#expeditionary force stuff

[okaratauri]

I need this in my life.

late night thinking about two Exforce ocs

On one hand, you have an ancient alien artificial intelligence built to wipe out all intelligent life in the galaxy. Whenever the AIs of its group fought, it fought on the side of its programming overtop of a planet capable of hosting sapient life. This AI and another, who called herself Silver (Dawn Rising) both had sentinels. Neither machine survived, but the other AI plummeted to the planet below, landing dssp beneath the ocean— which would then go on to host sentient life.

Then you have a little guy named Joskia, who is the product of that sentient life. A seventeen year old little guy who goes diving with his buddies and finds the wreckage of an ancient ship. Naturally, they strip the thing. He goes home with the world's most useless beer can.

And then convinces a genocidal AI that people are pretty cool, actually. Mixed results on that front.

"Disrespectful kelp. I should teach you the meaning of fear."

"— but you will not."

"You are sure of that?"

"Very certain, yes. You are too lazy."

"Lucky for you in the short term. I will burn your ocean to steam one of these days, and then you will be very sorry for treating me this way."

"I will take note of that. You should take note that being denied a cannon is not a sign of abuse, but instead is a very intelligent act of self preservation on my part."

"I am going to blow containment and take your stupid face and your stupid planet with me."

they are stupid. He names it Foca ("birthed from the stars", with a violent subtext).

[okara-illustrates]

GUYS I NEED HELP

PLEAZE I NEED DOODLE INSP SO IF YOUVE HAD ANY IDEAS FOR FANDOMS WE SHARE (Exfor, Lethal company, Destiny, Stargate, etc etc) PLEASE PLEASE SPEAK UP WHILE I DONT HAVE PAID COMMISSIONS SET UP. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS BUT NOT LIKE A MILLION THINGS CAUSE OF OBVIOUS REASONS

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 62

First / Previous / Next

The expeditionary force linked in far away from the white hole. Nobody was sure about how much power it was actually putting out, but given that it was effectively the opposite of a black hole, it was assumed to be impressively powerful.

"Empress, we are three AU from the white hole, and its power output is still on the verge of overwhelming our sensors. I recommend not getting much closer than this." The sensors officer said, speaking carefully. They knew Fen's reputation.

We're not close enough. We need to feel it.

"I understand your hesitance, lieutenant. Still, we will proceed until we are one AU from the object." She turned to the captain. "Take us in, Captain."

"Yes, Empress." The captain walked up to helm and spoke with them quietly for a few moments. "Empress? Helm has concerns that the stellar wind from the object will interfere with our ability to link that close."

We must get closer. You must get closer.

"Captain, are you questioning my order?" Fen's brow furrowed. It was hard to listen to the Nanites and the crew at the same time.

"Of course not, Empress. I am merely speaking out as the representative of my crew. In addition to carrying out your orders, I must see to their wellbeing. To do otherwise would be to neglect my duties as captain."

They are stalling. Make them obey.

"They are not stalling" Fen thought. "He is doing his duty. If he thinks it's dangerous, it's most likely dangerous. We can deploy the Gate from here."

No! We must feel the energy ourselves. If you will not order them, then we will.

"You will do no such thing. Give me a moment to think." Fen stared at the screen in front of her. The pinpoint of white light was painfully bright, even here on a screen. It would be blinding to get as close as the Nanites were demanding. She would probably be fine, they wouldn't allow her to be hurt. Wait, was that it?"

"Captain. Ready my yacht. I will tow the Gate into position, and go myself."

"Empress! That is entirely too dangerous!" The captain's intake of breath was sharp, and their face wide eyed. "We have no idea about the energy output of the white hole, but even this far out it's nearly overwhelming our sensors. To get any closer would be..." he caught Fen's look and changed gears rapidly. "...unwise."

"The Gate deployment can be remotely operated, yes?"

"Yes Empress, bu-"

"And once in place, I can activate it, yes?"

The captain's features fell. He knew what was coming next. "That is correct, Empress."

"So, I shall tow it into place, you will deploy it, and then I will traverse the gate home. I will be able to leave white hole safely and be the first to use it." Fen crossed her arms and looked down her nose at the captain. "Simple."

The captain didn't even try and hide his sigh. "Yes, Empress."

The gate was gigantic - after all ships of all sizes had to traverse it - but it wasn't massive. It was pretty much just a ring and a way to power it. Some gates had more or less... stuff around them but that was mostly it. The Empire tended to build their gates on the more austere side, and either install them in human systems that already had a presence, or leave them for future colonists to set up something. Fen's yacht towed it easily though.

Fen paced up and down the empty command deck. The ship was set up to run with her commands without an AI. The AI of the expeditionary force flagship was there to help remotely if needed, but it was thought to be a relatively simple flight plan. Against the wishes of just about every command level person in the expeditionary force, Fen had only brought some of her K'laxi scientists with her. It was odd. She wasn't sure why, but she was sure she needed to do this alone.

Almost alone. Why did you bring the K'laxi?

"Han'iel is a trusted advisor! His team built our new antimatter weapons. He wished to see a gate deployment, and I saw no reason to deny him."

We admit the antimatter weapons will be useful. It is odd that nobody else currently had developed them. We knew of their use in the past, but they were always unwieldy.

"That's Han'iel and his team's genius! They managed to shrink the containment down so much that they're viable. Such tremendous, clean, pure destruction." Fen recalled watching Northern's destruction. There was nothing left after the blast; she had ordered sweep teams deployed to search for any parts. She had been reduced to dust utterly. A blinking console caught Fen's eye. "Are we close enough? The yacht is complaining about the energy output this close."

Yes, we are close enough. You may deploy the gate.

Fen sat in the command chair and tapped a few buttons on her pad. The gate had detached from the tether attached to the yacht and began to unfold and orient itself. In a little more than an hour, it would be locked and ready for activation. She looked up at the ceiling. "Han'iel? Do you want to come up and watch the gate deployment?" she called out over the intercom.

Han'iel trotted in a moment later. "Empress, I am here. Did I miss anything?"

