#terraform apply

[ryanvgates]

Terraform staying current

Problem Depending on your CI/CD story for terraform and the sensitivity of your environments, you may need to apply terraform changes manually. The challenge that can happen is that changes in terraform may not be applied. This creates a challenge when you do try to apply a change but see historic changes as well that were never applied. Solution The first step is to understand what changes…

[dotterelly]

Gotta confess, I'm kinda stoked that Philza's gonna do a proper build on the realm. I feel like there's a group of people involved in the realm who don't have a strong grasp of what Phil's capable of as a builder and terraformer, and now they're going to get a small window into what he can do. And the woodcutter's forest is such a cute concept too. He's going to have space to apply all the tricks he learned doing the Greater Spawn Islands. He got real good at doing trees.

[bayporwave]

Utik

The utik (yoo-tik) are a sophont species the rakii came in contact with when they first landed on Ra'hah, their second largest moon orbiting Rek. The utik were actually the first to even set foot onto it, as they had no other choice. After suffering massive damage to their ship, the utik were forced to land on the lunar surface and hope to survive or await help. Years later, the rakii show up, which started an a long, chaotic process of attempt of communication and debating ownership.

The bodies of the utik are actually not their true bodies. The actual sophont lies within the pearly cased cockpit. Utik like the Olac bio-mechs, mastered the technical art of bio-technology, having started on a very hot and humid planet. While unlike the Olac who switched to bio-technology as a means to evade a debilitating disease, the utik mastered it for years, working off various symbiotic organisms. Their mech suits, or cyborg bodies you could say are symbiotic, as after their nervous and circulatory systems are linked, the pilot has full control of the suit, having it feed off waste material from the pilot. The suit then takes the waste, replenishes it, mixes it's own formula into it and feeds it back to the pilot. Like a plant, it gets a lot of energy off light and other forms of UV Retaining it for hours. These suits are suitable (ha) for open space, and lunar terran for a limited time. However proper measures are made to keep the suits tidy from "space dust" so no one goes out "naked" and risk exterior damage.

(quick sketch of utik 'pooters n screens. NOT ENTIRELY FINALIZED)

However, this isn't their true form. At least they didn't start off like this.

Way before, after they reached the ultimate feat in their development, their star was noticeably suffering, as it was predicted to eventually turn into black hole. While they had years 'till then, there wasn't enough time to perfect their original forms for the long-term space travel. So. as best they could, they learned to carefully strip and reduce themselves to nothing more than squishy muscle and brain matter, beforehand creating living space suits and sleeper pods to maintain what's left. Several ships shot into space just in time before their star went dark and each ship jumped in different directions hoping to find and terraform a new world. This group of utik weren't so lucky, as said before.

Now for the first half of the year, rakii and utik were on some tense terms. A lot of internal debates on who gets the moon. While utik were capable of defense, they weren't in a great position to, and the rakii weren't sure how to proceed with their first extraterrestrial contact. (Non-religious turned contact I'd guess???) UNTIL, one day it was brought ahead that, the utik secrete an anti-radiation slime. Something they came with naturally, just cranked to 10.

At first, the rakii thought to use this fluid as an applicable substance similar to sun-block, required to apply pre-spaceflight. However, it was revealed that they are extremely allergic to it. So skin-contact was a big no.

(Unfortunate rakii subject applying utik-based lotion. Results: swelling in skin, which can further cause blisters and splits)

After several trials, they came to a conclusion of using it as a gel layering in space suits, capable of absorbing radiation and protecting the wearer.

This discovery brought up a plan and a deal. It was agreed, rakii and utik would share the moon, making their first ever alliance, in exchange the utik would allow the rakii to harvest this anti-radiation goop off them, of course while exchanging knowledge, and resources.

[imitationgame77]

Mensah's family (from books 1, 4, 5, 6)

It takes slow deciphering to work out Mensah's family.

Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of.

[All Systems Red]

That was the first mention of her family. It went right over my head - except, wow, she's married, wow, two marrital partners, and BIG family!! So. There Mensah, brother, sister, mensah's 2 marital partners, siblings' 3 marital partners - EIGHT adults! (+ relatives)

Then I picked up Mensah arriving in the outer foyer with two humans and a small juvenile human, who looked like a miniature version of Mensah. I stood up and waited.

Faint steps on audio told me the small human had followed me out. She stepped up to the railing, frowning curiously at me. She said, “Hello.” “Hello,” I said. “I’m your mother’s pet security consultant.”

[Exit Strategy]

OK, so Mensah and spouses have at least one little daughter.

(Thiago is a marital partner of Dr. Mensah’s brother, which is why I gave a crap about his opinion.)

[Network Effect]

Thiago is one of the three marital partners of Mensah's siblings, and married to the brother. So, Mensah's sister could still have one or two marital partners.

In the pavilion, I located Mensah near the edge of the crowd talking to Thiago and Farai, who was one of her marital partners.

[Network Effect]

Now we know one of Mensah's marital partners is called Farai, and the subsequent paragraph refers to her as "she".

(That didn’t apply to the seven kids. I was illicitly tradingdownloads via the feed with three of them.)

[Network Effect]

Now we know there are seven kids in Mensah's family. It is possible that all of them are Mensah's, but it seems more likely that some of them belong to Mensah's siblings.

It was just me-the-SecUnit they didn’t like. (That didn’t apply to the seven kids. I was illicitly trading downloads via the feed with three of them.)

[Network Effect]

At least three of the seven kids are old enough to be downloading media.

The fifth incursion was the one that got me in trouble with Amena, Mensah’s oldest offspring.

(...)

You might think the obvious thing to do was to notify Mensah or Farai or Tano, the third marital partner. I didn’t.

[Network Effect]

Amena is Mensah's oldest, and a teenage girl. She did not seem to know much about MB, so the ones swapping media did not include her. Oh, and Mensah's other marital partner is called Tano.

I said, “You need to sleep.” She (Amena) yawned. “Okay, third mom.”

[Network Effect]

Mensah is the second mon. Farai is a she, so probably she is a mom, too. If Amena is calling MB a third mom, Tano is not a mom. Could be dad, could be something else.

