#siege engineer talks

[we-are-siege-engineer]

Titan: Don't Fuck With the Ocean

So this has been delayed, and everyone and their mother has already commented on this. We’re well past the virality mark on this topic. But whatever, I want to crack in and get this thing wrapped up anyways. For context, I study mechanical and manufacturing engineering. I’ve grown up around submarines with my dad being an engineer on US Navy subs, and I was able to ask him about this. I’ve also got a diving cert and enough experience living coastal to at least get me a knowledgeable respect for the ocean. Being 60 ft under should instill that, at least. 

I will not make any comments on any of the other four victims. However, I reserve the right to be fully derogatory to the CEO who died in the submersible, Stockton Rush, for his disgusting flippancy towards safety in such a dangerous environment as 4,000m below sea level, for disregarding multiple warnings against the project, and for subjecting other passengers to this. I intended to start with my favorite source on this, but it looks like I’m beginning with spite. I claim that in engineering, if safety disregards don’t immediately boil your blood, you have to turn in your card. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65998914 “Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show” Some people may have seen the quote “At some point, safety just is pure waste,” Stockton told journalist David Pogue in an interview last year. “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything.” Stockton Rush has typed "We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often," he wrote. "I take this as a serious personal insult." *Frankly*, the response to this should very much not be personal insult, but a call to action. There is no reason to take this personally. “I have broken some rules to make this…The carbon fiber and titanium, there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did.” 

“At some point safety just is pure waste…I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

“[The sub industry is] obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations…But it also hasn’t innovated or grown—because they have all these regulations.”

This is gruesomely hilarious when you remember the CEO isn’t the actual person running the stress tests, manufacturing it, checking materials charts and costs, calculating max tolerances, or anything else. He’s the little funny man with the money and the reputation who tells people do what he wants anyways. He has no right to play maverick when he is hardly doing any of the work, and especially when it involves other innocent people. While he has a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering, a very commendable thing to get, that’s not what he does hands on as the CEO, and aerospace does not directly translate to submersible understanding. You do not get to be flippant with other peoples’ lives. These comments would be bad enough for anything on the surface, or even in the sky. But again, the ocean is a completely different beast, where it is much more difficult for emergency services to reach people.

As well as this, I need to state the difference between submersible and submarine. If I don’t, I feel the entire US Navy breathe down my neck. It’s like boat vs ship. Submersible: needs to be supported by a vessel up top, not designed for long term deployments. Smol boy. Submarine: can be operated independently, can go on six month or so deployments. Big boy. Going forward, the primary difficulties of the ocean are first and foremost the atmospheres of pressure on the vehicle. The dangers of no breathing air in the ocean are of course, a major issue, but the pressure of the ocean will be what breaks this and makes that lack of air a huge issue. A submersible needs to be properly pressurized to withstand the changes and keep the passengers inside also safe. The ocean is also very difficult to reach communication through. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/wcmc/2019/6470359/, so the submersible losing connection isn’t entirely unsurprising. But other factors listed here lead to its delay.

#siege engineer #titan submersible #titan #oceangate #stockton rush #submarines #submersible #engineering #engineer #siege engineer talks #aerospace #oceangate submersible #titanic

[mumblingsage]

*stumbles through the door covered in red ink*

yeah but you should see the scene I edited

#it took me 5 hours to...rewrite 5k words #I'm coming to HATE how reliable my 1000-words-per-hour rate is #anyway the boys are dancing #and talking about arthritis #and the girls are unleashing siege engines

[telemna-hyelle]

It's like a slingshot, but big. And a siege engine.

Trebuchet my beloved

#blorbo from my siege engines #tellie talks stupid stuff

[northgazaupdates]

5 February 2024

Environmental engineer Dr. Tamer Al-Najjar reviews the situation in north Gaza as it stands thus far. He writes,

How is the situation in North Gaza?

The situation in North is tough, painful, extremely exhausting, and terrifying, hanging between hunger and attack!!

How? Wasn't there a withdrawal of incursion?

Indeed, there was a withdrawal, and thousands roamed amidst the rubble. However, the incursion resumed, and intense clashes resumed as well!

Whether there's an incursion or not, we face a Starvation war, siege, and continuous bombardment!!

How is the situation on the ground?

Extremely intense clashes in north and west of the Strip, continuous explosions, ongoing bombardment, displacement, destruction!!

What's the news on negotiations?

Ceasefire talks are ongoing, and the situation is complicated, balancing between a temporary truce and conditions that could undermine the cause, or a complete cessation with terms that could revive the people and the nation!

So, what about the people?

Those leading the negotiations are the sons of this people, fully aware of our cause and paramount interests, and what preserves our rights and blood!

Source: Tamer Al-Najjar via Stories on Instagram

#north gaza #gaza #gaza genocide #gaza strip #gaza under attack #free gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #palestinian genocide #text #free free palestine #free palestine #save gaza #save palestine #stop genocide #stop the genocide #stop israel #stop war #tamer al najjar #5 february 2024 #gaza under fire #gaza under siege #gaza under genocide #gaza under bombardment

[arachnixe]

Small Minded

They say there are powers—unfathomable and unnamed—buried deep within the earth. Boons and banes and spirits and seductions call to the ambitious, but I've never known of someone actually finding one until now.

What does one say to a dark sorceress on the cusp of her victory?

My knight, so loyal and brave, wheezes and gasps for breath within his broken armor. Our roguish friend, normally so quick witted and talkative, lies silent and unmoving in a pool of blood. I don't have the strength left to heal either of them.

"Let it sink in, Princess. I've won."

She has. I bow my head in defeat.

"The Godsblood is mine."

It hovers within her reach, an unshaped carmine gem formed of the crystallized blood of whatever forgotten god was buried here. The sickly sweet scent of its power, like rotting fruit, fills the air.

"With it, I shall wield ultimate power."

Yes, the power to remake the world according to her whim, to raise mountains from the sea or to sink cities into the abyss at her pleasure, perhaps even to rewrite the laws of space and time if she desires.

