#77 new england patriots

What started out with a Gen2.5 Taco search as led me to a gen 2.5 Tundra search as well. (man it's hard to find a good Toyota truck.)
I got a chance to see photos of this 2014 TRD OR before I see it in person, and the frame is near perfect. Been Fluid Filmed yearly. Recently had some belts and small maintenance done to it as well. Completely stock truck, and the body has no rust as far as I can tell. Owner has had it for the last few years and is looking to sell for 18K. I'm hoping to talk him down some, but needed to know if 180k miles is high for that price in the first place.
I know the market isn't rational, and me being in New England limits me to slim pickings when my wife doesn't trust me buying sight unseen over the internet.

Trading all the Skins in my Steam Inventory
B/O refers to SMP and only serves as an orienting point
Mainly looking for trades - for fast response send a tradeoffer
_____________________________________________________
Knives

Skin	Condition	Price (SMP)	Float	Tradelock
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Sapphire)	FN	1.300,00 €	0,0118
★ Butterfly Knife Safari Mesh	FT	701,14 €	0,2212	Mon Jun 05
★ Bowie Knife Marble Fade	FN	451,24 €	0,0245
★ Shadow Daggers Fade	FN	443,06 €	0,0258
★ Bowie Knife Doppler (Phase 4)	FN	419,09 €	0,0353
★ Bayonet Freehand	FT	398,10 €	0,2524
★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 3)	FN	171,22 €	0,0357
★ Navaja Knife		158,56 €	0,7850
★ Huntsman Knife Ultraviolet	BS	142,64 €	0,6297
★ StatTrak™ Bowie Knife Rust Coat	WW	128,24 €	0,4099	Mon Jun 05
★ Gut Knife Blue Steel	FT	127,99 €	0,3406
★ Paracord Knife Scorched	FT	126,86 €	0,3314

Gloves

Skin	Condition	Price (SMP)	Float	Tradelock
★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade	MW	378,72 €	0,1272
★ Sport Gloves Nocts	FT	361,49 €	0,2153
★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid	WW	352,15 €	0,4178
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web	FT	350,86 €	0,2714
★ Specialist Gloves Emerald Web	BS	331,07 €	0,7640
★ Specialist Gloves Mogul	FT	266,89 €	0,3744
★ Moto Gloves Polygon	FT	245,09 €	0,2291
★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure	FT	215,05 €	0,3559
★ Driver Gloves Lunar Weave	FT	196,42 €	0,3387
★ Hand Wraps Constrictor	FT	82,10 €	0,3276

Playskins

Skin	Condition	Price (SMP)	Float	Tradelock
M4A1-S Blue Phosphor	FN	698,96 €	0,0204
M4A1-S Icarus Fell	FN	569,34 €	0,0143
AK-47 Vulcan	MW	536,38 €	0,1349
AWP Oni Taiji	MW	510,59 €	0,1402
Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr	FN	344,41 €	0,0503
StatTrak™ AWP Asiimov	FT	333,01 €	0,3451
AWP Graphite	FN	240,40 €	0,0273
StatTrak™ AK-47 Neon Revolution	FN	181,77 €	0,0656
M4A1-S Printstream	FT	181,16 €	0,3631
AWP Asiimov	FT	165,46 €	0,2968
AK-47 Bloodsport	FN	152,28 €	0,0315

Hi everyone. I was reading biographies and some genealogies on some early American scientists (born late 1700s) studying natural science disciplines (such as biology, botany, geology, zoology, or meteorology, usually in a philosophical "pure" science manner) and they exhibited some very peculiar and repetitive patterns.
The ones I checked typically ended up in academia of sorts, either school teacher, lecturer, tutor, or military academy. Here are some of the recurring themes in their genealogies/biographies, which were written after the 1860s, usually by their descendants:

• Either father, grandfather, or first recorded male ancestor loses land title
• Emphasis on being really from America...ironically by mentioning English heritage or something like the first ancestor being "native" to New England
• Tend to come from a line of sailors. if not a captain somewhere, then a tanner or a weaver is in their legacy
• Seem to be very mobile, free-spirited, wandering individuals who enjoy nature
• "Long-hair don't care" attitude (mentions having long, thick dark hair, towering stature, height or build, being very proud and free)
• Mentioning at some point that they were poor (either born in poverty or died in poverty)
• Either they or their fathegrandfather accused of fraud at some point, or failed business venture

For reference, I was digging deep on William C. Redfield, and less deep on some others such as Asa Gray, Amos Eaton, and John James Audubon. (here is general source I was checking).
For Redfield, I found a biography from 1900 and a family genealogy from mid-1800s that mentions all the different branches as "tribes" -- was that usual wording for this time..? They also both state that his first recorded ancestor changed names several times, Redson, Redfin, Redsyn...
Most of the above have come up so frequently that I was wondering if this was some kind of code... especially the oft mentioning of this long-hair don't care attitude + closeness to nature. What was this all about? If anyone has any information on this, I'd be keen to know.
Thank you!