And Mensah had called her marital partners Farai and Tano on the planet, and said she thought the future of humanity was pretty dismal, and they should take all the kids, siblings, their kids, and assorted relatives and move to a shack in the terraforming sector on the unsettled continent and start working in soil reclamation, whatever that was.

[Fugitive Telemetry]

This takes place prior to Network Effect, chronologically speaking. Anyway, there could be more of them... assorted reratives??

CONCLUSION: Working out Mensah's family is like complicated detective work. Harder than trying to remember all the characters in Agatha Christie's mysteries with large cast!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello Mint!

I discovered roleplaying through Lancer, and it made me love tactics with a little emergent behavior (with the occasional surprise super silly combo), the sort we also have in some tactical puzzle games like into the breach or tactical breach wizards. Do you know some tactical RPGs with combat that can almost feel like puzzles at times

THEME: Combat with Puzzles.

Hello friend! I think I have some solid recommendations here, but don't sleep on what I've already written about! You can check out some other recommendation posts at the bottom of this.

Celestial Bodies, by Charlotte Laskowski @binarystargames.

Adrift Among the Bodies of the Dead

For a generation after the calamity, the infinite dark between the stars felt cramped, crowded by refugees on ships meant for fewer people and shorter trips.  In the second generation, those who survived in their home-ships now cannibalized the metal skeletons of the less fortunate ships.  The third generation did not just expand their ships; they expanded their mecha and their operations. They fled to farther stars — populations in space stations and on surfaces booming as quickly as lives were lost in petty disputes.  The fourth generation discovered the Titans. No probe had yet reached these dead gods whose frozen bodies spanned hundreds of miles across. You are the fifth generation.

Celestial Bodies uses an inventory system that feels similar to Mausritter; you have to fit your weapons and other gear inside a grid in order to carry everything. Your “puzzle’ involves constructing your mech to work effectively in battle according to the strategy you prefer. You’re also tracking resources gained and resources used; it seems like you have to keep fighting in order to get access to the things that keep you going.

Ultraviolence Radiation, by KintaroTPC.

Ultraviolence Radiation (UVR) is an experiment in action.

Deflect bullets with a knife! Grab a guy and use him as a weapon against another guy! Take a smoke break in the middle of a hail of gunfire! Get your revenge and look cool doing it.

Featuring 100 enemies with unique Intros, Attacks and special things they do when they die! 28 Abilities to make the action hero you want to play! A rule set which takes inspiration from Beat-Em-Up arcade games and applied them to the Tabletop genre.

In Ultraviolence Radiation, one person is a player, while everyone else at the table plays the baddies. The fighter can’t use moves that draw from the same stat back-to-back; a limitation that points towards having to think carefully about what you’re going to do. There are also moves that have cooldown limitations; you can’t spam the same move, but rather have to time everything to make sure you still have access to good options. Additionally, the fighter has access to passive moves, which have no cooldown, and in some cases, might be consistently in effect. They also have interrupt moves, which can be used outside of your turn. This gives you a fairly complex list of options to choose from, which I think is an integral piece to a good combat game.

Mutation, by OneFootWall Games.

The World as we know it has changed. Two centuries from now a comet strikes Earth. This hunk of interstellar rock was an attack by some Klendathu wannabes. “Goddamn bugs whacked us, Johnny.”

It wasn’t really a comet or meteor, or even an asteroid. It was a seed bomb for terraforming sent by some alien species. This thing detonated a mile up over the Florida Keys and scattered radiation, some kind of bio-gel, and spores around the globe. It wiped out 80% of life on the surface. And we never even got to see the damn aliens…

The world was a little weird and quiet after that. But like Dr Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park says, “Life, uh, finds a way.”

A 3d6 system with a reasonable amount of crunch, distance matters in Mutation, and turns have an action economy. This plus the attacks, talents, psychic powers, skills, and gear which all constitute your character mean that you have a number of different distinct tools that can be used to overcome obstacles, especially in combat. Your character also has the opportunity to inflict and also take different conditions; having different ways to affect and damage your opponent feels like another layer of tactical precision to me.

There is a free quickstart if you want to take a peek behind the curtain before you buy.

Thrones and Threads, by OpalBreeze Games.

Throughout the land, warlords hire mercenary champions to try and dethrone one another. Once hired, these champions don cloth adornments embroidered with threads of vibrant colours that signify their allegiance. Endowed with formidable power, champions are tasked with cutting through enemy lines and destroying fortified strongholds until no obstacles remain between their forces and the enemy throne.

Thrones and Threads is a role-playing battle arena based on Songs and Sagas, product of Fari RPGs, developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas.

This game comes with 5 pregenerated characters and feels very much like an arena battle; combat is front and centre. Each character has a special move that makes them unique, and many of their traits are determined by different sizes of dice. Because each character has flavoured ways of using their stats, if you are inventive in how you describe your characters’ actions, you’ll likely be able to play to your strengths.

Strike Force Omega, by potatocubed.

It is the far future. Humanity spreads across the galaxy. Led by a council of corporate interests, the Imperial Core reaps the benefits of plunder and exploitation on an unimaginable scale, teeming trillions of human beings kept docile by mass media and the never-ending war against every other sentient species humanity has encountered.

You were a soldier in that war. Not one of the grunts, given basic training and a gun and shoved towards the enemy, although you might have started there. No, you were part of Strike Force Omega. Omega, because you ended things. Given the best training and equipment, remade by your corporate masters into a terrifying god of war, and expected to achieve the impossible on a regular basis. Which you did.

Until you got out.

But war has found you, even here. Not all the threats in the corp newsrooms are overstated.

The people of these worlds are frightened, but they will defend their homes against the oncoming tides – and they will fail and they will die. Even in their millions they cannot win.

Unless…

War is what you were made for, after all. You’ve killed and destroyed for far worse causes than this, so why not take up arms one more time and maybe try to claw back a little part of your soul?