Fen shook her head and gestured towards a large screen in the front of the room. "Nothing major. I've set the cameras to observe and record. We can watch the gate being deployed here."

You are doing a thing that none else have done before, Empress. You are helping us in ways you cannot begin to comprehend. You are insuring our continued existence. With this infusion of energy, we will be able to reach through to other dimensions, other existences and exert our - your - will. You will not only rule this universe, but others.

It was odd. Fen heard and was listening to the Nanites, but she felt numb to their praise. This was never something that she wanted, but she could feel that they wanted it very badly. There was a hunger in the anticipation.

The deployment was quite pretty in its own way, but it was still just a very large piece of machinery unfolding and setting itself up. After a few minutes Fen was bored. Han'iel seemed enraptured by the process though. He watched nearly the whole process while Fen red on her Pad and did some puzzles. Finally, her pad chirped at her. "Okay, it's deployed. I'll send the activation code, and we'll traverse. Where do you want to go, Han?"

"Hmm, what about K'lax? When was the last time you visited, Empress?"

Fen's face darkened. She had visited the K'laxi homeworld only once, to deliver some of Ma-ren's possessions to her home planet and to speak briefly with her extended family. It had been a difficult visit, and Fen had orchestrated things such that she wouldn't have to go herself. It had been a while since she thought about Ma-ren. She knew that as time passed, the hurt would remain, but things would grow around it. Funnily enough, the memory caused the back of her neck to itch slightly. She scratched at it unconsciously as she thought. "It's been a while since I've been back to K'lax." She sighed. "A visit might do me good. I'll enter the coordinates."

Fen busied herself on her pad as the Gate Sat in front of them, lit in sharp shadows from the energy of the white hole. She was absorbed in her pad, lost in thought about visiting K'lax. Should she go see Ma's family again? Should she even visit the planet or stay in orbit? When she heard a noise behind her.

"I'm sorry, Empress." Everything was light and pain, and she was out.

****

Fen came back slowly. It was too bright. Her head hurt. She squinted against the light, and tried to move, but she was tied tightly to a flat surface. Panic rising in her, hot and spiky, she opened her mouth to yell.

And couldn't.

Something was across her mouth, preventing her from speaking. Her eyes darting around, she saw Han'iel putting some tools into a bag, removing gloves and putting them into the same bag. "I will admit, Empress, that's the first time I worked on a human. How do you even move around with all that stuff inside you? Your bodies are just so... full, there's barely any room to move around."

Fen started struggling against the restraints.

"Now now, don't do that, Empress. You'll rip your stitches." Han'iel's voice was calm, soothing. "You need to take it easy while the incisions heal. Believe it or not, I'm doing this for you. I know that you were raised K'laxi. What I'm doing is for all K'laxi, not just the ones with big ears and fur." His ears twitched in a grin. "I've put some of that anti-nanite gas your AI faction spent so much time and effort developing into the atmosphere on the yacht. It was never going to be enough to destroy an Empress' amount of Nanites, but it should quiet them some. I've also covered your mouth so that you can't use that troublesome Voice on me." Han'iel stopped as if he just thought of something for the first time. "Really. Why give you the ability to give orders that cannot be disobeyed but only through your voice? Just prevent you from speaking and your powerless? It seems sloppy to me."

Fen could only glare.

We will destroy him. We are too close for a setback like this.

"How?" Fen thought. "I can't Voice him, and I'm restrained."

Fen felt the Nanites reach out and suss out the area. He was not lying about the anti-nanite gas. Our powers are limited. No matter. The gate is deployed at the white hole. Even if you - we - are destroyed, we will live on. We will have more than enough power to reform you. You will be a being of nanite with us. It will be glorious.

Han'iel peered down at Fen. "Having a conversation are we? I can tell by your expression. I'm sure they're telling you something about how it doesn't matter now that the gate has been deployed or something. But Empress. Fen. Let me tell you something.

Ma-ren utemia lak'men.

And Fen Remembered.

[alexanderwales]

Chapter three of Save the Cat is about figuring out who your "hero" is. This is the money quote:

Tell me a story about a guy who ... I can identify with. I can learn from. I have compelling reason to follow. I believe deserves to win and ... Has stakes that are primal and ring true to me.

And of course this is fine for mass market stuff, which is good given the book is written with mass market movie-goers in mind. But I'm (as Blake Snyder says) a bullheaded writer, and I don't want to write a story like that, or not all the time.

I want a hero who is grappling with purpose, who is facing existential dread, who worries about his legacy or what his life will end up meaning, who cares about the nature of personhood and reality. I want a guy whose stakes are "oh god, is this all predestined" or "are clones people" or "what does it ethically mean to steer a culture". I don't want this all the time, but I do want it a lot of the time. And according to Blake Snyder, this is the sort of story that you can practically hear audiences and producers walking away from.

My next web serial will be Doomsday Pivot!, and the logline is in flux, because the first book is written but unedited, and there's still time to make changes. The short version is, the world has broken apart and everyone gets to choose a character class, so a small startup pivots to becoming their city's first expeditionary force. Something like that, anyway. The stakes are survival, which is primal enough by Blake Snyder's metrics, but that leaves the question of who the protagonist is.

It's not what's in the book, but my sense is that you can give a few of the directives from the money quote a miss and still be fine, and your main character doesn't need to be a complete prototype of the main demographic (or who that demographic sees themselves in, or wants to be).

But it does leave me thinking about my protagonist, and how he's framed, and how to frontload what the audience wants so I can earn some slack later on. There's a particular bit about age there, how going younger is usually the right call, and some of this is outdated market advice given that the book was written in 2005, but I'm approaching 40, and I think I do tend to think of characters as being my same age just by default. My market is a lot different from Snyder's market, mostly in the sense that it skews much younger, mostly teenagers, even if the median patron is older.

