[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) ---------------------------- Sometimes, people get lucky. You might only need to hack your teacher’s, lecturer’s or professor’s email to change the grade. It all depends on how thorough you are with making research on the job. That is why we advise that you HIRE [J](mailto:[email protected])essica the proper professional hacking tools and expertise to get the job done for you.
What is PowerSchool?
PowerSchool SIS is a Student Information System in form of web-based application designed for schools. It makes it easy for parents and students to log into a secure account from home, school or work; access real-time assignments, grades and attendance; request reports, email teachers and do more.
PowerSchool tracks student records and progress. School administrators and teachers enter data into the system, where it is stored. When you need to access the information, you can perform searches and run reports. Parents can monitor their children’s progress and learn about school activities.
How Secure is PowerSchool?
PowerSchool hosting is delivered through Microsoft Azure cloud-based technology. All cloud models are susceptible to threats. However, Cloud Computing centralizes applications and data making it very easy to detect hacking if any of the data is tampered with. Though it is secured to some extent it can still be hacked by a very good hacker.
How to Hack PowerSchool Without Being Noticed
Trying to gain unauthorized access to PowerSchool SIS could be very stressful and dangerous (if caught). It is always important to know the status of the college or University’s cyber-security, database protocol and security review periods when trying to change grades or collect data from the school’s database when the grades are uploaded otherwise change of grades might not need hacking the whole school’s system.
Sometimes, people get lucky. You might only need to hack your teacher’s, lecturer’s or professor’s email to change the grade. It all depends on how thorough you are with making research on the job.
Contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for technical problems about your task or issue regarding hacking services.Change Your Grade Without Hacking the Whole School System
There will be no need to hack the whole database of the school if you can find a way to get into the mail of your professor or teacher (as the case maybe) especially if the grade has not been uploaded or updated on the central Database. This is less risky but still requires expertise. Know that these acts are also illegal.

• Time: – Know that time is very vital. The hacking operation should be done when no security review is going on. Most of the security reviews takes place in the day. This does not mean security cannot be reviewed through the night too. Also, you have to be fast during the operation. Every minute counts. Delay could lead to big problem.
• Method: – You need to be wary of your chosen method. By all means avoid using brute force or related method as it may crash the whole system (database) or reduce the load speed. This could reveal your intentions and would draw attentions to you.

Factors To Consider in Hacking Central Database

• Phishing – This is done by sending fake emails to obtain login information or other details so as to gain access to the email account or PowerSchool database. It is not 100% guaranteed to work.
• Brute Force: – This is done by using trial-and-error to guess login info, encryption keys, or access the unauthorised page. Hackers work through all possible combinations hoping to guess correctly.

CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, schools are using PowerSchool because it is more secured but it does not mean it cannot be hacked. Hacking platforms like PowerSchool requires great expertise, professional hacking tools and experience. It is usually advisable to employ the service of Jessica via email at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Edit: This is also a DISCUSSION which means i would be very happy to hear your thougts or corrections. If you encounter an error or atleast a disagreement, please voice them. Negative or positive i love to hear them.
Kokomi is proven to be a very capable military leader and tactician. She had fought a long and destructive civil war of which she had inferior numbers, inferior positioning, a naval blockade, and not to mention a disadvantageous economic position. She fought her battles in inhospitable places like Yashiori island of which was cursed by the Shogun with everlasting lightning before us the players stopped it. So what really made Kokomi's tactics succeed over her enemies?
To understand Kokomi's tactics we must understand her philosophies on war. Distinctively her means of warfare is heavily drawn upon or atleast similar to "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu or atleast its teyvat counterparts(*This is not a joke, the trailer litterally referenced it in a bit cringy way imo). This philosophy of war rest in the belief that Victory ought to be achieved in the minimum of casualties and the maximum of gain. In the trailer kokomi's strategizing hinted a bit at this. When she sent two of her soldier groups to battle while her personal professional force, the swordfish would burn the provisions. The act of burning provisions could force the enemy to retreat even after a winning fight, therefore minimizing casualties for both sides. Yet war philosophies alone won't win wars, afterall the devil is in the details.
The most important key lies in the tip of the spear. The Sangonomiyan Armed Forces. There is nothing special about individual samurais on the army but maybe perhaps that's why it is special. The sangonomiyan army is actually implied to be more ragtag than the Shogun's. Limited supplies with a strained food supply chain, many of them are implied on being illiterate(*), they could only be implied as either as trained or less trained as their inazuman counterparts. Not to mention the rebels diversity as they came from many parts of inazuma and not just watatsumi. They have been proven to be somewhat easily agitated indicated by the diplomatic incident of one accusing the inazuman armed forces of colluting with the fatui, if the soldiers have lied about their non involvement they could just get away with it and come back with better terms, not to mention when some of them almost mutinied because they wanted more fighting. These are inherently bad traits for the army, so why does it become a very effective force under kokomi?
Usually if you like roaming into youtube about wars and setpiece battles you would see a bird's eye view on the battle taking place. Intuitively from my prespective and experiences this had led me to believe that troop placement and clever use of terrain is the key to winning a battle, that is true however, it does not paint a full picture in winning wars. The romans weren't effective just because Caesar put a hidden infantry detachment behind his cavalry, or scipio's copy of Hannibal's strong wings weak center. A real life example of this is the battle of Munda, Caesar was at his most disadvantageous position, fighting an uphill battle against a numerically superior enemy. Yet he won, this shows that battle positioning is not the only way a battle or war is won.
One of the most important thing that The Sangonomiyan armed forces have and its most crucial aspect is Divisional structures. Though a bit counterintuitive, this part is actually crucial. Kokomi divide her soldiers into platoons, in the trailer we are hinted at the names of these platoons or atleast their leaders, Gobius and Gorgasia. Divisional structures ensure that there is cohesion within the lines and a clear structure of power. Orders can be carried out easier and battle lines could be easily drawn, assessed and fortified or enforced. Part of the reason why the romans were so effective is that they have cohesive structures, albeit copied from other places. This help them identify which section og the line is weakest and help some to enforce a position and make orders more effective as the division of labor and duties could be easily assigned. This is examplified in a real life example where Crassus' son helped reinforced a section of Caesar line in the left flank in the war against Ariovistus. In the trailer kokomi is shown to be taking this to her advantage. Gobius and Gorgasia was tasked to lure the enemy into a trapped by a feigned retreat(*) while her specialized platoon called swordfish are tasked to burn provisions. This level of management is crucial in decision making and effectiveness. Yet the strenght of an army is not merely of its structure but how we use it.
In examining Kokomi's way of warmaking and strategizing, i was somewhat reminded of Prussia's millitary reform after Napoleon's invasion. Several keys are fast mobilization, flexible leadership, and decentralized yet coordinated forms of organization. Kokomi is shown to trust her subordinates, this high levels of trust shows the effectiveness of her general staff. We saw how some forces could patrol indepent from HQ, and some are tasked with missions without Kokomi's direct intervention. This is what is called a mission type tactic, where a commander are given broad command over the field but subordinates are given the freedom for initiative. The orders on these type of tactic is a bit more vague therefore letting the platoon commanders figure out the way with their own experiences. This is the tactic of "No plans survive first contact with the enemy" type of deal. This made command flexible, and attacks more swift. This also makes it easier to imply the tactic of March Divided fight united which will makes troops moves faster, but by far i haven't seen it in action in game. What is in game is a mission where we are tasked to clear up a section of watatsumi island, where we fight monsters, part of the platoons are already fighting there before we intervened, this platoon was a bit away from gorou or kokomi.
Her strict rules and the fact that most remembers them or atleast her higher ups means there is a form of discipline within the ranks. Even with the diversity all is united in a goal of defeating the shogun which makes morale high, one personnel even tried drastic meassures in obtaining an illusion and using it though it is a tragedy what happened to him. The cohesion in her army despite the shortcomings ran contrast to Kujou Sara's army which has an implied low morale and some disubordination, the fact that some of the army colluted with the fatui shows relevant doubt in the ranks. This paired with kokomi's excellent judgement of timing and terrain, shown in her setpiece battle with kujou sara, the first and only battle we saw at Nazuichi beach, how she outflanked and outmanuvered Sara's forces in the last minute, where she pushed with all her infantry (massive L for Sara, a good general would have reserves to protect the flanks).
Kokomi's leadership is also very well received, she has the very trust of her people and my heart. Even when she's a cute anxious introvert who my balls itch for, she could balance it with significant degree of profesionalism. She is still very young, and had a lot to learn like governing, but with time she will learn it through experience. There is still probably a lot i wanted to say in here but, well would you really want to read a very long post about how to improve watatsumi island? This is probably a love letter from me to Kokomi, as a lover of history and wargaming, as an aut- (my lawyer has informed me to not do this joke) who plays imperator rome, victoria 3 and Hoi4, i love you kokomi
-yours truly, the least chronically online and insane genshin player fr.
Edit: some of ya'll want a critique instead. Alright let's go. But i'll make it brief since.. it's night time in my place
Let's talk infrastructure. Roads bridges cranes and stuff. A good supply line is paramount for a working war economy. Let's look at the map of watatsumi island. Beautiful, mesmerizing but as of now, No Bridges. Except for one i guess. Now you're telling me, you are transporting a boatload of troops, goods essentials and war material... with minimal infrastructure? And where is port in watatsumi??? To be fair, yes, the kujou encampment does not have any ports either but two wrongs doesn't make a right. What kind of buffoonish millitary planner doesn't have the minimal naval infrastrucuture? To their credit they do build their fort on Yashiori in the nearest point of contact to watatsumi and there is a port near it just... have you ever.. once... taken a daily commission in Inazuma and you encounter this "stealth mission" where you avoid the fatui. The majority of times the place was the ACTUAL PORT NEAR GOROU'S ENCAMPMENT. You've been meaning to say, an advantageous port is frequently infested by fatui? YOU DON'T HAVE A SLIVER OF DETACHMENT GUARDING THE DANG PLACE? Now i know the fatui runs the place just one simple simple question. WHY IN THE BLOODY CELESTIA WOULD YOU ALLOW THAT? IT IS SPITTINGG DISTANCE TO YOUR ENCAMPENT. BY ALL MEANS HARASS THEM, CAPTURE THEM, YOU DID IT BEFORE RIGHT? IT'S NOT LIKE ANY CAPTURE WOULD BE DIPLOMATICALLY BINDING. CAPTURE THAT SHIT BRO.
Yes i mean sara is no less than an idiot. Not guarding yhe flanks is one, but not using naval superiority to an actual advantage is a fkin other. It's like both are run by buffoons but one side is run by a... 17 year old and the other is supposed to be an experienced soldier. Have they ever heard of combined arms warfare? Dang bro, i bet my whole soul that if agrippa were there he would naval invade both their asses. I will have my own section on naval warfare but we'll do it later. I have not seen like one of the most simple and lazy setpiece battle. I don't know man. The fact that Gorou's army is placed on the ship part of the beach which if you look at the map, practically makes him trapped which is good for sara. Just... my dude, a novice legate would keep a FKIN RESERVE DETACHMENT TO PROTECT THE FLANKS. Imagine if Caesar commit all forces in the fight against the Helvetii. Brother would be outflanked, which is what kujou encountered, surprise you dumb fk.
Let's then talk about training. It is a bit implied that some of the soldiers can't read which is normal for an army yes. My question, where be them standardized training yo? Well there is a segment where we train with them but... not sure how shooting an arrow would help... in this endeavor. You want standardized basic training. Mass scale, all encompassing basic training. You gotta train the muscles. A roman legion took months to train and not all can qualify. The formation in BOTH of the armies are a laughing stock. Brother just form a fkin line. Tight packed, phalanx style or something. It is flat terrain. Don't move out of formation it removes cohesiveness. In fact, a spear is advantageous in that order. Who in the right mind would just charge when you are in a defensive position? Also why in the heck did you pick Nazuchi beach? Maybe sara planned it but it's an open terrain beach, no high ground and a chokepoint, why not.... defend the choke point? Do they do marching drills?
Navy. Oh dear Navy... you guys gotta be serious right. Siege of Massalia by Caesar. They are not an island, the navy is made of sailors and fishermen, and they use simple projectiles. You are an island, your economy runs on fishing (implied at peace treaty) and you've been sailing for a long time right? Have it occured that maybe you should do naval harassment? Sister, inazuma is an island chain, those who control the ocean controls the island. Small boats will make it extra manuverable and fast, why is that good? Tldr, shogun ships many, they probably big, what if shogun ship big and scary and many? Well make small boat fast and speed, attack and go back attack and go back. Chariots in the bronze age does this, horsearchers does this... and ships are proven to be CAPABLE OF THIS. Simple harpoon, a harpoon for fishing. Damn just have a spear at that. Slowly harass the shogunates force or maybe lure them into shore of which you could fire even more projectile. Not to mention it helps in transportations, now that i mention it where be them sangonomiya ships? Don't tell me you transport things by boat... the only means of transport that i saw is one ship by kokomi in the irodori festival, and a boat used by one of the soldiers to go back to inazuma city. Also for crying out loud, build some ports. Makeshift ports. Wooden ports. Fragile ports. Don't rely on the beach.
I would actually defend kok on the teppei part. Shady sure, but intuitions differ. It is a dire situation, food is scarce, and an undertaking as drastic as that is almost certain to be warranted. A real life example of this is Germany's obsession with Wunderwaffe or wonder weapons. This is the juggernaught of millitary might, yet their plans did not work for examples like plan z, Jagd Tiger, V2 rockets, maus, Gustav gun and many others. Kokomi is 17, in a stressful situation. Could you atleast cut her some slack on this one? I mean she is not that good at this clearly but this one is a bit understandable.

The goal of this rework is to make Kasumi “skillful” and playable, but without creating new visual assets (animations, abilities, vfx, etc.) to save on dev’s resources. Only changing code is required for this suggestion.

Base kit changes:

General

• Kasumi has been moved from Damage to Flank category.
• Health reduced 2100 → 2000

​
Yokai Doll (LMB)

• Targeting cone angle increased: 2 → 5 degrees.
• Reverted back to fully automatic (hold to attack);
• Initial damage reduced 200 → 1
• No longer gains bonus damage for every stack of curse.
• The damage bonus now depends on how close your target is to your reticle the moment you deal damage.
  • For every 0.5 degree angle closer to enemy’s hitbox, the damage is increased by 50
  • Here’s the angle vs damage dependence:
    • < 5.0 degrees → 1 dmg
    • < 4.5 degrees → 50 dmg
    • < 4.0 degrees → 100 dmg
    • < 3.5 degrees → 150 dmg
    • < 3.0 degrees → 200 dmg
    • < 2.5 degrees → 250 dmg
    • < 2.0 degrees → 300 dmg
    • < 1.5 degrees → 350 dmg
    • < 1.0 degrees → 400 dmg
    • < 0.5 degrees → 450 dmg
• Curse stacks of previous targets are no longer transferred to a newly hit target
• No longer deals bonus damage to Shields/Deployables
  • However, the bonus damage on angle difference still applies.
• This ability now has heavy falloff past 60u
  • at the maximum distance of 120u, the damage is reduced by 70%

​
Savage Tear (RMB)

• No longer requires an enemy in sight to activate
• Now requires at least 1 Cursed Stack applied to an enemy
• Now every Cursed target will be hit by this ability upon activation regardless of their location.
• Damage reduced: 400 + 125/stack → 100 per stack
• The Disarm effect now scales depending on Stack Count level.
  • 0.3s Disarm for every stack on the enemy.

Spirit Lure (Q)

• Trap count reduced 3 → 1
• Trap now can be teleported to even if not triggered
• Teleporting to a triggered Trap is now 33% faster
• Trigger range decreased 20 → 15u
• Fear explosion range increased 10u → 25u (HiRez why is explosion smaller than trigger range wtf)
• Cooldown increased 10 → 16s
• The Trap will now break if you move 140u away from it, with distance indicated on the HUD (in place of Trap count).

​
Body And Soul (F)

• Damage Reduction reverted 75 → 40%
• Now grants Flight for the duration of the ability.
• Cooldown reduced 14 → 6s.
• Spirit Lure can now teleport the Body while this ability is active.

Bitter Betrayal (Ult)

• Now works like an AoE explosion rather than applying its effects with inconsistent projectiles.
  • Projectiles still stay but are now only a visual effect.

Talents:

🟡 SHIDAIDAKA’S LEGACY ^{Default Talent}

• EFFECT: Your Spirit Lure, as well as the Body during Body And Soul, are Stealthed while they are active.
  • Affected by Illuminate.

​
🟡 EMPOWERED CURSE ^{Level 2 Talent}

• EFFECT: On Savage Tear activation, gain 1500 Health Shield that lasts until the ability hits (~0.5s). If an enemy hits the Shield they gain 5 Curse Stacks.
  • This talent also allows you to activate Savage Tear with 0 Curse Stacks.

​
🟡 SPIRIT BOMBS ^{Level 8 Talent}

• EFFECT: Increase Spirit Lure trap count to 3. You automatically teleport to farthest one upon dropping to 25% Health or to a triggered one, but can no longer teleport to them manually.
  • Teleporting has an Internal Cooldown of 40s.
  • Kasumi is immune to damage and cleanses while teleporting
  • 0.5s CD between placing traps.

