#Army recruitment 2020

[ot3]

If you don't know this already, please try and internalize it: the idea that people join the US military primarily because they are young people at a disadvantage in life coerced into believing it is the most accessible path to upward mobility is not true.

if you're parroting this talking point, you are doing propaganda for the US military and you just need to stop saying it. here's an article from the Military Times that breaks the finding of various studies like this one from 2020 and this one from 2018 that analyze motivations for joining the military and popular conceptions of motivations for joining the military. Here's a pretty important excerpt:

Further, they hypothesized that some of this possible misconception about poorer Americans joining the military was a geographical issue. While the Defense Department tracks the zip codes of recruits ― and historically, many of them come from more rural areas in the southeast ― it doesn’t track their incomes or their parents’ incomes, which leads to assumptions that the poorer their communities, the poorer the recruits. [...] Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 1997 to 2008, they found that the services have recruited primarily from the middle class, America’s largest socio-economic demographic. “We show that recent recruits tend to have higher than average socioeconomic background: they disproportionally come from the middle of the family income, family wealth, and cognitive skill distributions, with both tails under-represented,” they found.

Here's from the army times:

Surveyed troops said these were the top five reasons for staying in the Army. The percentages indicate how many troops felt the factors were “extremely important” to them:

- Opportunity to serve my country — 53.5% - How well my retirement pay or benefits will meet my future needs — 45.1% - Opportunities to lead or train soldiers — 43.5% - My sense of purpose — 38.1% -How well my pay or benefits meet my present needs — 37%

Also mentioned in other sources but here from the NY times in 2020 as well, army enlistment is becoming increasingly skewed towards being the children of people who have previously served.

The main predictors are not based on class or race. Army data show service spread mostly evenly through middle-class and “downscale” groups. Youth unemployment turns out not to be the prime factor.

'Joining the army to lift yourself out of poverty' is not the reality for military service, it is the narrative used by the military in it's marketing and recruitment. if you go around repeating it i hope for your sake you're at least on their payroll! if you're going to bootlick don't do it for free!

[david-talks-sw]

Hello. You and GFFA are probably the two most reliable blogs I know when it comes to what GL actually intended with star wars and also have the most on point finger on the pulse of fandom and such without letting the discourse get to you. So I just have to ask. Where does the idea of the jedi being space cops come from in canon? Especially in more left leaning circles. Haven't they seen that there are indeed actual cops in SW? And who are portrayed like how leftists view cops?

Hey there!

Firstly, it's always an honor when someone puts me and Lumi in the same sentence 😃 been a while since I reminded people, but my blog started because I read hers (and a few others) and I was like "oh shit she makes great points!" and started doing the research on my own.

I mostly attribute my rediscovering my childhood love for the Jedi to her early meta posts. Like, you think I'm good, wait til she gets started again! So thank you, for that!

Onto the subject itself: I've seen the notion pop up in all circles. And it's not exactly wrong, it's just not entirely accurate.

You can find a large collection of George Lucas quotes here, about the Jedi's place in the Republic.

You will see that he uses varying terminology and that's what I think partially muddies the waters.

For example, early on, Lucas describes them as "police officers", but years later he says "they're not cops, they're Marshalls of the Old West" but actually "they're mafia dons" or "intergalactic therapists."

But the one that explains it best, for me, is the following:

"They're not like [the kind of] cops who catch murderers. They're warrior-monks who keep peace in the universe without resorting to violence. The Trade Federation is in dispute with Naboo, so the Jedi are ambassadors who talk both sides and convince them to resolve their differences and not go to war. If they do have to use violence, they will, but they are diplomats at the highest level. They've got the power to send the whole force of the Republic, which is 100,000 systems, so if you don't behave they can bring you up in front of the Senate. They'll cut you off at the knees, politically. They're like peace officers. As the situation develops in the Clone Wars they are recruited into the army, and they become generals. They're not generals. They don't kill people. They don't fight. They're supposed to be ambassadors." - The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005, 2020

Bottom line: yes, they're authority figures. But they're not "beat cops" chasing after robbers and criminals.

They're, first and foremost, ambassadors/negotiators/diplomats. They're police for planets and their governments, not the people of the Republic. Again:

They're peace officers.

Now, they can investigate and take more active "police-like" roles during their mandate, but they're not gonna be called upon to investigate a murder (unless that murder is very strange and local authorities are unable to make sense of it).

It's why, when Anakin is talking about "we'll search for the killer, Padmé" Obi-Wan is like "uuuuh... no we won't?"

[lulu2992]

Exploration of the now-offline Far Cry 5 official websites

Part 12: Jacob Seed

Recovered content

Here is what the American website said about Jacob, from at least July 13th, 2017, to February 7th, 2020:

THE SOLDIER JACOB SEED “Preparedness through pain.” This is Jacob’s mantra. As the Cult’s recruiter and former Army marksman, big brother Seed’s main duty is protecting the Project at Eden’s Gate.

On or before March 27th, 2018, a video was added. The text didn’t change.

Here is the video:

The first two sentences of the description were not on the European website, but the rest was identical.

Commentary

I probably would have said Jacob’s mantra either was “Sacrifice the weak” or “Cull the herd” instead, but “Prepareness through pain” works too. I don’t remember the fact he was a marksman when he was in the Army is explicitly mentioned in the game or even in The Book of Joseph, but considering his weapon of choice is a sniper rifle, that makes sense to me!

Under the cut are all the available source files, saved directly from the website, of the images you see in the screenshots:

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Show me your friends & I will tell you who you are: "Chrissy Teigen admits she would eat Human Flesh & she's shocked to be in the minority."

The next time MEgain Markle complains about suicidal ideation or "shows up" to speak with grieving parents about cyberbullying & mental health, please remind her of her FRIENDS.

The irony of MEgain: a predator, a bully, and a professional VICTIM who is rebranding as a mental health/digital justice "activist" inviting a disgraced celebrity predator and cyberbully to promote her "brand" is not lost on anyone.

Activist John Stephens was recruited by NOprah before the wedding to shut down media personalities who exposed Markle's red flags. After the wedding, BULLY Teigen on Twitter: "although I've never met Meghan, I'm very protective of her."

In 2019 or 2020, Toronto Papers revealed that MEgain was friends with the owners of a popular LA cannibal club restaurant. Holiday something??

Celebrities publicly promote eating placenta, why wouldn't they consume human flesh. There is nothing new under the sun. Regardless of Chrissy's behavior, she and hubby are untouchable.

Nigeria

Police arrested 11 people and closed a restaurant after two human heads wrapped in cellophane were discovered at a hotel restaurant that had been serving human flesh.

A tip-off led police to the macabre discovery in Anambra, Nigeria, with 11 people being arrested and AK-47 guns and other weapons being seized.

Human flesh was apparently being sold as an expensive treat at the restaurant, with authorities saying that roasted human head was even on the menu.

"I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised," a pastor who had visited the eatery said.

"So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price.

"What is this country turning into? Can you imagine people selling human flesh as meat," he added. "Seriously I’m beginning to fear people in this part of the world. "

Another local added to the Osun Defender newspaper: "I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel.

"So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday."

The tabloid reported that two army caps, 40 rounds of live ammunition and 'so many cell phones' were also discovered by authorities.

[lurksunderthebed]

Ghoap Analysis/Meta (1?)

The Evolution of GhostSoap Redux

Continuing thoughts on how Ghost and Soap's relationship has changed over the course of mw(19), mwii(22) and mwiii(23)

Spread out amongst several posts. This will be long 😅

(Part 1)

BEWARE SPOILERS TO MWIII(23) !

I've had time to settle my thoughts on Ghostsoap in mwiii (23) and this will go more into depth of the re-contextualising of Ghost and Soap's relationship in mwii (22) from the verdansk mission: "Flashpoint".

Flashpoint is set 4 years to mwiii(23). The game places it as April 6, 2019. This is important to us because it sets a different potential first mission (meet cute lmao) between the two and thus changes the tone of their interactions in mwii (22)

So let's set up a timeline with the available dates. Thankfully, the game sets some very concrete dates for us. Not all missions are included.*

2019

Flashpoint - April 06, 2019

First canonical appearance of SAS Ghost and Soap

Ghost provides sniper cover for Soap

Price/Soap capture Makarov and transport him to a helo with Ghost and Shepherd

There's a failed interrogation by Ghost and Soap.

Makarov implies he has met Ghost before and thought him dead at an airport

2019 Mw(19)

Piccadilly - Oct 25, 2019

First canonical appearance of SAS Gaz

Gaz is attached to Met Counter Terrorist Police. This implies he has worked largely in his career in conjunction to the Police. It's unknown whether he met Soap or Ghost before.

First meet of Gaz and Price to combat terrorists in London

Old Comrades - Oct 31, 2019

Gaz meets Nikolai

Interrogation scene. Arguably strengthens Gaz and Price's relationship

Into the Furnace - Nov 03, 2019

Last mission, they kill general barkov

Credit Scene - Nov 03-04, 2019* (hypothetical)

Laswell and Price form task force 141

Price seconds Ghost, Soap, Gaz. This implies that Price has worked with Soap and Ghost on missions for x amount of years. It's Gaz who was the surprise recruit.

2020 Cod Warzone

Season 2 - Mar 2020

First appearance of 141 Ghost

Unknown amount of 141 stationed in Verdansk. Ghost asks for backup.

