#Data Rescue Service

[enterlogixcorporation]

Best Salesforce Consulting Services – Enterlogix Corporation

At Enterlogix Corporation, we understand that your business is unique. That's why we tailor our Salesforce Consulting Services to align with your unique business needs and goals. We offer a wide range of services—from implementing Salesforce for the first time or optimizing your existing Salesforce environment to integrating Salesforce with other systems—to help you achieve greater success.

[lerios]

rebooting my laptop with a usb full of linux injected into it... it feels like sedating a pet at the vets. you'll come out of this stronger babygirl i promise ಥ⁠_⁠ಥ

[wild-west-wind]

For anyone who may be interested, Summer 2025 Park Service jobs start opening on September 9th this year!

On September 9th, Recreation Fee Clerk and Technician jobs go live! These are fee focused jobs, usually at entry stations. If you have a high school diploma, and can work a cash register, you can get this job! The pay is usually not excellent (but much more than minimum wage in most states), but it has health insurance, and can take you to new and interesting places!

EMTs may also go live on that day.

On October 21, Interpretive Park Rangers and Park Guides will go live! These are educational and informational jobs, teaching people about parks, working visitor center desks, etc.

Around this time, Facilities/Maintenance, Backcountry, Resource Technician and Fire Jobs should go live as well.

Facilities/Maintenance jobs cover the gamut from running wastewater treatment plants, to custodial work, to repair to electricians. Pay is usually pretty good.

Backcountry jobs include trail work, checking permits, wilderness EMT stuff, Search and Rescue, etc.

Resource Technician type jobs generally do field work and research. Spraying for invasive plants, treating trees for parasites, collecting data, assisting researchers from around the world.

Fire jobs are pretty straightforward: fight fires, look for fires, initiate controlled burns. NGL you need to be kinda ripped for these, and able to complete a lot of training.

Park Service is weird, but if you have some time on your hands and you want an okay job in a cool place meeting lots of new people and doing stuff that will make you sound cool at parties for the rest of your life, it's a cool seasonal gig!

Also if you have any questions about being a park ranger my ask box is there! And I answer most of the asks I get that are normal, and I think really hard about it every time someone asks me to weight in on a major global issue, and sometimes respond to those too.

[aealzx]

_______________________

Prologue | AO3

Previous Next

_______________________

“You came all the way out here to ask me to identify a plant?” Pamela was understandably incredulous as she blocked Tim from entering her current residence.

“Weeelll,” Tim drawled, shrugging with one shoulder. “Spoiler and Orphan said you’d be the best to contact. We could go elsewhere, but then I’d have to find somewhere else for these bacon and egg sandwiches,” he explained, revealing the hand that was behind his back to be holding a paper bag for a local food joint. It was a bribe. Or payment for services rendered if one wanted to be posh about it. But he was fine calling it a bribe.

“Aw hell yeah!” Harleen’s voice came from further in the establishment, and Tim caught just the faintest hint of a smile twitching Pamela’s mouth. She tried to resist, but Tim held his ground with a decidedly innocent smile, the bag of egg sandwiches still held in offering.

Eventually Pamela sighed and held out her hand. “Fine. What identifiers do you have for it?” she relented, letting Tim set the bag of food on her palm.

“Not much honestly. The locals call it a blood blossom, but I doubt it’s a haemanthus coccineus. We don’t have a picture, but we’re told it looks like a red rose bud with black leaves,” Tim answered. He’d done his own research already while waiting for the food to be made, and that was part of the reason he didn’t feel bad for following through with the others’ idea to ask Pamela. He had a few guesses already, but it would be nice to get a second opinion.

“A rose with black leaves?” Pamela repeated, her disappointed expression becoming thoughtful. “That’s it? Nothing else?” she asked soon after, frowning deeper if possible.

“Nothing else,” Tim confirmed, both disappointed and pleased that Pamela also didn’t seem able to come up with an answer.

“Sounds made up,” Pamela answered bluntly, shifting to move back into the building. “There aren’t any roses with black leaves unless they’re mutilated. The closest you’ll get is a begonia switzerland if you’re just going by appearance.”

“Oh…. that’s what I thought too,” Tim hummed, raising a curled finger to his chin.

Pamela’s eye twitched. “Then why did you-.... Goodbye,” she stammered, then figured it wasn’t worth her time to deal with Tim further, and closed the door on him.

Tim could only snort in amusement, raising his voice for just a moment. “Thanks for the info! Enjoy the food!” he called, grinning as he turned to grapple himself back to the rooftops.

So the blood blossoms were either an extremely obscure name for some other plant, or they didn’t actually exist. And if they didn’t exist, then what had poisoned Danny? At least Dick and Damian were heading straight to the manor to follow up with Alfred about meals, and bring the tissue sample with the plant based poison to where Bruce could use their tech to better analyze it. And Barbara had already mentioned she’d meet them there, so while they might not have a good start on two of the three questions they should at least be able to figure out who these kids were exactly.

—----------

“They don’t exist,” Barbara’s conclusion about the five Phantom kids they had custody of was short, but did little to answer any questions the others had. After spending a few hours gathering her data she had decided to join the others at the manor, the three who had returned from the rescue mission, Bruce, and her now gathered in the Bat Cave by the computer. Admittedly that hadn’t been something they fully expected to hear, so there were sagging shoulders from both Dick and Tim at the announcement.

“You ran the search in all of the databases, yeah?” Tim asked, immediately trying to figure out what they had missed. Barbara was usually extremely thorough. It was hard to believe she came up with nothing on a group of five people. Especially when two of them had superhuman abilities.

“Yes, Tim,” Barbara responded quickly. “If you’ll let me continue before you try to solve the problem yourself I’ll save you some steps,” she added, getting a mildly teasing smile. When Tim relented with a mild shrug Barbara turned her chair back to the computer, pulling her reports up on the huge monitor.

“The DNA samples came up with no results. Amity Park doesn’t exist on any map. There’s no social media posts about any combination of their names. And the photo Jason sent of Jazz’s ID also has no results. It doesn’t even resemble the official driver’s license format of Illinois or any of the other states, so it’s not hard to see why the bank teller would call it a fake,” she listed, bringing up the reports from her data scouring as she mentioned them. “The only activity I can track from them is here in Gotham, starting 72 days ago. I believe that’s when they first arrived here.”

The date caused Bruce to shift, breaking out of his silence once it seemed Barbara had finished summarizing her findings and drawing a connection to a separate report he’d gotten more than a month ago. “72 days ago is when the Justice League got readings of an anomaly on the outskirts of Gotham. Investigations revealed some remains of unknown technology, but no one was there with it.”

“...What kind of anomaly?” Dick asked, tensing slightly at a thought that crossed his mind. Unknown DNA, unusable bank and ID cards, two of them claiming to be beings that were never heard of before now.

“Please don’t say multiverse breach,” Tim whined, revealing that he’d had the same thoughts as Dick.

Instead of answering them Bruce just opened a different report, having been locating it as his sons had been speaking. When the data appeared on screen both Dick and Tim let out extended groans, their forms sagging even more as Barbara chuckled softly.

“It had to be dimension garbage,” Tim whined more, squinting at the report confirming suspected multiverse breach residue in the affected area.

“That explains all the missing data,” Barbara commented, just glad to have an explanation for why all her research was coming up blank prior to the anomaly. It was because they literally had nothing on this earth before then, and not because they were some sort of geniuses that could manage such an extensive data wipe to make even her systems come up with blanks.

“That also explains why Dr. Isley was unfamiliar with the blood blossoms,” Damian added, seeming unfazed by the revelation.

“And literally everything else that was weird about them,” Tim encompassed, frustration bleeding into his tone. What kind of puzzle didn’t even have answers in this world? He felt like that was cheating.

“Do they seem aware that they are no longer in their dimension? We’re sure this wasn’t a deliberate transport?” Bruce asked, masking his growing concern for the dislocated children by suggesting they might still be hiding something.

“Please, these kids can’t hide anything that well,” Tim huffed, giving a wry smile. “The only reason they’re able to hide anything is because they’re also oblivious. Otherwise it’s way too easy to tell they’re keeping something a secret.”

Bruce only frowned more at the response, and Barbara couldn’t help add her own support of the idea that the Phantoms had no idea they weren’t even close to home. “They seemed to have had enough to deal with, I don’t think they had time to consider it. Almost 80% of their activity ties back to them looking for ectoplasm. The other 20% is just general medical care and necessities of living.”

“Ectoplasm is the stuff they said Danny needed,” Dick added unnecessarily.

“I remember,” Bruce responded, though he could also understand why the kids had such a hard time tracking down a source. Most of Gotham didn’t even believe in ghosts, and the only people he or his family knew that matched the category were Boston and Greta. “Their search led them to a Lazarus water exchange.”