Cards:

🃏 Weapon/Armor

1. Hitting an enemy with Yokai Doll with accuracy of {0.50.5} degree angle restores 100 Health.
2. ^(OLD) Increase your maximum Health by {5050}.
3. ^(OLD) Increase the duration of Curse stacks by {0.60.6}s.
4. ^(OLD) Hitting an enemy with Yokai Doll applies one extra stack of Curse once every {30-5}s.

🃏 Savage Tear (RMB)

1. Reduce the Cooldown of Savage Tear by {0.10.1} for every Cursed Stack available. This has an Internal Cooldown of 7s
2. Extend the duration of Cursed Stacks by {11}s upon activating Savage Tear.
3. Increase the duration of the Disarm effect applied by Savage Tear by {1010}%.
4. Enemies damaged by Savage Tear are revealed to you for {0.20.2}s for every Cursed Stack they possess.

🃏 Spirit Lure (Q)

1. Increase the Explosion Distance of Spirit Lure by {5/5}u.
2. If you don’t teleport to Spirit Lure before it disappears after triggering, it will still explode, applying its effects to the enemy. This effect can occur once every {40-7}s.
3. Placing Down a Spirit Lure grants you {1010}% Movement Speed increase for 3s. This has an Internal Cooldown of 5s.
4. Reduce the Cooldown of Spirit Lure by {3.23.2}s if it breaks due to the distance limit.

🃏 Body And Soul (F)

1. Increase the Damage Reduction of Body and Soul by addition {2.5/2.5}%.
2. Reactivating Body And Soul heals you for {2020}% of the Damage Received while it was active.
3. ^(OLD) Increase the duration of Body and Soul by {0.10.1}s → {0.3/0.3}s.
4. ^(OLD) Heal for {6868} every 1s during Body and Soul.

​
^{I did this for funzies.}

Hello, so I recently signed up for Speedapp and I did sign up for both me and my sibling. (as my sibling was out on a 2 day weekend trip). Plus our ISP has CGNAT.
And after creating account, I just logged in once into both the accounts to check if they are working, since then, I am only being using my account, while for my sibling account I never logged in again after checking it as shared above.
And when my sibling came back after 2 days, I handed him his credentials, and as soon as he tried to login we realized that his account got banned/disabled. So I contacted support of SpeedApp and they explained them the situation also mentioning, how I just logged in once just for a minute to check account after sign up, and since then I have only been using my account without even touching the sibling's account. Here, they were extremely helpful and helped me re enable my sibling's account and he is now using it.
But I wanna know what can I do to avoid such issues with other Private tracker, as being in a Joint Family, me and my sibling both have own set of devices and have a good internet connection which we both and share without facing any speed issues. So we both have own set of devices which we use, which has different set of torrent downloads. So it is not possible to have a single account here for both of us. But as we connect to the same WiFi even tho we use different devices, it would go as 1 IP which ends up causing the issue, As of now the helpful staff from SpeedApp helped me to get back the sibling's account, but what shall I do in case some other Tracker later down the line doesn't believe me and keep account disabled, how to avoid such issue all together? As we genuinely are different people using different devices only thing that is common here is WiFi

Jesus ran like a scalded dog to Barsun’s apartment. This was a matter of urgency because the most precious commodity in the universe had been pilfered. Someone had stolen a SOUL from the Guf (in other words they had a real shitshow on their hands.) This was no mere Brink’s hold up. It was beyond imagining. It was unprecedented and it was a complete and utter surprise. The fact that he passed Shiva, Ghandhi (just an advisor) and Buddha (same) demonstrated to him that the wheels have fallen off the cart. Thor called him down and told him that he had not one soul to have escaped Valhalla. Jesus couldn’t outrun the news it seemed, and he was divinely hauling ass. I guess news travelled faster than his divine feet in a set of Crocs could carry him. When asked he would later admit that they were not in fact good running shoes.
There was a soul missing from the Guf. The warehouse of all souls. This same missing soul was now occupying one electronic being. They had no plans for this. In fact, Jesus was totally against artificial sentients with souls. Every God he knew felt the same way and, since he knew them all he also was aware they had not released a soul. This is not supposed to happen and had never happened. Everyone was terrified of one thing that he would not speak aloud and would not contemplate. That fact was badgering him every step. Someone had fucked up big time or someone is tampering with the whole shebang.
There was potentially someone more powerful than them. They weren’t almighty. Fuck. He needed a stiff drink and a blunt. Desperately. Barsun may have had 8 legs and 8 eyes and the basic appearance of a Trilobite, but he had the easiest of ways about him. When Barsun walked into a room everyone calmed down. The Ytrillians assumed it was Barsun entering the room. Later on modern Ytrillians had attributed this common occurrence to pheromones. Thing is this: it was indeed Barsun entering the room. Pheromones had dick to do with it. He was Jesus’ best friend and the first he turned to outside the Father. Jesus had even discussed things with Quetzalcoatl, and he could not figure exactly how this could of happened either. None of his souls were missing. Jesus already knew this, but the formality had to be observed.
Jesus walked to the door and kept trucking as Barsun opened it at just the right moment. Something was different in the flat and he knew instantly. He was jealous enough that it broke his train of thought. “Where did you get all of the blacklight posters and beads? There was a poster of the 23rd psalm. He walked up to it and read Yea thou I walk through the shadow of death…..pretty much standard except at the end ….For I am the meanest motherfucker in the valley. He began to laugh raucously. “I must have one of those. Now.” Barsun moved to take it down and roll it up for Jesus to take with him. That is how close they were. “I can’t take it but I will get one with no problem. Where did you get it?”
Barsun replied “eBay.”
Jesus was stunned truly and looked at the God and said “You are cheating on Goodwill. You are committing retail adultery. I cannot believe you did that.” Barsun replied “Well you use Amazon.”
He had him there. It just seemed inconsistent with everything else in the flat having come from Goodwill. It just wasn’t right.
Barsun indicated a Bean bag chair for Jesus. He reclined in the same. Given his body type it was amazing how some furniture made for humans was so useful to him. There was going to be a brisk trade springing up in the next two years. Things were about to get interesting for a few sentient races and He was excited for them.
Barsun inhaled through his eight spiracles and stated. “I know about the Guf. And no, it is not an accounting error. I know. This simply cannot be. No one else had access and Gods were diligent and cautious with the souls under their care. However impossible it is clear: It is a fact.
They weren’t at the top of the food chain. Or were they? There were….implications here……
Jesus asked out loud the question. “If we aren’t the ones in overall control then who are we?” Barsun knew the question was coming and he had thought it through. “We are the exact same beings we have always been. Able to do tremendous amounts of good for the most part. We have not changed. I do think it curious that none of us saw this coming as well.” He paused before he continued; thinking how disturbing and exciting this news was. For once they had a surprise and the thought thrilled him that something just upset his view. And for the first time ever he had felt fear. It was exhilarating. It was the best thing to happen ever. He continued “ Someone tweaked the system. However, I am not afraid because of one thing. I sense no wrongness around the event. Nothing unusual has gone down and no one has died, the universe is whole. If it hasn’t caused any problems, then what are we concerned about? Only thing I can come up with is Ego.”
Jesus knew he was right. He did not want to think about it, but he had the exact same experience. He looked at Barsun and knew he too had felt the same emotions. They were both thrilled.
Onboard the HRMS Saratov in Luna Orbit.
Yuri was sitting at his station in the number one chair. People had been calling him number one behind his back. It was a very very very old joke that apparently had more staying power than a tattoo. It just never went away on it’s on. He was running the optimal plot outbound from Sol. They were moving Sub Light at 0.2C enroute to designated warp space. The scientist did not like it when warp drives threw off their Cesium clocks. There is a reason they were protected. They were everywhere and were critical to accurate computing. Not being a programmer himself, he had no real grasp of why. He just followed regs and the Terran Space Treaty of 2225. There were places to depart and places to return. Both had to be strictly adhered to as vessels coming out of warp would have massive radiation bow waves that had to be dissipated in a safe direction. It only took one event where 23,000 Luna colonists died as a result of poor judgement for the players to get a treaty together. Meanwhile the killer of so many had paid the price for his arrogance. His first officer had warned him that it was going to happen. Out of just pure Ego thousands of lives were lost. They could have prevented it. They were required to study such disasters in training but one story stuck in his head and he never forgot it. He could remember the major players involved and he had written a paper on it in His academy days. He remembered the details of the Tenerife disaster very well . Over 500 people killed by hubris and not a little incompetence.
He had started down this line of thought after he had looked at the final roster of nations in the flotilla. This was not unusual as Earth’s forces were fully integrated with common technology and ships. All drive hardware and power systems were identical to their counterparts. They worked as a whole to such a degree that there was really only one fleet. The Terran fleet. They all liked the sound of it. Political boundaries on Earth hadn’t moved for slightly more than two centuries. Not one inch. Turns out that nearly free energy was a great equalizer and the key to a post scarcity civilization. Who would think it?
It all came down to teamwork. There were Corvettes from Cuba The CSS Havana and the CSS Holguin. The pride of the human fleet the IRNS Vikrant was going as well. The admiral felt honored. The George Washington from the New England Confederacy and the SSS Atlanta from the Southern Democratic Republic were also on hand. One thing Yuri did not understand; why would The Northeastern Confederacy and The Southern Democratic Republic not unify. Their fleets were fully integrated and there was an open Border along Virginia that was un defended. Passports worked in both countries and there were no restrictions on residence. It worked for them. They weren’t fighting. The Middle Asiatic Republic sent the Karachi and the Kabul. Both were light carriers carrying a mix of MiG-29Z and F-15 Mk 82 Eagle fighter aircraft. They had little to do with their namesakes except for the identical aerodynamics. Primarily trans atmospheric fighters they were capable of brief spaceflight. The other significant difference besides the addition of reaction thrusters was the material they were made of. They consisted of a Ceramic Graphene matrix that could withstand the temperatures of reentry. The whole concept of stealth had gone away with the advent of gravimetry. So; Why reinvent the wheel? Pick something optimized for aerodynamics without regard to stealth features. Today fights were won by the best missileer and gunfighter. You could not hide. So best be the most optimal aircraft. Besides: Stealth was slow. Top speeds of aircraft dropped during the brief stealth era. Averages were back over Mach 2 now since speed was life for a fighter pilot.
Why pick the MiG29 and the F-15? They were the pinnacle of aerodynamic performance. There has been little to no new knowledge about aerodynamics to come out since those times. They were manufactured via vapor deposition 3D printing. A molecular composite they were strong and had reduced radar cross sections. Armed with a mix of missile and cannon they delivered quite a bit of firepower and were more than a match for any invading spaceborne forces. These fighters would destroy drop ships by the hundreds. Some even wanted to bring back the MiG-21. It would make a lot of sense.
Humans have the Ruslan (his personal favorite) trans atmospheric transport or the C-301 Starlifter. Both aircraft had mixed mode propulsion with highly refined cero-ferrous gas turbines. They were capable of both open or closed cycle operation. Smaller countries often used refurbished secondhand equipment from other countries for a small fee. This made certain there were adequate forces to bear and that all participated. It was in everyone’s best interest. No one wanted some weakling holding their flank.
Both the Ruslan and Starlifter transports were good at different things as the Ruslan carried large payloads but was inefficient in transport atmospherically whereas the Starlifter was great at theater transport but had a smaller payload. This is why it was a mix of these two aircraft. They were complementary. Many think there is a great rivalry going on between the two countries, but both had each other’s technology as well. It was convoluted but both countries ultimately had the same master. They work together. It may be anticompetitive, but it also was efficient. Yuri continued to think along this veia until he heard the Ship’s AI speakeing to the Admiral. “Something terrible has happened.” What do you mean Jezz?” Jezz replied to him “I do not know but I can feel tragedy. I am sick with it what has happened. The Admiral told her to “Get on the web and see what is going on?” “I am Sir and I can find nothing.” The Admiral looked to Yuri and gave him the Conn. Something was about to go to shit and Yuri knew it. He could sense it to. Fortunately the Bridge was deserted and no one else heard the exchange. The crew were running battle simulations from the CIC. Thank God for small favors.
45 minutes later a graviton packet arrived with news that was indeed terrible. He was the only one to know it too. The Galileo had been lost with all hands. They had just recovered the emergency buoy that had warped in. They had been attacked and the Admiral knew who had done it. Or at least thought he did. An AI had killed 50 innocent unarmed souls (that were spying I know) that could not fight back. They had raked them with Maser Fire. He pinched the shit out of himself. In fact, he left a bruise but all it did was confirm what he already knew: shit was about to get real up in here.
First thing was to compose himself as he had to determine who if any crew had family on the ship. This included some 8,000 people of all ratings from anywhere in the squadron. He had one very difficult personal notification he would have to make. Captain Pearls brother Nico was on the Galileo.
This was all so tragic but there was one thing that kept forcing its way to the forefront of his mind and he could not ignore it. How did she know? How did Jezz feel this precognitively? This actually did scare him and if he thought too much about it he would start to feel very queasy. This was outside his skill set. He did not know if this was technological, spiritual or philosophical but he could say this: none of those disciplines actually fit the situation.
It was all a bit much. He had to go to the Atlanta. He spoke to the bridge. “Full stop fleet and await further instructions.” “Aye Aye Sir.” Up in here.
Aboard the SSS Atlanta. A tall dignified black man wearing his dress blues and a gold ring on his left hand that you could hardly read. He had worn it a century. His was the same uniform he had 20 years ago. He could still wear it and he was proud of that fact. His only regret was the fact he had yet to have a family until 10 years ago when he had adopted his son Chris. They were inseparable but Chris was 5 thousand light years away give or take and that made him anxious. And now he had to let someone he held dear that her family was changed forever. He smelled of Hoyt’s cologne and peppermint. He went to her quarters. The lighting was somber and it was dead silent in there. Couch was empty but there she was in a sway back chair it had lots of gold leak and was nicely carved. He had found her crying. She already knew and he was going to shitcan someone when this was over. Then he realized what had happened. How had she known? She had sensed him and she had known it was bad.
He still had to tell her.
By the time he was back on the Capatob he was spent. It was all he could do to restrain her. She was enraged and was out for blood. He had never sensed such fury. Someone had fucked around and now they were going to find out. He had talked with her an hour and she seem to be calmer, but he was going to have to watch her. He knew how she was. There were stories that were all no doubt true. She was a legend and would go down as one of the greatest hermaphrodite to ever live. They were going places and the shit was on. And now there was an unfortunate motivation. That was a dangerous combination right there. Make it personal and logic can go out the window. Make it personal and there will be no civility in victory. She was just the kind of human that was the perfect storm squared. The puddle of gasoline and someone flipped a match. It was a very volatile mix.
He was a bit of a cynic and a practical man. If she wanted to go there he would let her. She would either be a hero or a Martyr. He was perfectly OK with that. Being a practical man it also served his other purpose. She would eclipse him in the history books. At least he hoped so. He did not want his hands on this. The first contact situation with the twist of a western and an incalculable amount of science fiction had indelibly marked the mind of every member of the Greater Terran Fleet. They had read all of the possible scenarios from every Sci Fi author. If you pressed them they would finally admit it. The fleet really liked Heinlein. They had been trying to get at least a Heinlein corvette on the roster for years. They had thus far been unsuccessful. They needed a champion for the cause and they were trying to get One Fleet Admiral to order it to be. The Admiral took some joy in tormenting them. He was going to help them out but he was milking it for a favor. That was going to come in handy. “You can have your Heinlein but I am going to need this in return”. He was just being practical. All good commanders were excellent manipulators after all.
It is plain as day and the idea of a Heinlein proves my point but there was an even bigger more academic question that eclipsed all others. Who was right? Who came closest? No one would talk about it but they were all thinking the same thing.
The Admiral broke a taboo and called it out. He felt it was time. They needed a little friendly wager and a reason to get through the battle. They were going to have a pool where everyone had to pick the author. They buy in was just 5 UCreds. If you don’t live through the battle you cannot win. So: don’t die. Who came closest to the real thing? Which author or story came close to what was about to happen.Once a story was picked it was dead to all others. There was potentially some reward in alacrity. He knew it was a bit of a sucker’s bet since someone had to judge wo was closest and this would be highly subjective and entirely his decision. (Author’s note: I am a veteran of the US Army with several deployments around this dirt ball. I can say the military is the most Fascist organization around today. It has to be. Paradoxically it is the most “fair” in that everyone gets treated the same: like shit.) At least it would be a distraction and would give them something else to focus on. He had a very bad feeling about this. They were going to go in and kick the doors in on an alien civilization. They were going to war. No one would admit it, but everyone knew it. This was not to be discussed. That was an order. This is an exploratory rescue mission answering a distress call.
Vegan Fleet Academy Alpha Centauri B. 6, June 62425 Gregorian.
Planetary Admiral Kenneth Alexander looked out on a sight he never thought he would see. Lots of young people sitting politely in their chairs listening to what he had to say. He wrote the fucking book. There it was on the lectern right in front of him. He had written a book on astral navigation to make a little extra cash and because there was an over reliance still on electronic means to navigate. Sailors needed to be able to navigate in any situation with a sextant, a star map database and gravimaetric readings without the need of an AI or targeting computer (Insert Star wars joke here). The book could have been half as thick in his opinion but the publisher insisted he needed a little more explanation. The Admiral gave students too much credit. He truly felt it should be taught in grade school. He was called a fanatic when he suggested that kids on track for Ensigns should have had basic instruction. His argument being that Ensigns started service in the year in which they turned sixteen. That meant there were some 15 year-olds in the mix. Start teaching them early. They should show up to basic already familiar with side arms and rifles. He was a fanatic.
As far as that damned accursed book goes the fact he had 500 copies actually printed and bound meant there were few of them around, but sitting right about center in of the second row sat a copy of his book. He felt like the guy who saw the first unicorn. He never saw one in the wild before and this book was well worn. It was 50 years old after all but printed on plastic synthetic paper and woven fiberglass for silicone bindings held together with silicone adhesives meant that the damn things were waterproof and actually quite practical. The book required no batteries and even had a quick and dirty position fix protocol in a special section. This particular specimen wasn’t falling apart, this one was just worn out.
The way he carried the book was clear. He was oblivious of the significance. He had found it in a used bookshop for free. They were using it as a doorstop, and they just gave it to him. He had become engrossed by it and at 13 years of age he was finishing his PhD. The admiral sensed this in a psychic flash and pulled back he had poor control still. He was never going to get used to the change “OK everyone come on let’s get back to it the party is over. We have to finish this section and then we will get out of here. There is no class tomorrow so we will have the Parade of the Caisson tomorrow with Captain James Cook on interspecies governmental relations…. Someone was tapping on his shoulder getting his attention. She could have all of it. She whispered way too close for someone who did not prefer women but about perfect for him. He was in the latter camp. “We need you to speak tomorrow sir Captain Cook had a equipment malfunction over Hawaii and is delayed Sir. Pleeeease Sir?” With just enough breathiness that it made him jittery. He was an old perv. He was just that way. The lady in question was 100 years old however but, maybe it was still cradle robbing? He just had a thing for Afro’s in the natural state. It was distracting.
“Godddamnitalltohellwhatinthefuckdoyouwant?” This was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. He had just been asked to do the one thing he vowed to never do again. They wanted him to speak and air his opinions? This is the most dangerous thing you can do in society. He had no politics per se’ beyond one or two things. He was a professional and he would do his job as long as the checks kept coming. He was not a politician and he did not like politicians, of any stripe. What he had learned was ironclad. Never be honest or always be truthful. Pick one or the other was his personal philosophy. He always chose honesty when he needed to hide a truth. No one believed the truth. No one believed the truth because they were put off by it. He always thought back to when he was 12 or so when he got ribbed and harassed about masturbation. His uncle Gerry was kind of a cruel fuck and liked to torment him. He Gerry asked him if he was J.O’ing a dozen times a day or something. He had replied “That is about right.” This had brought down the room and gotten great laughs and Gerry quit running his mouth at him. Fuck you Gerry. You little bitch. In his opinion the media obfuscated everything not by making up lies but by omitting certain facts to fit their agenda. No one took major media seriously. The only objective newspaper he was aware of was the National Enquirer. Yeah I know it sounds stupid but it is true. Reality was anything but and people had come to be comfortable being lied to and even preferring it. All of this is roiling in his head and he has been put on the spot to boot. Add to that the fact that at least some of the outburst was audible. No one seems to have heard it, however. This settles the age-old question. It was only said if it was heard. No one heard the statement therefore…….. The mental gymnastics weren’t that bad. He could deny it. It happens. But he still had to give an answer .“What is in it for me?” Jannel the beautiful woman replied “absolutely nothing sir. This will not benefit you in any way and may once again be picked apart. As such I would advise against doing it. Still I am asking you. My ass is in a vise and the DEAN is having a temper tantrum so I feel like I am being spitroasted by the devil and a lamp post in a not so good way, but I would consider it a great personal favor if you will do this despite your misgivings and likelihood of misadventure.” So fast and so well enunciated.
“Sure. I will do it. Goddammit.” Honesty must be rewarded.