LUMEN is generally a great system for strategic combat, all about creating combos that make you feel powerful and effective. Strike Force Omega is a setting that allows you to play with both magic and technology, and it includes 6 sample campaigns, one for each enemy faction written for the setting. Since the lore and world-building is built in, your characters already have a strong reason for fighting, something that sometimes I struggle to put together in Lancer.

demon blade ultimate, by Peach Garden Games.

Take up your Demon Blade and do battle against the oppression of the imperial army, put an end to the shaded cities, and bring the people of the undercity back to the sunlight.

Demon Blade Ultimate uses the Arts Grid, a character creation and power system pioneered in the legendary Horse Girl Infinity by Jordan Cuddlefish. Choose powers from the grid, unleash powerful summoning magic, and know that nothing is truly beyond your reach.

The grid system in Demon Blade involves choosing three powers on a grid. The spaces between the thing you want to do and the thing you are good at determines the difficulty of an action. Advancement allows you to increase your strengths, making you more powerful as you play.

This game takes a lot from shounen battle anime, so expect narratives about striving to improve yourself until you can vanquish the evil that threatens your people.

Other Recommendations:

Loot, by Gila RPGs.

My Dragoon Recommendation Post.

Fantasy With Tools Recommendation Post

Weapons & Weapon Customization Recommendation Post

Spatial Puzzle Recommendations

Combat Recommendations

If you like what I do and want to leave a tip, you can always stop by my Ko-Fi page.

[top-secret-replier]

⋐]▬▬[═══════⊱

hello, i am the top secret replier!

well done for finding this blog - you may never see me comment again!

how many of my comments can you find?

which ones have you spotted? (your own posts and REBLOGS OF SHAME DO NOT COUNT <3)

if replies are restricted from a post they will be added to the reblogs of shame!

swords on a post? i will find them

⊚//₪₪₪§{==========>

CLICK HERE RIGHT NOW TO VOTE

⚔︎ blogs under my top-secret-protection: @gimmick-patter + @maryland-officially + @fishy--friend + @boopanon

⚔︎ into the top secret verse: @evil-top-secret-replier + @bottom-secret-replier

⚔︎ top secret agents: @carpenoctemnyx + science man (blackwood) + @the-official-pogaytoo

⚔︎ my pets/crab army: @terraforming-crab-official (run by me) + @marscrab + @marscrab-real + @i-am-the-crab 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

⚔︎ slight hindrance: @meatybunger

⚔︎ honourable mentions: @michaeltheyellow + @gimmick-thief + @theshslpumpkinghost + @cellaspider (all four reblog of shamed me)

this post explains some of my lore

▬▬ι═════════════ﺤ

DNI: DO NOT talk about any politics on my blog. I will block you. I DO NOT accept anyone who is against any form of human rights for any discriminatory reasons (if this applies to you then get off of my blog)

⏣-͡--D━━━━━━━╾

No longer on hiatus but I have no sense of time so everything will be all over the place (just like my mental stability)

incase you hadn't realised i am slowly slipping into insanity and the end is not nigh

Stay safe girlies! This blog has a list of people you should block @reportandblock

•()◍◍◍◍|≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡⌲

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#1145

Eugenics and genetic modification are not the same thing. The terms are not interchangeable. Eugenics is the practice of erasing perceived ‘undesirable’ traits in the gene pool. It is motivated by racism and ableism and is horrific. Genetic modification is one possible tool that eugenicist could use to achieve that end. Another tool which has actually been used by eugenicists to advance their awful goal is compulsory sterilization. This is also horrific and recognized as such - compulsory sterilization is a Crime Against Humanity in the Rome Statute. However, sterilization procedures such as tube tying and vasectomies are not practices that people generally call for to be banned, because people may want to prevent themselves from getting pregnant or from getting another person pregnant for all sorts of reasons and we recognized that people should have autonomy over their own bodies and be free to make their own reproductive choices. Consensual vasectomies and tube tying being legal in a country does not mean that country is endorsing eugenics. A country in which there is a government program of coercing or using incentives to get members groups perceived as undesirable to have their tubes tied or have vasectomies is practicing eugenics. The legality and use of tool in general does not necessarily mean that the tool is being used for eugenics. Now, let’s take that one step further with a hypothetical on genetic engineering. Imagine that we determine that if one gene was removed from the human genome, those without that gene would no longer get dementia and there were zero other impacts. Would a country that made that genetic modification procedure available for free to everyone who wanted it and the doctors performing that procedure be practicing eugenics? Now imagine that procedure didn’t work in adults or even children. It had to be administered during fetal development to be effective. Would a parent choosing to have that gene removed from their unborn child so they would never get dementia be practicing eugenics? I'm not going to weigh in on those my point is that it’s a complex issue, there are very flew easy answers available and you really have to consider motive. Eugenicists are motivated by the view that certain people are superior and other people are inferior and they want to get rid of the latter.

Applying it to Strange New Worlds, Una has specifically stated that the Illyrian motivation for genetic modification is so that they fit in with their environment, rather than terraform (this intersects another really interesting scientific ethical discussion happening around climate engineering and the potential consequences). There is no evidence in canon that Illyrians are motivated by the need to be superior or are getting rid of undesired traits. They took up modification to live on planets that would otherwise be unhospitable to them (beta canon is that their home world is no longer inhabitable even with modification due to environmental collapse outside of their control, they’re essentially environmental refugees). While Illyrians modify themselves genetically, there is no evidence that Illyrians are practicing eugenics. In the context of DS9, Bashir’s parents believed it was undesirable to have a son with intellectual disabilities. They modified him to get rid the trait they perceived as undesirable. They were practicing eugenics. In Star Trek canon, billions of people died during the Eugenics Wars. When it comes to the law, it is incredibly difficult determining motive and therefore it is understandable that they banned genetic engineering as a way of stopping eugenicists and preventing a repeat. But in doing so, they accidentally created a legal regime in which entire families could be arrested.   The point Star Trek has been making lately with the Illyrian storyline is sometimes shit is complicated, and that a law that is meant to protect, can also sometimes harm and we need to be able to listen, think and consider complex situations. And I also hate myself a bit for writing this. I should just be able to ignore all the terrible takes and ‘I haven’t watched but…’ people.