Taking csgo skins mainly (knives, gloves, aks, m4s, awps and so on). Anything as long as offer is good
I don't update this list everyday, so I have many items which aren't listed here. Check if something interests you! Also, some of the items are on trade hold, for release date you can add me or check by yourself.
TRADE LINK: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=35769104&token=J30wyEpy
Add me to talk here: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996034832
Keys from these buy outs aren't TF2 keys. I don't take Hydra keys either.
Buy outs are in keys for the sake of having a buy out, I trade for skins mainly.
Gloves/wraps:
Gloves Slingshot FT 0.36 float - B/O 200 keys
Gloves Amphibious WW 0.42 float - B/O 170 keys
Gloves Omega FT 0.33 float - B/O 160 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.36 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.37 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike FT 0.32 float - B/O 140 keys
Gloves Smoke Out MW 0.14 float - B/O 120 keys
Gloves King Snake FT 0.36 float - B/o 120 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike WW 0.44 float - B/O 100 keys
Gloves Field Agent FT 0.36 float - B/O 85 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph MW 0.14 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Cool Mint FT 0.36 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Arid BS 0.64 float - B/O 72 keys
Gloves Emerald Web BS 0.56 float - B/O 71 keys
Gloves Diamondback MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Gloves POW WW 0.38 float - B/O 66 keys
Wraps Caution FT 0.31 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves Overtake MW 0.14 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves King Snake BS 0.59 float - B/O 58 keys
Wraps Caution WW 0.38 float - B/O 50 keys
Wraps Overprint WW 0.43 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Big Game BS 0.69 float - B/O 47 keys
Gloves Polygon FT 0.18 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.32 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.35 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.36 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.22 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.32 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Nocts BS 0.62 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Boom FT 0.37 float - B/O 38 keys
Gloves Lunar Weave FT 0.36 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Finish Line WW 0.41 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Diamondback FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Field Agent BS 0.77 float - B/O 34 keys
Wraps Overprint BS 0.75 float - B/O 34 keys
Gloves Marble Fade BS 0.57 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Case Hardened MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Mogul BS 0.60 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Cool Mint BS 0.63 float - B/O 31 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph BS 0.61 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jade FT 0.23 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat FT 0.35 float - B/O 26 keys
Wraps Duct Tape MW 0.12 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Charred FT 0.21 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Overtake FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jaguar Queen FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.28 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Diamondback BS 0.58 float - B/O 20 keys
Wraps Arboreal FT 0.31 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Snakebite FT 0.16 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure BS 0.74 float - B/O 19 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat BS 0.46 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Convoy WW 0.44 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Case Hardened FT 0.15 float - B/O 23 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.36 float - B/O 17 keys
Goves Buckshot FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Unhinged FT 0.24 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves Overtake BS 0.45 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor FT 0.31 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Buckshot WW 0.40 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh FT 0.35 float - B/o 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor WW 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Transport BS 0.60 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Rezan BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded BS 0.63 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Guerrilla BS 0.53 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Buckshot BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh WW 0.41 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Case Hardened BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Emerald FT 0.36 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Constrictor BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Needle Point FT 0.36 float - B/O 14 keys
Gloves Rattler FT 0.35 float - B/O 13 keys
Gloves Mangrove FT 0.25 float - B/O 12 keys
Gloves Racing Green FT 0.30 float - B/O 11 keys
Knives and high tier items:
Talon Black Pearl MW 0.07 float - B/O 600 keys
Karambit Autotronic MW 0.13 float - B/O 350 keys
Nomad Fade MW ST 99% 0.07 float - B/O 400 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.003 float - B/O 300 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 270 keys
Daggers Sapphire FN ST 0.004 float - B/O 230 keys
Karambit Black Laminate FT 0.29 float - B/O 210 keys
M9 Black Laminate MW 0.11 float - B/O 200 keys
Talon Slaughter FN 0.03 float - B/O 200 keys
DEAGLE Blaze FN 0.01 float - B/O 170 keys
Flip Lore FN 0.05 float - B/O 170 keys
Butterfly Night FT 0.19 float - B/O 190 keys
Bayonet Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Butterfly Stained BS 0.90 float - B/O 150 keys
M9 Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 150 keys
Flip Marble Fade FN 0.004 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Forest Ddpat FT 0.16 float - B/o 140 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P1 0.01 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Safari Mesh FT 0.19 float - B/O 140 keys
Flip Doppler FN P2 0.03 float - B/O 140 keys
Karambit Ultraviolet BS 0.51 float - B/o 140 keys
Bayonet Lore FT 0.25 float - B/O 140 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P4 0.06 float - B/O 140 keys
Nomad Vanilla - B/O 130 keys
M9 Damascus Steel FT 0.20 float - B/O 130 keys
AK Head Shot FN ST 0.05 float - B/o 130 keys
M9 Blue Steel BS 0.99 float - B/O 150 keys
Stiletto Tiger Tooth FN 0.006 float - B/O 130 keys
Huntsman Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 130 keys
Flip Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 120 keys
Skeleton Stained FT 0.23 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Crimson Web MW 0.12 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/o 120 keys
Flip Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Stiletto Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Huntsman Gamma Doppler FN ST 0.02 float - B/O 120 keys
M9 Stained Ft 0.28 float - B/O 110 keys
Karambit Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/O 110 keys
Flip Doppler FN 0.01 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Night BS 0.49 float - B/O 110 keys
Ursus Tiger Tooth FN 0.008 float - B/O 110 keys
Bayonet Lore BS 0.62 float - B/O 100 keys
Flip Autotronic MW 0.14 float - B/O 100 keys
Skeleton Night FT ST 0.27 float - B/O 100 keys
M9 Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 100 keys
Bayonet Black Laminate MW 0.12 float - B/O 100 keys
Paracord Slaughter FN ST 0.03 float - B/O 90 keys
Flip Slaughter FT 0.23 float - B/O 90 keys
Huntsman Marble Fade FN 0.009 float - B/O 90 keys
Skeleton Stained BS 0.65 float - B/O 90 keys
Ursus Vanilla - B/O 85 keys
Gut Autotronic FN 0.05 float - B/O 84 keys
Bayonet Crimson Web FT 0.34 float - B/O 84 keys
Paracord Slaughter MW 0.10 float - B/O 83 keys
Bowie Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Marble Fade MW 0.07 float - B/O 82 keys
Bayonet Damascus Steel FT 0.22 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Doppler Fn P3 0.03 float - B/O 81 keys
Flip Autotronic FT 0.23 float - B/O 80 keys
Huntsman Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 75 keys
Talon Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 73 keys
Survival Vanilla - B/O 72 keys
Flip Ultraviolet MW 0.14 float - B/O 72 keys
Daggers Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 71 keys
Stiletto Damascus Steel FT 0.31 float - B/O 71 keys
Flip Bright Water FN 0.04 float - B/O 71 keys
Skeleton Safari Mesh FT 0.15 float - B/O 68 keys
Talon Safari Mesh MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 67 keys
Bowie Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 67 keys
Paracord Crimson Web FT 0.15 float - B/O 80 keys
Classic Case Hardened MW 0.09 float - B/O 65 keys
Nomad Blue Steel BS 0.87 float - B/O 64 keys
Falchion Lore MW 0.09 float - B/O 61 keys
Gut Lore MW 0.12 float - B/O 60 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FN 0.06 float - B/O 57 keys
Bowie Case Hardened FT 0.18 float - B/O 57 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth MW 0.07 float - B/O 56 keys
Falchion Vanilla ST - B/O 55 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel FN 0.05 float - B/O 54 keys
Daggers Marble Fade FN 0.05 float - B/O 53 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN ST 0.01 float - B/O 51 keys
Flip Night FT 0.23 float - B/O 51 keys
Gut Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Black Laminate BS 0.80 float - B/O 50 keys
Falchion Lore Ft 0.24 float - B/O 50 keys
Gut Doppler FN P2 0.008 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 49 keys
Huntsman Night MW 0.14 float - B/O 49 keys
Daggers Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 49 keys
Classic Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet FT 0.28 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Crimson Web FT 0.31 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Case Hardened WW 0.42 float - B/O 48 keys
Gut Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel MW 0.10 float - B/O 47 keys
Bowie Vanilla - B/O 47 keys
Daggers Lore MW 0.14 float - B/O 46 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Daggers Vanilla - B/O 46 keys
Nomad Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 46 keys
Flip Rust Coat BS 0.63 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Doppler FN P2 0.02 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Ursus Night MW 0.14 float - B/o 45 keys
Gut Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/O 43 keys
Navaja Slaughter FN 0.05 float - B/O 43 keys
Stiletto Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 43 keys
Classic Night BS 0.73 float - B/O 43 keys
Nomad Boreal FT 0.37 float - B/O 43 keys
Huntsman Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 43 keys
Daggers Slaughter MW 0.11 float - B/O 42 keys
Huntsman Damascus Steel MW 0.13 float - B/o 42 keys
Falchion Crimson Web FT 0.18 float - B/O 45 keys
Gut Vanilla - B/O 41 keys
Flip Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 41 keys
Paracord Blue Steel FT 0.36 float - B/O 40 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/o 40 keys
Navaja Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 40 keys
Ursus Blue Steel BS 0.95 float - B/O 39 keys
Falchion Bright Water FN 0.05 float - B/O 39 keys
Daggers Lore FT 0.32 float - B/O 39 keys
Bowie Bright Water FN 0.06 float - B/O 39 keys
Gut Lore BS 0.59 float - B/O 38 keys
Flip Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/o 38 keys
Flip Scorched FT 0.34 float - B/O 37 keys
Flip Safari Mesh FT 0.36 float - B/O 37 keys
Nomad Scorched FT 0.35 float - B/o 36 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh WW 0.44 float - B/O 36 keys
Daggers Lore WW 0.42 float - B/O 35 keys
Daggers Crimson Web FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Scorched FT 0.16 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 34 keys
Falchion Bright Water MW 0.14 float - B/O 34 keys
Ursus Urban Masked FT 0.33 float - B/o 34 keys
Navaja Blue Steel FN 0.01 float - B/O 34 keys
Daggers Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Urban Masked FT 0.35 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Forest Ddpat FT 0.18 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Scorched MW 0.13 float - B/O 33 keys
Classic Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 32 keys
Ursus Scorched FT ST 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Navaja Vanilla - B/O 32 keys
Gut Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 32 keys
Huntsman Bright Water FT 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Bowie Bright Water FT 0.17 float - B/O 31 keys
Bowie Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/o 30 keys
Ursus Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 30 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 30 keys
Falchion Black Laminate WW 0.39 float - B/O 29 keys
Survival Night BS 0.66 float - B/O 28 keys
Paracord Urban Masked FT 0.22 float - B/O 28 keys
Navaja Case Hardened WW 0.44 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Boreal FT 0.27 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Scorched FT 0.20 float - B/O 28 keys
Gut Bright Water FT ST 0.21 float - B/O 27 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet FT 0.30 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Damascus Steel FT 0.35 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS ST 0.52 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Bright Water FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Bowie Rust Coat BS 0.48 float - B/O 27 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Night FT ST 0.18 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Blue Steel FT 0.32 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat WW 0.38 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Freehand FT 0.30 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Safari Mesh FT 0.17 float - B/O 26 keys
Navaja Damascus Steel Fn 0.05 float - B/O 26 keys
Falchion Rust Coat BS 0.52 float - B/O 26 keys
Bowie Scorched FT 0.19 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Freehand WW 0.40 float - B/o 25 keys
Falchion Forest Ddpat FT 0.15 float - B/O 25 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS 0.55 float - B/O 24 keys
Gut Safari Mesh WW 0.38 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Bright Water FT 0.21 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet BS 0.52 float - B/O 23 keys
Navaja Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Urban Masked FT 0.19 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Boreal FT 0.23 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Safari Mesh FT 0.28 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Black Laminate FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gut Scorched FT 0.15 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Ultraviolet FT 0.36 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Boreal BS 0.67 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night MW 0.12 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Stained FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Blue Steel WW 0.40 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night BS 0.57 float - B/O 20 keys
Daggers Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal Ft 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Night FT 0.20 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Safari Mesh BS 0.65 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Forest Ddpat FT 0.29 float - B/O 20 keys