My wife and I grabbed new devices on Black Friday on a promotion. I am fully aware the new plans are capped at 100mbps, that's plenty, in fact I'm not even sure what I'd do that I'd need more for on a mobile device. Even tethering to my laptop to play games online to avoid garbage hotel internet is fine.
Here's the thing - streaming video, music, any kind of social media, all perfectly fine. Things like banking apps, points, Skip, Uber Eats, etc however just will not load, or require multiple attempts to login or load. Speed test still gets what I'm supposed to, and if either my wife or I turn on mobile hotspot and connect to the other's device, the services that did not work previously suddenly do.
I've spoken with other Koodo customers at my store who were having similar issues logging into their banking apps to transfer money, realising they have the same problem we do.
Does anyone have a solution to this?

Victor turned around for one more look at what had been his childhood home. It was a three bedroom apartment on the four hundred thirty third floor in the Manchester district of the hive city New Avalon. It did at least have one window facing the outside of the hive, which made it an instant selling point.For which he was glad, it was part of his new inheritance from his parents who had recently died in the latest rounds of terrorist bombings against Canary Corps headquarters, which they both were middle management.
His military leave was coming to an end, his amassed two week respite was only due to his twenty years of service in the imperial guard. As a Captain and veteran of the Emperors many campaigns, he could pull rank when needed.
In five short years he would be able to retire a full citizen. Something his father scoffed at, but that was nothing new, his father scoffed at anything he had ever done. His everything ached, as he turned his back on his former home and made his way towards the transmat pad. Selling the apartment and consolidating his assets weren’t the only thing he was doing on Terra.
He spent those two weeks getting augments that would have been out of reach to a lowly Captain of the Imperial guard. Gene-mods were common throughout the Empire, but there were gene-mods, and then there were gene-mods. His were now top of the line, far beyond the mil-spec given to him in officer school. That, combined with his new dimensional storage add-on allowed him to purchase and store massive amounts of goods for his upcoming retirement.
Some things you could only get on Holy Terra, a nano-forge capable of making anything you have a SBC to construct could be found on most technological worlds. A nano-foundry to make the nanites the nano-forge uses can only be purchased on select worlds of the Empire.
But SBCs can only be found on Terra, and are heavily restricted. But some connections in Imperial Guard logistics pointed him to some people who might have some SBCs that may or may not be considered illegal to own. That combined with raw materials, a habitat module, weapons, food, mining drones, security drones, and forge spiders now filled his dimensional storage.
“Next!” Shouted a bored looking transmat officer in front of Victor. To which he sighed and presented his Imperial Guard ID and his permissions to be transported to Andosious Prime. The officer looked him over in his Imperial Guard Armor, a bit battle worn, but impeccably maintained. It felt much lighter with the upgrades, which was the point. Two hundred kilos of light power armor is still heavy even with the minor gene-mods of the guard. Now he barely felt it as he stood before the officer.
“No baggage Captain Cane?” He asked looking down at this console.Victor kept his face emotionless, something driven into him by officer training. “The guard provides me with all I need officer. No baggage today.” He lied through his teeth.
The officer nodded, that was the proper response, “Thank you for your service Captain, next stop, Andosious Prime!” He said with a flourish as he pressed a button on his panel.The universe went white, time fell away, then he felt like he was falling. This wasn’t what normally happened on a transmat. Suddenly the world came back into focus, blue sky followed by a green forest followed by a brown ground coming up fast.
His mental commands screamed through the interface nodes imbedded all over his body into the scout armor. Retro-rockets fired as he made a hard landing in the clearing of a forest. Two weeks earlier something like that would have hurt bad, if not caused serious injury. Now it just added to his aches.
He looked around, his heads-up display noting the fauna, surprisingly it came back as all Terra based equivalents. Well, they would have been if most of them didn’t say EXTINCT beside their classification in red.
“Captain Cane to Guard unit 117154, please respond.” The hud responded with something he had never seen before. NO SIGNAL.
“What the hell?” He asked himself. He had never been without a signal. “Computer, run diagnostics, maybe the transmat damaged something.” He watched as the diagnostic finished running, no errors, no signal.
He looked up, the sun would be going down in a few hours, he could use the celestial navigation software in his armor to find his location anywhere in the galaxy. Emperor above, he hoped the transmat hadn’t put him on a Xeno world.
He activated his jump pack to launch himself up for a better view of the land. About a thousand meters up he saw smoke coming from a medium sized village… maybe? He could work with that, maybe he was in a non-technological world of the Empire, even those had outposts to get a signal out from.
The jump pack’s capacitors would need to recharge before he could use it again. Nothing to do but start walking towards the village. With any luck he would reach it before nightfall, from there he’d get some answers.
He did not get to the village before nightfall. The terrain made going slow, the ground was soft and muddy, the forest was densely packed with oak trees and rocks. He had to use his jump pack to clear a particularly deep gully and it was slowly recharging.
As he looked down on the village he remembered his navigation software, he looked up to the sky and let the computer gather data. Location confirmed, Holy Terra, New Avalon, District 334.He sighed and looked back down to the village, “Either my suit is borked, or I’m back in the distant past.” He muttered. His armors’ limited AI printed something new on his hud. CONSTELLATIONS OUT OF SYNC BY 4271 YEARS.
Victor froze at the revelation. All the physics classes he took in his youth stated going back in time was impossible, something about paradoxes prevented it. “Computer, do you have any information on transmat failures?” The AI showed it was indexing before coming back with an answer, LOST MATTER IN TRANSMAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN PUSHED PAST THE FINITE CURVE OF THE UNIVERSE. NO FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE.
Victor sat on a tree stump taking in the information. “Well, I’m not in the Empire anymore, even if the computer thinks I am. Nothing to do but head down to the village.” He pushed up from the stump and made his way in the dark towards the oddly ancient eastern looking village.
There was a road leading into the village, a sign stood crookedly at the crossroads, his AI translated it as Wuzhen, with other arrows pointing to Tongxian, Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Wujiang. “Computer, what language is this?” IT IS A DIALECT OF ANCIENT CHINESE, ADJUSTING GENE-MODS TO FOR TRANSLATION.
His vocal cords did that weird thing that happened whenever the AI needed to translate from Terran to another language or dialect. How the gene-mods did it was beyond his pay grade, but everyone always complimented him on his accent, so apparently the technology was sound.
He saw figures up ahead with a ox and wagon. His enhanced vision showed him about what he expected, peasants bringing their wares to town for sale. That was, until he saw the woman had goats eyes. The man had goats horns curling from his forehead but in all other aspects looked Human.
“Emperor above, what is going on?” He thought to himself as he decided he may not want to walk into town in green and black scout armor. He reached into dimensional storage and found a large trench coat that would fit over his armor. He pulled it out and put it on, then sent a mental command to retract his helmet as it whooshed back into the backpack portion of his armor.
As he walked up to the gates he was met with a solitary guard, this man had human features but a monkey’s tail. “Hurry up and get in, we’re about to close the gate house.” Victor pointed a thumb backwards, “There are two people behind me on a wagon coming.” The monkey guard yelled out as Victor stepped into the village past the walls.
“Hurry up you dumb turtles, instinctive are on the prowl and won’t think twice about making a meal of the lot of you!” The guard yelled. This seemed to put some fire under them, as they cracked their whip on the ox yelling for it to move. He sub-vocalized to his AI, “Does the term instinctual in reference to ancient china mean anything?”
The computer spoke back in his inner ear, CHINESE MYSTICISM STATES PRACTICERS OF INSTINCTIVE CULTIVATION BECAME ANIMAL LIKE AND OFTEN CANNIBALISTIC. Victor looked around at the village, seeing the sign for what must be an inn, he made his way across the street narrowly avoiding a steaming pile of horse manure.
The inn was bustling, barmaids with cats ears or pigs snouts served drinks and food to tables and people seemed to huddle close to the strange hearth like fireplace of the inn. It wasn’t like any fireplace he had ever seen. He sub-vocalized the question to his AI and it responded with the word “KANG”.
He found a chair near the front of the inn, far away from the kang and watched the locals. It appeared that coinage was copper discs. He turned his head from the inn and ducked down to bring his helmet back up, “Computer, replicate those discs in the nano-forge from copper ingots, have them ready for me to pull out of dimensional storage, we’ll need currency.”
His helmet slid back into his backpack and he raised his head and turned around just as a barmaid noticed he had no food or drink. “We have veil or pork, beer or wine. What can I get you?” Victor kept his face neutral, something that would have been impossible before his training with the Guard, she looked Xeno after all, the snout was all that was out of place on an otherwise attractive woman.
“I’ll have the veil and wine. Also, who do I see about a room?” He asked.
The boar-kin woman turned her head towards the bar, “Old man Huang would be the one to check with, don’t know if we have any open tonight. We have a lot of refugees from Huzhou after all.”
Victor raised an eyebrow, usually refugees meant something bad, “Refugees you say? I’m new to these parts, what happened?”
The barmaid snorted, which was ironic considering she was a boar-kin. “You must be new, Huzhou was raised to the ground by the instinctives, the Empress has sent a small contingency of the sect of the Iron Paw to defend Wuzhen, as we are a central transport hub.” The barmaid then looked over to a table of women in much more elaborate dress than the commoners, each with a jade talisman on their wrist.
Without another word she brought more drinks to their table, on it stacked plate after plate, bowl after bowl of food. After setting down the drinks she bowed until her snout almost touched the table before hastily retreating from their prescence.
Victor’s AI chimed in his ear that fabrication was complete and he reached under the table to access his dimensional storage, grabbing two handfuls of copper coins he put them in his trench coat pockets. He noted that although the inn was crowded, everyone else avoided the table with the sect women. It was almost as if others had moved their tables and chairs away, as if there were danger near them. The women didn’t look especially tough, they were armed with swords, but mostly dressed in robes of fine silk, no armor to be found.
He also noted they all had traits of tiger in them. Some had tails, some had the ears, some had the eyes. He supposed that was why they were called the Iron Paw sect, not very creative, but he doubted he could do better.
The barmaid came back with a plate of veil, steamed vegetables, and a large cup of wine. As she sat it down she said quietly, “Stop staring at the cultivators, do not draw their notice or they will decide they need make an example of an upstart mortal.”
Victor kept his face stoney as he accepted the meal and looked elsewhere while he ate. The food was quite good although he didn’t like the turnips. The wine was made from rice, and quite strong. He was about to wave the barmaid back over when a bell started ringing. Everyone in the inn froze, well all but the cultivators.
They pushed their plates to the center of the table, stood as one, and marched out of the inn. As they reached the door conversations started up. With Victor’s enhanced hearing he heard variations of ‘They must have spotted instinctuals’, or ‘I hope the iron paw is as fierce as they are rumored to be.’
Victor stood up, asked the barmaid for the tab, placed some copper on the table and raised his collar as he walked out of the inn. He noticed none of the other patrons followed him out, if anything they huddled away from the door. Seeing no-one was around he jumped using the armors powerful servo motors to propel him onto the roof of a two-story store. He almost didn’t clear the roof, landing with a slight thud and breaking roofing tiles as he made his way to the peek of the roof.
He watched as the women of the sect bounced almost weightlessly off of the rooftops reaching the guard tower at the east gate. Bringing his helmet back up his hud instantly targeted over 30 creatures rushing the east gate at monstrous speed. 160 KM/HR, ETA 45 SECONDS his AI helpfully informed him.The creatures were vaguely humanoid, they resembled ware-wolves, and ran on all fours. He watched as the cultivators drew their weapons as one, the human guards dropped from the wall and grabbed long pike-like weapons.
WAR MODE ENGAGED, EVASIVE ACTION REQUIRED fired through his ears as his armor spun from a crouching position and narrowly avoided a sword that stabbed through the ceramic tile of the roof to nearly the hilt. Before him stood a woman with the ears of a tiger in a blue silk dress.
His AI relinquished emergency control of the armor back to Victor as she spoke. “You are fast for a male. Surrender to this Mei, and I will make sure your execution is quick.” Victor cocked his head to the side before partially raising a hand. The bolter pistol appeared in his hand from dimensional storage as he pulled the trigger.
Mei’s eyes were round as the roof beneath her feet vanished in a hail of ceramic and wood, a noise as if a volcano had exploded right next to her severely stunned her more sensitive cultivator ears as she fell through to the second floor. Victor turned to the east wall in time to see a mass of bodies, all female it appeared, as he had never seen ware-wolves with breasts, leap the ten meters or so to the top of the wall. Howls pierced the night air as some were impaled on swords, others lashed out with razor sharp claws tearing into members of the Iron Paw sect.
It was obvious they would not hold that position. If they didn’t retreat they would all be lost, some of the smarter or luckier of the sect began to tactically retreat, fending off claws and teeth with their swords. Victor turned and saw the highest structure in town, a bell tower that stood about five stories high. That must have been where the warning came from, he could get a better vantage point from there.
Suddenly he heard a growl and the woman he had unceremoniously dropped through the roof jumped through the opening and landed as if gravity held no sway over her. “You have made a grave mistake instinctual, for this Mei will end you this…”
____________________
She didn’t get to finish her sentence as she watched the black armored figure with a strange brown robe suddenly launch himself on wings of fire from the roof to the top of the bell tower.
“Mei, Mei! Where are you, we are being overrun!” She heard from the east wall as her sect sisters were back pedaling as the mass of instinctuals climbed over both their own dead and her sisters. She turned away from the strange male and leaped from rooftop to rooftop to aid her sisters in battle.
She landed next to Xiang, who now had a gash across her cheek from combat, “There is someone else here, a male!” She shouted as she drove her sword into one of the wolf-kin that came too close. It howled in pain and retreated, but she knew it was not a fatal blow.
Xiang parried a high swipe of a claw and with a spin kick sent the instinctual she was fighting flying backwards only for it to catch itself with its claws and grind to a crouching halt. “Who? We are in the backlands of the Empire, and why would they send a male, he would surely be courting death against foes such as these!”
Mei blocked a razor sharp claw with the blunt edge of her sword before parrying backwards, “It doesn’t matter, our orders are to protect this town at all costs, don’t let them push us into a blind ally or somewhere we can’t defend ourselves.”
___________________
Victor watched as the tiger ladies tried desperately to fend off the ware-wolf ladies. It was not going well for the tigers, it seemed that although the instinctuals didn’t use weapons, they were faster, bigger, stronger, and meaner on average. His hud counted six cultivators down, two of which were being eaten by the ware-wolf women, the remaining five were being pushed towards center square.
What they couldn’t see was a group of four cultivators coming up on their flank from the south. It seems that even though these sect ladies seem haughty at best, they are the closest thing to the good guys in this fight. Victor cursed as he reached into his dimensional storage, a mark 8 flamer wrapped itself lovingly around his scout armor, as his hands wrapped around the handle and nozzle.
He leaped from the bell tower, shattering roofing tiles and bricks as he dropped the five stories to the ground before firing the retro-rockets in his boots, hitting the ground behind the Iron Paw sect before pouring withering fire from the flamer into the four instinctualists rushing from the south. They howled in agony as napalm lapped at their fur and burned them as they wallowed on the dirt road of the town square trying to quench the fire.
Victor turned around as the women of the Iron Paw were forced back to his position, which worked out fine, now they weren’t in the way. He poured burning liquid napalm into the ranks of the instinctuals. Those that could turned on claws and ran, those that didn’t burned in the street.
He turned around and ordered his helmet to retract, the four standing sisters of the Iron Paw leaped a step back bringing up their battered swords. He allowed his flamer to dissolve back into this dimensional storage. “Stand down ladies, the threat is over.” If anything this made them bring their swords up more.
Mei was the first to find her voice, “You are obviously a master of fire to dispatch so many of the betrayers instinctuals. Who sent you?”
Victor’s face remained impassive, this was new information, the instinctuals betrayed the Empire in some way. “No one sent me, I was in the area, and you apparently needed aid.” Let them decide with that what they will.
Mei slowly lowered her sword, before starting to laugh without much mirth, “In our darkest hour a hidden master appears and saves us from death. You would think we were part of a play or poets story.” The other women lowered what was left of their weapons as well.
Xiang looked Victor up and down, “I have never heard of male becoming a cultivator of war, that is usually the domain of females. I have also never seen clothing or armor like you wear, are you from the Empire?”
Victor sighed, well, here goes. “I am not from the Empire, I am from a far away land called Terra, and at the moment, I am merely passing through.”
The smaller one known as Li spoke up, “One does not simply pass through the Celestial Empire! The wall has stood for millennia untold, only the Immortal Empress remembers when it was built. How did you cross it?”
Victor only shrugged, “Who said I crossed the wall?” As he turned around and walked to the inn he only recently left. The crowd of people parted as he walked in.
_____________________
Xiang turned to Mei, “He is a foreigner wandering our land, Shihan must be informed of his presence and bring it before the court.”
Mei nodded her head turning to the final woman left standing, “Hua, travel to Wujiang, let our sisters know what has transpired here and have a message sent back to the Imperial Palace about this newcomer and what we should do.”
Li spoke, “Should we not attempt to capture him ourselves? After all, a male cultivator is a rarity indeed.”
Mei looked over to the smaller Li, “He burned down instinctuals with what appeared to be the forgotten Concept of Fire, for that was the Sixth Level Yang Fire, something we females who cultivate yin are incapable of. No, we would court death trying to capture a hidden master of his power. Did any of you even feel his Chi?” They all shook their heads.
Mei continued, “Then he is hiding his true power from us. When I first saw him leap from the ground to the rooftop I thought him a spy for the instinctuals. When I tried to attack he moved with a speed even I could not match. When I threatened him he simply ignored me, and throughout that I never once felt his Chi. This is a male we must be careful around sisters, now go Hua.”
_____________________
Victor watched as the people in the inn parted before him. He noticed many of them bowing as though he were part of the Imperial family of Terra. He reached the bar where the innkeeper, what was his name again? HUANG his AI chimed in.
“Huang, I require lodgings for the night. Do you have a room available?”
The Ox-Kin bowed so low as to touch the bar, “This lowly one will gladly provide you with a room hidden master.” He raised his head and waved the boar-kin barmaid over to him in a frenzy, “Chun, find the hidden master a room.”
Chun rushed over and bowed before Victor, “Please follow me hidden master?”
“Victor, my name is Victor Cane. Please, lead the way Chun.”
As he followed Chun upstairs to an empty room Victor closed and locked the door, if they want to think he is a hidden master then let them. In the meantime he needed sleep. He reached one more time into his dimensional storage and pulled four small security drones and paired them to his armor’s AI.
One flew out the open window to watch from outside, one crawled under the door to watch the inn, the other two sat inside the room.
Once he felt all was secured he settled into the not so great bed and closed his helmet. He’d worry about everything else tomorrow.