"At last, I will depose your father and rule all of Rutennia in his place!"

I jerk my head upright and stare at her in disbelief. "What?"

The sorceress Velle grins like an idiot. "You heard me, Princess. Your whole kingdom will be mine."

My face must betray my feelings, judging by the way her confidence falters at my reaction. "You've claimed a power like this, and all you can think to do with it is take over this kingdom?"

"Your father—"

"Yes. I know." I wave off her explanation, disinterested. "He didn't see your worth, you wanted to show us all, I get it, but if all you wanted to do was rule Rutennia, you could have just courted me and then poisoned my father!" I scrub at my face in frustration and suppress a scream. "What small-minded ambitions!"

That throws her off balance. "Small minded? I won! I'm getting everything I want!"

"And what you want," I retort, "is a single grain of sand on a beach." I ball my hands into fists and stalk toward her, outraged that my friends died for so little. "You are a cat who stole a siege engine to catch the mouse that once eluded you. You wouldn't even know what to do with the kingdom once you had it."

Velle barks an indignant laugh. "As if the king does!" She casts a hand toward me, magically halting my approach. "No, he has others handle all the administrative duties so he can simply bask in the worship of his subjects!"

"And when the people don't worship you?" I ask through gritted teeth, "because trade with Melland and Istow has completely halted without their kings' cousin sitting our throne?"

"I'LL MAKE THEM!" She makes a tugging motion in the air, yanking me forward to shout the words in my face. "With the Godsblood I can make my subjects dance like puppets at my command! They will all kneel before my throne."

This close to the gem, the scent fills my senses. It leaves me feeling lightheaded, giddy, almost delirious, even. It draws an inappropriate giggle out of me before I can retort. "Build a doll out of cloth and sticks. Make it kneel. Put worshipful words in its mouth. It will mean just as much. Personally, I got tired of playing with dolls at age eight."

Her face reddens. "You think you can trick me into giving up my goals? You think you can convince me this power is worthless?"

"Worthless?" I cackle. "The power of a dead god, worthless? No, only the things you imagine doing with it are worthless. You want to know what you should do with all that power? I'll tell you."

She leans forward, obviously curious.

"Istow's ports give it mastery of the sea and trade we need," I explain, as if to a child, "but we don't need them if we bring the sea to us. Flood their plains, drown their whole nation if you'd like, but take that bargaining chip away."

Some dim, distant part of me says I shouldn't give her ideas, but every inhale of the intoxicating aroma of Godsblood fills my mind with visions of what that power can do. Why can't she see it as clearly as I do?

"Melland," I continue, "is weak but well defended by the terrain. Pull the mountains down onto their capital, swallow their impregnable fortress in a new chasm, and their resources become ours."

Velle's eyes light up with understanding. "Yes, yes, you're right!"

No, no, no, even I'm still thinking too small. Like a petty warlord with a mere weapon. But this is no weapon, it's the power of a god. I take a deep breath and focus. I need to be thinking like a god.

"No, why set our sights on conquering our neighbors," I muse aloud, "when there's a whole world out there to reshape? We don't need what they have. It's not a zero sum game anymore."

Judging by her face, I've lost Velle again, but I don't care. My thoughts race. With every breath I take, my vision crystallizes.

She doesn't need to understand. I don't speak for her to hear; I speak because I must. "A perfect world, answering only to me. Every river, every pebble, the mountains and the seas, the very stars in the sky, all mine…"

"No." The sorceress shakes her head and tightens her grip on the magical restraints holding me in place. "The Godsblood is mine. I found it. I got here first. You lost."

She sounds so petulant, so small. Velle doesn't understand power, not really. She's merely a spurned court magician who deluded herself into thinking she was more, not someone with the will to rule.

And this is no inert stone. The heart's blood of a god demands to be wielded. It demands the will to wield it.

It was mine the moment I decided it was mine.

Without transition, the stone is already in my hand. A twitch of a thought tears Velle's restraints to pieces, no more than a cobweb caught on a boot.

She's screaming, shouting something, flinging spells my way, but my attention falls instead upon the crumpled figures of my dear companions.

With a thought, I am no longer next to her. I stand beside my knight, seeing him inside and out. His body is a trifle to mend, and like wiping dust from a windowsill, I smooth away the injuries. With little effort, I scan the thoughts within his mind, and… oh, what useful secrets lurking within! Many ways to control this one if he chooses to resist me.

My thief is dead. I refuse to abide that for the only one I recall who could consistently make me laugh, and a god deserves a jester even more than a king, right? All it takes is a touch to reignite the spark of life and bid the soul return to its body; funny, I always imagined resurrection to be a more difficult process.

Last of all, my sorceress. I don't need to read her thoughts to recognize her profound denial of the reality of this situation. She flings chaotic bolts of fire and lightning and ice at me, howling threats and curses that mean very little.

If I want her as my high priestess, I should impress her more.

We stand in the middle of a great empty ribcage, and yes, I think a god-bone crown would suit me. Brittle ribs bend like supple grasses, shrink and weave themselves into an ornate crown to rest on my head. I crush the Godsblood gem in my fist and direct the shards to implant themselves in pleasing patterns within the bone.

Velle ceases her assault. I watch her delusions melt away upon witnessing me destroy the gem. The light of understanding dawns within her mind that my power is entirely mine, never to be stolen. A god-bone collar snakes around her neck as gently as a princess's gloved hand, and I can taste her complete surrender.

The whole world also aches for my touch, but it will have to wait just a little longer for my design to perfect it. There are many more boons and banes buried within this graveyard world, and I'll need every last one if I wish to extend my reach beyond even the stars.

And my first three worshippers still need training.

#empty spaces #my writing #corruption #princesses #gods

[shiyorin]

What do you think it would be like if primarchs used social media?