Season 3 - Apr 2020

Armistice dissolved

Price and Gaz show up to help Ghost

Implied- unknown amount of 141 to Verdansk (possible meeting of Soap and Ghost)

Season ? - Dec 2020

Price kills Zakaev

First appearance (via call) of 141 Soap asking for backup in Verdansk

Price, Ghost, Gaz, Farah etc backup Soap who is somewhere else in Verdansk getting pinned down by enemies

2022 Mwii(22)

Strike - July 15, 2022

Ghost calls an airstrike on Ghorbrani with the aid of Shadow Company

Hindsight - Aug 12, 2022

Shepherd/Shadow Company loses American missiles to terroists

Kill or Capture - Oct 28, 2022

Ghost gets assigned Soap as his sergeant for Al Mazhrah mission to kill or capture Hassan

They find American missiles instead

Cartel Protection - Oct 30, 2022

Ghost/Soap meet Ale/Rudy in Las Almas

They fight the Mexican army under control of the cartels

RV with Graves/Shadow Comp.

El Sin Nombre - Nov 01, 2022

Soap infils cartel mansion

Valeria is revealed as El Sin Nombre

They take her into custody

Dark Water - Nov 02, 2022

Boat/oil rig mission with Shadow company

Missile launch averted by Ghost, Soap and Graves

Alone - Nov 03, 2022

Graves and Shepherd betray 141/mexi bros

Ghost and Soap get out of Las Almas

RV at ale's hideout with Rudy

Prison Break - Nov 03, 2022

Ghost, Soap, Rudy break out ale from prison

Meet up with Price/Gaz

Ghost Team - Nov 03, 2022

141 with mexi bros take back mexi bros base

Soap and Rudy "kill" Graves

Countdown - Nov 04, 2022

Stop missile launch in Chicago

Ghost and Soap kill Hassan

2023 Mwiii (23)

Operation 627 - Oct 13, 2023

Makarov breaks out of prison

Reactor - Nov 10, 2023

141 find out that Makarov escaped

141 assaults konni base

Price finds chemical weapons (almost died)

Payload - Nov 11, 2023

141 split up to stop missile launch of chemical weapons

They fail to stop 2 missiles to Russia

Oligarch - Nov 12, 2023

Ghost/Soap island mission to find Makarov's financier

Interrogation of Milena for Makarov's location

Frozen Tundra - Nov 14, 2023

141 ambush konni convoy

Find Shepherd was Makarov's prisoner

Interrogate him on Makarov's location

Gora Dam - Nov 16, 2023

Ghost/Soap split up to stop chemical weapons in Verdansk

Trojan Horse - Nov 21, 2023

141 split up in London tunnels to stop Makarov from using chemical weapons in subway system

So now that's done. I've mostly ignored Farah and Alex and focused on Price, Ghost, Gaz, Soap and Nikolai as it pertains to relationships within the core group of Price/Ghost/Gaz/Soap.

What can we make of this ?

Well, a couple things.

We can now say that from 2019 to the events of "Kill or Capture" in 2022, Ghost and Soap have most likely worked together on missions before. The timeline shows that they at least had to have met in Dec 2020 in Verdansk as Soap had called for backup to Price and group.

That makes it actually at least 3 years of knowledge of each other prior to mwii(22). So a total of 4 years + potentially at the start of mwiii(23).

It also shows us how quickly their relationship changed from the Alone mission in '22 despite the 3 years of prior knowledge they had since '19.

Let it be said that it took 1 week, ONLY 7 DAYS!! to change Ghost and Soap's relationship. 7 days out of a total at least 3 years total.

Ghost started at not even bothering to name Soap in 2019, to presumably basic Soap/Mactavish/sergeant for the next 3 years.

Cut to the events in mwii(22). Lets say beginning at "Kill or Capture" and finishing at "Alone" and suddenly Ghost ends up having made up his own personal nickname that no one else can use for Soap in just those 7 days.

I posit that this was in part due to "Kill or Capture" in '22 being the first mission that Soap has directly worked under Ghost's command.

This is all hypotheticals and guesswork so take it as you may.

Assuming Ghost was mainly a solo mission sort of guy, let's also assume he mostly helped as sniper overwatch if he ever had team missions (like in Flashpoint). Most 141 missions have him taking that position as well, so it's safe to say he is support most of the time.

Given that assumption, it's also likely that Soap and Ghost had to have interacted mainly on comms and any physical meeting would be restricted to transport via heli or otherwise.

It's possible Soap and Ghost have worked together on a more physical basis (aka Ghost leading Soap on a squad), but given how much Ghost seemed to be testing Soap in "Kill or Capture" I find that somewhat unlikely.

In 2019 we see how brusque Ghost is with Soap. It's very likely that Ghost was largely monosyllabic with Soap pre or post missions to Flashpoint.

Considering Soap's propensity to chatter in 2022 and 2023, it's also very likely Soap annoyed the hell out of Ghost on comms. Lol.

This could explain why Ghost was so dismissive of having Soap as his sergeant in "Kill or Capture", despite working together 3 years ago.

I, and arguably most of fandom had theorised that "Kill or Capture" was the first mission that Soap and Ghost ever had together. And we weren't quite right, but we weren't completely wrong either.

With Flashpoint, it's obvious now that was not quite true. It even suggests in it that Ghost and Soap had worked together prior to even that, as there was no formal introduction between the two.

This dramatically changes how Ghost's dialogue and Soap's to a lesser degree can be read in mwii(22) and implies much much more if you consider how they interact with each other in '23.

So why does it matter when Ghost and Soap's relationship started?

With mwiii(23) we can now definitively tell when Ghost and Soap's relationship changed. We now have a rough basis of a timeline and we can track down the differences between '19 -'22 and then '22- '23. Its important because we can see how their relationship deepens and how it changed within a span of 3 years, 7 compelling days and 1 heartwrenching year later.

For all that mwiii(23) was lax with explicit Ghostsoap moments, it's rich in how much context we gain to their relationship. We see how Ghost changes and how his relationships differ between 141. It's an interesting and compelling look at both Ghost and Soap's characters.

In this discussion I separate this analysis into 3 parts. Part 2 will cover the implications of "Flashpoint" on mwii (22), with discussion line by line. Part 3 will most likely go over comparisons a year makes from the events in '22 to '23. (This might be subject to change as I get further into the analysis)

Onto Part 2.

+

[guitarhappyman]

What the Trump Nominees Have Not Done—And Will Not Do

5 Comments / December 5, 2024

Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, DC/New York political, media, and corporate nexus.

But that is precisely the point—to insert reformers into a bloated, incompetent, and weaponized government who are not part of it.

Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already drawing severe criticism.

His furious enemies cannot go after his resume, since he has spent a lifetime in private, congressional, and executive billets, both in investigations and intelligence.

Instead, they claim he is too vindictive and does not reflect the ethos of the FBI.

But what will Patel not do as the new director?

He will not serially lie under oath to federal investigators as did interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a current Patel critic.

He will not forge an FBI court affidavit, as did convicted felon and agency lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

He will not claim amnesia 245 times under congressional oath to evade embarrassing admissions as did former Director James Comey.

He will not partner with a foreign national to collect dirt and subvert a presidential campaign as the FBI did with Christopher Steele in 2016

He will not use the FBI to draft social media to suppress news unfavorable to a presidential candidate on the eve of an election.

He would not have suppressed FBI knowledge that Hunter Biden’s laptop was genuine—to allow the lie to spread that it was “Russian disinformation” on the eve of the 2020 election.

He will not raid the home of an ex-president with SWAT teams, surveil Catholics, monitor parents at school board meetings, or go after pro-life peaceful protestors.

Decorated combat veteran Pete Hegseth is another controversial nominee for secretary of defense.

What will Hegseth likely not do?

Go AWOL without notifying the president of a serious medical procedure as did current Secretary Lloyd Austin?

Install race and gender criteria for promotion and mandate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training?

Insinuate falsely that cabals of white supremacists had infiltrated the military—only to alienate that entire demographic and thus ensure the Pentagon came up 40,000 recruits short?

Oversee the scramble from Kabul that saw $50 billion in U.S. military equipment abandoned to Taliban terrorists?

Watch passively as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental United States for a week?

Allow the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to promise his Chinese communist counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army would first be informed if the President of the United States was felt to issue a dangerous order?

Rotate into the Pentagon from a defense contractor boardship and then leave office to rotate back there to leverage procurement decisions?

Oversee the Pentagon’s serial flunking of fiscal audits?

Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is certainly a maverick. He may earn the most Democratic hits, given his former liberal credentials.

But what will RFK also not do as HHS secretary?

Oversee his agencies circumventing U.S. law by transferring money to communist China to help it produce lethal gain-of-function viruses of the COVID-19 sort—in the manner of Dr. Fauci?

Organize scientists to go after critics of mandatory masking and defame them?

Give pharmaceutical companies near-lifetime exemptions from legal jeopardy for rushing into production mRNA vaccines not traditionally vetted and tested?

Leave office to monetize his HHS expertise and thus make millions from the pharmaceutical companies?

Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, former congressional representative and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, will soon be defamed in congressional hearings.

But what has Gabbard not done?

Joined “51 former intelligence authorities” to lie on the eve of the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks” of a Russian information/disinformation operation”—in an effort to swing the election to incumbent Joe Biden?

Lied under congressional oath like former DNI James Clapper, who claimed he only gave the “least untruthful answer” in congressional testimony?

Encourage the FBI to monitor a presidential campaign in efforts to discredit it—in the manner of former CIA Director John Brennan, who lied not once but twice under oath?

