#Cuban Missile Crisis (game)

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: X-Play - High In Quality, Low In Fat | 1/29/07

A Flaming Disaster.

(4GTV - 24/7. LIVE. WATCH NOW!)

[bobbyskizza]

Celebrated Paddy's Day by playing Cuba Libre and re-fighting the Cuban Revolution.

I managed to pull out a win for the Directorio faction who represent, "anti-communist student groups, urban guerrillas, and ex-patriots try to de-stabilize the Batista regime from inside and out, while trying not to pave the way for a new dictatorship under Castro".

So history changes which means a lot of things probably don't happen. There's probably no Cuba missile crisis which means we don't get the 1993 movie Matinee directed by Joe Dante and starring John Goodman.

Probably some other stuff is different too. (Check out Matinee it's a good movie).

[directdogman]

what was the thought process for making crown a president in the 1960s? it seems so recent in history for a world-changing event like the dialup..or were there events in actual history at that time which lined up with your ideas?

I began writing an answer to this question without considering what I was aiming to describe and wound up writing an essay much longer than this answer wound up being (I went back and checked! I went back to write this!) but I'm not a historian, just a two-bit game dev, so I rewrote this answer to be as concise as possible (while fully answering the question.) I have a tendency to ramble.

The 1960's was a weird decade. In terms of societal/cultural change, I'm not sure any one decade in American history has a greater shift. Vietnam was the first war the US fought and blatantly lost (and with significant civilian opposition during the war, something never seen before, with even wars with significant political opposition (eg Mexican-American + Spanish-American wars) still having the support of much of the American public.) The civil rights movement advanced considerably with the passing of the civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965. The 50's had significant change too as I'll mention later, though these civil rights acts had support from congress, and from the political party that had opposed previous civil right advancement no less, leading to a gigantic voting demographics shift that has largely remained to this day.

The Cuban Missile Crisis happened, which is the closest the world has come to nuclear war, arguably. MLK and Malcolm X were both assassinated, alongside a sitting US president (in broad daylight.) When cultural leaders get shot, that's a sign that things are really heating up.

The 40's + 50's weren't actually great decades for American counterculture. The tireless work from civil rights activists during the 50's shouldn't be forgotten either ofc, with Brown vs the Board of Education, the Federal government enforcing the Supreme Court's ruling in Little Rock and the Montgomery bus boycotts, but generally, questioning American foreign policy and criticism of capitalism were treated with ruthlessness - civilians were brought before HUAC and actors theorized of having communist sympathies blacklisted by the Screen Actor's Guild (whose head was none other than a young President Ronald Reagan.)

Not only did this keep 'Unamerican' perspectives out of the American media, but America also spent an impressive amount of money on war propaganda in the 40's (with even heavy-hitters like Disney pumping out cartoons to increase public support for the war), making US patriotism very popular before the 50's, which only became further cemented with McCarthyism taking hold by the early 50's. "Under God" was added to the PoA and references to God was added onto the American dollar to further separate US culture from atheistic marxist-leninist cultures like the Soviet Union.

While the 50's saw certain socioeconomic advances, it was also a time of cultural/political regression... followed by a time of mass political unrest/revolution. Think of the 1920's compared to the 1930's, say. This kind of political shift makes for the perfect petri-dish to produce powerful demagogues.

The early 60's is a really weird time because it's perfectly cemented between the dissolution of McCarthyism and the complete reorganization of the American political establishment, including counter-cultural ideas gaining mainstream appeal. Any earlier or later, and Crown's ideas probably wouldn't have had the same momentum. If Crown had ran for office any later, he'd have stopped much sooner, imo. Part of Crown's rise was down to how much his enemies underestimated how large his movement would become and how sweeping his brand of populism would be (with even people like Norm getting swept up in it.)

TL;DR: The early 60's was the perfect period of time for a man like Crown to gain a foothold in mainstream culture without his enemies realizing just how dangerous he was to them... by 1964, they understood all too well.

[jiangwanyinsimp]

An Incomplete (and Very Long) list of thing Edwin Payne missed while he was stuck in Hell

This list emerged because I was talking about how he would have missed the end of World War One and then the list kept going. It is not complete or in order, and is provided simply for posterity

ww2

spanish flu

the hindenburg disaster

the rise of public radio

Irish independence

fast food as a concept

the hinterkaifeck murders

the extinction of the california grizzly

the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

television

jet aircraft

supersonic aircraft

the moon landing

THE OFFICIAL FOUNDING OF THE SOVIET UNION

the jazz age

surrealism

the first woman to swim the english channel

the BBC

Amelia Earhart

Tintin

the discovery of Pluto

the crash of airship R101

the founding of porsche

the geneva convention

UK abandonment of the gold standard

the discovery of 22 elements on the periodic table

technicolor

Australia starting and losing the Emu war

the creation of the Royal Christmas message

the Great Depression

FM radio

the first canned beer

pre-sliced bread

the recognition of stress as a biological condition

the extinction of the thylacine

the destruction of the Crystal Palace

the first full feature length animated film (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

the nylon bristle toothbrush

Batman

the last use of the guillotine for an official state execution

Gone With the Wind (the book AND the film)

the founding of Greggs

Looney Tunes

the discovery of the Lascaux cave paintings

Agatha Christie's works

Cheerios

the discovery of nuclear fission and all subsequent nuclear discoveries

the airplane ejection seat

The Little Prince

LSD

the lifting of the prohibition of married British women working as teachers

the disappearance of flight 19

the first formula one grand prix

Mensa

the invention of the magic 8 ball

the Doomsday Clock

the AK-47

the first commercial microwave

the Kinsey reports

the first time Idaho Fish and Game parachuted beavers into the wild

humanity's entry to space

the beginning of the broadcast of the Archers (the longest running present day drama by number of episodes)

the Korean War

the polio vaccine

the first nuclear powered submarine

The Lord of the Rings

Moomins

transistor radio

the TV dinner/ready meal

ICBMs

the entire life of Elvis Presley

Kermit the Frog

My Fair Lady (the film and musical adaptations)

