics-based approach is raising new questions and unveiling biological processes that would be hard for biologists to come by using traditional methods alone, says regeneration biologist Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Mo. Wang is “a new breed” of flatworm biologist, Sánchez Alvarado says. “He is occupying a very unique niche in the community of developmental biology.”

Standout research

Wang and colleagues recently found that nerve cells, or neurons, in regenerating planarian brains form a predictable pattern dictated by the types of cells in their midst. Planarians brains are akin to cities made up of neighborhoods of neurons. Within each neighborhood, no two neurons that do the same job will live next to each other; those cells repulse each other but stay close enough to communicate, the researchers reported in the May Nature Physics. Because of this behavior, increasing the types of neurons in a neighborhood limits the ways cells can pack together. The team dubbed this packing process “chromatic jamming,” after a famous mathematical puzzle called the four-color problem (SN: 3/6/09).

The finding is surprising and challenges “what we think we understand about organogenesis and about organization of cells within an organ,” says Sánchez Alvarado. Chromatic jamming appears to be key to how the planarian brain comes together, guiding single cells into neighborhoods that are a driving force in organ development, he says. If similar physical rules apply to human cells, that could help scientists sketch blueprints for engineering and growing artificial organs. — Cassie Martin

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Cheaters can’t evade this genetic sleuth

Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research

SaraH Zanders, 37 Geneticist

Affiliation: Stowers Institute for Medical Research Hometown: Glenwood, Iowa Favorite organism: Fission yeast

Backstory

An invitation to work in the lab of her genetics professor Robert Malone at the University of Iowa in Iowa City set SaraH Zanders on the path to becoming a scientist. “It was a turning point in my life,” Zanders says. Before that, she didn’t really know how she would put her biology degree to use, or what it meant to be a scientist. In Malone’s lab, she fell in love with meiosis, the process by which organisms divvy up genetic information to pass on to future generations. The first step is julienning the genome and swapping pieces of chromosomes. “That just seems like such a bad idea to basically shred your [DNA] in the process of getting it from one generation to the next,” she says. She started studying the proteins involved in making the cuts. “It was like I was born to do that. I never would have known without that push.”

A different kind of push led Zanders to spell her first name with a capital H: An elementary school teacher kept leaving the letter off. Zanders has capitalized it for emphasis ever since. “If I write it without the big H, it doesn’t look like my name anymore,” she says. “It feels like somebody else.”

Standout research

Meiosis is full of conflict. For her postdoctoral work, Zanders focused on a particular type of dustup caused by some selfish genes — genes that propagate themselves even if it hurts the host. As the monk Gregor Mendel laid out in his study of pea plants, a particular version of a gene typically has a 50-50 chance of being passed on to the next generation. But the selfish genes Zanders was studying, a type called meiotic drivers because they propel themselves during meiosis, manage to get themselves inherited far more often. “These kinds of systems do a complete end run around Mendel’s laws,” says Daniel Barbash, an evolutionary geneticist at Cornell University.

In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, also called fission yeast, Zanders discovered, a family of selfish genes makes moves that would be right at home in a Game of Thrones story line. Zanders and colleagues were the first to work out the molecular tricks that thesegenes use to skirt Mendel’s laws, reporting the findings in eLife in 2017. The genes, known as wtf genes, produce both a poison and an antidote. All of the spores — the yeast’s gametes — get the poison, but only those that inherit certain gene versions also get an antidote. Spores that don’t get the antidote die, ensuring that only offspring with specific wtf gene versions survive to pass their genes on to the next generation. For the fission yeast, such predatory tactics can have big consequences, even driving two nearly identical strains toward becoming different species. Some selfish genes have made themselves essential for proper development (SN: 7/3/18). In humans and other animals, genetic conflicts may lead to infertility.

For the fission yeast, such predatory tactics can have big consequences, even driving two nearly identical strains toward becoming different species.