Fail to foresee the American meltdown in Kabul, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, or the Houthis takeover of the Red Sea?

We are going to hear some outrageous things in the upcoming congressional confirmation hearings.

But one thing we will not hear about are the crimes, deceptions, and utter incompetence of prior and current government grandees.

The current crew, not their proposed Trump replacements, prompted the sick and tired American people to demand different people.

Voters want novel approaches to reform a government that they not only no longer trust but also now deeply fear.

[cantsayidont]

MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM (2020–2022): Extremely frustrating bootlicking modern fantasy series, set in an alternate America in which witches with genuine supernatural powers are required by law to submit to military conscription upon their 18th birthdays. The show follows three new witch cadets, Tally Craven (Jessica Sutton), Abigail Bellweather (Ashley Nicole Williams), and Raelle Collar (Taylor Hickson), as they go through basic training to join a magical War on Terror against a ruthless terrorist organization called the Spree — of which Raelle's new girlfriend Scylla (Amalia Holm Bjelke) is secretly an agent.

Although the premise is truly cringeworthy, the first season offers some intriguing worldbuilding (including a novel treatment of the witches' magic, which is called "work" and based on sound) and paints a surprisingly dark picture of the witch army — so dark that it starts to seem like the original intent might have been closer to Paul Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS than a supernatural TOP GUN. Despite all its unsavory flag-waving, the Season One storyline touches on the dehumanizing effects of military training, the Army's use of torture, the grim consequences of refusing conscription, and even the negative environmental impact of military witches' "work"; the season's climax then has the witches' rather sinister commanding general (Lyne Renée) — a 300-year-old witch who survives by literally stealing the youth from volunteers and who is apparently plotting a military coup — ordering the green recruits to commit an atrocity that has significant civilian casualties.

The second season, however, immediately beats a cowardly retreat from any criticism or questioning of the Army or its leadership, shrugging off the disturbing events of the previous season (without actually undoing or contradicting anything that was previously shown, including the atrocity the protagonists committed!) and shifting focus to a stupid, unpleasantly grisly new conflict with an ancient secret society of witch-hunting bigots that threatens all witches. This conflict also occupies the the third season, which drifts yet further afield with some oddball revelations about the ultimate source of witch magic and culminates in a finale that somehow manages to elide all of the actual conflicts established in the show.

The first season has enough points of interest to suggest an opportunity missed, but the increasingly repugnant jingoism and the later seasons' obnoxiously woolly mysticism (even by the standards of a show about military witches) become harder and harder to tolerate even on a dopey nerd show level, and of the ostensible core cast, only Scylla gets anything approaching substantive characterization. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Yes, but you'll hate yourself in the morning. VERDICT: If you can stomach the basic premise (Mazel tov!), the first season (and only the first season) might be worth a look, but the rest goes from bad to worse.

[mariacallous]

“Join Your Local Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the American militia page.”

Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing and deemed the Three Percenters an “armed militia group" on its 2021 Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List, the post and group remained up until WIRED contacted Meta for comment about its existence.

Free American Army is just one of around 200 similar Facebook groups and profiles, most of which are still live, that anti-government and far-right extremists are using to coordinate local militia activity around the country.

After lying low for several years in the aftermath of the US Capitol riot on January 6, militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its ban against them, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project, shared exclusively with WIRED.

Individuals across the US with long-standing ties to militia groups are creating networks of Facebook pages, urging others to recruit “active patriots” and attend meetups, and openly associating themselves with known militia-related sub-ideologies like that of the anti-government Three Percenter movement. They’re also advertising combat training and telling their followers to be “prepared” for whatever lies ahead. These groups are trying to facilitate local organizing, state by state and county by county. Their goals are vague, but many of their posts convey a general sense of urgency about the need to prepare for “war” or to “stand up” against many supposed enemies, including drag queens, immigrants, pro-Palestine college students, communists—and the US government.

These groups are also rebuilding at a moment when anti-government rhetoric has continued to surge in mainstream political discourse ahead of a contentious, high-stakes presidential election. And by doing all of this on Facebook, they’re hoping to reach a broader pool of prospective recruits than they would on a comparatively fringe platform like Telegram.

“Many of these groups are no longer fractured sets of localized militia but coalitions formed between multiple militia groups, many with Three Percenters at the helm,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “Facebook remains the largest gathering place for extremists and militia movements to cast a wide net and funnel users to more private chats, including on the platform, where they can plan and coordinate with impunity.”

Paul told WIRED that she’s been monitoring “hundreds” of militia-related groups and profiles since 2021 and has observed them growing “increasingly emboldened with more serious and coordinated organizing” in the past year.

One particularly influential account in this Facebook ecosystem belongs to Rodney Huffman, leader of the Confederate States III%, an Arkansas-based militia that, in 2020, sought to rally extremists at Georgia’s Stone Mountain, a popular site for Confederate and white supremacist groups. Huffman has created a network of Facebook groups and spreads the word about local meetups. His partner, Dabbi Demere, is equally active and on a mission to recruit “active” patriots into the groups. Huffman and Demere are also key players in the pro-Confederate movement known as “Heritage, not Hate.”

Before Meta shut it down, the pair ran Free American Army, which drew in individuals from several militias, including the Kentucky 3 Percenters, the Virginia Liberty Guard, and the Florida-based Guardians of Freedom, a group that was mentioned in the final January 6 report and whose members were among those arrested in connection with the Capitol attack. Free American Army also included a known activist in the far-right extremist Boogaloo movement. At least one user in the group claimed in their profile to be active-duty military; another claimed to work for the Bureau of Prisons.

“We have (and still do) traveled across our country standing up for our constitution, and have met most of you face to face. There's no time like the present to come together and organize our states, to build them stronger with true patriots (not people pretending to be Patriots and using groups for dating sites),” Demere wrote in a post last year. “We are relying on each and every one of you to keep us informed about what's going on in your state by bringing the information to us.” Demere and Huffman are also admins for a larger, public group called Freedom Across America, which has more than 2,000 members and is more focused on current-event commentary than militia building. But public groups play a key role in drawing in prospective recruits whom administrators can then funnel into smaller, more extreme private channels. Huffman and Demere did not respond to multiple requests from WIRED for comment.

The groups haven’t faced a lot of pushback from social media platforms: Though some of them have now been taken down, this network is just the latest example of a “banned” extremist coalition operating on Facebook, exposing Meta’s inconsistent approach to content moderation. Other reports in the past year have flagged that anti-immigrant border militias and the anti-government Boogaloo movement had rebuilt on the platform, despite being banned. In 2021, The Intercept obtained and published a reproduction of an internal Facebook document containing a blacklist of all 986 “dangerous individuals and organizations” the platform had banned. The majority of entities banned were “militarized social movements,” including the Three Percenters.

“We are removing the groups and accounts that violate our policies,” said a Meta spokesperson in an email to WIRED. “This is an adversarial space, where actors constantly try to find new ways around our policies, which is why we keep investing heavily in people, technology, research, and partnerships to keep our platforms safe.”

But Meta’s critics say the company is failing to allocate the necessary resources to address the problem.

Meta “has not improved its moderation efforts,” says Paul. “The company’s failure to effectively address these issues despite its billions in revenue, technological advances, and engineering talent proves that the policies it regularly touts are no more than a public relations ruse rather than actual efforts to combat harm.”

Last year, Meta conducted massive layoffs that reportedly led to the company ending more than 200 content moderators’ contracts. Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that there may soon be layoffs at the Oversight Board, a Meta-funded organization that oversees the company’s content moderation.

“There is the reality that neither social media platforms nor domestic law enforcement understand how they should respond to the online spaces that incubate domestic violent extremism,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “This issue has become even more glaring as these movements intersect with the mainstream, especially as it relates to election disinformation and conspiracies.”

These networks of public and private Facebook pages may also indicate that the militia movement—which had retreated from the public sphere and, in some cases, distanced itself from the term militia altogether—is considering a comeback.

At a recent conference for constitutional sheriffs in Las Vegas, conspiracy theorist and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne called for citizens to form militia cells and to “build alliances with the militias” in response to migrants at the US-Mexico border. In Michigan, which has long been a hotbed for paramilitary activity, a township established a militia in response to the state’s new “red flag law,” which allows the temporary confiscation of firearms from individuals believed to be at risk of harming themselves or other people. And earlier this year, in the most significant mobilization of the far right since January 6, rhetoric about an immigrant “invasion” galvanized a convoy to the border and rallied extremists, including individuals with militia ties. Since last spring, the Justice Department has charged several individuals linked to the North Carolina Patriot Party and the 2nd American Militia with violent plots to allegedly travel to the border, target migrants, and start a war. Politicians know militias are a problem: Earlier this year, Democrats introduced federal legislation in the form of the Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act, but the bill has yet to advance.

“What January 6 showed, despite the incompetence of the Oath Keepers, was that the threat was—and is still—the network, not a single organization,” says Lewis.

Many of the Facebook groups in this growing network are focused on local militia organizing, such as the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia.

“In light of the violence and uncertainty in the world, Covid 19 shortages, civil unrest, and potential for terrorist attacks and natural calamity, we exist to equip our members,” the administrator for the Pennsylvania Light Foot group, which has more than 1,000 members, wrote last month. “Our aim is to equip them with the ability to defend themselves, whether it be a mugger on the street or foreign soldier on our lawn.” The group has linked itself more firmly to the word militia recently—until March, they had called themselves the Guns of Pennsylvania.

