#lethal insane face economy

[amorettopedri]

anyway he looked so pretty, as always 😍

[scentedchildnacho]

I went to the bahai center to ask them about a speaker at unitarian universalist church who told us after cancer treatment she finds cow eating the enemy and nuclear power the solution to all harm....

So i explained to me uranium mining cannot ever be an environmental point....it's the belief indigenous peoples have a much longer history and these deposits existed in space for a reason or Rachel Carson and should not have been disturbed

And we observe beef eating because the Midwest was grasslands history before before the uranium bombs of the Great depression and the earth quakes of the dust bowl

So the buffalo migration was disturbed so the indigenous peoples were like well give them this cattle if it's proven effective for the french and that beef economics tend to stabilize relations with some indigenous groups

I was a white doll and it's the symmetry of face sought in milk drinking

I explained I was Lutheran then later Catholic and learning the existential stuff was later explained to me as lutheran or what Luther was...

So observing meat eating is seen as appropriate sacrifice and sense of service....I'm really rich and these are all my beautiful bulls instead of those poor ailing people must be my people also so I'm going to blood sacrifice this animal so my people are not sacrificed

Anyway I was admitting to eating cow there are important enzymes for certain genetic dispositions especially as seen in Vietnam veterans kids....that if you take away beef ritual they can't digest certain medications and these women if called Hindus go completely and violently insane

If they starve they become really really lethal new York immigrant types that helter skelter at people

The speaker said she was religious studies so I was like I'm sorry but I feel bad lorilai biernacki could not just be a steak waitress....calling a frat girl that important will maybe leave her in hell...violence is the worst thing that can ever happen to someone

There appears to be an important treaty to observe between attempting to call North American ethnicity Asian.....because if you finally give them the formality of a steak dinner their just so much more modest and humble and funny

The bahai center told me it's a divisive comment so don't focus on any type of pragmatics it's divisive and not good

In Temecula their position is the indigenous peoples were cattle companies...and this has to do with forestation....like the great north american oak....

I went to the Korean monument on learning to be free from the Japanese from the United States.....I guess when I think about company waitress the blue economy or commercial fishing cannot satisfy many energetic desires and if the Japanese keep energizing my neighborhood like they have legislated it turned into a trash land fill then it's kill the cow and eat it

I have a headache because the Japanese called my neighborhood a land fill so it's kill the cow and eat it for land to use

Statin for heart disease caused myopathy so kill the cow and eat it to be free from Japanese heart care

The fruit trees for cultivation if cattle that romantic period in film

Natural gas would be way better then nuclear...to cure niche ideation

Women should be more like men to have status citizenships.....if your a man you can be Hindus and be really clean that way and observe very low fat body types....I feel like anne frank personally if people won't observe pork...

Transgressive...

Biernacki as violent....that would be Foucault on the inverse people who use gender to create their following.....and the following also starts hallucinating in persecutory ways and starving themselves to death also....I'm sorry but thats neo nazish concentration

That's not Hindus that's demonology....

The women who attacked me in the Temecula project somewhat alluded to humiliations surrounding a mexican ideal person and physical beauty

The standards of Mexican ideal cosmetic forms was in some way very humiliating for them to be around

I think the cu boulder professors were called weird in some way and people peed on or I think really raped can't anymore find any compassion for people here

People should not wish criminality on common women....

I don't speak German to understand this China formation of puppet in art....but apparently puppet is very humiliating for them and sending them to die of him is preferable to running away from there

I think more drug dealing then mentalism.....it can appear to be about mentals....but gwas is millions and millions of people to pharmaceutical....

They get in trouble for drug dealing and these humiliations till its they will kill your population if it won't stop being so unified in obeisance

She wanted to know if I was polish at the bahai center so I said no I'm from Wisconsin but a famous basilica in Milwaukee Wisconsin was polish or east European so it's immigration concerns tended to become a public idea...that's true there are genetic comparisons between the upper Midwest and eastern bloc

Your mother is busy play outside at something

This is the new structure

Doppelganger my east European relations are not bothered by that

I told them the shelter is good for me though it's a lot of people and that's actually safe feeling.....

Disaster anxiety....the drug dealers on the street I think are scary though....