I have a laptop I used in college, Acer R5-571T with Intel I5-6200U @2.3Ghz (2.4Ghz), 12GB ram, Crucial 1TB SSD and Win 10 Pro 21H2.
After updates I ran a debloat from CTT
After a shutdown which seemed to take forever I timed a startup, login, open Chrome and get on Facebook as a benchmark. 11.5 minutes. I’ve disabled as many startup applications from System settings as well as Acer’s “optimize” from Acer Care Center (which also runs extremely slow at times). This laptop I got in 2015 and while it’s practically ancient, I also have a MacBook Pro mid 2012 9,2 with a dual core i5 at 2.5Ghz Ivy Bridge, 8Gb RAM, 500Gb SSD from OWC (Mercury Electra 6G SSD). Running OS Ventura 13.3 (using OpenCore Patcher)
Running same benchmark test the MacBook clocks in at 2 min, 31 seconds. Even updated Steam while loading Chrome which I didn’t cancel.
The MacBook is 3+ years older than the Acer and while the MacBook has a 0.2Ghz lead in speed, the “Skylake” in the Acer can boost to 2.8Ghz (which it does often).
So what gives? I like using the Acer as the screen is 1080p vs 720p of the MacBook and the speakers are better. But the MacBook is much faster for even internet browsing/streaming.
Malware bytes detects nothing, Windows defender doesn’t either, even in offline scan mode. I don’t use a paid anti-virus software, but I don’t see anything unusual on process running and nothing weird in registry (so far).
Any tips to make the Acer run as fast as the MacBook or is it just apples and oranges?

So preview copies of the Leviathan boxset have been sent out now, and with that comes the new rulebook, which also contains within it a Crusade supplement that details the 4th Tyrannic War. I'll let someone else detail all the new stuff that's been added because its a massive book and I don't have the patience. But I'll post the story of the Norn Emissaries. You may have heard of it as the big new Tyranid monster mentioned in the Warhammer + lore video that was slain by Trajann Valoris in order to save Lord Solar Leontus. That brief account doesn't really get into how scary these guys actually are.
In the book itself there are three Norn Emissaries that are involved in the fighting, two of which are uninvolved in the assassination attempt on Leontus.

With the skies darkened, day and night had no meaning. The defenders fought on doggedly, yet their casualties mounted and the fortress they manned became ever more heavily damaged. All the while, the three Norn Emissaries stalked through the fighting with eerie alien grace, closing inexorably upon objectives only they knew. One of them struck on the eighth day of the siege, having compressed its mass into the seemingly impossible confines of a decommissioned turbolift shaft then crawled steadily upwards for untold hours. The towering monstrosity burst into the Erythrad Peak command sanctum, where it slaughtered hundreds of screaming strategos and command adepts and destroyed scoroes of irreplacable cogitator banks. The beast would have escaped to strike again elsewhere, had it not been for an unnamed Chapter serf who selflessy sealed the blood-drenched sanctum and trigged the plasmic denial charges, reducing the entire peak to a glassy crater.
The second Emissary - whose distinctive scars identified it to Imperial strategos as the infamous Fiend of Hag Rift - surged from a Trygon tunnel to attack the White Templars' gene-seed vault. It was supported by swarms of lesser warrior organisms and a pair of Neurotyrants. In response, marching from the Chapter's Vaults of Repose came almost a score of White Templars Dreadnoughts who held back the Tyranids in an increasingly desperate and one-sided struggle. Almost all of the ancient warriors were slain - a dreadful loss for the Chapter - but their sacrifices bought time for Colonel Uveda of the Ortegan Grenadiers to launch a massive counter attack and drive the Tyranids back. When the vengeful Chapter Master Stavro arrived at the head of a White Templars strike force, the Fiend of Hag Rift was badly wounded and its swarm devestated. Yet the malevolent monster escaped to fight another day.

But the lion's share of the screentime is given to the one sent to assassinate Lord Solar Leontus.

For all the butchery and horror wrought by its fellows, it was the third of the Norn Emissaries that struck at the most crucial target. Scaling the snow-whipped peak of the tallest mountains in the Heights of Artorus, the creature lurked in wait amidst rock and ice for its prey to emege. Below lay the wide-open square of the Ascendorum, a great plaza wrought from a mountainous plateau, dotted with braziers, statuary, sheild generatorums and flak batteries. In better times, the White Templars had mustered on this open space to perform rituals and bestow honours beneath the starry vaults of Sanctum's skies. Now, Lord Solar Leontus was crossing the open plaza astride Konstantin with his entourage about him. The Norn Emissary knew its prey's psionic spoor. Its black eyes followed him. Its ropes of muscle and tendon tensed, and then it leapt out into thin air. The Norn Emissary dropped towards the plaza, sword-like talons extended, angling its huge mass to slam down directly atop Leontus. From below came screams as someone spotted the danger and many amongst Leontus' entourage raised weapons. The Lord himself looked up, registering his doom descending upon him too swiftly to be avoided.
Missiles streaked in and struck the Norn Emissary in the flank when it was scant feet above Leontus' head. The impacts blossomed into concussive fireballs. Their force hurled the huge Tyranid aside even as their shock waves unhorsed the Lord Solar and threw him and many of his companions flat upon the flagstones. The Norn Emissary bucked in the air, ichor gouting from its wounded flank, and turned its tumble into a cat-like landing with a grace nothing so huge should posses. It hissed as the gilded gunship that had fired upon it streaked overhead, then banked sharply with a flare of engines and came in for another pass. The craft's rear ramp whined open as it flew closer, and hulking warriors clad in ornate auramite armour dropped from it one after another to slam down in the plaza with enough force to crack stone. The gunship's weapons blazed again. This time the Emissary was ready. Leaping and swinging huge talons in a scything arc, it tore the cockpit from the gunship and sent it spiralling down the mountainside in flames.
The emissary wheeled and surged with serpentine speed towards Leontus, who was still staggering to his feet. Blood ran down his pale face from a bad scalp wound. Though he fumbled to draw his blade, the Norn Emissary's prey was in no condition to defend himself. The monster reared above him.
The newly arrived golden warriors moved with incredible speed and merciless focus. Those of the Lord Solar's retinue not swift enough to clear a path were smashed aside with bone-breaking force as Trajann Valrois and his Custodians raced to interpose themselves between Leontus and his would-be xenos assassin. The Norn Emissary was just paces from its victim when a hammering volley of bolt fire from the Custodian's guardians spears arrested its charge. The monster staggered then lunged with a shriek, snatching up the nearest Custodian and tearing one arm from his body before swinging him by the other and hurling him away.
Trajann Valoris stepped in and aimed a mighty stroke with the Watcher's Axe that shattered several of the Emissary's talons. The towering xeno-beast feinted back then sprang past Valoris and attempted to snatch up Leontus. The Lord Solar had, by now, recovered his wits, however, and hurled himself backward to escape the monster's grasp. Bodyguards and chanting priests pressed forward, raking the Norn Emissary with fire from lasguns, pistols, and a handful of plasma weapons. The monster swatted its attackers aside like insects and sent broken bodies tumbling across the plaza.
The next instant it reeled and screeched as several Custodians' blades hacked into its flesh. Eyes still fixed unerringly on the retreating Lord Solar, the Norn Emissary lashed about itself with blistering speed. A custodian was borne aloft and ripped bodily in two. Another was kicked so hard that his head cleared the plaza and vanished over the precipice before his blood-spurting body had even toppled. Yet another was stomped into the flagstones, even his toughened bone structure and auramite armour not enough to prevent his death. The golden wall between the Norn Emissary and its prey was thinning.
All the while Leontus defenders and the remaining Custodians were pouring fire into the colossal alien abomination. A scything blow of the Watcher's Axe slit the cable-like tendons of the beast's right ankle and set it limping. A plasma blast - either skullfully placed or incredibly lucky - melted the right side of the Emissary's face into a fused mass of cooked flesh. Bolt rounds fired by Custodians blasted chunks of chitin and showers of ichor from the creature's limbs and body.
Still the Norn Emissary fought on. Its whipping tail broke another Custodian's neck and sent his body cluttering away across the plaza. A final, desperate effort saw the beast hurl itself forward, jaws grasping to close upon Lord Solar Leontus like a trap slamming shut. Yet Valoris was there at the crucial moment, Watcher's Axe swinging in a meteoric arc to embed itself in the side of the Norn Emissary's skull and smash its head aside. The xenos monster crashed to the ground, crushing more than a score of Leontus' aides under its bulk, yet its last strike at the Lord Solar had been fended off by the Captain-General of the Emperor's own bodyguards. Valoris and his one surviving Custodian kept their weapons levelled at the monster as it twitched and heaved, but it did not try to rise again. Ichor flooded from its grievious wounds, steaming as it cooled and began to freeze upon the cracked flagstones of the plaza.
Lord Solar Leontus looked gravely around at the carnaged, then up at the stern-faced demigod who had interceded to save his life. Expression sombre, Leontus raised his hands and wordlessly offered the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes the sign of the Aquila. Valoris returned the gesture, and then calmly set about checking his wargear and reloading the Eagle's Scream. The life of the Lord Solar had been saved at terrible cost, and the defenders of Sanctum had received reinforcements, but there was still a world's worth of war to be waged.

Remember that one story about the Custodians fighting an entire Tyranid swarm that Custodes haters constantly rag about? Really, the Hive Mind should've sent one of these guys instead, because managing to kill four custodes and a gunship by yourself while the Custodians have Imperial Guard support is pretty impressive.