The Arizonans State Civilian Guard is another recently formed group on Facebook. It’s run by Bryan Masche, a reality TV personality from the show Raising Sextuplets and a failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate who has spread election conspiracies and, more than a decade ago, pleaded guilty to domestic violence misdemeanor charges. The goal of the guard, according to its bio, is “advocating and organizing as the People in order to activate the Unorganized Militia.” In February, Masche shared a link to a Wikipedia page for the 1946 Battle of Athens, when civilians led an armed revolt against their local government. “Learn your History Folks,” Masche wrote. “The Battle of Athens, Georgia was the last successful Armed Rebellion in the United States since the Revolutionary War.” (The battle actually occurred in Tennessee, not Georgia. Masche did not respond to multiple requests from WIRED for comment.)

Matthew Robinson, who was affiliated with the Florida militia Guardians of Freedom, has recently been recruiting on Facebook for the Florida chapter of another network called the American Patriot III%—also referred to as APIII or AP3. He’s also touting “warrior survival training.”

“Are you prepared for what's coming? You think they're going to hand this back over, they have NO intention,” Robinson wrote in a recent Facebook post, along with the URL for the American Patriot III% website. “In our world today, the word ‘militia’ has many negative connotations including white supremacy,” the group says on its website, despite claiming not to be a militia itself. “Any militia is painted by the media today as a hate group.” (APIII is also explicitly blacklisted by Facebook as a “dangerous organization.”) Robinson did not respond to requests from WIRED for comment.

Facebook has long been a go-to hub for militia organizing. In 2020, social upheaval from the Covid-19 pandemic and racial justice protests created the ideal conditions for militias to act out their survivalist, vigilante, and anti-government fantasies.

In August, amid growing concerns about paramilitary and extremist activity in the US, Meta (then Facebook) announced updates to its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy. It took sweeping action against pages, groups, and profiles associated with an array of extremist networks, including militias and their memeified cousins, the Boogaloo Bois. For a while, those extremists decamped to fringe sites such as MeWe, Parler, and MyMilitia.

But by the end of 2020, it was evident that the long-simmering militia movement still posed a clear and present threat. After January 6, 2021, when dozens of militia members joined forces with hordes of Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol in an attempt to block Joe Biden from becoming president, Facebook was widely blamed for allowing election conspiracies to flourish on the platform unchecked.

With the militia movement under intense scrutiny and even more paranoid than usual following January 6, it retreated from the streets. Some Oath Keeper chapters disbanded entirely; others scrambled to distance themselves from the optics of the Capitol riot by rebranding. Arizona’s Oath Keeper chapter, for example, rebranded and became the Yavapai County Preparedness Team. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of Oath Keeper chapters went from 70 in 2020 to five in 2022. For a moment, it was almost as if militia had become a dirty word, even among people in the movement.

But experts have cautioned that although militias have been less visible recently, that doesn’t mean they’ve gone away. Periods of intense scrutiny—following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, for example—have resulted in lulls in public activity for as long as the modern paramilitary movement has been around. If anything, this time their anti-government rhetoric has only tightened its grasp on the mainstream.

“You don't need to be a card-carrying member of a militia group to go down the anti-government rabbit hole. For the most part, the anti-government extremist ideology has become intertwined with the mainstream on the right,” says Lewis. “The same umbrella movement that attacked the Capitol on January 6 has happily absorbed any conspiracies that further their goals, and has increasingly gained followers from across the right-wing ecosystem.”

The potential reemergence of the militia movement coincides with an increased romanticization of January 6, as well as deepening hostilities toward the federal government due to the prosecution of Capitol rioters and former president Donald Trump.

Polling conducted earlier this year of more than 1,000 Americans found that one in five Americans “strongly agree” that violence is the only viable solution to get the country back on track. Although the societal conditions heading into this year’s election are not the same as those in 2020, a newly emboldened militia movement could add a dangerous dimension to potentially fraught future events, such as a judge handing down a prison sentence for Trump or Trump losing another close presidential election.

“Nothing brings the freaks out of the woodwork like a presidential election,” says Lewis. “You've already seen the election denialism and threats to public officials ramping up, and the narratives and grievances—from the border to college campuses and somehow, inevitably, Soros and the ‘globalists’—are in place.”

And some of this is already taking place on Facebook.

In the Free America Army Facebook group, Huffman recently posted an Instagram reel made by an account called packingpatriot.2 that has 140,000 followers. The video includes dialog from the 1993 Western film Tombstone, played over footage of Trump's rally preceding the January 6 riot. Text appears: “When the government tries to steal the election again and they think we’ll just sit and take it … It won’t be like the last time … Just remember, they started it … We just wanted to be left alone … We prefer ballots over bullets … But …”

The video then cuts to a graphic of the preamble to the Constitution and an American flag, surrounded by flames.

[wolves-against-the-world]

Lycanthropy and the Body in Medieval Europe

Sourced from: Riddarvold, Stian (2023): Medieval perceptions of the Other in an extranormal community: The Case of Cornelius Vogelsang. Journal of Lycanthropic History, 2(3).

The perception of Monstrosity and Otherness in Medieval Europe has been analyzed in literature from the Icelandic sagas (Merkelbach, 2014) to Beowolf (Fahey, 2019; Cavell, 2014). [...] The Army of the Night (Exercitus noctis) is not documented well, many documents being destroyed upon its dissolution in the 1300s. Despite this, there has been a recent uptick in research about this unique military and social structure. Exclusively consisting of lycanthropes, it was still largely governed by medieval perceptions of monstrousness contingent with human society. This study will examine the norms surrounding monstrosity and the body in a lycanthropic context and their enforcement through the documented court case against Cornelius Vogelsang. Additionally, interviews were conducted with three werewolves who witnessed the trial, which will be referred to as P, Z, and M.

The Army of the Night was a military unit founded and led by Emicho VI., also known as Emicho the Crusader (ca. 1050-2020), to aid the crusades. The Army of the Night is only scarcely documented in official church records, though Emicho appears frequently in the Gesta Francorum and Historia Francorum. He is described as a capable, if ruthless, military leader building a strike force apart from the main, i.e. human, crusaders. While the lycanthropic nature of that force is not named directly, Gesta Francorum indicates a level of disconnect between the fighting units, describing the Army of the Night as simply "strange" (prodigiosus). After the failure of the first crusade, there is a large hole in the documentation, with Emicho and his troops only appearing in fragments. For a more general overview see Vanderbilt, 1989.

Monstrosity and Monstrousness in the Army of the Night

In the Middle Ages, monstrousness was a metaphor as well as a real state inherently linked to the soul. Monstrousness as a whole was heavily confounded with race, disability, and marginalization in literature and was heavily linked to the body. It was assumed that wickedness or sin would show on the body, the damnation of the soul made flesh here and in the afterlife. Unlike in many Christian faiths today, the soul was not seen as separate from the body. The state of the soul was reflected on the body and vice versa. Another important component was the mind: Reasoning ability was assumed to be inherently human, while the monstrous only followed instincts. The damned were thus made monstrous by the rejection of their very existence as a thinking being.

In the period of the Army's assembly and operations, monstrousness was not seen as inherently damning, as in, it was reversible. Repentance could still save the soul.

As eldritch lycanthropes change on a molecular level, they were permanently made monstrous, and were thus damned by merely existing. However, the visible signs of lycanthropy progress with age, giving rise to the idea that there was a timeframe in which one could still reverse the process. (see document B26-3682)

[Fragment of latin text describing a transformation and the idea that there is a way to "save" a werewolf]

The timeframes vary between 30-100 years, which correlates with the lifespans of werewolves in the Army of the Night as estimated by my interview partners (transcripts in Appendix A-C).

Werewolf P was a high-ranking officer in the Army and worked closely with Emicho VI. In regard to the Army's concept of salvation, he stated:

"If they [the chosen recruits] survived the turning, they were brought into the camp. They were told it was a punishment for their sins - that it came directly from God instead of, hm, that they were just unlucky I suppose. [...] It was a sin to be a werewolf, and you became a werewolf by sinning, so unless you were saved before the beast took over completely, you would be damned forever. Of course people figured out that it was Emicho and his officers who were turning people, but the fear kept them in line. Turning someone without permission and hiding it was also punishable by death. Not that most lived very long. They thought dying for the cause could save them."

This idea was reinforced by a lycanthropic trait that has not been studied outside of folklore until the modern day. When dying, the body will take the shape that is most aligned with the phase of the moon. Calculating the moonphase for recorded battles shows that most were fought during half or new moon. A dying wolf would thus turn back to humanoid form and seemingly confirm that they had been saved. This of course was only true for wolves young enough to not show outward signs that a medieval person could pick up on. Once again, this reinforced the time pressure the recruits faced.

Burial, too, was contingent on their body's and thus soul's state.

[...]

The case of Cornelius Vogelsang

To show how monstrousness informed social relationships even within an extranormal community, I will now examine the court case against Cornelius Vogelsang, a member of the Army of the Night that was executed on the fifth of March 1218 on account of sodomy and heresy. What makes this case interesting is that it is the only one still preserved in some detail.