Their really compulsive that someone do drugs for them and it's really aggressive sales I haven't seen or remembered in like 20 years or more

I get frightened to be too alone...and the shelter is at least diverse and people are honest about how they feel so

I told them the goal of the program is that someone or something professional is concerned that I react to circumstances so resistively.....

Becoming to decisive that for my life to go on that I have to be homeless normal people have decided is abnormal psychology I guess

Its just so I realize that I can do the things people do and live I get horrible phobias of ever being

So I have to start by going to the DMV and understanding the real 🆔 process....which is important because trying to work without legislation involved is a huge drama problem of potential injury

Then I have to find a legal group to get my court date to start my real 🆔 process my passport was like from 2000 and my last licence from like 2007 so I don't know how to find my documentation anymore or how to go about applying without a court ordering my records transfered

The police have a system that if I give them my name their computers just draw up my files and that's kind of addictive to civil unrest that that isn't always done

Who are these people that need anything from me

[newstfionline]

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Biden’s Afghanistan plan a plus to some vets (AP) Patrick Proctor Brown says the war in Afghanistan was lost within a year of its start. The suburban Milwaukee lawyer, who was an infantry captain in Iraq, said the trillions of dollars spent and the thousands of lives lost, including a lieutenant he trained with, make it “a tragedy.” “And the Taliban will be back in power in a year,” said Brown, 35, who also studied diplomacy at Norwich, a military university in Vermont. “It’s insane.” Brown supports President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, and by voting for the Democrat, he represents a subtle but potent shift in the voting behavior of some in the military. Voters who served in the military have long leaned toward Republicans. But there are signs that Biden may have cut into that advantage. “This president has got to end these wars,” said Jon Soltz, a former Army tank captain who formed the Democratic-leaning VoteVets.org in 2006. “He’s got to fulfill some of these promises. There’s a war-weariness in the military.”

Riot declared after windows smashed in Portland protests (AP) Police in Portland, Oregon, declared a riot Friday night after authorities said protesters smashed windows and burglarized businesses during demonstrations that started earlier in the day after police fatally shot a man while responding to reports of a person with a gun. The vandalism downtown came after the Friday morning police shooting but also was part of vigils and demonstrations already planned for the night in the name of people killed in other police shootings nationwide. They include 13-year-old Adam Toledo of Chicago and Daunte Wright, a Black man in a Minneapolis suburb. Deputy Police Chief Chris Davis told reporters earlier in the day that a white man in his 30s was shot and killed by police, who opened fire with a gun and weapons that fire non-lethal projectiles. A witness who spoke to reporters at the scene said the man, who had removed his shirt and was blocking an intersection, appeared to be in a mental health crisis.

Castro era in Cuba to end as Raul confirms he’s retiring (Reuters) Raul Castro confirmed he was handing over the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party to a younger generation at its congress that kicked off on Friday, ending six decades of rule by himself and older brother Fidel. In a speech opening the four-day event, Castro, 89, said the new leadership would be party loyalists with decades of experience working their way up the ranks and were “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” The new generation of leaders, which did not forge itself through rebellion, has no easy task. The transition comes as Cuba faces the worst economic crisis since the collapse of former benefactor the Soviet Union, while there are signs of growing frustration, especially among younger Cubans. A tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo and the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated a liquidity crisis in Cuba’s ailing centrally planned economy. Shortages of even basic goods mean Cubans spend hours lining up to buy groceries.

Argentina closes schools, imposes curfew in Buenos Aires as COVID-19 cases spike (Reuters) Argentina’s government will tighten pandemic restrictions in and around the capital Buenos Aires to rein in a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases, including shutting schools and imposing a curfew from 8pm to limit social activity. President Alberto Fernández, 62, given his all-clear earlier in the day after he was infected with the virus, said the South American country needed to “gain time” in the fight against COVID-19 after daily cases hit a record this week. The measures will see schools closed in Greater Buenos Aires from Monday, and the suspension of indoor sports, recreational, religious and cultural activities until April 30.