So I am left asking myself some questions, which I think is good, and one of the reasons I'm reading this book. Should my protagonist be 34? Or 26? What's the one single adjective that I would use to describe him? What's the one single adjective I would use to describe the antagonists? Snyder suggests that being a slave to the logline is a good thing, and makes for a better story, and I have my own thoughts on that, but one of the pieces of advice that I've been giving in the last few years is "find a singular guiding star for your story and make sure that you don't point yourself too far away from it". I suppose that guiding star could be a logline, though I have my own disagreements with the "logline first" practice.

There are also some parts I found interesting if irrelevant to me about writing with casting in mind, and making sure it's a part that many people can play, but I think it's industry insider stuff that won't become relevant unless I spontaneously decide to start writing scripts with intent to sell, which seems unlikely.

[zargontari]

YOUR JOE IS SO CUTE WHAT. AND THE BEETLES????? love the taur approach to them absolutely adore it chef's kiss perfect

I've been chatting with @okaratauri and she said I should post my ExFor art here that's been sitting on my computer for months, without having seen the light of day. I don't really like maintaining an online presence, but since this community is so small (unlike bigger fandoms, where there's really no shortage of artists), I thought I might as well dump them here in case anyone's interested. I'll draw more soon. Probably. No promises.

So, yeah, massive ExFor art dump incoming. Here's my Joe. Love the silly guy. Drawing his hair is both a massive pain in the ass and absolutely worth it.

Chotek, Joe and Adams. Might do more of these eventually.

My Skippy design. Not 100% super canon compliant but this is how I imagined him for a long time. He's due for a redesign. I'm gonna shave his head so thoroughly, it'll have an albedo of 1.

Beer can outfits (he will kill you for this)

A bunch of Skippy sketches.

Jeraptha designs! From left to right: Scorandum, Klasta & Kinsta

Another beetle sketch, with Scorandum (in a floral hawaiian shirt because ofc) and Klasta again

Aaand another one

And this poster I did a few months ago that... yeesh. My painting skills have improved a lot since then xD

And to top it off, one grumpy Skip

That's it for now. Okay, bye.

[my-japanese-corner]

Japanese History Words

将軍 (しょうぐん)

they were a pretty big deal ~

Shōgun: Officially this position was called 征夷大将軍 (Hiragana: せいいだいしょうぐん, Romanji: seii taishōgun) As we know, Japanese love their abbreviations, Shōgun (将軍, means army leader). Kanji Breakdown: 征（せい, sei) means to "conquer" or "subjugate" 夷（い, i) means "brutish" or "unsophisticated warrior" 大（だい, dai) means "big" or "great" [meaning of this kanji changes based on context] 将（しょう, sho-u) means "commander" or "leader" 軍（ぐん, gun) means "armed forces" or "troops"

Essentially, 征夷大将軍 means Commandar in Cheif of Army Against the Barbarian Forces [or Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force Against the Barbarians]

They were the millitary rulers appointed by the Emperor of Japan in the periods spanning between 1185 - 1868. Generally, Shogun were the de-facto rulers of the country. The last Shogunate of Japan was the 徳川幕府 (Tokugawa Shogunate) also known as the Edo Shogunate. There were total of three shogunates established in Japan: 1. 鎌倉幕府, Kamakura Shogunate (1192–1333, overthorwn during the Kemu Restoration, re-establishing the Imperial Goverment rule until being overthrown by the Ashikaga Takauji and his offspring forming the 足利幕府) 2. 足利幕府, Ashikaga Shogunate (1336–1573, overthrown by 織田信長, Oda Nobunaga, a damiyo) 3. 徳川幕府, Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868, disbanded in 1867)

Now of course, the history of each other these shogunates and famous shoguns require many, many posts to over!

As always, Gintama has inspired me to learn more about Japanense culture hehe. Hopefully this was helpful to you as well :)

Please feel free to add onto the post with histroy facts and other interesting stuff :D

[servo-skull-connie]

~Talons Expeditionary Force, The Ardent Watchers

The Ardent Watchers' duty was to aid the Expeditionary Fleets on the fringes of the Great Crusade. Bringing worlds with large populations of Psykers into Imperial compliance or purging those worlds likely to have suffered Daemonic incursions. This was done as part of the measures to keep the Expeditionary Fleets and wider Imperium ignorant to the reality of the warp and the malign entities that dwell within. Over the course of the Great Crusade, The Ardent Watchers would take part in many planetary compliances though their contributions by nature of their duty were often either downplayed or omitted entirely.

When news of Horus' betrayal and the massacre at Isstvan V reached them, The Ardent Watchers were fighting in the Ultima Segmentum far to the Galactic East, aiding the 208th Expeditionary Fleet bring the Psyker rich world of Torsous XII into Imperial compliance. Shield Captain Constance Heratt ordered the small Expeditionary Fleet to follow her host back to Terra, but was forced to execute the fleet commanders when they declared Loyalty to the Warmaster. What followed was a slow advance back to Terra where the Ardent Watchers would be waylaid by warp storms and Traitor forces.

Forces:

~ Legio Custodes Shield Host, The Athenan Spears

~ Anathema Psykana Coven, His Silent Seekers

Notable members:

~ Shield Captain, Constance Heratt

~ Silent Judge, Emiline Trisk

~ Lord Captain Stanton Mourne

~ Vox/Spy Master, Xi-Rho-2472

~ Navigator, Tarkus Besh

~ Magos, Giagos Moll

Ships:

~ Lunar Class Cruiser of the Black Fleet, Noktua's Shroud

~ Sword Class Escort Frigate, Lance of Caelum

~ Tempest Class Escort Frigate, Pride's Squall

Notable Campaigns & Battles:

~ Astora Minoris Compliance

~ Purge of Jumbus Secundus

~ Third War for Expodus

~ Siege of Terra

Other Writings:

~ What is fear

~ An extended meeting

~ Dressed for battle, 1

(I've fleshed out the majority of my 30k army with lore and stories. This is a general overview. that links to more posts on specific aspects, characters or other written stuff.)

[nightbringer24]

Part of me says to get my Space Marines ready for when the weather gets better (my breath was misting this morning on the way to work).