“Yeah. But apparently even though it’s similar enough, the Lazarus water is ‘freaky’ and they don’t want to use it according to Danielle,” Dick confirmed, using air quotes for what the small girl had said.

“All five of them have traces of another substance I’ve never seen before that seems similar to residue from Lazarus water as well,” Barbara spoke up to add, reaching over to the computer once more as she once again had their attention. The DNA analysis reports were enlarged, and she used a screen sketch app to mark the unusual traces. “It’s most prominent in Danielle and Danny, though Danny’s levels read a lot lower. But the other three have small traces as well.”

“The one called Danielle made mention of Danny having expended a significant amount of energy, to the point his accelerated healing ability has been hindered. And that there was a lack of locations with an abundance of said energy for them to absorb,” Damian recalled, ignoring the face Tim pulled as he slowly turned to look at him.

“You made that sound way more complicated than she did,” Tim grimaced.

“Silence Drake,” Damian retorted simply.

Dick could only snicker while keeping his gaze on the reports like Bruce was doing. “This will make it easier to track some of the substance down. I’ll see if I can create a collection device to make it easier for us to get larger amounts, and work on a way to neutralize the residual plant material,” Bruce commented, already making plans for the next course of action.

“After dinner,” Dick enforced, resting his hands on the back of Bruce’s chair.

Bruce seemed to consider it, falling silent and keeping his gaze on the monitor, giving no answer other than a short grunt after a long stretch of quiet.

Dick only leaned on the chair more, pulling it back slightly. “Aaaaafter dinner, Bruce. Thirty minutes isn’t going to be that big of a loss,” he prodded.

“...Alfred put you up to this, didn’t he,” Bruce pointed out instead of responding to the request.

“He did,” Dick confirmed, admitting to being requested to make sure Bruce got at least one hearty meal before getting lost in his work once again.

Bruce considered it longer, and by then the rest of his children were already on their way back upstairs. Did he really want Alfred hassling him again? “... Very well. After dinner,” he relented, getting to his feet with a slight sigh and locking the computer screen.

_________________

Dimension hopping confirmed~ And I just realized I now have 2 fanfics that involve dimension hopping X'D that was unintentional.

Questions for the people following/interested: because I'm not familiar with most of DC or really DP's canon and fanon content and there's so freaking much of it out there, which characters would you like to see involved? No guarantees that they'll be in if I can't figure out how to get them to fit, but I need somewhere to start researching stuff X'DD. Also there's essentially 2 goals, wake Danny up, and get Team Phantom back home. How difficult should these tasks be, and which one would people rather have more focus on?

This fic originated from a prompt I found, so I think it might be fun to kind of keep that going? A different kind of writing exercise than what I'm used to. So that's why the questions instead of me just going heheh have a cliffhanger.

Though I will say I'm still of the opinion of no romance, so please don't suggest pairings |D

_________________

Tag list: @galaxy-sharks-and-bottled-ships, @starscreamlover, @nerdynonnativenarnian, @dragongoblet, @zeestarfishalien, @bellathecatastrophe, @cj-ghostemoji-destielpie, @asexual-insomniac, @wolfeyedwitch, @tkiesai, @fanaroff, @raven1508, @nebulainajar, @serasvictoria02, @oliocelottafanfics, @honeysuckletook, @omniithe-deer, @wolf-under-the-stars, @gingernutcalo, @that-random-fangirl

[typewritingyip]

The Arcturus Missions

Part Thirty One - Broken Realities

Part Thirty

———

Mecha originally were designed to just be giant weapons, to fight the Quintessons without question. A one man army, so to speak. 

It was only after the first cycle of designs were additional designs and operating systems added, some of which have been discontinued for reasons that are still being kept from the public. 

Currently, there stands four different classes of mecha. Each with different monitors across agencies and organizations.

MECHA has them labeled as; Striker, Hunter, Tanker, and Rescue.

The last two are more so designed for the more human elements of the work than the battle elements of the work. As for the rest, their roles are strict and designed to fit the compatibility of the pilot. 

A Striker class is assigned to the general comparable pilots, they make up a majority of active pilots and their suits are more likely than others to survive strenuous battle. They are by far the fastest, from connection time to deployment time, it is half of the next fastest class. All designed specifically to fight and destroy the foreign invaders of Earth, every pilot goes through the striker unit compatibility testing.

A Rescue class is significantly dwindling in its usage, generally used for evacuations and reconnaissance of an attacked area. They were a natural evolution to the technology in an attempt to shrink it for better access.  Around one in every five pilots is found compatible to be used in a rescue class unit. Known for disaster relief, they have been seen as more of a harm than a good through the eyes of the public. Select pilots are given the opportunity to go through rescue unit compatibility testing. 

A Tanker class was originally designed and held exclusively by the USSR, the heavier and denser cousin to the Striker class. Also the first to have an onboard nuclear reactor to power the mecha suit. Around one in fifty pilots are found compatible with tanker class, generally running in family lines and found with stronger connections to military service. They have the slowest deployment time, but have been known to cause on average more amounts of damage to the foreign enemy. Military is offered the ability to go through tanker compatibility testing, once someone is found compatible biological relations are sent notices with offers of testing. 

Lastly, the Hunter class which has the lowest number of suits and pilots, around one in every hundred pilots is found compatible. Their deployment times are not logged, their design to both study and destroy Quintessons, reporting data to the pilots given organizations at large. These are rarely seen by the public and limited information is offered on them, used for covert operations against the invaders. Select pilots are selected for compatibility testing, there is no offered opportunity for the hunter class units and it’s given compatibility testing. 

All four classes are found to be important, though it is likely classes will continue to fall off the previously longer list.

—

It was still dark out when they all sat down and it almost felt normal to sit around with other pilots over other mecha, but nothing was normal, not now.

He was still drinking the water, trying to feel human again even if for only a moment. Ignoring the worried expressions of his crew, Hound drained the last of one of his water pouches with a sigh, “My god Hound, I said drink some, not down the pouch.” Cracking a smile, he shrugged a bit. 

The nausea ebated for the moment and he was able to lean back, closing his eyes. 

Sunstreaker whistled lower, “Damn Hound, have you been fighting this whole time?” Hound didn’t feel like responding, keeping his eyes closed for a moment longer before sighing and looking back at the screens.

“How long have you been connected?” Breakdown was frowning at him through the camera, eating some of the familiar purple alien food from their makeshift bowls. For a moment, he really wasn’t sure when his friend would have had time to get the food. 

Sighing, Hound rubbed his neck, “Since middle of last night, I think.” He winced and his hand came away bloody, sighing again he got up and shuffled towards his cot. 

It felt wrong, being small and moving around, but he needed to keep grounded, “Hound, your overuse is the worst out of all of us, always has been according to the memo.” Sunny was frowning, looking worried, “You’re doing a lot.” Hound nodded, grabbing bandages and antiseptic, moving to sit back down while grabbing his bag of food. Jugging the weirdest collection of first aid and food.

He tilted his head forward and started to clean his implants and older surgery scars, “The sooner we get through the overuse, the better off we’ll be in the long run, like Jazz.” Hound winced again as the antiseptic burned, he bit the inside of his cheek hard. 

Glancing up, both men were staring at him with worry, sighing slowly, he recovered the sores with bandages, “I’m alright.” Breakdown shakes his head, “It looks like you could sleep for a month.” Hound rolled his eyes, putting his helmet back on carefully, “We all probably could, but we’ll get time off once we’re adjusted to our new units.” 

He was getting the helmet adjusted when both the cameras of the others went out, he just got the audio hooked back up when his suit was nudged.

They couldn’t even have a moment to speak. 

It took only a second to get plugged back in, but he stayed on the floor, it didn’t take long for his visor to lighten at the audio cleared up, “Is he alright?” It was Optimus Prime, he glanced up at the frowning mech, “Uh, yeah, just tired.” Sunstreaker rested a hand on his shoulder. 

“Optimus Prime, sir.” Hound nodded slightly, “I apologize, I’ve been,” but Optimus was shaking his head, “You’ve been fighting for nearly two days straight, I’ve heard. You should rest.” Already shaking his head, Hound sighed deeply, “They need me out there, I will be fine for a while longer, sir.” Optimus frowned. 

Standing up, he stretches slightly and rests at parade rest, “Sir, where do you need us?” Optimus sighed slowly, looking at the horizon, “Where would you station your unit Hound?” Nodding some, he looks to Breakdown then Sunstreaker, “How much did you change the map in command, sir?” He hardly spared Optimus a glance through.

“I made adjustments to the line and placed my commanders and myself to the west, south, and east.” Humming, Hound kept an eye on the horizon, “I will suggest that Sunstreaker goes to the west and I’ll return to the east.” He brushed a hand over his head, sighing deeply, “Then Breakdown could cover your six, sir.” Looking over, he pauses for a moment.