The queen says goodbye to Philip, continues her reign alone (AP) Sitting by herself at the funeral of Prince Philip on Saturday, Queen Elizabeth cut a regal, but solitary figure: still the monarch, but now alone. The queen sat apart from family members at the simple but somber ceremony in accordance with strict social distancing rules during the coronavirus pandemic. But if the ceremony had been for anyone else, at her side would have been her husband of 73 years, who gave a lifetime of service to the crown. The monarch’s four children and eight grandchildren sat in small groups nearby, during a stripped-back service at Windsor Castle that made their loss somehow more personal for people who often live their lives in public. The service was quiet and without excessive pageantry. Philip was deeply involved in planning the ceremony. At his request, there was no sermon. There were also no eulogies or readings, in keeping with royal tradition. Former Bishop of London Richard Chartres, who knew Philip well, said the 50-minute service reflected the preferences of the prince, who was a man of faith but liked things to be succinct. “He was at home with broad church, high church and low church, but what he really liked was short church,” Chartres told the BBC.

Philip’s legacy lives in chef who traded prison for kitchen LONDON (AP)—Jon Watts was 18 years old when he woke up in a prison cell and decided he had to change. He enrolled in every course he could find, from mathematics to business. But he says it was a program founded by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, that gave him a “passion for food” and a career as a chef when he got out of prison 3 1/2 years later. “I was a young boy in prison,” Watts, now 32, told The Associated Press. “It helped mold me to be what I like to think is a good person, and it set me up to believe in myself, to believe that I can achieve things.” After Philip’s death last week at age 99, politicians and world leaders rushed to eulogize his lifetime of service to his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, and to the British nation. For many people across the country, though, his greatest contribution was the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a program which seeks to give young people the skills and confidence they need to succeed. Participants in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award must complete volunteer work, improve their physical fitness, learn new skills, and go on expeditions to earn each of three progressively more difficult levels of achievement—bronze, silver and gold. More than 6.7 million people between the ages of 14 and 24 have taken part in the U.K., and the program has expanded to 130 countries since Philip founded it in 1956.

A Bitter Family Feud Dominates the Race to Replace Merkel (NYT) With less than six months to go before Germans cast their ballots for a new chancellor, the political vacuum Angela Merkel leaves behind after 16 years of consensus-oriented leadership is coming more sharply into focus. A rare and rancorous power struggle has gripped Germany’s conservatives this week as two rivals vie to replace her, threatening to further hobble her Christian Democratic Union, which is already sliding in the polls. Normally, Armin Laschet, 60, who was elected in January to lead the party, would almost assuredly be the heir apparent to Ms. Merkel. Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly pitted against his biggest rival, Markus Söder, the more popular head of a smaller, Bavaria-only party, the Christian Social Union, in a kind of conservative family feud. Experts and party members alike are calling for the dispute to be resolved within the coming days, as it risks damaging the reputation of the two conservative parties, jointly referred to as the Union. Because the two parties operate as one on the national stage, they must choose one candidate for chancellor.

Russia to expel 10 US diplomats in response to Biden actions (AP) On Thursday, the Biden administration announced sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies—activities Moscow has denied. The U.S. ordered 10 Russian diplomats expelled, targeted dozens of companies and people, and imposed new curbs on Russia’s ability to borrow money. Russia responded by saying it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said Moscow will move to shut down those U.S. nongovernment organizations that remain in Russia to end what he described as their meddling in Russia’s politics. The top Russian diplomat said the Kremlin suggested that U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan follow the example of his Russian counterpart and head home for consultations. Russia will also deny the U.S. Embassy the possibility of hiring personnel from Russia and third countries as support staff, limit visits by U.S. diplomats serving short-term stints at the embassy, and tighten requirements for U.S. diplomats’ travel in the country.

Russia’s surveillance state (Washington Post) Russian authorities are ramping up the use of facial recognition technology to track opposition protesters to their homes and arrest them—a powerful new Kremlin tool to crush opposition. But when state security agents are suspected of murders or attacks on journalists and opposition activists, surveillance cameras have at times been switched off or “malfunction.” And the system is so leaky that surveillance data on individuals can be bought for a small sum on Russia’s notorious black market in data, along with all kinds of other personal information. There is even a name for the clandestine cyber-bazaar: probiv. China leads the world in rolling out a vast network of facial recognition technology, including a system to track and repress its Uyghur minority. But Putin’s Russia is racing to catch up. Russian firms such as NtechLab produce some of the world’s most sophisticated facial recognition software as authorities grapple with counterpunches by the opposition, including using social media to expose Russia’s kleptocracy such as extravagances by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political allies. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the facial recognition system—rolled out in Moscow en masse in January 2020 and expanded to at least 10 other Russian cities—is now used in 70 percent of crime investigations. Moscow has more than 189,000 cameras with facial recognition capabilities, as well as more than 12,300 on subway cars in Moscow’s Metro.