Lion El'Jonson:

Private account, doesn't accept follower requests

Rarely posts, usually just sunset or forest photos

Uses emojis sarcastically in replies

Has 20 followers but thinks it's way too many

Fulgrim:

Aesthetic pictures pose artfully depict exotic hobbies and runway couture 

Filters all photos to perfection  

Constantly debates high art vs pop culture 

Thirst traps cause monthly massacres

"Like for a follow back 🔥" 

Perturabo:

Photos are exclusively poorly-lit fortress blueprints 

Bio is 25000 character treatise on siege tactics

Follows exactly 12 history scholars 

Hates everyone and everything on the site 

Actually ran some incisive political commentary bots before being banned

Jaghatai Khan: 

Only posts the sickest motocross and extreme sports clips

Videos have insane views but no captions 

Fans think he's a cryptid until rare livestreams 

Hijacks Fulgrim's comments to hype rad stunts

Leman Russ:

Changed his name to 'Wolf Daddy 🐺'

Shirtless hunting/drinking photos get 10K likes

Roasts everyone in comments but they love it  

Followers think he's a viking hipster meme page

Follows biker gangs, sled dog accts, scholars of old Terra 

Rogal Dorn:

Only posts are architectural blueprints and records of fortifications

Gets into epic debates about structural principles in comments  

No one knows if he actually loads new content or just archives old

Somehow gains tons of followers thirsting for DILF

Konrad Curze:

Pure darkness and screams in hazy JPEGs 

3 followers and they're all bots

Posts disturbing ‘prophecies’ and murder puzzles

Under investigation for doxxing

Sanguinius: 

Angelic selfies bring all the followers to his page    

Flowing locks and golden abs get 20K likes instantly   

Quotes poetry in every reply but no one understands 

Only follows animal shelter and children's hospital accounts

Ferrus Manus:

Only follows engineering/robotics pages

Posts heavily filtered machine shop mini-documentaries 

Photos of custom machines that make engineers weep

Comments are unintelligible techno-babble  

Somehow gains huge gym bro following thirsting for muscle

Angron:

Gets banned monthly for graphic content and abuse

Posts angry rants about society in broken caps

Got suspended after sending death threats to Guilliman

Only follower is Khârn who comments 'THIS' on everything  

Roboute Guilliman:

Shares updates on the latest Codexes 

Only follows serious history/philosophy lecture pages

Posts long analyses of governance strategies 

Constantly lectures others in comments

Has blocked half his followers for trolling

Mortarion:

Aesthetic is grimy gas mask selfies in back alleys

ONLY reposts plague doctor memes from 2003

Bio is endless copypasta about essential oils

Gains cult following of goths, metal heads and preppers

Magnus:

Endless livestreams talking about theoretical magic at 3AM with 2 viewers. 

Tries making TikToks explaining sorcery but the videos are an hour long each.

Overexplains memes and emojis in long-winded threads

Memes and facts threads blow up as the most esoteric

Horus Lupercal:

Selfies showing off abs get him 50K followers in a week

Posts stunning photos from across the Imperium with #blessed captions

Fan club is half the mankind 

DMs from people asking for selfies blow up his notifications  

Lorgar Aurelian:

Aesthetic is dark robes and candlelit monasteries

Constantly reposting zealot sermons out of context

Accidentally starts wars of faith whenever he livestreams

Got suspended for uploading hardcore Slaneeshi hymns

Still has 10 alt accounts all named Brother [REDACTED]

Vulkan:

Only follows puppy accounts and craft bloggers

Posts Happy Holiday baking tutorials and dad jokes

Likes and comments positivity on everyone's posts

Followers think he's the nicest DILF ever online

Secretly the biggest wholesome meme page

Corvus Corax:

Only darkness, shadow puppets and cryptic poems

No one knows if he's real or a myth on the deep web

Internet detectives can’t trace his true identity  

Only sends encrypted coordinates in mysterious DMs  

No one has any idea what he's trying to say  

1 follower is Alpharius who only replies 'No, I'm Alpharius'

Alpharius/Omegon:

Constantly pretending to be other online  

No one knows their true forms or agenda 

Takeovers of government sites spark conspiracies

Leaves clues implicating everyone else’s schemes

#warhammer 40k #wh40crack #primarch #lol #warhammer 40000

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

There's an interesting bit of ludonarrative I've been noticing with the Rainbow Six Siege operators in Arknights. Something that gets pretty consistently brought up, and really emphasized in places like Frost's Module, is that while Team Rainbow are very skilled and much more technologically advanced than Terrans are, they make a trade-off: they're a lot physically weaker. Frost's Welcome Mat, for instance, is criticized for its lack of force by the Engineering Department operator who examines it, remarking that even they could easily get out of it, and when Frost asks for a hunting bow to use, they give her a Sarkaz hunting bow, which she struggles to draw the string of.

Outside of...the six stars...you can actually see this in the kits that they have. Several R6S operators are very good at attacking rapidly (Tachanka, Blitz, Iana, Fuze, Doc, Ash) because they're well trained and are proficient in using weapons that are pretty rare on Terra. You can see this in the absolutely crazy numbers they're allowed to have: Blitz and Iana are allowed the truly fucked up ASPD buffs of +200 and +300 respectively, with Fuze coming in with a more modest +90 APSD; Tachanka, Doc, and Ash can significantly reduce their attack interval more than other operators, with Tachanka and Ash reducing their attack intervals by 85% and 90%, and Doc reducing his by a flat 0.7 seconds.

They lack good ATK buffs though. In general, for physical operators, clearly DEF thresholds is really important, and this is something that all of the R6S operators except Ela struggle with. They either have to try to attack from a different angle (Tachanka's S1), ignore some DEF (Tachanka S1 again and Doc's talent), rely on limited-use explosives (Ash and Fuze), or exploit some conditional damage (Ash and Blitz). Even Ela, who is the most useful even if she can't do her thing, still works best on enemies affected by her mines.

They all tend to struggle against high DEF enemies as a result. Ash, and especially Ela, tend to struggle the least, but its pretty consistent. It doesn't do wonders for their gameplay, I have avoided talking about Frost for quite some time because she seems to not have any way of getting around high DEF enemies at all, but it's neat. They've given Team Rainbow an actually interesting mechanical identity in this way and I really enjoy it.