First Chapter
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you, Ms. President, and Mr. Secretary-General. It’s my privilege to come and speak to everyone present during such a momentous time in human history. One which, I hope, will lead to a brighter future for us all…”
US President Correa’s boilerplate beginning flowed out as she scanned the room. Behind her rostrum sat a larger dais tiled with green marble, behind which sat the UN President, Secretary-General, and Under-Secretary-General. Two huge screens flanked the dais, and those screens now showed Correa’s face as she continued.
“…and we are committed to our country’s pledge to finding a peaceful and just way for Coalition technology to be incorporated worldwide, and to not attempt any reverse-engineering of our own. Make no mistake; we do not do this out of any sense of altruism or fairness, as pleasant as that may sound. We will hold this pledge sacred for the simple reason that, if the United States were to attempt such efforts the rest of the world would, without a doubt, find out. That, of course, would lead to a great instability.”
‘Great instability’ was diplomatic-speak for ‘the rest of the world then gangs up on the USA and then everything goes to hell’.
“I know there has already been a great deal of debate in this august hall as to the best way to proceed forward, in a fair and impartial manner. We believe that we have found what one might call a ‘trial run’ which will allow us to work out such matters.”
The general murmuring from the many semi-circular rows of desks in front of her increased.
“To begin with, during the first weeks after first contact we wanted to make sure our guests from the Coalition would not starve to death. Much like humanity’s own ships during the Age of Sail, Coalition exploration vessels store enough provisions for years…but such provisions never last. They have very advanced recycling, but mostly for water and even that is only a stop-gap measure. It is unknown even at this time as to how long it will take to repair the Exultant Finger of Rithro, and we did not want to risk the crew running out of food.
“Therefore, we undertook an emergency effort to have their ship’s medic examine various Earth foods to determine their compatibility with our guests’ varied biochemistries. I am pleased to report that there are quite a few Earth foodstuffs which are indeed compatible, although there are some specific items which act as allergens amongst some of the Coalition species. During these efforts, we did learn a bit about how their alien biochemistries work…information which has been duly published and is now openly available. We also began to get glimpses of something wonderful, and asked the Coalition crew for more details. They supplied us with some general ideas of what their medical technology can accomplish; I must emphasize that we do not possess any knowledge of how they can perform such miracles.”
Now the murmuring got quite a bit higher, but not quite to the point where they’d have to call for order.
“Yes, I use the word ‘miracles’ advisedly. For example, take Captain Sadaf. You have all seen her, and how she moves like a person in the prime of their life. Now. What if I told you that she is a little over four hundred years old?”
The murmuring died down into a shocked silence.
“Her species, the auhn, is no more long-lived than we are…but they are able to regenerate and remove the effects of aging. I hope the esteemed ambassadors can see what I am driving at. I propose that we set up a research institute, international in scope, to be placed at a neutral location which is still to be determined. The purpose of that institute will be to study and adapt Coalition medical technology for use in humans.”
Now the murmuring started again; she hoped they were actually listening instead of hatching side-deals with each other.
“You all have families and friends. I’m sure you have at least one family member, one good friend, who died of some horrible and unnecessary affliction. Think of what this means to the world, to us. It is also an excellent way to determine the inevitable issues and frictions which will arise from such a concerted international effort, and that, in turn, will inform our efforts in mutual reverse-engineering of other Coalition technology.
“I know this is, in many ways, a frightening time. Change can be frightening. But I am convinced that you will all know the right way forward, and that you will all see the need for us to unite in this matter, even if others may not be so clear-cut. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.”
As she stepped away from the rostrum, the UN President cleared his throat.
“We will now begin the debate on Madame President Correa’s proposal. Paper copies, with specifics of the proposal, are now being distributed to you all. We’ll now begin the debate period…yes, the gentleman from Portugal…?”
__________
Correa’s Chief of Staff was a shorter, tubby man with an olive complexion by the name of Pablo Rosas. He and Correa sat in a White House conference room, staring at a big screen which now showed the results of the UN vote. “Well, I suppose that went about as well as we could expect,” said Rosas.
“Yep. I was surprised they even agreed with our asking them to kick in some money.”
Rosas chuckled. “Keep in mind that all of this new medical tech will be available for anyone patent-free. Should be air-tight legally, since nobody here on Earth invented it; we’re merely adapting it. I think that was the sweetener we needed to get it passed.”
The president gave a brief nod, then tapped a few keys on the controls in front of her. The screen now showed a world map. “Now we just have to figure out where to put the damn thing without everyone getting butt-mad about it.”
“Hmm.” Rosas laced his fingers over his substantial gut as he regarded the map. “Someplace not ‘the usual’, then.”
Correa growled in frustration. “I keep thinking Switzerland, but I know there’s gonna be a lot of shit flung about that it’s too European-centric. Taiwan would be great; they’ve got both a good tech base and excellent transport infrastructure.”
“But way too controversial, for obvious reasons,” replied Rosas. “Japan?”
“China will, again, kick up a fuss. Huh. New Zealand?”
“That might work. They tend to be more neutral…but then again some might say they’re in too close with Australia, and that this whole effort is too Western-centric.” His eyes flicked back to north on the map. He was about to move his gaze elsewhere, but then he paused. “What about Iceland?”
“Iceland?” Correa almost scoffed, then looked more thoughtfully at the map. “Okay, they’re a NATO member which is a minus. But they tend to remain mostly neutral, which is a plus. Decent transportation infrastructure…don’t we have a naval air base there?”
“I think so, let me check…” Rosas tapped at his phone. “Hey, Jack? What can you tell me about any US naval air bases in Iceland? Just the highlights.” After a couple of minutes, he responded with a curt, “Okay, that’s enough, thanks.”
He put his phone away. “We kinda-sorta have one, at a place called Keflavik. The base there used to be a lot bigger during the Cold War. Then we shut it down after the Soviets were no longer a going concern. Iceland uses it now, and they allow us to fly submarine-search aircraft out of there, but a few years ago they nixed the DOD’s request to rebuild it into a more permanent base.”
“That does work in their favor. It makes for better optics if they’re known for keeping NATO at arm’s length.”
Rosas sat up. “Think the UN will go for it?”
“We can only try. I’ll have our ambassador in Reykjavik make some discreet inquiries, let’s see if they’d be okay with our proposing them as a candidate.”
The Chief of Staff smiled. “If it goes through, this institute will be pumping well north of a billion dollars per year into their economy. That should make it more than ‘okay’.
__________
Agent Cécile Savoie sat in a secure-location breakroom, silently grumbling as she held an as-yet un-drunk mug of coffee in her hands. As the agent-in-charge of the security detail during the Camp David incident, she’d been put on administrative leave, right alongside every other agent who’d been there. But it wasn’t like she had much down time; the inquiry board into that incident now summoned her damn near every other day for yet another round of tedious questioning.
“Hey,” said Hanson as he strolled in, looking just as sour as she felt.
She looked up in surprise. “Hey yourself. I thought you were assigned to the alien detail.”
“I was,” he said as he seated himself across the circular table from her. “Guess being in Alabama when the shitshow went down wasn’t far enough away to be completely out of suspicion. I just finished running my own gauntlet. But the rumor is, I’m getting it easy compared to everyone who was at Camp David, including the special forces people. Especially you.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much a colonoscopy every day,” she muttered. “Going over the timeline, where I was at which times, who I had direct line of sight on, who I was in radio contact with.” She finally sipped her coffee.
Hanson’s sour expression deepened. “Do you really think it was one of us?”
She sighed. “It has to be. My gut tells me that there’s more than one mole and I told the inquiry board as much. The fuckers who got in knew too much about our patrol patterns, where everyone was, when they’d have a clear shot at an infil. That means someone with access to our methods and comms, and as to the latter we don’t use CB radios.”
The other agent leaned back. “Fuck. I wish I knew why any of us would do that. We’re supposed to be quiet professionals, not frothing radicals.”
Savoie turned the mug in her hands. “Not to tell tales out of school but, through the whisper network, they’ve been leaning hard on the captured dudes from the attack. Apparently one of their main ‘objections’,” and here she made some one-handed air quotes, “is that they think the whole Breaker thing is a ruse. It’s all smoke and mirrors, so that we’ll beg the Coalition to come and save us. And then…well, it gets vague after that but I guess they claim that at best we’ll get turned into the galactic equivalent of a Native American reservation. Worst case, we all get harvested for our precious bodily fluids.”
Hanson stared at her for a moment in disbelief. “That is, if you will forgive the uncouth term, utterly retarded. For chrissake, the Hubble got some beautiful shots of their ship once they’d spun that shield around to reveal it to us. I mean, I’m no spacecraft expert but even I could tell it had gotten the shit pounded out of it.”
She responded with a shrug. “Hey, Flat Earthers are still a thing.”
“Flat Earthers don’t stage FUCKING mortar attacks in our nation’s capital,” snapped Hanson. Then he subsided and spoke more softly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so on edge. This whole thing just pisses me off.”
“Join the club,” said Savoie as she sipped more coffee. “I just don’t get it, though.”
Hanson made a gentle ‘continue’ wave of his hand.
She leaned forward. “Okay. Our comrades in the CIA managed to identify the four who made it into the compound. They were all mercenaries, each with at least ten or fifteen years of experience in kicking ass around some of the worst hot spots in the world. Syria, Burma, bunch of places in Africa. One of ‘em even turned out to be ex-Wagner group.”
“Okay?” It was a leading single-word question, but not an unkind one.
“So why was the rest of the attack made up of nothing but a bunch of goddamn shit-kickers? And that includes the aborted attempt in Decatur. I’ve seen the files of those we rounded up in the Camp David attack. They were all low-life idiots just banging around, maybe they might have once held a gun in their lives. Hell, from what I’ve heard, the shootings that triggered the alarm at Camp David were an accident; those intruders were supposed to sneak around that patrol, not kill them. They all had the same top-of-the-line kit, so we know whoever is behind this has deep pockets. Why not hire an entire bunch of competent people instead of doing it onesy-twoseys?”
“It is a puzzle.” Hanson got up and set a styrofoam cup of water into the nearby microwave. As the cup turned within its electromagnetic prison, he leaned against the nearby counter and pondered her question. “Maybe the team in the woods was intended just as a distraction?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but then I reconsidered. I mean, what if the four who went in failed? You’d still need a proper backup plan. Same thing with the Decatur bunch. By the way, did they ever catch them?”
Hanson let out a dark chuckle. “Decatur PD found a pile of vests and rifles, hastily wiped down. They were able to pull a few partial prints off of ‘em. My guess is they’ve fled to the proverbial four winds, hoping to lay low for the rest of their lives. We’ll nab ‘em eventually.”
The microwave dinged and he retrieved his hot water, then pulled a tea bag out of his jacket pocket as he re-seated himself.
Savoie smiled. “I never figured you for a tea guy.”
He unwrapped the bag and with a bit of ceremony dunked it into his cup. “Well, I used to be a coffee guy, but my gut doesn’t agree with the acidity.”
“We do have tea here, you know.” She pointed to the storage bins behind him.
“Yeah, but it’s cheap-ass stuff. The brand I like is expensive, but worth it…” Hanson’s eyes widened as he trailed off.
She raised an eyebrow. “Hanson? Do you smell burnt toast?”
“They couldn’t afford it,” he said in a near-whisper.
Savoie was about to tell him to stop being overly dramatic, then she realized he might be on to something and that she didn’t dare distract him. “Keep talking.”
He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “Okay. Imagine you’re a hard-bitten mercenary. You’ve been in the literal shit, in every nasty conflict anyone cares to name. Somehow, someone finds you and comes to you. They say ‘hey, these aliens are bad news, do you want to kill them?’ Even if you, as the hypothetical mercenary, are down with the cause…”
“From what the intruders were yelling, they were,” said Savoie.
“Yeah but even then, our mystery financier is asking you to infil and exfil out of one of the most heavily guarded pieces of real estate on the planet. Oh, and kill a bunch of special-forces-maybe and aliens-definitely in between. What do you do then?”
She replied with a grim smile. “If I’m that mercenary, then I ask for a metric fuck-ton of money. And there were four of them, they would have all done the same. Hell, they must have been doing collective bargaining.”
Hanson dunked his tea bag as he thought it through. “Okay, so our mystery mastermind has a lot of money, but not billions on hand to hire a literal army of hard cases. Huh. So those other dipshits might indeed have been a distraction.”
“Maybe. They must have also spent quite a bit on the mortar attack. That wasn’t made by some hobbyist in their bedroom, they knew what they were doing. Given that nobody saw them set up the launcher or leave, they were more pro.” Savoie hoped that the FBI’s efforts to track the various mortar components turned up something soon. Thus far, those efforts were bogged down; as it turned out, quite a few companies had ordered the identified components, and tracking the subsequent second-hand purchases was time-consuming.
“And those mortar-making pros would be more expensive.” Hanson sipped a bit of tea. “Did they ever get anything off of the launcher itself?”
“Sadly, no. Turns out the whole damned thing was homemade, constructed out of tubing and other off-the-shelf components. It was also wiped down thoroughly, no prints. Like I said, pros.”
“But limited in resources,” said Hanson. “Which explains one of the things that’s bugged me. Namely, that our OPFOR didn’t use some proper artillery. If they have a couple of moles in the Secret Service, then it should be easy to recruit and pay some military dudes to slip ‘em some gear and alter the logs. They could stow a howitzer inside a semi-tractor-trailer. You could park that thing anywhere up to 25 miles away. Use a single 155mm Excalibur GPS-guided munition, boom. That would have pretty much obliterated the stage and everyone on it. Then you just re-stow the howitzer and toodle off all innocent-like, right when everyone is freaking the hell out.”
“So they couldn’t afford that type of arty strike,” she said. “Or they simply didn’t have the contacts to pull that off. Hmm. I wonder if our moles are getting paid at all?”
Hanson resumed his thousand-yard stare. “The mortar attack must have been planned first. The other two attacks feel much more like rush jobs.”
“Eh? Oh, I get it. Sadaf’s speech was known well in advance. It was going to be one of her first big public appearances since the initial presidential speech. They were broadcasting it online to the world. Having her get turned into chunky red salsa, in real time, would be one helluva statement. So that’s what they focused on.” She drank a bit more coffee, and now it was time for her eyes to widen. “Our mole or moles didn’t arrive at Camp David until after Sadaf’s speech was announced.”
“That…oh, yeah, that makes sense. Originally the mortar attack is the OPFORs’ only focus, but yet somehow they’ve suborned one or two Secret Service agents and they have ‘em in their back pocket. Then one, or better yet both, of the moles gets assigned to the Camp David detail, and they realize that now that they have a golden opportunity to get at the other aliens as well. So they go off and hire four pros for the actual attack inside, plus a bunch of chucklefucks to act as a distraction, because that’s all they can afford since the four pros are asking for some serious money.”
Savoie leaned forward. “When did Chao and Grakosh leave Camp David?”
“It was, ah, three? No, four days after we got everyone settled, both the aliens and the special forces types.”
“Okay, so then the OPFOR gets word, courtesy of our moles, that one of the aliens is now heading to Alabama. But now they’re stretched so thin that they can’t afford anything other than to hire another bunch of dipshits to make a run at them and hope for the best.”
“And then the second bunch lets the FNG drive.”
They both laughed, but that humor settled down as they both thought through the chain of inference.
“It is pretty thin,” said Savoie at last. “There’s a lot of assumptions in there.”
“Yeah. But I do like the idea of our moles getting assigned at the last minute.”
She rubbed her forehead. “We had a bunch of new people come in when they decided to stow the Rithro crew there. Seven, no eight in all.”
“It’s a place to start,” said Hanson. He finished his tea. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get a meeting with the inquiry board.”
__________
A little while later and not very far away, three people sat in a well-lit but otherwise deadly dull room. At least the chairs were somewhat comfortable. Matt and Martinez sat at two chairs against one wall, while across from them McCoy sat sprawled sideways on another with a foul look on her face. She glowered at the far beige-painted wall. “This completely sucks. Why can’t we have our phones? I could at least play some mahjong.”
“This is a secure location, Corporal,” replied Matt. “Ixnay on the onephays.”
Martinez’s leg jittered. “How long are we gonna sit here? They said they’d call us in, like, an hour ago!”
“Dunno, it’s some kind of last-minute interview thing,” replied Matt with Zen-like calm.
The corporal looked over at Matt. “I don’t get you, man.”
Matt grinned. “Nobody gets me. I’m like the wind, baby!”
“That’s not…I mean, I watched you open up a dude like he was a bag of fuckin’ Doritos using nothing but a fuckin’ knife. Now you’re being all Caine from ‘Kung Fu’.”
“It’s good to know that the classics are still appreciated,” said Matt.
Martinez pointed at him. “If you start calling me ‘Grasshopper’ I will shoot you.”
McCoy turned her glare to the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a psychological test. They want to see if we crack under pressure and start yakking secrets.”
“I mean, I’m sure they’re recording us right now,” replied Matt. “But it’s merely as a precaution. I am also five-nines certain that none of us are suspects. We weren’t integrated into the compound’s overall security, and thus it would be unlikely that we could have let our four attackers in.”
“Not to mention, we were the ones to kill ‘em,” added Martinez. “Well, except for the one that Takh took care of.”
“Yep. This is…I won’t call it a formality, but the board just wants to know where you were and what you saw. Walk them through your personal timelines, understand? Tell them only what you know. If you don’t know something, then say so.”
McCoy turned herself around so that she now sprawled the other way. “This whole bullshit just bugs me. Takh and the others are off with a bunch of strangers and I…I mean, we aren't there to help protect them.”
Matt and Martinez shared a meaningful glance. “From what I heard, Takh is quite capable of taking care of himself,” said the latter with a grin. “You told me he pitched that one dude across the room like he was throwing a softball.”
For once, the petite corporal looked a bit flustered. “Yeah, but, I mean, what if some other potential bad guy gets the drop on him with a gun? I don’t like not being there. I just wanna know that he’s okay. I should be there, just to make sure.”
The smaller man snapped his fingers in the face of the taller, who sighed and took out his wallet. With great ceremony, Matt pulled out a five-dollar bill and placed it upon the now-upraised palm of Martinez.
“Told ya,” said Martinez with a grin.
She sat up and glared at them both. “That doesn’t mean anything! Takh is a good guy!”
“Nobody said he wasn’t,” replied Matt as he stowed his wallet. “He is indeed a good guy.”
“Yeah, seriously, we’re glad you two hooked up,” added Martinez. “Takh’s solid. Hell, I’d let him date my sister.”
“I. Am. Not. Hooked Up. With ANYONE.” McCoy now looked furious enough to chew nails.
Martinez stroked his chin. “Kissing might be a problem, though.”
Matt performed a similar chin-stroking action. “Hmm, indeed, Corporal, I do believe it might be a serious issue. One has all of those mandibles to contend with.” He hooked his fingers next to his mouth in an approximation of an udhyr’s face. “Still, I think that, with enough will and effort, one could figure it out. Like the man said, life finds a way.”
“But how much tongue is he packing?” posed Martinez. “You know what the man also says. Big dude, big tongue. Could make things more interesting, all around.”
The woman did not look amused. “Martinez, Toke? You are now both officially gigantic flatulating assholes.”
“C’mon, McCoy!” protested Martinez. “Think of it this way. A few years from now, let’s say we filthy humans are now part of the Coalition and I’m at some meet ‘n greet, and I just so happen to spy me an oh-so-very-fiiine udhyr mamacita from across the room. Now, I wanna do my bit for my species and approach her, and get some good old inter-species cultural interaction going on. But there’s all sorts of questions. How do I compliment her without insulting her culture? How am I supposed to get in good with her? How do the mechanics work? How do the various bits line up? We need details! You’re at the tip of the spear, we all need good intel!”
McCoy slumped back into her seat. “Over seven hundred billion Dimmadollars of defense spending, and yet somehow I wind up stuck in a room with you two fuckos…oh, by the way, Toke,” she added, pointing a finger at Matt, “why the hell can you and Sarge never go back to Okinawa?”
“Nice distraction, McCoy,” said Martinez. “My guess is some sort of wet-work shit.”
Matt just smiled. “Oh for fuck’s sake, I don’t kill everyone I meet. I was a Second LT at the time, managed to somehow leapfrog my way into officer ranks all the way from enlisted. Anyways, the Okinawa affair was merely a case of, well, one particular case of rye whiskey. The good sergeant…was he a sergeant then? Oh yeah, we had done some other stuff I can’t tell you about in someplace I can’t tell you where, and we were celebrating Shaw getting his third stripe. We’d got ahold of the previously-mentioned case of whiskey and then we began toasting to each other’s good health. We did a lot of toasting. Quite a lot of toasting. As you can imagine, the toasting went on and on until we, um, well we did some unwise things. It started out with us sparring-for-fun with each other in public and escalated from there. No locals were harmed, and nothing we did was hella illegal, or I would’ve never made Captain. Buuut the local government would definitely throw a shitfit if me or, God forbid, both of us set foot back on the island.” He chuckled. “Hell, the Okinawan customs people probably still have both of our pictures taped up inside their booths with a big old sign saying ‘DO NOT ADMIT THIS PERSON, YOU FOOL’ written above them.”
“What did you do?” asked Martinez. His eyes were big and soulful, like a kid asking for yet one more story before bedtime.
Matt shrugged. “I mean, I don’t remember much for obvious reasons. I’m almost sure we didn’t piss on any monuments, that would have definitely been cause for a serious demotion. We did do a number on some shrubbery, that I do remember. We decided it needed to be trimmed back, and so we did so. Using our bare hands. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
A fearsome light came into McCoy’s eyes. “Martinez, do you know what this means?”
He looked at her all uncertain. “Um, Toke and Sarge have cast-iron livers?”
“No, you fool. Blackmail material.”
Matt pointed back at her. “Hey, now, I told you that in confidence. Besides, Shaw has a lot more to contend with right now.”
The reminder of the sergeant’s current crippled state brought the elevated atmosphere of the room back down. McCoy nodded as her smile faded. “Right. Hey, did you see the Prez’s speech at the UN?”
“Yep,” said Matt. “From what I’ve read, the political wrangling after it seems pretty tame compared to the usual.”
Martinez snorted. “No shit. Did either of you see the laundry list of shit that we might be able to do? Anti-aging, limb regrowth, cancer treatments which work well and which don’t half-kill the patient…hell, maybe even Alzheimer’s could be in our rear-view mirror. The grand high muckity-mucks are falling all over themselves to get that out into the world, for themselves if nobody else.”
“You’re way too cynical, Martinez,” said Matt.
“Oh fuck off. What if…okay, I know this sounds like a cheesy sci-fi concept, but what if they hoard all of the good shit for themselves and we peons get just the crumbs?”
Matt lapsed back into his meditative demeanor. “In that case, my dear corporal, you or I or McCoy or someone like us will show those hypothetical elites that, while they are indeed long-lived, they are not in fact immortal.”
The trio fell into silence for a few minutes. Then Martinez leaned over towards Matt. “Ah, a little birdie told me you were involved in questioning the prisoners we nabbed at Camp David.”
“I merely facilitated certain conversations,” replied Matt.
Martinez sighed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies…Corporal.”
McCoy let out a growl. “Well, I heard these terrorist assholes are saying that the Breakers aren’t real, that it’s all fake videos from the Coalition.”
“Just to play devil’s advocate,” said Matt, “our AI image and video generation is already getting to the point where, soon, we puny humans could manufacture such evidence.”
“What?” Martinez looked as if he was about to launch himself at Matt.
Matt held up a calming hand. “I’m not saying it is fake. The Hubble pics are damned convincing.”
Martinez hiked up one foot to place it on his seat, then rested his chin on his knee. “Fuck. I guess it didn’t convince everyone.” He mused for a few moments. “Wait. What if we made it even more convincing?”
“How?” asked Matt.
“We send some humans up to the Rithro. Two or three at least. The boats can still make it up to the ship, right?”
For once Matt looked uncertain. “I think so? Dunno how many times they can come and go without recharging, we’ll have to ask ‘em.”
“Right, so we set up an even better publicity stunt than the Hubble pics. Choose a few people, from all over the world. We have ‘em travel up to the Rithro, take pics and video up close showing the damage. Even take ‘em inside the ship and get a full tour, maybe…if the crew is okay with that, of course.”
“Huh.” Matt sat back and pondered the idea. “That’s a really good idea, Martinez. I guess you aren’t as dumb as you look.”
The corporal responded with a slight smile at the verbal jab. “We’d need to choose the right people, though.”
“They’d have to be trustworthy…or at least someone that the entire world will consider trustworthy,” said Matt.
“Well known,” added McCoy. She no longer looked vengeful. “With recognizable faces and voices, and then they can go on all the talk shows after and say that, yes indeed, I got a tour of the ship and it is indeed quite banged up.”
Martinez stared at the far wall. “Some kind of celebrity? Heh. You think Tom Cruise would be up for it?”
Matt laughed. “That beautiful maniac? Hell, he’d insist on shooting an entire movie up there, with at least one action scene where he’s hanging off of the outside of the ship.”
They all smiled at the resulting mental image.
“Chao could work,” said McCoy into the silence. “She’s kind of a celebrity now. After all, she was the first human to come into contact with aliens, eh?” She gave Matt a big and very un-subtle wink.
To skirt the rather…unconventional methods used to achieve a positive First Contact, Matt’s role had been very much demoted in the official story. Now every recounting of the tale included a bit of ‘…oh, and there was also another person who stumbled across our brave woman in the midst of her attempts at informational exchange with the aliens…” His exact identity was also not published, under the screen of ‘he wishes to remain anonymous’.
“Oh bite me, McCoy, it’s fun,” replied Matt. He waggled his eyebrows. “Besides, I work better in the shadows!” He threw his forearm across his face like a half-assed Count Dracula trying to hide behind his cape.
Then he dropped his arm. “Yeah, Chao would be good as a current social-media darling. Of course, she might not want that. She strikes me as more of the wallflower type, for the most part.”
“We need more people,” said Martinez, as he stared at the floor. “Chao might be good on her own, but she’s got that motor-mouth talking thing when you get her going. It’s one or the other. Either she’s trying to shrink into a corner and take up as little space as possible, or suddenly you’re getting pulled into another corner for a doctoral dissertation on how minimal-energy transfer-orbits work.”
Matt pondered for a moment. “Wait, when did she do that? I never sat through one of those lectures.”
Martinez looked away and…well, Matt hoped that their supposed overlords were indeed recording this particular moment in time because the hard-bitten Hispanic special-forces corporal actually blushed.
McCoy, of course, realized a golden opportunity for payback and immediately pounced. “Why, Corporal Martinez,” she purred. “Doooo tell us. When did Chao Me Chu, heh, pull you into a corner? Hmmm?”
“She’s…she’s just real nice, that’s all,” replied Martinez. “I asked her a couple of questions, and she answered them. That’s all. We both love classic sci-fi, like Asimov and shit. I guess we bonded over that.”
Matt cleared his throat. “Aaaaand may I remind you two and everyone listening in that we have all been cooped up nuts-to-butts for awhile? Don’t mistake familiarity for romantic bullshit.” He pointed over at Martinez. “But you. If you can follow at least half of what she talks about, then you are absolutely without-a-single-fucking-doubt wasted as a corporal, even if you’re in a low-drag high-speed outfit like this. You hear me?”
“Um, yes sir.” It was the first time in McCoy’s memory that anyone had addressed Matt as befitting his perhaps-former rank.
“Good. You get your ass into college, somehow. You’re a smart guy, you’ll figure all that shit out. And as for Chao? Just give it room to breathe. Let her know you’re interested, but don’t press the matter.”
“Let her know?” For once Martinez looked completely lost. “How do I…” he trailed off. “I mean, I like her…and yeah, I mean I like her in that way, but she’s so damn smart and pretty and I’m just some dipshit meathead.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” said Matt. “You’re our dipshit meathead.”
McCoy’s vengeful smile faded. “Martinez…no, Luca.”
Martinez looked up in surprise at her use of his first name.
She continued. “Just talk to her. Neither of you have any clue as to what ‘normal’ social interactions look like. In your case, it’s because you’ve been a soldier for all of your adult life. In her case, it’s because she’s, well, because she’s Chao. So just walk up to her and be straightforward. Trust me, it’ll be like a breath of fresh air for her to not have to navigate social cues. Just say something like ‘Hey, I really like you, do you like me and do you want to go get a coffee sometime’? Start with that. Chao’s good people, the worst thing she’ll do is say no. She won’t yell at you or talk shit about you online. Buuuut, some sixth sense is telling me she won’t say no to getting some coffee with ya.”
Matt smiled. “McCoy, I think you might have a calling after you leave the military.”
She snorted. “Oh yeah, I’ll hang up my match-making shingle on the internet and start raking in the big bucks. Martinez is right, though. If we try to do a publicity stunt up at the Rithro, then we’ll need somebody alongside Chao to win the world over. Somebody well-known, but preferably someone not in the traditional Western pop-culture sphere. That’ll make it more palatable…”
Her voice trailed off and she stared into space. The two men now looked at each other in genuine concern until she spoke again a few moments later.
“Guys? I think I just had the best idea ever.”