The person in question first appears as either Hussein ibn al-Rahmud or Hassan ibn al-Rahmad in the list of new recruits on the retreat after the disastrous loss at Hattin (1187). He was recorded to be 20 years old, which is not out of place in the Army of the Night. (See document A34-3442)

A supplementary interview with the werewolf Z confirmed that Vogelsang had likely grow up Muslim, but "he didn't like to speak of it". (Appendix B) The name Cornelius Vogelsang appears first in the Army's 1188 census alongside the older name. He seemed to have christianized his name in order to fit in with the Europeans. The appendix "Vogelsang" was apparently given in reference to his singing prowess. In between his recruitment and sentencing there is no surviving documentation of his existence or actions.

The trial commenced in early February 1218. The town cannot be identified conclusively due to damage to the parchment, but the record was found in the abbey of St. John in Alzey. While this abbey was only founded in 1290, it still points towards the trial taking place in the region.

Vogelsang was indicted on charges of heresy and sodomy. He was accused of preaching heresies to young recruits, such as lycanthropy not being a reversible curse, but a natural state of being. In a second charge he was also accused of sodomy with an unknown man that could not be identified in the course of the trial. Document A44-3448 describes the other person involved as "indictus" (unnamed), which implies that the identity was known, but the person was not to be charged.

[Scan and transcript of the page detaiing the court proceedings.]

Sodomy in this period was defined as any sexual act not intended for procreation. In the Army of the Night, this rule extended to all sexual activity, as siring children while monstrous was perceived as a major threat both theologically and realistically. This did not mean the werewolves did not seek out women, but by the decree of 1123, any offspring was to be killed as soon as possible. [...] The primary affront of homosexual acts was not its usually recreational nature, but the "perversion of natural law" of one person taking on the role of the opposite sex. (Hart, 1990) [...]

Vogelsang was described as a "large, blue man" with "shoulders like oxen and hands like shovels". Blue in this context refers to all darker colors and was often used in texts to also denote wickedness, possibly with a racialized undertone (Sigurdsdottír, 2018). The description of his strength also marks him as threatening. In the following paragraph, he is described as wearing his hair in the style of a woman, and his "beard [does] not hide his weakness". This description makes sense when connected with the accusations of an unknown witness, who claims to have found Vogelsang "subdued and taking the part of the woman", i.e. being the receiving partner.

Vogelsang was sentenced to death by burning, and his eyes were gouged out as to forbid him from seeing God's splendor. This sentence is notably brutal, as most other documented death sentences were either executed through beheading or a silver dagger to the heart. It is not too far-fetched to assume the sentence was meant to be a deterrent. The destruction of the body was a highly symbolic act. It proclaimed Vogelsang to be beyond salvation, thus he was considered to have lost his soul and the privilege of burial.

Assuming all accusations are true, Cornelius Vogelsang knew that the soldiers were being lied to, and tried to disprove or at least challenge the reigning narrative. With said narrative as his primary tool, Emicho had good reason to fear an erosion of his power.

Vogelsang's identity (in the modern sense) also made him vulnerable: While race was not conceptualized the way it is today, being Middle Eastern could have been a visible reminder of his status as a convert. Z, who described himself as a "half-gypsy", recounted several instances of prejudice because of his appearance being used to challenge his status as a Christian.

The last of my three interview partners, M, added a completely new and unknown perspective. According to him, while there certainly was "some political shit going on", the sodomy accusation had actually resulted from jealousy. The accuser had previously been rejected by Vogelsang, and the accusation had been revenge. (see Appendix C)

The only defending voice in the trial came from an unnamed officer, whose description has been erased, seemingly on purpose.

[Scan of a document that had an entire paragraph scratched out]

The remaining account merely states that he protested the sentence and was silenced by his superior, one Bishop Anghelescu. Despite the intervention, the officer was sentenced to whipping and being marked by claw, i.e. having a visible part of his body scarred. The nature of this punishment served to make his monstrousness - in this case supporting a sinner - physically apparent.

Monstrousness as a state of damnation-until-saved informed both the social structures of the Army and the identity of werewolves within the group. At the same time, these concepts were used by Emicho VI. and the Catholic church as a whole to enact control upon a highly organized and effective strike force. Monstrousness was tied to gender, sexuality, religion, and race. Deviations both voluntary and involuntary could be cause for punishment including death. The case Vogelsang illustrates this use of theology in the name of control and power, as enacted by Emicho VI.

[codmw2019-2022]

Modern Warfare® Campaign: Biographies of the Story’s Major Players.

Part 4: Nikolai

May 8, 2020 by Call of Duty Staff

Nikolai

Nikolai is the code name of a former soldier of the Russian Army. Accused but never officially proven of being an informant against Ultranationalists, Nikolai was an intelligence asset to MI6 and a confidential source of the British SAS. His birth name and place are classified.

Early in his career, Nikolai was sent to guard the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen. During this duty, he expressed disenchantment with Russian foreign policy, which resulted in extensive efforts by Western interests to recruit him. When Nikolai was reassigned to the Russian Embassy in London, MI6 ‘made contact’ with the young and outspoken Russian.  

Reliable friend and confidant, Nikolai is a self-proclaimed “weapons enthusiast” who plays by his own rules. He speaks fluent English, Russian, German and 5 other languages. A proven resource and bona fide ‘fixer’ with connections both above and below the law, he is a reliable ally who can get almost anything, anywhere, anytime. Nikolai is a soldier at heart, a man who will go to the ends of the earth for a friend and even further for an enemy.

Nikolai is a true Russian patriot but he’s also Captain Price’s go-to man when the job requires discretion and dirty work. Nikolai provided key intel and equipment during the allied raid on General Roman Barkov’s illicit chemical weapons lab, and added a new friend in militia leader Farah Karim, a staunch anti-Russian fighter, by proving that he’s willing to choose right over wrong no matter how heavy the fog of war. Nikolai, along with CIA station chief Kate Laswell, Sergeant Kamarov, and Captain Price head-up Armistice, an alliance formed to defend Verdansk following the 2019 Al-Qatala incursion into the region. He is the commanding officer of Allegiance squad, Chimera.

[midnightwind]

apparently I made this document back in 2014! good lord! it might've gotten some polish when I poked it again in 2020 though lol please enjoy this blast from the past as a hold over for my DAV fic

Summary: After delving into the Deep Roads, Warden Surana tries to reconcile the horrors with the help of her newest recruit, an Antivan Crow sent to kill her

Warnings: Allusion to body horror (Darkspawn origins are not nice), brief suicidal ideation

Word Count: 4609

-After Orzammar

She couldn’t see them, but she could hear their claws scraping earth and stone. Their low growls and grunts echoed in the dark and she clutched her staff tightly. One flash of their eyes, a simple glint of steel, was all she needed. Her ears were twitching, trying to follow the sounds to no avail. They were everywhere and nowhere. The air was so stale with their stench she was choking on it. Or was it the walls closing in that was forcing her breaths out in short, quick gasps?

Her back hit solid, warm stone and her staff almost clattered to the floor. Panic made her hands shake and the only thought she could form was to attack. If she just threw her magic out, it didn’t matter if her enemies couldn’t be seen. The familiar electric hum radiated out from her chest, dancing through her veins and concentrating in her hands. The staff sparked, sputtered, and was silent.

True panic seized her. Her magic had never failed her. How could it? It was a core part of her being, how could it not work? She shook the staff dumbly as if suddenly the spell would be let loose by the motion. She realized too late, too slow, that she had wasted time she didn’t have. They were on her. Teeth like needles with lips scraped away clamping down, claws ripping through her skin, magic buzzing through her skull and tearing her thoughts apart. Her mouth opened to scream, the world silent.

“Warden?”

She shot upright, her bedroll tangling her limbs. Low firelight sent dancing shadows through her tent and she could barely make out the large silhouette standing in the open flap. A glint of steel over their shoulder had electricity dancing around her before it was pushed back into its sheath. Zevran took a few more quiet steps inside, looking around in confusion. The tent was totally empty save for the two. Magic still sizzled in the air from her nerves, her brain straining to process being awake from the nightmare. She thought the assassin had come to finish the job in the first few panic filled seconds.

“Are you alright, dear Warden?” His voice was just barely above a whisper, the words twisted slightly with his odd lilt. “I heard scuffling. At first I thought you were just having fun, but then I hadn’t seen anyone sneak into your tent. No one else is really, ah, quiet around here like I am. Decided to make sure a Shriek or such hadn’t followed us to camp. Hopefully I did not overstep?”

Finally detangled she pushed her hair out of her eyes, the magic sparking one last time before she exhaled and calmed her nerves. “No, no. Um, thank you. For checking. I’m, uh, I’m okay. Just a bad dream.”

He gave her a small nod of understanding. “Well, if sleep continues to elude and you desire company there is always room around the fire. Or in my tent, but something tells me not tonight, hm?”

The usual dry wit got a single huff of amusement from her as he ducked back outside. Scrubbing her hands over her face, she sat in the silence and repeated a breathing exercise. If it worked to calm her down for classes, it would work out here, too. She thought she had started getting used to life on the road, to the danger and the adventure. These were the first nightmares she’d had about the Blight that hadn’t been caused by the taint. She deflated with a sigh. It had been the Deep Roads, of that she had no doubt. It had been a miserable and disturbing crawl through the tunnels. They had gained the dwarven armies for it, sure, but it didn’t erase what the bowels of the earth had held. 

Her hands still stung from all the magic she had used to get her small party through it. She had thought the dwarves would be the easiest contract to fulfill since they already knew about the darkspawn. Maker, how wrong she had been. She just hoped putting the prince on the throne hadn’t been the worst idea ever. At least he was eager to help. Squirming free of her bed, she pushed aside the pile of scrolls and books that decorated her tent to find her staff. The familiar feel of the weapon helped chase away the last wisps of the dream as she crawled outside.