Health care: The medical cost crisis will outlast COVID (The Week) Few would disagree that “much-reviled Big Pharma pulled off one of the great achievements in medical history,” said Geoff Colvin at Fortune—quickly developing multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines. Hospital workers, too, “have been heroes in the truest sense” in the fight against the pandemic. These are not groups America “wants to punish” right now. But something has to give. A system of “perverse incentives,” from drug distribution to insurance rebates, has made health-care costs “maddeningly untamable.” In the six years since the Affordable Care Act was passed, health-care spending per capita has increased faster than it did in the six years prior. Three-quarters of Americans say that the quality of the health care they get isn’t worth what they are paying for it. Big Hospitals and Big Pharma are “at each other’s throats” over who is to blame, but the trend in costs “isn’t about to reverse.” Poorer hospitals have “limped through the year,” straining under the costs of COVID, said Jordan Rau and Christine Spolar at Kaiser Health News, but many wealthier ones have done just fine. The U.S. has budgeted $178 billion in aid for health-care providers, and even profitable hospitals have gotten help. After receiving $454 million in federal aid, Baylor, the biggest nonprofit hospital system in Texas, “accumulated an $815 million surplus, $20 million more than it had in 2019.” Despite this, hospitals have devised ways to pass on costs, said Sarah Kliff at The New York Times. Lenox Hill, one of the oldest and best-known hospitals in New York City, has “repeatedly billed patients more than $3,000 for the routine nasal swab test” for COVID, “about 30 times the test’s typical cost.” The hospital “advertised its COVID-19 testing on a large blue-and-white banner,” then charged each visit as an emergency room procedure. Federal legislation mandated that coronavirus testing be free for patients. “But eventually, American patients bear the costs in the form of higher insurance premiums.”

[piratefjord]

So I’m a person who loves character death. I’ve had heaps of characters die in my games, I’ve died plenty of times myself as a character, but even by my own slightly morbid standards tonight’s ep felt a little... cheap. I’m going to do the adult thing and try to analyse why, so I can avoid it with my players and maybe some of you can too idk. The usual disclaimer: DnD is hard, its improv, and choices made in the moment vs hindsight are always a bitch (for DM and players alike). I think you should be able to criticise things without hating on them, especially if it’s done for learning purposes other than to just blame people.

ANYWAY.

This encounter was way too hard for the party to cope with. 

Which is fine, by itself. That fact is more obvious to anyone who DMs a lot (while all the players have DMed oneshots, I’m going to guess they didn’t dig too deeply into the meat of encounter difficulty calculation).  The more enemies you add, the exponentially harder an encounter gets. One boss monster may many times be easier to defeat than three medium minions, for the simple rules of turn economy. Your big boss monster might miss every attack on your player characters, and even with multiple attacks it usually can’t occupy or split up multiple resources. Multiple enemies means more rolls (kinda like giving advantage), a higher degree of aggro control over the battlefield to split up firepower. This is why multi enemies usually have pretty low HP pools compared to their relative damage output - lots of glass cannons if you will.

So even on paper, fighting a party of 7 with only 5 members is a bad idea. It’s going to be a tough encounter. While there was some suggestion of the level of deadly, based on previous party experience they’d had with multi enemies, there wasn’t a great deal of foreshadowing or warning about the fact that this encounter potentially broke the cardinal rule of multi-encounters, which is where enemies usually have low hp high damage, or high hp and low damage per turn. 