“Three years to build a mech with specs that only a year ago I would have called impossible within this century? Would you like any other miracles while I’m preying to every deity I know of?” – [CLASSIFIED] Head of [CLASSIFIED] development, after being presented with the project’s requirements.
----
First, Previous, Next.
----
‘Diagnostics complete. Error zero-zero, reactor output is nil. No other errors detected. Unit 0012 is unable to perform upcoming operation. I am sorry Sustain. You will be scratched from the roster.’
Anna ‘Sustain’ Finand started swearing, first in United Earth common, then English and lastly in Arabic. Fortunately for her career and general standing among her peers, her mech’s cockpit was still sealed tight, preventing the small army of engineers and maintenance personal swarming her mech from hearing.
She swore about the ridiculousness of a reactor design that could fail with no discernible reason at the drop of a hat. She cursed about the mountain of corners which had been piled up at the feet of the killing machine that refused to power on. Lastly, she just screamed as three years of built-up frustration poured out of her lanky body.
Sustain had been a mech pilot for far longer than she cared to admit, having began by piloting her Dad’s farming mech during planting season. She would start her shift in the mech-tractor after schooled finished, and work until midnight while her Dad slept. Then she would catch some much-needed rest, only to wake up early the next morning for school and do it all over again. She never resented her Dad for the strain the season would place on the two of them, but curiously she had always found herself angry at her mother; who had left when she was only five.
When she had signed up for the military, she had told the interviewing officer that she could pilot a mech in her sleep. She hadn’t been bragging. They’d thrown her into a simulator to see what she could do, and when she told her father that she’d barely passed the exam, she’d been lying. She hadn’t wanted him to worry about the possibility of her being hand picked for the special forces, which is exactly what had happened a few months later. Sustain remembered the fight between herself and her father after that, it had been legendary, and was still something they joked about to this very day.
Still, Sustain was as stubborn as her dad, and when her special forces service had paid for his space flight to and apartment on Earth he’d admitted that he was glad to have lost that fight. Thinking about her father, and Earth, only intensified the extreme frustration Sustain was currently experiencing.
The Algeen’s had pulled in as many species as they possibly could to fight off the Tide, but they hadn’t seen fit to give humanity the same offer. It was only five years ago that humanity had learnt about the existence of the Tide, as the inter-galactic wall that had been the Algeen republic, exhausted beyond all measures, crumbled away.
It still pissed her off to think about. Had the Algeen’s included humanity and it’s six hundred worlds at the start of the war, hell even halfway through it, they would have been able to fight with the numerical advantage. But instead, the Algeen’s had kept the Tide and their war from them a secret. No one knew why but Sustain could sure as hell guess: In the past Humanity and the Algeen’s had their fair share of conflicts.
No doubt the Algeen’s had wanted to present a facade of strength, out of fear that humanity would seek to capitalise on their weakened state.
Sustain could easily see humanity negotiating favourable terms for their aid, terms which may very well have seen them rise as the dominate power in the galactic region. Much like America in comparison to England after WWII. However, by seeking to prevent this from happening, the Algeen’s may have doomed humanity in the process.
Once they knew of their existence Humanity had tried to open diplomatic talks with the Tide and had been violently rebuked. With the Algeen’s crashing down before their very eyes humanity’s leadership had realised with horror that they now had to fight a considerably more powerful enemy, and only had five years to prepare for it.
Three years ago, that same leadership had finally convinced the Algeen’s to share their technology with their new allies of circumstance, and the flood gates had poured open. That’s when Sustain had gotten involved in the cluster fuck.
Humanity knew from their past that their technology was a few years behind that of the Algeen’s. However, they also knew that their tactics and general understanding of warfare was significantly greater. But now they had to compete with the Tide, who’s technology surpassed even that of the Algeen’s, and half measures weren’t going to cut it. Humanity had set out to build a brand new mech, one which could match the Tide machines (even if it wouldn’t beat them) by combining human and Algeen technology.
Sustain had signed on as a test pilot for the project, one of a thousand such pilots. Calling them the best of the best was considered an insult to many of the test pilots. While Sustain didn’t agree with such an arrogant attitude she wasn’t so humble as to be unable to admit the truth: They weren’t the best. Or the best of the best. They were one thousand out of a billion such pilots. They were Elite in the truest meaning of the word.
But none of that would mean anything if they didn’t have any machines to pilot.
Having taken a moment to calm herself, Sustain popped the seals on her cockpit, and opened the heavy door to the clammer of voices and machinery that was the drop hanger of the Swan. The Swan was a orbital insertion carrier, designed to launch its cargo onto a planet without succumbing to gravity or weapons fire alongside them. In just two short hours they would be deploying onto Algeen Prime, one battle which made up the many overseen by operation “Sucker Punch”.
For humanity to survive it needed to push the Tide back as quickly as possible while they were still dealing with the many losses, they had suffered during the Algeen war. For humanity to survive it needed to bloody the nose of those who dared to threaten the continued existence of mankind, and countless others. What better place to do that then where the most noses were located?
Algeen Prime and its surrounding systems were swarming with Tide ships and mechs, as their long conflicted was slowly ground to a pulp. Human intelligence suggested that the Tide in these locations would be running low on supplies, manpower and equipment. It was into this exhausted army that operation sucker punch would strike. It was up to Sustain and the Algeen-Human experimental mech program to be the tip of that spear. No pressure.
Sustain’s maintenance chief cut through both the volume of the hanger and her anxious recount of the events leading up to this situation.
“Sorry Captain, this one’s given up the ghost. I don’t know what is so cursed about this reactor design but when I find whoever made the mistake that causes this headache, I’ll throw the unlucky sod your way eh?”
Despite the situation the Chief’s gruff voice and jokes were enough to force the ghost of a smile onto Sustain’s face. The old, balding man reminded her of a friend of her fathers. The one who’d help occasionally with odd maintenance jobs around the house that her father was too busy to attend to. Only instead of repainting the living room he was fine tuning the most advanced fighting machine currently known to mankind. An odd idiosyncrasy to be sure, but like her the Chief was Elite.
“You’d deprive yourself of that satisfying revenge for me Tomlinson?” Sustain replied.
“Well better you go to prison then me, and I trust you to really twist the knife while you gut the fella.”
“Ah, fair.”
An awkward silence stretched between the two of them. A deep dark abyss that neither really wanted to descend into. Sustain took the plunge first.
“How many others like mine?”
Tomlinson’s eyes said all she needed to know. But he spoke anyway.
“About half of em. We’re hoping to get that down to a quarter but the timing ain’t looking so great. I hope you don’t mind me saying I’m glad yours isn’t showing any signs of life, if we got her started now we’d have to skip so many safety procedures to be ready in time that it ain’t funny… Well, it’d be a little funny. But only if you didn’t explode.”
Sustain grimaced. The constant issue with the experimental mechs was their power source. Everything else had been shaped up over the frantic past three years, but the reactors were a hurtle that seemingly couldn’t be overcome. Once they were running, they were fine. In fact, they were better than fine. Once running the reactors were a considerable improvement to their Algeen basis. It was getting them started that was the hard part.
Three years of Elite scientists and engineers working on the problem, and still it was a crapshoot as to whether the reactors would startup properly or destroy itself in doing so. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that the reactors were only designed to be run for a month before needing to be powered down for a maintenance once over.
Sustain’s mech had its maintenance once over a week ago. She would have preferred delaying the operation to ensure that all the one thousand Elite had operational machines, but replacing the reactor in the experimental mechs took weeks to do. Apparently command just didn’t have that kind of time.
Sustain spook to Tomlinson again.
“Alright, well good effort team. Looks like the training machine’s up.”
The training machines were highly customised but otherwise unmodified Algeen machines. With the experimental one’s being so finicky the Elite had needed reliable machines to hone their skills in. The trainers had never been intended to be taken into battle, however the situation left little room for anything else. They were capable machines, and the Elite pilots were very familiar with them. Tomlinson helped her down with an odd look on his face. After a moment Sustain realised: it was a potent mix of apprehension and guilt.
“I-I” The usually steadfast chief choked on his words. Pausing to take a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry it had to be this way ma’am. I didn’t want to let you down.”
Sustain was surprised by the words, but a cocky smile soon found it’s way to her face.
“Don’t worry Chief, I like a challenge. I thought you would have known that about me by now.” She said with a wink.
That same smile danced on her face once more, as two hours and one Tide mech later she was on the battlefield in her trainer mech. The taste of victory like Ambrose in her mouth. The ranged heavy Tide mech was fighting its salvo at her, but rather then attempted to doge the incoming missile or deploy her energy shield, Sustain kept her mech perfectly still. Closing her eyes and increasing the rating on her neural lace; merging her mind closer and closer to the heart of the machine.
When she opened them again everything was slowed to a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. She concentrated on the first missile, its trajectory appearing on her HUD, and lined up a trajectory of her own. The spikes the Algeen had noted on her mechs shoulders were indeed grenade launchers – not designed for offensive operation and most certainly not designed to be used as anti-missile fire. But Sustain had been training against the Elite for over three years now, most of them in this very machine, together they had all learnt more then a few tricks.
With the overclocking ability of her neural lace, (a development that neither the Algeen’s nor the Tide had access to), Sustain was able to launch the smoke canisters with unnerving accuracy directly into the path of the oncoming Tide fire. To Churk, who was watching the fight take place in real time, it appeared as though every canister had fired at the same moment. But to Sustain each and every canister had been individually targeted and fired.
The massive shockwave of so many missile denotating at once pounded into the surrounding area, causing the ground to shake, trees to shiver and Churk and his team to grab their helmets and take cover. One moment Sustain’s Algeen mech had been charging across the grassy field towards the Tide heavy, the next the entire field and some of the forest the Tide heavy was taking cover in was filled with smoke.
At first both Churk and the Tide pilot believed the smoke to be coming from the destroyed carcass of Sustain’s mech. Both were equally surprised then when with the quick flash of a blade the smoke, (and the Tide’s missile launcher,) were spilt in two.
The smoke in question was electro chemical in nature and caused odd pixelation and glitches to flare up in Sustain’s mechs sensors, as the scrambling effects of the smoke began to hit full force. Of course, Sustain’s mech was programmed with these effects in mind, and so was shielded from the worse of the interference. The same cannot be said for the Tide mech, who’s pilot now had to battle one insanely capable human and their own systems in order to survive. It was a battle that the mech pilot would not be able to win, however that doesn’t mean they were going to go down without a fight.
The Tide mech swung the ruined launcher at Sustain’s mech, and she used her left shoulder to block the blow, causing the frame of her machine to shake with the force of the heavy blow. In return she struck with her sword, finding the elbow joint on the Tide machine’s left arm, and slicing for everything her mech was worth. Her sword ran up the length of the Tide mech’s arm, under the heavy armour, and into the shoulder joint, whereupon (with a flick of her wrist) Sustain was able to deprive the Tide mech of its entire arm.
The Tide mech swung again with the now very pulped launcher, Sustain ducked the blow and thrust forward with her blade, intending to skewer the Tide machine on her sword. She was partially successful in doing so, creating a large and jagged rent in the chest armour of her enemy. The enemy (who was not unskilled) twisted away, preventing Sustain from penetrating the top-quality armour and causing her mech to overbalance. Instead of stepping forward to overt her fall Sustain sent her mech’s anti-gravity pods into overdrive and activated her jump jets. The mech rolled forward smoothly, in a movement that would have shredded a machine of its size and weight if not for the advanced technology of the pods.
As Sustain rolled free from her opponent’s follow up strike (an overhead blow that would have caught her on the back of her machine) smashed into empty air and then dirt. Not letting the sudden evasion get the better of them however, the Tide pilot dropped the useless and crushed launcher remains and pulled their mech’s coil gun from its thigh holster. The coil gun looked like a pistol in the mechs hand, but was powerful enough at this range to punch directly through the chest of Sustain’s mech.
The Tide pilot never got the chance to fire it.
Sustain bounced back from her roll with a speed that, even with the gravity pods maxed out, sent creaks throughout her entire machine. Her jump jets were still firing, and she leapt towards the Tide mech as it pulled its coil gun from its holster. Facing a weapon, she could not deflect with smoke grenades or armour, her only defence was speed and accuracy.
Like a shark about to earn a round of drinks by throwing their last dart, Sustain hit the bullseye at the last possible second. The Tide machine’s armour, already comprised by her previous pass, finally failed as the full weight of Sustain’s mech was forcefully shoved against it. The force concentrated through the point of her brutally simple sword and sliced deep into vulnerable inners of the machine to hit the only thing that truly mattered onboard a mech: The pilot.
----
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Today's games repulse me with their copycat, timid and shallow character. Though it seems like there is a variety of concepts flashing around, in practice games revolve around the same half-dozen tropes. Their hallmark sign is that it is nothing that is not seen on TV. If the game's idea is not a reflection of the modern world from someone who, by all appearances, has never read a real book or has experience to share, then it's Pirates in Some Carribean, or the Victorian Age When Jack the Ripper Roamed in a Black Cab, or the Middle Ages with Standard Treachery, or Abstract Space Exploration. I was sick and tired of this a few years ago, now I have all but given up on this art form. Even when the concept is interesting, it is rarely taken far or with force. Neutered developers are afraid to give offense and as a result make bland, short-breathing stuff, but I think the sharp edges are never there to begin with anymore. I don't know anybody who sets out to defy the world, stand apart from its simulations and blandishments and spit a good gob in its ugly square face.
I have never had an opportunity to make a game of my own (it takes a team besides everything else), but I have made mods for a very old RPG for years - new mechanics, plots, magic, quests, effects, scripts, writing and so on. I have more or less put that old engine on its head, though I know hardly anyone will ever find out about my efforts. This is to say that I am not a pure theorist. Some time in the winter, bored and exasperated, I decided to do a quick marathon of game ideas - for RPG, quests, simulations, something in-between - and see how many I can whip out on the run. I would like something from here picked up by a company, but I am not advertising. I realize that is probably not something that might happen. It was a good exercise for me, however. Here are the results for all to see. I did ten first, then three more occurred to me.
1 ) Circa Caotica
