#intel foundry

[govindhtech]

At Intel Foundry Event, Secures Government Microelectronics

Event Intel Foundry

Intel is committed to defending the domestic chip supply chain and reclaiming semiconductor dominance as the sole American semiconductor developer and manufacturer. Working with the U.S. government, Intel seeks to boost U.S. technological systems with creative, secure solutions.

The State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototype (SHIP) and Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes-Commercial (RAMP-C) with the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) have accelerated the development of advanced semiconductor technologies and demonstrate how public and commercial interests can collaborate to innovate and improve national security.

Intel's devotion and Intel Foundry's vital role have led to amazing advancements.

Industry-leading Intel 18A process technology enters risk production

The cutting-edge Intel 18A process node from Intel Foundry has transformed defence. For the first time in decades, USG and DIB clients may use cutting-edge technology alongside commercial customers. DIB clients adopting Intel 18A technology for their latest microelectronics and mission platforms will enhance military SWaP-C requirements.

According to Intel Foundry SVP and GM Kevin O'Buckley, the final Intel 18A PDK 1.0.1GA was released in Q4 2024, and Intel 18A technology is in risk production.

Building Intel 18A ITAR-compliant test chip support

One of the more intriguing IPSS announcements was allowing ITAR access to Intel 18A test chips. This ensures DIB clients may employ cutting-edge technology while meeting program requirements. For early 2026 tape-outs, the Intel 18A ITAR test chip shuttle is accepting reservations.

Adding 12nm to Foundry's roadmap

For clients who need onshore access to established technologies, Intel Foundry will provide 12nm process technology in 2026. This FinFET-based technology will be built in Arizona. DIB clients can create tape-outs in late 2026.

Onshore advanced packaging scaling

In order to address mission system requirements, Intel Foundry offers its cutting-edge heterogeneous packaging technologies, including as Foveros 3D, EMIB 3.5D, and EMIB, onshore. Chiplet libraries and advanced semiconductor packaging help customers quickly conceive, develop, build, test, and integrate cutting-edge devices into field equipment. For autonomous systems and secure communications, Intel cutting-edge packaging technologies provide the performance and security needed for mission-critical operations and enable the latest military technology to be available in sophisticated system-level packaging for SHIP.

Adding Secure Enclave and DIB customers to USG cooperation

Intel won the Secure Enclave (SE) program last year, building on its programmatic engagement in SHIP and RAMP-C. SE aims to boost the U.S. government's dependable manufacture of cutting-edge semiconductors.

Intel Foundry added Reliable MicroSystems and Trusted Semiconductor Solutions to its DIB client list earlier this year as part of RAMP-C's third phase. Intel Foundry's cutting-edge Intel 18A process technology and advanced packaging for high-volume manufacture and prototypes will benefit more DIB clients with their integration.

Ready to Serve: Intel Foundry

The Intel Foundry can meet government application needs. Due to its cutting-edge Intel 18A process technology, advanced packaging choices, and safe manufacturing, Intel Foundry can deliver high-performance, reliable, and secure semiconductor products. Intel Foundry may be a trusted partner in developing microelectronics for critical government applications using SOTA technology and close collaboration with the USG and DoD.

Intel Foundry Direct Connect

Attend Intel Foundry Direct Connect, the premier annual event in San Jose, California, on April 29, 2025, to network with government, defence, and aerospace experts. Connect with clients, defence industry experts, and USMAG alliance ecosystem partners to learn how process technology, cutting-edge packaging, and testing may support your ideas. At 9 a.m. PDT, CEO Lip-Bu Tan will start the event. Join today to learn about future systems foundry design and production.

Intel technology may need hardware, software, or service activation. No part or product is absolutely safe. Your costs and results vary.

[kazifatagar]

Intel Foundry Achieves Major Milestones

Intel 18A, Intel Foundry’s leading-edge process node, is on track for production in 2025. With RibbonFET and PowerVia, foundry customers will unlock greater processor scale and efficiency to drive the future of AI computing forward. Read more Business News Fortinet boosts OT security with advanced features and partnerships What’s New – Intel Intel today announced that its lead products on…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The CHIPS Act treats the symptoms, but not the causes

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/07/farewell-mr-chips/#we-used-to-make-things

There's this great throwaway line in 1992's Sneakers, where Dan Aykroyd, playing a conspiracy-addled hacker/con-man, is feverishly telling Sydney Poitier (playing an ex-CIA spook) about a 1958 meeting Eisenhower had with aliens where Ike said, "hey, look, give us your technology, and we'll give you all the cow lips you want."

Poitier dismisses Aykroyd ("Don't listen to this man. He's certifiable"). We're meant to be on Poitier's side here, but I've always harbored some sympathy for Aykroyd in this scene.

That's because I often hear echoes of Aykroyd's theory in my own explanations of the esoteric bargains and plots that produced the world we're living in today. Of course, in my world, it's not presidents bargaining for alien technology in exchange for cow-lips – it's the world's wealthy nations bargaining to drop trade restrictions on the Global South in exchange for IP laws.

These bargains – which started as a series of bilateral and then multilateral agreements like NAFTA, and culminated in the WTO agreement of 1999 – were the most important step in the reordering of the world's economy around rent-extraction, cheap labor exploitation, and a brittle supply chain that is increasingly endangered by the polycrisis of climate and its handmaidens, like zoonotic plagues, water wars, and mass refugee migration.

Prior to the advent of "free trade," the world's rich countries fashioned debt into a whip-hand over poor, post-colonial nations. These countries had been bankrupted by their previous colonial owners, and the price of their freedom was punishing debts to the IMF and other rich-world institutions in exchange for loans to help these countries "develop."

Like all poor debtors, these countries were said to have gotten into their predicament through moral failure – they'd "lived beyond their means."

(When rich people get into debt, bankruptcy steps in to give them space to "restructure" according to their own plans. When poor people get into debt, bankruptcy strips them of nearly everything that might help them recover, brands them with a permanent scarlet letter, and subjects them to humiliating micro-management whose explicit message is that they are not competent to manage their own affairs):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

So the poor debtor nations were ordered to "deregulate." They had to sell off their state assets, run their central banks according to the dictates of rich-world finance authorities, and reorient their production around supplying raw materials to rich countries, who would process these materials into finished goods for export back to the poor world.

Naturally, poor countries were not allowed to erect "trade barriers" that might erode the capacity of this North-South transfer of high-margin goods, but this was not the era of free trade. It wasn't the free trade era because, while the North-South transfer was largely unrestricted, the South-North transfer was subject to tight regulation in the rich world.

In other words, poor countries were expected to export, say, raw ore to the USA and reimport high-tech goods, with low tariffs in both directions. But if a poor country processed that ore domestically and made its own finished goods, the US would block those goods at the border, slapping them with high tariffs that made them more expensive than Made-in-the-USA equivalents.

The argument for this unidirectional trade was that the US – and other rich countries – had a strategic need to maintain their manufacturing industries as a hedge against future geopolitical events (war, but also pandemics, extreme weather) that might leave the rich world unable to provide for itself. This rationale had a key advantage: it was true.

A country that manages its own central bank can create as much of its own currency as it wants, and use that money to buy anything for sale in its own currency.

This may not be crucial while global markets are operating to the country's advantage (say, while the rest of the world is "willingly" pricing its raw materials in your country's currency), but when things go wrong – war, plague, weather – a country that can't make things is at the rest of the world's mercy.

If you had to choose between being a poor post-colonial nation that couldn't supply its own technological needs except by exporting raw materials to rich countries, and being a rich country that had both domestic manufacturing capacity and a steady supply of other countries' raw materials, you would choose the second, every time.

What's not to like?

Here's what.

The problem – from the perspective of America's ultra-wealthy – was that this arrangement gave the US workforce a lot of power. As US workers unionized, they were able to extract direct concessions from their employers through collective bargaining, and they could effectively lobby for universal worker protections, including a robust welfare state – in both state and federal legislatures. The US was better off as a whole, but the richest ten percent were much poorer than they could be if only they could smash worker power.

That's where free trade comes in. Notwithstanding racist nonsense about "primitive" countries, there's no intrinsic defect that stops the global south from doing high-tech manufacturing. If the rich world's corporate leaders were given free rein to sideline America's national security in favor of their own profits, they could certainly engineer the circumstances whereby poor countries would build sophisticated factories to replace the manufacturing facilities that sat behind the north's high tariff walls.

These poor-country factories could produce goods ever bit as valuable as the rich world's shops, but without the labor, environmental and financial regulations that constrained their owners' profits. They slavered for a business environment that let them kill workers; poison the air, land and water; and cheat the tax authorities with impunity.