The night was crisp, the cold of the mountains following them into the foothills still. Zevran was the only one up, poking the fire absently as his gaze swept over the clearing. The moon lit what the fire couldn’t reach, the stars winking down at them. It was a pretty enough night, but not close enough to dawn to warrant her wakefulness. Another defeated sigh escaped her. She would be exhausted when they finally moved on then. The rogue had turned to face her as she settled next to him, resting her staff on her knees.

“No sleep, then.” He hummed. “You know, I think you’ll find me a very good listener should you wish to talk.”

Her fingers traced the etchings of the wood, eyes watching the fire dance in the crystal orb at the end of the staff and giving him silence. Alistair’s usual snores were drowned out by Oghren’s, a feat the mage hadn’t thought possible until now. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds. The fire crackled, a log breaking, and she could feel the heat as the flames jumped for a moment. A gentle wind had the leaves dancing, crickets chirping and a lone owl calling out. A quiet sloshing of liquid had her blinking open her eyes, the peace of the night replaced with confusion.

The rogue had a bottle in hand, back to looking out at the forest and she almost spluttered. “Are you drinking, while on watch?”

The usual crooked smile returned though he didn’t look her way. “Ah, how rude of me. Would you like some?”

She simply shook her head. “No, it just seems a stupid combination of actions. I know you might be new to this whole ‘group’ thing, but getting pissed while being the lookout is very bad. Tsk tsk.”

The sarcasm earned her a short laugh as he turned to look at her. “I see my mistake now, yes. I should be drunk before my shift starts. Thank you for the tip.” The fire made his gold eyes almost glow, humor dancing in them. He rested an elbow on his knee and his chin on his open palm. “Tell me, dear Warden, what keeps you awake tonight? Did you drift off thinking how awful life would be without a dashing rogue to spice it up? Sounds absolutely dreadful.”

She nudged his leg with her staff, a weak smile on her lips. “I’m sure you wish it so. Nothing so blissfully simple, no. I don’t have a delightful tale to spin you and doubt you care for tales of nightmares.”

“You may be surprised by what I care about, Warden.”

The warmth in his voice had her looking down at her staff as a blush tinged her cheeks. Her hand reached for his drink and he gave it willingly. He clicked his tongue as she set it down on the other side of her. “If we’re going to have any sort of heart to heart here, I’d rather alcohol weren’t involved.”

“If you tasted it, you would know it was mostly water. That Fereldan merchant sold me awful spirits.” He shrugged as he leaned back, getting comfy by the fire. “Such a shame.”

“I’ll add liquor to the shopping list, right above the frilly doilies.” She snorted, earning her another rueful chuckle. “But… Tell me, how much do you know of Orzammar?”

“This doesn’t sound like your nightmare, unless you have a phobia of short, fat people.” His musing was met with a vague wave of her hand, dismissing the jab. “As you wish. I know it to be the city of dwarves, built into the mountains. I know it was where you found Loghain’s men who, and I quote, were told to ‘run home to their master like dogs.’ Sending your regards to the man wanting you dead? Very ballsy.”

“Mm, yes. Apparently the first group I sent whimpering back did a poor job delivering the message.”

He barked a short laugh. “You are full of surprises, Warden. Ahh, what else…” He was making a show of thinking now, humming until she pushed against his shoulder. “Hm! Right! They are not fond of letting non-dwarves inside so I stopped asking questions about the city and focused more on catching you leaving it. If you left at all.”

She hunched forward, staring into the fire. Her voice was quiet and small. “The current city of dwarves sits on the edges of a large network of tunnels. The Deep Roads. I don’t think there’s a map that contains every twist and wretched crack that makes it up. To secure our allies, we had to venture very far into them. Had to find a dwarf and her madman quest.” She spat into the fire, a deep scowl settling on her lips. “Branka was mental, she sacrificed her friends and allies to the darkspawn just to find this stupid anvil. I broke the damned thing after we killed her. It ripped the souls out of people to make golems. I couldn’t let it exist.”

He tutted at that, shaking his head. “Well that seems a waste. You need an army and, unless the tales are false, golems make the best soldiers. Why not let the insane little rock make you the best army you can have?”

The look of fury that she snapped on him had his hand twitching for the daggers on his back. He had seen her mad during battle, spitting venom at the men Loghain had scouring the roads for them. The quiet anger as she beheld the desolation left by the Darkspawn he had thought was the worst she could pull. He had been wrong. Never had he seen such pure rage in her eyes.

“Would you like to have your being torn from your body, shoved into a rock, and forced to obey a monkey waving a stick until the end of time? Tell me, would you like to be in a cage of a body with no escape? Does that sound fun and amazing to you?”

The assassin held his hands out in surrender, clearing his throat nervously as her magic sparked along the staff. “Point made, dear Warden. Point very clearly and well made.”

He saw her literally deflate at that, folding into herself and resting her forehead on her knees. She clutched the staff so tightly her knuckles were white. “You would think having to navigate magical death traps and golems for a crazy dwarf would be the worst part of it, right?” A morose, empty laugh vibrated through her. “Oh no, Maker, no. There was much worse. Do you know how a Darkspawn is made?”

“I… just assumed they were spawned by the demons they worship or some such. I never gave it much thought.”

“I know how they are made.” She whispered, shivering despite the fire at her feet. “That knowledge haunts me. They kidnap people, normal people like you and me. Men are eaten usually, bit by bit, day by day. That’s merciful. The women? Tortured, violated, turned. We killed a broodmother before we found Branka. It had once been one of her companions. She was using it to spawn fodder to disarm the traps. Traveling the tunnels after that was worse. I would wake at every scuffle, every scrape, every hiss. I thought I was going to be dragged off in the dark and gnawed on until I became of them too. Maker, do you know the most terrifying part of it?”

Her only answer was a soft, questioning hum.

“We saw the archdemon. I heard it screeching in my head. It was like a rock flying through glass. I was shattered. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stand. Morrigan more or less peeled me off of the floor after. That monster could have ended this entire quest if it had just glanced over its shoulder. My decision to enter the Deep Roads almost doomed Fereldan.” Her shoulders were shaking with her breaths, borderline sobbing now.

She jumped slightly as she felt his hand gently touch her back, giving her a slow motion to focus on instead of the awful thoughts. In the weeks since she had recruited him, it was the first time he had touched her without asking some form of permission. When was the last time someone had physically comforted her like this? The realization made her want to cry all over again. It felt like a lifetime ago, she didn’t even remember what had upset her, but it had been Jowan patting her shoulder and telling her it would be okay. How desperately she wished she was back in her cage of a home, a simple mage fresh from apprenticeship with her best friend at her side. She missed it so much her heart ached. Everything had gone wrong so fast and it felt like she was just finally coming up for air.

Zevran had his arm snaked around her shoulders now, the mage leaning against him as she stifled the tears. It wasn’t quite a hug, some wall keeping it from closing in completely, but Maker was it helping. She closed her eyes forcing herself to focus on the things around her to keep from drowning. The forest still carried on its private concert, the fire cracking and popping, but now, as her cheek pressed against his chest, she could hear his heartbeat, the quiet sighs of his breathing. He smelled of leather, which was no surprise, and woodsmoke from watch, the forest still clung from their march through the hills, but there was an odd scent underneath it all. It wasn’t anything she knew, probably some spice or other from Antiva, but it was warm and sharp and made her think of idle summer days.

“Tell me, Warden,” his voice made a pleasant vibration through his chest, “what was your exact reasoning for going into the Deep Roads?”

She pulled in a shaking breath. “Bhelen wanted a Paragon to back his claim to the throne. He wanted Branka and she had disappeared into the tunnels. It was dangerous. If we found her, brought back proof he was the right choice, then he would give us armies once he was king.”

“And why, pray tell, did you choose to support Bhelen?” He asked softly.

“Because…” Her brows furrowed. “Because I didn’t like the caste system. I didn’t like people being punished for how they were born, who they were borne by, what they wanted to do with their lives. Their slum, Dust Town, was so deeply sad. They hadn’t done anything to warrant that life. Bhelen wanted to abolish that system, so I chose him.”

A chuckle gently shook her as he laughed. “You went into that hell, almost died for it, because you had the chance to help people.”

Indignation sparked in her, a small lick of flame in her being. “Well, yes. I had the power and resources to change things.”

“Do you regret going?”

“I... suppose not.” Her answer was small and quiet.

“You are a wonder. Compassionate and beautiful.” He hummed. “Now you have had a lesson in self preservation. An unfortunate lesson, yes, but an important one nonetheless. If I were you, I would rejoice that you succeeded in your bid to help people and focus on how to do so better in the future. Maybe with less trauma, hm?” A wet laugh escaped the mage as she rubbed her eyes. “You may be surprised just how many people you save with that kind heart.”

She was sniffling against him, happy for once that he couldn’t see her face. The tips of her ears were probably tinged red with the blush his words caused, but she was glad for them. It made her feel less helpless and clueless anyways. They sat in a gentle silence, part of her scared he would relinquish the embrace should she speak. This was the most vulnerable state she had gotten the assassin to show and she didn’t want to let it go easily. His hand had wandered to toy with her hair, pulling it back so his fingers could trace from temple to ear. A shiver ran through her before she could stop it. She could almost feel the crooked grin that accompanied his soft laugh.

“Cold?” He asked coyly, “It is understandable. Your home country is quite chilly.”