You play the role of Jabsh, a clown of a traveling circus, who suddenly discovers that he is no orphan but the son (Raka, daughter for female players) of the director, Maestro Leotardi. Minutes later after making the sobbing confession the boss is swallowed by the Crocodile Man in a suspicious accident. You have to own up to the unexpected legacy and step into the tight and tall boots of the director. Your responsibility is to keep the circus going by fine-tuning and inventing acts based on ideas solicited over regular all-troupe brainstorming sessions despite little starting respect from the others, who have decided to unionize as well (the mentalist takes notes). You must keep drawing in crowds to avert the bankruptcy, earn respect and manipulation points and find the truth behind Leotardi's death and the disappearance of the Big Green cashbox with everyone's last year salary and the medallion that supposedly bears the face of your mother the same evening. All the while you still have to perform in regular clown acts with your partner. You can play as a red clown or a white clown, and the other type will be your foil.
2) Nachtwaffe
"Ah, count. Decided to join me for a walk?" Vampires steal planes from the Nazi airforce to zoom through the dark skies over the Balkans and turn humans to make more of their own. You start out as a single nosferatu, converted from an arrogant German, and must find and raid small airports and landing strips across the forests and mountains of Roumania, impersonate a living officer to get supplies and fuel, avoid communist guerillas, find and build places to hide during the day and choose which humans to turn to expand your force. Naturally, it is all quite a dead end, as the war is bound to finish sooner or later, which radio broadcasts confirm, and what then will happen to the vampiric empire? But this is something that the gameplay begins to convey to the player gradually. Hopefully the fate of someone who has no future but still does his all will touch some dormant strings in players' hearts.
3) Yuck!
The sleepy Tibetan village of Dongtso is unaware of what lurks in the bushes and the mountains: you, the desperately lonely yak-man. Born with a big head and two horns, you have only one connection to civilization: the gold ring in your nose. Squinting cross-eyed, you can just make out some kind of symbols on it, and a banner over the village shrine features ones like them. This must be the key. You have to lurk about the supersititious hamlet, helping the folk at night and out of sight with small chores and evesdropping on their reactions and conversations until you can pick up a few words, including, at some point, "Hello." Since this is a game about Tibet and shaping up something rebellious, let the tongue be one of Tibet's many and accompanied by Tibetan script. You can train to pronounce the words when you dare show yourself to children, old people and widows, to improve from mooing to legible speech, but until then you have to dodge men's hunting parties and survive. With enough good deeds and a few friends, you might win the folk's confidence and stand before the village council so that someone might teach you to read. The quest becomes complicated, however, by the appearance of the army of People's Republic of China that establishes a base in the village in its push to subdue Tibet. The year is 1952. One of the newcomers is a local - a renegade llama who, the villagers say, has been on many supernatural journeys in the mountains, even to Shangri-La, but is now wearing the uniform of Tibet's conquerors. The writing on the ring, deciphered, identifies him as your father. What will happen next?
4) Footlocker
This is a soccer-themed RPG, but you view the sport from the point of view of a bookie besieged on all sides by mafia. To pay back his debt he resolves on a colossal set-up: first get control of an underdog team, then bring them at least to the regional semi-finals and, with the bets in their favor, make them lose in a big way. The thugs are ready to provide cash handouts, leg-breaking, knuckle sandwiches, addictive opioids and more to get the right people on the team and stubborn elements out, but at the cost of increased control and cut of the profits. You must balance their appetities with placating sports authorities, the press, sponsors and police. In the final match a dilemma presents itself: go through with the plan and ruin the team or defy the gangsters and take your chances on the right side of the tracks?
5) And See It Again For the First Time
Starting out from your homeland on three caravels, you unfurl the sails and set out to circumnavigate the world. The globe is randomly generated every time and rolls away at the horizon, with the map, continents and straits unknown beforehand, in the manner of River Raid. Your characters are the three ships and their crews, condition and supplies are their stats. Dropping anchor at strange shores and dealing with natives will be necessary but dangerous as they fight with each other, shuffle and migrate like microbes. Loss of crew can't be repaired. At least one of the ships must find the passages and make it to the fabulous Gate of Makhamedi, enter it from the far side and begin the journey home.
6) The Person and the Essence
In the beginning chapter you play Sauqin, second-in-command to general Varziranga, head of the army of the Arcolan Empire sent to quash the rebellion of Panlaa, who has tried to bring his province to secede. The imperial army has crushed Panlaa'a troops a fortnight ago and has got him shut in the Ravine of the Gold Specks. Complete victory is near, but the commander has been acting strangely since the battle. On this decisive night his behavior spins out of control just as Panlaa makes a sudden sally from his trap, causing great confusion. As his lieutenant, it falls to you to maintain order in dealing with the various officers as well as the clerics of the One, who insist that Panlaa, a lapsed pagan, be given to them for execution once he is captured. The ending of the chapter will determine whether Panlaa ends in the emperor's prison in the capital, Hotharsoom, alive or dead at the clerics' hands, whether Varziranga will be simply demoted or disgraced.
Chapter two will take place in the capital city. You will have been promoted to a top military command for your performance, only to become embroiled in an intrigue involving the emperor's controlling mother, a consequential schism in the church of the One over whether the head of state is eternally the same person reincarnated or a series of persons, demagogues in the public and lurking pagans with unclear motives. Other chapters will follow, and the endings will determine who sits on the throne and who stands behind it, whether state policy is in principle subject to revision and criticism or not and whether the pagan faiths are crushed without mercy or adopted into the church of the One. The material here is Byzantium, Egypt with the notion of the pharaoh as incarnate Horus and the empires of southeast Asia. Some early Christian heresies also deserve to be revivified.
7) Of Rats and Men
You are a rat trapped in the gears of the Trumpet of Doom, the hugest, heaviest and most advanced steam ship ever to paddle the Grumuous Sea. This basin is famously salty enough to let even an iron float for a time, which, the public money finally gathered, made it the perfect road to carry the 25-inch-gunned ("24 + 1 for Paterland!") Trumpet to the shores of Festaly and at last give those Festalians what for! The citizenry is cheering with patriotic joy, the brass bands are blowing. The ship rats are less happy, especially you, who were captain Reissenpouf's pet before you managed to scramble through a porthole and below the desk as he was buttering a toast. You are nearly panicky with fright. Unlike the locals there, you have spent time locked with the diagrams in the captain's safe and know that the battleship is very weakly armored below the waterline. Someone must have made a good bit of business during the construction selling the metal. When the Trumpet comes up against the Festalians with their triton suicides or their rumored counterpart ship, the Rough Musician, not even the Grumuous Sea will keep it from ending up as a gigantic, barnacled wreck on the ocean floor.
To avoid this fate you only have so much time to organize the other rats for systematic sabotage. The game's world is the enormous ship below and above the deck. The humans of the crew are, of course, adamant in their resolve to get themselves killed, so they will repair the servos, the cables turning the massive gears, the ball bearings, the hydraulics and the rest almost as quickly as those are destroyed. This effort will be headed by the near-transparent, monochrome spindle of a man, Admiral Hel, the leader of the expedition, always of his private high deck, sipping his black milk and staring through his spectacles ahead to where TOD's fate awaits it. If all of you ratfolk together gnaw through and spoil enough of the ship's devices, however, the captain might just have the authority to radio Kaiser Walzer of the decision to turn back... though you personally may also have to sneak back into his cabin to sit on his pillow and intone suggestions as he sleeps. The fact that you are an albino rat and at first come across as a crazy visionary doesn't help, and neither does being a female rat and having to give birth to a litter every so often. The current mate can be deputied on tasks while lactating. Other ships may sometimes be encountered in the sea, with different results, and you may improve your reputation in the murine community by predicting these encounters, if you check the looking glass often enough. The length of the game, and hence the difficulty, depends on the distance to Festalian waters - from two weeks' journey to three months.
8) Cosmic Choir
You play as one of the planets of the solar system. The other actors and your partners are the thieving and scurrilous Mercury, the lusty and sly Venus, the militant braggart Mars and so on. And you are the meh-in-the-middle Earth, and in this group of strong personalities stand out with your unique ability of Rational Decision (it would be nice to get Woody Allen for the voice acting, were he younger). Other planets have other powers, and all of them certain characteristics and appetites (for tasty meteorites, for more intimate or more standoffish orbits and so on). The plot revolves around the announcement of the Sun that it has had enough of burning hydrogen and wants to retire, going immediately into the red giant phase, which would, of course, burn up all of the inner planets and kick the outer planets way out. For this the star has recruited a planet-sized asteroid, large enough to pull most of the star fuel away so that the moribund transformation may be set in motion. The euthanatic dark planet is whirring ever closer. Before it gets on a near enough orbit to disrupt the Sun the other planets must find out what caused this sudden depression and persuade their ruler and source of life otherwise. (The answer is that the Sun has always dreamt of going nova but lacks substance.) Playing as the only inhabited planet, you must also keep the life forms on you alive through all of the maneuvering. If you can get Mars to cooperate, however, you may shorten the distance enough for humanity and some of the ecosystems to make the leap and found Musk City there, and then you won't have to care about your surface anymore.
9) Paris, 1245 A.D.
A meticulously researched simulation of the criminal underworld of medieval Paris and the worlds that abutted on it: those of the church, guilds, city watch, the university, lepers, the court and so on. No shortcuts and simplifications for babies who can't tell a Benedictine from a Cistercian. A dynamically filled encyclopedia may be included, though, and remain permanently unlocked for later replays. The main character is a vagrant and a thief. This may be a persistent sandbox, possibly a multiplayer RPG, or it may have a plot, but strictly within historical realities.
10) The Last Supper
You play the role of Jesus, son of God, in the company of the twelve disciples. The game should probably be in first person. (The Sermon of the Mount and such may be shown in cutscenes, or they may be challenges in quiz form.) The time period is your wanderings in Judea after the baptism and until the last night before the arrest. The background is the Judaic society at the time and its Roman controllers, somewhat historically accurate. This is a detective story, a wholldoit where you need to figure out who is best suited to betray you in due time so that you may prep him for the job and finally give him the impetus to "do it quicker" at the Last Supper. For Christ certainly needed someone to betray him. It's not always Judas: the identity of the potential traitor, along with his motives, will vary randomly between playthroughs. Incidents and encounters along the road, both recorded in the Bible and invented, will liven up the experience and better inform you about the personalities of the disciples, building on but going beyond what is known (Peter with his short temper, the lofty John an so on).
11) Cuadrophobia
Ships and the sea again. This time you are a typical sailor with an atypically strong survival instinct on one of the vessels in a colossal game of Battleship between Our Guy and the Other Player. Accordingly, there are two grids firing at each other: your side's and the enemy's, though you only get to travel across your own. The ship you begin on is chosen at random: it may be anything in size from a single-squarer to a five-squarer. Smaller ships are less likely to be hit, of course, but when a ship is finished, it sinks, and you with it. The purpose of the game is to survive until Our Guy's victory, which programmatically is likely but not guaranteed and happens about 70% of the time. To do this you must desert on a regular basis, setting out in a dinghy to a ship more favored in the current situation. However, the dinghy only travels three squares per turn, and you can only spend two turns in the open sea before dying. You also need time on board ships to access their radio broadcasts, which, besides playing some inspirational propaganda, update the picture of the grid as the battle rages. Without it you are limited to paddling to vessels that you can directly see. The role-playing element comes from dealing with ship commanders, who all take their duties and titles - captain of Cruiser! captain of Battleship! - very seriously, from picking up supplies in floating debris and from acquiring special abilities that let you, for example, paddle an extra square farther. Is war evil? Is it to be hated, or is our side to be cheered on? After all, if Our Guy loses, this will all have been in vain.
12) Standardom
In this game of life, dedicated to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), you must pass through all of the Gates of Conformity to win your ultimate prize - death from old age, as opposed to suicide. The option to kill yourself is always available in the menu. Being the hero and chickenshit that you are, though, you are determined to submit to every humiliation just so you can press forward. The world of the game is a vertical platform that moves with you along the Y axis, which represents time from some random year forwards: you may begin at 100 B.C., 1824 A.D., 12749 j-Spec and so on. It is really all the same where on the timeline you are dropped off. As with other platformers, once the screen has moved, there is no going back. You can walk freely to the left and right, however, pick up bonuses, disarm threats and converse with characters. Going up, every so often the screen is intersected by a wall with a gate in it. Your character's silhouette must either match the cut of the gate or be smaller to pass through. You start out small as a baby, a little circle, but very soon handicaps such as Discovery of Talent, Unusual Upbringing, Independent Spirit or Love of Sex will begin to rush at you to complicate your silhouette with Г, & and other such protrusions. You will also grow in size until your late 20s. Luckily, opportunities will also present themselves to prune some of this exotica: Family, Steady Job, Political Engagement, Puppy, Human Interest and other bonuses can be found or obtained from conversations to simplify your puzzle to a manageable cut until such time as the years pile on and the worst is behind you. You will become smaller and smaller and able to rush through the checkpoints one after the other to the finish line.
13) Six Handshakes to Liberty
The country is suffering under a cruel dictatorship. Ar-Parason, the president-for-life, has wrung the last of resources from the nation and has now thrown it into a disastrous war. In his palace he is surrounded by guards armed to the teeth and without a shred of conscience to shoot the bastard. What can you, a humble microbiologist living in the suburbs, do about this? Nothing, it seems, until you discover a strain of bacteria that is absolutely deadly within weeks and immune to all known antibiotics except one, still not fully developed. The microbe is passed along by touch. Alas, you discover it when you become infected with it. You still have the resources to finish the research on the antibiotic and save yourself, but now you realize that you possess the perfect secret weapon to rid the country of the tyrant. Although you can't get so close to Ar-Parason in person, someone must enjoy that intimacy...
Every day you do your research at the computer, look through the press, then put on gloves and go out in search of people in contact with other people who will, you hope, ultimately carry the strain to its target. You have to follow news to figure out whose hands to shake and who to sleep with - secretaries, daughters of generals, corrupt officials - and many times the scheme will fall short of success. The chain of handshakes will terminate early somewhere, and these intermediaries will just die. But all those sacrifices are worth it, aren't they? You keep several intrigues going at once, determined to see one of them to the end. Meanwhile an epidemic is beginning in the country, Ar-Parason is starting to take precautions, and your own remaining time that could be spent on finishing the antibiotic is also running short. What is more important: life, revenge, justice, survival, honor? Your actions will be your decisions.