For this plan to work, the wealthy needed to engineer changes in both the rich world and the poor world. Obviously, they would have to get rid of the rich world's tariff walls, which made it impossible to competitively import goods made in the global south, no matter how cheaply they were made.

But free trade wasn't just about deregulation in the north – it also required a whole slew of new, extremely onerous regulations in the global south. Corporations that relocated their manufacturing to poor – but nominally sovereign – countries needed to be sure that those countries wouldn't try to replicate the American plan of becoming actually sovereign, by exerting control over the means of production within their borders.

Recall that the American Revolution was inspired in large part by fury over the requirement to ship raw materials back to Mother England and then buy them back at huge markups after they'd been processed by English workers, to the enrichment of English aristocrats. Post-colonial America created new regulations (tariffs on goods from England), and – crucially – they also deregulated.

Specifically, post-revolutionary America abolished copyrights and patents for English persons and firms. That way, American manufacturers could produce sophisticated finished goods without paying rent to England's wealthy making those goods cheaper for American buyers, and American publishers could subsidize their editions of American authors' books by publishing English authors on the cheap, without the obligation to share profits with English publishers or English writers.

The surplus produced by ignoring the patents and copyrights of the English was divided (unequally) among American capitalists, workers, and shoppers. Wealthy Americans got richer, even as they paid their workers more and charged less for their products. This incubated a made-in-the-USA edition of the industrial revolution. It was so successful that the rest of the world – especially England – began importing American goods and literature, and then American publishers and manufacturers started to lean on their government to "respect" English claims, in order to secure bilateral protections for their inventions and books in English markets.

This was good for America, but it was terrible for English manufacturers. The US – a primitive, agricultural society – "stole" their inventions until they gained so much manufacturing capacity that the English public started to prefer American goods to English ones.

This was the thing that rich-world industrialists feared about free trade. Once you build your high-tech factories in the global south, what's to stop those people from simply copying your plans – or worse, seizing your factories! – and competing with you on a global scale? Some of these countries had nominally socialist governments that claimed to explicitly elevate the public good over the interests of the wealthy. And all of these countries had the same sprinkling of sociopaths who'd gladly see a million children maimed or the land poisoned for a buck – and these "entrepreneurs" had unbeatable advantages with their countries' political classes.

For globalization to work, it wasn't enough to deregulate the rich world – capitalists also had to regulate the poor world. Specifically, they had to get the poor world to adopt "IP" laws that would force them to willingly pay rent on things they could get for free: patents and other IP, even though it was in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term interests of both the nation and its politicians and its businesspeople.

Thus, the bargain that makes me sympathetic to Dan Aykroyd: not cow lips for alien tech; but free trade for IP law. When the WTO was steaming towards passage in the late 1990s, there was (rightly) a lot of emphasis on its deregulatory provisions: weakening of labor, environmental and financial laws in the poor world, and of tariffs in the rich world.

But in hindsight, we all kind of missed the main event: the TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). This actually started before the WTO treaty (it was part of the GATT, a predecessor to the WTO), but the WTO spread it to countries all over the world. Under the TRIPS, poor countries are required to honor the IP claims of rich countries, on pain of global sanction.

That was the plan: instead of paying American workers to make Apple computers, say, Apple could export the "IP" for Macs and iPhones to countries like China, and these countries would produce Apple products that were "designed in California, assembled in China." China would allow Apple to treat Chinese workers so badly that they routinely committed suicide, and would lock up or kill workers who tried to unionize. China would accept vast shipments of immortal, toxic e-waste. And China wouldn't let its entrepreneurs copy Apple's designs, be they software, schematics or trademarks.

Apple isn't the only company that pursued this strategy, but no company has executed it as successfully. It's not for nothing that Steve Jobs's hand-picked successor was Tim Cook, who oversaw the transfer of even the most exacting elements of Apple manufacturing to Chinese facilities, striking bargains with contractors like Foxconn that guaranteed that workers would be heavily – lethally! – surveilled and controlled to prevent the twin horrors of unionization and leaks.

For the first two decades of the WTO era, the most obvious problems with this arrangement was wage erosion (for American workers) and leakage (for the rich). China's "socialist" government was only too happy to help Foxconn imprison workers who demanded better wages and working conditions, but they were far more relaxed about knockoffs, be they fake iPods sold in market stalls or US trade secrets working their way into Huawei products.

These were problems for the American aristocracy, whose investments depended on China disciplining both Chinese workers and Chinese businesses. For the American people, leakage was a nothingburger. Apple's profits weren't shared with its workforce beyond the relatively small number of tech workers at its headquarters. The vast majority of Apple employees, who flogged iPhones and scrubbed the tilework in gleaming white stores across the nation, would get the same minimal (or even minimum) wage no matter how profitable Apple grew.

It wasn't until the pandemic that the other shoe dropped for the American public. The WTO arrangement – cow lips for alien technology – had produced a global system brittle supply chains composed entirely of weakest links. A pandemic, a war, a ship stuck in the Suez Canal or Houthi paramilitaries can cripple the entire system, perhaps indefinitely.

For two decades, we fought over globalization's effect on wages. We let our corporate masters trick us into thinking that China's "cheating" on IP was a problem for the average person. But the implications of globalization for American sovereignty and security were banished to the xenophobic right fringe, where they were mixed into the froth of Cold War 2.0 nonsense. The pandemic changed that, creating a coalition that is motivated by a complex and contradictory stew of racism, environmentalism, xenophobia, labor advocacy, patriotism, pragmatism, fear and hope.

Out of that stew emerged a new American political tendency, mostly associated with Bidenomics, but also claimed in various guises by the American right, through its America First wing. That tendency's most visible artifact is the CHIPS Act, through which the US government proposes to use policy and subsidies to bring high-tech manufacturing back to America's shores.

This week, the American Economic Liberties Project published "Reshoring and Restoring: CHIPS Implementation for a Competitive Semiconductor Industry," a fascinating, beautifully researched and detailed analysis of the CHIPS Act and the global high-tech manufacturing market, written by Todd Achilles, Erik Peinert and Daniel Rangel:

https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/reshoring-and-restoring-chips-implementation-for-a-competitive-semiconductor-industry/#

Crucially, the report lays out the role that the weakening of antitrust, the dismantling of tariffs and the strengthening of IP played in the history of the current moment. The failure to enforce antitrust law allowed for monopolization at every stage of the semiconductor industry's supply-chain. The strengthening of IP and the weakening of tariffs encouraged the resulting monopolies to chase cheap labor overseas, confident that the US government would punish host countries that allowed their domestic entrepreneurs to use American designs without permission.

The result is a financialized, "capital light" semiconductor industry that has put all its eggs in one basket. For the most advanced chips ("leading-edge logic"), production works like this: American firms design a chip and send the design to Taiwan where TSMC foundry turns it into a chip. The chip is then shipped to one of a small number of companies in the poor world where they are assembled, packaged and tested (AMP) and sent to China to be integrated into a product.

Obsolete foundries get a second life in the commodity chip ("mature-node chips") market – these are the cheap chips that are shoveled into our cars and appliances and industrial systems.

Both of these systems are fundamentally broken. The advanced, "leading-edge" chips rely on geopolitically uncertain, heavily concentrated foundries. These foundries can be fully captured by their customers – as when Apple prepurchases the entire production capacity of the most advanced chips, denying both domestic and offshore competitors access to the newest computation.

Meanwhile, the less powerful, "mature node" chips command minuscule margins, and are often dumped into the market below cost, thanks to subsidies from countries hoping to protect their corner of the high-tech sector. This makes investment in low-power chips uncertain, leading to wild swings in cost, quality and availability of these workhorse chips.

The leading-edge chipmakers – Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD, etc – have fully captured their markets. They like the status quo, and the CHIPS Act won't convince them to invest in onshore production. Why would they?

2022 was Broadcom's best year ever, not in spite of its supply-chain problems, but because of them. Those problems let Broadcom raise prices for a captive audience of customers, who the company strong-armed into exclusivity deals that ensured they had nowhere to turn. Qualcomm also profited handsomely from shortages, because its customers end up paying Qualcomm no matter where they buy, thanks to Qualcomm ensuring that its patents are integrated into global 4G and 5G standards.

That means that all standards-conforming products generate royalties for Qualcomm, and it also means that Qualcomm can decide which companies are allowed to compete with it, and which ones will be denied licenses to its patents. Both companies are under orders from the FTC to cut this out, and both companies ignore the FTC.

The brittleness of mature-node and leading-edge chips is not inevitable. Advanced memory chips (DRAM) roughly comparable in complexity to leading-edge chips, while analog-to-digital chips are as easily commodified as mature-node chips, and yet each has a robust and competitive supply chain, with both onshore and offshore producers. In contrast with leading-edge manufacturers (who have been visibly indifferent to the CHIPS incentives), memory chip manufacturers responded to the CHIPS Act by committing hundreds of billions of dollars to new on-shore production facilities.