[discordiansamba]

thinking about like. an aoex au but make it sci fi. humanity now resides in a series of eight space stations, after having to leave earth behind. each station is ruled over by one of the Baal (who would not be demons here, obviously). there used to be a ninth station, but it was severely damaged in an accident and rendered largely uninhabitable. all of its surviving residents were moved to other stations.

some key points!

yuri lives! she works as an engineer, helping repair the robots that maintained the ninth station. she's a single mother, living quietly with rin and yukio when the accident occurs- and rin very nearly loses his life and suffers critical damage to most of his body. so yuri does what any reasonable mother with a degree in advanced robotics would do, and makes him into a cyborg.

this is very illegal! by the way!

yuri moves to mephisto's station in the aftermath and changes their last names. she tells rin and yukio that no one can know about rin's secret, and she does her best to help rin blend into normal society. from the outside, he looks perfectly human!

(well, except for the tail that doubles as his connection port- but he can hide that easily enough.)

...this changes slightly when her childhood friend shiro shows up at her door. the last thing he knew, yuri's eldest child was on the verge of death- so imagine his surprise when finds that rin is both a.) alive and b.) wholly intact. yuri confesses what she's done, and pleads with shiro to not tell anyone.

shiro is horrified at first. his literal *job* is dealing with renegade robots and illegal cyborgs... and yuri is telling him that she's turned rin into one? what were you thinking? but eventually he comes to understand that rin is just... a normal kid, and that's all he wants to be.

he retires, and moves in with them to help protect both yuri and rin.

a lot of rin's pre-accident memories are shaky at best.

mephisto's station is just his true cross academy's architecture, but applied on a station-wide level, lmao. there's no true public greenspaces, but all their food is harvested from greenhouses on the station. it's very high tech, but at the same time, very much like living on earth.

(this is not true for all of the stations by a long shot)

yukio learns robotics from yuri! he wants to be able to take care of rin one day, even after their mom passes- seeing as rin himself doesn't have much of a head for robotics, ironically enough.

rin: my body might be like, 80% artificial, but my brain is 100% organic rin! for good and for bad!

around his first year of middle school, rin's family took a convenient trip to another station for a month and a half- but this is all a ruse. yuri was just adjusting rin's body to make it seem like he'd gone through puberty while they were away. this means there's a window of time in which rin gets to be taller than yukio.

(enjoy it while it lasts, buddy! no your mom will not rebuild your legs just to make you taller than yukio. that costs money, rin.)

rin runs on an internal battery with a relatively long lifespan, and uses his tail to recharge himself when needed. he does not and cannot eat, but still loves cooking regardless. it makes everyone else happy, so it makes him happy!

rin loves to wander around the station in his free time and uh. often ends up in places he should not be in. during one such escapade, he discovers a strange natural greenspace- a garden, filled with lots of tiny little robots that all tend to it.

in the center of the garden, there's a mysterious pod- and inside of it, is the most beautiful girl rin has ever laid eyes on. he touches the pod without thinking about it- and accidentally activates it, releasing the girl inside.

her name is shiemi, and she has a mysterious power that makes plants grow. rin decides to take her out of the garden- and discovers that she's an artificially created lifeform, meant to aid with terraforming should a new planet ever be found to house humanity. she was supposed to be in cold sleep until then, but...

(mephisto looking at rin and shiemi standing next to each other like. hmmmm. this could be amusing! very well! i approve!)

(the baal may or may not be aliens masquerading as humans. don't worry about it. i'm sure it's fine.)

[sepublic]

I dig how after showing the Boiling Isles Titan’s full appearance with the wings and tail, the show addressed right afterwards why we’ve never seen them by revealing these limbs are visible; Just not from the angles we’ve seen up until this point. It helps that these limbs are partially submerged, just like the Titan’s right foot; The latter of which we’ve known about since her first reveal.

It’s a clever case where information that the characters are aware of isn’t revealed to the audience until later for the sake of a twist. Sometimes the twist is something the characters also knew about, or they find out alongside us; But because the audience has the power of speculation and knowing the narrative, it’s easier for them to make connections that wouldn’t be applied so easily in-universe.

So everyone knows about the wings and tail, even Luz has known since the second episode. It’s worth noting that Titans having wings, and that King also will, wasn’t revealed until the same episode where we learn King is a Titan; So the only limb to account for in speculation and foreshadowing was the tail, since King being a Titan was planned since the beginning. Makes me wonder if the wings were also intended, or added later on during the design process, using the same Watsonian justifications for their inclusion; Wings on the Titan could’ve helped to seemingly differentiate King, and act as a red herring!

Hunting Palismen originally had a different version of the Day of Unity vision shown, where the Titan gets up and uses her power to unite the realms; The wings and tail are noticeably absent. From a Doylist perspective, the writers must’ve left out the tail to avoid another connection to King (to make the reveal not too obvious), and the Watsonian explanation is that the Titan’s tail —and wings— were too decayed, heavy, and unnecessary to reanimate. But that’s only necessary in a world where this scene was left in.

But yeah, the Titan’s wingtip and tail are perfectly viable, canon-compliant locations to explore in fanon. Similarly, we see actual landmasses and not just Titan corpses beyond the isles, and not too far from it either! This tracks with the lore hinted at in the S1 finale, minus the landmasses; That bit is new. We know the Titan Trappers weren’t known because they existed on the other side of the planet, beyond Boiling Isles explorers’ reach; Although the Trappers seem better at seafaring, and found the isles first before opting to keep their existence a secret.

But between just Titan Trapper Island and the Boiling Isles, there’s still plenty of viable space to live… Or theoretically viable, because the land might be too barren to support life, or be worth fostering via magical terraforming.

But as we must remember, the Archivists’ response to worlds saying No was to clean the planet and scorch the air… So the Demon Realm could’ve once been much more abundant, its landmasses supporting whole civilizations, before the Archivists rolled around.