When they use numerology to stage their events then you know its FAKE
TWIN TOWERS DESTROYED BY CONTROLLED DEMOLITION= 223
​
Globalist needed to stage another Pearl Harbour event as a pretext for Middle East Wars
Pearl Harbour itself was a staged event
JAPANESE SURPRISE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOUR= 223
​
Construction on the World Trade Centre began on 6 August 1968= 6/8/'68
Hiroshima anniv
33 years before it was destroyed
DESTRUCTION= 68
PLANE CRASHES= 68
The US adopted 911 as their Emergency Call number the same year 1968
​
On the morning of the 911 attacks Bush was reading the book The Pet Goat to Children
BUSH READS THE PET GOAT TO CHILDREN= 322
Bush entered the classroom 9:03 am
Flight 175 hit the WTC tower at 9:03 am
Flight 11 crashed into 93rd floor of the North Tower
Flight 93 crashed into Somerset County Pennsylvania on the 39th parallel
Crashed at 10.03 am= 22:03
223--Skull & Bones signature
PLANES CRASH--TWIN TOWERS= 93
​
The World Trade Centre was first bombed in 1993
The bombing was blamed on the Blind Sheik
BLIND SHEIK= 93
WORLD TRADE CENTRE NORTH BOMBING= 322
​
Osama Bin Laden's 'father' died-- coincidentally--in a plane crash on Sep 3 1967
Sep 3= 9/3
119 days remaining in the year
(Ronald Reagan died on Sep 3= 9/3 at age 93)
​
12 Oct 2000---The bombing of the USS Cole was staged to make Bin Laden a household name
Exactly 11 months before the 911 attacks
Bombed at 11:18 am= 11/9
USS COLE BOMBED= 216
The bomb supposedly created a 18 x 12 m gash on the ship's side
18 x 12= 216
216= 6x6x6= 666
​
Osama/Obama Hoax
44th USA PRESIDENT= 223
​
99 months 9 days after USS Cole bombed--
President Obama's Inauguration
exactly 119 weeks later--
the Osama Bin Laden character was killed off
ALQAEDA= 23
FAKE= 23
SPOOK= 23
CIA= 23
LYING= 23
​
Obama's Fake Birth Certificate was an Insider Joke
All high- profile Globalist Stooges have fake birth dates
Thats how they identify one another
Obama was supposedly born 4 August
216th Day of the Year
216= 6x6x6= 666
149 days left in the year
SKULL AND BONES= 149
ANTI CHRIST= 149
​
BIRTH CERTIFICATE is a code word for 911
BIRTH CERTIFICATE= 156
911 = 156th prime number
​
The North Tower was the one that was hit first on 911
NORTH TOWER= 156
​
911= 9+1+1=11
Sept 11
254th day of the year
2+4+5=11
111 days left in the year
The first plane to hit the World Trade Centre was Flight 11
AMERICAN AIRLINES= AA= 11
Flight 11 had 92 people on board---9+2=11
11 crew members
New York is the 11th state added to the Union
New York City has 11 letters
The Pentagon has 11 letters
Pentagon located 38 N 77W
PENTAGON= 38
Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on the 77th meridian
Boeing 757-223