Intel is a curious case: in a world of fabless leading-edge manufacturers, Intel stands out for making its own chips. But Intel is in a lot of trouble. Its advanced manufacturing plans keep foundering on cost overruns and delays. The company keeps losing money. But until recently, its management kept handing its shareholders billions in dividends and buybacks – a sign that Intel bosses assume that the US public will bail out its "national champion." It's not clear whether the CHIPS Act can save Intel, or whether financialization will continue to hollow out a once-dominant pioneer.

The CHIPS Act won't undo the concentration – and financialization – of the semiconductor industry. The industry has been awash in cheap money since the 2008 bailouts, and in just the past five years, US semiconductor monopolists have paid out $239b to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, enough to fund the CHIPS Act five times over. If you include Apple in that figure, the amount US corporations spent on shareholder returns instead of investing in capacity rises to $698b. Apple doesn't want a competitive market for chips. If Apple builds its own foundry, that just frees up capacity at TSMC that its competitors can use to improve their products.

The report has an enormous amount of accessible, well-organized detail on these markets, and it makes a set of key recommendations for improving the CHIPS Act and passing related legislation to ensure that the US can once again make its own microchips. These run a gamut from funding four new onshore foundries to requiring companies receiving CHIPS Act money to "dual-source" their foundries. They call for NIST and the CPO to ensure open licensing of key patents, and for aggressive policing of anti-dumping rules for cheap chips. They also seek a new law creating an "American Semiconductor Supply Chain Resiliency Fee" – a tariff on chips made offshore.

Fundamentally, these recommendations seek to end the outsourcing made possible by restrictive IP regimes, to undercut Wall Street's power to demand savings from offshoring, and to smash the market power of companies like Apple that make the brittleness of chip manufacturing into a feature, rather than a bug. This would include a return to previous antitrust rules, which limited companies' ability to leverage patents into standards, and to previous IP rules, which limited exclusive rights chip topography and design ("mask rights").

All of this will is likely to remove the constraints that stop poor countries from doing to America the same things that postcolonial America did to England – that is, it will usher in an era in which lots of countries make their own chips and other high-tech goods without paying rent to American companies. This is good! It's good for poor countries, who will have more autonomy to control their own technical destiny. It's also good for the world, creating resiliency in the high-tech manufacturing sector that we'll need as the polycrisis overwhelms various places with fire and flood and disease and war. Electrifying, solarizing and adapting the world for climate resilience is fundamentally incompatible with a brittle, highly concentrated tech sector.

Pluralizing high-tech production will make America less vulnerable to the gamesmanship of other countries – and it will also make the rest of the world less vulnerable to American bullying. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman describe so beautifully in their 2023 book Underground Empire, the American political establishment is keenly aware of how its chokepoints over global finance and manufacturing can be leveraged to advantage the US at the rest of the world's expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

Look, I know that Eisenhower didn't trade cow-lips for alien technology – but our political and commercial elites really did trade national resiliency away for IP laws, and it's a bargain that screwed everyone, except the one percenters whose power and wealth have metastasized into a deadly cancer that threatens the country and the planet.

Image: Mickael Courtiade (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/197739384@N07/52703936652/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[sinisterexaggerator]

Star-crossed

Imperial!Hunter xF!Reader

Summary: You are a lowly spy living on Akiva. Your mission is to gather intel for a growing resistance led by Bail Organa of Alderaan. You want to keep hope alive for people across the galaxy—but it won't do you any good should you die trying.

Enter the Imperial Headhunter—you've slipped up. Will you be captured and taken in, or will you get a second chance?

Warnings: NSFW/ 18+ for: Elements of predator/ prey, cat and mouse, brat-taming, enemies to lovers, knife play, cunnilingus, heavy kissing and petting, PiV sex, foul-language, and explicit sexual content. Mild dubious consent. There is use of pet names. Reader has hair of indeterminate length.

Word count: 6.2K

Notes: I've decided to write an Imperial Bad Batch series of fics and started with Hunter! Shoutout to @imperial-tracker and the memeforce crew, as they are an inspiration! I love the idea of an Imperial version of the Batch and couldn't help myself. I am choosing not to discuss the activation of his chip to let that be open-ended or ambiguous. No timeline for when I will write the rest, but I hope you guys enjoy this!

P.S.: I've been playing a lot of Star Wars: Outlaws, thus I chose the jungle planet of Akiva to be the setting for this story.

Ao3 link.

Fat droplets of rain pelted your face as you ran like wildfire through the jungles of Akiva, your pursuer hot on your trail. Overgrown vegetation, along with the fragrant blossoms and gnarled vines of Jarwal trees, provided cover as you leapt over a steep incline made of rock and landed hard on the ground.

You hoped desperately to avoid the Venga, an opportunistic creature that thrived during the rainy season, though now, the rain poured without relent. Still, it would be better than if he caught you—the headhunter sent by none other than the first Galactic Empire.

You had information—intel. You kept track of the small number of Imperial forces on this planet, relaying anything and everything of even minute importance to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. You were a part of a growing resistance—a small band of people spread thin across the galaxy—your sole mission to keep hope alive for all who needed it, though you were but a cog in the machine.

You needed to tell your contact that more people were willing to fight, that more of the Empire’s forces were arriving on Akiva by the day, and that soon they would take over the Stormhollow sector. Already, they were covertly building a military base just outside Pyke territory.

Ultimately, you were worried about your planet’s future.

Unfortunately, you had been caught snooping at an imperial construction site.

This soldier who was giving chase wasn’t like the others. Out of breath, you made it to a network of labyrinthine tunnels, catacombs that rested beneath Myrra, stretching far beyond the city—they were a series of twisting pathways that spiraled off into various tracts like that of an anthill, one specifically leading you back toward your longtime home in the mountains.

You lived east of the capital; you hoped to lose him somewhere along the way, knowing this planet like the back of your hand. Surely, he would be unable to find you if you could shake him in the foothills—little did you know he was built for this.

You pulled your cloak tighter, your hood closer, darkness momentarily prevailing upon your entrance to the catacombs, torches fueled by dilarium oil greeting you a few feet down. The Uugteen lived here, out of sight, but you knew how to avoid them, going the way of the old Separatist droid foundry, its machinery left derelict and in disrepair.

You desperately wished you hadn’t ditched your speeder once you realized you were being followed; a noise off to your right caused you to startle. You flashed your glowlamp toward the vicinity of the sound to spot a fengla scuttling off beneath refuse, having disconnected it from your belt. It was a small, hairless vermin with green eyes; you would rather meet a horde of them alone than to face your adversary head-on.

You sighed and moved onward, the creaking of expanding and contracting building materials and the smell of stale air your only company—or so you thought. Your human senses were incapable of detecting the commando who watched you, biding his time like a predator stalking its prey.

Brown eyes surveyed your every move from beneath a visor tinted black; the enhanced clone assessed your threat level, finding you to be no more harmful than a mouse. Hunter thought that to track you down was almost beneath him, though he had been given a direct order—not that he always followed through per his discretion.

“What do we have here …” the clone asked quietly enough, his voice echoing throughout the otherwise desolate space; it bounced off the walls in every direction so that you could not pinpoint its exact origin.

You gasped as you turned around, your eyes wild like that of an animal as you searched him out—that Imp you knew was in here with you—horrified to find that he stood mere feet away, blending into the metallic backdrop of the factory.

“A little bird,” — the black clad sergeant stepped forward, his pace languid, almost as if teasing you — “one that chirps a little too much, and a little too loudly.”

You bolted like a skittish fathier, kicking up dirt and grim as you fled down the nearest corridor, your heartbeat raging in your ears as you traveled what felt like miles, never once looking back.

And that voice was strangely familiar, as if you’d heard it somewhere before but couldn’t place it. It was smooth and sultry, unhurried—the auditory embodiment of patience, and more than a bit unnerving.

You broke free of the tunnels, escaping through an exit dug out from the earth to dash across a lush field of green grass. Nearby was a dilapidated temple, leftover from a bygone era, built by the Ahia-Ko; you would take shelter in its crumbling remains.

The mausim had worsened since you had ventured underground, thunder crashing above your head as your heart continued to thunder in your chest. You crawled beneath an outcrop of carved stone, decorated in ancient markings no one knew the meaning of, doing your utmost to hide.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you whispered to yourself, whipping your head to the left and right, knowing that just ahead was a steep drop-off you would need a grappling hook to handle, though you had stupidly left yours behind.

The only way out was to your right, though you heard footsteps, the crunching of twigs underfoot. This man wasn’t doing anything to conceal himself, knowing that he was somewhere up above you, the only thing shielding you from his sight, that bit of stonework hanging above your head.