Another part of me says to get some individual sprues of Wargames Atlantic's World War stuff so I can do some stuff for AVBCW. And I know for that I'd need sprues from the British Expeditionary Force set, the French Partisan set, the French World War Infantry set, the WW1 German set, and the WW1 Russian set.

[petergirl10]

Sanctuary Behind The Scenes: Normandy (documents)

Damian Kindler (creator, executive producer & writer):... And the fun thing was, when I pitched the show, the network got freaked out, because the pitch was not like, "Here's four or five pages explaining what the story is and how it turns, and this is what it is." I sent cablegrams, and telegrams with all these... I mocked up, you know, "Eyes only", "Supreme... " You know, "From Eisenhower's desk," "Winston Churchill," "A letter from Helen Magnus," and then a Nazi cable to Berlin, saying "We've captured Helen Magnus," and then, you know, a secret communique from Magnus back to Eisenhower, saying, you know, "We're in Nazi hands," and "Mission failure," and all this stuff, and sent it to both Syfy and Space.

Instead of a regular four-page pitch, I sent in these fake documents that looked like they were from World War ll. They wrote back and went, "Cool. What's the story?" And I was like, "Did you read the telegram to Himmler from, you know, the SS Commander in Carentan?" And they're like, "What's the story?" So I ended up saying, "Look, you get the idea. They're in Nazi-occupied France, and stuff happens, and Druitt's there, and... I'll write the outline." They said, "Please." Um, but I had a lot of fun... Sol had a lot of fun immersing myself into that whole time in history.

PM W. L. S. Churchill, 10 Downing Street, London UK

My dearest Winston,

I hope this finds you well. I do wish to thank you for such a fine evening months ago at Tottenham. James thank you for the cigars and the case of Pimms. In this time of rationing, you are typically generous to a fault. Nigel also enjoying his new found freedom from England penal system in his own inimitable manner. I am keeping him busy and on the straight and narrow, no fear. As well, I am quite gratified to hear SOE's collaboration with Professor Tesla has borne fruit. His "autotype radio" could well to be our most reliable means of covert communication during the next stage of the War. I thank your staff for tolerating his ego during the testing phase. Not an easy thing to do.

To business. Unfortunately, a potential new threat to the war effort has come to my attention and I must speak with you at your earliest. In person, if you don't mind as the matter is a delicate one on me personally.

I am overseas at the moment, gathering evidence of this possible threat, but shall be in London next week and at your disposal.

Your warmest regards,

Helen

Helen Magnus, MD  May 15, 1944

================================

Supreme Headquarters

Allied Expeditionary Force

Office of the Supreme Commander

6 June 1944

.... EYES ONLY......CLASSIRIED....RECEIVED VIA AUTOTYPE....

RE: OPERATION ‘TALON’ .... SIT REP AS FOLLOWS;

04:28 HOURS..... MISSION OBJECTIVE ALTERED

AWARE INVASION FLEET HAS SAILED.... BEACH LANDINGS IMMINENT WITHIN HOURS....

.... URGENT INFORMATION AS FOLLOWS.....

....HAVE ESCAPED CARENTAN SS BUNKER WITH VITAL INTELLIGENCE TO D-DAY EFFORT THANKS TO BRAVE ASSISTANCE

FROM 5th PLATOON, FOX COMPANY, 101st AIRBORNE RANGERS..... MANY CASUALTIES.

JOHN DRUITT NO LONGER CONSIDERED ENEMY COMBATANT..... REPEAT, JOHN DRUIT NO LONGER MISSION TARGET..... REASON AS FOLLOWS....

......NEW THREAT TO OVERLORD DETECTED MASSIVE THERMAL ELEMENTAL CREATURE TO BE UNLEASHED ONTO COASTLINE...

... ARE MOUNTING AN ATTACK OH NAZI STRONGHOLD HOUSING THE CREATURE WITH DRUITT. WATSON, GRIFFIN PLUS SURVIVING ELEMENTS OF 101s RANGERS.... RISK OF FAILURE VERY HIGH....

.... BE ADVISED: INVASION ARMADA IN GRAVE DANGER......

... TURN BACK ALL SHIPS IMMEDIATELY OR ALL WILL BE LOST....

HELEN MAGNUS

[smilepilled]

Answering prompts from the @radiomogai experiences event (link) ♥︎

[Plain Text: Answering prompts from the @radiomogai experiences event (link) ♥︎ /End of Plain Text]

【 O4 】 — How do you express your identity through your behaviour or clothing? How does this relate to your identity? If you don't currently, would you like to in the future?

honestly, currently its extremely hard for me to use my physical presentation for self expression; brazil is incredibly hot + the world is heating up, so certain kinds of attire would have my autism sensivity kill me way before i could kill myself. currently, i wear a lot of genderless clothing since i use shorts and green shirts-- military shirts, since the brazilian expeditionary force is my special interest. (can you tell i hate nazis and love brazil?)

for mannerisms, i think my chillax and kind of jackass way of speaking and putting myself out there is pretty GNC by itself. i swear like a sailor, spread my legs like a dude, im extremely grouchy... and more stuff i can't pinpoint right now. most of my friends/close peers see me like this, a "macho girl". which ive come to enjoy a lot recently! very nice, very me

i would love to express myself through my real life appearance more in the future. i think moving to europe or a colder area would greatly help me, but also my autism would still have high expectations for fabric and textures, so its not easy to tell. butch presentation, unisex clothing, androgyny, ouji fashion, emo/scene[mo], goth... there's a lot to think about, i'll have time to see what i enjoy and what i tolerate :)

[i-like-old-things]

GUYSSSSS I HAVE SUCH EXCITING NEWSSS

So basically my mom, her aunt, and her cousin are the only people left from the entire paternal side of my mom’s family. Well, my mom’s aunt has been really into genealogy and has basically created a straight archives of my mom’s paternal family in her home. However, my mom’s aunt has dementia so she’s been declining and my mom’s cousin doesn’t want any of the genealogy stuff so everything got shipped to my house today and let me show you!!!!

