#general azimuth

[artofchinara]

Chasing ghosts.

Been wanting to experiment with colors and felt a little spoilery...

[the-chattering-tower]

@revukanfendrenim's progens love cyan secondary apparently and oh I absolutely cannot blame them. Nor am I complaining. Lookit my boys

(Skin is Gildermane Starscape by SilverLately)

[corvidcall]

i dont play ttrpgs anymore really (i got very shy over the pandemic, and also i had a really bad experience making an actual play at the start of the ap podcast boom, which resulted in me kind of falling out with the indie ttrpg scene as a whole) but one thing i very much miss was how much fun i had naming characters. my go-to move, especially for any scifi game, was to just use a random noun generator to name my characters. got some real bangers from that

[panimoonchild]

Unpunished evil returns and grows stronger in its impunity

"13 houses in the residential area were damaged during the rocket attack, the houses have five floors. There is a very large number of broken windows, over 700. Seven humanitarian buildings were damaged," said Kateryna Yamshchikova, Secretary of the Poltava City Council, about the consequences of the missile attack in Poltava on June 17.

Utilities and rescuers are working at the site. They are trimming damaged trees and removing balcony structures. Social workers and psychologists are also assisting.

Also, Vadym Labas briefly explains why certain countries that arrived at the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland did not sign a joint declaration.

▪️ Saudi Arabia is a major hub for the transfer of components and units for Russian weapons, as well as a place of accumulation of billions of Russian money. ▪️ India - supplies units and components to Russia. It has joint military-industrial complex plants with Russia, from assault rifles to missiles. It is a hub for transshipment of Russian oil. ▪️ South Africa - everything is clear here: "Wagner", money and influence. ▪️ Thailand - supplies sanctioned products to Russia and also helps the Russian military-industrial complex with its production. For example, Russia could not produce cable products without Thailand. ▪️ Indonesia - supplies sanctioned products to Russia. ▪️ Mexico is a huge hub for the supply of drugs to Europe and Russian agents to the United States, which generates huge shadow earnings. ▪️ United Arab Emirates - helps to supply sanctioned products to Russia and has a lot of Russian money. ▪️ Armenia - has a huge Russian lobby and is one of the key players in the supply of smuggled military-industrial products to Russia.

All this brings super-profits either to these countries themselves or to influential clans in these countries. Therefore, they are quite satisfied with the current situation.

P.S.: these countries came to the Summit to "keep their finger on the pulse," but they are not interested in peace in Ukraine because they make super profits by helping Russia circumvent sanctions and supplying components. But if they were given a clear signal about the secondary sanctions that could be imposed for helping Russia, their "pulse rate" would increase significantly.

DPRK prepares for the arrival of the world's evil.

Now the most important news: The ratio of forces in the Pokrovsk sector is 1 to 7 in favor of the Russians, said a soldier of the 47th Brigade, pseudonym "Azimuth".

Photo: Approximate front line in the Pokrovsk sector/DeepStateMap.

The Russians are pressing near the villages of Novoselivka Persha, Sokil, and Novopokrovske, trying to reach the Pokrovsk-Konstantynivka highway.

Don't be indifferent. Make Russia pay. Please hear our cry out to the world, keep spreading our voices, and donate to our army and combat medics (savelife.in.ua, prytulafoundation.org, Serhii Sternenko, hospitallers.life, ptahy.vidchui.org, and u24.gov.ua).

[miljandeerus-06]

Put 5 songs you listen to, post it, then send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers!!

Top 5 songs i listen to

1. Bonnie and Clyde Yuqi

2. Viimeinen tanssi BEHM feat. Olavi Uusivirta

3. Good luck babe Chappell Roan

4. Something about you Eyedress

5. Band-Aid Halvorsen.

@waylonlikesmithers @kiddorob1996 @shiny-stones-are-pretty @candysweetiepie @likelydragongirl @sunrise-uses-picrew @clouly1987 @general-alister-azimuth @alilrobfantastic @goobergranola Can do this if you guys want to ☺️🤗

[misctea]

General Alister Azimuth: Four-Bolt Magistrate of the Lombax Praetorian Guard, Elder Councilman for the Center for Advanced Lombax Research.

About 10 years ago, I started a portrait of Azimuth, but I never finished it. I was about to go to college, and I just never finished it once I moved. Now that I've long since graduated and am reinvested in A Crack in Time, I decided to do a full blown piece for my favorite Local Man Ruins Everything guy.

Click for the full-size to see more of the detail!

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

MAGNESIUM-BASED LIFEFORM

Temporary bonus: -1 Shivers: No shakes

It is generally understood that human beings are carbon-based organisms, fusing little carbon tubes together to form complex, mushy structures capable of thought, love, and locomotion. It is also known that these structures sometimes like to “take the edge off” by consuming ethanol, amphetamine, etc. In such cases, it is important to supplement your body with magnesium. Tired? Mag it! Down? Mag time! Liver damage? MAXIMUM MAG! Some people say magnesium doesn’t really do anything and you just need to quit. What do we tell them?

DETECTIVE COSTEAU

Temporary bonus: -2 Conceptualization: An idiotic idea

Detective Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau – when you say it, it feels like you’re taking a bite of lemon meringue while sitting on the terrace of a seaside cafe. On a cool summer day. In Sur-La-Clef. It’s everything you’re *not*. You haven’t created many things during your stay in Martinaise, but you’ve created this. A fancy, sophisticated name that makes you sound intelligent. And that no one seems to *acknowledge*. Don’t you feel like you deserve a reward for coming up with something so special? And what would that reward *be*?