Hey! So as the title suggests, I’m just at a point where I want to make new friends and talk to new people; since the existential crisis of turning 30 started last month, I’ve just generally felt a bit meh. I’ve been feeling a bit lonely and emotionally exhausted, so it would be nice to meet some new people and have some fun conversations! :)
So yeah, general stats n facts about me:

• I’m Kieran, 30, from the U.K.
• 5’8, messy dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, baby face, nose piercing, in decent shape but not totally ripped. Can trade pictures privately 😊
• I’m very much still in my emo phase and I refuse to admit it’s over 😂
• I sing and play guitar, and occasionally do cover songs so you can tell me what to cover!
• I have two beautiful cats I will constantly send you pictures of
• I go to the gym a fair bit so a fellow fitness enthusiast would be fun!
• I loooove Disney, like I’m such a Disney fanboy haha, I have all the Disney homeware!
• I don’t game a huge amount but I’m obsessed with Zelda (and TOTK is amazing!)
• I’m a huuuge Star Wars nerd, so if you like Star Wars we’ll have plenty to talk about haha
• I’m into politics (left-leaning if that matters) and current affairs, so would be up for chatting about that :)

So, that should give you a little to work with! Hopefully hear from you soon so I can have some chill company to relax with 😊

Hi modding experts, I need your help organizing and figuring out the best set up of my current load order and which of my mods are obsolete, useless/broken(and why) or in a wrong position or lack of a required file.
The game keeps crashing every 20-30 mins (also with new saves I do for testing) even though I partially copied this LO from orders labeled as stable online.
Here's my LO as I read it on the console

1. USSEP
2. Unofficial CC content patch
3. RW2 resources
4. EOSI
5. Patron carriages/innkeepers (I like the expensive travels & inns but I still don't know if this conflicts with EOSI, need testing)
6. Debug menu
7. Realistic ragdolls and force
8. Immersive Leveling
9. Character Creation Overhaul AIO
10. Craftable Telvanni robes
11. Craftable Hold guard armor
12. Ars Metallica
13. Undiscovered Skyrim
14. Open Civil War
15. Paarthurnax Dilemma
16. Become a whiterun guard
17. Destroy thieves guild
18. Thugs Not assassins
19. Jenassa fix - bosmer armor
20. Bosmer armor pack
21. Realistic AI detection - LITE
22. Dangerous Skooma
23. Summermyst
24. Narrative loot
25. Smithed equipment in loot
26. Face masks of skyrim
27. Morrowind imports
28. 360 walk & run - standalone
29. Fire HD
30. Enhanced Blood texture
31. Unique uniques
32. Frost white glass armor
33. Black and gold ebony armor
34. Black and gold ebony weapons
35. Royal armory - New artifacts (don't know if this conflicts with CRF or other, it's the version that only replaces a few vanilla weapons of the important characters)
36. Beyond skyrim Morrowind- Bonemold weapons
37. Bones for a crow fix (don't know if this is obsolete with the Unofficial CC patch or the USSEP but last lime I checked I still needed this because the corpse of the npc didn't appear, a common bug)
38. Special edition followers (this one only alters some followers AI and combat styles)
39. More tavern idles
40. CRF (I can't figure out where to put this, I fear it overwrites something I move it higher)
41. RDO
42. Serana expanded dialogue add-on (do not confuse with the most famous meme-like serana dialogue add on, this is the one that uses most vanilla features of serana)
43. More to say 9.0.2
44. Civil War lines expansion
45. RDO + CRF + USSEP patch
46. Bosmers have antlers
47. Vanilla hair remake NPCs
48. Vanilla hair remake replacer
49. Brighter torches
50. Spells light dynamic shadows (i saw it can be used with other lighting mods I just don't know if is better above or below elfx)
51. Updated ELFX (...and here comes the mess)
52. ELFX fixes
53. ELFX enhancer
54. ELFX exterior fixes
55. JKs interiors AIO (...where do I put this?)
56. Simply Darker Nights (by the same author of "brighter torches" above, these two work well together)
57. Enhanced skyrim nights
58. Lush aspen fall trees 2k - gamerpauly
59. HD birch bark (for the above, simply retexture the bark of rift trees)
60. Lush Vanilla trees 1K - gamerpauly
61. Improved terrain LOD meshes (...where do I put this?)
62. Capital of winterhold
63. Solitude docks (need testing if it conflicts with JKs or something else)
64. Arthmoor Practice dummies
65. Arthmoor Provincial Courier service
66. Arthmoor Oakwood (and all the Artmoor villages in a non particular order EXCEPT Keld-Nar and Telengard)
67. Arthmoor Storefront
68. Environs - Whiterun watchtower
69. Environs - shrines of talos (maybe it conflicts somewhere with JKs skyrim but I don't know yet)
70. Quaint raven rock
71. Quaint raven rock - ELFX exterior fix
72. Better Tel Mithrtyn
73. Books of skyrim (...where do I put this? It seems not conflicting with anything at the moment)
74. JKs skyrim AIO (...where do I put this?)
75. JKs windhelm outskirts (I can't understand if the windhelm exterior that look super cool in this mod is already present in the Jks skyrim AIO, is this repetitive? it seems not but I need to know where to put this in LO because it crashes sometimes in this area)
76. Bells of skyrim
77. Bells of skyrim - JKs skyrim patch
78. Bells of skyrim - Immersive citizens patch
79. ( ...and here comes the other mess below)
80. JKs skyrim CRF + Arthmoor's mods patch
81. JKs skyrim Storefront patch
82. JKs skyrim ELFX exterior patch
83. Jks INTERIORS ELFX patch
84. JKs INTERIORS- JKs skyrim AIO patch
85. JKs INTERIORS ELFX fixes patch
86. Jks INTERIORS USSEP patch
87. Jks INTERIORS ELFX Enhancer patch
88. JKs skyrim - Immersive citizens patch
89. JKs INTERIORS- Immersive citizens patch
90. JKs windhelm outskirts- USSEP patch
91. JKs windhelm outskirts- CC ebony plate armor patch
92. JKs windhelm outskirts- NO snow under roof patch
93. JKs windhelm outskirts- Immersive citizens
94. NO snow under the Roof
95. The Marshlands by Tesfiend
96. Wildcat injuries animations DAR
97. Immersive movement
98. Wildcat
99. Wildcat patch Immersive movement
100. Mortal Enemies patch Immersive movement (the mod M.E. is included in a mod below, so I don't need to re-download it but still need this to converge between ME effects and Immersive movement right? I'm confused about this)
101. Hardcore Dragons difficulty
102. Better Auriel Bow
103. Vanilla Plus v5.1.1 (this is the mod that contains Mortal Enemies which compatibility is needed between it's changes and Immersive movement, right?)
104. Vokrii
105. EOSI - vokrii patch
106. Immersive citizens- AI overhaul (...where do I put this?)
107. Immersive patrols (large battles)
108. Populated land roads path
109. Lightly populated settlements
110. Lucien (...where do i put this guy in my LO?)
111. Lucien Anniversary
112. Taliesin elf follower
113. Dominion's more high elves
114. Immersive Winterhold NPCs (there are two of this exact same mod which one is the most up to date? I have the one with the argonian mage in the thumbnail)
115. Erandil thalmor follower
116. Notice board - better solstheim
117. Notice board
118. RW2 (with it's resources file up at the top)
119. JKs skyrim - RW2 patch
120. Imperial rewards
121. Immersive hunting
122. Mammoth pelts (don't know yet if it conflicts with Immersive hunting)
123. Heliomancy Spells
124. Bound Shield
125. Caves of morrowind (...a dungeon, where do I put this?)
126. Depths of Skyrim (...where? Above or below RW2?)
127. Hold border banners
128. Elemental fury offhand fix
129. RJ tweaks - followers (... where do I put this? Does it conflicts with Immersive citizens?)
130. RJ tweaks - hearthfire (above or below Immersive hunting? Or where?)
131. D13 faster get up
132. Alternate Start
133. JKs INTERIORS - Alternate start patch
134. Color patches remover

Hi all,
My wife and I had to relocate cross-country (CA to New England) rather urgently. Our shipping container was delayed by a week and spent some unexpected time outside of climate control. It had a few cases of wine in it. The container was warm inside when I opened it, and the bottles do feel warm to the touch. None of the bottles popped and I see no seepage around the corks. What are the chances of survival with this? Could there be significant damage after a week or so in transit, even without obvious signs?
Thank you all!