Grace Kelly's wedding

the Entire Life Of Marilyn Monroe

the Beat Generation

Eurovision

Helvetica typeface

the peace symbol

the Cod Wars

computer games

Dyatlov Pass incident

Barbie

Missile Mail

the Declaration of the Rights of the Child

the MOSFET

particle accelerators

the Beatles

the recovery of the Vasa

the first Six Flags

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Catch-22

the Vietnam War

Silent Spring

The Rolling Stones

the night of the long knives

Vatican II

James Bond

the Cuban Missile Crisis

Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation

the "I Have A Dream" speech

JFK Assassination

the smiley face

Mary Poppins (1964)

IntelSat

the last British execution

high speed rail

the first time "fuck" was said on british tv

the Moors Murders

the Grateful Dead

the British parliament decriminalizing homosexuality

most of the literary career of Pablo Neruda

Fleetwood Mac

the Parker Morris Standards

the end of steam passenger travel in the UK

Led Zeppelin

Earth Day

the first temporary artificial heart

the first person to row an ocean solo

Woodstock

the Zodiac Killer

the nationalization of Rolls-Royce

decimalisation of UK currency

the first e-book

the first microprocessor

DB Cooper

the first email

the Biological Weapons Convention

Watergate

the start of the Troubles

The Joy of Sex

all attempts to climb Mount Everest and the eventual first ascent

ABBA

the invention of the Rubik's Cube

the Moorgate tube crash

the first Cricket World Cup

the global eradication of Smallpox

Star Wars

the Tenerife airport disaster

the discovery of the rings of Uranus

Red Rum winning three Grand Nationals

the Concorde

the start of the broadcast of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Jonestown

Synthetic insulin

the Thorpe affair

the release of God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols

Monty Python

the election of Margaret Thatcher

Star Trek

Iron Maiden

the incident where the dingo ate a baby in Australia

the end of iron and steel production in the UK's Black Country

the first London Marathon

Charles and Diana's wedding

the church of England votes to elect women to holy orders

the 1981 UK tornado outbreak

the first child born by IVF

the Falklands War

the raising of the Mary Rose

the invention of ciabatta bread

the discovery of the Titanic

the King's Cross Fire

Top Gun

Lockerbie bombing

[mariacallous]

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order for nuclear weapon drills went public on May 6, the day after Orthodox Easter—a bitter irony since he styles himself a fervent guardian of Christian values, which do not include the simulation of nuclear annihilation the last time I checked. I wonder whether he signed the order before or after his much-publicized attendance of Easter service at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

The exercises will simulate “theater,” or regional, nuclear attacks, in contrast to “strategic” nuclear exercises simulating war with the United States. These theater exercises will be centered in Russia’s southern military district, likely targeting not only Ukraine but also NATO members Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The message coming from Moscow is that the exercises are in answer to loose talk from French President Emmanuel Macron and other NATO leaders about possibly sending alliance forces to fight in Ukraine.

The Kremlin appears to be reinforcing, in no uncertain terms, a red line against NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. Fortunately, it is a red line that most NATO leaders share, including U.S. President Joe Biden. From the very outset of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Biden made it clear that the United States and its allies would send military assistance to Ukraine but not engage in the fighting. His goal was and remains crystal clear: to avoid a direct fight between Russia and NATO in Europe that could escalate to World War III and nuclear conflict.

Putin also wants to avoid a direct fight between Russia and NATO. For him, that means avoiding strikes against NATO territory or reconnaissance aircraft patrolling the airspace over the Black Sea. NATO deliveries are fair game for attack once they arrive on Ukrainian soil, but not while they are still transiting NATO territory.

The United States and Russia thus agree on one thing in this terrible war: They do not want to risk a nuclear holocaust. Why, then, do the Russians keep claiming that the world is facing one?

Part of it is evidently the Kremlin’s effort to derive value from this very brinkmanship—a pattern of behavior rarely seen since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the last time the world came to the brink of a nuclear exchange. During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union fought proxy wars in many places, from Angola to Vietnam, but threats to use their nuclear forces rarely played a role. Neither side used such threats to achieve conventional battlefield goals, the way leading Russian officials have been doing throughout the war in Ukraine.

Instead, Washington and Moscow first built up their strategic arsenals—the long-range nuclear weapons by which they threaten each other directly—sustaining essential parity as they went. So long as neither side built significantly more than the other, and as long as both sustained a high level of readiness, the two superpowers had a nuclear deterrent that both considered stable.

This stability became so boring and reliable that people more or less forgot about nuclear annihilation. Once policymakers in Washington and Moscow began to control and limit their nuclear arsenals in the 1970s—starting with the first U.S.-Soviet détente and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—the rest of the world was glad. No one wanted to think about what would happen if the nuclear superpowers “pressed the button.” And they did not have to: The superpowers were heading in a different direction, reducing their reliance on nuclear weapons.

The war in Ukraine has thrown this complacency into turmoil, because Putin and his minions have insisted on rattling the nuclear saber throughout the invasion. Now the rest of the world has to think again about nuclear weapons and what Russia might do with them.