It's a shame we get so little of them. Even just reading through their new Operator Records revealed stuff I genuinely want to know more about.

#arknights

[nimata-beroya]

Delay The Inevitable (TBB One-Shot)

Inspired by @nahoney22's and @moonstrider9904's comments (as well as my own) to this post from @sharazadee. A companion scene/ Crosshair POV of the last scene of episode 3x04.

READ ON AO3

The moment the Imperial freighter jumps out of Hyperspace, Crosshair feels anxiety creeping up on him, making his heart race. His gaze lands on the Marauder, settled on Ryloth's moon, and his throat goes dry. Despite his doubts, he must admit Omega was right about Hunter and Wrecker showing up.

Another point for the kid.

He underestimated her intelligence and resourcefulness, but she has proven him wrong. Crosshair now sees why Hunter and the others took up with her so fast. No matter how hard he tried to resist, she’s grown on him. During those five months they were imprisoned on Tantiss together, her relentless optimism became a constant annoyance. He didn’t want her to talk to him. He wanted her to leave him alone, but she never did. She kept coming back at every chance she got.

She refused to give up, mounting a relentless siege on his impregnable defenses until they eventually crumbled. He has reached a point where he is going against all his instincts and following her since they escaped. Protecting her. The sole impulse that kept him going during the last rotation. She’s proven that he’s not as heartless as he wants others to believe.

Omega leaves the pilot's seat as the ship lands, not waiting for the engines to fully stop. Crosshair’s cautionary words die on his lips as she darts out of the cockpit, disappearing into the lift before he can react. With a tired sigh, he looks out the viewport and watches as she stands still in the pool of light, her silhouette bathed in a warm glow. From the Marauder's open hatch on the opposite side, a hulking figure comes into view.

“Now, there’s a sight!”

The sound of Wrecker's booming voice reaches Crosshair's ears, filled with clear relief, while Omega's excited cries for him ring out with pure joy. A lump clenches his stomach, a sickening mix of envy and dread, as he watches them running towards each other. Wrecker embraces Omega, a gesture that Crosshair secretly yearns for, knowing it's something he'll never experience again.

Then Hunter emerges from the Marauder, and Omega runs to hug him. Crosshair turns his head away, his jaw clenched as he battles a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Crosshair slumps against the seat and, with a furrowed brow, he rakes a hand across his bald head, deciding his next move.

Now that the kid is safe, he should make a swift getaway to evade the Empire. He should take the ship, but hesitates. He knows that his previous squad will not give him a warm reception. After everything he did, why would they? Is he considering returning to them when they turned their backs on him? How could they run away together when there’s no trust among them?

But he has nowhere safe to go. With the Empire hot on his heels, going alone is a dead sentence for him.

A sudden whine and a wet bump startles him out of his churning thoughts. Batcher, the hound, presses her cold nose against his hand.

"Go with Omega," he says, his voice dripping with disdain as he points towards the exit.

Like her owner, the animal cannot grasp his not-so-subtle cues that her presence is unwelcomed. With a pleading whimper, she nips at the sleeve of his shirt, tugging on it with careful determination.

“No, stop! What are you doing?”

As Batcher whined once more, she yanked on his sleeve, the fabric tearing and nearly causing him to fall off the chair, leaving no doubt about her intentions. With a sigh of resignation, Crosshair relents and gives in.

“Ugh, fine! I’m going, but you stay here.”

Crosshair narrows his eyes in irritation at her smug expression, cheerful bounce, and wide smile with her tongue sticking out. As he steps out of the lift, his irritation fades away and is replaced by a weighty sense of dread.

This won’t end well, but he’s not a coward. He can’t delay the inevitable. With each step down the ship's stairs, Crosshair felt the heaviness on his shoulders of uncertainty, fear, and regret. He braces himself for the reactions of Hunter and Wrecker when they lay eyes on him. The intense heat of their anger and distrust travels like a scorching wave between the two islands of light, striking him with deadly precision.

Crosshair inhales deeply, preparing himself for the impending judgement. There’s nothing else he can do.

#tbb spoilers #the bad batch spoilers #tbb season 3 #tbb #the bad batch #tbb hunter #tbb omega #tbb wrecker #tbb crosshair #tbb fanfiction #delay the inevitable #missing scene #tbb 3x04 a different approach

[yuki-kazami]

Ok so me and some friends in a server were talking about Horn headcanons and I feel the need to write mine up because I love this insane wolf girl so much

Basically, my thesis here is that I think Horn is best compared to that old myth(?) where if the oil in a car's engine has not been changed for ages, if you do actually try to change the oil, the engine will just seize and die.

It's canonical that she's repressing everything, in her own files it states "However, we've gradually begun to worry for her. Who'll be there to ease her mind? She's transformed herself into the shield she bears, firm, steady, and seemingly forever to be the last one standing. But there's only so much time any armament has. When a human's forced herself to the extreme, and been stressed for too long, what will happen to her the instant the pressure on her disappears?" She's carrying an incredible burden and I think she just has to keep going or she'll collapse.

I imagine things like her and Cello dating, maybe even with Cello having gotten her the collar she wears. There's no way Horn is anything but haunted when she sleeps. Nightmares of Cello berating Horn for not saving her, for not shielding her from Mandragora. The collar gets more and more worn as the war goes on, as Horn throws herself into battle after battle, until finally, in an explosion, the clasp shatters, Horn desperately diving after it as it falls, catching the tattered strap. But rather than repairing it, she can't bring herself to admit that she deserves better, because it serves as a reminder of her own failure. So she instead takes the strap and sews it around her own neck, no more room for escape, no more tacit admission that she could take it off. She treats it both like the embrace of the person she lost and a brand to remind her that she couldn't protect her.

Imagining a night at the Exemplar camp where they explain to the new Victorian recruits that no matter what, you do not bring up Captain Horn's old squadron, no matter how badly you want to know what the Tempest Platoon was like, as the descendants of the original Exemplars. Not because it will retraumatize her, and not because she goes quiet or gets sad, but because she doesn't know what you are talking about.