Like this I what my house looked like when I got home from work today. My mom and dad had only opened up one of the boxes and it was filled with stuff. All of the books in bubble wrap are journals that my great grandfather kept from the mid-1910s all the way up until a week before his death in the 70s (he wrote in them every single day). I was literally reading one of his journals the he bought in Luxembourg in 1919 as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (he listed his whole rank and everything on the front cover) and he was talking about his specific role in the military and his drilling. My dad read the entry my great-grandfather made about Pearl Harbor and it was really interesting because when my dad went back to what my great-grandfather wrote on January 1, 1941, my great-grandfather said that the US was sure to go to war because we were helping England so much. He also talked about FDR and how he was president for an unprecedented third term. I also loved how he included the weather everyday.

I didn’t get a picture of the inside of any journals today but I’ll try and get them tomorrow.

We also got this clock in the same shipment. A bit of it was broken but it looked like it had already been broken (there were some glue remnants). We don’t know how old the clock is because, going back to the whole reason we got all of the stuff in the first place, my great-aunt has dementia and my mom is now in control of all of her belongings. We believe that my great-aunt would know how old it was but we can’t really ask her anymore so I’m going to try and date it tomorrow. Although, the pendulum says “Pat. Dec. 11. 77.” so that gives us at least a bit of a time frame (my dad thinks that’s 1877 — which I agree because my mom remembers it when she was a kid and she was born before 1977). What’s also really cool about this clock is that I fully believe it still works. My dad was playing around with it and he let the pendulum swing back and forth. As shown in the picture, the minute hand is at about 53. Well, about 5 minutes later, I looked back at the clock and the minute hand was at about 59. Now the clock has not been wound in idek how many years and my family doesn’t want to wind it for a couple reasons so we won’t fully know if it works independently but at least the pendulum to hands mechanism is mostly functional.

I don’t know if any of you even read that but it did make my day. So I’ll have some more stuff to post in the coming days about this!!

[mylittlesecrethaven]

I Read Project 2025, So Here's A Rundown I Guess: Part 3.3

Idk if this counts as political, but I'm just reading the stupid book online and putting down what it basically says and some other stuff i Guess. (it could get political I guess? Idk. Just kinda wanted to make these posts since I'm reading the book and I kept getting annoyed with people just saying what the book says instead of writing down exactly what it says and what page to find it on)

(That's not saying I won't do the same thing, but for some things I'll rewrite what it says unless it just needs to be summarized. I will have page numbers though)

(also, if this stuff does go into effect, I will be fearing for my life and the lives of many others for the effects this could have on people. for lgbtq, minorities in religion, race, and ethnicity, and those who are poor. this will effect everyone and a lot of people should be afraid of it. that is not be getting political, that is me saying that this is a scary plan meant to give powerful people even more power)

(also, if you want a faster rundown than waiting for me to give shitty interpretations of this, go to the wiki here. it sums it up pretty well, but it doesn't state everything.)

Department of Defense Reforms -

U.S. Army:

Increase army's budgets to remain the world's most powerful land power, accelerate development of army weapon modernization to replace outdated combat systems, increase funding to improve army training, increase army force structure by 50,000 to handle two major regional issues simultaneously, reform recruiting efforts to recruit more people (Pages 108-109)

Increase production and keeping of critical ammunition and repair parts fir weapons, prioritize adding expeditionary planning in all weapon designs to better the chance of having an advantage, increase the level of joint force training with other branches, prepare to remove soldiers from U.S. based transportation buildings that have been compromised by opposing forces (Page 109)

"Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution," demand accountability in senior leaders to help increase public support for military service, reestablish bases to help gain experience for high-ranking officers for the planning and leadership of army formations in large scale operations, examine logic of up-and-coming army concepts about using long range weapons and their effects without considering how to gain an advantage by closing in and defeating an enemy on land, realize that high intensity land combat operations cannot be sustained through unit rotations during said combat, change national guard deployment structure during extended operations to prevent destabilization and preserve military volunteerism in communities, change army school curriculum to concentrate on preparing for large land operations that focus on defeating the threat, address the underlying causes that are increasing army suicide rates (Pages 109-110)

U.S. Navy:

Build a fleet of more than 355 ships, develop and implement unmanned systems to help manned forces, require that range and lethality be key factors in making and sustaining ships, aircraft, and munitions (Page 111)

Reestablish the general guard to better than it is now (an advisory position that helps make decisions on strategies and basic ship decisions) (Page 111)

"Harness innovation and willingness to tolerate risk so that 'good enough' systems can be fielded rapidly," use the space development agency as a model (an agency that delivers space-based capabilities to war fighters faster and cheaper by using commercial development), establish an oversight board of directors (Page 111)

Produce key ammunitions at the maximum rate with significant capacity, employ the widest range of techniques to enhance ammunition supply chains and workforce (Page 112)

Mandate qualifications that show a core competent in war fighting, make the Headquarters Staff focused on Warfighter Development to develop such requirements, require war games to be used as experience gaining learning environments, make sure it is known that navy forces can and must maintain the ability to defend sovereign territories like out allies and partners, "train to balance the effects from kinetic to no kinetic and from lethal to nonlethal through effective command and control" (whatever that means) (Page 112)

U.S. Air Force:

Adopt a two-war force defense strategy to help attain resources the Air Force requires quicker, eliminate pass-through funding (funding that is sent to a state agency or institution and is then sent where it is needed from there), increase the Air Force budget by 5 percent annually (Pages 113-114)

Increase F-35A attainment to 60-80 per year, increase build capacity for B-21 to produce 15-18 per year, increase Air Force aerial fueling capacity, develop and buy larger quantities of advanced mid-range weapons that are sized to maximum targets per attack, accelerate the development and production of the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, increase the number of EC-37B electronic warfare aircrafts from 10-30 (Page 114)

Attain an optimized advanced battle management system, produce the next generation of air dominance systems for aircrafts, improve moving target engagement capability and capacity against sea, sea surface, and ground mobile targets, build more resilient communications and sustainment for survival in a "contested environment," establish a vigorous and sufficiently funded electromagnetic spectrum operations recovery plan (a plan to better recover troops with electromagnetic systems) (Pages 114-115)

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 71

First / Previous / Next

The atmosphere aboard the dreadnought was tense. There were a few moments of negotiation about whether Penny would go over to Gord's ship, or Gord to Penny's but in the end, Gord blinked first. Probably because he knew that Home still had their stardrive pointed at Penny's ship.