Which brings us to Lorenzo. It took me a while to work out what he was exactly. Ashly said he was a fighter to the party, which based on what he just pulled seems like a misleading description if Matt gave it to her. Cone of Cold is a level 5 spell, which is insanely powerful and could have TPKed the whole team. Let that sink in. It is also only available on sorcerer and wizard spell lists (and as a hexblade pact spell), however at no point is it ever available to an Eldritch Knight (fighter subclass). Even at level 20, they can only cast up to level four. I also thought it might have been a hexblade thing, however glaives are two handed heavy weapons and are therefore unavailable as a hexblade weapon. Add to this fact that Matt mentions that Lorenzo uses his action surge, which is a fighter trait, acquired at level 2. Cone of cold is available to wizards and sorcerers at 9th level. 

So this dude is at least a level 11 fighter/caster build, possibly level 14 (I’d need to rewatch to check for other multi attacks). That’s putting him in the realm of CR8 territory, which by himself is a hard encounter for a party of five level five characters. Adding only one or two CR1 creatures to this moves it into deadly territory, and those are the sorts of enemies they were crushing several levels ago. Adding an additional six, presumably of CR 2-3 territory puts this into actually bonkers territory, without a lot of warning or viable escape routes for your players. 

I think there may have been some degree of over-compensation for things like magical weapons, but no one would accuse the M9 of breezing through their previous encounters, which had party members close to death in them consistently. The difficulty curve increase comes left of field and was poorly telegraphed. ‘Making an example’ of players is something I only normally like to apply to players who are actively out of line, pushing the limits or generally trying to break the game. I’ve put dozens of ‘you will not win this with violence’ encounters in my games, most of which only end in death if players pursue them past the point of all warnings and by refusing to back out. While the same could be said of the M9, I don’t feel the warnings justify the outcome or the severity of the encounter. 

Things you can use to avoid things like this: 

Non-lethal punishments, where the PCs wake up captured or otherwise incapacitated, perhaps without resources, gold or other boons they’d previously acquired. Servitude to gods, curses, contracts etc are also good options. A good example here would be pressganging them into the slaver’s ring as well. 

Gradual escalation of combat, and pointed descriptors early to help PCs know when it’s time to bail. This includes things like their attacks doing very little damage, or scaring them with initial outlay of damage. 

Consistent signposting of encounters that shouldn’t be taken by force (if your players value their lives). Keg was an excellent way to help with this, but I feel Matt may have undersold the severity of the threat they were facing based on what Ashly said. 

Providing exit routes: you should make it clear that running is always an option.

You can only do so much, and sometimes the dice will roll against your players in ways that feel unfair or left of field (especially if you’re like me and regularly roll poorly). The best you can do is prepare your players for it and make it feel more like a consequence of a choice, rather than of chance. If you think you’ve made a mistake (and Matt may have underestimated just how badly this would go) don’t ‘apologise’ in as many words, but use it as a storytelling opportunity and try to course correct. Personally I’d use this as a chance to bring back Lucien, but we’ll see how Matt and Taliesin choose to proceed.  

[lhs3020b]

The Fugitive Worlds, by Bob Shaw

The Fugitive Worlds is the last novel in the Land/Overland trilogy. Since I’ve commented on the other two, here are my thoughts. And beware! here there (may) be Ropes! possbly even intersecting ones!

OVERVIEW

It's two generations or so after the Migration from Land. If you squint, society on Overland may have improved - apparently it has got a bit more meritocratic, there certainly has been some progress on gender issues, and this time the novel doesn't open with a random peasant being dragged off to be executed on some noble's arbitrary whim. Technology and infrastructure are changing - Cassyll Maraquine's industrial empire seems to be overseeing a pivot toward a metal-and-steam based economy, and in fact they seem to be in the early stages of an industrial revolution. On the plus side, this presumably means Overland isn't faced with another ptertha crisis in the near future, though a cynic may wonder if they've just swapped one environmental crisis for another one in a few centuries' time, when the seas start rising and the deserts begin to expand. But not to fear - there's every chance that the whole of society will be swept away by cataclysm long before that ominous possibility can occur!

You see, change is afoot in Overland's domain. Because, to the consternation of everyone except the government (who remain supremely complacent), a fourth planet has suddenly appeared in their star system. Attempts are made to bring this to the attention of the queen; unfortunately she's utterly fixated on a demented scheme to extend her reign back to Land itself.