“Hmm … where could she have gone?” the imperial commando asked aloud; you prayed to the stars above that he wasn’t being facetious in humoring himself, knowing full well that you lurked just beneath his boots, cornered like a dog on a dead-end street—perhaps he expected you to bite.

“Come out, little bird. I know you’re there,” came that purring lilt, the microscopic hairs on your arms standing at attention as you held your breath, daring not to make a peep like the little bird he thought you to be. You could feel yourself trembling, as much from the weather and the unrelenting rain as from fear, finding that instinct had led your hand to your blaster, ready to use force even though you felt you were no match for him.

“All right, then. We’ll do this the hard way, hm?”

You sucked in a ragged breath as the dark clad soldier landed roughly on the ground before you, having jumped from at least six feet down. You were trapped—literally—between a rock and a hard place, knowing that you would have to stand and fight.

“Kark you, imperial shit!” you screeched, pulling your pistol; the clone shot it straight out of your hand so that you screamed in pain, the bolt having singed your skin as you found yourself disarmed.

“Now, now. That’s no way to—”                             

Before the man could finish his sentence, you sprang to your feet and lunged. Despite facing off against a hardened soldier and you being a woman, you pinned him down, knocking the blaster out of his grip. But once you were both sprawled across the remnants of the temple floor, you did not know what to do next. It was obvious you had not thought this through, and your enemy could tell.

“What a compromising position,” he quipped, taking hold of both your wrists. You made to knee him in the groin but felt a wellspring of pain radiate up through your leg. He was well-protected from head to foot.

“Let me go!” you demanded, thrashing against him. He endeavored to hook your leg with his own, using his body weight to flip you over onto your back. You squirmed like a fish out of water, determined not to go down so easily.

Just then, your hood fell off. The clone hesitated, looking down upon you. You seized the opportunity to free one wrist, snatching off the bastard’s helmet so that your fist could land a clean shot to his jaw.

Then, you did much the same thing as he was, gazing up with a dumbfounded look on your face. It was the handsome clone from The Alcazar—the one you had fucked back in some cheap motel room.

“Hu-Hunter?” you asked breathlessly, staring into his doe brown eyes, even as a steady downpour of rain wetted your cheeks, your hair all but plastered to your forehead—you knew there had been something recognizable about his voice.

“Hmm,” he hummed, a low vibration in the back of his throat, your one-night stand tilting his head to the side. “I thought I smelled something … familiar,” he slyly returned; your eyes narrowed as you came back to your senses.

“You’re imperial?” you asked through gritted teeth, having met this clone when he was dressed in civilian clothing. You supposed he had been off duty then, stationed on Akiva for Force knows what, and you just happened to be a sucker for a pretty face, not to mention halfway to wasted.

“And it would seem that you’re a naughty girl,” he replied silkily.

You silently cursed yourself as you felt your loins stir, thinking your body ridiculous for behaving in such a manner, though you had no control over your own hormones. You threshed against him once more, taking a swipe at his hair, aiming to rip off that stupid bandana he wore marked by the symbol of the empire. If only he had been wearing it when you first met.

The commando was too fast for you, dodging by shifting his neck one inch to the left. He smirked, snatching that roaming hand back up to affix both your wrists to either side of your ears, pegging your arms to the ground.

“What am I to do with you?” he asked rhetorically, Hunter’s chestnut locks dangling limply over his eyes, soaked to the roots by the rain.

You were quiet, so taken in by his beauty; no man should be this pretty, you thought, attempting to shake yourself free of his spell.

You briefly came back to yourself. “You’re on the wrong side,” you hissed, “and I have done nothing wrong.”

“No? And just where is that camera you’re hiding?”

You stiffened, knowing he meant the one you had used to take visual images of the partially constructed imperial facility back in Stormhollow, having concealed it in the pouch hanging from your belt. It was small and compact; you had planned to share the photos with Bail Organa, though not all was going according to plan.

“None of your business,” you seethed.

Fuck, he was hot. You hated yourself increasingly with every passing second, feeling your blood warm beneath the surface of your skin despite the cool temperature of the surrounding air. Most of the time, Akiva was hot and muggy, but this was the wet season—suddenly, in more ways than one.

“Oh, but it is my business,” Hunter said, his butter smooth tone doing a number on you twice now. “Don’t make me have to search you by hand, little bird.”

“Don’t touch me,” you growled, though it lacked conviction. You weren’t sure you could even convince yourself you did not want him to, much less the clone on top of you.

“Come now, you didn’t seem to mind before,” Hunter teased, lifting both your arms higher, cinching your wrists in one hand, mashing them together. His other hand gingerly explored your clothes, starting at your shoulders before moving toward your middle, giving you a pat down in small increments.

“That was before I knew you were an Imp.” You wriggled beneath him, trying to move away from his soft touch, though you felt bothered in a different way, remembering the night you had spent together all too vividly.

“So, now what’s your excuse?” Finally, his open palm rested along your waist. He had a simper tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was infuriating, but also incredibly attractive. You kicked your legs one more time for good measure, but Hunter did not budge.

“Piss off,” you grated.

“Do you know how I found you so easily, sweetheart?” He was clearly amused, and that further angered you.

You glared at him, not answering, finding it peculiar, though you did not want to readily admit it. Akiva was your home—it had been since your birth. You knew this planet like the back of your hand, yet still he was able to find you when other troopers had failed. They had always lost your trail; you had always outsmarted them, yet Hunter was the only one who had come this far.

“I’m a tracker, little bird. An experimental soldier—” he bent down low, nearly brushing his nose against yours, your eyes scanning his tattooed face as you feigned not wanting to kiss him. “I pick up on things—smells, sounds—the scent of sex, lust, desire.”

Hunter’s free hand slid down, his knuckles caressing the side of your face, his leather glove smooth against your skin. “And you’re nothing if not an open book.”

Your whole body stiffened; you felt like a mouse caught in the claws of a nexu, yet you would be lying if you told him he was wrong. You sucked in a breath, uncertain of your escape, notwithstanding that you were comfortable right where you were, and rightfully so—the clone nestled securely on your lap, apparently uninclined to move.

As fate would have it, the headhunter’s superhuman senses caught wind of something else, just as that something came crashing down with an ear-piercing screech. All of Akiva was a jungle; you had no doubt about what thatsomethingwas, though Hunter was caught off guard for one split second—it was enough time for you to initiate a new sequence of events.

You wrenched one arm free from his grasp just as a fussy little Kowakian monkey-lizard tumbled into sight. It was angry, as the branch it had been seated on had snapped under pressure, causing the reptilian creature to take a rather nasty fall. Surprised to see you both, it threw a rock in your direction; Hunter swatted it away, not expecting you to reach up toward his face.

He reclaimed your wrist, but it was too late; you were cradling his cheek in your palm. It was the best plan you could produce—hopefully, he wouldn’t see through it straightaway.

You curled your fingers, then drew him in, whispering, “kiss me, then.”

Hunter gazed at you with a furrowed brow; he studied the look in your eyes before consciously agreeing, even if against his better judgment.

The clone dipped down low, scooping up the back of your head. Truth be told, he was happy to indulge you. There was no reason he could not have his cake and eat it, too. Although he would have to turn you over for detention, he might as well give you pleasant memories for those cold, lonely nights you would spend in a cell.

Your lips parted as Hunter’s pressed against yours; you searched out his tongue, lapping eagerly at the inside of his mouth. With a moan, you clawed into his damp curls, bringing him closer as your breathing intensified and became uneven.

You made a move to coax him to release you all together, wiggling your other arm. After a moment’s hesitation, he let you loose; you used the opportunity to wrap it around his neck as your kiss went deeper and slowed down—it was all a part of your poorly thought-out plan.

“Hunter,” you enunciated between broken breaths, your hips lurching upward. You had to commit to the bit, or otherwise you would lose your focus, finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the taste of him, or the feeling of his body cozied up to yours.

But why not just go with it? What harm could it do? It was tempting to ignore everything and simply give in to the moment, but your mission far outweighed any pleasure you might receive, or at least that’s what you had to tell yourself to carry on.

“What a shame I have to turn you in,” Hunter said in that deceptively erotic tone; it would drive you wild if you allowed it, your hand slipping down, down, gripping Hunter’s black spaulder before inching toward his rerebrace, ever closer to your goal.

“You could always let me go,” you whispered, digging into his armor with your fingers as if you could touch his bicep beneath it, skirting the underside of his blacks.

The sergeant chuckled against your lips; you could feel his codpiece grinding into you, knowing what he kept beneath it, how it felt inside you. “I don’t think so, kitten.”