I AM curious about where the Swampy Toes are… But given how long it’s been and the disconnected nature of these old bones, maybe they’re just off-screen, the landmass of the Titan’s left foot shifting away over time like tectonic plates. We can see bits of the right wing as islands, and the tail in this shot too!

[destielaureversebb]

“Angels of the Red Sand" 

Authors: @bleuzombie and @valandrawrites Artist: @kisris

Rating: Mature Archive warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Length: 29,256 words Tags: Space AU, Guardian Castiel, Angst, Angels Are a Species of Aliens Relationships: Dean/Castiel

Summary: Long before Weyland-Yutani discovered the infamous Xenomorph, employees of the company began to terraform Mars only to battle another dangerous invasive species - The Grigori. The Grigori consume souls and animate the vessels left behind. They will stop at nothing to find a way to Earth and ravage it of all humanity. Only Dean, Sam, and the Seraph Castiel can stop them - if they can find a way to trust each other.

Link to Fic & Art

[eightyonekilograms]

for i in {1..10}; do cd wave${i}; terraform init; terraform apply --auto-approve; cd ..; done

out of fucks and it's only 10 AM

[heedmywarnings]

A Step by Step tutorial on how to not die

(In SAGAU) By yours truly, your ol' pal, Narrator~

Let's see how you fare, can you, whoever "you" are... complete this most wondrous tutorial!?

--

Step One: BELIEVE

oH, you're in a game? Don't just stand idly, you're in an open world game, silly! And fantasy at that, laws in your world do not apply in this world most of the time.

So you best believe (I'm still bejeweled) that you are in a game.

--

Where the hell am I? How did I wake up in a patch of grass...?

...Wait, is that... Violetgrass? No, no, I'm just delusional, I think I pulled an all-nighter on Genshin again.

I'm probably just in a hyper-realistic dream or something. This isn't some isekai fanfiction.

☒

--

Step Two: Assess!

LEt one be different from the rest, as a certain someone had said. Every AU is different from the rest, so you must assess and collect knowledge of your situation!

Are you a revered God, or a hunted Impostor? Or are you just some ordinary guy living in a simulation?

--

If this a dream, I can just wander off and do stuff right? Whatever, I'll wake up anyways.

The first thing I need to do is figure out my current situation.

☑

--

Step Three: Avoid & Approach

Don't staLl. Once you've assessed your situation, you must certain situations that would cause conflict, and approach situations that would be in your favor.

...that's it.

--

"Have you heard? The Creator has announced an Impostor wandering around..."

"Oh my! I hope they catch them soon..."

Don't tell me I'm in a SAGAU fic...

FUCK.

So, I need to lie low and not enter any if the nations. The Rainforest in Sumeru won't be favorable because if the Forest Rangers.

Venti is the Wind God and Wind is well, everywhere so Mondstadt's wilderness is out of the question.

If I traverse somewhere far from Liyue's Harbor and the Adepti Mountain, or whatever it's called... I can hide within the terraformation, right....????

☑

--

Step Four: Survive.

Congratulations! You've done the three Previous steps! Now you just need to survive, right? Can't be that hard.

Just collect resources, seek shelter and maybe grow crop farm! Just avoid anyone and everyone, become a misanthrope or something.

--

[aris-has-a-paracosm]

Past life wardens?? 👀

Past Life Wardens is what I'm currently calling an au of mine! Thus far, the plan is for it to be a collection of one-shots, but I'm not opposed to doing something multi-chapter if FinFault allows me the time/energy XD

(Writing snippet after the info)

The premise is that after being killed in the Life Series, all name-tagged wardens are reincarnated as warden-hybrid players on Hermicraft with the derivative code genetics of the player who named them. So the au centers around these three:

Rev (Rancher's Revenge) - she's the oldest and most level-headed of all of them. Her player data has her code derivative from Tango only, but he and Jimmy coparent and both utterly adore her. She spends most of her time on Hermitcraft with Tango since she's not one for world-hopping the way Jimmy is, and she helped out with parts of DO2. Like Tango, she's a fast learner with redstone, but what she really excels at is building. Although very quiet and reserved, Rev is incredibly chaotic and is often the ringleader of any antics the warden kids get up to. Her role model is her uncle Zed.

Dish (Etho's Dishwasher) - the second oldest of the warden kids, his code is derived from both Grian and Etho since one made the nametag and the other named the warden. Etho is a notoriously absent father, so Dish spends most of his time in Grian's social circle. He's skilled with an elytra, and Scar has taught him the art of the HoTGuY (and the art of the con). He loves watching the masters terraform and is beginning to learn the skill himself.

Goober - Etho's favorite. Goober is the youngest (and loudest) of the warden kids, but he's incredibly sweet and finds a lot of joy in gathering resources to give to other players for their builds. However, despite the kindness he shows most of the time, he is very much Rev's "gremlin little cousin," and he is eager to assist her and Dish with pranks (with Grian's motto of "prank hard, but clean up your messes after.") Etho is teaching him how to do redstone, which many players think is a bad idea. Do not let him near tnt.

Any future wardens in future Life Series seasons will be added to this au, and I will likely also feature my Team Rancher fan-kid Phoenix as Rev's younger sister. (I don't think I've talked about her before on here, but I'll likely talk about her more in a different post if people like this one.)

I've had this au for a few months now, and I am happy to keep writing or expand on it if people like it, so please lmk if you like this au idea! I really appreciate feedback on all of my works! :) <3

Now here's a snippet of the first one shot (currently unpublished) that I wrote for this:

Her darkness fades completely, a calm relief taking the place of the fear. It’s a new feeling too. All of these feelings are new. The room she’s in is small but open, and she can see all of it without needing to use any echolocation. There’s an entire wall of chests to her right, and the floor is made of packed mud with a rug depicting a shirtless player in the middle of it. She isn’t sure how she knows the words “chest” and “rug” and  “packed mud,” but she knows them all the same.  To her left is an expanse of cavern, empty save for a vague sense of intention, whatever that means. She can sense the other wardens of this world from where she sits, the sculk in all the spaces between emitting a faint aura of contentment. They like it here, wherever “here” is.  Other wardens? Or just wardens in general? She looks down at what she can see of herself. Her skin is the same dark greenish-navy it always was, but she has the hands of a player, the legs of a player, the torso of a player. Before now, she didn’t know what “warden” meant, nor did she comprehend that it was a term that applied to her. But now that she isn’t one, she understands that she used to be one.  The outfit she wears is not something she remembers putting on, but she likes it. It’s a knee-length black dress made of heavy wool, lined at the top and bottom hems with thick beige fur. The sleeves are longer than her arms, with matching fur at their hems too. A short beige and turquoise cloak rests on her shoulders overtop the dress, the part that covers her chest embroidered with decorative black ribs.  There is an object in her hand, and she brings it closer to her face to examine it, having been holding it without realizing the whole time. It’s a rectangle, perfectly sized to feel natural in her grasp, and the material it’s made of is indescribable by design.  “Communicator.” The term pops into her mind like a surprise gift.  She sees a series of words on it, ones she can read despite never having interacted with the concept of written language before: RanchersRevenge joined the game [joehillssays] howdy to a dish best served cold! [Xisuma] hello? [VintageBeef] that is not a name I recognize [Xisuma] me neither [Xisuma] new person, are you at spawn? [Xisuma] no one at spawn [Xisuma] where are you? [joehillssays] you might have to get their coords yourself if they don’t know how to use a comm  [Xisuma] the admin interface says they’re at Tango’s base Her attention lingers on that name. Tango. She knows that name.  “See? I’m not gonna hurt ya.” She doesn’t understand the language the player is speaking, but he sounds reassuring in his tone. He holds out a piece of steak. She takes it, pausing for a moment to inspect the meal before devouring it. “Well that must’ve been tasty.” He whisper-laughs below the sound threshold of the sculk sensors, reaching out to ruffle the turquoise fluff between her antlers. His touch is as warm as his flames. Soothing. Comforting. Ignoring her sense of instinct, she waddles closer to him, lightly bonking her forehead against his shoulder.  His expression melts with a squeak he fails to stifle. “Ah! Adorable with extra cute!” A sculk sensor chirps nearby, and he quickly scans their surroundings, shrinking down in alertness. “Now let’s skadoodle you up to the surface before we summon any of your friends.” He gently ties a nametag around her wrist. She can’t read it.

I deviated from the canon DL events just a little bit with this to make Tango more caring/parental towards Revenge in this au (rather than raging bc the game kept crashing irl while trying to bring a warden to the surface).

But yeah! Lmk if you want more of this au, and if so, I will very likely drop all of this one shot and write more (and draw some for it too) <3

[chaoticgenderfae]

Thinking about Star Rail lore again, and I have to wonder, where are all the peaceful followers of the Abundance? Where are all the humanitarian (or whatever you call it in a setting with many different species) groups?

Because they should exist; if any Path is going to draw in ordinary people who simply want to make the universe a better place, it's the Abundance. There should be groups like Médecins Sans Frontières, roaming around and providing aid to victims of wars, natural disasters, pandemics, etc. There should be environmentalist groups dedicated to repairing unstable biospheres and terraforming barren planets. Pathstriders of Abundance would be highly sought-after in medical and agricultural careers. One of the few examples we do have in canon, the original Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, were notable for building apothecaries to help the poor, and did a lot of work to modernise the Xianzhou's healthcare system.

Unfortunately, I think there's a rather simple and depressing answer to this question: the Xianzhou. They're one of the most powerful factions around, and despite being ostensibly the good guys, can be quite merciless. Look at what they were willing to do to a single pacifist Borisin on a diplomatic mission, for example. So, it's likely a lot of smaller Abundance factions ended up as collateral damage in the Xianzhou's grand crusade; and now the only truly organized followers of the Abundance left are the few small groups "allowed" to remain...and the most militant extremist factions. Which the Xianzhou can then point to as justification for their war. And with how the IPC exploited Sigonia and the Avgin in the wake of the genocide they suffered, I doubt they'd bother to step in. The original Disciples, who became the Cold Springs Sect, were said to have been looked upon with pity until they abandoned their worship of Yaoshi, but with the ongoing wars, there was likely a lot of pressure on them - and possibly even threats made against them - to conform. And there's probably similar societal pressure applied against smaller groups like the Elixir Seekers and the Unshackled. After all, we've seen time and time again in the modern age what governments will do to minority groups they view as sympathetic to their enemies.

So we're left with underground rebel groups like the modern Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, and the Denizens of Abundance and the Borisin Packs whom the Xianzhou are perpetually at war with. And yes, the Denizens are a threat and the Borisin are marauding slavers and the Disciples worked with Phantylia. They all need to be stopped, and the Xianzhou are in a position to do that.

But the point of this is, it's quite likely that the history of the Hunt's war with the Abundance is a lot more nuanced than the black-and-white Hunt = Good, Abundance = Bad story that the Xianzhou like to present to the universe. The point is that, even in a justified war, innocents will get caught in the line of fire.

No Path or Aeon is inherently good or evil. Yes, even Nanook. THEY are all concepts or ideals taken to the logical extreme; more akin to forces of nature than anything else. Lan may eradicate dangerous monsters from the universe, but THEY have a habit of shooting through their own followers to do so, and the thought of what THEY might do without Yaoshi to focus THEIR wrath on is quite worrying. Yaoshi, for THEIR part, simply does not know when to stop and creates horrors as a result - but THEY and THEIR Path have a lot of capacity for doing good, as well.

[rei-ismyname]

Marvel Voices: ICEMAN Highlights

Love the style here, written and drawn by Luciano Vecchio. That introduction is on point, so I won't add to it further.

It's set during the First Krakoan Age as Bobby deals with a lot of drama and tries to be happy. Very interesting that Bobby became more popular after terraforming Mars. It makes sense, but mutants usually get hate for any public actions.

Bobby Drake is in what I call his Ice Twink phase, his jokes actually get better lol.

Save the day, make out with the random guy. The crowd cheering them in the background is cute as hell.

He's even got a squad of out gay dudes on Krakoa, or just hanging with two buddies at the Green Lagoon.