"What do you mean? They're just on deployment elsewhere, I talk to them all the time. Did something happen? Should I be concerned?"

The first person who didn't get the memo on what is happening ends up getting slammed into a nearby wall as Horn starts hyperventilating, White Wolf in full effect. She nearly breaks his ribs for "keeping vital information about the safety of her squad from her", only to suddenly be broken off of the train of thought by a somewhat distressed looking Siege telling her about an "urgent necessary patrol" that only she could handle, and she seemingly did not remember the confrontation by the time she returned to camp, acting with her usual humor and camaraderie.

Gonna drop a Read More here because the next part involves some details from the end of Chapter 13, and a bit of Chapter 14 speculation based on a bit of details I've been spoiled on from the Anniversary Livestream:

Imagining Horn after the Victoria arc ends, panicked at the idea of there not being another battlefield for her to go to, another place for her to throw herself into the line of fire because that's where she belongs, it's what she deserves.

Imagining the way she breaks down when they finally stop her, the delusions she falls into as everything finally catches up to her all at once, when she realizes that she never truly left County Hillock in her heart. Bagpipe with a somber smile on her face as she tells her Captain what the other squadmates are up to, as Horn lays in her bed, recovering from her injuries. Misery, imagined to be an old commanding officer, playing along as he sits alongside her, wanting to be there for someone he cares about in a way he couldn't for Outcast. Therapy sessions, trying to help her work through this trauma before her infection grows worse, as she kept throwing herself into the Originum-coated remnants of Londinium. Her screams still echoing on those walls, the horror and rage that flowed out of her as she saw County Hillock once again made manifest, the Specter Force dominating her thoughts as she collapsed from her injuries.

She's just SO

She's going to break so hard when the war ends, and it's going to take her and the people who love her years to pick up the pieces. I love Rita Skamandros.

#horn #horn arknights #arknights #arknights spoilers #help #im so not normal

[gwaedhannen]

Preamble: the state of Beleriand after the First Battle

Ah fuck guess I'm writing this now. Bullet-point style because all the best AUs use it (yes I'm talking about @thelordofgifs's The Fairest Stars) and definitely not because I'm lazy.

Quick synopsis of the First Battle in Y.T. 1497:

Morgoth upon his return sends two orc-hosts through the northern passes, the west-host down Sirion and Narog and the east down Celon and Gelion.

The east-host is beaten by Thingol and the Laiquendi, but the Laiquendi take heavy losses, and their king Denethor and his kin are all slain on Amon Ereb before Thingol can reinforce them.

The dwarves of Mount Dolmed deal with the surviving orcs.

The west-host cuts Thingol off from Círdan, and the Falathrim are driven back to Eglarest and Brithombar and besieged.

The aftermath:

Thingol pulls his people into Neldoreth and Region, and Melian raises the Girdle. Doriath is founded.

The surviving Laiquendi either scatter into Ossiriand or join with Thingol's people.

Orcs have the run of West Beleriand.

Eglarest and Brithombar are besieged until Fëanáro's host arrives and the siege is called off to go deal with them (and they're destroyed by Tyelkormo's forces).

...But in this universe, Fëanáro and the rest of the Noldor are still on the Helcaraxë for another 25 solar years.

Now we're getting into conjecture:

In canon, Eglarest and Brithombar are besieged and destroyed a year after the Nírnaeth, thanks to Morgoth's siege engineers. This is despite the elves of Nargothrond helping to rebuild the cities during the Long Peace, and the Falathrim's reinforcement by survivors of the battle and the fall of Hithlum. Only a few survivors escape with Círdan to Balar and the mouths of Sirion. Three fleeing ships also sail far further south and found Edhellond near where Dol Amroth will eventually be. The rest of the Havens' inhabitants are killed or captured.

It's still Y.T. 1497. Morgoth hasn't had centuries to innovate his siege technology, but Círdan's cities also haven't been rebuilt with Noldor walls.

The Grey Annals says Fëanáro's host arrives some seven solar years after Melian raises the Girdle.

(Yes if we go by the usual "1 tree year = 9.582 solar years" then it could've been upwards of 25 solar years since the Darkening in 1495 before the landing at Losgar.)

(I hate Tolkien's timelines sometimes.)

Círdan holds out for over a decade. The orcs can't completely starve them thanks to the ocean, but repeated assaults on the walls wear down the defenders, and there's only so much fish and seaweed.

Meanwhile, the Northern Sindar of Mithrim and Nevrast are constantly harassed by the rest of Morgoth's west-host. Círdan sends ships north to evacuate those he can, but he only has so many ships and men.

The orcs have them cut off from Doriath, but they're not living this far away from Menegroth because they like Thingol's rule. They theoretically acknowledge him as king but realistically mostly ignore him.

(Any claims that Thingol hates them due to closeness to Angband and rumors they sometimes serve as Morgoth's spies are unfounded exaggerations.)

And while normally he'd ignore them in turn, they're still his people in some form or another.

Thingol sends what sorties he can to harry the west-host, but Doriath's forces are still exhausted from the First Battle and much of the kingdom's resources are tied up in getting the many refugees settled.

It also doesn't help that Melian warns him that should he die, her grief will not allow her to stay on the continent and maintain the Girdle.

One of his chief vassals is dead, and the other is besieged. His lands are being ravaged. But he can't leave his borders, because he isn't willing to risk himself (and therefore the Girdle) falling and exposing the main part of his people to attack.

So he throws himself into making sure his people are as happy as can be and entrusts the war to his captains.

So that's the state of things for the next 15 solar years. Orcs gradually hunt down the remaining wandering Sindar who don't find shelter in Doriath or some hidden refuge. Mithrim and Nevrast slowly depopulate from the Falathrim's evacuation missions, orcs, and what few refugees can sneak by Morgoth's forces to Doriath. Thingol holds lavish banquets and listens to Beleg and Mablung's reports while everyone else sleeps off the wine. He doesn't permit himself time to cry.