This bizarre game of nuclear look-at-me is linked to the Kremlin’s equally bizarre complaint that its act of invading Ukraine has created an existential threat to Russia. In this telling, NATO support to Ukraine is tied up with strategic defeat of Russia. As commentators in Moscow claim, Russia only wanted the best for Ukraine—its liberation from a “Nazi” regime and a fake idea of statehood. However, once NATO began to aid Kyiv, the bloc’s goal was not helping Ukraine, but destroying and dismembering Russia.

Some leading officials in NATO member states have indeed voiced Russia’s strategic defeat as an objective for what they are trying to achieve in assisting Ukraine. But again, Biden has been crystal clear that the bloc has a limited objective that does not threaten Russia itself. In May 2022, he said: “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow. So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces.”

But Putin and his chief ministers have not been mollified. They continue to go on and on about how the United States and NATO are seeking the strategic defeat of Russia and its demise as a nation. Their motivation is obvious: If its people believe that the country is facing total destruction, they will stay in the fight for the sake of survival.

So there is a lesson here for leaders not only in the United States but also in Europe and Asia: The fabric of nuclear deterrence is changing, its mind game adjusting to a new era of nuclear brinkmanship. So far, Putin and those around him have been the most active practitioners, but North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, whose nuclear capacity now extends beyond his regional neighbors, has been not far behind. Beijing, although it has sustained a nuclear good-guy image with a policy of no first use, could be tempted to follow Putin’s example as its nuclear force structure becomes more modernized and its ambitions extend throughout Asia.

With so much loose nuclear talk in the air, the United States and its allies must think hard about how to sustain stable and strong deterrence. In other words, they are going to have to focus on how to talk responsibly to the global public about nuclear weapons. The most important audience in deterrence, of course, are the potential nuclear aggressors.

The first rule should be to maintain discipline about using terms such as “strategic defeat,” so as not to pander to claims that it is Washington and its allies that are posing an existential threat. If the United States does not seek the destruction of the aggressors’ regimes and the dismemberment of their countries, it should say so. If Washington is not clear about the objectives in a conflict, then it should say nothing at all.

The second rule should be to sustain the effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent and the reliability of its command and control systems. That means consistent, solid support for the ongoing modernization of the nuclear triad. It means continuing nuclear training and exercises in a transparent manner and testing nuclear delivery systems—missiles and bombers. All of these actions should not be articulated in a threatening manner—the United States should not be the one rattling the nuclear saber—but convey quiet confidence in the country’s nuclear deterrence forces.

Third, Washington should be pursuing with assurance the mutual predictability that comes from controlling and limiting nuclear weapons at the negotiating table. Of course, Russia, China, and North Korea show little interest in coming to that table today, but the United States should not be the side that is quitting it. The global public wants to see continued progress on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, not a descent into a new nuclear arms race. And importantly, the table of nuclear talks is a good place to deliver deterrence messages. As difficult as it may be, the United States and its allies must continue to lead in this arena.

Finally and most importantly, the United States and its allies must sustain steady progress in military assistance to Ukraine. The most serious implication of the delayed funding vote in the U.S. Congress was that the United States could be halted in its tracks by a bully brandishing nuclear weapons. U.S. leaders need to convey quiet confidence in the country’s nuclear deterrent and keep their promises to Ukraine. Together, these two elements make up the critical message that must go to others who might try nuclear threats to get their way.

In each of these steps, Washington has great potential to bolster its nuclear deterrent. The United States’ naturally open system facilitates communicating deterrence messages when a president speaks to the nation or military and political leaders testify before the U.S. Congress. The national budget process permits the country to convey openly and clearly the process of its nuclear modernization. And working together with allies, the United States can drive nuclear statecraft forward in ways that preserve nuclear predictability and, at the same time, strengthen deterrence. The fabric of nuclear deterrence may be changing, but determining its future must not be left to the aggressors.

[earlgraytay]

...It's a bit late for this, but I would like to propose a Thanksgiving alternative, for anyone who feels uncomfortable celebrating Thanksgiving but does not want to jettison one of the very few holidays that everyone gets by default without religious connotations.

Vasily Arkhipov Day.

Vasily Arkhipov Day is currently in late October, but the Cuban Missile Crisis ended on November 20th. if one celebrates Vasily Arkhipov Day on the first Thursday after the 20th of November, that lines up with the current days off most people have pretty well.

Vasily Arkhipov was a Soviet Commodore who successfully argued against launching a nuclear attack on the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His cool head in a crisis, powers of persuasion, and unwillingness to jeopardize humanity's future averted a nuclear war. He appears to have been a stand-up guy in his personal life, as much as any historical person can be, and ... y'know... actively saved the world.

You have your feast, you have your parade, you have your sports game. You have your moment of quiet reflection/thankfulness if you want one, you have a narrative to share that reflects cultural ideals that you actively want to reflect. "We survived despite it all, let's eat" is a good basis for a holiday, and it's one you can feel good about celebrating.

I don't have any strong feelings about Thanksgiving either way- it just wasn't a big deal for my family growing up- but if you are uncomfortable with your current excuse to celebrate and want to have a celebration anyway, here's one that might work.