“This extremely important family of meiotic cheaters has been just sitting in plain sight waiting for somebody who had the right kind of lens and the care … to discover them,” says Harmit Malik, an evolutionary geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and Zanders’ postdoctoral mentor. Zanders helped build a case that the skewed inheritance in these yeast was a real effect, not just fluctuations in the data. Before she began her work, virtually nothing was known about meiotic drivers in yeast. Now the wtf genes are among the best known meiotic drivers studied in any lab organism. Some selfish genes in worms also use the poison-antidote trick to beat the competition (SN: 5/11/17). Meiotic drivers in fruit flies, mice — and maybe humans — win genetic conflicts by other means (SN: 10/31/17; SN: 2/24/16).

Motivation

Zanders is now on the lookout for other genetic fights in yeast. Understanding such conflicts more generally may help answer big questions in evolution, as well as shedding light on human infertility. As for what motivates her, “It’s just I like to solve puzzles,” Zanders laughs. “I wish it was a deep desire to help people, but it’s definitely not that.” — Tina Hesman Saey

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Quake expert co-opts underground cables

Credit: Caltech

Zhongwen Zhan, 33 Seismologist

Affiliation: Caltech Hometown: Jinzhai County, China Favorite hobby: Carpentry

Big goal

As the Rose Parade wound through Pasadena, Calif., on January 1, 2020, Zhongwen Zhan listened to the underground echoes of the marching bands and dancers. With a sensitive technology known as distributed acoustic sensing, or DAS, Zhan tracked the parade’s progress. He even identified the most ground-shaking band. (It was the Southern University and A&M College’s Human Jukebox.)

The study was a small but elegant proof of concept, revealing how DAS is capable of mapping out and distinguishing among small seismic sources that span just a few meters: zigzagging motorcycles, the heavy press of floats on the road, the steady pace of a marching band. But Zhan seeks to use the technology for bigger-picture scientific questions, including developing early warning systems for earthquakes, studying the forces that control the slow slide of glaciers and exploring seismic signals on other worlds.

Zhan has a “crystal-clear vision” of DAS’ scientific possibilities, says Nate Lindsey, a geophysicist at Stanford University who is also part of the small community of researchers exploring the uses of DAS. “When you get such a cool new tool, you like to just apply it to everything,” he adds. But Zhan’s expertise is “very deep, and it goes into many different areas. He knows what’s important.”

So far, Zhan and other researchers have used the technology to study aftershocks following the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes in Southern California (SN: 7/12/19), to demonstrate that interactions between ocean waves produce tiny quakes beneath the North Sea, and to examine the structure of glaciers.

Top tool

DAS piggybacks off the millions of fiber-optic cables that run beneath the ground, ferrying data for internet service, phones and televisions (SN: 6/14/18). Not all of the glass cables are in use all of the time, and these strands of “dark fiber” can be temporarily repurposed as seismic sensors. When pulses of light are fired into the fibers’ ends, defects in the glass reflect the light back to its source. As vibrations within the Earth shift and stretch the fibers, a pulse’s travel time also shifts.

Whole networks of seismic sensors could be deployed in places currently difficult or impossible to monitor — at the ocean bottom, atop Antarctic glaciers, on other planets.

Over the last few years, scientists have begun testing the effectiveness of these dark fibers as inexpensive, dense seismic arrays — which researchers call DAS — to help monitor earthquakes and create fine-scale images of the subsurface. In these settings, Zhan notes, DAS is proving to be a very useful supplement to existing seismograph networks. But the potential is far greater. Whole networks of sensors could be deployed in places currently difficult or impossible to monitor — at the bottom of the ocean, atop Antarctic glaciers, on other planets. “Seismology is a very observation-based field, so a seismic network is a fundamental tool,” he says.

Inspiration

“I’ve been interested in science since I was young, but wasn’t sure what kind of science I wanted to do,” Zhan says. In China, students usually have to decide on a field before they go to college, he adds, but “I was fortunate.” At age 15, Zhan was admitted to a special class for younger kids within the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. The program allowed him to try out different research fields. A nature lover, Zhan gravitated toward the earth sciences. “Environmental science, chemistry, atmospheric science — I tried all of them.”