The ships connected, Gord and Chloe came over and were led to a conference room right off the airlock. A steward - knowing they were both AIs - offered them coffee or tea, and to her immense surprise, Gord accepted. A few moments after the coffee was delivered, Penny and Zhe came in. As she stepped in, a guard attempted to follow them, and Zhe stared at him and shook her head. His eyes flicked to Penny's and she nodded, and he saluted sharply and stepped back out.

"That was the 'this is insane, but you are the commander, so I will do what you say' salute if I ever saw one." Gord said, grinning around his coffee. Penny looked at Gord, surprised. Zhe just smirked and flicked her ears.

As they both sat Gord put his coffee down. "Feeling a little overwhelmed, Empress? It's okay, we're among friends here."

Penny glared at Gord for the barest split second, then her shoulders slumped and she leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. "I have no idea what I'm doing." She said to the ceiling. Penny continued, "Fen left on the expeditionary force - I told her she didn't need to go, but she insisted, then we get an emergency beacon from the K'laxi of all people saying that they're breaking away from the Empire, oh and not only that they are fighting against the nanites - which the general public didn't know about - but now they do, and that there isn't an Empress anymore and what can we do but assume she was killed along with the expeditionary force!" She tilted her head just enough to see Gord, "they were destroyed I assume?" He nodded once. She looked back up at the ceiling. "I immediately declare myself Empress - along with about a dozen other people across colonial space and now it's a race to see who can build the largest coalition of support and-" she sighed "-probably fight a couple of civil wars before the new leader of humanity is declared." She sat up and locked eyes with Gord. "Then, I scramble to get whatever ship will let me on out to Home so I can go ask the AIs - who just recently came back and said they were willing to work with us - for help figuring out what the fuck is happening, and I get ignored and sure, maybe I overreact a little and sent a couple shots over your bow to get your attention. Someone from out past Jupiter tells me to stuff it, and then Home aims their stardrive at me. So yes Gord, I am feeling 'a little overwhelmed'" She trudges over to the sideboard in the conference room, pours a water, downs it in one gulp, pours another, and then sits back down. "So then, Gord and Chloe, representatives of the AI faction, what do you want to discuss."

Chloe shifts awkwardly in her seat. "Well, we-"

"Did you know I was a spy?" Penny said, unprompted. "My aim never was for power. I was assigned to watch Fen, keep my superiors apprised about what she was doing - mostly with her K'laxi black projects team - and to try and steer her away from any actually damaging courses of action. I wasn't supposed to fall for her!" It was practically a wail. "I know she holds a candle for her dead wife and will probably never actually love anyone else, doesn't matter I still loved her! Now, she's gone, and I don't know if she's alive or dead, and the Nanites are acting real strange and the whole thing is going to crash down, and if I survive the next year it'll be an Ancestors provided miracle." She stifled a sob and took another sip of water and sniffed. "So, if you have any idea where Fen went, please, please tell me."

Gord looked at Chloe. There was a second of them staring at eachother. Communicating? Just staring? Zhe wasn't sure. Finally Chloe blinked and scoffed. "Fine." She said.

"Well Penny - Penelope - Empress..." Gord said, kindly. "We don't exactly know... anymore."

****

Fen drifted in and out of conciseness. Her suit had her partially reclined, and she was well supported, and the suit was warm and quiet and she was so tired. So very tired. Was she sleeping, or was she passing out? Did it matter? She blinked and the gray of the virus took up a small portion of the nebula. She blinked again, and half the nebula was gray. Blinking again, it was all gray. Shit, this was bad. "Suit?" She said. "How long has it been since we linked here?"

TWENTY STANDARD SOL HOURS.

Nearly a day. Didn't feel like it. She ached, her limbs felt tired and cold and she wasn't hungry. Shouldn't she be hungry? She drank a little water from the straw near her mouth, and suddenly her mouth was incredibly parched. She sucked the water in greedy slurps until the pouch was empty. It would refill overtime from expelled moisture from her breath, and processed waste, and even from the spare oxygen and hydrogen it could capture from interstellar space, but, she might get one more pouch of water that way. If she was going to survive she needed to do something.

"But what, Fen? What the fuck do I do now?" She said to herself. There was nobody near, nobody who knew where she was - unless Gord or Chloe thought to scan for the backpack's link signature. Supposedly that was possible, but it was difficult, and not terribly accurate and would... require them knowing... she left. Dammit. Chloe knew she left, Fen thought, but she had cut her comm.

Wait a moment, the backpack had enough power for two trips, one 'there' and one 'back.' She brought up the link backpack's overlay and... yes, it could link exactly one more time.

But where?

She could link back to Sol, but would anyone be able to find her in time? Did the backpack have a directory of common locations? If she linked in the middle of the shipping lane for Parvati, would they see her, or would she just be another bit of debris destroyed by the stationkeeping lasers of a Starjumper linking in? Scrolling through the settings, Fen saw that it didn't really have a directory. The backpack was clearly one step above a prototype. There was a log of previous addresses, but they didn't detail where they were. Her only option was to wait here, and hope Gord or Chloe put two and two together and got six, or link back to Sol, and scream on comms until she died, or was rescued.

Fen sighed. Was it even a choice?

She toggled the return, and the backpack linked her away from the white hole, and the remains of the nanites.

Fen sat on the forest floor, hugging her knees. Ma sat next to her, leaning her head on Fen's shoulder. "You should be proud hon. You did it." She straightened up. "Not only that, but you did it yourself, with your own idea. It wasn't Gord's idea, or Zhe's, or Penny's or mine. It was yours."