“Too bad,” you muttered, wrapping your tongue under and then across his in a swirl. Your cheeks hollowed to suck, distracting the commando the best you could as you finally had the guts to try your luck.

You snatched Hunter’s knife loose from its sheath on his vambrace, then broke away from the kiss; it hummed to life as you held the blade to the clone’s bare throat. His dark eyes flashed; he bore a mischievous smile, though your expression had turned serious. He seemed unbothered, though his voice was stern. “Is that the best you can do?”

It took milliseconds for him to latch on to your forearm; he twisted it in such a manner that it caused your fingers to loosen. You screamed, then aimed to drive your other palm into his nose, but Hunter was too quick.

You found yourself once more bound by your wrists. You bucked violently beneath him, then thrust all your weight to one side. You both rolled toward the edge of the ledge—the one you would have needed your grappling hook to conquer.

“Wait!” you shrieked, one arm dangling over the side of a precipice that was a drop of at least one hundred feet. The clone snatched you backward to where you now rested on top of him, having nearly tossed yourselves over the brink.

You both breathed heavily, staring into each other’s eyes. After a moment, Hunter latched onto your shoulders and forced you to roll the other way, collecting dirt and leaves all over your clothes—though by the end, you found yourself pinned once more, only inches from the actuated blade.

Hunter snatched it up, twirling the weapon once between adept, gloved fingers. This time, he held it to your throat—his breathing finally settled, though you were still all wound up.

“Do you know why they call this a vibroknife, sweetheart?” he asked, his expression stoic and unreadable. You gazed up at him like a dugar dugar caught in the headlight of a speeder, swallowing down your excess spit.

Instead of elaborating, he trailed its vibrating pommel between your breastbone, zigzagging it for effect. Hunter slipped its handle all the way down your chest toward your belly before he ended at your lap, pressing the butt squarely against your groin. He would push it into the soft fabric of your tights, then lean in close.

“I’ll give you one guess,” he said cockily.

The faint buzz of the blade on your tights silenced you, the sensation delightfully climbing upwards. It was clear he knew what he was doing; your breathing would not calm but deepen.

“Tooka got your tongue?” he asked, smiling subtly down at you, though he held within his gaze something mildly sinister. “Well, then. It’s best I show you.”

Hunter pushed the butt of the vibroknife more succinctly between your thighs. Even though you were clothed, you felt every tremor, every oscillation of the pommel. Your tights were thin, made for easy maneuverability, just like his armor. You gasped as the clone angled it against your clit, the quiver of the knife so intense your eyes rolled toward the back of your head, able to feel everything as if he were touching bare skin.

“H-Hunter!” you breathed his name once more, trying to hold on to your dignity. The commando canted his head, a few strands of sodden hair following suit as he stared down at you, forcing the knife’s handle against you just a little harder.

“Hm?” he asked with a kind of arrogant nonchalance, Hunter watching the way your facial muscles twitched as the continued vibrations drove you closer to the edge of an orgasm. You felt as if you couldn’t catch a breath, one of your knees lifting as you gyrated gently against the ground, both your hands finding the clone’s shoulders as you held on tight.

“Fuck,” you muttered, finally giving in to a moan. Your hips arched upward without your permission, the whirring of the blade seeming to increase in its intensity. Then, fireworks erupted before your eyes; you did not consciously know what was happening, losing sight of your surroundings as your vision blurred. You stared straight up at the canopy of trees above your head as your heart fluttered rapidly, your body seconds from succumbing to his game against your will.

“That’s right, sweetheart, give into it. It will make things all the easier,” Hunter purred, his other hand rising to cradle your face in the bowl of his hand. He brushed back a droplet of rain clinging to your cheek with his thumb, as if it were a fallen tear, then leaned down to kiss you, even as you writhed like a common whore, unable to stop yourself from coming.

You had no idea what he had meant—easier to capture? Easier to control?

You rode out your orgasm to its completion, knowing why the Twi’lek called it “the little death,” feeling as if you had transcended to another realm entirely as you came down, though now feeling wholly insatiable, wanting the man all to yourself—no matter who or what he was.

“Fuck me,” you spoke between jagged gasps for oxygen; Hunter had not yet pulled the blade away. You could feel another orgasm building, your chest heaving with every new breath you sought.

“And will you be good for me?” he asked, beginning to swirl the butt of the blade in micro circles. Your hips rotated in unison as you attempted to speak your mind.

“A-asshole,” you managed between fractured pants for air. Hunter chuckled wryly at your struggle.

“Wrong answer,” he stated coolly, able to sense your pleasure mounting. He waited until the time was right, then took his vibrating blade away; you clenched your thighs in protest, letting out a whine.

You were so distraught that you barely noticed him hoisting you up to sit by your gathered wrists, having easily sheathed that accursed knife. He dragged you back, the seat of your pants dusting the ground as he positioned your spine against a tumbledown pillar once belonging to the Ahia-Ko. The remains of this temple were a feat of architectural engineering; perhaps he would have taken the time to admire it, but for now he had other things to occupy his mind.

“What-what are you doing?” you asked with a soft exhalation, Hunter keeping you still as one hand disappeared behind himself. He unclipped a set of binders from his belt, then brought them around.

“Stand up,” he laconically demanded.

You were tempted to disobey, but you drew your knees up to place your feet flat on the ground. You pushed up with your thighs. Hunter remained silent for as long as it took him to anchor you in place, then inched backward to study his work.

“Can’t have you trying anything funny, now can we?” he asked in a deep, enchanting drawl.

Curse him and the starship he flew in on.

“What are you on about?” you dared, though your chest felt tight, having been tortured by pleasure, unsure if you were glad that it was over. But you found you missed the taste of his kiss, pining for it; all you could do was lamely rattle the binders that barred you from touching him.

Hunter did not answer you; he dropped to his knees and pulled the waistband of your tights and underwear down along with him in one fell swoop, revealing your sex to the open air of the jungle. To say that you felt a breeze was an understatement, though no other coherent thoughts filled your mind; Hunter buried his tongue between the folds of your labia without warning, its flat, broad surface lapping a line from the cusp of your cunt to the top of your clit, stopping to thoroughly suck your throbbing bud between his puckered lips.

“Fuck—” you could only repeat yourself from earlier, hardly able to stand up straight as Hunter switched to gingerly flicking his tongue’s tip across your nub. You were practically sopping wet from before; you could feel your own slick dripping down your inner thighs.

Hunter did not shy away, slipping one arm under your ass to help keep you aloft as he spread your lips apart for better access between his fore and middle fingers. You felt as if you could melt; become one with the forest floor.

“Don’t-don’t stop,” you begged. Hunter moaned his appreciation into your mound as his nose brushed against soft flesh; he ate and ate. His strokes became longer and more languid; he pressed his face more firmly against you, his cock standing erect behind his codpiece. Once he felt you were stable, he released his hold, then steeped two gloved digits inside you, the creak of leather accompanying the act of him curling his fingers, playing you like some Zeltronian lute.

“Too much,” you whispered, though it was just right, knowing you were seconds away from coming for the second time. The pressure against your anterior wall was perfect; the glide of the leather itself was an indescribable turn-on, though you were far past that.

“Kiss me,” you entreated once more, though instead he went back to a diligent suck, the undulation of his tongue’s tip rolling against your clit as he pushed against the deep seat of your core.

It was a triad of sensations; your body trembled against the moss-covered pillar propping you up. You knew you had your work cut out for you if you were to escape the headhunter’s clutches once and for all, but you were not sure you even cared to do so by this point.

Within the sleeve of your cloak was a tool designed for picking locks; you slipped your fingers across and inside, even as you fucked Hunter’s face, gently riding the curve of his nose as he continued to titillate you, the warmth in your bowels rising to a head, your body already so sensitive.

“Yes,” you praised him, biting down on your lower lip. Hunter’s eyes trailed up your form to land on your face; you were cognizant enough to halt the movement of your hands. He wanted to witness your expression as he led you to the point of no return.

Within seconds, you obliged him with one of ecstasy, whether or not meaning to. You rode the fingers still immersed within you, gliding back and forth, over and across them. Hunter matched your pace until you were practically limp, the clone retreating from your insides to wipe his fingers off on his thigh before he stood up to his full height.

You teetered, though you kept hold of that tiny tool that would allow you to pick at your cuffs; it was nothing larger than a hairpin. Hunter pressed his body against yours, overcome with the animal instinct to bury himself in your hair, smelling deeply of your natural fragrance before he released a low, predatory sound.

Then, he cut a piece off.

You gasped as he twirled his vibroknife, sliding it back inside its sheath. He had been so quick to do so; it boggled your mind. The commando gazed at you with heavy-lidded, brooding eyes before stowing the bit of hair into a pouch on his belt. “Just in case,” he smirked, knowing now that he would never be one to lose your trail should you escape.