[fushigurro]

Dahlia I MUST hear about the Dahlia x Katsuki ultimate sibling rivalry Cuban Missile Crisis UFC Fight Night WW3 relationship please it is imperative to my health

LEIGH!!!!!!!! omg thank u for asking. it's wild and i love it. actually rather reminiscent of how he acts with his mom in canon lol

although i am introverted and relatively reserved in many situations by nature, i can also be very combative when people push my buttons, especially my family. sometimes i look and feel like the crazy bitch because a lot of people in my family are more prone to keeping shit to themselves and pretending like everything is fine in order to avoid direct conflict with each other. but not me. anyways LOL

we know how katsuki is. mf is not holding anything back. and neither am i. it's a pissing match honestly between two people who are quick to irritation/anger and refuse to back down. if we were in the same household….. any of the peace-lovers in the family would be so disturbed lmfao

regular screaming battles would ensue. for example:

me: "SHUT UP YOU'RE BEING TOO FUCKING LOUD ASSHOLE!!!"

kat: "FUCK YOU YOU'RE BEING TOO LOUD STUPID ASS!!!"

me: "🖕🏻🖕🏻 I'M ONLY BEING LOUD BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING LOUD YOU FUCKING DICKWEED!!!"

kat: "GO CRY ABOUT IT AND SHOVE A FUCKING DICK IN YOUR EARS YOU SENSITIVE LOSER!!!"

*there may be some punching*

and god help everyone if we happened to have similar quirks….

however 3 hours later we're playing video games or something together. and probably end up yelling again. but we're actually a decent team when he plays nice and doesn't try to go off on his own and be a goddamn ego monster

we're both clean freaks too. we can actually get along while cleaning because we both want things done in basically the same way

it's also the sort of relationship where we'd be like "no way would i save your lame bitch loser ass if you got into trouble. you probably deserve it."

but. we would absolutely save each other's lame bitch loser asses

[beardedmrbean]

You know, the one element people refuse to discuss in this whole 'party shift' conversation. The one that really marks a major element in tones shifting over time.

And that is the growing influence of marxism and critical theory in civil rights movements during the period from the 50's onward.

Considering republicans were always anti-communist, and democrats outside of the KKK never had issues with communism, that shift Kiiiiinda matters.

That's a interesting point, likely not entirely correct or things like the Cuban missile crisis and space race may have gone a different way.

On a slow game front ya for sure, even today (most) politicians know better than to claim to be socialist, bernies crack about the 'literacy programs' castro did in cuba got a very negative response from actual Cubans, which it was all kinds of interesting seeing all these left wing academics trying to explain to the poor confused cuban community that, many of whom risked their lives to get here, that no they just misunderstood castro and he was actually a good guy who just liked to murder people for fun.

Republicans could have done a better job of a lot of things too, HUAC and the McCarthy hearings for one, but they needed to root out communism wherever it may be.

I hate politics and politicians, nearly every single one of them is the same in that they only care about being reelected and holding on to their power.

Paul Ryan stepping down from Congress at a young age to be able to commit more time to his family is a notable exception, man was #3 in line to the white house and walked away.

Could use more people like that honestly.

Sorry about the time this took, this is like the 4th response I've written, still not entirely happy with it but I'm posting it anyhow.

[naturalrights-retard]

The human species is a curious one. It has dominated planet Earth by exterminating a long list of species and ecosystems. And now, having nearly run out of other living systems to poison, burn or exterminate, humanity has set its sights on its final target: Humanity itself.

This is the end game. The self-inflicted extermination of the human race.

The means by which the final extermination takes place is now becoming increasingly clear.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes it will be global nuclear war. He now says that 2023 will be humanity’s last year on planet Earth, and he challenges anyone to prove him wrong.

From the Deborah Armstrong channel on Medium.com:

“We are on the cusp of thermonuclear war,” said Maj. Scott Ritter. He recalled his former mentor, General Polk, who served under President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. “You know how we avoided war during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Diplomacy. Old fashioned diplomacy. Americans talking to Russians and Russians talking to Americans.”

[its-deputy-caleb]

If you’re comfortable sharing... id love to hear about your OCs! (Especially if in the far cry universe)

sksks get ready for a lot of oc brain rot i feel like i’ve been sitting on my oc content for years and i will slowly dump it all here but i am genuinely excited that y'all wanna hear about em. and yea i’m sticking with just far cry oc’s for now

I will also post a couple of fc6 oc templates soon if anyone wants to make their own <3 pls we can have an oc party

Obvi i got my main bro caleb from far cry 5, the link here explains him a hell of a lot more and he’s probably my most developed character cause i’ve worked on him since 2018 or whenever the game came out. but he’s basically my dep (and where i got my username from) so he’s your typical average white guy but he’s the gentle giant, tough but emotional kind of guy. I also have another oc who is his sister and she ends up as the captain in new dawn, i named her eleanor or ellie and they're the badass nelson siblings i guess.

Now i feel hella excited about my FC6 oc’s cause they’re new n fresh and i love em to bits >:))) but i’m still workin’ on all of them so they aren’t complete of course 

–

The first one is Manuel ‘Manny’ Suárez Landaverde and he’s an FND soldier who starts off as a medic because he loves helping people (and lowkey a victim of all of castillo’s propaganda) but he ends up getting promoted through the ranks to special forces as a sniper for his skills. I haven’t really decided if he will defect and it would be cool to make him a double agent or he turns completely to libertad or another faction of the resistance but I've mostly just been working on his personality.

He’s totally soft and shy as hell, definitely doesn’t socialise well with the other soldiers at parties (but i kinda wanna give him a grouchy fnd boyfriend too idk) and he’s got a very cosy apartment in esperanza before he moves into the special forces block in barrial. Think like lots of windows, house plants, some cool art from zenia and he definitely has a cat.

Manny is like the precious cinnamon roll meme but could kill you, he’s just over protective of those he loves but mostly he just wants to use his skills to save lives and mainly is stationed at outposts or accompanies special forces rather than actually being a full blown soldier.  But I don't have his backstory worked out yet or how to write him into the canon timeline.