Optimus was staring at him, much more intently than before, “Sir?” Optimus’s optics cycled once, then twice before he lightly shook his head, “I apologize, of course. Whatever you think is best.” Nodding slowly, Hound turns to the other humans, “You ready?” Both nodded.

Sunstreaker was likely smiling, “We’ll see you later?” Hound nodded, “You know what to do.” Giving a mock salute, Sunny was off at a run.

Breakdown sighed slowly, his shoulder cannon humming to life and turning, “I follow your lead, Optimus Prime, sir.” Optimus winced and sighed, adjusting his grip on his blaster, “This way, then.” He leads the way towards the west.

Taking a slow and deep breath, Hound turns towards the way he had come from, staring before starting forward slowly. 

—

The battlefield was chaotic, but Sunstreaker was gripping his controls tighter than he ever had, running straight at the enemy as if they weren’t something to be frightened of. 

Although the blades on his bracers needed to be sharpened, they would have to do for the current battle. Never in his life had Sunny seen anything quite like this, certainly never on Earth. The darkness didn’t help, but he was more familiar with the use of infrared against the enemy than most pilots. 

He collided with a Quintesson that a small group of bots was firing on, his fist and blade pulled back before striking at the face of the alien creature, satisfied with the smear of green covering his yellow in the dark. 

Fights like these reminded him of why he was a pilot, more than a dozen mecha behind him had been trying to hold off this thing and here he was grappling with it, to Sunstreaker that meant everything. 

For a second, the briefest of seconds, with the sand under the feet of his mech it reminded him of fighting back home. In the middle of the night, just him and a Quint on the beach, trying to tear each other apart.

The stars were familiar, just in the edge of his view as he tangled with the Quintesson, though it’s angle was different than he remembered, still the fight went a lot the same.

Fist hitting the side of the alien, blade slashing off one of the roaming tentacles and preventing it from wrapping around his suit. The voice in his ear though, that was a familiar one.

”If you don’t hurry up and handle that freak of nature it will try to get into Daytona Sunstreaker!” The voice in command was filled with a light static, something that he’d almost forgotten being so normal on Earth, “Alright, I hear ya!” He swore and tore off the tentacle that snagged his arm.

There was a quiet moment while he kept at it, ”I didn’t say anything.” That voice was clear and almost unfamiliar, he was too focused to listen to whatever else the voice had said after.

A crash of the thing to the ground made him drag air deeply into his lungs, gasping for air, “Your shifts not over yet Sonny, focus on the now and look forward to the later, alright?” Nodding slightly, he looked up and his vision cleared just in time to see another slamming into him.

They moved back several feet, his cockpit groaning with the force of it, the last of his visor shattering behind the protective cover and his cameras flared even in the dark. Spiderwebs taking over a lense or two of its own.  

It didn’t take Sunstreaker long to recover enough sense to start hitting and tearing at the thing, it was growling and screamed with every pull of flesh from it’s skeletal structure. He didn’t realize till the shot hit the Quintesson that he’d been yelling at it. 

Looking over his shoulder, he made eye contact with Bluestreak, who was perched up on a rock with a rifle in hand. Though as soon as the shot was clear, the light quiver to his hands returned.

Grunting with effort, Sunstreaker dove back on the fallen Quintesson as it tried to get back up, hands digging into the flesh of the beast. Tearing it apart in a vicious sort of way.

Deep down, he knew it wasn’t entirely the alien’s fault for the hallucination, it was a symptom of overuse. But they were the reason why he was experiencing overuse or why it even was a thing that pilots had to deal with. So taking his frustration out on it was better than on his friends. 

He kept tearing at it, until the ground was a pool of green and he was thoroughly covered in its gore. This was a time when he’d have to hit the wash racks, no questions asked.

Taking a slow deep breath, he straightened and looked about, there were other fights though they were starting to get further away. The push back of the few reinforcements was certainly helping. Turning, he looked back where Bluestreak had been, only having a moment to brace in the sand.

“You fragging idiot!” Bluestreak collided with Sunstreaker, holding him close as the remnants of his visor broke off into the cover over it. Sunny chuckled lightly, brushing a hand up Blue’s back, “I’m alright Blue, I’m okay.” But Bluestreak didn’t let go.

He held onto Blue, worry tearin at his gut while his friend clutched at him desperately, similar to how Sideswipe would hold him if after a mission almost went sour, how the few people he’d had relationships back on Earth had done. It hit him like a ton of bricks, or a direct hit to his cockpit would and he held tighter to Bluestreak. Sunstreaker took a slow breath, “So, this is what the inside joke is then?” He clutches Blue closer when the mech tries to pull away.

Though it was hard to breathe, he didn't want to let go, to face the war outside their embrace for just a moment longer. 

Closing his eyes, he just stands there, holding Bluestreak close, “I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon.” And Bluestreaks’ arms wrapped around Sunstreaker tighter, he sighed slowly, “I’m sorry.” Sunny chuckled lightly, “Don’t be, just, later.” Sunny slowly pulls back, smiling even though Blue couldn’t see it. 

Bluestreak’s face had changed color, infrared showing the dramatic shift in temperature, Sunny grinning pulled away knowing there was still more to be done, “I’ll see you later?” And for the first time, in all the time that they had known each other, Bluestreak was speechless.

Sunny made quick work of rerouting his vision to cameras without shattered lenses, one or two of the dozens, mostly hidden end by the cover protecting his bare head. It would be a horrific sight, he knew that deep down but now was not the time to worry or fret over it, running and sliding through the sand with that practiced ease. 

When the streak of yellow went running back off, Bluestreak vented slowly, “Fragging humans.” And he rubbed the plating over his spark with a grin. 

—

Dragging thrashing mecha while his cannon was booming on his shoulder felt weirdly familiar. Reminded Breakdown of his early days in the military, gun up and firing while dragging comrades hopefully back to safety. 

Except now he knew that the people he was bringing back would be alright, one of if not the best medic on Cybertron was planet side and screaming as just about everyone except for him. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do to not face the medics wrath but for the moment he was grateful. 

Leaning the mech against the mound in front of the newly dug trench, several other mecha reached over to grab him as Breakdown started back out into the field at a run. His footsteps shook the ground. 

It surprised him slightly, watching the Cybertronian’s in battle, the way it blew Breakdown away. Their kind knew and understood war, likely far too well, not unlike the people back home. 

Maybe it was the figure in the distance that actually blew him away. Back when they had crash landed on Cybertron, he hadn’t really noticed Megatron or Optimus Prime on the battlefield, to focused on being on a different planet. 

Now though, it was hard to direct his cameras anywhere else, to watch Optimus Prime tear apart their shared enemy unlike nearly any other Cybertronian he had seen. It was hard to picture someone like that on Earth being in the midst of battle, he couldn’t picture the president of the United States as they currently sat in power in the midst of a battle ensuring the safety of their citizens. 

Though that just might be his perspective on it, it seems far more normal to a number of the soldiers around to see the leader of their planet in the trenches with them.

Once he was to clear and mostly level space, he adjusted his stance and let his feet sink slightly in the sand till they hit the hard standing underneath. His cannon came online with an ominous hum before he brought his tracking system online.

It was already programmed to hit Quintessons, but he didn’t want it blasting apart mechs in battle, so he turned off the automatic feature, and started targeting. The cannon booming painfully loud on his shoulder every five seconds. Whine, hum, boom, silence, whine, hum, boom. 

And it would carry on like that till getting a medic ping or hearing the scream of a fallen soldier. 

Who he didn’t expect was the swearing of the commander himself, then the mecha who were quick to cover his retreat. Cannon disengaged, he ran over to be in front of him, “Optimus Prime, sir, I’ll provide covering fire.” He briefly assessed the injury, it was a sliced line, likely from the grip of a Quintesson tentacle.

An injury that he himself would have ignored, here through, it was different. 

“No, Breakdown, I’ll be alright.” Optimus’s voice was calm and he was scanning the horizon, “Sir, forgive me, the sooner that it’s patched up the sooner you can return.” He braced his feet, started to separate the landscape between the line and the enemy with dense firing, sending two pings.

One to the seekers who’d follow his line of fire shortly, and one to medical to alert them he was bringing another one in, “So, you have two choices, sir.” Breakdown was yelling over the sound of his cannon as the other soldiers spread back out, “You can come with me willingly, or you can be dragged there by me. It is your choice.” Optimus smiled and chuckled. 

Extending a hand at the next moment of silence, Optimus grasped it with his good arm, gun once again connected to his side. Shifting his weight, Breakdown was able to pull the larger mech up with an ease unfamiliar to Optimus. At least coming from anyone other than Megatron.