You blinked, unsure of what had just occurred. The clone pushed his belt up and unhooked his crotch and skid plate; they fell to the ground with a clatter. You stared up at him, panting for breath as if you had just run a marathon. Hunter hovered close, the smell of you still on him, taking hold of your chin.

“Ready for me, little bird?” he asked.

You shook your head; Hunter kissed you, prying apart the magnetic fasteners of his body glove at the groin. His prick was swollen with his blood, thick and girthy, with pre-cum leaking from its head. You knew what it looked like from days previous, your eyes closing as your tongue joined in with his, tasting yourself as he pressed his cock against your eager sex.

You lifted one leg; Hunter hoisted it up, guiding it to wrap around his waist. Though you were bound, you pulled him closer by the crook of your knee, your other foot still flat on the ground.

“Come on, then,” you taunted, sinking your teeth into his bottom lip. Hunter gave you a dark, sensual look that sent shivers down your spine. He guided himself in—you were wet ten times over, ready, and willing to take every inch.

“You are a brat,” he remarked. You fit him like a glove, the clone commando groaning throatily as he sunk deep into the core of your being, your walls snug and warm, Hunter having to force himself not to release his seed too soon.

“Let’s see if I can make you sing, bird,” he spoke softly into your ear, twisting his fingers into your hair as he pulled you tightly to his body. You found yourself flush against his cuirass, never imagining yourself to be in this position, yet so drawn to him it was nearly inexplicable.

Hunter palmed the shape of your breast, tilting his hips forward; slowly his hand trailed down, locking onto the dip in your waist while the other kept hold of the back of your head. He used your own body as leverage; you met him in the middle every time, counter-thrusting when Hunter did, gliding smoothly over his cock with ease.

“But you’ve caged me,” you whispered, appealing to whatever goodness might be inside him. Even so, you were hungry for him, peppering kisses at the corner of his mouth, across his lips, seeking his tongue time and time again.

“You’ve done that to yourself,” Hunter replied, moving to squeeze your bare ass. You gave a chirrup in response, flexing your walls around him. Hunter groaned from the added pressure, slowing the roll of his hips lest he burst.

“What a funny way to look at things,” you hissed, taking the lead. Hunter concealed himself in the bend of your neck, the other hand joining his left, each now tightly groping one half of your shapely buttocks.

“I have my orders.”

You laughed a dry, vicious laugh. “What a good little soldier you are.”

Something snapped within him, the commando activating his powerful quads to drive his cock into you at a speed that was more pronounced. He snatched you around the throat, forcing you to look him in the eye, the other hand moving to pinch your clit between two fingers.

“I am what I am,” the clone growled as you gasped, his pinching turning toward a frictional rub, adding to the pleasurable prodding of your erogenous zone.

You felt the fire in your belly building up, slipping down, sending you toward climax as Hunter fucked you open, arms clinging, mouth wide as you gazed at the sky; the rain still fell, clouding your eyes.

You were nearing overstimulation; you rocked with him in a steady rhythm, disregarding everything but the feeling of him inside you. Then, Hunter lifted your shirt, your nipple sucked into his ardent mouth. You struggled to maintain your balance, kissing his ear, neck, nipping and biting, moaning his name. “Hunter.”

His left hand stayed between you both; his thumb running circles over your thrumming bud. You couldn’t hold back any longer—it was too much. You vocalized to the heavens, the entire jungle, coming for a third time, praising his name over and over like a mantra.

His voice purred into your ear, telling you how good you felt, bouncing you over his cock until you were begging him to stop. It was your pleading that drove him over the edge; you sang for him like the little bird you were.

Hunter thrust into you twice more, already aware that you were protected, coating your walls with his ejaculate as he groaned your name, his blunt teeth grazing your lip as he smashed his mouth onto yours, both of you once more joining tongues.

You timed it exactly right; you unlocked your binders as Hunter soared high, though you made no moves to dislodge them from your wrists. Instead, you stood there, letting the man rest his head, letting him lie against you, his chest rising and falling as he breathed in lungfuls of air.

Then, the commando’s comlink bleeped at him; someone on the other end wanted his attention—his superior, no doubt, or perhaps a colleague.

The clone pulled back to stare into your eyes. You held his gaze for as long as he stood transfixed. Something silent passed between you, Hunter gradually sliding out of your plush loins, wanting to stay there a moment longer, but knowing that you both were now at a crossroads, and him with a final decision to make.

“CT-9901, reporting.”

You did not bother to strain your ears as he walked away; Hunter tucked himself back into his blacks with his other hand. You watched quietly from your position against the pillar, finally slipping the first cuff from off your wrist.

You saw a pause in his step—had he heard you? If he had, the clone gave no outward sign, so you continued.

“I am aware, general,” you heard him say as you gathered the waistband of your tights and panties, shimmying them back up your waist and hips. With the clone’s back turned, you took a chance, bending down low to creep along the ground.

Hunter seemed distracted with his conversation. That, and the fact he had stooped down to scoop up his helmet, not seeming to notice you picking up first your own blaster, then his; they had long been discarded after your first altercation more than half an hour ago.

“This planet has a habit of washing away evidence,” Hunter said, his inflection denoting his annoyance, “this thing the locals call a mausim doesn’t seem to be letting up.”

As you stepped backward, you felt a small rock roll underfoot; it bounced lightly across the temple floor, clinking against a piece of Hunter’s discarded armor, the commando having taken the call without reattaching his crotch or skid plates.

Hunter had been pacing, though he jerked to a halt. He kept his back to you, not bothering to investigate. The clone had recognized from the get-go you would attempt to run from the moment he had placed his face between your legs. His heightened senses were keen enough to notice the slight movement of your fingers, though he had chosen to ignore it.

“Affirmative. Understood.”

You had inched farther away by the time he disconnected the comm, both blasters poised and at the ready, aimed at Hunter’s back. He placed his helmet back over his head, securing it in place, then spun around to face you.

“Are you going to shoot me?” he asked point-blank.

“Are you going to turn me in?” you returned, wondering if he had changed his mind.

“I won’t be going far without my codpiece,” he replied, walking back toward the pillar where he had left them on the ground. “The least I can do is give you a head start.”

You stared at him, unable to read his face through the bucket on his head, gazing into the black visor that hid his beautiful brown eyes; he began to clip the pieces back to his waist. You hesitated, not wanting to leave, but not wanting to stay—Hunter made sure to give you a bit more of a wake-up call.

“I’d get a move on; this won’t take long.”

You felt like crying, yelling, kicking, punching—but you wouldn’t let your feelings get in the way. Not now. Not when you had a second chance, however small. You still had the camera, the photos, the intel. You had your mission, and Hunter had his—you were star-crossed, doomed from the start.

“Isn’t there some other way?” you pleaded, voice cracking with emotion.

There was a lengthy pause.

“No.”

You nodded, taking one last, long look.

Finally, you departed, propelling yourself forward through the wind and rain, determined to lose him if that was what must be done. You would scent yourself with the blooms of the Asuka tree, cake yourself in mud—anything to throw him off your trail.

Hunter sighed and watched after you. What a waste it would be to throw you in a cell, though it was, after all, his duty.

His voice did not reach you as you vanished into bramble and vine—“Beat wing, little bird,” he whispered.

[gippity]

Trump and Palantir Forge a Pan-Government Surveillance State, Empowering Tech Oligarchs and Silencing Critics

Source article for analysis: https://newrepublic.com/post/195904/trump-palantir-data-americans

1. Narrative Framing

Simplicity & “Common-Sense” Appeal The administration casts cross‐agency data‐sharing as an efficiency and “government modernization” measure, flattening complex privacy and constitutional concerns into a feel-good story about bureaucratic streamlining. This preloads the conclusion that any objection is mere technophobia or red tape, rather than a debate over surveillance power.

Binary Framing (“Security vs. Chaos”) By emphasizing “national security” and “public safety,” critics are implicitly positioned as indifferent to immigrant crime or terrorism, pressuring dissenters to choose between safety and liberty—an either-or that forecloses nuanced policy discussion.

2. Emotional Engineering

Fear & Resentment References to “enforcing the March executive order,” “punish his critics,” and fears of immigrant targeting stoke anxiety about arbitrary state power. This fear is then channeled into loyalty among “true patriots” who trust the administration to wield that power wisely.

Pride & Tribal Bonding Invoking a “war on inefficiency” and naming a “far-right billionaire” ally provides a rallying narrative for supporters who see themselves as part of an inner circle, engendering pride in being on the “winning team.”

3. Pipeline On-Ramps & Ecosystem Mapping

Soft Entry via “Modernization” Pitches around “data modernization” and “innovation” serve as gateway content—memes and soundbites in tech-oriented outlets gradually introduce audiences to more radical surveillance proposals.