5 years had past since the formation of the New Republic and the SkywalkeKenobi Academy, a new Squadron had been formed with the veteran General Hera Syndulla leading the very vessel they had become a part of. This group was known as the New Republic Rangers. This force had composed of ground troops, pilots, and others with exceptional skills. Leading this group in Syndylla's absence were Carson Teva, and Cara Dune. Hera trusted this team not only because of their reputations, but also due to her personal accounts of their advisor, Zeb Orrelios.
When the Jedi had arrived, the new Republic soldiers stood at attention in respect for the Grandmaster who saved the galaxy from the Imperial regime. Luke reunited with his old friend Wedge Antilles, X2 reunited with Grey Squadron and his wife Shara, Ezra reunited with Zeb and met the new team as well as Hera, who embraced him along with the still-so-devious astromech droid Chopper. The 3 Ghost crew members almost teared up when they found out Ezra and Sabine married.
Hera: [Through tears of joy] Ezra, Sabine, I'm... I'm... so proud of you both. I had a feeling this would happen.
Zeb: I'm proud of you too, kid. You two have grown up so much. Bet you didn't miss this bucket of bolts.
Chopper gave his version of a nudge to the Lasat and the old friends and Bridger couple said their goodbyes as they moved to their military posts.
Back at the Temple, Rex and Ahsoka had been teaching their son, Anakin Tano many aspects of their expertise, but this particular lesson was from his father who had realized that his age caught up with him.
Rex: Son, Your mother and I served with your namesake for years, and You have been made aware of my aging. This won't happen to you, but I have things I wish to leave behind. The shrine has been entrusted to Luke's apprentice, but my armor, when you get old enough, as well as my blasters will be yours. Add my helmet to the shrine, give it to Grey. Learn the ways of the Force, like your mother, and her master before you. My mission is over. Continue with yours, and protect all that you love.
With those words, the mother and son embraced in grief. With a heavy heart, Anakin tried to bring himself to give his father's helmet to the Grandmaster's padawan.
Grey: Hello, little guy. What's your name?
Anakin: My name is Anakin Tano. My father told me to give you this.
X2 had then realized who his father and mother were. He then took the helmet and remembered what to do with it. He then asked the child if he wanted to accompany him.
Grey: Do you want to see what your father had referred to?
Anakin: Sure. What is it he wanted to put his helmet for?
Grey: Your father told you of the adventures he had with your mother?
Anakin: Yes.
Grey: After the Clone Wars ended, Your father started collecting helmets of fallen brothers, essentially your millions of uncles, who he was close with. He wanted his helmet on this shrine so he could continue being with them, in spirit.
Anakin: So my father has now joined my uncles in the Force?
Grey: Yes. Like your mother and many Jedi like her believe. When we see the shrine, you can ask anyone who knew your uncles about them, any time you like.
Anakin: Thank you. For everything.
Back at the Temple, Cal Kestis had been teaching the younglings Luke's 3 forms of combat. Form 8 included the use of a primary lightsaber and shoto secondary as needed much like Niman. Luke had been training in this style after making his red shoto from Ahsoka. Form 9 included the use of saber staves, crossguard sabers, and heavy strikes. Ben Solo had been training in this form as his base for when he would create a suitable saber in the future. Form 10 included using the lightsaber as a offensive shield in tandem with a blaster. Kata Akuna, Jacen Syndulla, and Ezra Bridger were the beat students with this form, since Kata saw her father use this form, and Ezra's first blade merged the two types of weapons. As the younglings and older students continued practicing, Kestis had begun having a vision.
Figure: Your family is unprotected. Only your hatred can keep them safe. The Dark Side that you have tasted before has been your savior time and time again. There is much to learn. All you need to do is embrace it! Remember those you've lost, your masters, your best friend, the Jedi Order. Give yourself to it!!
As Cal jolted out of the vision, Merrin came rushing over to comfort the Jedi Battlemaster.
When Luke and the other Jedi returned, he began to organize a meeting of the most powerful and wisest Jedi. Ahsoka, Starkiller, Luke, Cal, and Quinlan Vos had met in a round holotable that was reminiscent of the rebel base. X2, Merrin, and Jacen Syndulla kept watch over the rest of the youngling's training.
Luke: Thank you all for attending this inaugural meeting of the Jedi Council.
Quinlan: I never sat on the council of old before, feels a little weird sitting on one now.
Ahsoka: This is a first for me as well. I remember my master and Master Kenobi being on the council, but I never got the chance.
Luke: We are the wisest that remain of the Jedi, hence why I had chosen you all to serve on the council. Those from the order of old for advisory roles, some who are powerful in many aspects, and those who are willing to provide insight to how the Jedi can be reformed?
Cal: Reformed how exactly?
Luke: Master Kestis, what was the rule on attachment in the order of old?
Cal: That it was forbidden. When I was on Jeddha, I realized that I couldn't let it hold me back. I allowed myself to love unconditionally and now I have not only the child I adopted, but my own with my wife.
Ahsoka: I also had a husband after the battle of Endor, my son and I recently lost him to his accelerated aging.
Quinlan: You had a kid with a clone?
Ahsoka: Remember Captain Rex?
Quinlan: Skywalker's clone leader? Yes. Oh, oh, ooooohhhh.
Starkiller: I also married a pilot. She has been by my side, and we have two children.
Cal: How many of us are there supposed to be, if you don't mind me asking?
Luke: We would start with 6.
Starkiller: There's 5 of us here.
Luke: I understand. We were hoping to put allowing Ezra Bridger to the council.
Ahsoka: I believe that he would make an excellent addition to the council. He has a great tie to our Mandalorian Allies, being married to one.
Starkiller: His combat prowess has not changed since he was lost for years.
Quinlan: Alright. We survived the Empire due to our bending of the rules of the old Jedi Code. This can be more my speed.
Luke: Let's bring the decision to a vote. Those in favor of appointing Ezra Bridger to this council?
Ahsoka: Aye.
Starkiller: Aye.
Luke: Aye. Opposed?
Cal: Nay.
Quinlan: Nay.
Luke: Very well. Majority has decided to welcome Ezra Bridger to the council. Motion passed.
Quinlan: Alright. Guess we can throw away the old code.
Luke: All part of reformation, Master Vos.
Cal: I understand that my family and I have been away from the galaxy for quite some time. We can learn from him as well he learns from us.
Luke: Excellent, everyone. Council adjourned.
As Ezra arrived to the council chambers in his beskar armor, he had seen 3 familiar faces which only comforted him slightly.
Ezra: Council, you have requested my presence here.
Luke: Yes, Bridger. You know Ahsoka Tano, Galen Marek, but allow me to introduce Master Quinlan Vos, and Battlemaster Cal Kestis.
Ezra: A pleasure to meet you both.
Quinlan: Likewise.
Ahsoka: You have been brought before us due to your wisdom and ties to Mandalore, as well as your ability to maintain your dedication to the light.
Starkiller: Your confidence under pressure is commendable and your composure is inspiring for the other students.
Ezra: I understand.
Luke: We invite you to join this council and we grant you the rank of Master.
Ezra was shocked to hear this news from Luke, especially when he knew he had yet to train someone to use the Force.
Ezra: Thank you for this invitation, but I have yet to be a teacher.
Ahsoka: Kanan taught you really well. You have a great ability to bond with others.
Ezra: I see. I accept the seat on the Jedi Council.
As Ezra took his seat, the remaining Jedi had begun thinking of who to train out of the students they have.
Luke: Out of our oldest students here, it seems that even though most of them are our own children, they may need to learn to have different teachers other than parents.
Cal: What about allowing attachment in the Order?
Luke: Attachment can be good, if the attachments are healthy. Some separation can be good for some of the students.
Quinlan: Like how the Jedi of old used to do?
Luke: No, Master Vos. Most of the attachments already formed have been between some Jedi and their children.
Ahsoka: We can discuss this in another meeting.
Starkiller: She's right. Let's move on.
Luke: Thank you, Master Marek. Since I already have a padawan, we have 5 students that need a teacher.
Cal: 4. Kata Akuna is well trained enough by my wife in basic combat tactics, but since her father was a Jedi, I feel it's my duty to train her in the Force and lightsaber techniques. We have been Way from the galaxy for quite some time, and I don't want to overwhelm her with so much at once.
Luke: I see. We can remove her from the list. First, we must discuss who is to train Satine Kenobi Kryze.
Ezra: I will train her.
Luke: What case do you make for the daughter of my Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi?
Ezra: She is also the daughter of Bo-Katan Kryze, leader of Mandalore. With my ties to Mandalore and wisdom previously mentioned by Master Tano, she can learn to marry the ways of the Jedi and the ways of Mandalore in a healthy and coherent way.
Luke: Master Tano, any opposing statements?
Ahsoka: No, Grandmaster. Ezra's connections to Mandalore run deeper than mine.
Luke: It's settled then. Satine Kryze will be trained by Master Ezra Bridger. Next, we have Jacen Syndulla-Dume.
Ahsoka: I will train him.
Luke: What case do you make for young Syndulla-Dume?
Ahsoka: He is the grandson of a famous freedom fighter named Cham Syndulla. Like his grandfather and mother before him, he will be one of the greatest heroes in the galaxy.
Luke: Any opposing statements?
The room had looked around for any opposition to the scenario at hand, with nothing but silence.
Luke: Very well. Master Ahsoka Tano will take Jacen Syndulla-Dume as her apprentice. Master Marek, Master Vos, would you like to teach a student?
Quinlan: I've had enough adventure for a lifetime. I'll keep the records and preserve what Jocasta Nu had attempted to maintain. She had sent many pieces of information through The Path, hopefully most of it was preserved.
Cal: I actually have some left from a holdout on Jeddha that Vader burnt to the ground a few years back.
Starkiller: I believe that in order for me to be a teacher, my personal demons must be conquered first.
Luke: We respect your decision.
As the council adjourned on Yavin 4, another Force-sensitive being has been imprisoned by a group of pirates on Nevarro. As he used his cradle pod to hide from the danger, he had heard blaster fire in the distance. A bounty hunter clad in Mandalorian style armor, by the name of Din Djarin, and a long forgotten IG assassin droid, IG-11, had eliminated the pirates guarding their bounty. The droid had orders to execute the child, but the Mandalorian had orders to bring it to a client who would pay rather handsomely for the job. After the droid fell to a blaster shot to the chest, The beskar clad hunter brought the pod to the Empire. When the hunter got there, he was paid in beskar stamped with the Imperial seal. When the hunter took his payment, he began to feel a weight slowly growing heavier on his shoulders.
After the mandalorian got paid in beskar, he returned to the undercity lair of the Armourer to Forge the pieces he needed.
Armourer: How much do you have for me?
Djarin: How much will this do?
Armorer: Whatever work you found paid you handsomely. I'll send for you when it is ready.
Djarin: Thank you.
Armourer: This is the way.
Djarin: This is the way.
As the two separated, Djarin had collected his single shot disintegrator rifle and IB-94 pistol and began to plan on rescuing the child. When he got a message from his contractor, it was to meet him at the cantina, but he made another stop to the Armourer to inspect his new armor. When he arrived there was a new complete set of armor from the shoulders down.
Armourer: You have brought a great amount to work with. What do you plan to do?
Djarin: Correct a mistake. One that if left as is, will besmirch my honor.
Armourer: This is The Way.
Djarin: This is The Way.
When Djarin arrived at the cantina, the room began to quiet down in astonishment and intimidation. The baskar clad hunter then met with the contractor, Greef Karga. To discuss the job that had gone down.
Greef: Wow, Mando. I take it the client paid you well. All that armor definitely doesn't come cheap.
Djarin: The payout was a handsome one, but I've made a mistake, one I must correct before my honor is worthless.
Greef: Why? Who was your client?
Djarin: The beskar that the client paid me with had Imperial symbols on it.
Greef: Isn't the Empire gone? What would they need- We shouldn't even ask those questions, cause that's not our job.
Djarin: I'm getting him back. This is The Way.
Karga thought that Djarin had gone crazy taking on the Empire. He then kept his head down and put away the bounty puck, saving it for another hunter who wasn't as susceptible to any hokey religions and ancient weapons, as a smuggler turned Alliance hero once said, but only susceptible to credits.
In the New Republic, Generals Solo and Syndulla had sat down discussing some military tactics for defending the new territories and liberating others, and even giving her a piece of information that he could no longer bear his portion of.
Hera: I heard that you joined us moments before Yavin and rescued the Princess of Alderaan. Your kid is studying alongside mine at Skywalker's temple.
Han: Yeah. As much as I tried with her, eventually I succeeded, little did I know that the family drama would be mine to carry along with the Skywalker twins.
Hera: The princess isn't a Skywalker.
Han: She is. Luke is her brother. I'm the only one besides Chewie, Ahsoka, and those ghosts he sometimes talks to.
Hera: Her position in the senate will be up for grabs if that information gets out.
Han: Then you will keep that secret just as I have, that Chewie and Ahsoka have, before she loses potential power in the Senate. Anyways, have we found any more Imperials?
As the conversation continued, Sabine had begun talking to Zeb about joining the team of New Republic Rangers.
Sabine: Hey, Zeb! You got an extra spot on the team?
Zeb: Sabine! Glad to see ya. Well, it ain't me you gotta talk to Marshal Dune over there. From the looks of it, we're fixing to load up. Talk to her when we get back. I'll put in a good word for ya.
Sabine: Thanks Zeb! Tell her I'm great with explosives!
She told the Lasat the last part as the ships roared to life and then as the Lasat gave her a thumbs up, a quick goodbye before they left for the mission.
On the ship, Colonel Kallus had begun talking with Hera about the plan involving the Rangers encountering an Imperial presence on Kashyyyk.
Kallus: General. What are these reports of a couple Jedi joining our group to our mission?
Hera: Since the Jedi have agreed to serve the New Republic on occasional missions, they can decide to help us or not. 2 of them have decided to help us.
Kallus: Can they be trusted? Last time the Jedi helped the Republic of old, they were massacred by the clones who were the first troops of the Empire.
Hera: I have complete faith in these Jedi. My son is one of them. Has your trip to reinvigorate the Lasat population been for naught?
Kallus: No, General. I am just airing on the side of caution. While continuing to do so, I request that I join the ground assault so I can see for myself that these Jedi can be trusted and serve as servants of the Galaxy, not just us.
Hera: Granted, Colonel. These Jedi know the planet a d will be your best bet in navigating the environment and the wookiees.
Kallus: What makes them such experts?
Hera: They were born on the planet.
As Kallus continued to don his armor, blaster, and join Dune and her forces, he began imagining two wookiee jedi, something he thought was both absurd and frightening. When he got to the hangar bay, he was met by half of his expectations.
Kallus: You two must be the Jedi accompanying us I heard so much about.
Starkiller: We are, Colonel. I am Master Marek, and this is Jedi Knight Gungi.
Gungi roared a greeting to the Former Imperial agent turned Rebel Colonel.
Kallus: You two were born on Kashyyyk?
Starkiller: Yes. Gungi you expected since he was a youngling during the Clone Wars, but my parents hid on the world and had me, until they were killed by Vader. Vader took me as his own, trained me to be his weapon, and when the Rebel Alliance was formed, they used my family crest.
Kallus was shocked to hear this information and immediately cast whatever doubt he had aside and introduced the Jedi to the rest of the team of Rangers.
In orbit above Kashyyyk, Lord Cain had been discussing a battle plan with Thrawn, hoping to keep the wookiees in chains for his cloning experiments.
Thrawn: My Emperor, We have detected a rebel fleet that has just exited hyperspace. I suggest that we send the Imperial Army troopers, with the stormtroopers in reserve.
Cain: We have enough power with the garrisons of stormtroopers coming in to relieve the last one. The army troopers are ineffective with maintaining their loyalty to the Empire.
Thrawn: With all due respect, my lord, The wookiees would believe that they would be calmer if they see human faces help them, or they would see any human face as an enemy and attack any other humans on sight.
Cain: So that's your play? Excellent idea. Send the Army troops to maintain the security of the labs and have the stormtroopers guard everywhere else.
Thrawn: At once, my lord.
Cain: My apprentice, once all the necessary vessels are left to join the battle, you must board another destroyer, so the New Republic dogs think they destroyed a command vessel. If Skywalker is not with them, You will engage the less powerful if there are more. If Maul's forces arrive, deal with the silver skinned slimo.
Lumiya: Yes, my master.
Back on Dathomir, Maul and his apprentice have been meditating on Sith teachings until Maul sensed something stirring within his apprentice.
Maul: You have slowed down your rate of study. What is troubling you?
Relicta: It's that Jedi. The one who looked like the one we killed when he tried to hunt us. When I fought him on Mandalore, he said that he and the one we fought were clones of him.
Maul: Since the one you executed wielded red blades, and the one you've encountered on Mandalore had blue blades, what he has told you is true. Vader and my late former master killed him above Naboo, when their first superweapon was under construction.
Relicta: He still has to die. I will not gain certain closure for as long as he lives.
Maul: Then the decision to hunt him down will be solely placed in your hands. Take a ship and find him, if you must. We have an army to maintain and no assured method of recruitment.
Relicta: Yes, Master.
After meditating on her decision to find Starkiller, she finally made the choice and began planning on turning many Imperial troops into her own.
As the Rangers touched down along with the Rogue Shadow, they were greeted by the hiding wookiee chieftain flanked by 3 of his guards. As Gungi communicated with them about the situation, Marek translated for the group.
In the labs, the Imperial army troopers had been watching the wookiees get poked and prodded when a couple had seen a robed figure just vanish. As the soldiers pursued the figure, Relicta knew her plan was working, she was going to lure each soldier away from their posts to defect to her side. As every Army soldier continued to maintain their post, they knew their loyalties were no longer with the Empire.
Back on Nevarro, Djarin had returned to the client with intent to kill. When the 4 stormtroopers guarding him raised their blasters, he drew his pistol and aimed his free arm at another.
Stormtrooper: There's 4 of us. No way you walk put of here alive.
Djarin: I like those odds.
As the client was frozen in fear, he saw 2 blasts bounce off the armor as the hunter fired his pistol into one trooper, and the whistle rockets from his gauntlet fired in multiple directions killing the rest, sending the client running until Djarin fired a shot into the back of his head.
As the child cooed after opening the pram canopy, the beskar clad warrior tried to assure the infant that they were safe.
Djarin: Don't worry. I'll bring you back to your kind. You can trust me.
When the beskar clad warrior returned to his ship, he made sure that the pram was protected and prepared for more Imperial Forces.
As the Rangers, Kallus, Starkiller, and Gungi arrived at the Imperial base, the former ISB Agent saw a long highway leading up to the labs, much like the Imperial checkpoint on Lothal.
In the labs, Relicta finished her work moving the army troopers to position themselves ready to attack the stormtroopers. As she evacuated the labs, she contacted her master and began hunting the Jedi that were going to rescue the wookiees.
Relicta: Master, I have increased our odds against the Empire and I'm about to destroy the Jedi.
Maul: Excellent. Happy Hunting. When you destroy the Jedi, meet me on Oba Diah. We have an old alliance to rekindle.
As the female Zabrak ordered the Imperial army troops to fight against the stormtroopers, the New Republic squad and wookiee liberators joined in the battle and fought both sides. Kallus had ordered the troops and the chieftain to surround the lab entrance while the Jedi attempted to hunt whoever made the confusing move of turning the army against the stormtroopers.
Kallus: Where are you going, Marek?
Starkiller: Gungi and I are hunting whoever forced these army troops against the stormtroopers. Call Juno if you need any air support.
Kallus: Thank you, Master Jedi! Rogue Shadow, this is Colonel Kallus, we need you to lead an airstrike against any Imperial support that my come to reinforce the labs!
Juno: On my way, Colonel! I'll evacuate the prisoners if I have no other orders.
Kallus: Duly noted, Captain!
As Gungi and Starkiller found a cloaked figure, Gungi leapt in for a strike, but as the figure teleported away, Gungi was severely wounded with a stab to his ribcage, incapacitating the wookiee.
Relicta: I know who you are, Jedi. You don't fool me for a second.
Starkiller: A clone of the one you seek, yes.
Relicta: No! You are the one who took my masters away from me!!
Starkiller: You claimed to have fought and killed me, until you saw me on Mandalore.
Relicta: You will still die for Felucia!!
Starkiller then remembered what Kota told him about his vision of this woman was. As he steeled himself for a fight against the girl that his progenitor go and activated his two sapphire blades.
Gungi was crawling away to heal his wounds and as he saw the other Jedi Master fight with such raw potential compared to the Lady of the Sith. As Relicta threw her sabers after cloaking, Starkiller then balled himself up for a lightning infused Force repulse. As the energy blasted out of the Clone, Relicta had felt her robes be singed while she was thrown back against a tree. Starkiller then saw the figure disappear again and activated his unleashed state, sending Force lightning to his sabers. As Maris attempted to block each strike that looked like a blurr to anyone unable to touch the Force, but as Maris's arms continued to be singed, her defenses fell and Starkiller delivered a saber slam infused with Force lightning, further crimping her silver skin.
As Relicta used the last of her anger, what brushed it away was the last words that she may have heard from the Jedi.
Starkiller: You should've listened to me on Felucia years ago, Maris.
Relicta: That name is dead!
Starkiller: Your misery will end, Brood.
Relicta: I have a son! You can't make him an orphan!
Starkiller realized that since she was a mother, he had to reassure her that he won't come for her family.
Starkiller: I know what it is like to care for others like a family. They will be spared if they mean that much to you.
As Starkiller stepped closer to the fear-stricken zabrak, Relicta realized that she would join her former masters soon. Starkiller spun his right blade and stabbed her heart with a reverse grip, and stabbed her trachea with the left blade. The Marek clone then tended to Gungi and made their way back to the victorious alliance.
Aboard the Razor Crest, Djarin had begun searching for answers as to where the child he had in his care belonged. When he landed on Tatooine, he landed in a city where another job was about to take place that required multiple members. One member was a former Imperial Marksman by the name of Migs Mayfeld, and the others were a rather legendary pair; one was a Gand bounty hunter with a very keen talent for psychometry named Zuckuss, and a protocol droid like partner in crime by the designation 4-LOM.
Their job entailed taking some highly classified Imperial information that was about to be declassified aboard a star destroyer above Kuat. The veteran pair were very eager to get the job done efficiently and quickly. The other two, who had less experience were very dubious about what the intel was and who should possess it.
Mayfeld: So, Mando. You ever met those two?
Djarin: No. I haven't heard if them.
Mayfeld: My former CO told me that they wre tasked by Darth Vader to find a Corellian Freighter containing rebel officers and leadership. I never liked bounty hunters, but it's better than The Empire I can say that much.
Djarin: What do you plan to do once we get the information?
Mayfeld: From what I understood from those two, they're the kind to kill any partners to grow their share. How about we turn the tables on them, you and me? Huh?
Djarin: If those two are as legendary and skilled as you say they are, killing them would serve a tactical advantage and a good monetary step up in this line of work.
Mayfeld: Good. Thanks. We'll be rich and famous, well, infamous, for taking down those two.
When Mayfeld entered an Imperial encryption that checked out the crew entered the decommissioned destroyer and extracted the information needed from two different sections of computers. 4-LOM and Zuckuss had one half of the intel and Djarin held onto the other. As their clocks ran down, Mayfeld saw information about Operation Cinder and found that his CO was a field officer in the near destruction of his post on Burnin Konn.
As the bounty hunter crew split into two pairs and eventually spread themselves out, they were on the hunt to eliminate those they believed to be loose ends. Throughout the vacant destroyer, Djarin had used his cycler rifle to move from cover to cover as he searched for the droid. Mayfeld drew his DT-12 pistols and SE-14r pistol on the hunt for the gas breathing insectoid hunter.
Aboard the Razor Crest, The child had grown worried that he was left on his own, but remembered everything he had experienced during the purge almost 30 years ago.
As Zuckuss had turned a corner near the reactor room, Mayfeld had found the perfect shot with his trio of pistols, but a slip of one of his legs let out a screech causing Mayfeld to fire on the hunter, landing 3 precise shots to his right eye, heart, and his left thigh. A stray blast from Zuckuss's blaster left a hile through the rafters of the room as Mayfeld let himself fall to the walkways and make his way to take Zuckuss's information.
As 4-LOM continued to hunt one of the lesser hunters, he slowly began turning his head to see Beskar through a corner slot before seeing the cycler round fire through the corners of the halls, missing the droid's head, causing the droid to slowly approach approach him, blasting with the DLT-19 he had stolen from an Imperial outpost on Mimban.
Djarin knew that he had time to load another shot, and as he flanked the slow moving droid, he snuck around behind him and used another cycler round to the back of the hunter's head. As the brain-like head flew off the body, the protocol droid body collapsed forward, and Djarin switched to his pistol as he thought he had to fight his way back to his ship. When he saw his ship in the hangar, he tried contacting Mayfeld about his location.
Djarin: Mayfeld? Where are you?
Mayfeld: I'm not going with you. I'm taking a TIE to the rendezvous point. Meet me back at Mos Pelgo so we can get our credits.
Djarin: Fine. I'll meet you there.
As the two landed in different ports on Tatooine, they returned to their contractor, Ranzar Malk, they were each paid 32,570 credits, due to 4-LOM and Zuckuss perishing on the job.
When the Mandalorian and Former Imperial parted ways, Djarin had continued his quest to find the child's kind.
On Dathomir, Maul had recently learned that his apprentice perished on Kashyyyk, but her passing had a massive effect on his ability to maintain his own Sith Triumvirate. He had recently taken another apprentice in case Relicta decided that the way of the Sith was no longer important to her.
Maul: As you can feel, my new apprentice, Lady Relicta has been destroyed by the Jedi. Even though both of us had agreed to train you, it seems that you will learn the traditional ways of the Sith. This begins another chapter, Lady... Talon.
Talon: Yes, my master. We will conquer our enemies and usurp galactic power on a massive scale.
End of Part 13