Breakdown stayed behind him, ducking his head out of the way as his cannon swiveled back around to continue laying down covering fire. Both their feet slipped in the blood covered sand.

It was a quiet walk, march, whatever they wanted to call it. Both men stayed silent as they went, Optimus choosing to stay quiet as Breakdown was focused on covering their backs. 

Only once they had made it to the trench line and past it, did Optimus start to speak up, “Breakdown, you seem… different from the others, not in a bad way. They seem to hold you in high esteem, but,” Smiling sadly, Breakdown nodded, “But I still stand apart.” He finally let the cannon die off at that moment, turning to walk with Optimus to medical.

With a sigh, Optimus nods and sits down on a crate, just outside of medical, “Do you mind me asking why?” Shrugging a bit, Breakdown knocks on the thin metal wall, “I am the oldest pilot, I also speak a different language from them. Our countries were at a standstill of conflict for decades, well, in a way.” He sighs and scratches below his implants lightly. 

“But to, as they say, make the long story short, I have been in this fight for longer than any of them. Almost as long as adding them together.” He sighs slowly, staring out back towards the battlefield, “I also was losing everything by coming on this mission. My parents, my brothers.” Breakdown’s voice wavered for a moment, “It was hard to accept.” He looked back to Optimus, shaking his head a bit, “But it’s the work.” He sighed.

Flatline came out of medical, “Optimus Prime, sir.” Was all he said before getting to work on the sliced line.

Breakdown watched, “It’s nothing to worry about, the four of us are human and the main connections we have to home.” He leaned slightly against the building before looking at the sky. 

Optimus stared, nodding slowly, “You care deeply,” Smiling a bit, Breakdown nods, “Yes.” Frowning though, Optimus shifted, “Yet you didn’t notice Sunstreaker’s visor.” Breakdown suppressed a chuckle, “I noticed it, it’s mostly covered.” He kept his eyes on the sky. 

“You seemed very concerned over Hound’s well-being, yet hardly commented on Sunstreaker’s shatters visor.” Optimus was frowning, he could see the corner of his optics crease ever so slightly and Breakdown shrugged, “Visors are easily replaceable on Earth, they are a common thing to break, it would be more surprising if none of us experienced it.” He shrugs lightly.

Optimus was still staring, “You speak as if this injury has become overlooked.” Chuckling lightly, Breakdown shakes his head a bit, “Sir, if you don’t mind. We are made to be replaceable, every part here,” He touches his arms and chest lightly, “Is replaceable. It’s by design, why all pilots have visors,” He honestly meant glass visors, but it wasn’t like they would be that specific on Earth.

That made the Prime look, it was hard to tell, maybe heartbroken, “We are meant to come apart and be put back together, mostly, and even the things at our cores have replaceable parts, though not removable ones. Once they are placed there after compatibility testing, new ones or what you have will always remain.” He lightly brushed a hand over his older generation implants, how much they stuck out compared to the others. 

“It is something you become accustomed to, our best scientists using us as science experiments.” He nods slightly and turns at the approaching footsteps.

Knockout was wearing a dark scowl, “Breakdown, please come help these poor idiots off the field and into the infirmary.” He only stopped when he saw the Prime, “If my Prime has no need of your assistance.” Optimus looked pained, “Of course not, please Breakdown, help Knockout with the injured.” Nodding a bit, Breakdown smiled behind his visor, “Yes sir.” He turned and started to follow Knockout, who shot him an odd look. 

Slowing down a bit, Knockout falls in next to Breakdown, “I hope you are healed.” Smiling a bit, he nods slightly, “Uh, yes, as much as I can be. Thank you for your concern.” Nodding too, Knockout toes the ground briefly as they walk, the firefight growing further away. 

As they walked, they fell into step comfortably, watching as the sky started to lighten with daybreak. 

The Prime stood back at the base of the line while Flatline was repairing the torn line, his trigger finger itching nearly painfully, both from anger and grief. Another species who didn’t see the cruelties of their kind was suffering across the universe, all while he watch some of their kin try and sacrifice themselves for his own kind.

———

A/N

I really wanted a Hound part at the end, but that would have made this chapter well over 4.5k and I think that Monday’s chapter deserves its special place.

Some stuff with Breakdown! I wanted the find the right moment to start diving into his character and I felt that it was finally to that point. Of course I still have everyone else to dive into properly but still.

Also, Sunstreaker being the least stupid (other than Jazz) out of the humans makes so much sense to me its not even funny.

Tags

@lunarlei68 @whirlywhirlygig @loop-hole-319 @pixillandjester @alek-the-witch @not-a-moose-in-disguise @goddessofwind8water @neurologicalglitch @dersereblogger @pixel-transformers @mrcrayonofdoom @wireplaces @twilightfreefaller @original-blog-name-2 @devilangel657 @robbin-u @miniartistme @starwold @tea-enthusiasm @valeexpris606 @celticdoggo @bird599 @agentsquirrelsgotrobots @aquaioart @thatwandercat @artdagz @seisha974 @halenhusky309 @leethepiper @cat-cassette @blue-wrens @sirassban @cosmique-oddity @garbageenthusiast @xervias @azulabutterfly @fryseem @spring-mc @echo-circuit @aghostsnail @wooblewooble @ask-glory-haddock-and-others @nonsscrapheap @magichats @iminahole247 @omgflyingderpywhale @thetrexartist @naaaafam @elegantmantaray @emichusai @waterlilykitty @diabolichare @ham4ponyo @osqindaxend @sunnyvibesanddoodles @ratatatata248 @ijustneedausernaneplease4444444 @sprook-children @fooolisher 

And once again thank you to @Keferon for this amazing AU!

Also thank you to @sightseertrespasser for your help with the Mecha classes. It meant a lot.

(I didn’t know I could only have 50 @‘s in a post… restructure of my tag list coming soon!)

[pritong-baboy]

Sooooo, for Bee to willfully accept Shockwave, he'd have to be broken from the inside :)

I can imagine a couple of events meant to give Bee false hopes to break down his mental fortitude.

Like hearing first account recordings of UM picking the Jettwins as expendable to break some of his respect, then capturing Wasp and putting him in the same room as Bee so they can "talk". Wasp naturally trying to offline Bee, only for Shockwave to either step in to rescue him or have the battle go in a way Bee ends up offlining Wasp and feeling severely guilty about it, with Shockwave tending to his wounds so that Bee can "forget" he killed an innocent bot (no removing that from his processor, he'll live with the memory and trauma).

Basically, driving Bee to the edge of insanity, false hopes such as discovering higher ups are nearby, only for them to be bribed (like Sentinel making use of either Swindle or Lockdown's services).

Tear down Bee's beliefs about being an Autobot, what it truly means, and if he's still clinging on to Team Prime, being reminded that he had beef with Isaac helping Megatron even against his will, so why would his teammates treat him any differently if it's the Autobot way? Maybe Sari wouldn't give up on him, but what can he do as somebody expendable that might as well be considered a liability? Might even develop paranoia that if he was rescued, any data regarding the AllSpark and Earth would be extracted and deleted from his processor so he'd be another expendable cog in the machine.

Just, shatter Bumblebee's whole world and ideals bit by bit, until Longarm, the only one who saw firsthand that kind of treatment and was just as disgusted by it as Shockwave, extends a servo towards him, reminding him he never changed his opinion of him since boot camp.

Would take a few attempts, but once his beliefs are broken down enough, maybe that's when evil shockdad can start nurturing a disillusioned beeboy with promises of real justice and no more hypocrisy or double-faced tactics. Anyone could be a Decepticon, but it took trials that essentially meant nothing in the end to become an Autobot, even if it was just part of a maintenance team or becoming head of intelligence, because of a whole system that was flawed from top to bottom.

Shockwave giving droplets of that propaganda, maybe even reigning in his intentions of taking Bee in as a sparkling, so that Bee has the illusion of choosing to become a neutral faction under Shockwave's care, or become a Decepticon supervised by Shockwave, who's looked after him and helped him before even when it was to his own benefit.

If a Bumblebee was nothing of value to the Autobots, then maybe Shockwave's wisdom can help him grow into a true Goldbug (he could still keep his old name, but he might get a mod or an upgrade if he does embrace the idea he's no longer welcome home and that Shockwave is the only one he can turn to).

okay, this is probably the most probable "bad ending"?

it's very hard for me to imagine bee thinking that his friends would also be rotten like the rest of the autobots are (if shockwave convinces him of that) but i think the way he could leave them if he thinks HE'S the problem. like, if they knew he thinks of the autobots like that, he's a traitor to them, they wouldn't like him anymore.

but shockwave is there, and he doesn't have any issues with bumblebee. and even if it does hurt bee to have to leave his friends, he's just scared of what they'd say.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. In Chicago, all city buildings now use 100 percent clean power

“As of January 1, every single one of [Chicago’s municipal buildings] — including 98 fire stations, two international airports, and two of the largest water treatment plants on the planet — is running on renewable energy, thanks largely to Illinois’ newest and largest solar farm.”