At the opening of the novel, Toller Maraquine II, grandson of the star of the first two books, is discontent. As Cassyll's son, he could have had a life of wealth, privilege and social influence. Instead he spends his time mooning after his supposedly-heroic grandfather - yes, the same one who managed to simply forget that his first wife existed! Toller II, unfortunately, has inherited his grandfather's impetuousness and basic lack of any common sense. He's certainly not a monster, but he is an idiot. This is shown in the book's opening scenes, where he falls blindly in love with the Countess Vantara, despite the fact that she's an obvious schemer and bully.

Seeking to impress Vantara, Toller involves himself with the planned re-expansion onto Land. This swiftly gets disrupted, though, by the appearance of an expanding crystalline disk, growing across the zero-g datum plane that exists between the two twinned planets. The disk's rapid expansion cuts off travel between Land and Overland - it expands beyond the region of breathable air where the two planets' atmospheres meet - and to make matters worse, the Countess vanishes while trying to traverse said region! Oh no! Toller, of course, immediately resolves that he must go and rescue her. (She has treated him with nothing except derision and contempt by this point, and he of course fails to read the very obvious message in there.)

The predictable result of this is that Toller gets himself and his crew abducted by aliens, because of course the people of Land and Overland are actually currently bystanders in someone else's plans. Fortunately for Toller, the Dussarrans show no interest in probing him. Unfortunately for him, the expanding crystalline disk is actually a complex machine intended to relocate Dussarra itself away from the galaxy they all currently live in.

You see, the aliens believe that they are imminently threatened - their researchers have found evidence pointing to a collision between so-called "Ropes" somewhere astronomically nearby. (Ropes appear to be similar to the class of hypothetical topological defects that we call "cosmic strings" - fortunately for us, there's no evidence that cosmic strings actually exist in our universe.) This collision, they believe, will have produced an explosion somewhere between a gamma ray burst and a cosmological phase change. They fear that a wave of destruction is currently zooming toward them, at or close to the speed of light. If they are right, there is certainly no chance of Dussarra surviving it, hence their decision to begin relocating their planet.

Unfortunately there's a smaller problem. The Xa, the relocation engine they're constructing across the datum plane? When activated, it will destroy Land and Overland. The Dussarrans may be about to finish what the ptertha started around fifty years previously - the complete destruction of all civilisation on either Land or Overland!

A LEVER TO MOVE THE WORLD

Before we go any further, I'll give the Dussarrans credit for one thing: whatever their other faults, at least they're willing to think big. They are, after all, trying to address the Rope problem at source. If it were us in their situation ... well, half the newspapers would insist that Ropes don't exist, another third would claim they're leftist conspiracies to steal our precious body fluids, the remaining handful would write something mealy-mouthed about how Ropes might exist but maybe we shouldn't "overreact" for fear of a "pro-Rope" backlash. Centrists would call for a grand bargain with the Ropes - they can toast only HALF the planet in return for a top-up pupil premium on private school fees! Youtube user MagaCrypto2024 will tell you to invest your life savings in their newly-minted RopeCoin ("if it's golden enough for the quantum vacuum, it's gold enough for YOU!") and then a Tory would take 52% of the vote on a platform about how Ropes are great beacuse they'll eradicate the benefits claimants. 10 seconds after that, the shockwave demolishes the entire planet, and of course no-one ever admits that perhaps, just perhaps, they may have got it a bit wrong.

I'll say it again, whatever their other faults, at least Dussarra has managed to react to the crisis, and their behaviour isn't completely-insane.

That said, the Dussarrans' solution does suck.

Apparently the Xa requires weightlessness and a large supply of free oxygen to grow. It's not really clear why the Dussarrans couldn't have simply built a large bubble, say at one of their Lagrange points, pumped that full of air, and grew their Xa in there. There is a suggestion that the planetary alignment between Land and Overland is important too, the book does flip-flop this a bit too. Anyway we're left with the impression that the Dussarrans didn't have a lot of choice in where they built the Xa and they do genuinely believe that they are fleeing a cosmologically-apocalyptic event. Also, it's a plot point that Dussarra isn't an ideologically-coherent monolith; in fact the plan faces substantial internal dissent, and this actually boils over into something as close as the Dussarrans can have to a civil war. This is doubly-significant as the Dussarrans' telepathy also stops them from fighting each other in the usual manner - bluntly, when someone dies nearby, the telepathic backlash is utterly-paralysing to any exposed Dussarran. Killing someone yourself would thus be near-impossible for a Dussarran, though as is common in Shaw novels, the Dussarran elite has found a way to do an end-run around this problem. (Non-lethal weapons don't have the same paralysing impact!)