We have just completed on a new property in England (not a new build). There were some obvious water damage to 2 walls in the house. The seller was adamant that this was due to an historic gutter work issue. We commissioned a level three structural survey which said there was water damage, but recommended a specialist on survey. Then we commissioned a specialist damp survey, which noted the condition of the walls and advised that this was likely due to the historic exterior drain pipe damage, but perhaps also exterior water ingress (ie “rising damp“).
We decided to press ahead with the purchase and to strip the walls back and dry them out, as well as installing some drains outside the perimeter to improve drainage.
On the day of completion, we discovered a large water leak under the floor which has clearly been going for some years, from a corroded pipe. It’s the very obvious source of the damage in our property, and it turns out that the neighbouring property has also experienced damage which they guarded against with dampproofing.
Our buildings insurance does not cover damage from issues that arise before the period of insurance. And the clause on wear and tear makes it pretty clear that problems arising from corrosion aren’t covered either.
If we had known about this issue, it would definitely have affected whether or not we purchased the property (at least at the price we negotiated).
Do we have any recourse for compensation from the surveyors? Any advice much appreciated. The repair work is likely to be expensive.

I know that 3L hiring at big firms varies year to year and is always a long shot. However, I'd still like to shoot my shot.
That being said, are there any firms that tend to do some 3L hiring? Specifically looking New England and corporate/transactional.
I know it's really variable, just looking for some leads. Thanks!

TL;DR: The US Intervening into Mexico to defeat the Cartels would spiral out of control very quickly, converting Mexico and quite possibly the Southwestern US into Afghanistan 2.0 for the US military.
There has been rhetoric over the past few months by various right wing politicians in the US that the US should attack the cartels in Mexico, with or without the Mexican government's approval. Politicians like Lindsay Graham, Dan Crenshaw and Marjorie Taylor Greene have floated the idea, and even Presidential candidates like Tim Scott (https://reason.com/2023/05/24/the-republican-primary-consensus-for-sending-the-military-into-mexico/ ) and Donald Trump (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-vows-deploy-special-forces-military-assets-inflict-maximum-damage-cartels). This is honestly a terrible idea for the US, despite the damage that cartels currently do when it comes to the drug trade. It is like shooting your own leg because of a tick so to speak.
Mexico is an absolutely enormous country, the size of Western Europe, with a population of 126 million people. It also has a geography not too different than Afghanistan, lined with several mountain ranges and many deserts - yet differs with the rainforests of the south. These Mountain ranges consist of most of Mexico's interior, with the coasts and east seeming like the only locations where major tank warfare would be very possible. It is a county that would be an insurgent's dream.
These politicians specifically claim that the US should intervene into Mexico as to defeat the Cartels with or without the help of the Mexican government. I need to mention - the latter is almost certainly true. Despite Mexico's problems most Mexicans are still very proud of their country and very much do not want a US intervention onto their territory, a political consideration that could sink any Mexican government who willingly lets in US troops. So any US intervention into Mexico would also have to deal with the Mexican government, and effectively be an invasion of the country. It would not just be a border operation either - some of the main Cartel hotspots like Mihoacan and Guerrero provinces are further south from the US than Mexico City. Any operation would have to go at least that far into Mexico in order to achieve meaningful success.
Sure, the Mexican Government in Mexico City could be overthrown relatively quickly, if they prove to be an obstacle in any US intervention. They struggle against Cartels alone, and using a naval invasion the US government could take Veracruz (the closest port to Mexico city), and then march onto Mexico City in a relatively short time. The government is fragile enough that it wouldn't survive the loss of the capital. Yet this fragility in and of itself is one of the main reasons why a war in Mexico would be so terrible. Cartels - the very cartels the US would try to destroy in this war - effectively control swathes of the country, and have long experience with asymmetric warfare. With a total Mexican government collapse, they would become warlords fully ruling over their little domains. And this would be when they would be most dangerous. The US couldn't just kill one leader and be done with it, they would have to destroy every single faction to win this war. And if the factions ally to fight the Americans, then that simply means divide and conquer strategy is removed from the table as a means to defeat them.
Due to US blunders the cartels have access to US weapons, and some even have US training (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2010/11/3/us-trained-cartel-terrorises-mexico https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea ). Additionally, Cartels apparently have a history of attempting to corrupt US border agents (https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/as-cartel-power-rises-so-do-concerns-about-cbp-corruption/ , https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/us/homeland-security-border-bribes.html , https://www.businessinsider.com/customs-border-agents-mexican-cartel-smuggling-2016-11 ) , an issue which will allow them to blunt the effectiveness of US operations and continue to access guns within the US. Such problems will be greatly worsened if the Cartels experience similar success corrupting US army troops. These problems will make it more difficult for US forces to fight the Mexican Cartels in an open war, as many of them will be able to counter what the US throws at them.
It is very doubtful that the war would remain a US vs Cartel war anyway. A US intervention into Mexico without Mexican government approval would be seen by the Mexican people as a patriotic war of independence, something akin to how Ukrainians feel about the Ukraine war. Non-cartel nationalist militias will almost certainly pop up to fight the US for this very purpose, following in the footsteps of previous Mexican national figures like Pancho Villa and Santa Ana. Given the broader appeal these sorts of groups would have among the Mexican public than cartels, they could even begin to replace the cartels as the US's main enemy in this Mexico War given a few years time. They would not be without international support either. For instance nearby Cuba has a long history of aiding Latin American guerilla forces against US forces/allies (like in Nicaragua, Columbia and Grenada), and has been heavily sanctioned by the US since the 1960s. Additionally, Wagner Group has already been attempting to establish itself in Mexico (https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/18/russia-wagner-group-ukraine-paramilitary-00083553) - a war between Mexico and the US would be perfect for them to offer their services, and recruit Mexicans into their organization. Additionally a rebranding of this conflict from an anti-criminal operation to a war of Mexican sovereignty would bring much more sympathy to the Mexicans than to the US,. A new US war in Mexico would be like a second Iraq war when it comes to how badly it would affect US international relations, perhaps even worse.
This war would also likely require the US to intervene in many more countries than just Mexico. Mexican cartels have already expanded their activities to other countries throughout the region. Countries like Ecuador, Guatemala, Columbia, El Salvador and Honduras have been suspect to activities by Mexican cartels, mostly for the sake of controlling the supply chain of resources needed for producing drugs in Mexico. In these countries (especially Ecuador), Mexican drug cartels have coopted local gangs to help with their goals, and use local farmers to produce plants needed for drug production (such as coca needed for cocaine). Even if the US somehow eliminates the cartels from Mexico, they will simply move their base of operation to one of these countries and continue their practices. The US would need to export this war on Mexico to all of the countries where the cartel is active if they would want any chance of creating an end to such a war once it begins.
The US couldn't simply walk away from such a war. The US border has sections of deserts and mountains which are by definition hard to defend. Not to mention that there is already a huge amount of illegal tunnels between the US and Mexico, many of which are operated by the very cartels which the US would be at war with. These connections into the US are already the main way cartels get their guns and sell their drugs after all, so it would not be so difficult to repurpose them for attacks on American soil. With the population of the areas of the US right north of the US-Mexico border being majority latino, the local inhabitants will be virtually indistinguishable from any Mexican insurgents crossing the border into the US to commit attacks. As such it would be easy for operatives to sneak into the US, commit attacks on US towns north of the border, and then melt into the local population (similarly to the tactics used against US troops by insurgents in Iraq). This ability to vanish into the local population has the potential to cause a massive amount of persistent fear for Americans, and worsen the ethnic tensions between white and latino Americans. This war would be more like a larger version of the Israel - Palestine conflict rather than another Afghanistan in the sense that the line between the "warzone" and US territory would quickly blur.
This war would likely only become worse from there. If either the US starts launching reprisals on Mexican communities for insurgent attacks, or right wing American militias launch their own reprisals on American latino communities as purported "vigilante justice" for these insurgent attacks - latino communities (especially those with closer ties to Mexico) within the US could be pushed towards becoming insurgents themselves. This is more likely than it seems, as the US Army has committed massacres against civilians before as retribution for insurgent attacks (https://web.archive.org/web/20131212141534/http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?id=8518011 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-nov-07-fg-balad7-story.html ). This would be similar to what happened with Arab Israelis during the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis ) when large swathes of Arab Israeli youths decided to riot in support of the Palestinian factions. After that point there is no going back, it would mean a true open war between US citizens. That is a pandora's box that would only cause greater harm for the US, and permanently render the Southwestern US a conflict zone. If this scenario comes to pass such a war could last decades - in a similar vein to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This cannot be understated, no part of the continental US has been a part of a conflict zone since the Mexican civil war of the 1910s. And the permanent alienation of latino americans - a group which now consists of 62 million people out of the US population - would have severe ramifications for the internal security of the United States. It would be a crippling blow which cannot be quickly healed.
This conflict would eat away at the US's status as a world power. Being stuck in a major guerilla war right across the border, and a conflict spilling into the US proper, the US would have to deprioritize its interests elsewhere. As a rule of thumb (https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/mcgrath_boots.pdf) there needs to be 20 soldiers for every thousand inhabitants for an occupation to be successful. For Mexico alone with its 126 million strong population, that means 2.52 million troops are needed for a successful occupation (to say nothing of the other countries which the Mexican Cartels would use as bases against the US, or the factor that the Southern US would experience spillover from the conflict). The US does not even have that many active troops, so they would have to cut corners like they did in Iraq (perhaps bringing the 2.52 million number down to 500,000 to at least create a semblance of a functional occupation). Overall this would leave the US much weaker on the geopolitical stage, and allow for US opponents to fill in the vacuum left by US power. For example, with so many troops tied up in Mexico, the US would need to rely a lot more on their fleet in order to defend Taiwan against China in the case of a Chinese invasion of that island, as the US simply would not have enough soldiers to fight the Chinese PLA on the ground. And the sheer expense needed to deal with a war in Mexico and insurgents within US borders would force the US to consider a considerable drawdown of their military support for allies like Ukraine.
If either Donald Trump or Tim Scott becomes president in 2024 (with Trump being the nearly guaranteed Republican nominee, given DeSantis's floundering), this war could very well become a reality. It could very well begin before 2026 - though I predict that this war could be started at any point between 2025 and 2028 if one of those candidates were to win the US presidency If this does happen, I highly doubt that the war will end anytime soon after it begins. Especially with the geopolitical destabilization of the Southwestern US, it would create challenges for the US which would harm its position across the world and greatly weaken its internal stability. Any candidate or person who considers this idea should reconsider it.