2. California Rice Fields Offer Threatened Migratory Waterbirds a Lifeline

“Cranes need nighttime roosting sites flooded to a depth of about 3 to 9 inches, so they can easily hear or feel predators moving through the water. [... Bird Returns pays] farmers to flood their fields during critical migration periods [... and] provide foraging sites by leaving harvested rice or corn fields untilled, so cranes can access the leftover grain.”

3. New York Climate Superfund Becomes Law

“[Funds recovered “from major oil and gas companies” will be used to pay for] the restoration of stormwater drainage and sewage treatment systems, upgrades to transit systems, roads and bridges, the installation of green spaces to mitigate city heat islands and even medical coverage and preventative health programs for illnesses and injuries induced by climate change.”

4. Austin says retooled process for opening overnight cold-weather shelters is paying off

“[... T]he city's moves to lower the temperature threshold to open shelters and announce their activation at least a day in advance were the result of community feedback. [Shelter operators also passed out hot food.]”

5. Helping Communities Find Funding for Nature-Based Solutions

““From coastal oyster reefs to urban stormwater greenways, nature-based solutions are becoming the new normal.” That’s because these types of projects are often less expensive to build and have additional community benefits, such as improving water quality or creating parkland.”

6. Saving the Iberian lynx: How humans rescued this rare feline from extinction

“Back in the early 2000s, fewer than 100 individuals roamed the wild, including only 25 reproductive females. [...] Conservation staff [...] shape these cats into resourceful hunters and get them ready for life outside the center. [...] They’re fine-tuning captive-breeding routines, improving veterinary procedures, and pushing for more wildlife corridors.”

7. Biden cancels student loans for 150,000 more borrowers

“The 150,000 new beneficiaries announced Monday include more than 80,000 borrowers who were cheated or defrauded by their schools, over 60,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities and more than 6,000 public service workers[...] bringing the number whose student debt has been canceled during [Biden’s] administration to over 5 million[....]”

8. PosiGen wins another $200M for lower-income rooftop solar

“PosiGen offers a ​“no credit check” [solar panel installation to] those with a higher percentage of their income going to power and fuel bills[....] “somewhere between 25 and 75 percent” of the consumer’s monthly energy savings could come from efficiency measures such as sealing heating and cooling leaks, replacing thermostats, and installing LED lights[....]”

9. Indigenous communities come together to protect the Colombian Amazon

“At this year’s COP, Indigenous peoples celebrated the [protection of] traditional knowledge, innovations and practices[... and] the Cali Fund, which ensures that communities, including Indigenous peoples, receive benefits from the commercial use of [...] genetic data derived from the biological resources that they have long stewarded.”

10. How the heartland of Poland’s coal industry is ditching fossil fuels - without sacrificing jobs

“[Katowice, a former coal city] committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990, prioritising investments in green infrastructure, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. [...”]The gradual departure from heavy industry did not bring high social costs in our city,” says Marcin Krupa, Mayor of Katowice City.”

January 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[lambentplume]

Maui Fires & How to Support Relief Efforts

(Posted on 8/10/23) Hi, I'm Jae and my family is from Lāhainā. I watched my hometown burn down this week. The fires caused immeasurable loss in my community so I'd like to spread awareness of the situation as well as provide links to support local organizations directly assisting survivors. I'm pretty sure most of my following is Not local so I'm writing with intent to inform people outside the situation, but if you're reading this and happen to have family in the affected area that isn't accounted for, message me and I can send you the links to the missing persons tracking docs + more localized info!! If you'd like to skip down to how to help and follow community organizations, scroll to the bottom of the post after the image.

Earlier this week, Hurricane Dora passed south of the Hawaiian Islands, bringing strong wind gusts that caused property damage across the islands. On Tuesday August 8, high winds caused sparks to fly in the middle of Lāhainā town, knocking out power lines and immediately igniting drought-ridden grasses. The fire spread quickly and destroyed the entire center of town, the harbor, and multiple neighborhoods including Hawaiian Homes (housing specifically for Native Hawaiians), parts of Lahainaluna, basically all of Front Street, and low-income housing units. There is only one public road in and out of town, and after a very hectic evacuation period that road has been mostly closed off except to emergency responders, thus it is extremely difficult for anyone to leave town to get help. The nearest hospital is 20 miles away in Wailuku, and most grocery stores in town have burnt down.

As of Thursday, August 10, over 1,000 acres have been burned and 271 structures (including homes, schools, and other community gathering places) have been destroyed. Cell service is still extremely spotty, many of the surrounding neighborhoods deemed safe for evacuees are still without utilities. There are currently confirmed 53 deaths but that number is expected to increase as search-and-rescue efforts continue. Countless families have been displaced and many have lost the homes they lived in for generations. Places of deep historical significance have been reduced to ash, including the gravesites of Hawaiian royalty, the old Lāhainā courthouse where items of cultural significance were stored, and Na ‘Aikane o Maui Cultural Center. To add further context: Lāhainā has a population of about 13,000 residents. EVERYONE I know has been impacted in some way--at best forced to evacuate, at worst their house was burnt to the foundation, they cannot find a loved one, etc. I'm still trying to track down family members and it's been over two days. My neighbors down the street had homes last week and now many don't have ANYTHING. The hotels are taking in residents (tourists are also being STRONGLY urged to leave so that locals can recover). Without open access to the rest of the island, Lāhainā residents are now dependent on whatever people had in their homes already as well as disaster relief efforts coming in, but it's been difficult to organize and mobilize due to the location + conditions. People who have made it out are in shelters where no blankets or medicine were provided. Friends and acquaintances from neighbor islands are preparing aid to send over. Community response has been incredible, but the toll on the town has been immeasurable. My parents were desperately walking through town yesterday, my mom sounded absolutely hollow talking about it on the phone with me. It's horrifying. Below is a satellite map with data from the NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System showing the impacted areas from the past week; all of the red blotches were on fire at some point in the last three days.

Here are ways you can help:

If you have the means to donate:

Here are three donation sites verified by Maui Rapid Response, which also lists FAQs for people who are wondering about next steps.

Hawaiʻi Community Foundation - Maui Strong Fund accepts international credit cards. Maui United Way

Maui Mutual Aid Non-monetary ways to support:

If you know anyone who is planning to travel to ANY Hawaiian island, not just Maui, tell them to cancel their trip. Resources are extremely limited as is. Advocate for climate change mitigation efforts locally, wherever that is for you. The fire was exacerbated by drought conditions that have worsened due to climate change.

Lastly, remember that these are people's HOMES that burned, and Native Hawaiian cultural artifacts that have been lost. Stop thinking of Hawaiʻi (or any "tourist destination" location, really) as an "escape" or a "paradise." If that's the only way you recognized my home... I'm glad I got your attention somehow, but I would ask that you challenge that perspective and prioritize local and native voices. For transparency, I don't currently live in Lāhainā, I've been following efforts from Honolulu. My parents and brother have been updating me and I've been following friends and family who are doing immediate response work. I'm doing my best to find reliable and current sources, but if I need to update something, please let me know. If you're going to try to convince me that tourism is necessary for our recovery, news flash ***IT'S NOT***!

Thanks for reading.

[kamogryadeshi]

❗Russians attacked the Shevchenkivskyi and Osnovyanskyi districts of Kharkiv with drones, as well as the suburbs, - the State Emergency Service.

According to preliminary data, 4 civilians sought medical help.

Fires occurred at 4 locations. Rescue services are working at the sites of the hits.

[enterlogixcorporation]

Barcode Scanners Apps – Enterlogix Corporation

Enterlogix Corporation offers Barcode Scanners Apps designed to streamline your business operations. Our powerful mobile solutions empower your team to efficiently track inventory, manage assets, and improve overall productivity. With user-friendly interfaces and robust functionality, our barcode scanner apps are compatible with a wide range of devices, ensuring seamless integration into your existing systems. Whether you're in retail, logistics, or any industry that relies on barcode data, Enterlogix Corporation's apps provide real-time accuracy and data visibility.

[lazeecomet]

The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes

Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background

WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent

As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.

the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file

later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.

this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.

now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us

so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!

select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]

if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.

You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers

NOBODY in the field like this.

But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue

see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate

This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.

this gave me an idea

and i checked

and Power Automate had hooks for KQL

KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs

I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did

the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.

it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams

it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too

it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs

it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV

it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint

it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)

if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min

it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files

it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)

and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully

I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.

about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file

it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage

SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job

now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).

im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it

[tatarstani]

Data on crimes committed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in April 2025.

Civilian victims.