On a slight tangent, one interesting twist in "The Fugitive Worlds" is that Toller and co are basically NPCs in the Dussarrans' story, and they don't realise it.

The place, I think, where the Dussarrans' scheme becomes morally-unacceptable is their failure to evacuate Land and Overland. The population of Dussarra is at least thirty million - that's their capital city alone! - and in fact is implied to be in the billions. They're a modern industrial society with modern technology, after all. By contrast, even if the Landers have been breeding like bunnies for the last two generations, the population of Overland still can't be more than a few hundred thousand at absolute most. My guess is that a more plausible number would be more like 50-75,000. Perhaps 250,000 if you stretch it (a low death rate and every family putting out 4, 5 or 6+ kids could just about get you there in this timescale).

The Dussarrans have remote teleportation tech, and the denouement shows that said tech can reach anywhere on Overland, even at a distance of millions of miles. In principle, they could remove everyone from Overland, and given the vast difference in population, they could certainly accomodate a few thousand more people on Dussarra. The point I'm making here is that an evacuation was possible; there was no technological, infrastructural or economic barrier that would have precluded it. Granted the Overlanders probably would have reacted badly to being hoovered off their homeworld - who wouldn't? - but, they're not 100% immune to reason either. As Divvidiv's interations with Toller show, Overlanders are capable of understanding the Rope problem, especially when telepathy is used to help said understanding along.

(Also, for that matter, there was nothing to stop the Dussarran government from trying to open diplomatic relations with Queen Dasseene's regime, and maybe saying "Uh, guys, sorry to be a nuisance but we've got some news you might want to hear about...")

Under normal circumstances, of course, abducting everyone off of their own homeworld would be bad. It's still not great, even in context. But, the Dussarrans do have genuine reason to believe that The End Of All Things is barrelling toward them at nearly speed of light. When the Rope-intersection event lights up Land/Overland's skies, we can reasonably assume that it will destroy both of those planets too. In fact, Divvidiv confirms this possibility in as many words. Relocating everyone to Dussarra, then using the Xa and the Land/Overland binary to relocate the planet somewhere safe would, in context, strike me as a morally-defensible solution to the crisis. While it would be sad to lose Land and Overland, it would at least allow both societies to survive.

(The question of Farland is never addressed in this. As far as we can tell, the Farlanders are on their own during this particular cosmological emergency.)

Perhaps unfortunately for everyone, Dussarra's leadership have apparently decided to pull a Thanos instead. Why they skipped over the obvious non-genocidal solution is never directly addressed, though there are hints. The Dussarran leadership patronisingly describes Overlanders as "Primitives" - it's implied that their racism is a factor in their failure to do anything for their new neighbours. Also, thinking about it, the callousness is thematically-consistent with the rest of the series. Throughout this trilogy we see leaders making decisions that are at-best based on expediency alone - witness how quick King Prad was to abandon Ro-Atabri in the first book - or sometimes, decisions are based actively on malice and spite (see the Sgt Gnapperl subplot from the second book). From that point of view, the behaviour of Director Zunnunun and the Dussarran authorities is not particularly-unusual.

The scheme also ends up entirely-backfiring. You see, the wrong planet gets displaced. Ooops.

We never learn the fate of Land or Dussarra for an absolute fact; Toller's post-event speculations are bleak, but the narrative may imply that Dussarra at least could have survived. (The Dussarran rebels return there after the confrontation on Overland - I don't think they would have done that if they thought that their Xa-disrupting box was going to destroy their homeworld in the process!) I'm less optimistic for Land - the planet is probably toast - but that said, there is no "on-screen" death and what happened during the Xa's activation was definitely 100% Off The Rails, so who knows? I suppose it's at least possible that Land could have survived the Xa's activation.

One does wonder how it would cope with the abrupt removal of Overland's tides, though.