Fen smiled as she clutched her knees. "I am pretty awesome, aren't I?"

"You know I know you are." Ma said, her ears flicking.

"But Ma, what am I going to do now? Defeating the nanites was just the start. If I get picked up, If I survive, If we can figure out the K'laxi..."

"All decisions you have the privilege, the honor to make, because you took the step to stop the nanites. Humanity is in charge of their destiny again. The other stuff?" Ma nuzzled Fen's neck. "That's just details."

Fen was in space still, but this was different. For one, the yellow-white light of Sol shone on her, warming her suit, not the sharp blue white of the white hole. For another, her comm lit up with dozens of frequencies, all clearing for the emergency trill of her rescue beacon. For a third... three quarters of Fen's view was taken up by the colony ship the AI called Home, only a couple hundred kilometers away.

Of course. She was on Gord's ship before and that was right next to Home. She'd return to the same location, and would naturally still be next to home. Fen sighed and drifted off as red and white sparkles of emergency ships soared towards her.

[douknowanoah]

SUPER DUPER LATE INTRODUCTION POST🎉🎉

[SUPER DUPER LATE INTRODUCTION POST]

Hi-llo!!! Welcome to my blog. Here’s some basic stuff about me. The rest is under the cut because no one likes scrolling 10k banana lengths (yes I am a redditor 🥲). Basically a Q&A. Have fun meeting the me!

What do I call you?!

For simplicity’s sake, call me Noah or some other variation of my username (douknowanoahnoah). Honestly, I don’t care. You can even call me dookie.. 🥲

Pronouns?

I’m alright with any out of she/he/they, but I do prefer she/her since I’m more used to it.

Activity Level?

I’ll be a little inactive (reposting mainly, and only posting little memes) on basically all my socials, not just Tumblr because I’ve gotten more into reading lately :D So if I disappear for a bit, im just getting all my happy brain chemicals from fanfic or published work

Blog Mood?

I’m not a serious blog. Everything here is very lighthearted. In the past I have posted about some serious subjects (personal overdose/drug abuse, therapy) but I try to smother it was humor to keep it low-key. I don’t post about that stuff often, if at all, anymore.

If you found this account from r/exfor from my abandoned Reddit account u/justNormi, then just beware that I posted about serious stuff on that account (self-harm) in case you’re sensitive to that sort of thing. I’m cautious about that part of life touching my tumblr, so it will most likely not be here

Fandoms?

Lately my blog has been more like a little diary for myself, but it started out as a place for me to post about my Expeditionary Force pirate AU (which I haven’t abandoned btw!! I’ve just been focusing on other things. I plan on continuing that AU in the future)

OK. No more rambling. Here’s a list of fandoms I’m into (but don’t necessarily post about)

- Expeditionary Force

- Starkid

- 9-1-1

- All For The Game

Issue is, I usually drop a fandom the second the original media ends or after I’m saturated myself in it too much. My interests revive after a while tho 👍

Expect fanart reblogs and occasional meta-analysis

Other Socials?

- AO3: douknowanoah

- To be added :D

Timezone?

Well I live in New York so Eastern Standard Time (EST). As of writing this, it’s 5:46 PM!

Blog Organization?

It’s currently not organized, but I’ll try to organize this sort of stuff in the future. My previous posts will not be organized because there’s just too many.

#personal -> bite-sized life updates, random thoughts, etc

#art -> reblogs of beautiful fanart and sometimes my own shit

#[fandom name] -> self-explanatory. Fandom specific stuff

#meme -> my own lazy memes or stuff I reblog

Wrap-Up

This blog is a safe-space for anyone who isn’t unsafe towards others (looking at you transphobes :/)

Sometimes I vanish for a while (more often recently) but I always come back like a stray cat.

Mutuales, feel free to tag me in things! Even if I don’t reply, it IS appreciated. I’m probably just overthinking what to say until it’s too late lol

The rest of this will just be random things about me so..

If you don’t want to read more, you can stop here. Thanks for reading!!

[IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MORE, YOU CAN STOP HERE. THANKS FOR READING!!]

Hobbies?

READING 💯, writing, binge watching shows and fanfic, shopping

MBTI?

Last I checked, it was INTP or some other IN

Misc. Facts

I love denim jackets. I have ridiculously long hair (seriously, it reaches my upper thigh when wet). I like to eat Lays chips with Kraft cheese. I don’t have a numerical password.

I take 1-3 hour long showers. I chew my fingernails. I like to eat vanilla ice cream with the following toppings:

-Chocolate syrup

- Pepsi

- Jell-O powder

- plain cornflakes

Current obsession?

All For The Game by Nova Sakavic 💯 Who knew I’d fall in love with a gay trilogy about a fake sport and the mafia?

Current Songs on Repeat?

[scrapironflotilla]

I’m kinda sorry to do this, but there are just so many problems with this post that I feel like I need to reply (a fool’s errand on the internet I know). This isn’t personal, cause you’ve got a lot of stuff here that’s the more or less standard view of WW1 and the armies that went into it. And there’s a bunch of stuff that’s in the right direction, but not really correct. I’m covering most of this stuff in my phd, so I can provide references for everything that follows, but I’m not going to put them in here for clarity.

England didn't really have a standing army at the beginning of the war. However, what little they had were all folks who had served as colonial enforcers before going back home and becoming civilians again.

So this is one of those, right idea but wrong in detail things. Britain (not just England) had in fact two armies. They had the Regular Army, and the Territorial Force. The Regular Army had a few jobs. It garrisoned the Empire and was the bit that did what the literature calls “colonial policing” and what the Army called “expeditions against savages and semi-civilised races”. The Regular Army was to serve as an expeditionary force to fight in whatever war Britain or its allies got themselves into anywhere on the globe, (Foreign Secretary Edward Grey famously said "The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy") and the Regular Army also had the task of coming to the aid of the civil power in times of emergency. It was relatively small, about 250,000 in 1914, and dispersed in garrisons across the Empire, although it always retained a core of units in Britain to respond to emergencies.