–

The second is my weirdly specific but probably all time favourite Yulia Dmitrievna Mikhaylov. That’s her Russian name but once she immigrated to Yara, the Russian ‘Yulia’ became the latin ‘Julia’. She’s very much a historical character (because she’s born in 1882) because I wanted her to be like an old loving grandma by the time the first revolution came around in ‘67. I’m keeping it short and sweet here since I have like a whole ass essay on her in my drafts but she basically moves to Esperanza with her husband (think the whole soviet cuban missile crisis) because her husband is a military officer and she’s this badass spy.

Julia is like the stone cold old Russian lady who gets pissed at the FND if they bother her in town but she absolutely adores her family members to bits (and I'm currently working on her mother, father and husband who will mostly be based in Russia). 

She’s the product of two ideas basically; the first i wanted to have juan’s backstory (since ubisoft the bastards didn’t give us one) and i also wanted to have like a russian spy oc so i combined the two.

The reason why she’s gotta be old is not only to fit the historical time period of soviet influence in cuba and hence fictional yara but she ends up being a small 8 year old juan’s found family since that’s my favourite trope. I did a rough timeline of events and the closest age I can pinpoint Juan is around 73ish, like 1949 DOB.

This is important bc Julia’s husband passes away so she gets lonely and when she meets juan who’s still in an orphanage in esperanza by this point she takes him under his wing and reads him her husband’s old russian spy novels, comics, teaches him to read in russian and so on bc this is how i figured he’d get all his influence to later work for the KGB and go on to be the infamous spymaster and such.

Basically she teaches a smol juan to be an evil little shit (affectionate) and so i nicknamed her “grandma cortez” and if you read the hidden histories ‘The Cabinet of Dr.Medico - Issue #3’ which is one of Juan's comics. It's super heartfelt so she calls him “little Juanito” like the letter and it’s just core memories and found family for everyone.

I will post more about her cause i love her to bits but she’s basically juan’s badass spy grandma who's got a bunch of stories from her days and she’s partially her own cool character and my excuse to write juan’s backstory since ubisoft didn’t do it.

– 

And finally my latest oc actually doesn’t have a name yet but she’s an oluwa goddess and i’m basing her off the tirada treasures and lore, the supremo + weapons + outfit and oluso. 

i also haven't decided on a look yet, hence the two almost identical ones (i'm also conscious of trying to portray her in a way that doesn't feel overly sexual/exotic/mythical) whilst basing her look of oluso with the glowing eyes and all the symbols from the treasure hunts so she's very underdeveloped

I really want her to be like a myth in yara and an old legend so she’s gonna be thousands of years old. I have to credit @juskru for giving me such a cool idea to tie her in with the legends of 67 and specifically lucky

Her powers are definitely going to be of healing properties but she used to be much stronger. Before she could take life and death willingly and was kind of the lifeline to all living things in yara but she’s been weakened by wars and particularly when McKay Global started exploiting resources and land she can only heal wounds or injuries (and is very drained afterwards).

Even though she’s not as powerful, people still pray to her and the other Triada and I really like the idea that the Oluwa blessings are asking her to protect family members or to heal soldiers or guerrilla’s after a fight.

@juskru gave me the amazing idea to have her teach Lucky how to heal and give the basics of medicine and that’s why she’s the Legend’s top combat medic. That’s why I want to tie her story into the revolution of 67 and it reignites some of the Triada religion which the Castillo’s have historically tried to ban and suppress.

I definitely want to do more with her and the others but i’m far from finished with all of them :))))))) hope ya'll enjoy these as much as i enjoy hyperfixating lmao

[myrddin-wylt]

non-hetalia news

More than 100,000 Russian military casualties in Ukraine, top US general says

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHA GET FUCKED

Britain has frozen 18 billion pounds worth of Russian assets

okay sincere shoutout to the UK for managing to actually put money where their mouth is and follow through with sanctions despite, you know, the British economy being in the current state it's in. that is genuinely a hell of a lot of integrity. and they're only freezing that money? I wouldn't have thought twice if they'd just seized all of it for themselves (and they'd still be in the right if they do end up doing that). really the Brits have been deeply impressing me with their conduct regarding this war. unlike certain countries, GERMANY.

Biden seeks to build 'floor' for China relations in Xi meeting

So if you're not in the loop, the PRC cut off official communication to the US government back in August as part of their bitchfit about Pelosi visiting Taiwan. this tension got monumentally worse in October as the US dept of Commerce did what many experts in geopolitics like to call a 'pro-gamer move' and announced a ban on certain software exports to China. in other words, any company, international or domestic, that happens to use certain US-made software can now no longer sell anything made via that software to China. also anyone with a US citizenship or green card is now banned from making this technology for China. this baller gamer-move has been described as "strangling with an intent to kill" China's manufacturing and tech sectors. which, as far as US power moves, ranks right up there along with freezing the assets of the fucking Russian Central Bank. (so I guess shoutout to Biden for having the balls to play the biggest game of brinksmanship since the Cuban Missile Crisis not once but twice?)

anyway, tensions between the US and China are extremely tense right now - for comparison, Russia and the US have had on and off communication, but nothing Russia does (short of like, invading a NATO country) would trigger direct war with the US. the US, Japan, Australia, and the UK, though, have actively been prepping for war with China. so a meeting between Biden and Xi is .... it's definitely something, though personally idk what it could possibly accomplish.

anyway, there's your news for today.

[eugenieedanglars]

4 & 11

i'm assuming these are for the three things ask game..

4: 3 topics you’d love to learn more about

umm the napoleonic era (i'm currently learning about this <3) + canadian history because i know embarrassingly little about um my own country + always the cuban missile crisis even though i think i know quite a bit at this point..