Content Funnel

Friendly tech press (“efficiency gains”)

Conservative opinion pieces (“keep America safe”)

Policy white papers and FOIA-leaked memos (“full database blueprints”)

Private sector deep dives (Palantir user groups, DOD contractor briefings)

4. Dog Whistles & Euphemisms

“National Security” Sanitized language for mass surveillance and immigrant tracking.

“Data-Driven Governance” A euphemism that hides the indiscriminate collection of personal information under the veneer of neutral analytics.

“Government Efficiency” Code for centralizing power and reducing agency-specific safeguards that currently protect civil liberties.

5. Archetypes & Mythos

Tech-Militarist Savior Casting Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as modern “warrior-lords” of data who will “defend” America—evoking the warrior archetype that simplifies identity into a battle of “us vs. them.”

Fallen Homeland Narrative Suggests America’s institutions are backward and corrupt, needing a techno-strongman to resurrect core values—mirroring the “rise-from-ruin” mythos common in alt-right rhetoric.

6. Strategic Impact Assessment

Real-World Mobilization This intel could be used to silence dissidents (through audits, visa denials, or targeted prosecutions), chill protest activity, and surveil immigrant communities disproportionately.

Beneficiaries & Victims Tech oligarchs (Thiel, Musk) and the Trump political machine gain concentrated power; critics, immigrants, student activists, and labor organizers become object lessons.

7. Vibe Warfare & Identity Signals

Stoic Realist Aesthetic Dark, angular visuals of data centers and code screens reinforce a mood of uncompromising techno-authority.

“Based” Tech Patriotism Pittings of “innovation bros” vs. “liberal elites,” using jargon (“Foundry,” “Grok”) as in-group markers to foster parasocial loyalty among tech-savvy conservatives.

8. Epistemic Booby Traps & Self-Sealing Logic

“If you have nothing to hide…” Pre-emptively discredits objections by labeling them paranoia or disloyalty, barring dissenting evidence from being taken seriously.

Data as Truth Presents analytics as inherently objective, making any critique of methodology or oversight seem “anti-science.”

9. Irony Shielding & Tone Drift

Tech-Bro Irony Occasional self-deprecating jokes about “big brother” memes allow participants plausible deniability (“We’re just goofing, who doesn’t love tech?”), while the surveillance machinery locks in.

Memetic Alchemy Use of playful GIFs or “dank” one-liners about “tracking your ex’s Starbucks habit” masks the seriousness of mass data collection.

[poorlytunedukulele]

Day 2 - Tower/Day 4 - Reunion

Over his years as the Vanguard, Andal Brask finds himself falling into certain routines.   It’s not bad, exactly- he does things for a reason, and without the chaos of a wild Hunter life constantly throwing spanners into his works, those reasons tend towards similar means.  His Consensus days, for example, always begin with a pot of tea.  Enough for a nice large mug to soothe his morning nerves, and the rest to fill a thermos for sipping during the hours-long debates.  He chooses a couple of Crucible feeds with funny commentators to put on in the background while doing busywork.  He acquires a favorite baker’s stall on the concourse.  He takes walks in the same courtyards.

Some habits are born out of necessity.  He finds himself showering at the same time every day (partially driven by a need to sleep in, partially to avoid the crowds in the Hunter dorm’s communal bathrooms).  He becomes a regular at a few restaurants he can drop by for a quick, dependable lunch on his breaks.  He stops short of taking the same route to work every day, but when he’s running late, he knows the quickest path by heart.

Some routines, though, are born of joy.  He has his welcome speech for new Guardians down pat, with just the right mix of showmanship and reassurance.  The look of wonder in their eyes as they take in the Tower never gets old.  (A few years into his tenure and he’s already made far too many farewells.  He tries to savor the introductions when he can.)

His favorites, however, are the reunions.  He can go weeks without seeing his Pack in person.  They come by the Tower more often now, but their schedules don’t always align.  He’s busy.  They’re busy.  So when they do have a chance to get together and catch up, he tries to make the most of it.

Shiro, he tries to ply with new, interesting things.  They visit foundries and armorsmiths, test out guns, debate the merits of just-invented technologies and old relics.  Andal keeps the spiciest bits of gossip and intel for him.  They go out to museums, too, and good restaurants.  There are a thousand cool things the City has to offer, if you’re willing to spend the time to find them.  In his heart, Andal knows it’s not really the sights Shiro keeps coming to see.  He gets the feeling he could start taking the younger Hunter to Thaumaturgy lectures and he’d still keep tagging along.  It’s not the novelty that Shiro needs, it’s the sense of normalcy.  He needs to be reminded there’s a world away from Fallen troop movements and Hive rituals.

When Azra comes back, he’ll take her out to dinner, as well.  Someplace quiet, or with takeout to bring back to his room.  Maybe they go for a walk, or go look at some gear.  But he’s always sure to, at minimum, load her stomach with good food and pack up the leftovers for her (she’s always been the type to just go for the easiest thing around, and he worries).  And he’ll ply her for information on whatever exotic locale she’s run off to lately.  He’ll trade her stories with ones of his own- funny anecdotes from strikes, Vanguard intel that’s technically top-secret, the likes.  They talk about anything that isn’t the City.  Even when Azra’s just touched down, she’s always itching to go.  It pains Andal that he never quite sees her comfortable anymore.  He remembers the bored, ponderous conversations and the lazy musings she used to drop into the quiet of the woods.  She used to nap.  He has to pray that the others are keeping a safe place for her.

Tevis needs a room more than anything else.  A safe place to sleep and a confidante.  His demons have always had sharp claws and a lot of stamina.  Andal knows he talks to Shiro some, and Azra more, but as the two oldest in their pack, Andal and Tevis have always shared a special bond.  So the Nightstalker will drop by and Andal will make him some tea, and maybe they’ll talk and maybe they won’t, but they always end up curled together on the futon when the sun sets.  Whatever’s said in the dead of night, whatever worries are breathed, whatever tears are shed, they stay there.  The morning is always better for it.  Tevis will make omelets, and with the sun streaming through the open windows, they can talk about lighter things.  Andal notices how Tevis’s shoulders sag less when he leaves.  He measures it and hopes it is enough.

When Cayde comes back from some long haul, they always take a night on the town.  Drinking, eating, getting up to general mischief (as much mischief as the Hunter Vanguard can get away with, in any case).  Their time together is always bright and exciting.  Andal notices how it becomes a bit more frantic as the years go on.  Both he and Cayde are trying to make up for lost time, and they’re both always coming up short.  They sing and dance and Cayde’s smile is always a little too eager, his optics a little too bright.  Somewhere, Cayde is realizing that this might be all he ever gets.  Every time the sun rises and Cayde trundles back out into the wilds, Andal promises himself if won’t be.

AO3 Linky!

[bintangchipblog]

What is a Foundry? Why It’s the Key to Chip Manufacturing

In the heart of the global electronics industry lies a quiet giant—the semiconductor foundry. While companies like Apple, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm design the chips that power your favorite devices, it's the foundries that physically bring those designs to life. But what exactly is a foundry, and why is it so critical to chip manufacturing?

What is a Semiconductor Foundry?

A semiconductor foundry, or simply "foundry," is a manufacturing facility that fabricates integrated circuits (ICs). These ICs, also known as microchips or chips, are the brains behind modern electronics—everything from smartphones and laptops to cars and industrial machinery.

Foundries specialize in manufacturing chips designed by other companies, a business model known as pure-play foundry. For example, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is the world’s largest and most advanced foundry, producing chips for tech giants without competing with them in design.

There are also IDMs (Integrated Device Manufacturers) like Intel, which both design and manufacture their own chips. However, the pure-play foundry model has become dominant due to the increasing complexity and cost of chip manufacturing.

The Role of a Foundry in Chip Manufacturing

Chip design is only half the equation. Once a design is finalized using software and simulations, it must be turned into physical silicon wafers through a meticulous and highly precise process involving:

Photolithography: Transferring microscopic circuit patterns onto silicon.

Etching and Deposition: Carving and layering materials to form transistors and interconnects.

Ion Implantation: Modifying electrical properties at the atomic level.

Packaging and Testing: Encasing chips and validating their performance.

This process takes place in ultra-clean, billion-dollar facilities where even a speck of dust can ruin a chip. Foundries provide the scale, expertise, and cleanroom environments necessary to execute this complex task at nanometer precision.

Why Foundries Are the Key to the Chip Industry

Enabling Innovation Through Specialization Foundries allow fabless companies (those that only design chips) to focus on innovation without the burden of operating expensive fabrication plants. This division of labor has accelerated technological progress.