According to verified data, at least 478 civilians suffered from the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in April: 419 people were wounded, including 21 children, 59 people were killed, including 5 children.

Ukrainian Armed Forces weapons against civilians

Most often, Ukrainian formations used the following to commit crimes against the civilian population: barrel artillery, most often of NATO caliber 155 mm, UAVs of various modifications, MLRS of caliber 122 mm and 227 mm, anti-personnel mines and explosive devices.

Drones against civilians

In April, the number of civilians injured by attack drones, FPV drones, and fixed-wing UAVs used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased. According to data for April: at least 221 civilians were injured from the use of attack drones, including 11 children, and 29 people were killed, including 1 child. Deliberate and systematic attacks on private civilian and urban municipal transport have become widespread.

Prohibited forms and methods of warfare

During the specified period, Ukrainian armed formations actively used cluster munitions, rockets with shrapnel and fragmentation warheads against the civilian population.

Despite the fact that Ukraine is a signatory to the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continued to systematically use various modifications of anti-personnel mines, both Ukrainian and Western-made, supplied by Western accomplices to the conflict. They were illegally used against both military personnel and civilians. Some of their varieties were used for remote mining of civilian objects and places of mass visitation. In April, there were explosions of civilians on detonated submunitions and anti-personnel mines. Among the victims are children who received serious injuries.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces practiced UAV raids with the aim of setting fire to and destroying entire streets of residential buildings by dropping incendiary shells or mixtures from drones that caused fires in the residential sector. Such facts were recorded in several settlements of the Bryansk region.

Attacks on doctors and emergency first responder personal

In April, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continued to implement their tactics of deliberately striking rescue, medical and emergency services arriving at the sites of shelling. During the reporting period, more than two dozen medical vehicles were damaged by shelling. During a massive Ukrainian UAV raid on Kursk, 15 ambulances and resuscitation vehicles were simultaneously damaged.

The data was collected by the Service of the Ambassador-at-Large for Crimes of the Kyiv Regime of the Russian Foreign Ministry with the assistance of the Laboratory of Intelligent Data Analysis in the Field of International Relations of the IMI MGIMO MFA of Russia.

Shelling of civilian targets by the Ukrainian Armed Forces

In April 2025, Ukrainian formations carried out about 2,000 strikes on civilian targets weekly or about 300 strikes

daily - at least 8,929 rounds of ammunition were fired in a month.

The targets of the strikes were residential multi-story and private buildings, infrastructure facilities, manufacturing enterprises, medical, educational and social facilities.

[puntastic-artist]

Y'all seemed to like my last batch of doodles for my pressure OC so here's some more

With a new guy too! His name is Jax! He's a silly guy who heals you for data! His med kits and services are cheaper. However despite them being 50% off of Sebastian's regular price he doesn't sell you batteries or light sources, he outright refuses to sell you a flash beacon due to the Eyefestation. If you have enough data (2k) he'll offer a revive service! When you die he'll come to rescue you and bring you back, but at the cost of taking one or two of your items.

Jax and Apollo have a father and son type of relationship!

[donatellarose]

— by daylight

Albert Wesker x f!reader

rated e - 890 words

tags: STARS captain Wesker is your fiancee, reader is a civilian, brief mention of injuries and zombie infections,

prompt: DBD and the 2v8: Resident Evil has given me the most chaotic moments and I just want to keep this game mode forever. Wesker and his three dashes is disgusting but I love that silly man with his new outfit. love, a Jill Valentine main.

dividers: saradika graphics

Another day at RPD where you have to repair generators to escape while throwing pallets on zombies? Wait, this sounds like a video game...

When your fiancee was the Captain of an elite Special Tactics and Rescue Service team, you took it upon yourself to help in any way possible. It could be anything from helping Wesker organize his paperwork or just keeping him company on any late nights in the office. Today, you decided to surprise the entire squad with donuts from Moons. A reward for coming in early to help research an upcoming case. You remembered everyone's favorite type, how else would you make an early morning call time acceptable. Jill preferred Strawberry, Chris liked Peanut Butter Cup and Barry always picked a classic Glazed.

You sat in Wesker's office, one hand tracing patterns on his shoulder. As if on cue, he held up his own Raspberry donut for you to take a bite. A soft laugh escaped your lips as you hummed appreciatively. After taking a small bite and stealing a sip of his black coffee to wash it down, you move forward to press a kiss to his cheek. Just as you lean forward, the lights suddenly flicker out and you kissed the shell of his ear instead. His strong arms wrap around your waist to steady you as the backup lights turn on. His sharp gaze marks the unspoken question in your eyes.

"The power is out again. That's why the city installed generators around the station. Power has been spotty for the past six months. We'll need to repair them all to get everything running again."

He rises quickly and you follow him out into the main part of the S.T.A.R.S office. Wesker quickly hands out orders, sending Jill to the West wing and Chris to the East while Barry is to head to the central main lobby. They depart immediately while Wesker lightly tugs your hand.

"We're going elsewhere. It'll be safer and we can work on the gen outside. I promise, it'll be fixed by daylight."

"You do know I'm not a mechanic? I work in data analysis."

You can't wipe the confusion from your face as he guides you through the library, his hand a firm presence on your lower back. Wesker is about to reply when a crash from one of the bookshelves catches his attention.

"Stay here. I'll check it out."

You watch his form retreat behind one of the looming stacks. He's only out of sight for a few moments when a growling moan makes you freeze. Zombies. One is slowly lumbering down the hall at you, while another has almost materialized out of thin air behind you. The later swipes at you before scratching you.

A startled yelp fills the air as you stagger back, clutching your right arm. Wesker suddenly appears moving almost inhumanly fast. He bounds at you, scooping you up and throwing you over his shoulder before dashing out of the building. As the world flies by, you catch sight of Barry dropping a large wooden pallet on another zombie to stun it.

Wesker sets you down outside the station, quickly working to open a chest nearby. You cough lightly, trying to wipe the infected zombie's grime from your arm.

"Hold still. They have sprays for this now. It will cure the infection."

A cool mist smelling faintly of peppermint and green herbs washes over you. The itching seems to quickly fade away before it ultimately stops as Wesker pulls back. His gaze scans every inch of you before he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Change of plans. You're in charge of medical. I want you safe."

A small red first aide kit is placed in your hands and he guides you to the side of the gate. You glance down in confusion at where he seems to be wanting you to hide.

"Um. Albert? This is a bush?"

You stare at him, your confusion evident even as he urges you to kneel.

"Trust me. You will be safe."

You can only watch from inside the bush as he dashes away to repair the outside generator. 90 seconds later, Wesker sits back on his heels as the completed generator hums smoothly. You can hear the faint clicks of the four other generators coming to life before Jill, Chris and Barry make their way to the exit gate. You pull out the med kit as you spot a cut on Chris' hand. Tending to it, you learn he got it vaulting over a broken window to get away from a zombie.

While Barry opens the exit gate, Wesker is making the rounds and checking on his team while taking report. Even thinking like a Captain when absolute chaos is happening all around him. With a loud blaring alarm, the gate slides open showing the way out. Wesker slides his arm around your waist before flicking his gaze to his team.

"Regroup at the safe house. We'll stock up on ammo then come back to clean house."

Jill, Barry, and Chris all nod before disappearing out the gate. Wesker presses his lips to your temple softly, the smell of blackberry and smoke surrounding you. A scent that feels like home.

"My sweet girl. We're going home. The others can handle it for a bit. I have a brave girl to reward."

"Fine. But next time can I hide in a locker? I have leaves in my hair?"

[lonestarflight]

Cancelled Missions: Skylab Rescue Mission (SL-R)

Mission patch for rescue mission for SL-3

Spacecraft: CSM-119

Launch Vehicle: Saturn IB AS-208, later AS-209

Commander: Vance D. Brand

Command Module Pilot: Don L. Lind

Intended launch date: September 1973, (on standby from August 1973 - February 1974)

Skylab rescue mission crewmen Vance Brand (left) and Don Lind.

"Influenced by the stranded Skylab crew portrayed in the book and movie 'Marooned', NASA provided a crew rescue capability for the only time in its history." Prepared for launch during Skylab 3."

"Skylab rescue vehicle phasing - NAR Space Division drawing illustrates phasing of 5-seater Skylab rescue vehicle for a Skylab mission."

Date: April 5, 1971

"A kit was developed to fit out an Apollo command module with a total of five crew couches. In the event a Skylab crew developed trouble with its Apollo CSM return craft, a rescue CSM would be prepared and launched to rendezvous with the station. It would dock with the spare second side docking port of the Skylab docking module."

- information from Astronautix.com: link

"The Apollo Command Module as modified to rescue stranded crews for the Skylab program. Two crew + three rescuees packed like sardines...."