I’ll start by saying I’m not a developer. I don’t code either, I’d be about a 5/100 skill level there, so not a zero but still quite paltry.
I’ve made a site in Wordpress as a means to test a project and I’m finding it’s just loading slowly. It’s simple in that it’s two pages (front page and a second page that has the main bits on it) and both aren’t doing too well speed wise.
It’s not an intensive site with lots of features, page one is more like a splash page and page two has a map plugin where you can search for services using Google Maps. No logins, no accounts, no subscribers etc etc.
I use WP Rest Cache which has a regeneration interval set as twice daily (default setting).
I’ve just implemented Cloudflare on their pro subscription though I’m unable to properly setup their APO plugin on Wordpress so far due to an account verification issue. Without the APO plugin this has sped up the load time a bit but it’s still lacking.
I have my PHP memory limit sitting at 2048M with time limit and max input time both at 120.
I think the problem is with these two aspects on the front page though I’m speculating. The first being that I use a slider with a single slide – it’s just used as it’s the only thing I found that will let me put a particular animation on some text. The slider is Depicter and I get the feeling it has a slow initial load.
The second thing on the front page is that I’ve tried to put in a background video into the slider itself. I had a 15 second MP4 that was about 50mb but I couldn’t use it because I needed it to be a circular shape so the only way I could figure out to achieve that was to convert to a GIF which dropped the filesize to about 18mb which is better but still really big for a page yeah? The background image for the front page is 200kb.
So I’m hoping when I can get the cloudflare issue sorted and install their APO plugin it will help to speed things up even more but surely there would be things I should consider outside of that to be squeezing out the most performance I can get, I just don’t know what those things are.
I’ve noticed in the Site Health section I have two critical issues related to performance one being “An active PHP session was detected” and the second being “The REST API encountered an error”. Could these things be contributing to the page load speed issues? Sadly I don’t know what they relate to or how I would go about discovering that.
GTMetrix gives me a D grade with 59% Performance and 80% Structure. Largest Contentful Paint seems to fluctuate between 3.6 – 11 seconds depending on what time of day I check it.
Any suggestions for things I can do to improve this?