11: 3 books that you would recommend everyone to read

the count of monte cristo + frankenstein sorry society + julius caesar if we are counting plays. my only reasoning is i like these

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

From Penn  Yan, with love

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Depending on how you look at it, it was either the height of the Cold War or the early days of this standoff between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Fourteen years after World War II ended, the Iron Curtain had indeed descended as Russia wrestled Eastern European countries into its orbit, and the Space Race was on after Sputnik and Sputnik II were launched. Still, the Cuban Missile Crisis had not yet unfolded, the Vietnam War had not yet erupted, and there were still more than 30 years before the USSR fell along with the Berlin Wall.

Amid this period of tension – sometimes with sharp words, other times with nuclear threats – as the world’s two superpowers stared each other down, a dozen Soviet graduate students – with an average age of 27 – spent a week in Penn Yan in November 1959, during a monthlong tour of the United States. They visited various businesses and industries and other establishments, and they learned about what life is like in a democratic, capitalist society during what was billed as an activity to build better international cooperation and understanding.

The group, which also included three American guides, arrived in Penn Yan on Wednesday, November 4 from the Boston, Massachusetts area – having visited Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, WGBH Educational Television, and the like – and then departed Penn Yan one week later for a two-day visit to Washington, D.C. and a weeklong stay in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of these things is not like the others, as the old Muppets song goes, but it seems Penn Yan got the nod for a tour stop because of its prior connections to the Experiment in International Living, one of the entities that organized the experience.

But unlike the group’s other stops, Yates County could offer a look into life in a rural, agrarian community. While six local families each housed two of the Soviet group members during their weeklong stay, the activities during the day kept the Soviet students learning about the agricultural and industrial components of the area and enjoying the recreation offered by the Finger Lakes region. Following a reception at the Oliver House on Thursday, November 5, the group took a walking tour of downtown Penn Yan and later visited three local farms – the Loomis poultry farm, the Miller dairy farm, and the Emerson poultry processing plant. The next day took them to Cornell University to tour the campus as a whole and then visit the animal husbandry, agricultural engineering, and home economics schools.

Other notable activities included attending classes and an assembly at Penn Yan Academy, touring Penn Yan Boat Company and Urbana Wine Cellar, and being feted at a dinner held by the Penn Yan Central School District Adult Education Advisory Council on the final night in the village. There was plenty of time in the itinerary for fun, however – group rides on Keuka Lake and even group flights over the lake as well as the senior play, a high school football game, a bowling outing, free time with their host families, and more. Civic organizations from the Chamber of Commerce to the Rotary Club to the American Legion and other groups hosted the visitors at different points in time.

The group included a medical student, a correspondent for a youth newspaper, a post-graduate agricultural student, a pianist, and even an actress, who was the only member of the group to be singled out in a newspaper headline. None of them had visited the United States before, but all of them seemed to leave with a good impression, especially of the Penn Yan and Yates County community. The goodwill extended to their hosts as well, as the families who hosted the Soviet students wrote letters – now contained within the subject files of the Yates County History Center – commenting on their positive interactions and experiences with their foreign guests. The local American Legion, seemingly contrary to its tenets, even allowed the students to use its facilities to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of the Russian Revolution – an event compared to the Fourth of July in an editorial in The Chronicle-Express.

Generally, the Penn Yan families who hosted the Soviet students had good things to say about their guests and the visit, noting the students were well mannered and well educated and the families and their visitors enjoyed discussing their respective lifestyles without getting into politics. Two main criticisms of the weeklong tour were the television coverage that distracted the Soviet students from the task at hand and the lack of free time in the schedule with which the students could have spent more time with their host families. Overall, it seems as if everyone – the Soviet students and their American hosts alike – believed the experience was a pleasant and worthwhile undertaking.

The words of one of the Soviet students, Vadim Loginov, as quoted in a newspaper article, might sum up the feelings of goodwill on both sides of this moment of U.S.-Soviet cooperation: “We know we have a different approach to things, and a different philosophy of life, but we did not come here to look for the differences, but rather want to see the many things we share alike.”

[knackeredforever]

I have now finished mgs peace walker

Here are my thoughts

Spoilers I guess:

The good:

In general I really liked the story

It’s basically how characters in the metal gear universe would respond to the events of the Cuban missile crisis.

And that is by doing insane shit

It’s generally more grounded then your typical mgs game story but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I love the cutscene comic book art style

One of the major characters is the boss’s (aka the joy’s) gay lover called dr strangelove she is my favourite character in the game.

The boss (the joy) basically gets turned into glados and it’s done quite well

Paz is stupid but her betrayal at the end is cool even though I saw it coming a mile off

Also one character says a world without borders and Spanish guitars started playing in my head (that is a reference that like 2 people are gonna get)

The bad:

Basically everything about the gameplay

The mission structure sucks all the missions are like 5 minutes except boss fights it feels like I spend a quarter of the game navigating menus instead of playing the game.

The mother base has some cool ideas but their mostly poorly executed and I feel like I’m wasting my time.

The game at one point locks you from progression unless you have unlocked c4 so your forced to play the side missions.

If you don’t play through alot of the side missions you won’t have good enough gear to beat the rest of the main story

Boss fights are stupidly hard the AI boss fights take about 15 minutes to beat and would genuinely be fun if they didn’t take so ridiculously long to beat.

The final boss (non postgame) I kid you not took me 40 minutes to beat and I was down to my last magazine the balancing in this game is appalling.

The game has a post game where you do the same mission several times in reused maps before you can actually get to the true ending of the game.

Basically it’s just a really bad game with a good story. The best way to experience it is to watch all the cutscenes online it is much better then experiencing the pain of the game.