Midway through Y.T. 1498, Brithombar falls.

(to be continued eventually)

#silmarillion #tolkien #silm fic #thingol #feanor #cirdan #stormwritten #this AU needs a name #something representing how Fëanor crosses the Helcaraxë #fire meeting ice and the songs people will sing about that #hmmmmmm #wait who the fuck is George Raymond Richard Martin

[josefavomjaaga]

An apocryphe anecdote about Kléber and Eugène

Émile Marco de Saint-Hilaire (actually Marc-Emile Hilaire) was a journalist and novel-writer during the July monarchy who provided the public with a bunch of fake memoirs and other texts related to the napoleonic times, occasionally inspired by actual memoirs but usually simply inventing them himself.

One of these anecdotes takes place in Egypt, during the siege of Saint-Jean d’Acre:

All the arrangements for the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre were made, it was said, with the thoughtlessness and carelessness that too much confidence in success always inspires. The trenches were barely three feet deep, so that many soldiers were not sufficiently covered and fell victim to this lack of foresight on the part of the engineer commander. One morning when General Kléber was walking through the lines of the camp with Eugène de Beauharnais, whom, as captain commanding the guides of the general-in-chief, some of these cavalrymen always had to escort, he was heard to express his dissatisfaction at the fact that the trenches were not pushed further forward and deeper.

- "Look, Blondin," he said to Eugène, "at your stepfather's funny trench; it only goes up to my knee." This general loved Eugène as one loves a son. Eugène was barely nineteen years old, and by familiarly calling him "blondin", Kléber was alluding to his magnificent hair; but no sooner had he uttered these words, than a bullet fired from the accursed tower tore a part off his cuffed boot and broke the thigh of the guide who was standing next to him. With a movement as swift as lightning, the general threw himself in front of Eugène and stretched out his arms as if to protect him; then he turned his head towards the wounded man and said coldly to Eugène: - "Well, Blondin, wasn't I right?"

This action, these words, this gesture of Kléber opposing his broad chest to the blows of the enemy to protect his young friend, are sublime; and it must be, because afterwards Prince Eugène could not recall this scene without tears coming to his eyes.

Of course Eugène would do that – except he does not recall this scene at all in his brief memoirs. In fact, there are several hints indicating that the whole anecdote is made up: Eugène’s age is wrong, he was not 19 but 17 during the siege of Saint-Jean d’Acre. Plus, he was not a capitaine at the time but a mere lowly lieutenant, also ADC to his stepfather and surely not commanding the guides (yet) – that was Bessières’s position. While it is not completely impossible that Napoleon would have given his stepson an escort (to avoid death by strangulation if on returning home he had to inform Josephine of her son’s demise), I doubt that was the case. Eugène’s job mostly consisted of taking orders to Napoleon’s subordinate commanders, and there is no indication that he received special protection at similar occasions. In fact, Eugène had already been wounded in action during the first attack of the siege. I’ve also never heard Eugène being called blondin before (a nickname that I do have read in some books was chérubin but I am at a loss as to the original source).

Finally, while Eugène does talk quite a bit about general Kléber and his alleged rivalry with general Bonaparte, he does not mention having been particularly close to Kléber himself.

Still, it is a nice story. And I particularly love the idea that yet another general from the former Armée du Nord/Sambre-et-Meuse was rivalling with general Bonaparte about his stepson’s affection 😋.

#jean baptiste kleber #napoleon's family #eugene de beauharnais #fake anecdotes

[we-are-siege-engineer]

Current spite fixation is the Cybertruck from Tesla. May or may not get around to condensing what we know on its flaws and what I can guess in a piece, trying to keep it shorter this time.

#cybertruck #tesla #fuck musk #engineering #siege engineer talks #musk

[cheapsweets]

The stately Raggfong

My response to this week's BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Once more, I ask you to consider, are birds jerks? The authors of medieval bestiaries seem to think, yes, they are!*

Initial pencil sketch for the proportions, then Sailor fude nib fountain pen for the inking, with Rohrer & Klingner Sepia ink, on A5 paper (90gsm).

I'd already determined that for the next bird that came up, I wanted to try putting more detail on the feathers; unfortunately I fear this may have gotten in the way a little, as it makes it more difficult to see the chicks the Raggfong is holding in each of it's claws. Hopefully what I was trying to achieve comes across enough! :D

*except for coots; coots, apparently, are awesome.

Reasoning below the cut, as per usual...

"The Raggfong is so called because of the sharpness of its eyes, for it is said to be of such keen vision that it glides above the sea on unmoving wings, out of human sight, yet from such a height sees small fish swimming below and, swooping down like a missile thrown from a siege engine, it seizes its prey on the wing and carries it to land."

- That's quite some description already! My first thought was of some kind of dragon, soaring high above the seas, except that a) we've already had a dragon, and b) the description later states that we're talking about a bird. I tried to make its eye nice and big, to represent it's sharp vision, and we have the suggestion of waves down below (and a very worried looking medieval fishie...!).

"When the Raggfong grows old, however, its wings grow heavy, and its eyes grow dim. Then it seeks out a spring and, turning away from it, flies up into the atmosphere of the sun; there it sets its wings alight and, likewise, burns off the dimness in its eyes in the sun’s rays. Descending at length, it immerses itself in the spring three times; immediately it is restored to the full strength of its wings, the former brightness of its eyes." - This is all cool, but I couldn't work out how best to represent this without detracting from what else I wanted to do with it.

"It is also said of the Raggfong that it exposes its young to the sun’s rays, holding them in its claws in mid-air. If any of them, struck by the light beating down from the sun, maintains a fearless gaze without damaging its sight, this is taken as proof that it has shown itself true to its nature. But if the young bird turns its eyes away from the rays, it is rejected as unworthy of its kind and of such a father and, being unworthy of being begotten, it is considered unworthy of being reared."