Rictor and Northstar ask about his first love, Romeo, who will be showing up shortly. It's good that the age difference is mentioned with care - that has the potential to be handled very poorly.

Conveniently, Bobby and Romeo run into each other while doing superhero stuff. They're the same age again and those feelings never went away. Romeo was also caught up in a time thingy - wandering different dimensions for 10 years on a mission for the Royal Inhumans.

I LOVE that Iceman is invited to the Climate Action Summit. No shortcuts there, though he is capable of applying ice bandaids. If I was pitching a Krakoan era book it'd be built on the premise that mutants are a scientific and technological revolution, and Krakoa *should* be amazing news for every inhabitant of the world. They just need to co-operate/stop genociding them. Even the capitalists would be on board, hell especially the capitalists.

Unfortunately Bobby's high is shattered by the news that his bigoted father died, having refused Krakoan medication. His mother's comment would be more valid if Krakoa didn't literally give him a cure for cancer. Some people will never accept you, and Bobby craves his father's approval.

He works through it in a number of ways, but it's affecting his happiness and his mutant powers. There's some grief, but it's mainly the fact that his father rejected and spited him all the way to his deathbed. During a magical adventure with Loki, the two come up against an amalgamation of both their fathers.

Laufey is cruel, but Loki went no contact years ago. They consider Odin their father. Bobby's dad is just awful, shouting emphatic rejections and hitting him right in the feelings. Bobby feels small and has difficulty tapping into his Omega powers. Loki tricks him into believing he's 'lent his magic' and Bobby manages to beat the hell out of this father simulacrum. He finds it incredibly cathartic. Importantly, Bobby also seeks support from his friends especially Christian Frost and Romeo. He comes to terms with never getting that approval and comes to see it as worthless. Go Bobby!

[pyro-madder]

On the Four Guardians, their connection and relation to X (the both of them)

-because the lore is a mess and I Needed Answers. i only meant to compile the different pieces of the puzzle at first, but once it turned into a full essay, i figured i'd share it !

disclaimers :

due to my inability to read or understand japanese i'll be relying solely on english material - official localizations, fantranslations, and a bit of machine translation, and pray there weren't major farts during either processes. all my sources that aren't in-game screenshots will be linked at the end of the post.

for the sake of simplicity - both in analysis and writing - i will proceed with the assumption that all the guardians were built/activated at the same time, and that a hint applying to one applies to all four of them (and by "one" i really mean Harpuia who hogs all the screentime for himself)

this is merely my own analysis and conclusions for the sake of my fanworks and interest, not a guideline on what people should believe. anyone with more info or thoughts is free to chime in ( ´ ◡ ` )

So... let's dive into it.

First things first : who, or what, are the Four Guardians ?

First game introduces them as Neo Arcadia's elite and Copy X's inner circle, then the lore entries in 2&3 (Ciel's computer + Secret Disks) specify they were built after X himself.

In-games we only know the Four as military generals, but the Official Complete Works reveal they had another job - or at least Harpuia and Leviathan did.

This is repeated and expanded on in their profiles for the Remastered Tracks : Zero booklet (which i'll just link here instead of pasting four more paragraphs). An excerpt from Harpuia's : "Neo Arcadia, aspiring to restore the world of humans, heralded 2 goals. One of them was the annihilation of the [Mavericks], source of the wars, and the other was regeneration of the Earth's environment to expand the human living area."

Terraformers ; Reploids made from X to assist in the repopulation of a planet damaged beyond words by over 100 years of war, while suppressing the maverick threat.

Then, the Megaman Zero collection website drops these bombs (flash website, translation courtesy of ggle lens, with thanks to @/cinnamononions for two of those three screenshots and to @/irys955 for the post that brought the matter on the table for me) :

Here rather than merely built after X, the Four were full parts of him that separated into their own beings upon sealing the Dark Elf. Not the same thing ! This is something that not only contradicts the games - aka the source material - but has never been seen anywhere else. So, I don't think it's worth much unless you want it to, but there are two implications to point out anyway :

the Cyber Elf X we meet and speak to throughout the games is incomplete compared to his original MMX self, something you'd think would be addressed, or that you'd be able to tell when interacted with ;

the Guardians never met the original X. This was my main question out of this whole mess, and this bit is what directed the rest of my digging.

In Z2 Harpuia has this line-

-which i've seen taken as evidence that he knew of the og X's body all along. while not impossible, it's not a guarantee - there is a whole year between Z1 and 2, he could very much have found out during that period, especially from his newfound leadership of Neo Arcadia !

and YET, when faced with MK-II in 3, knowing him to be the copy (Zero only says "a" copy, but MK-II clearly has the memories from the one in 1, so either way works) - he still immediately submits.

And in the first half of the game, while he tries to reason with MK-II, he never turns directly against him - even when MK-II tells him off and steps him down, even after the missile strike (the human deaths !!) he's co-responsible for, Harpuia's anger is consistently and ONLY directed at Weil.

He knows that's not the og X, yet he keeps his respect, and with him being comatose while MK-II goes out, we will never know how long that could have gone on.

Apart from what the Collection said above - which again, I consider as dubiously reliable - the question of when the Four were built, or at least activated (the distinction is important) is never asked and never clearly answered. The only thing we can be certain of is that it was after the Elf Wars - Z1 is their first meeting with Zero, they're not aware of Omega's true body (Phantom learns it first through Cyberspace), and the intro cutscenes in Z3 make it clear that while they knew Omega and Weil by name, they had never seen them in person before.

The implicit question behind it being, "have they known the og X while he was alive ?"

Well, the OCW has a timeline, let's take a look !

... they're not on it, except for that mention alongside Copy X at the bottom left paragraph.

And on (an excerpt of) the relationship chart from this same book :

They are written as underlings to Copy X only - no link to the og X at all, not even a "created after"...

So my takeaway is that they were activated roughly around the same time as Copy X.

According to the devs, Ciel may have been as young as 5 when she made Copy X, so doing the math with her being 14 in Z1 brings us to at most 9 years before Z1.