[mariacallous]

In October 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, ministers from the six member states of the European Economic Community (EEC), the European Union’s predecessor, met several times. But while the world was teetering on the brink of nuclear war, with European newspapers writing alarming stories about the “worst crisis since the end of the Second World War,” that was not what the ministers discussed during those meetings. The historian Kiran Klaus Patel, who researched this for his book Project Europe, discovered that according to the agenda of the Council of Ministers meeting on Oct. 9-10, they negotiated import regulations for vegetables and fruit. And during the next session, on Oct. 22-23, they tackled the common budget, including “arrangements relating to the value of the unit of account and to the exchange rates.”

When the European Union comes under criticism today for not being ready to deal with the geopolitical implications of Russia’s war in Ukraine, it’s important to realize just how far the EU has already come—from the almost total isolation, and insulation, from geopolitical events evident during the Cuba crisis. Today, with national and European politicians dealing with security issues on a daily basis, that level of strategic diffidence would be unimaginable.

Of course, in 1962, in the corridors outside the official meeting room, the six ministers must have discussed the Cuba crisis: All six EEC member states were also in NATO, which was supposed to defend Europe if things escalated. They all knew that in the case of a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, Europe would be one of the battlegrounds. But the official agenda of the council, which represented the interests of the member states and was—and is, in the case of the present-day European Council—the place where decisions were taken in Europe, shows no official trace of any geopolitical or Cuba discussion. As Patel wrote, incredible as it may seem today, the council “was much too busy to save the world from annihilation.”

During those nerve-wracking October days, it was the White House that dealt with the Soviet nuclear missiles that the Americans had just discovered in Cuba: assessing how many missiles were already stationed there, how many were still on the way, and how to get them out of Cuba or prevent them from arriving there without unleashing a nuclear Armageddon. It is well documented that it was Washington that pulled the Western strings during the Cuba crisis. The Europeans were barely consulted.

It is true that Europe still mostly relies on the United States for its security. The past few years have made that abundantly clear. During the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, last week, Washington’s caution over Ukraine’s accession to NATO prevailed over strong pleas, especially from Eastern European leaders, to offer Kyiv a fixed entry date. Nevertheless, one look at the conclusions of the meeting of the 27 European heads of state and government in Brussels at the end of June reveals how much has changed since 1962. No negotiations on vegetables or fruit, this time; almost the entire agenda was taken up with strategic foreign-policy matters, predominantly security-related. EU leaders made decisions on future security guarantees to Ukraine, EU enlargement with new countries in the east, the development of its defense sector, better migration management through “partnerships” with North African countries, more efficient surveillance of Europe’s external borders, de-risking trade relations with China, and increasing trade with Latin American and Caribbean countries. And these are just a few issues on the list.

Europe, once a mere spectator to global power games, is now becoming more of a player. It has come a long way.

In the 1950s, Western Europe isolated itself from power politics in the international arena. Coming out of two devastating world wars, it focused on internal peace instead. This mostly meant peace between France and Germany—jealous rivals that had started Europe’s three last wars—through a common agricultural policy, trade, and social policies. While the United States took care of the collective Western defense, Europeans set up institutions to reduce power politics, rebuilt their economies, and tried, in general, to become better people. European integration was about de-politicizing problems. In a way, “Europe stepped out of history,” Jean-Louis Bourlanges, a French centrist parliamentarian, once said.

With the war in Ukraine, this phase is definitely over. Europe is now stepping into history again. It once more risks becoming the main battleground. It surely took the Europeans a long time to realize this. Now, all European countries are beefing up their defense capacity and trying to improve the interoperability of their armed forces through joint training exercises and more harmonized procurement of equipment.

With an aggressive power waging a war at Europe’s doorstep, continuing to de-politicize issues can be dangerous nowadays—even internally. Today, the opposite is sometimes what is called for, both on the European and the national level: not de-politicizing issues but politicizing them to a certain extent. Recent years have marked “the end of the age of innocence” for Europe, as Carnegie Europe scholar Stefan Lehne wrote in 2020.

Everything Europe does when it goes through its normal business suddenly has a strong security component. For instance, Europeans now realize they must protect their free press against fake news from Russian troll factories, their infrastructure against sabotage, their internal market against state-sponsored companies from hostile countries, and their democratic institutions against malicious interference. The furor last week about an American getting appointed to a European Commission job with responsibility for dealing with big U.S. tech companies is telling in this regard. Europeans, who until recently looked at the world with an open mind—or, as some would say, naiveté—are becoming increasingly suspicious. In just a few years’ time, their mindset has completely changed.

Another sign that Europe is stepping into history again is that it is heavily involved with the provision of military aid to Ukraine. Brussels is buying weapons and ammunition on behalf of the 27 member states. It financially supports member states that pass their equipment on to Ukraine and tries to keep track of which country does what. It also coordinates work on roads, airports, and bridges in order to facilitate the transportation of heavy goods to the east. This logistical work is more difficult than many people realize. During the Cold War, for instance, there were signs on every bridge in Western Europe indicating how much weight it could take, precisely to facilitate military maneuvers. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the threat of war disappeared, these signs also disappeared. Now, EU military planners are having a hard time scrambling to collect this information from all the member states. One military official who requested anonymity said moving heavy tanks from one corner of Europe to another can be quite a logistical challenge: “We have had to take detours of hundreds of kilometers.”