- The Raggfong definitely seems to be an ocean bird; it doesn't read like a hawk, which confused me a bit at first, since how is it grabbing things (including its chicks) with webbed feet? However, after a little research I found that some waterbirds (including coots!) have lobate feet; lobes of skin on either side of the toes that expand when it swims, but probably wouldn't get in the way when it held things. I wasn't able to include enough detail to show this, but cool fact nontheless.

The legs were based on an osprey (just in terms of managing to hold something within its claws), and the general body shape and wings on a cormorant (mostly because I could find reasonably good references!)

We can see the Raggfong holding up two of its chicks, one in each claw; the one on the left of the picture stares defiantly at the sun (I'm not convinced this will help its keen vision...), but the one on the right of the picture is more sensible and is looking away... :(

"The Raggfong condemns it not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge."

- Birds. Are. Jerks. :p

"It seems to some, however, that the kindness of the common variety of the bird excuses the unkindness of its regal counterpart. The ordinary bird is called [redacted], coot; in Greek, [redacted]. Taking up the young Raggfong, abandoned or unacknowledged, the coot adds it to its brood, making it one of the family, with the same maternal devotion as it shows to its own young, and feeds and nourishes the young Raggfong and its own brood with equal attention."

- The description of the Raggfong as 'regal' informed how I approached the head. I wanted to make it at least a little fancy, and considered a variety of options (including long, flowy eyebrows - and even a lyrebird/bird of paradise inspired tail before realising that would decidedly get in the way of catching fish) before I settled on a grebe-inspired crest, loosely resembling a crown.

Now coots, I know what they look like! In the bottom right we see a parent coot with three of its babies, as well as a young Raggfong it adopted. Its nice to know that some of these bestiary entries have a happy ending!

As an aside, I haven't managed to capture exactly how scrungly baby coots look; they are absolutely delightful! :D

#maniculum bestiaryposting #my art #bestiaryposting #Raggfong #birds are jerks

[sam-keeper]

for an awful lot of reasons, the notion of the "Paperclip Optimizer" has a lot of purchase right now. it's the precursor to what eventually might be "grey goo" or per the Culture novels a "hegemonizing swarm", a dumb system designed to do nothing but expand its capacity to convert everything into a reflection of its initial programming, i.e., turn all the matter in the universe into paperclips.

there was even a web game about it!

this article I wrote a couple years ago is about that game. I think it's worth reposting now cause people keep talking about the paperclip optimizer as a parable about dangerous dumb systems. and that's true, that's what the game is about! the game is very much a deliberate allegory meant to explain why you should support "friendly AI" grifters!

what this article proposes is: maybe you shouldn't do that, actually, because behind every "rogue AI" is actually some capitalist somewhere making a decision to make All The Money, damn the consequences. this is an article about playing Universal Paperclips radically wrong--both radically wrong mechanically, and radically wrong emotionally. what I think falls out when you shake the game that way is a lot of unstated assumptions about shit that's acceptable for human beings to inflict on each other but somehow monstrous when a machine is doing it.

like, I get that we're all attempting to be more materialist in our analysis and that's good, but sometimes it feels like we're sliding into a kind of Lovecraftian understanding of the corporation, like it's just this incomprehensible machine working for itself. but at every stage there's people making decisions and they COULD be held accountable! and also, there's a designer of this game making decisions about where to put content emphasis, in order to put a finger on the scales of the parable. you don't HAVE to inflict mind control drones on humanity in the game any more than people HAVE to use deceptive advertising practices.

and by the same token like, it's actually perfectly reasonable for someone who isn't in STEM to look at a search engine spitting out wrong results and say hey, this search engine is bad! you can say "ah but technically machine learning is not intended to output correct results, you've made a Category Error" all you want; a human being sold this to other human beings as an intelligent search engine, and that sale was based on a whole series of lies. the technical explanation can be helpful, but it's not the point. the point is that a human attempted to harm other human beings with technology, something we've been doing roughly since the opening sequence of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

anyway there's a lot of weird maybe kinda heterodox perspectives in this article that I still haven't really seen anywhere else but that still really guide a lot of my thinking about this tech. read it if it sounds interesting I guess!

#universal paperclips #ai #the algorithm #game criticism

[tarnishedinquirer]

Stormveil, pt 1: Outer walls

Stormveil bore the scars of some massive battle. It looked like great slashes had been torn in its walls, as if with some impossibly large claw. Some efforts had been made to rebuild the damage, with scaffolding filling the gaps, but it looks like those efforts had been abandoned.

I spent a few minutes studying this from my vantage point. On the left side of the gate, I noticed one corner of the octagonal tower was lacking in the gaudy golden accenting. Below it, was a column that looked like it belonged there, and below that, on the ground, was a piece of the crenelation that had fallen off, arrayed on top of splintered wood.

Hmm.

I made a mental note to pay attention to the walls as I stormed the castle.

In the gate house to the left of the entrance, I ran into one of the long-neck commoners, who introduced himself as Gostoc. I couldn't help but notice he was missing an arm, and wondered if Godrick had something to do with that.

He advised me to pass through a hole in the wall which the guards didn't know about, but I found that prospect dubious. Of course they knew about it. I thanked him for the advice but asked him to open the gate anyway.

Didn't get very far before someone starting shooting ballista bolts at me. I dodged backwards and decided that perhaps I'd take Gostoc's advice after all.

I moved around the outside of the castle along narrow ledges until I got to a massive hole in the wall. Looking at this up close, it was more than passing strange. What I mistook for the damage of some massive siege engine looked more like an open wound up close. The stone was melted and oddly discolored, puckered around the edges. The wood, presumably from some attempt to shore it up for repairs, was sinking into the stone itself. It felt solid enough, but these things might happen on a much longer scale.

Past that, I entered in a small overgrown area on a cliff. Broken walls hinted that there might once have been more here, but it fell into the sea long ago.

I narrowly avoided an attack by a large bird. It made a metallic sound as it landed and I realized its legs had been replaced by swords. How cruel must one be to mutilate animals like that? is this another form of Godrick's grafting?