"Skylab 3 astronauts Alan Bean and Jack Lousma helped design the "field modification kit" to use a standard CSM for rescue, and would have flown the CSM for their mission to rescue Skylab 2 if necessary. The standard Skylab Command Module accommodated a crew of three with storage lockers on the aft bulkhead for resupply of experiment film and other equipment, as well as the return of exposed film, data tapes and experiment samples. To convert the standard CSM to a rescue vehicle, the storage lockers were removed and replaced with two crew couches to seat a total of five crewmen."

Posted on Flickr by Mike Acs. NASA ID: 108-KSC-70P-69

"Soon after Skylab 3's launch the crew's CSM developed a problem with Quad B, one of its four reaction control system thrusters. On August 2, 1973, six days later, a snowstorm-like effect outside the station startled the crew during breakfast. What appeared to be 'a real blizzard' was fuel leaking from Quad D, opposite from Quad B. The malfunctions left two available quads, and while the spacecraft could operate with just one, the leaks posed a possible risk to other systems. The fuel for all quads and the main service propulsion system (SPS) engine were from the same batch; if the SPS fuel was contaminated, the CSM might not be able to deorbit.

source

NASA considered bringing the crew home immediately, but because the astronauts were safe on the station with ample supplies and because plans for a rescue flight existed,  the mission continued while the Saturn IB rocket AS-208 with CSM-119 was assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Launch Complex 39 for possible use. It was at one point rolled out to LC-39B.

Illustration of the rescue Apollo spacecraft preparing to dock at Skylab’s lateral port. source

NASA announced on August 4 that Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 backup crewmen Vance Brand and Don Lind would fly any rescue mission; they had immediately begun training for the flight once the second quad had failed on August 2. After engineers found that the leaks would not disable the spacecraft, the two men used simulators to test reentry using two quads. If ground personnel worked 24 hours a day and skipped some tests, the mission could launch on September 10, and would last no more than five days. The astronauts would attempt to prepare Skylab for further use but returning experimental data and diagnosing the cause of the problem were more important, with Lind choosing what would be brought back. Human urine and feces samples and Apollo Telescope Mount and other film were the priorities. Although Skylab had two docking ports the primary one would be used if possible, jettisoning the Skylab crew's CSM if necessary.

Posted on Flickr by Drew Granston: link

While many within NASA believed that the rescue mission would occur, within hours of the failure of the second quad the agency canceled the rescue mission. Beyond NASA's conclusion that the failed quads would not disable the Skylab 3 CSM and the SPS fuel was uncontaminated, Brand and Lind had already shown during their training as backup Skylab crewmen that a reentry with failed quads was safe. They also devised a method to deorbit with the command module's attitude control system. Later joking that they were 'very efficient but perfectly stupid, because we have literally worked ourselves out of the mission', Brand and Lind continued to train for a rescue mission, as well as for their backup roles, but the Skylab 3 crew was able to complete its full 59-day mission on the station and safely return to Earth using the two functional RCS thruster quads,  using the SPS engine once instead of twice as precaution."

- Information from Wikipedia: link

Posted on Flickr by Ed Dempsey: link

Saturn IB SA-208 was used for Skylab 4 and SA-209 was assigned to the standby rescue mission. At one point, CSM-119/SA-209 was slated for the Skylab 5 mission but it was cancelled when SL-4 was extended and completed all of it objectives.

Mission patch for rescue mission for SL-4

Later, CSM-119/SA-209 was the backup launch vehicle for Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission and standby rescue vehicle. After the Apollo program ended, the surplus rocket and spacecraft were displayed at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

NASA ID: 71-H-662, S73-31922

source, source

[mariacallous]

Not long ago, I was reading the newsletter TheRighting, for which the journalist Howard Polskin combs through the right-wing mediasphere so you don’t have to, when a back-to-back pair of links jumped out at me. The first, from Townhall, announced that it was “Time for Trump’s DOJ and FBI to Deal the Pain.” Republicans “control federal law enforcement right now,” an excerpt pulled out by Polskin read. “That means we get to set the agenda, and we need to ruthlessly and brutally use the law to defeat our enemies’ outrageous and disgraceful attacks upon patriotic Americans.” The second, from The American Spectator, focussed on the role that Elon Musk’s company SpaceX played in bringing home astronauts who had been stranded on the International Space Station, arguing that the supposed rescue reinforced the earthly premise of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE: that the government is riddled with waste and other actors can perform its functions better. “If the private sector can recover astronauts,” the subheading read, “it can do anything.”

One of these links leaned into the idea that the government should be smaller; the other that it should be bigger. This juxtaposition—and apparent contradiction—seems to be everywhere at the moment. While catching up on the news on a Sunday in early April, I came across stories that attested, respectively, to significant forthcoming job cuts at the Internal Revenue Service and to the Trump Administration’s unprecedented plans to use the agency’s data to go after undocumented immigrants. The same day, Kristen Welker, the host of “Meet the Press,” asked Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, about tariffs that have been called “the biggest tax hike on Americans in decades”—and then about the Administration’s plans to extend President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. More recently, I read a story in the Times about a root-and-branch push to slash regulations across government, which Trump described as the “deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.” (A notice published as part of this effort, at the Federal Communications Commission, was literally titled “DELETE, DELETE, DELETE.”) I then clicked through to the paper’s live blog for that day, which led with Trump threatening to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status should it not bend to his will.

Perhaps the two overarching themes of Trump’s first hundred or so days back in office have been that he has brazenly pushed the boundaries of executive power—over Congress, the courts, universities, law firms, the media, former bureaucrats who have slighted him, migrants disappeared without due process to a mega-prison in El Salvador—while, at the same time, empowering Musk and DOGE, among others, to pare back the federal government and withdraw it from long-standing areas of activity. At least at a glance, these narratives seem to channel a classic political divide, between those who think the government should stay out of people’s business and those who think it should take a more hands-on role. That Trump finds himself on both sides of the divide surely reflects, at least in part, the chaos of his approach to governance; whether he pursues a particular policy often seems guided less by philosophical rigor than by naked self-interest. There’s also the issue of execution. Some of his early policies—not least his tariffs—have been implemented in messy ways, and have at times appeared to be driven by incompatible impulses.

At the same time, the Trump Administration seems to be trying to appeal to a broad coalition that runs from traditional small-government Republicans to Silicon Valley techno-libertarians and the nationalist hard right. The latter’s priorities, in particular, involve expanding executive power in ways that are frequently at odds with an instinct to cut costs. The Administration’s breathtakingly ambitious deportation goals are perhaps the clearest example; Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” has been prodding Congress for more funding. (“Our level of success depends on the resources I have,” he said in February.) This is before we even get into Trump’s desire to take over Canada and Greenland, which would expand the government in a very literal sense.

Moves that might appear to shrink or to grow the government, however, are not always as contradictory as they seem. Oren Cass, a prominent policy commentator who serves as the chief economist at American Compass, a conservative think tank, told me that “the simple small-government-versus-big-government dichotomy that dictated most of our political fights in the nineteen-nineties and two-thousands isn’t the right axis on which to understand a lot of the conflicts and a lot of the opportunities” of this moment. In part, he is right; we are in the midst of a political realignment that muddies old dichotomies. But evaluating exactly how government is getting both smaller and bigger under Trump 2.0—and, in some ways, getting bigger by getting smaller—is a revealing lens through which to view where this Administration, the country, and, perhaps, our broader political world may be headed.

During the Obama years, Jonathan Havercroft, an academic who teaches political theory, and who is now at the University of Glasgow, was reading Nietzsche in preparation for a lecture when he came across a reference to “misarchism,” a world view that combines aversion to government, as the entity that regulates social life, with support for a robust state that enforces order and traditional morals. Havercroft wondered if the concept might help explain the rise of the Tea Party, the Republican movement that emerged in furious opposition to Barack Obama and advocated for a mix of both libertarian and authoritarian policies. (The Tea Party was broadly anti-tax, as its name suggested, and opposed big-government programs like the Affordable Care Act, but many adherents seemed to favor stronger immigration enforcement and an aggressive approach to counterterrorism.) Havercroft and a colleague tested his hypothesis against data from the American National Election Study, found support for it, and predicted that this world view would continue to shape Republican politics long after Obama.

As the misarchist framework suggests, the idea of “the state” can be theoretically distinguished from the idea of “government,” wherein government is conceived as an entity that provides services and welfare and the key characteristic of the state is what the sociologist Max Weber called its monopoly on legitimate violence—as Havercroft told me, “what we today would think of as police power, protecting borders, military power.” The two terms have often been used interchangeably, particularly in the postwar era of democratic welfare states. Many countries, though, have combined small-government principles borrowed from neoliberal economics, with its emphasis on free markets as the main driver of social organization, with vicious crackdowns on freedoms of speech and association. Pinochet’s Chile, for instance, both privatized the pension system and disappeared people by dropping their bodies out of helicopters into the ocean. It has been speculated that the scale of Chile’s neoliberal turn would have been impossible without its accompanying authoritarianism. In a 1982 letter to the libertarian economist Friedrich A. Hayek, Margaret Thatcher acknowledged the success of Pinochet’s reforms, but noted that “in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable.”