big spoilers / Impurity of Library of Ruina
Okay, i had to make this one for Eileen, but you know, i've met a question of how to make Black Silence's mechanic of Furioso work in Limbus and... here we are. and i wanted to make build not related to ensemble already
​
\"That's that, and this is this. You can choose in which order these goes in you.\" © Heathland
​
Heathcliff
Black Silence (lvl. 30, Uptie lll)
HP: 174 Speed: 2-7 Defense: 31
Stagger Threshold: 140 / 85 HP
​
Resistances
Slash: Normal
Pierce: Fatal
Blunt: Resist
​
Sin Resistances
Wrath: Fatal
Lust: Normal
Sloth: Normal
Gluttony: Normal
Gloom: Fatal
Pride: Normal
Envy: Resist
​
[Orlando] - This status is gained to Black Silence at the start of the battle. This unit is prioritized to gain new Move Slots and can't gain EGO resources from skills until [Orlando Furioso] is not active. This unit can change each skill with corresponding skills. Can change skill once per Turn . First use of skills gain Furious res., reset after use [Furioso]. (Using same skill more than once won't give resource until reset, count of Furious diplays on this Status)
(About changing skills: changes only this type of skills of this Move slot, it means all S1 (1) in this Move slot will change to S1 (2) but S2 in this Move Slot and S1 (1) in other Move Slots stay the same. You can preset skills that will be at the start of the battle, in dungeons saves one that was in the last turn of last battle, but back to preset on checkpoint)
​
Skill 1 (1) - Old Boys Workshop: Offense Level: 31 Growth: 0.67
[On Use] Gain 1 Gluttony resource.
[On Hit] Lower user's Stagger Threshold by 10.
Damage type: Blunt, Gluttony

• Base Power: 3
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: +8

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Skill 1 (2) - Zelkova Workshop: Offense Level: 34 Growth: 0.71
[On Use] Next used Skill also gives Furious for another corresponding Skill level. (When choosing skills it will show what skill wasn't activate for Furious)
Damage type: Blunt, Gloom

• Base Power: 4
• Coins: 2
• Coin Power: +4

​
Skill 1 (3) - Ranga Workshop: Offense Level: 36 Growth: 0.75
Damage type: Pierce, Envy

• Base Power: 4
• Coins: 3
• Coin Power: +2
• lll [On Hit] Inflict 7 Bleed

​
​
​
Skill 2 (1) - Mook Workshop: Offense Level: 38 Growth: 0.8
[On Use] Gain 1 Pride resource. Next used Skill also gives Furious for another corresponding Skill level.
[On Hit] Deal 8 Damage.
Damage type: Slash, Pride

• Base Power: 9
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: +7

​
Skill 2 (2) - Allas Workshop: Offense Level: 37 Growth: 0.77
In a clash, the opponent has -2 Clash Power.
Damage type: Pierce, Gloom

• Base Power: 7
• Coins: 2
• Coin Power: +4

​
Skill 2 (3) - Atelier Logic: Offense Level: 35 Growth: 0.73
Change all Skills on this Move Slot to next Skillset. (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1)
Damage type: Pierce, Sloth

• Base Power: 5
• Coins: 3
• Coin Power: +3

​
​
​
Skill 3 (1) - Wheels Industry: Offense Level: 39 Growth: 0.82
In clash, the opponent loses +1 coin.
Damage type: Blunt, Gloom

• Base Power: 12
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: +9

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Skill 3 (2) - Durandal: Offense Level: 37 Growth: 0.77
[On Hit] Gain 1 Power Up next Turn.
Damage type: Slash, Lust

• Base Power: 4
• Coins: 2
• Coin Power: +5

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Skill 3 (3) - Crystal Atelier: Offense Level: 42 Growth: 0.88
[On Use] At random activates Furious for [Wheels Industry] or [Durandal]. Use first coin in clash against 1 unopposed attack targeting this unit.
Damage type: Slash, Wrath

• Base Power: 9
• Coins: 2
• Coin Power: +3

​
​
​
This skill changes accordingly to S3 chosen on this Move Slot
Defensive Skill (1) :
Defensive Type: Block

• Base Power: 12
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: +8
• l [Head Hit] Gain 1 Protection this Turn

​
Defensive Skill (2):
Defensive Type: Counter, Slash

• Base Power: 4
• Coins: 2
• Coin Power: +4
• l [Head Hit] Gain 1 Damage Up

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Defensive Skill (3):
Defensive Type: Evade

• Base Power: 8
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: +7
• l [Head Hit] Lower user's Stagger Threshold by 4.

​
​
​
EGO (Unique for this ID)
ALEPH - Furioso: Offense Level: 45 Growth: 0.94
In clash, the opponent loses all coins.
[On Hit] Inflict 10 Bleed, 3 Bind and 3 Fragile next Turn.
Requirements:

• Res. Cost: Furious 9
• Sanity Cost: 60 SP

Damage Type: Slash, Wrath

• Base Power: 41
• Coins: 1
• Coin Power: -21

(Overclock or panic by other sources doesn't activate this Corrosion State, only by using Furioso)
[Corrosion] Offense Level: 33 Growth: 0.69
[Indiscriminate]
[On Hit] All units loses 2 SP.
Damage Type: Slash, Gloom

• Base Power: 5
• Coins: 9
• Coin Power: +3

EGO Passive - Orlando Furioso:

• Skills of this unit can gain EGO resources.

​
Passive - The Black Silence (Res Furious 3):

• Every third Coin's Head gains +2 Power. (Affects only this coin) Reset count if Passive wasn't activated last Turn.

(As Furious counts all unique skills and EGO of this unit)
Support - Perception-blocking Mask (Owned Gloom 6):

• 1 ally with lowest HP cannot be targeted.

​
Sanity:
Panic effect lasts 2 Turns (not Corrosion state). This unit uses skills of all it's skillset to get [Furioso], targets indiscriminately. If [Furioso] is usable, attack nearest unit (in terms of speed) with it.
​
First of, i thought to make it as 3 base skills+5 EGOs+Defensive Skill = 9 Skills and Furioso as additional EGO, uh, well it's pretty bad, doesn't it? Next one was to take 3 skills from original deck that would represent main types of attack and after activating them all, you could use Furioso. Well, this one is kinda no respect move to Loland by me, so i decided to make it as multi deck build aka Iori build. But here you could change each skill with one you want and not entire deck. And then i've met another problem. How the fuck is this guy gonna get to furioso? Even in solo run you have to every turn for 4 turns use all slots (actually there's 1 you can use with same skill) to finally use his ult on 5th Turn. And it's only solo run (even though after that he can use it every 2nd-3rd turn), so i've came up with an idea to make those "draw card" as "furioso counter increase". I've decided to make it as special EGO resource to make it possible to sustain and use faster in dungeons. Also it could change types of damage to Furious too, but it doesn't really fits much in my opinion and it's a whole new resistance for just 1 ID.
Dunno if i make next one Eileen (since i've came up with an idea of smoke not that much broken, even though someone said Poise in-game code named as Smoke) or make Index. This one was made more because i really wanted to make Loland and totally acculate Fulioso.