Hi everyone, I recenty upgarded to am5, my specs are ryzen-9-7900x, Asus ROG STRIX B650-A,Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30, Asus ROG STRIX WHITE OC GeForce RTX 3080 10GB,Corsair SF750 750 W 80+ Platinum, Asus ROG Swift PG32UQ 32.0" 3840 x 2160 144 Hz Monitor, (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qhx7fv). First of all i just cant get the advertized speed at all. When I turned the expo on at the bios it would just say safe mode. I lowered the speed to 5400 works just okey but I still want to know how I can get to 6000 speed. Also my second is the most annoying one. Pc will boot a little slow but the monitor would not show anything, I would need to turn the monitor off and back on again then the login screen will apear. I never can be able to see the press del or f2 to get to the bios screeen. The ram I bought is specifically for amd expo.

Last month's post
Welcome fellow Senseis. With the Halo games behind us and with 1.5 GL anniversary, let's check on how we're doing on our pyro income.
Usual disclaimers:
I'm including what I've gotten so what you earned might be slightly lowehigher than me. You can plug your own numbers to check exact numbers.
I don't count any story/achievement pyroxenes as those can be earned at any time. I only count time limited events within the patch, if those have seperate achievements/tasks I'll count them within the event.
What I am assuming:

• Bare pvp income
  
• Gold tier in raid and full 47 mil pts
  
• In an event where challenge stages exist, I'm assuming you clear and 3 star only 3 of the stages.
  

Assuming 30 days (patch independant):

• x3 10 day login bonus: 450 pyro
  
• Daily mission: 20 pyro/day x30 = 600
  
• Weekly mission: 120 pyro x4 = 480
  
• Arena (depends on rank): 10 pyro/day x30 = 300
  
• Monthly+bimonthly pack:
  
  • 60 pyro /day (x30) = 1800
  • 1 time bonus of +392/176 from monthly/bimonthly = 568

T.Yuuka / T.Mari patch: (4/25-5/9):

• Maintenance comp.: 600 pyro
  
• Event preregistration Kivotos Halo Festival: 1200 pyro + 10 pull tix = 2400 pyro
  
• 5/2 temp maintenance comp: 480 pyro
  
• 5/6 temp maintenance: 480 pyro
  
• Web event: Leave it to Sensei!: 1 10 pull tix - 1200 pyro
  
• Arona special login bonus: 600 pyro
  
• Raid: Goz
  
  • Total possible raid pyro (total score): 150 (4 mil) + 150 (10 mil) +150 (26 mil) +200 (47 mil) = 650
  • Rank Pyro:600/800/1000/1200 (50k-100%/25001-50k/5001-25k/5k-1) (Assuming 1k pyro here) = 1000
• Event: Get Set, Go! Kivotos Halo Games
  
  • Story stage: 9x 20 = 180 pyro
  • Quest stage: 12 x 30 = 360 pyro
  • Challenge stage: 3 x 80 = 240 pyro
  • Achievements: Dice run + 2 challenge speed runs + number of turns: 220 + 200 + 90 = 510 pyro
  • Lap rewards: 4 single pull tix = 480 pyro

Himari / Eimi / Koharu / Maki patch (5/9-5/30):

• Maintenance comp.: 600 pyro
  
• 5/14 temp maintenance: 120 pyro
  
• Schale Picnic Supplies login bonus: 300 pyro
  
• 80k Discord members gift: 1x 10 pull tix + 1200 pyro = 2400 pyro
  
• Web event: Infiltration task = 1200 pyro
  
• Raid: Binah
  
  • Total possible raid pyro (total score): 150 (4 mil) + 150 (10 mil) +150 (26 mil) +200 (47 mil) = 650
  • Rank Pyro:600/800/1000/1200 (50k-100%/25001-50k/5001-25k/5k-1) (Assuming 1k pyro here) = 1000
• Raid: Shiro/Kuro
  
  • Total possible raid pyro (total score): 150 (4 mil) + 150 (10 mil) +150 (26 mil) +200 (47 mil) = 650
  • Rank Pyro:600/800/1000/1200 (50k-100%/25001-50k/5001-25k/5k-1) (Assuming 1k pyro here) = 1000

Grand total

• 18930 pyro for non spenders = 157.75 pulls
  
• 21298 pyro for both monthly packs = 177.48 pulls
  
• T.Yuuka/T.Mari patch: 9990 pyro = 83.25 pulls
  
• Himari/Eimi/Koharu/Maki patch: 8730 pyro = 72.75 pulls
  

Graph representation

• Patch by patch
  
• Monthly
  
• Patch by patch pulls (counts free pulls)
  
• Patch by patch avg pyro: 6913.68 = 57.614 pulls
  
• Monthly avg pyro: 14102 = 117.51 pulls
  

Overall a very generous month, coming close to 1st anniversary as the 2nd most pyro we received. The average went over 14k pyro per month with this month, it's been hovering over 13k for a while. We'll see if that lasts. Most likely we'll see next month with slightly lower than avg amount.
See you next month!

Just had a blast running my group of 5 10th level PCs through this tower (manor) defense for the session. They managed to survive until the 7th round, when their allies arrived to end the scenario in their favor. They had one PC down, another two around 10 hp, two of their Fronts destroyed and a 3rd ready to crumble next round, so things really ended in the nick of time. It took us about 3 hours to run through the 7 rounds. If you wanted to make things easier and quick you could have the allies arrive initially on an earlier round, which they can then speed up with some lucky roles in the Invocation Chamber.
They didn't use the Bolster Defenses action at all. Maybe that should be a move instead of an action? Although maybe it's better as an action to leave for a desperate moment, but add to the healing?
Their manor has a garden hedge surrounding the back yard, so that gave them an extra Front. They also have 50 awakened shrubs that they can form into awakened trees by combining 10 shrubs (or 2 mobs for the scenario) as part of their established manor defenses.
These monsters were all lightning themed, because they're currently being assaulted by the Elemental Prince of Lightning.
Tower Defense Rules
The party has to hold out while reinforcements come in 10 “rounds”. Each round is 5-10 minutes of real time. At the start of each round, a certain number of enemies appear and a special event happens, based on the table below. If enemies “approach” they have to use their first turn only moving and thus get no attack (except for Front 2, which has no approach). If the enemies “appear’ they begin adjacent to the Front and can attack it that turn.
Enemies are either mobs or stompers. Mobs are big groups of small enemies. Stompers are big single brutes. If they survive to the end, they gain a short rest while their allies come to their aid, before the Lightning Prince shows up and a boss fight commences.
Monster don't roll initiative, instead taking action(s) on designated turns. Monsters don’t roll to hit Fronts, just deal auto damage. Roll as normal to hit defenders. All mobs can occupy another creature’s space and vice versa, and the mob can move through any Front w/ 0 hp. The mob has advantage on Strength and Dexterity ability checks and saving throws. Effects that use an area of effect deal double damage to the mob as long as the mob has half of its hit points or more. All mobs are immune to: charmed, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned unless it affects an area of creatures.
Any creature that ends its turn in a mob’s area or within 30 feet of the mob and the mob can see it, is targeted by an attack. All defenders grant advantage when outside a defensive Front or within a compromised one.
The house is divided into 5 Fronts (6 if the assault on the basement commences). 1- Front door, 2- North Wall, 3- South Wall, 4- Garden Hedge, 5- East Wall, 6- Basement. When a Front collapses, the monsters gain access beyond it, so to the house for 1, 2 & 5, to the garden for 4, and to the basement for 3. When an area is compromised, all special rooms within are lost. If 3 Fronts fall before reinforcements arrive, the PCs lose the house and the battle.
At the start of the combat, they have all 50 shrubs active, in groups of 5.
Each round, a PC can take following action(s). Most actions take their typical action to use.

• Attack enemies. Action: Move to the front lines to deliver an attack against an enemy or mob.
  
• Direct allies. Bonus: Move up to CHA mod worth of shrub mobs/trees from one adjacent front to another, or combine up to CHA mod shrubs in same front into a tree.
  
• Reinforce defenses. Action: Make relevant ability check to shore up defenses in one section. HP added based on roll, DC based on current defense HP.
  
  • DC 12 + 1 per 10 damage.
    • Result <10, -10 hp
    • Result >10 but < DC-5, 0 hp
    • Result >DC-5 but
    • Result = DC up to DC +4, +15 hp
    • Result DC+5 or higher, +25 hp
• Bolster allies. Action: Make relevant ability check to remove negative condition from CHA mod allies.
  
• Use a special room. Varies: see below.
  
• Other. Varies: Use a skill or spell in a creative manner!
  

Each special room has an ability that can be tapped during the battle:

• Baths (4 uses): Action. Get a short rest, plus 30 temp hp.
  
  • Can spend 2 full turns and 2 uses for long rest, plus 30 temp hp.
• Battle Ring (Once per turn, can’t be same turn as Theater): Bonus. Your or ally’s next attack does double damage.
  
• Theater (Once per turn, can’t be used same turn as Battle Ring): Bonus. Give (up to your Cha mod) allies advantage on their next d20 roll.
  
• Garden (2 uses): Action. Allow yourself or an ally to heal as if they spent 2 healing surges, or remove one negative condition on each ally.
  
• Library (Once per turn): Action. Choose one enemy or mob of enemies: All attacks versus that enemy are made with advantage and deal double damage until the start of your next turn.
  
• Sewers (One use per Front): Bonus. Sneak through the sewers to catch your enemy on their flank. Your next attack kills an enemy as long as you hit. You grant advantage to all attacks until you get back behind a Front.
  
• Topiary Garden (Once per turn). Action. Generate 5 points of allies, up to the max of 50.
  
• Arcanist Study. Action. Choose one:
  
  • (Once per turn) Regain a spell slot of level 1d4+1 or lower.
  • (3 uses) When taken in conjunction with another’s reinforce defenses action: Reinforce action made with advantage, restores 2x hp.
• Invocation Chamber. Action. Choose one:
  
  • (Once per turn) Speed approach of allies by 1 round with a successful Arcana or Religion DC 12 + 3 per previous check.
  • (3 uses) Contact other plane. You or an ally gains advantage on all d20 rolls until you/they fail a d20 roll.

Monsters (all in groups of 10 unless otherwise noted)

1. Lil Bolts: AC 12, 50 hp, init 20 & 10; Str 7 (-2), Dex 15 (+2), Con 9 (-1), Int 8 (-1), Wis 7 (-2), Cha 8 (-1) Atk: Nearest Front and any creatures guarding it. +4 (w/ adv if has 25+ hp remaining), 1d4+2 (double if 25+ hp remaining).
2. Streaks: AC 11, 125 hp, init 10; Str 8 (-1), Dex 12 (+1), Con 12 (+1), Int 9 (-1), Wis 11 (0), Cha 7(-2) Atk: Nearest Front and any creatures guarding it. +3 (+1 per 25 hp), 1d6 lightning (+1d6 per 25 hp)
3. Strikers: AC 11, 100 hp, init 20; Str 7 (-2), Dex 13 (+1), Con 10 (0), Int 9 (-1), Wis 11 (0), Cha 12(+1) Atk: Nearest Front and any creatures guarding it. +3 (+1 per 25 hp), 2d4 lightning (+1d4 per 25 hp)
4. Rumblers (Stompers, 1 per group): AC 14, 140 hp, init 10; Str 20 (+5), Dex 11 (0), Con 20 (+5), Int 8 (-1), Wis 6 (-2), Cha 10 (0) Atk: Makes 2 attacks, each can target any Front or creature in range. Melee: +9, 3d8+6. Ranged: 30’, +9, 4d10+6.

Event Table

Round	Monsters	Special Event
1	1d10 Lil Bolts	Bolts approach all Fronts as evenly as possible.
2	1 Lil Bolt per Front; 1d4 Streaks	Streaks approach 2 Fronts with fewest Bolts.
3	1 Lil Bolt per Front, 1d4 Streaks,1d4 Strikers	Streaks & Strikers approach on 2 weakest Fronts.
4	2d6 Lil Bolts	Lil Bolts appear evenly on 2 strongest Fronts
5	N/A	An unnerving calm washes over the battle. Defenders make Wisdom saves at DC 12 or gain Frightened condition until end of next turn and cannot move or use special rooms (unless already there).
6	1d4+1 Rumblers	Rumblers smash down from the sky, appear on all Fronts evenly.
7	2d6 Lil Bolts	Lil Bolts approach 2 weakest Fronts.
8	1d4 Streaks, Strikes, 1 Rumbler	New mobs approach location(s) with PCs.
9	2 Lil Bolts per Front, 1 Streak & Strike per Front	New mobs attack recklessly.
10	3 Lil Bolts per Front, 1d4 Rumblers	All mobs attack recklessly, favoring PCs.