BRINGING OF THE LAW (LAW-JAW)

Temporary bonus: -1 Rhetoric: Weird jaw

Hey, so a little observation. It’s all cool, man. Don’t freak out, but every time you say “I am the law“ – and you say it *a lot*, it’s basically *hello* for you – your jaw does this *weird thing*. It sort of shifts sideways, hanging off your face at a jaunty angle, while the word *law* sounds oddly guttural and low. It’s… strange. You wouldn’t notice it, but after saying you’re the law eighty thousand times, the question *does* come up: why *do* you have Law Jaw?

DATE OF BIRTH GENERATOR

Temporary bonus: None

Your face looks like it’s 58 and your body feels like it’s 60. Your mind feels like it’s lived for one day or a hundred. Both longer than they ought to be, the day and the century…. But for how long, then, has this thing attached to your sentience walked the planet’s crust? Time to start racking those brains of yours, Elder One. When and where were you born?

MOTORWAY SOUTH

Temporary bonus: -1 Visual Calculus: Bizarre angles

At the edge of the map the landmass begins to disintegrate – into pure trigonometry. The ocean melts, becoming a tangle of sines and cosines, the mountain range turns into a sharp-angled azimuth. Its green rain shadow dithers, like music turning into a waveform. And then vanishes. This is the end, a half-remembered textbook from your childhood – the porch collapsing on the edge of the isola. A transition from reality to pale. A single vector shoots out, like a rocket. It’s the Motorway South, splintering off from the known pale! *To where*? Where does it go?

[theygotlost]

you may have noticed. that i occasionally poke fun at people for using the first names of characters usually known by their last names (garak, vetinari, etc) because 'you dont know him like that'. but then i turn around and do the very same thing to general alister azimuth. well thats because. i DO know him like that. runs away shyly

[phosphophillight]

talk about lenore THIS INSTANT (please)

LENORE!!!! everyone say thank you red … again…

Lenore Caester is the general branch manager of the Verus Technologies Corp, the company behind the Safe Haven Project🙏 She commonly speaks in the royal we. She appears and disappears at the blink of an eye if you’re not actively looking at her. She’s got the kind of voice and diction you’d find in advertisements. (If u wanna get super specific her current voice claim is the fax machine in dhmis s2 ep1.)

In classic VTCO fashion she denies time (the concept).

In one of my first artworks of Lenore ever (the old ones….) she’s holding a pen with a butterfly charm! In my last reference sheet of Lenore it only has one wing. The full butterfly is usually used to symbolize the actual CEO, while the single wing is for SUGAR (the CEO).

Lenore “adopts” Axl after the finale of genesis part 2. Axl runs into Lenore in the elevator and shes like “Hey You wanna go to school?” n hes like. omg yay. school⁉️⁉️⁉️

Lenore is like an android of sorts! She’s either a dead woman put back together or simply based on a woman previously alive. She either doesn’t remember or simply no longer feels attached to anything regarding her “past life” or “identity”. To stay true to her detachment from her past I likely won’t write her origins/mention it.

She’s shown to possess a lot of admiration for the actual CEO and speaks very highly of her.

Lenore isn’t super fond of most of the characters around her relevance level in the story. Main one being Edgar Reynaud! Obv. She doesn’t like him much. She also has a negative relationship with Azimuth! Azimuth has more of an upper hand there as their source of tension is Az’s unwillingness to cooperate. This leads to her getting dragged to mundane activities and hangouts with Az that she has to sit through in the hopes that he comes around eventually. Neither Lenore or Az are open about it when they dislike someone! So while they r both aware that the other person doesn’t like them either, from a 3rd person view they have a fun dynamic i think ^_^ Lenore is generally passive aggressive in a very artificially warm corporate way, while Az likes to fashion his distaste as something more flattering… so hes VERY nice. Hes very nice about it ^_^

Lenore’s dynamic with Morgaine is also interesting to me! It’s quite common for Morgaine to be the person getting the short end of the stick. I feel like she’s always the character who simply doesn’t know background information characters around her know. I feel like it’s a very cruel way to put it but she does end up being the laughingstock very frequently… n it’s not really her fault that this happens. This kind of continues with Lenore. Lenore is her boss. But also not really, because she never actually signs a contract to work with the company. There’s stuff Morgaine confines in Lenore, simply because she has to talk to SOMEBODY and theres not a lot of options. Ok apologies for the morgaine rant i love morgaine can u tell shes one of my favorite characters lmao . She’s still an outsider in the new world that’s been established. For many reasons. It’s kind of when you learn how a magic trick works and it just ruins the magic for you. She was there when a good chunk of the new world was being built, and she knows enough of it is false to be able to ignore it and live a “normal” life. Her normalcy isn’t whatever this is. Therefore she has to confine in people who are also outside this “normalcy”. Lenore is a good candidate for this very reason. For Morgaine, Lenore is the closest thing she can get to talking with a real person who’s also not going to invalidate every second thing she says. Lenore is semi-aware of this. She’s also aware of how horrified Morgaine was to learn the guy she thought she murdered was actually a robot. N there’s a little humor in it for Lenore. Because she’s also a robot.

On a less lore related note, I initially designed Lenore based on a random oc generator prompt thing i got from a website bc I was bored 🤧

Lenore also briefly shows up in a prequel story titled UO! She accompanies Una Hearthelow (creator of The quantum computer / edgar) to a vcto owned skyscraper.

If you remember The Umbrella ™ cycle, Lenore holds an umbrella over Morgaine at the finale of World’s End.