Many neoliberal economies have been premised on the notion that a strong state is needed to create a strong market—though that state, ultimately, might do fewer things. A Ferrari or a Porsche might be smaller than a Jaguar, Ernesto Gallo, an academic who has studied a growing body of literature on what is called “authoritarian neoliberalism,” told me. But the smaller car may be “stronger in terms of power.” Even in the age of Ronald Reagan and Thatcher, the idea of a spectrum running from small government on the right to big government on the left was an oversimplification. (In Reagan’s first Inaugural Address, he declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and then went on, for example, to significantly increase defense spending.) In 2001, a journalist launched the Political Compass, a tool designed to move beyond such simplifications by adding a social scale perpendicular to the economic one, creating ideological quadrants that have since become a staple of political-science classes. Singapore, for instance, is highly economically free but sharply socially authoritarian.

Trump, despite continuing to celebrate Reagan’s legacy, has in many respects moved away from the consensus that defines the former President’s economic policies. In 2019, Veronique de Rugy, a libertarian and senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, at George Mason University, wrote in Reason magazine that Trump’s first Presidency would “end up being, by a large margin, a very pro-government intervention administration,” citing, among other things, his first-term tariff policy. Now that Trump is back in office, de Rugy told me, he is redoubling his pursuit of that policy in a way that constitutes “an utter abuse of executive powers” and mirrors “the very same arrogance that the far left has always had, that government knows best and can consciously reorganize the economy.”

Indeed, an ascendant wing of the Republican Party has actively pushed for a more muscular government—in the areas of family and industrial policy, for example—after reaching the conclusion that Reagan-style market orthodoxy has hollowed out communities, among other bad outcomes. Cass, who is generally aligned with this wing, accused DOGE of “cutting the things you actually wanted to be building up”; its approach to head-count reduction, for example, slashed an office overseeing subsidies for the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors.

But Cass sees DOGE more as a wasted opportunity than a faulty premise, and he sees spending cuts as a necessary part of realigning the government’s priorities; in his view, for example, it might take less government to enforce universal tariffs than to regulate individual free-trade deals, or to coördinate industrial policy than to retrain and support workers left behind by the market. But “the actual substantive goal of both building some things up while cutting other things down has to be paired to a rhetoric that recognizes that updated reality,” Cass said. And on that front “there’s still a ways to go.” Many figures in the Administration still speak in very classically “small government” terms. The Deputy Treasury Secretary complained to Politico recently that “the government’s gotten larger” and “more involved in people’s lives.” DOGE called for “small-government revolutionaries” to join its team; Musk has said that the U.S. should privatize “everything we possibly can,” and danced around with a chainsaw gifted to him by Javier Milei, the avowedly libertarian President of Argentina. (He also reposted, then deleted, a missive stating that “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.”) Havercroft told me that Musk is acting like the “misarchist-in-chief.”

And yet it’s also fair to question how much Musk et al. are actually shrinking the government. (Bessent himself reportedly did this recently, during a shouting match with the DOGE head in the White House.) Musk once spoke of wanting to quickly slash two trillion dollars in federal spending, but he has since revised down that figure; so far, the cuts have fallen far short of his ambitious goals—and that’s if you take DOGE’s self-reported claims at face value, which is, erm, ill-advised. And many government workers fired at DOGE’s behest have subsequently been reinstated, because their jobs turned out to be essential or because the courts intervened to clip DOGE’s wings. Over all, spending is actually higher than this time last year, spurred largely by debt interest and automatic increases in Social Security payments, which Trump has promised not to touch, even though they make up a substantial percentage of the federal budget. (Whether you believe Trump’s promise, of course, is a different question; White House officials have suggested that the early cuts targeted “low-hanging fruit” to build political cover for less popular decisions to come.)

If that budget is “the debt-ridden dad on the way to buy a $250,000 Ferrari on the credit card,” Jessica Riedl, of the center-right Manhattan Institute, told NPR in early March, then “DOGE is the $2-off gas card he used along the way.” Last week, Riedl told Reuters that she believes the initiative will end up costing more than it saves. Other analysts seem to agree, citing the costs of firing and rehiring people and lost productivity—not to mention the legal bills it has racked up defending its work. DOGE, Riedl said, “is not a serious exercise.”

The extent to which the Administration has cut government spending may be debatable, but surely it wants to be seen as slashing away. Musk has talked about the cuts in terms of efficiency, but he has also cast them in Manichaean terms. The U.S. Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., for instance, was (among many, many other things) “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America” and needed to “die.” His army of engineers tinkers largely out of sight of the public, but Musk himself wants people—his supporters, yes, but, as with any good troll, probably more so his critics—to see him as a warrior and to pay attention to him, be that by posting hyperactively on X or by showing up in Wisconsin in a cheesehead hat and framing a state Supreme Court race as existential for civilization. After waving Milei’s chainsaw onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in February, Musk sat down and proclaimed, “I am become meme”—hardly a classic expression of the desire for government to recede from people’s lives. (“DOGE started out as a meme,” he added, with a chuckle. “And now it’s real.”) If Musk, to a certain extent, has become a representation of the government, his ubiquity suggests that the government is growing, at least as an object that demands people’s attention.

The Administration has used Musk, DOGE, and other financial maneuvers to expand its power in more concrete ways, too. The gutting of U.S.A.I.D. threw down a gauntlet before Congress, which ultimately created the agency, and before the courts. Keen observers of authoritarianism see the mass firing of civil servants as a way station on the road to autocracy. The way the cuts and their associated efforts have been handled has certainly made federal workers feel targeted, demoralized, and even paranoid; there have been reports of some of them hiding their laptops and using white-noise machines for fear that their conversations are being recorded, and likening DOGE’s presence to a panopticon, a psyop, and a horror movie. This appears to be at least partly by design: Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and a key intellectual force behind Trump’s aggressive wielding of executive power, has said that he wants bureaucrats “to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.” (There are wider fears that DOGE is trying to build a surveillance state by seizing control of people’s sensitive data.) The Administration is also pulling at the purse strings as a means of asserting power over organizations that receive federal money but are supposed to be independent—like the United States Institute for Peace and, reportedly, NPR and PBS—by sending in DOGE or attempting to claw back appropriations that Congress already authorized. Terminating grants, or threatening to do so, has been a primary instrument in Trump’s war on private universities. With cuts comes leverage comes power.

The DOGE part of all this might be at an inflection point. Musk, following weeks of reports that he is on the outs, confirmed recently—after Tesla, his car company, reported a huge drop in profits—that he intends to spend less time in Washington. (Ever the misarchist, he blamed recent protests targeting Tesla dealerships on special interests drunk on government largesse. “The real reason is that those who are receiving the waste and fraud wish it to continue,” he said.) Musk has suggested, however, that he will continue to spend around two days per week on government business. And it would be naïve to think that Musk taking a step back will spell the end of DOGE, though the volume might be turned down and Congress will at some point have to weigh in. (“DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism,” he told reporters this week, when asked about succession planning. “Buddha isn't alive anymore. You wouldn't ask the question: ‘Who would lead Buddhism?’ ”) Musk has embedded allies across the government. Vought and others remain in place—and their plan to radically reshape the federal bureaucracy has much deeper ideological roots than some faddish crusade named after a meme. The ultimate boss, of course, is Trump himself—a man who surely cares less about the size of the government, in some philosophical sense, than about rooting out the parts of it that he views as hostile or disloyal and using what remains to enforce his whims.

One recurring motif of Musk’s tenure with DOGE has been that he thinks the government should be run like one of his businesses. Generously, his cuts might be cast in the Silicon Valley tradition of moving fast, breaking things, and then building them back up from zero. Similar has been said of Trump, albeit in a more old-fashioned sense. Businesses, Havercroft, the political theorist, told me, are often “actually quite authoritarian” in terms of how they are run.

Earlier in his career, Havercroft was keenly interested in the idea of the state, and how the concept grew out of the idea of the “estate,” or personal possession of the ruler, as depicted in Niccolò Machiavelli’s “The Prince” or Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall.” “In one sense, I think Musk and Trump are trying to re-personalize the state,” Havercroft told me. “ ‘We’re now in charge, it’s my state, I get to run it.’ ” We spoke before Musk’s recent comments about withdrawing from government affairs. If the private sector can do anything, as The American Spectator would have it, it can certainly reabsorb Elon Musk. L’État, c’est encore Trump.