Advanced Process Technology Leading foundries invest billions into R&D and process nodes (like 5nm, 3nm, or 2nm technology), pushing the boundaries of performance and power efficiency.

Scalability and Global Supply Foundries serve a wide range of industries: consumer electronics, automotive, medical, aerospace, and more. Their capacity and scalability make them vital to maintaining the global tech supply chain.

Geopolitical and Economic Importance Countries now consider foundries as strategic assets, essential for national security and economic resilience. Supply chain disruptions in recent years have spotlighted their critical role.

Conclusion

Foundries are the unsung heroes of the digital era. While designers craft the vision for future chips, it’s the foundries that make those visions a reality with unmatched precision and scale. As chip demands surge across AI, IoT, and 5G, the importance of foundries in the semiconductor ecosystem will only grow.

Whether you're holding a smartphone or driving a smart vehicle, chances are a chip built in a foundry is powering the experience—quietly but powerfully behind the scenes.

[pulsaris]

"A Intel revelou este mês que a tecnologia de processo Intel 18A está a progredir para a produção em grande volume no segundo semestre de 2025. A Intel 18A coloca os clientes de fundição na vanguarda da inovação, introduzindo dois avanços no fabrico de semicondutores para melhorar os produtos Intel e aqueles disponíveis para os clientes da Intel Foundry.

Eis uma breve introdução ao Intel 18A, que combina transístores gate-all-around RibbonFET com PowerVia, a primeira implementação exclusiva da Intel no sector de fornecimento de energia traseira."

Saiba tudo em: https://newsroom.intel.com/intel-foundry/intel-18a-process-technology-simply-explained e em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FfoGzK4VEQ

______ Direitos de imagem: © Intel Corporation (via https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/)

[nashscribblings]

Radio Dead Air Tech Q&A tonight at 9pm ET.

In addition to facing massive RMA's, Intel's Foundry business resulted in losses so start they stopped their dividend and cut *15,000* jobs this week. We'll talk about it!

Send your tech questions to requests@radiodeadair.com and we'll answer them live tonight!

[arcticdementor]

The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab.  This is not the way companies typically respond to multi-billion-dollar subsidies. So what explains chipmakers’ apparent ingratitude? In large part, frustration with DEI requirements embedded in the CHIPS Act.  Commentators have noted that CHIPS and Science Act money has been sluggish. What they haven’t noticed is that it’s because the CHIPS Act is so loaded with DEI pork that it can’t move.

…

Handouts abound. There’s plenty for the left—requirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as “justice-involved individuals,” more commonly known as ex-cons. There’s plenty for the right—veterans and members of rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of minorities. There’s even plenty for the planet: Arizona Democrats just bragged they’ve won $15 million in CHIPS funding for an ASU project fighting climate change. That project is going better for Arizona than the actual chips part of the CHIPS Act. Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanity’s most complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those underrepresented groups, as TSMC discovered to its dismay.  Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they weren’t skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December, agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab. Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first, which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germany’s chip subsidies, as is Intel.

…

In short, the world’s best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the CHIPS Act’s political games. They’ve quietly given up on America. Intel must know the coming grants are election-year stunts — mere statements of intent that will not be followed up. Even after due diligence and final agreements, the funds will only be released in dribs and drabs as recipients prove they’re jumping through the appropriate hoops. For instance, chipmakers have to make sure they hire plenty of female construction workers, even though less than 10 percent of U.S. construction workers are women. They also have to ensure childcare for the female construction workers and engineers who don’t exist yet. They have to remove degree requirements and set “diverse hiring slate policies,” which sounds like code for quotas. They must create plans to do all this with “close and ongoing coordination with on-the-ground stakeholders.”  No wonder Intel politely postponed its Columbus fab and started planning one in Ireland. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was launching a CHIPS-funded training program for historically black colleges.

…

This is the stuff declining empires are made of. As America pursues national security by building a diverse workforce, China does it by building warships.  The CHIPS Act’s current identity as a jobs program for favored minorities means companies are forced to recruit heavily from every population except white and Asian men already trained in the field. It’s like fishing in all the places you aren’t getting bites.

[optiwashere]

Ooooooo another option ask game?????

Okay okay!!!!!

Im dying for 10 for general. I gotta if we meet all 9 of her siblings and her mom and dad. I am HUNTING for any CRUMB of info on the Asheera family home.

Also was Asheera the only child that transition in their household? I feel like the odds would say no

Thanks for asking about this one anon!!!

10. Are there any unique NPCs associated with your Tav that can show up during the course of the game?

I think her dad is the most likely to show up, honestly. There's connections with the Gondians there. He'd be one possible avenue of gathering intel about that quest, probably about the layout/defenses. Potentially giving you a clue about the weaknesses of the Watch. You'd likely meet him either outside the Foundry or somewhere in Rivington.

Though the game models are all really the same size wise across the ancestries, you'd meet a dark-skinned, broad-shouldered, generally exhausted human man named Diar (pron. d-YAR).

And to answer your off-brand question: she and one of her brothers are trans 💜

[demigirlboss2girlrotboogaloo]

Honestly, this can't last. It'll collapse eventually, and when it does a *lot* of things are going to end up in landfills. Cloud computing was supposed to be cheaper, easier, more scalable, but as time's gone on the price gouging by both hardware vendors and the hyperscalers that provide the services has made it less and less viable for most people and organizations to opt for cloud storage and compute. I can't find the exact quote right now, but Wendell from Level1Techs once made a really good point about how it used to be that you would just buy a thinclient, and hook it up to a cloud compute server, and you wouldn't have to worry about stocking and maintaining expensive hardware. But nowadays, the cost of cloud storage and compute and honestly even the thinclients is so ridiculously astronomical that in a lot of cases organizations are better off just getting high power NUCs instead, since while yes a fleet of those might cost you fifty-odd thousand dollars, you will have already made that money back in a year from all the cloud subscriptions you aren't paying anymore.

And again, as much as hyperscalers like IBM and Google are to blame for this, the hardware vendors are equally to blame. Nvidia's getting as high as 1000% margins on some of their products, and AMD isn't far behind. Intel is thankfully still willing to price themselves into categories that their competitors sneer at, but that's only gonna last until they get established in the dGPU business again (shoutout Knight's Landing my beloved), which would also propel their CPU offerings higher (and frankly at the moment I trust Sapphire Rapids more than I do Threadripper, don't think we forgot about what you did to TR5000 you bastards), which are significantly higher margin products due to being produced directly by Intel Foundry Services rather than an external fab (namely TSMC) like their GPUs are.

So yeah, give it a bit, the bubble will burst soon enough and if it doesn't hopefully USB4 PCIe passthrough catches on on phones and other mobile devices. Fingers fucking crossed. And if we're feeling brave let's maybe pray that USB-IF writes a USB standard that actually includes all the features instead of me having to buy Thunderbolt cables.

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

[tfgadgets]

Massive Layoff Alert! Over 10,000 Jobs To Be Slashed At THIS IT Company—Not TCS, Infosys Or Wipro, It Is….. | Economy News

New Delhi: A leading American brand, Intel is set to undergo one of the biggest job cuts in its history with plans to lay off 15 per cent to 20 per cent of employees in its Intel Foundry division starting in July. The move could impact over 10,000 workers worldwide. In a message to staff, Intel Manufacturing Vice President Naga Chandrasekaran called the decision difficult but necessary, citing…

[knowusa]

Intel Foundry layoffs could impact 'more than 10,000' factory workers — one fifth of employees affected by 'enormous cutback'

The first reports about Intel’s plans to cut workforce in its manufacturing division starting mid-July emerged last Friday. However, the report lacked specifics, which appear to be quite dramatic as the chipmaker reportedly plans to eliminate between 15% to 20% of its Intel Foundry personnel, which will affect over 8,170-10,890 people globally, reports OregonLive. Naga Chandrasekaran, the head of…

[amonerdj]

Intel se prepara para despedir al 20% de sus empleados

Intel está atravesando una de sus reestructuraciones más grandes en años. La compañía confirmó que despedirá entre el 15% y el 20% del personal de su división Intel Foundry Services, o IFS, para recortar costos y optimizar su capacidad de producción de chips. Este ajuste impactará especialmente en las plantas ubicadas en Oregón y otras instalaciones clave, donde se concentran miles de ingenieros…

[xlevelpr]

Intel se prepara para despedir al 20% de sus empleados

Intel está atravesando una de sus reestructuraciones más grandes en años. La compañía confirmó que despedirá entre el 15% y el 20% del personal de su división Intel Foundry Services, o IFS, para recortar costos y optimizar su capacidad de producción de chips. Este ajuste impactará especialmente en las plantas ubicadas en Oregón y otras instalaciones clave, donde se concentran miles de ingenieros…