“You are a menace.” She pouted.

“The very best kind.” His fingers made one more track through her hair before his hand dropped back to her shoulder. “But! My watch is almost finished and then I shall have to wake Sten and surrender a beautiful woman back into the clutches of monsters. Unless I could offer you sanctuary within my tent?”

“Oh, Zev…”

“I will happily be your pillow tonight, or whatever you desire me to be.” He purred.

A sigh escaped her as she pulled away from his embrace to look at him. He had cocked an eyebrow in invitation, smiling devilishly. She cupped his face in one hand, kissing his cheek softly.

“I’m not against sleeping with you. You’re witty and charming and very pleasing to look at. Sharing a tent tonight would be a very good remedy to my fears, but if I may be a bit blunt?” Her lips were pressed into a thin line as he inclined his head. “I really do not want sex tonight. So if you’re content with just being a pillow and general comfort, then I will happily accept.”

The frustration was plain on his face, but there was a fondness as well. “This pillow hugs back, and is fond of sneaking kisses. I am but a word away should you desire more, always. There are, after all, many uses for a pillow besides sleep.” He grinned at the deep flush his comment caused, ducking the swing of her staff. Safely disengaging, he gave a flourishing bow towards his tent. “The door is open for you, mi amore. I shall be just a moment. The stern rock will be cross if I don’t properly end my shift.”

She watched his jaunty steps for a moment longer until his head disappeared into Sten’s tent. With a sigh, she stood and dusted herself off before finally turning to face his tent, his drink in hand. He had pitched it on the outskirts, far too aware that many in the group didn’t trust him still. Part of her didn’t trust him either, scared he was playing a very long game with her, but they needed every shred of help they could get. He was very good at killing, which was quite helpful when you had monsters and armies hunting you. Plus, when she wasn’t worrying about where he was burying his daggers, he was a breath of fresh air in the group. He wasn’t pushing her to fulfill his own agenda, or lecturing her about her use of magic, or being a silent, terrifying statue, or negging her about their duty. He told her silly stories, made her feel like a normal person, got her to genuinely laugh. It was nice.

He had seemed earnest when she held his life in her hands back at the botched ambush. When they had been confronted by more of Loghain’s dogs he had fought at her side instead of burying his knife in her ribs and following them back for his gold. The following weeks had given him plenty of openings to kill her and walk away, and he had watched them all pass by. Maybe he was simply biding his time, waiting for the perfect kill. She wanted to hope that wasn’t the case, she was rather fond of him already. So she would take the gamble of sharing a tent with him, and hope the honesty wasn’t a ruse. Distantly, the low rumble of Sten’s voice could be heard, followed by Zevran’s lilt. She couldn’t understand them, but she could imagine what antics the Crow would use to swap shifts. With a grin she slipped into his tent.

It wasn’t large, but he had furnished it with a small chest, some few flasks and glass bottles, and a pile of furs. She wasn’t going to snoop, not truly, but she did pick up a few of the glass trinkets. One reeked of tanning liquids, making her wonder if the assassin tanned hides in his spare time. Another was just alcohol and she carefully put it back. It was a stronger brew than he had been drinking at the fire for sure, and she placed the confiscated bottle next to it. A few didn’t have strong scents, but were definitely odd colors. Poisons mayhaps, which made sense considering their owner. The last answered where the warm spiced scent she had smelled on him earlier came from. A cologne from Antiva? She would have to ask him about it. With a furtive glance at the tent’s flap, and a wandering thought of where he was, she carefully pulled at the furs. He had spread his bedroll under them, adding to the cushion and she found herself envious of the setup. If they had extra gold in the next town, she may have to steal the idea.

Gathering a few choice furs in her arms, she buried her face in them. They smelled like him, she relished, sinking into the rest of the bed. It was warm, smelled like summer, and already the night’s chill was fleeing. She could fall asleep just like this, letting out a contented sigh.

“You certainly look settled in.”

She jumped, a hand flying to her heart at his voice. He was grinning at her from the tent flap, arms crossed. His ability to move silently was uncanny. With an indignant huff she wiggled further into the fur, turning her back to him as she curled up. She let her eyes watch his shadow for a moment before the tent closed and they were plunged into a more even darkness. The chest creaked open, a shuffling of gear being removed and stored inside. The following silence caused her nerves to tangle, part of her still scared of him. He managed to pull another startled jump from her as he dragged a finger delicately across her neck. She hadn’t heard him approach again.

“You are very trusting of the man sent to kill you.” He chuckled, breath tickling her ear.

“Well,” she started, her voice only wavering a little, “you have had plenty of time to kill me if you still desired. I’m not going to keep jumping at my shadow because you’re around.”

“I think you may be the only one.” He mused, an arm snaking under the furs and around her waist.

Her retort died at the contact, blushing furiously. She knew what she was getting into, her mind argued, trying to convince herself she could handle whatever he threw at her. And then he pulled her snug against his chest and she wasn’t so sure anymore. When he nuzzled her neck, she clutched at the furs just to give herself something to focus on. She finally pushed him away, straightening suddenly as he pressed a kiss to her bare skin. Her heart was in her throat, cheeks burning red. He let her pull away, not commenting at her hitched breaths. She covered her face with her hands, letting out a strangled sigh. After a few moments she peeked through her fingers, over her shoulder.

Zevran was perched on his side, caramel eyes amused, but asking. The furs had slid down to his waist, displaying a bare chest with the bold black tattoos she had only seen hints at before. She covered her face again, pulling a laugh from him earnestly as she turned away again.

“This is very cute, I will admit. You react so quickly I fear it will be quite a test to resist ravishing you tonight.” His voice was low, humming with contained mirth. “I want to promise that I won’t go further, but…”

She pulled in a shaking breath to steady herself, tamping down the embarrassment. Twisting around to face him, she placed a firm hand on his chest to preserve a small stretch of distance. It took an annoying amount of willpower not to follow the alluring trap of his tattoos down, down… Instead she forced herself to meet his gaze. In the dim light his eyes glinted amber, that infuriating smirk back on his lips and an eyebrow cocked in question. This was not a fair fight and she almost pouted in frustration.

“I don’t want a distraction, nor do I wish to simply use you.” She finally sighed, brows furrowing. “I understand sex isn’t something sacred, and it’s very useful to you, but I’m not your mark anymore. I hope. And you’re not a new tool for me to take and discard as I please.” She hoped the smile she offered him was gentle enough to chase away the sharp edge that had appeared in his eyes. “Your company and wit have been a delight to have. I feel like I can earnestly laugh and see the light again with you. You’re a breath of fresh air to my world and I am loath to throw that away because of carnal desire. I want to know you better, foster this friendship more, and maybe we sleep together. Maybe it becomes more than just camaraderie. I’d like to wait, just a little, if that’s okay.”

He was silent for a moment before his hand brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, fingertips tracing the pointed tip. An amused hum vibrated his chest under her hand and he pulled her close enough to kiss her forehead. “Dear Warden, you are curious indeed.” With quick movements he pulled her snug against his chest, shifting onto his back so she was laying on him more than the furs. He held her with one arm in a warm hug, his free hand carding through her hair. She flushed at the contact, earning her another flash of teeth as he grinned in amusement. Almost petulantly she turned her head to the side, letting it rest fully on his chest. “Well,” his voice vibrated pleasantly against her ear, “I did say I would be your pillow tonight. Should more comfort be needed do not hesitate to ask.”

She smiled despite herself, allowing herself to snuggle against him only a little. The sound of his heartbeat and breathing chased away the lingering echoes of the Deep Roads, his gentle touches and the warm furs a constant reminder she was no longer trapped in suffocating rock. Steadily she could feel her eyes begin to droop as exhaustion set back in. How a man raised to kill without question could be so comforting was baffling to her. Maybe it was an effective tactic to lure a target in and maybe she should have been concerned over it, but she couldn’t find it in her. If this was to be her final hour she could think of several far worse and bloodier ways to die.

[californiastatelibrary]

Tom Kobayashi, pictured here at the Manzanar Internment Camp in 1943, went on to become a respected sound engineer who ran George Lucas’s postproduction facility Skywalker Sound. After Manzanar, Kobayashi went on to serve in the US Army from 1946 to 1951, and later graduated from USC in 1953 with a business degree. His Hollywood career began inauspiciously as an accounting clerk at a film lab.

After over 20 years of running audio postproduction at Glen Glenn Sound, George Lucas recruited Kobayashi to his new Skywalker Sound division under Lucasfilm in 1985. Kobayashi finished constructing a 700,000-square-foot postproduction facility north of San Francisco equipped with top-notch technology developed by Droidworks (another Lucasfilm division), which was an R&D arm that would jumpstart Pixar.

Kobayashi passed away in 2020 but left behind a legacy of postproduction innovation that changed the sound and film landscapes.

[lulu2992]

Exploration of the now-offline Far Cry 5 official websites

Part 4: Game Info (Europe)

Recovered content

The European website was first archived on October 9th, 2017, almost five months after the announcement and before the release of Far Cry 5. On the home page, after an image of the “key art” (see under the cut) and an invitation to watch this video...

...there was the ABOUT THE GAME section:

FREEDOM Set in beautiful Montana, an incredible Open World. Hope County welcomes you to the Land of the Free. FAMILY Led by The Father and commanded by The Heralds, Eden’s Gate preys on those hopeless folks who have fallen into economical and psychological despair. FIREARMS From shotguns to slingshots, this toy chest is stocked, locked and loaded with every piece of steel you’ll need to take down the Cult. Lead a resistance against a fanatical cult in small town, U.S.A., where Freedom, Firearms, and the Project at Eden’s Gate rule above all else. Lead a resistance against a fanatical cult in small town, U.S.A., where Freedom, Firearms, and the Project at Eden’s Gate rule above all else.