More character design details wise… She’s blue! Obviously because she’s a textbook #BC (aspect type). But she also has some pinks. Who are the pinks associated with? The CEO!!!!! Yippeee!!!! She also has very organic shapes throughout her design, with her dress somewhat resembling waves or water. These are also stuff associated with the actual CEO. She does have my statement square/rectangle shaped irises I give most of my robot-ai-any sorta techy characters! (It’s mostly a stylistic choice, her eyes likely just look. “normal” to everyone else) Her pupils are the 2 triangle hourglass-like shape that’s the vtco logo! Her eyes are a more purple color, i think mainly bc i just like it that way. But u could read into it with knowledge of what purple is associated with in my character designs/worldbuilding.

I’ll call it a day for now…. Feel free to ask me more specific details like dynamics with other characters yada yada.. either here or on discord 🫡

[thetruecrystalazimuth]

General Alister Azimuth 2023

Reference Used: www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/580964… Software Used: Paint and Gimp Alister belongs to Insomniac Games

[aecholapis]

10, 13, and 42 for the oc asks?

Sure! This one's a bit shorter.

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design?

The holder of the most complicated design title may be Ironwing but Altitude is a close second and he has only been referenced in asks about his brother or his bf so far which is why I think he should be the answer to this question. The biggest issue I have with him is the placement of his colors, not the design itself.

Dramatic, sociable, an absolute blast to have around, Altitude is the kind of person you'd want to invite to any kind of gathering for he will breathe life into it. He has a bright personality and an equally lively appearance to match.

His base form is a simple propeller plane, nothing special. Cybertron's atmosphere is comparatively thin and makes it nigh impossible for him or his brother to fly. They are bound to walk through their floating home city state Vos but they can fly just fine under a certain... altitude, hehe.

Like his brother, Altitude doesn't have an outlandish robot design either. They use extra parts to make themselves appear more formal in Azimuth's case and fancy in Altitude's. Sometimes, the actor walks around with his costume on (superficially added kibble) and refuses to take it down even when it inconveniences him.

They share colors too: black, white, green, red and a flash of pink to complete the look. Altitude sports orange parts as well while Azimuth has more blue and purple on his frame. The twins are walking fashion disasters and sometimes tricky to draw due to their odd color schemes.

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs?

There are a bunch! Munchy and Chomper for example. They are two sparkeaters @cyber-streak-2 has shared custody over and both are generally timid, although when they're at ease they might play a trick on mecha they know well. They're relatively young and are still testing out boundaries. Exopulse and Azimuth have to be patient with them.

It doesn't help that they're considered to be preternatural creatures by Cybertroniankind and that their ghastly appearance is hard to hide. They gotta use those creepy vibes to spook a mechanism or two.

(Old, unfinished sketch of Chomper)

Another noticeable troublemaker is Sparkattack :) Sparky needs enrichment.

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods?

Not Helios haha, please don't mention the sun when he's around. No! Nooo! Helios come bACK-

Acidsplicer harbors a healthy amount of curiosity regarding the world and history happens to be a part of it. Reading is only one of her thousand unsuccessful hobbies but it is something she attempts to get into over and over and over again.

She lacks the patience to read through any book longer than a novella. Either because she keeps interrupting her reading by doing something else besides or If she can't finish it in one day or one sitting, she will have a hard time returning to it because there are always so many more things she should be doing instead.

It must be said that she would love short stories about Greek mythology. She's not a literary nerd, but rather an artist and she will seek the beauty in prose. Beauty which she can memorize and illustrate in a painting or form in a sculpture. According to her, literature does not always do it justice.

Like numerous heroes in ancient greek mythology, she is obsessed with being the best at something. She knows how to use every tool she comes across and has a broad basic knowledge, however, she cannot recognize how valuable this knowledge is and will complain about her inability to master a skill.

This is in no way connected to the myth of Pygmalion and she will never find her Galatea/something she is good at.

But yeah, she'd like Greek mythology.

Snowblast would be less interested in it, but if Acidsplicer recommended him anything, he'd become interested in it too.

[asksoft2020]

QPS Qinsy 9.6.3 torrent download

request by email to: asksoft@proton.me

QPS Qinsy 9.6.3 torrent download request by email to: asksoft@proton.me

QPS Qinsy 9.6.3 Qinsy software is a simple and powerful multi beam software developed and designed by QPS in the Netherlands. Meet the requirements of multi beam and single beam measurement, and be able to adapt to Windows 7/Windows 8/Windows 10 Qinsy data acquisition+Qimera data post-processing. Real time 3D display of water depth points ◎ Covering the needs of multi beam field operations Can connect multiple marine equipment to work simultaneously Multi window display for real-time monitoring of investigation process Automatic correction and removal of real-time water depth data Real time generation of color gridded water depth data Correction of attitude, tide level, GPS, RTK, SVP, and installation angle ◎ Output data includes: strip water depth data, side scan image data, positioning data, azimuth data, and measurement ship attitude data, etc

[ambiguouspuzuma]

The Horologist

The HRS Azimuth was doomed on the eighteenth of August. It had lost its bearings early in the morning, at exactly a quarter past three, and thus began its sombre journey across the Styx - for all souls aboard were lost when it was finally found again. A ghost ship, run into a sheer cliff face as if on purpose; scuttled, like the crabs which now roamed freely across its decks.

Maritime calamities are rarely recorded with such precision. This is inevitable, despite the best efforts of their attendant historians, due to the way that wood decays, or salt preserves; meaning that whilst corpses may be examined, in order to determine a general time of death, there is no knowing how slow and drawn out the wait for it had been.

There are too many variables: one crew might have saved more rations, or doled them out more carefully, and hence postponed starvation for at least a few more tortured days. The end was set, but they could take their time in getting there. In this case, however, Arturo knew the moment of the struck ship's doom for certain. After all, he had planned it all out in advance.