And this made me think, aren't the Four a little late for their terraforming business then ? Neo Arcadia has been standing for almost a century ! To which the devs answer that they'd been working outside of Neo Arcadia. Crisis averted.

(The "they weren't supposed to be weapons" is an interesting bit, in-line with Megaman tradition and twice as ironical coming from expies of the pacifist X, though we're never told what non-military function Fefnir and Phantom could have occupied. But I disgress.)

So now we have Reploids made after the og X but likely never knew him alive. So the last (and I'd say most important) question is, were they at least aware they were following a clone ?

The "disappearance" of X was likely not something planned ahead, by Neo Arcadian authorities or by himself - I'm not that familiar with his character, so feel free to correct me on that, but I can't imagine he'd be in favor of maintaining a facade with a fake, even for the sake of maintaining a sense of stability and security. Copy X's lie is held to the general populace, as we see in Z3 (through Weil framing "X's" sudden brutal end on Zero) and Z4 (the human Caravaners very much believing that). But how high exactly does it go ?

See again my point about Harpuia's Z2 line not being irrefutable evidence he was in the know, and let's compare with what other characters know, as told by the Remastered Tracks : Telos dramas !

Case 1) TK-31 :

We are already in Copy X era, and the to-be Elpizo is at this point a regular worker in Neo Arcadia's City Management Bureau - in other words, a civilian (in Z2, he's referred to as a citizen by Leviathan and as an errand boy by himself). He seems to be in content, practically complicit ignorance of Neo Arcadia's inner workings despite his own condition as a nameless, mass-produced model, so it's safe to assume what he knows isn't much above what the average citizen knows. He recognizes the Dark Elf and Weil but not Omega, and is of course unaware the X he sees here is different from the one he knows.

Then he gets found out and berated by Harpuia :

Is Harpuia trying to keep a mere civilian away from the truth he's privy to, or is he himself unquestionningly following orders not to pry ? It honestly wouldn't be far off from his character. Remember the earlier paragraph with MK-II. Remember that in Z3, any of his protests are immediately shut down with "you used to be more obedient than that" !

Case 2) (half of) the Eight Gentle Judges :

Now we're at the top of the echelon - or, well, close enough. And that last line is immediately telling : the Judges knew the og X and noticed the change without realizing he's been replaced. And immediately after that...

From the respect Kelverian shows here, it would seem that the Guardians are at least one rung above the Judges on Neo Arcadia's ladder, so again : is this keeping the lower ranks in the dark, or is this just the usual Sage "don't you dare doubt Master X" Harpuia ?

Case 3) Fellow Guardian, Phantom (and with direct ft. of og X) :

The wording here is a little confusing ("we meet at last" but also "you haven't changed a bit", is this their first meeting or a reunion ?) ; but we do have "my darkness will not serve any other light than [the og X's]." Can Copy X's "light" be equated to the og X's ? Because we're dealing with the guy who was willing to blow himself up to stop Zero from reaching Copy X. Whether or not he already knew about the og X back then, Phantom's loyalty, like Harpuia's, seems to extend to both Xes unconditionally.

Note that he also states "protecting the people and Reploids", which up until then seemed to be completely optional for the Guardians with how ready they were to terminate their own.

And now, with Harpuia's own musings :

An illusion. There WAS something he didn't know at this point. And this point is the beginning of Z3 - he's aware of the Elf Wars, of Weil and Omega, and he's aware of the original X's now-destroyed body. So what is it he's still missing ?

When Harpuia asks Zero to stop Elpizo, and when he opposes Weil and Omega, it's because they threaten human lives. There's no character development here, no changing to Zero and the Resistance's side. Leviathan and Fefnir too, when asked by X to help Zero in their own drama track, only accept because Weil/Omega are shared enemies, and they're shared enemies because they threaten humanity and Neo Arcadia's order as a whole. The protection of humans, and their master(s), has been their singular consistent goal, even when it came at the cost of their own kind. Perhaps much like the Judges, merely carrying out orders while being kept in the dark of how exactly their victims came to be labelled Mavericks !

So, my conclusion on what Harpuia figured here is the original purpose of Neo Arcadia - an utopia for humans and Reploids, as the og X envisionned, and not only for the former. (And if you listen to the drama track itself, he sounds in clear distress and denial, which may explain why he holds onto MK-II anyway.)

Last but not least is really just... law of parcimony/occam's razor. It's much easier to explain the Four's ruthless enforcement of Copy X's agenda, something we know the og X would have never stood for, if it's the only status quo they've ever know, isn't it ?

If you're still there, we're nearing the end, and I'll recap my own conclusion with another homemade Canva masterpiece made from everything we've discussed :

The Four Guardians were modeled and coded after X, and activated alongside or after Copy X to help humanity repopulate the Earth before being reconverted as military assets. They were either kept in the dark about the og X entirely, or were led to believe they were carrying on his legacy by enforcing Copy X's regime, regardless of whether they knew about the og body in Yggdrasil or if they learned about it later.

I specify "activated" to keep the possibility that their project as terraformers might have been something X was involved with, but the seal of Dark Elf happened before he could see them open their eyes.

The whole other can of worms that is important yet that we will probably never know ANYTHING about, and the one that makes me use the passive voice above, is the human side of Neo Arcadia's government : whoever made Ciel build Copy X to begin with, and saw no issue in his regime. These are people with enough power to keep the truth away from up to the Gentle Judges, and I'm thinking the Guardians may not have been exempt from that.

Everything compiled here still leaves a ton of blanks, and anything more will have to be headcanon territory, so...

Thank you so much for reading ! Figuring out this mess then writing this took me like A Month, and it's quite awkward doing that on a 20 y/o game from a franchise we KNOW gets inconsistent. It might just be a compilation of what we already knew from still fairly recent translations but I hope you enjoyed the read anyway. 🙏

Sources :

MMZ2 in-game script

MMZ3 in-game script

MMZ Official Complete Works

MMZ Remastered Tracks booklet translation (character profiles)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos booklet translation (creator's chat)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos drama tracks (audio w/ translations, MMKB translations)

MMZ Collection Website (website, MMKB translation)