Then, in late 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake ruptured the seafloor under the Indian Ocean, spawning deadly tsunamis (SN: 1/5/05). After hearing from a researcher studying the quake, Zhan knew he wanted to study seismology. “I was amazed by how seismologists can study very remote things by monitoring vibrations in the Earth,” Zhan says. The data “are just wiggles, complicated wiggles,” but so much info can be extracted. “And when we do it fast, it can provide a lot of benefit to society.” — Carolyn Gramling

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from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sn-10-scientists-to-watch-2020

[karankurani]

Why you should not have Managers in your class name

And why you should be careful about anything that ends with -er. Before I go any further, please go and read Steve Yegge’s blog post on the overuse of Nouns in Javaland.

Most coders I know do not give naming things the importance it deserves. It is highly critical to get the class/method name right the first time. The name will affect the way you structure your code base, think about it further down the line, how you refactor and extend it. Nothing creates technical debt faster than choosing a wrong name for your class. It will come back and bite you very painfully.

The name of a class will determine how you delegate responsibilities to that class. Let me illustrate. Lets say you are designing the iOS client for Shoutt. The client needs to establish a connection to the server, fork over the data and then handle the response. At this point many coders will say - “Aha! What we need is a ConnectionManager which manages all these tasks.” So we go ahead and create that class with the required functionality.

It works fine until we realize that the app requires multiple simultaneous connections to the server. Now because you have a ConnectionManager, you go ahead and introduce an array inside the class which maintains the state of all the open connections to the server. The code is a tad little bit more complex because each connection is established by a different object in the client and the response needs to be routed to the appropriate caller.

Fine so far… Oh wait, but now the client also needs to handle retries in case of failure. What do you do if one of the connections fail? You introduce a hashmap in ConnectionManager which maintains the number of retries a particular connection has made to the server.

Oh crap, what if the object establishing the connection wants to end it before MAX_RETRIES is reached? So now you have a connection_id which is stored on each view and is used every time you want to cancel the connection. Also, did I mention that sometimes connections need to be asynchronous and sometimes synchronous (this requirement crops up two weeks into building the app btw). So now, in your code base, when you want asynchronous connections, there is an event thrown in the ConnectionManager with the connection_id that shows the response. But in case of synchronous connections it returns the response immediately. So you have two methods on ConnectionManager object called establish_sync_conn() and establish_async_conn().

At this point, your ConnectionManager object has an array, a hashmap, probably another hashmap to track connection types and two different methods just to create a connection. Its a very complex thing to look at. Even worse is the fact that if someone else looks at your code, it will take them a while to figure out whats happening where and how everything is linked together. It also makes you prone to make mistakes and have more bugs/complexity in your code.

What would have happened if you had named the class just Connection instead of ConnectionManager? Just because of the name being Connection you think of it as a proper object (like a proper connection - think of it as an information pipeline between the client and server). You need multiple connections? Just create another object of connection. What about a single connection for the entire app? You just create a global connection variable which has that object. Retrying is also maintained by each connection object independently. How about max retries? You just have an internal max_retries variable in the class. So each connection maintains it’s state internally. Since we have separate objects for each connection, each object can just handle that connection on its own and terminate it without worrying about whether there are any other connections or not. What about the sync and async type of connections? The answer is in the word type. You pass in the type of connection you want in the constructor and the object is setup accordingly.

Obviously the ConnectionManager could be designed differently and made cleaner, but giving the name Manager makes defining the responsibility of the class ambiguous. On the other hand, naming the class Connection would make its responsibility clear and unambiguous.

Anything that has the name manager (or anything else that ends in -er) in it is usually (not always) a code smell that you haven’t designed your application properly. Eliminating that type of class will automagically lead you to write much better code and keep things simple as you extend your application.

Picking the right name helps you keep your code structure clean. It also make it easy to extend as well as refactor. So next time you are naming a class, please give it an extra 5 minutes of thought before you start coding.

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[Note - This was originally posted on March 30, 2013 on my previous startup’s blog (archive link here). Reposting it here since back then it was under an anonymous handle.]

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