Of course, it could be argued that the ship had been doomed all along - dead in the water from the moment that she left her berth, the crew's fate having been sealed long before that fateful night. If he had been pressed on that point, Arturo might have pointed to an evening some months hence, the minutes following a dinner which had been too rich for his tastes; digesting his own first taste of crab, but struggling to stomach his dining companions most of all.

"And have you ever worn a beard yourself?" asked Lord Gastan, seated to his right. He stroked his own forked number as he spoke, consciously or not, in a way that shed stray hairs across the tablecloth. Arturo moved his glass a few inches to the left.

"I am afraid not, my lord," he replied, without a question of his own. He saw that topic opening up like a chasm before them, a long-winded conversation about nothing of interest, and did his best to close it down. "I must confess that I have never seen the appeal."

"Ah, but perhaps you are right." Those taciturn tactics seemed not to have worked; Lord Gastan only nodded sagely, as if prompted into deeper thought. "They are such work to care for! The lotions, the oils, the constant tending - oh, like a Persian cat, or a pedigree Afghan hound!"

He bore the air of a man who had neglected to shave one morning and, rather than apologise for such slovenliness, decided to make it his entire personality. Such men always spoke of wearing their facial hair, an accessory to be consciously donned or discarded at will, rather than a disordered growth which freely sprouted from untended skin.

Arturo kept his bat straight. "I have never kept pets either, my lord."

"My God, man! Whatever do you do?"

That roused his attention. I work, Arturo wanted to say: both to sap more energy from the conversation, and to emphasise the difference between them. But he had to make the effort of civility. These Guild dinners were a chore, but they were all part of that work, an important investment in his career.

The city's Makers were often self-made men, but there was a limit to how far that path could take them. Even the greatest artificers could only make so many sales directly from their crooked shops, largely surrounded by competitors and peers. To truly reach their potential, they required a degree of patronage - investment in the latest apparatus, commissions, introductions, renown - and that meant being patronised from time to time.

The Guild arranged these dinners so that those two worlds could meet, to mutual gain; playing matchmaker between aristocrats and artificers, between money-men and, well, matchmakers. The likes of Lord Gastan could invest in Arturo's work - purchasing a stake in the future, anxious not to be left in the past. They would make a tidy profit, increasing their wealth and forestalling that irrelevance, whilst helping him up to the first rung of a ladder they had never had to climb themselves.

"I am a horologist," he replied instead. "A crafter of pillars and plates, balances and barrels, caps and cases. A maker of fusees and escapements. A cutter of wheels, a painter of dials, an engraver, a piercer, a finisher. That is what I do, and that is what I am."

"Ah... very good." After bearing with his babbling for three courses, Arturo was pleased to leave Lord Gastan lost for words. "And these, ah, escapements..."

"I make watches and clocks."

"Right. Yes. Such valuable work! Why, I myself was saying just the other day - to none other than the Admiral, you understand - that we have such a wealth of talent in the city, we really must be able to solve the issues his chaps have been having in the fleet."

"Issues?" For the first time, in over eighty minutes - according to Arturo's watch, which was never wrong - their conversation threatened to become interesting.

"Oh, yes! The search for new chronometers, of course - just as vital as the hunt for new uncharted lands, to hear the Admiral tell it, and of course crucial to their success. The current batch of instruments are just not up to snuff, and his office has decreed a new Trials to muster up some alternatives."

"They need... clocks?" The colonial machine had always seemed, well, imperious. Arturo couldn't think of it running on clockwork, let alone struggling to do so.

"Something to do with co-ordinates, as I understand it," Lord Gastan said. "Mariners have no way of telling longitude at sea, and there have been some terrible disasters as a result. I always thought they used the stars, but apparently they're not up to anything but latitude."

He stroked those luxurious moustaches when thinking, as if hoping to turn the conversation back to his subject of choice. Arturo resented them, knowing just what a luxury they were: he had answered honestly about his lack of facial foliage, but it was not a matter of never having seen the appeal, rather needing to retain his appeal to others.

As a newcomer in this city, he'd had to appear clean and clean-shaven at all times in order to be invited to Guild dinners in the first place. Arturo was a watchmaker by birth, but an Armestadter by trade. Upon arrival, he'd made it his vocation to steep himself in the city's stereotypes and culture: first to earn his residence, and then to earn a living. Flowing locks might be accepted on imported cats and hounds, but the city's great and good would only brush shoulders with a certain kind of immigrant.

He wore his curls cropped-close, his brown cheeks bare, and a simple, pressed white shirt - always tailoring his personality to match, keeping within the box they'd made for men like him. People wanted to do business with young Arturo, the neat and tidy islander whose impeccable service always came with a bow and a smile. He'd had to dispense with his traditional dress, his long, braided hair, and his pride most of all. They would not take him as he'd come, independent and free, so he'd suffered in subservience - and found pride in his work instead.

"Disasters?" That had his attention, even more than the talk of keeping time.

"Without a bearing, ships can be lost. Have been, in fact - and more than a few. Small wonder that the Admiral is making this a priority."

"Of course." The gears in his own mind were still turning. "Do you mind explaining how it works? I have a professional interest, you see."

"Well, from what I was able to grasp - and I am far from an expert, you understand - if a clock is set at its home port, and well-maintained, the navigator can simply check the time wherever he is and compare the two. The difference is his longitude: the number of degrees east or west."

"How would he know the local time?"

"Why, by observing the heavens!" Lord Gastan spoke as if it was obvious, the numbers plastered across the sky. "Again, I am hardly a mariner myself, but I gather that this is what sextants and such are for."