The Territorial Force was basically a militia, part-time soldiers like the modern Army Reserve or US National Guard. Their job was to defend the British Isles during war and act as a reserve to whatever expeditionary force the Regular Army sent. In 1909 they numbered around 200,000. There’s even actually a third army, the British Indian Army, which I’m not going to go into, but was another 215,000. Let’s not even talk about the Dominions like Australia, Canada and New Zealand and where they fit in.

What Britain didn’t have, and continental Europe did have, was conscription. This made their armies big, numbering in the millions. Instead, Britain designed its armies around the idea of fighting small, colonial wars or as a small contingent of a larger coalition. It hadn’t expected the need to form a mass army on a continental scale. There weren’t even any real plans of how to expand from its army, let alone going from an army of 6 divisions (about 120,000 men) to an army of 60 divisions and well over 1.5 million men.

Which meant that by beginning-of-WWI standards, they were all hardened veterans.

This is a pretty great bit of British propaganda that’s hung around for more than a century now. The first six divisions of the BEF were indeed made up of Regular Army units that had seen a large amount of combat. However, those units were basically kept at half strength and only filled up when war was declared. The men that filled these units up came from something called the Special Reserve. They were another force of part-time soldiers who had a six-month boot camp and then trained for just four-weeks a year after that, basically the same as the Territorials or European conscripts. Quite a lot of British Regulars did have a lot of combat or at least operational experience, the Regular Army was a long-service one. But at least half were just as inexperienced as their opponents.

 …the first time European armies run by anyone other than Napoleon were not relatively small affairs comprised almost entirely of minor nobility and mercenaries

Most of the armies who fought WW1 had been conscripting mass armies for quite a while by that point, Britain excepted. All the major powers had brought in conscription during the 19th century, usually in the first half, and had had a couple of generations at least to put together a General Staff and to work out the major kinks in fielding that many troops. It’s also interesting to note that in Britain and Germany at least, the senior ranks of the officer corps were still pretty much dominated by the aristocracy and landed gentry. It was very rare for someone to make it to general in the pre-war army unless you had a hell of a lot of money and connections.

…determining NCOs at the beginning wouldn't've mattered as much as you'd think because everyone knew what they were about, far better than what anyone else was fielding at the time…

This is where Britain’s fourth army comes in with the New Armies or Kitchener’s Army. Because that initial expeditionary force Britain sent in August 1914 was pretty much gone by December. Casualties in early WW1 being what they were, 120,000 men didn’t last that long. Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, was one of the few who saw that it’d be a long war and decided to form a brand-new army to fight it. This is where the above bits come in. Britain just started raising thousands of new units of everything. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, pioneers, medical units, transport units, administrative units, everything. Where would they get the NCOs and officers to lead them? Anywhere and everywhere. As there was no pre-war plan on how to raise a mass army, there weren’t any real guidelines on picking leaders, so officers just kinda did what they wanted. It was a very subjective process that relied on picking individuals of ‘good character’ and initially at least, anyone who showed the faintest spark of initiative got an instant promotion.

Given that the New Armies were full of entirely raw recruits who had no previous military experience or training, they were actually worse than their European opponents. The initial Regular Army was well trained, well experienced and generally well led. What came after it was not. Not until 1917 at least.

…no one was shiny anymore and anyone who had survived on the front for longer than 5 minutes was very definitely a hardened veteran. So it similarly didn't matter as much as you'd think.

Not really. There’s a lot that goes into making a successful army, and leadership is a big part of that, especially at the NCO level. In a war where battlefield communications are limited to as far as you can shout, having good junior leaders is vital. Tactics and technical skills can be taught. But having the ability to remain cool when the world is exploding around you and the ability to inspire those around them to do the often suicidal, not so much. Tim Travers calls the British Army of WW1 a ‘personalized army’ which I think fits. Personality and character counted for a lot.

I'm not sure which stage of the war those quotes are from … they didn't start off with a lot of army stuff and by the time they ramped up everything was a logistical nightmare.

These come from the 1914-15 period when the New Armies were being raised, which is when Britain was improvising pretty much everything. Hell, they were putting men in dark blue uniforms bought from Post Office stocks and giving them logs mounted on wagon wheels to simulate artillery guns. By 1916 it was a completely different picture and while logistics was complex and complicated, it also worked shockingly well. It was pretty rare for units not engaged in actual fighting to be lacking much in terms of equipment and supplies.

a fascinating hard-bitten reporter style look at WWI from the Hardcore History podcast titled Blueprint for Armageddon

Ah, Dan Carlin. Just a word of caution because as he freely admits, he’s an entertainer, not a historian. He’s undoubtedly a great storyteller. He’s easy to listen to, accessible and in the very broadest strokes, not really wrong. But as soon as you dig down into pretty much any of the details he loses a lot of credibility.  He’s definitely not up to date with the latest scholarship on the war, and while he has some great stuff on the individual point of view, his broader framework of the war is not great. Listen to him for fun and don’t take him too seriously.

Second Lieutenant Harold Hemming on selecting NCOs from the recruits of the 12th West Yorkshire Regiment:

“There was no use picking out a few bright-looking chaps and telling them that they were corporals, for there was no way of indicating their rank. We did not even have brassards with stripes on them that they could wear over their coat sleeves. So I counted the men who had moustaches and found that I had just enough, so I made them all lance-corporals there and then …"

The British Army in WW1, a wonder of modern organisation.

[sonofwitches98]

Remus' grandfather, Vincent Davis Raven. Hailing from the Saskatchewan frontier, Vincent has lived a long and rather difficult life. Originally a North West Mounted Police officer from 1873 to 1913, he was recruited into the Coalition Secret Society and tasked with hunting a demon that incited and fed off violence. For the next century, Vincent fought several major wars for many countries while on the trail of the demon, serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Deutsch Afrika Korps, 2nd Red Banner Army, and Task Force Smith.

Retired from the Coalition, Vincent settled in Western Canada in 1973 had 2 daughters; Kathy and Sabrina. He later became the grandfather for Sabrina's adopted son, Remus.