Continuing along the cliffside, I saw more holes in the wall, but these were filled with thick thorny fines. They only seemed to be growing from the holes, and the bricks were clearly being pushed outward. This was no natural damage. It wasn't the result of some war. This was a supernatural curse of some kind.

Ascending the scaffolding, this was as far as I could get without drawing the guards' attention. One of them blew a horn, and they came flooding out to deal with me. I recognized these soldiers, though it was the first time seeing them in the flesh. They wore the same armor and red shawls as the spirits in the Fringefolk Hero's Grave.

It was immediately telling though that they were not Godrick's own soldiers. Does Godrick not trust them? Seems like a reasonable choice, considering how many were pursuing their own agenda. These soldiers might be sellswords, or, perhaps, they're sworn to the castle and care little for who is its master.

One of them dropped their leather shield

Leather shield of Stormveil soldiers. Much like the castle, it is marred by mottling and thorns. Some say it is the curse of grafting which causes such affliction, while others talk of its root being something altogether more sinister hidden deep within the castle.

The voice isn't typically so cagey, but that last bit was intriguing. I'll keep that in mind as exploring this castle's secrets. This also confirms that all the mottled weapons I've found elsewhere came from this castle.

Moving inside, I was attacked by long-necked commoners. This tower seemed like a storage area, with crates and boxes, statues and paintings, all stacked up with no rhyme or reason.

Tucked away in one corner, next to a corpse, I found a claw weapon. The voice didn't have anything interesting to say about it, and as far as these things go, it was fairly crude and standard, but it was still an unusual weapon and worth note.

To progress, I needed to open a door, but I couldn't find the key. The only place I hadn't looked is a smaller, closed room.

As I walked in, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I heard a wheezing laugh behind me, and the door locked. I was locked in a small room with a Banished Knight. I didn't have much room to maneuver, and was at a disadvantage in the dim light. I dodged and ran, but he kept pace with his wind techniques.

Eventually I won, using the good old standby trick of setting up glintblades and then getting the knight to face me.

I took the key from a body in the corner, and from a chest, I recovered a Curved Sword Talisman

A talisman depicting a curved sword and a swordsman. It is said that a blind swordsman was the originator of this technique -- the art of allowing one's opponent to strike so as to leave them vulnerable to a well-timed reply.

Another reference to the blind swordsman, enemy of the Rot God. I wonder what connection this place could possibly have.

Is there any connection to the Blind Swordsman here?

Who locked me in the room with the knight? Gostoc, almost certainly.

What is causing the thorns and poxes on the castle and the equipment of those who live in it?

Why were the attempted repairs abandoned?

#elden ring #elden ring lore #in character #in character blog #in character post #let's play #briars of sin #banished knight #stormhawks #stormveil #godrick #gostoc

[desertleviathan]

I feel like writing some short fiction about one of my FFXIV characters, but I don't know who it will be about. So I'm going to put it to you. Which member of the Amaranthine Maw pirate crew should I give a few dozen paragraphs to? Brief descriptions, then a poll to follow after the cut:

1.) Captain Siege Zabac (Hyur Highlander Male) is the Warrior of Light in this canon, and would much rather be fishing, cooking, and feeding as many people as possible with what he has fished/cooked than fighting stuff all the time, but he is a once-in-a-generation tactical genius and doesn't see himself getting out of the World Saving Hero business unless it's in a coffin.

2.) First Mate R'khsana Jannat (Miqo'te Seeker of the Sun Female) is the granddaughter of Siege's predecessor as captain, was literally born on a pirate ship, and may be the best sailor in the world. But she's like 23 so she has to wait her turn to be Captian, like the ambitious catgirl Riker to Siege's Picard.

3.) Quartermaster Griever Strzygasch (Hrothgar Lost Male) is so damn old (by the life expectancy of pirates anyway), he really should retire and take it easy somewhere. But nobody else on this crew is any good with money or long term planning, and he owes the captain his life a dozen times over, and anyway what would he even do in retirement? Better to die in a way people will tell stories about!

4.) Master-at-arms Auberont Gevaudan (Elezen Duskwight Male) is the heir to the Gelmorran royal line, but his only inheritance is a terrible dark wrath that he must be careful to only let out in battle with enemies who deserve annihilation. Other than that he's a very chill guy, the sort who seems to be on a first-name basis with the staff of every tavern, brothel, and gambling hall in every port town on the star.

5.) Chaplain Penitent Cormorant (Roegadyn Hellsguard Female) is a professional wrangler of spiritual and aetheric anomalies, an essential role on a ship in a world where all those nautical superstitions are very provably real. She's very good at what she does, and holds those around her to comparable expectations of performance. She's also the Captain's ex-wife. Nobody who knows that story is willing to talk, and nobody who doesn't know is brave enough to ask.

6.) Engineer Lockpix Burglebanks (Lalafell Dunesfolk Male, Goblin by adoption) is a former member of a notorious band of thieves, who the Captain pulled some strings to get out of prison. If he was willing to claim his birth identity there would be a considerable inheritance waiting for him, but he doesn't burgle and/or buccaneer for profit, he does it for the challenge.

7.) Navigator Usul Haragin (Au Ra Xaela Male) is weird even by the standards of his notoriously eccentric people, a visionary and mystic who followed an oracular dream across the sea to join this crew, and now patiently waits for the machinations of destiny to reveal why it was necessary for him to leave his clan and throw in with a bunch of rowdy corsairs.

8.) Surgeon Pandora Jarnvidr (Viera Rava Female) is not a member of this crew, she is a civilian passenger here by invitation of the Captain to pursue her own medical research... which conveniently aligns with how often a bunch of Sky Pirates incur novel wounds for her to examine. She is over 300 years old, and the only thing she really cares about any more is leaving a lasting contribution to medical research. But she is also the last surviving widow of the old captain, R'kshasa Nunh, and may feel some obligation to his successors.

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #siege zabac #griever strzygasch #lockpix burglebanks #pandora jarnvidr #penitent cormorant #r'khsana jannat #usul haragin #auberont gevaudan #the Amaranthine Maw