He talked as a man who often gathered, but rarely sowed. Lord Gastan was not the type to work the field himself. Arturo doubted he'd ever held a sextant, or any other tool more complex than the oyster fork he waved to make his point. It was his liberty to talk about such things as matters-of-fact, another man's life's work distilled into an anecdote, enjoying the fruits of a knowledge he had never had to earn.

Arturo eyed his shabby, ill-fitting clothes with contempt. Not for the style - having grown up on hand-me-downs himself, he had no right nor inclination to prejudge a book by its jacket - but that he was able to carry it off, due to the vest of privilege worn underneath. A chainmail forged from silver spoons. How much had he saved for his Guild dinner clothes, fretting each time over starching them enough? All when Lord Gastan could roll into this grand hall as if it was his drawing room. The nouveau riche could afford to dress well, but only old money could afford not to.

"That does sound useful." Arturo was an expert in the detail of his craft, but he hadn't considered such far-reaching applications. "But we have perfectly well-functioning clocks. I work on them every day. Forgive me, but I fail to see the problem."

"Well, this is your profession, not mine." Lord Gastan didn't try to hide his exhaustion with this line of questioning, but Arturo let the sigh go without comment. He was glad to be the bore for a moment. "But it is all to do with the pendulum. A reliable timekeeper on land, yes, but it simply cannot abide life at sea. The temperature, motion, corrosion, friction, lubrication..."

"I see." Arturo smiled. The pendulum. He would simply have to make a clock without its central part. "Well, I could certainly take a stab at that."

"If you wish to add your name, any and all attempt are welcome," Lord Gastan said, both magnanimous and patronising. "The two-hundred arum reward has attracted many young hopefuls. Of course, only the Masters have succeeded at a Trials before."

"Of course," Arturo echoed. He was not a capital letters Master, nor had much prospect of becoming one, though it was not for want of skill. In its lower case, he had achieved mastery within months of arrival; after years to hone consistency, he now produced a masterpiece every other week. But ability was not enough. Even Armestadt, that great beacon of talent, was far from a meritocracy.

The rank could only be bestowed by invitation from the Guild, and the Guild was comprised of Masters. They had grown old and rich on the backs of imported genius, young minds to be apprenticed and bound to their brands, shackled to their workshops with a distant promise of inheritance. They saw no reason to end that careful balance; the gate they kept barely ajar, so that they alone could mete out the proceeds of their work. They had no reason to promote him from inferior to equal; from underdog to competitor.

Arturo had forged his own path, but it had been a narrow, winding one, and it could only take him so far. He was a man who preferred his own company, to be left to - and with - his own devices, but he needed these dinners, the charity of patrons, in place of a Master to serve and suckle from. Then there was the prospect of these Trials: two-hundred arums would fund his work for months, or reduce his reliance on sponsors like Lord Gastan. For an independent Maker, it was a tempting reward all its own. But Arturo had another prize set in his sights, and it was worth far more to him than gold.

After dinner he retired to his workshop, the place where he'd strived to retire so many of his competitors. Arturo had never lacked for motivation, but now he was charged with a new focus: Lord Gaston had sold him the vision of a clock that could go anywhere in the world, and still dance to his beat with perfect rhythm. At least, Arturo thought, he had a project worthy of his talent. After years toiling in the shadows of the greats, this would be his masterpiece.

Armestadt was the city of the future. There were others with more prestige, certainly, more intellectual pedigree - and the Guild might have chosen the university towns of Tornfut and Roelm to seed its roots, if it had wanted thirsty minds and bright ideas, or the market capital of Hasanbout, if it was in need of golden arums most of all, raw materials and hefty coffers to buy them.

But it had settled here. Not for knowledge of the past, or the riches of the present, but the promise of the future. Armestadt was a city of Makers, most of all. Its bustling streets were crowded with all manner of artisans who had dedicated lives to their particular professions: polymaths who expounded genius with their hands rather than words, alchemists who created things from iron worth far more than their weight in gold.

It was Makers who crafted the specific, delicate pieces required for the advancement of Science - lenses for refracting light, intricate pulley mechanisms - and thus kept the wheels of progress moving on. Since his arrival in this foreign land, it was all Arturo had ever wanted to be. He had been powerless, impoverished, and knew that he could never gain the wealth or power lords like Gastan had been born with. But he could have knowledge, and talent, and graft. As a Maker, he could make himself their equal.

His workshop was nestled in the crook between Candlewick Lane and Creechurch Street, a thin building whose bulging bow windows gave the impression of being squeezed by its neighbours. It was an expensive part of town, with space at a premium, but convenient for his clients and potential benefactors. A twenty-minute walk from the Guildhall, if he made good time - and Arturo always did.

It was also his temple. He did most of his work in a narrow room, cluttered with all sorts of contraptions, half-finished, half-begun. It was a house of clockwork faces ticking in step, as Arturo did himself: he heard the music of the passing time, and knew how to play it on almost any instrument. His lungs breathed with the second hand, his heart beat with the pendulum.

Or not. He would have to find another way.

It wouldn't be the first attempt. There had been experiments with springs, for pocket-watches and carriage-clocks, but so far they'd lacked the precision of his more traditional work. Portable clocks were a novelty - some found them for short-term use, but they lacked the perfect accuracy Arturo had always craved. Still, if the Admiralty demanded it, he would have to see what he could do. He had long laboured at perfection; now he set his sights higher still.