Some argue that Europe should have done all these things earlier. They are right. But European leaders, who decide on these matters, only ever act jointly when they have pressing problems that they have not managed to solve themselves—when they see no alternative. This explains why Europe seldom acts (except perhaps on climate change) and mostly reacts. It is late in the game per definition. We saw this with vaccine procurement, the eurozone rescue fund, European banking supervision, the Turkey refugee deal, and now with Russia’s aggression: First, there needs to be a crisis; second, EU member states don’t manage to stamp out the fire themselves—and only then can there be decisive, collective action. As the Irish political scientist Brigid Laffan has argued, this is happening so often that they are actually getting quite good at it. In a lecture last year at the Asser Institute, she said that despite the complex and sometimes chaotic decision-making process in the EU, there is a “Collective Power Europe” emerging. Member states seem to be understanding that the EU does not only take away some of their national sovereignty but actually gives them sovereignty, too—in the form of the power to act in a dangerous, instable world where raw mercantilism replaces the multilateral, rules-based system.

The symbolism of European integration and the high expectations it raised after two world wars were monumental. The Europeans may have been largely ignored during the Cuba crisis, but the strength of their project was that at least someone tried to learn from history and try out a model of peaceful, international governance. It brought them peace and prosperity. It continues to inspire many all over the world, not just illustrated by the fact that 10 countries are eager to join—whose trust in the EU seems to be rapidly increasing—but also that regional organizations in Africa and Asia have used the model of the EU’s internal market as an example.

Despite setbacks and challenges—which to a certain extent are normal in multinational governance—member states continue to invest in the EU. The challenge now is to keep what they managed to build during the decades spent “outside history” to make it more secure while jointly building more geopolitical capacity. Europeans still have a long way to go. But reading about those scary days during the Cuban missile crisis, and their absence from any decision-making, also serves as a reminder of how far they have come already.

[whatifsandspheres]

The development of the area in the "Inland Empire," as they called the area including most of Riverside, was a recognizable boom even before the housing bubble crash. You could feel something was different. It seemed hopeful, but too good to be true, loaded, rigged. Large tracts of land had already been cleared and leveled even if they weren't built on yet. They'd sit empty like monopoly board game spots. Empty and plowed over, disturbed soil that would turn into meter deep mud if you tried to walk through it on your way to school. Weeds. Oh, the tumbleweeds the size of cars! I felt like there was a common thread between myself and the science fiction from the early Post-nuclear era. The 50s onward before the cold war reached the Cuban Missile crisis. The aesthetic it took on for me was that of the little old lady clients my father worked for. Sometimes they would gift my mother old things they didn't use anymore like sewing machines. Sun City definitely had that, even more so than Perris. The architecture, the planning, the street signage. I visited the public library there a few times and not nearly enough as I would have liked. There's still a book I don't recall well enough to track down. It had a short story about an engineer who had come upon a sort of superconducting little bead and he worked on reverse engineering it. Around the time I felt this phase ending, that story imprinted on me from my overdue library checkouts. Part of my earliest years were in libraries. The programming of television seemed so rigid and the internet was barely shedding nerd-like ridicule and breaching into international mainstream. Such a particular range and selection of elements that combine and somehow structure my mind's recollection. When we moved to Menifee there was still a lot of native wildlife around that I was able to appreciate. The river ran right behind our house and after the rains there were so many frogs. When things were drier there were harvester ants and Latrodectus spiders. I don't speak to anyone from those years anymore. I contacted Rose much later when Liz and I had been separated enough that I had more room to breathe and talk to girls like before. She was also going through post-break-up bullshit and I tried to leave the lines open to whatever but we just weren't really feeling each other. It must have been obvious what my state of mind was. I even got to confess to her how I had felt during the year we shared in class. She said she never noticed. It didn't seem to matter, we talked briefly and I got the feeling she was hoping I would show more initiative. Nope. I met Shampree during freshman year but we didn't have any classes together yet. The campus had a library branch outside the gates, so technically not part of the school but still on the campus. Honestly, I think she was trying to flirt, to pick me up even, not that I was the only one and not that she put particular weight into being a combination of friendly and flirty. I was reading Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos. I was almost completely blindsided by her actually. I was in the part of the book where a Mulder and Scully analogue is being used to describe quantum entanglement, and she shows up. She tries to describe Schrodinger's cat, and then passes the baton to her cousin who she says is much more versed in that sort of thing. This was before she started to date Alan, mind you.

Her cousin was a JROTC junior, IIRC. Before we had moved I had gotten to watch the PBS special on The Elegant Universe, and shortly before that I had only just barely discovered The Universe in a Nutshell. I was so uninterested in school for the most part. In people. It felt rare that I would even want to be around people and looked for any excuse to avoid it. I could feel the suburban sprawl around me closing in as more houses got built and more traffic flowed the segment of freeway. I felt the aura of places like Temecula closing in. It reminded me of Vault City from the Fallout games. So obviously I wasn't interested in Shampree in that way, but we kind of became friends. Well, she found me sitting outside the school library and then every lunch and break time after that I was kind of just stuck with her and the group. They grew on me, but I say stuck because at first I almost rolled my eyes to see her during school time. The librarians liked us. She eventually got a job at the library we met at once we had graduated, then even moved back to San Diego after I had also moved back and she landed a decent job at another public library in the city. We even hung out a few times in-between when Liz had been far enough out of the picture. It got a little less than platonic, but I'm glad it went no further. I remember a few girls from that time with much more resounding match to whatever I was looking for but can barely even put words to now even at this age and calm recollection. Crystal. Alicia. And to a lesser degree Yuri. Alicia mainly, actually. If any of the rest are worth mentioning it's only because she kind of opens up the door to it. I don't remember her laugh. I'm forgetting her face. I can barely recall the way we met with her smacking her hair into my face when I was resting my head on my desk behind her. I loved the way she looked at me. Fuck. Fuck this. What am I striving for? I know I wouldn't change a thing, so when will I get what I've thought worth the opportunity costs of all these things that seem to have such lasting influence? Floating Hobo Village, huh?