Clicking “More Info” took you to the GAME INFO page, which wasn’t archived before March 10th, 2018, and looked like this at least until February 7th, 2020 (last available archive):

FREEDOM, FAMILY & FIREARMS Welcome to Hope County, Montana, home to a fanatical doomsday cult known as The Project at Eden’s Gate that is threatening the community's freedom. Stand up to the cult’s leader, Joseph Seed and the Heralds, and spark the fires of resistance that will liberate the besieged community. In this expansive world, your limits and creativity will be tested against the biggest and most ruthless baddest enemy Far Cry has ever seen. It’ll be wild and it’ll get weird, but as long as you keep your wits about you, the residents of Hope County can rest assured you’re their beacon of hope. Join the Resistance on March 27th, 2018, with Far Cry 5. Available on PlayStation 4 system, Xbox One, and PC.

The FREEDOM section was mostly about the open world and game mechanics, but the others were about the Project and the Resistance.

Here is FAMILY:

PROJECT AT EDEN’S GATE The Project at Eden’s Gate, led by The Father, believes The Collapse is imminent. They’re on a mission to save your soul – whether you want it or not. JOSEPH SEED – THE FATHER “I am your Father. And you are my Children.” FAITH SEED – THE SIREN Once you fall under Faith’s spell, you’re a goner. As Joseph’s voice, Faith acts as a divine instrument of chaos to keep the congregation in a state of bliss. JOHN SEED – THE INQUISITOR John will use intimidation, faith and violence to secure resources vital to the Cult’s survival - be it a home or a person. JACOB SEED – THE SOLDIER As the Cult’s recruiter and former Army marksman, big brother Seed’s main duty is protecting the Project at Eden’s Gate.

The four red buttons redirected to the Character Spotlight videos about Joseph, Faith, John, and Jacob posted on the Ubisoft UK YouTube Channel.

Here is FIREARMS:

THE RESISTANCE Throughout the hills, valleys, and townships of Hope County, civilians of all walks have joined forces to resist against the cult, and rid their land of its chaos once and for all. But it wouldn’t be as fun if new toys hadn’t been brought along the way. Boom boom boom boom! ♫

Clicking “More Info” opened a pop-up window with a video and a description for each character; I will detail all of that in future posts.

Commentary

Sadly, the European website was archived way less often than the American one. It seems it was also rarely updated, as it apparently said we could still “pre-order” the game... in 2020. But since it used to exist and wasn’t identical to the American version, I decided to include it in these posts too!

Under the cut are all the available source files, saved directly from the website, of the images you see in the screenshots:

But first, here is the site’s version of the “key art”:

And now the images that actually are in the screenshots:

(The icons became red when you hovered your cursor over them)

The three icons below are not the source files. I couldn’t find them so I simply took and cropped screenshots:

I will upload the pictures of the Resistance (from the FIREARMS section) in the posts dedicated to each character.

[viktorviolettaenterprises]

Rainbow 6 Siege Twitch +Elite Twitch

@cctreasuretrove @sssvitlanz

Emmanuelle Pichon, codenamed Twitch, is an Attacking Operator featured in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Pichon grew up in a family of academics in the historic city of  Nancy, France, where the children were encouraged to excel in Math,  Science, and Technology. Early participation in sponsored computer  programming competitions led to her joining the army cadets at sixteen.  Almost immediately her talent was recognized, particularly in robotics.  Her superiors quickly encouraged Pichon to study engineering while  continuing her career in the military with the GIGN.  From the start, Pichon's focus has been on adaptable technology that  aids soldiers in the field. While there is much praise for her  technological achievements, Pichon's tactical prowess and ability to  problem solve quickly and efficiently make her a crucial operational  asset.

In 2015, Pichon was led by Olivier "Lion" Flament on a mission to Nigeria to assist medical personnel fighting the Ebola epidemic. Tragedy ensued, and the decisions Flament made for safety reasons put him at odds with Pichon and Gustave "Doc" Kateb,  who blamed him for the death of several medical personnel on-site  including Kateb's colleague. Later that year, Pichon's unique  combination of talents made her well-suited to join Rainbow.

In 2016, Pichon met Taina "Caveira" Pereira and had some kind of relationship with her, but to what extent remains  currently unknown. While not deployed on missions, Pichon proved  invaluable for Rainbow's R&D Department. She assisted in the  improvement of the team's equipment and was noted to have helped Elena "Mira" Álvarez in the development of Morowa "Clash" Evans' CCE Shield in 2017. In early 2018, Pichon assisted Rainbow's new CBRN Threat Unit with a situation concerning a mysterious mist on the shores of Sussex.  During the operation, Pichon provided Olivier Flament with a new aerial  drone that allowed him to determine the source of the mist plume. In  2019, Pereira went AWOL in Bolivia in order to search for her brother. Pichon and Meghan "Valkyrie" Castellano subsequently collaborated with Ghost Recon to conduct Operation Archangel in order to recover Caveira which proved to be a success.

In June 2020, Pichon and Julien "Rook" Nizan were in Paris, France when two large fires emerged downtown. The GIGN  deployed the pair and several other officers to keep order from the  chaos caused by the fire. Having faced a similar situation during  training under The Program,  Pichon and Nizan suspected the fires had been started in order to  distract from a major bank heist across the city. They tracked and  confronted the robbers who started firing at them. Nizan was shot in the  head but was saved by his helmet. Pichon and Nizan then pursued the  robbers across Paris in a high-speed motorcycle chase and eventually  caught them.

In 2022, Pichon was placed on Rainbow's new humanitarian squad, Wolfguard, under the leadership of Gustave "Doc" Kateb. She and Gilles "Montagne" Touré later traveled to Belgium to recruit Ngoma "Sens" Mutombo into Rainbow. weeks later, Pichon and Doc acted as control for Operation Vector Glare. The pair directed Montagne, Sens, and Olivier "Lion" Flament to rescue of an architect who was being held hostage at a refinery by  local militia. It was believed that this architect held schematics that  would detail how Nighthaven was involved in Masayuki Yahata's assassination. Once the architect was secured, the three operatives rendezvoused with Pichon and the rest of Wolfguard. ✟ Mesh Originally From Ubisoft, Converted to XNALARA By My DeviantART Friend,BlinKJisooXPS and Converted to Sims 4 By Me

✟ HQ  compatible

✟ Custom thumbnail

✟ welcome to tag me [✟] DOWNLOAD HERE

[sucatban]

14 June 2020

Did drug testing and safety training today. Must only be a formality because I saw many people breaking a lot of those rules yesterday.

I might give up on following them to a T as well honestly. But if I admitted that to Robin she'd make me quit haha

Do the guys carry phones during work? They never said anything about that. All they said was "don't play on your phone all the time as you kids do" which is kinda obvious. Is that really a problem?

They also warned us that sometimes orcas attack private vessels which I find funnier than the head trainer liked :/ Maybe I'll recruit an army of orcas :3

...Will there be perverts at work? I can defend myself against people my age, but could I take on grown men with muscles?! Would i get fired for fighting?

Guess I'll see :/

[wineassassin]

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THIS BLOG, THIS PREMISE, AND THIS CHARACTER. many aspects and concepts are directly taken from or inspired by robert ludlum's the bourne trilogy as well as the bourne franchise, but this blog does not exist in that canon. ideas for this blog may be taken or inspired by these pieces of media, but are not directly tied to them in any way, and all credit goes to the original creators.

OPERATION: TREADSTONE is a top-secret black ops organization designed to recruit, train, and deploy hitmen. the program was created secretly in response to three executive orders forbidding the united states from permitting or partaking in assassinations. the program is a joint operation between the american CIA and the british SIS.

this covert operation utilizes a forbidable, highly-trained group of assassins stationed across the globe who present themselves as average citizens hiding in plain sight. these assassins, or ASSETS, act almost like sleeper agents, maintaining a facade of normalcy and existing as casual civilians until summoned into active duty.

assets are given cover professions, intense training, handlers to guide them through missions, and all the tools and information necessary for travel, reconaissance, espionage, and the eventual elimination of their dangerous targets.

after acquiring his english language and literature degree at the university of oxford, sebastian moran entered the british armed forces in 2012 and subsequently completed specialist weapons school, as well as the british army sniper operator's course. in 2020, he left the military and was approached by representatives from OPERATION: TREADSTONE. they were interested in recruiting him due to his proficiency with long range weapons. he was quickly trained as an asset and now operates primarily within their guidelines.

with the guidance of his handler/logistics coordinator, emily kelso, sebastian has become one of the more successful assets within OPERATION: TREADSTONE.

sebastian moran was given a cover profession upon entering the organization that best aligned with his skills, level of knowledge, and field of study when attending university. he became an english literature professor at the queen mary university of london and now teaches two classes: 1) shakespeare: the play, the word, and the book, and 2) renaissance drama. MI6 has rigorously fortified his credentials to prevent the possibility of blown cover.

when sebastian is not on missions, he can be found at his flat on ladbroke road in london, at the local wine bar, or on campus teaching classes or holding office hours for students. he does travel for work and/or for pleasure, so he can also be found wandering rooftops or exploring the local food scene of a new town or place.