It could be said that the HRS Azimuth was doomed that night: the moment the crew's fate was sealed behind glass, wound up and set to run. But their end might have been foretold even earlier, on another ship, bringing Arturo to their shores - or perhaps on the ships of the past, heading to conquer the land where he'd been born. He was the fruit of those seeds; the reaper their ancestors had sowed. The enemy who'd grown here in their midst. The cuckoo who now emerged from amongst his clocks.

Armistadt was the city of the future, as all of its local nobles loved to boast. Unfortunately for them, Arturo hailed from one of the nations of the past. His homeland was a once-mighty kingdom, brought low by the greed of its own rulers, and dragged lower by the greed of their new ones: imperialists who'd arrived to trade their sovereignty for a handful of magic beans, trinkets such as those he now made for their approval. When one man can be bribed to sell his kingdom, even the likes of Lord Gastan were rich enough to buy a crown.

Conquest had been a matter of business. They'd taken over the local mines, replaced their textiles, all industries now run from Hasanbout, native owners paid off for a fraction of their worth. With no opportunity at home, Arturo's peers had fled the sinking ship: their best minds flocked to Tornfut and Roelm, to learn how to supplant their mother tongue, to memorise the approved version of history. So it was that the ship continued to sink, with no-one left who knew how to right it again.

Arturo had arrived in Armestadt no better, but with little other choice: there were no Makers at home, no patrons, no Guild. If he wanted to master his craft, as he so sorely did, he would have to do it here. Armestadt was the city of the future, and it drew it in from miles around, leaving other places with little future left. This city was oft described as a melting pot, but Arturo had worked with furnaces, and knew that raw materials rarely arrived willingly. They were wheeled in as tributes to the flames; a sacrifice to something greater than themselves.

All four cities were a distortion that sat low across the landscape, a drain that drank in a hemisphere. Armestadt drew in talent as Hasanbout did cobalt, gold and iron ore, as Tornfut and Roelm did raw intelligence, and they all thrived like ticks upon their host. But such asset stripping was not without its costs. Trading routes were slung like grappling hooks across a vast and hostile continent, harpoons buried in the belly of a great whale, forgetting that roads run in two direction - and, once hitched, could be boarded from the other side. They exported resentment, and imported revenge.

Arturo made for an unassuming architect of destruction, stooped over his workbench: bow spectacles perched upon his nose, bow window allowing in the first glimpse of dawn to filter through. He worked delicately, as if wiring the clock to explode - his nimble touch dictating hands more graceful still, its calamity calibrated to the minute and minutest detail. He'd always taken care over his work, but this device might be his only chance to call an empire's time of death. Moreso than ever, he had to make it count.

Time was of the essence, with the Trials so soon. He worked around the clock, and then again, tinkering with every aspect to perfection, and then adding his imperfection back in. The trap would need to be intricate, to avoid detection by the judges, or those who oversaw the final installation. But nobody saw him now. The political philosophers loved to ask who watched the watchman, whilst the watchmaker entirely slipped their lofty gaze.

Arturo toiled for sleepless nights and restless days, counting down the seconds, one lined face above another. Time danced for him, allowing him to fit a month's work in a week, and he aged a year in exchange. But all that sacrifice was worth it. When the day of the Trials arrived, the device was finally ready: a carriage clock to fit a ship, more and less accurate than any that had come before. Arturo had cut his teeth on grandfather clocks, and now he'd created a clock worthy of his unborn grandchildren. Time had danced for him, and he'd plucked this dial straight out of the next century.

As promised, the Trials were flush with Masters. Arturo knew most of them by reputation, or past encounters, all of them disappointing. Lord Gastan had also shown up for the big event, along with some other high-rolling patrons of the Guild, as had the top brass of the admiralty. It was as if his whole world had been condescend into the docks for the day - or at least the ceiling that had always kept it contained. These were the limits of his present, and the pathway to his future.

As a late entry, and the lowest in seniority, Arturo's was the last scheduled attempt. He liked it that way. He was able to sit back and watch the so-called Masters expose each others' flaws, failing and falling one-by-one, before he took to the floor and exposed them all again. He needn't have worried so much before; or perhaps his fears had been well-placed, and driven him to resolve each and every one. Either way, there were no worries on the day. It all went like clockwork.

Going last, and coming first, meant that his coronation was easily lined up. Arturo stood clear as the most successful applicant, and there could be no doubt that his work had improved on all those who had come before. The device had worked just as intended; meaning that it worked well, for now, and didn't reveal the secret at its heart. Many of the Masters hadn't stayed past their own failed attempts, and Arturo thought it was the shame the whole Guild couldn't see his coronation - but it was sweet enough to be crowned by none other than the Admiral himself.

"I must congratulate you," he said, clasping his arm with a presumptuous hand. "Master...?"

"Arturo," he said, not bothering to make the correction. There was no stolen valour there. The rank was a formality he'd more than earnt in practice. "I am new to the Guild, but rising fast."

"As I see." The Admiral had seen what little he had permitted, but was the sort of man who liked to feel in charge. "Yours was an unexpected entry, as I understand, but the admiralty is fortunate that you decided to compete. You have your people's gratitude."

Arturo did not doubt it; though he suspected the Admiral was mistaken as to whom his people were. He was grateful now for the onerous Guild dinners, all of the practice with the likes of Lord Gastan, which had been rehearsal for this main event. He smiled and nodded, nodded and smiled. He was a metalworker, amongst everything else, and he knew how to manipulate the highest brass.

"It is my honour to serve," he said; a poor facsimile of patriotism, his mouth dry in the salt air. He was a far better liar with his hands. It was fortunate that these men heard only what they wanted to hear. "The fortune is all mine. But I have to thank Lord Gastan for his patronage. It was he who inspired me to stand before you here today."

He waved to his beloved patron, who seized this invitation to come and stand there with them. Lord Gastan had derived such pride from his previous conversation with the Admiral - none other, you understand - and Arturo knew he wouldn't resist a chance to bask in this reflected glory.

"Well, I can't quite take all of the credit," he said, as one who still felt tempted to give it a try. "But yes, it was my suggestion, I confess. I have always believed in the promise of Arturo here, and thought that this might be just the project for his keen and brilliant young mind."

Lord Gastan was hubris as always, but Arturo did not begrudge him the idea. It was true that, had they never spoken, he might well not be here today. He had planted the seeds of this ambition: the device, the Trials, the Admiralty's hour of need. There had been much about dogs and moustaches besides, but Arturo supposed that not everything the man said could be waffle. What was it they said about broken clocks?

"In fact," he said, "His Lordship deserves to enjoy the fruits of his inspiration. I have other commissions which keep me here, alas, rather than accompany my device on its grand voyage, but please, let him set sail in my place. If there is bounty, let him claim a share of it, in compensation for his generous patronage. If there is glory, doubly so."

"On uncharted seas? At my time of life?" Lord Gastan was as full of bluster as the dockside wind. "Oh, come now. In my youth, perhaps; but my seafaring days are long since past. I leave such adventures to the courage of younger men."

The Admiral coughed, perhaps to indicate that the pair were of an age; Arturo took the opening. "Oh but my lord, surely you do not doubt that the Admiral can keep you safe and secure? On his own flagship, no less? I am but a humble Makers, but surely our fleet are the power upon any waters they so choose to sail. Can you really question that?"

"I cannot," he conceded, although his eyes said otherwise.

"It won't be as frightful as it seems," the Admiral moved to assure him. "Ours is only an expeditionary voyage: to see and then return, with no drawn out engagements. We are simply to observe the unobserved; wonders never seen before by civilised man. I can offer you every comfort. Of course, it goes without saying that you can share my personal quarters."

Lord Gastan brightened at that prospect; a captive audience for his tedium. "You honour me, Lord Admiral."

"The honour will be mine, I am sure, to have such an esteemed guest upon our maiden voyage."

Arturo let them carry on the dance. He had learnt some of the steps, some of the words, across his early Guild dinners, but only aristocrats truly had the gift of it: like the food served, the language of diplomacy was too rich for an artificer's palate, and sickening in any but the merest quantities. Only those born to wealth, having been raised on its receiving end, actually had the stomach to enjoy it.

If Lord Gastan suspected a trap, he no longer shied away. He might recognise Arturo's insincerity, but think his motive plain: favour, patronage, influence with the Guild. He would be accustomed to such flattery, after all: the efforts of ambitious Makers to curry favour with whatever they had to offer as a bribe, compliments and complimentary mechanisms. All bare-faced manipulation, but all in good taste. He had courted such courtship himself, in attending Guild events. It he did not enjoy it, he would not have been there.

Arturo smothered the inner protests of his own anaemic pride. Against all odds, he had acquired two champions of the highest rank; with their support, should he continue, he would surely now make Master within the year. With a foot in that door, his path would be cleared for the next decade: to greater recognition, arums more than he could need, commissions to the greatest in the land. But he was himself a champion to others, from before he had arrived at these docks, and his first duty was to them.

At 3:15 on 18 August, the crew of the HRS Azimuth could feel that something was wrong.

They knew no fear upon these waters. Theirs was the flagship of the expeditionary fleet, the apex of the admiralty's ambition, the quill which would better divide the globe from Hasanbout. With sister ships to starboard and port, fore and aft, they'd set a course over the edges of the map, afraid of no peril or piracy that might assail them. They were the cutting edge that pierced the veil of ignorance: the Masters had crafted a sharper deadrise for speed, more powerful cannon for strength. Every plank of their ship was state-of-the-art.

Of course, that was where they were undone. Arturo's art had served a different state, a different muse. Following the successful Trials, he had been commission to outfit the whole fleet with his perfected chronometers, each set to the same exact time. He decked them out and cabined them in, a device wherever one might fit, and the Admiral was pleased to stand upon the future's gleaming prow: a line of shining clockwork galleons, a dozen cogs filled with a thousand gears and pinions.

It was a fortnight out to sea before the fear made itself known to them. For some, having grown used to the rhythm over the past weeks, it was simply a silence they couldn't place: a hole in the air, a lacuna in the melody of lashing surf and ocean gales. Amongst the music of the far side of the world, they'd been soothed by the ticking of a shell held to their ears, a clockwork conch that held the sound of home.

Some officers, with devices in their quarters, their every hour, minute and second tolled away, had found themselves attuned to that metronome: their breathing subconsciously aligned, their heartbeat keeping pace. It had become a crutch, taken for granted, until it fell out from underneath them; at 3.15 they found themselves stumbling, awoken gasping from their sleep without knowing why, before their assorted organs remembered how they'd functioned before.

For the navigators, it was an even graver problem. The night shift were already a skeleton crew, and they didn't notice when their bearings disappeared: the clocks simply stopped, frozen at a quarter past, and it was several minutes before they realised it had been a few. They tried to keep track, but there was no hope of counting on their own. From that point on, their hours were already numbered.

The next bearing was wrong. Days of ocean in every direction, not a glimpse of land in sight. As ever, Arturo had timed it to perfection. Stripped of its ability to navigate, the ship had been forsaken on the open sea: at the mercy of the winds and the tides and the twinkling mockery of the stars above, tracing a map that none on board had ever learnt to read. Such was the price of progress. Each advance in understanding covered over its own foundations.

Arturo knew all about that. Armestadt was the city of the future, and it built atop whatever past it came across, diverse cultures buried underneath its steel grey perfection. The progress of this expedition had a price that he had deemed too great to pay - and so he buried them instead. There were no bells to toll their death, nor the salvation of the lands which would go unrobbed, unmolested by the hunger of their endless tomorrow. The sand in the hourglass simply ran out, as the HRS Azimuth was quietly lost to time.

[sunset-synthetica]

Soo what stuff are ya gonna change plotwise in tf apotheosis aka the tfp s2-3 re-write. like whats elita gonna be like for this au alongside jazz n kup?

I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna actually publish a full rewrite as I'm busy as fuck and my past attempts at multi chapter fics have NOT gone well, but tldr I wanna go with the space pirates concept the writers had originally planned out. The overarching themes would be a focus on how team Prime has gotten used to humans and adapted some cultural norms that Cybertronians view as unusual, and how the death of Cybertron impacted everyone (not just the Autobots). They've lost their home, and everyone would adapt differently to that, from trying to replicate it, to adapting a different cultural identity to cope with the loss.

I'd also wanna explore some of the characters more in-depth and either expand on or change their arcs a bit, particularly making Optimus' stance on Megatron and the war change more drastically, expand on Ratchet's feelings towards his position as a medic and his relationship with Raf, and of course give Arcee the revenge she should have gotten.

As for the new characters I'd introduce: Elita-1 is the captain of the pirate ship, the Azimuth. Her and Optimus disagreed about the fate of Cybertron. She left with some other Autobots to try and set up a base on another planet, but overtime converted their ship into a sort of traveling haven, welcoming anyone who found themself in their situation- lost and with nowhere to go. She's effectively removed herself from the conflict, and does her best to welcome anyone, former fried or foe, on the ship. Although there had been some security issues at first, her and her chain of command didn't give up.

She does her best to rid herself of the hardened shell the war had forced her into, but still struggles with it. She may come off as a bit too radical or easy to anger to some, but both stem from a genuine fear for her people and a deep passion for what they've all managed to build.

Azimuth itself has the particular quirk of always being changed. Occasionally, someone comes up with the idea of creating a map, but it never gets anywhere, as the layout never stays the same. Whether repairing existing structures or adding new walls, modules or even external parts of the ship, making an accurate map is impossible.

Jazz is the ship's chief communications officer, always by the radio. When she's not talking to pilots of the ships they occasionally encounter, or trying to catch a broadcast from a nearby planet, she likes to station herself by a common area and play or sing music. Although she's very liberal with the tools at her disposal, often blocking one of the side channels so she can play music or act as a self-appointed DJ (not that people don't feed into it) she is incredibly aware of her responsibilities, and knows when to sober up.

Kup doesn't really have a specific role on the ship. He occasionally helps maintain the weapons on-board, but spends most od his time relaxing or talking to others about his life in both wars (the civil, most recent and the war with Quintessons). He tends to get more than a bit heated at times, but is generally regarded as an expert on the topic, and a kind soul under a rough exterior.

[zapporter]

"It's not working!" Azimuth cried as the great clock erupted in more sparks. "Why isn't it working?!"

"Because it's not a time machine, Alister!" Ratchet blurted out. "The great clock isn't meant to control time, only to keep it!"

Suddenly, Azimuth pinned Ratchet to the ground, choking him with his staff.

"You don't get it, do you, idiot?" He growled at the younger lombax. "I don't care about time. I care about the lombaxes! Your father! You're betraying your own family just for a piece of scrap metal."

Ratchet snapped. He kicked Azimuth in the chest, rubbing his throat afterwards. The elder stumbled, dropping his staff. Ratchet rushed to the weapon and grabbed it.

"Clank is the only family I've ever had, and will ever need!" Ratchet cried. He rushed to the great clocks terminal and slammed the staff inside, trying to forward it back to the present.

"Let go of that!" Azimuth got to his feet and pushed Ratchet to the ground. The elder pulled and pulled but the staff wasn't coming out. Suddenly, a big bolt of lightning struck Azimuth. He fell to the ground, as an eerie calm filled the air.

"General..."

-

So I rewrote A Crack in Time's ending. Azimuth's redemption felt too rushed, so I just had him die ignorant

[map-projection-showdown]

KAVRAYSKIY VII vs AZIMUTHAL EQUIDISTANT

Kavrayskiy VII Pseudocylindrical Compromise

Created in 1939 by Vladimir V Kavrayskiy (Sometimes transcribed from Cyrillic differently, Kavraisky seems to be the most common alternative, used by G.Projector) for use as a general-purpose compromise projection in Soviet atlases. It has seen little use outside the area of the former Soviet Union, where usually the Robinson is used instead.

Mathematically it is the same as the Wagner VI projection horizontally compressed by sqrt(3)/2, however it has very low distortion values on many metrics, comparable to the Winkel Tripel.

This projection is mentioned in passing under the Winkel Tripel's entry in xkcd 977.

Azimuthal Equidistant Azimuthal Equidistant

While it may have been known as far back as the ancient Egyptians, the Azimuthal Equidistant projection was first described by al-Biruni around the year 1000. As an equidistant projection all distances from the chosen centre point can be measured correctly, meaning it is often used for things like missile range maps and other uses where only the distance from a single point is important.

Because of its circular shape, the polar aspect is often used for maps in logos such as the emblem of the UN. It can also be cropped to show a single hemisphere, and can be shown as two hemispheres side by side in the equatorial aspect like this.

[link to all polls]

Political:

Tissot's Indicatrices:

Images created by Tobias Jung (CC BY-SA 4.0) from map-projections.net