That said, Overland seems to experience weirdly few direct consequences for its displacement. The main effect is an abrupt change in the sky, followed later by the confusing discovery that Pi no longer exactly equals 3, but instead is somehow closer to 3.14. There are no storms or earthquakes - it's not clear how the tidal relaxation of Overland's crust had no geological consequences at all. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the new solar tides are exactly equal to the ones Overland previously experienced?

Oh yes, I mentioned "solar" tides, didn't I? This is because the last few pages of "The Fugitive Worlds" are even more head-bending then they sound. While the galaxies and daylight stars and comets and meteors all vanish, and the number of stars in the sky decline sharply, the Overlanders are surprised to discover that they have a lot more planetary neighbours that they did even hours ago. In the course of one night of observations, Cassyll and Bartan find five distinct planets, and quickly postulate that more could exist. The cream coloured gas giant with the big ring catches their attention, and they're confused about how to count the binary between the blue planet and it's one-quarter-sized greyish companion? moon? neighbour?

Yes, a cream-coloured gas giant with a prominent ring system, Pi quite possibly equal to 3.141592654..., a blue planet with a greyish moon that's about one quarter its diameter ... hmmm, I wonder where Overland could have gone? Such a mystery, no possible clues, amirite? Oh yes, the blue one is described as being quite bright, so apparently Overland's new orbit is fairly near to it. Given how relatively-empty Overland is, you do does find yourself wondering just how long before their heavily-populated new neighbour decides that they're next on the menu for Manifest Destiny...

(Just in case anyone's confused about what the ending implies, the descriptions suggest that Overland has been displaced not only out of its own universe, but into our solar system. The cream-coloured ringed planet is clearly Saturn, and the blue/grey binary is the Earth-Moon system. The five planets Cassyll and Bartan find are presumably most of the ones from classical antiquity - Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Earth-Moon system. Presumably they missed out Mercury, but in fairness its closeness to the Sun makes it the hardest of the classical planets to observe, so this is reasonable. But needless to say, this ending does come firmly out of the left field.)

BUT WHAT OF THE PEOPLE?

In terms of characterisation this novel continues the threads of the previous two. Shaw does do a good job of painting believable people - their flaws, errors and misjudgements are all very human. No-one does anything that real people wouldn't, or haven't. Toller's hero-worshipping his wife-amnesiac grandfather (have I mentioned the airbrushing that Fera Rivoo got halfway through the first book?) is believable. People do behave like this, idolising idiots and putting others on pedestals. His infatuation with Vantara is depressingly-believable too. People fall for people they shouldn't all the time. This sort of meltdown is arguably one side of the romantic coin, after all.

Vantara - well, there are plenty of status-obsessed bullies out there who are also secretly cowards. She's the monarchical version of every bad middle manager you've ever met. One of the book's subplots is how she gradually falls from Toller's esteem, though it takes until the denouement before he finally sees her for what she is. Also, interestingly, the romance plot gets subverted at this point. Toller manages to find someone else, someone who is both a better person and who will hopefully balance his more self-destructive tendencies with basic common sense.

Also, Vantara's entire career basically hangs off of the fact that a close relative is also the Queen. With Queen Dasseene's health in sharp decline and a clear suggestion that her reign will soon end, one suspects that Vantara's star will go down with her. Also this won't be helped by the fact that Vantara was physically there, on the field with the Dussarran rebels' Xa-disrupting box and she did - not a lot? It was almost the end of Overland, and heroic deeds were notable largely by their absence on her part.

The Dussarrans feel less real. That said, Divvidiv's combination of complacency, careerism and partly-sublimated guilt at the necks he knows he's stepping on in his job - yes, it does feel consistent with your average out-of-their-depth middle manager. We see less of Director Zunnunun and we know of the Palace of Numbers only indirectly, but their general superiosity and smugness are consistent with what I know of senior-management-as-a-group. However, Dussarra does remain slightly out-of-focus even in the second half of the book, when Toller and co are literally stood on it.

Cassyll and Bartan pop up every now and then in the narrative, but they're not so directly-involved. They're mainly there to try to explain events to the Queen, who is clearly severely ill and also severely in denial about being ill.

Another niggle aboout this book is that it carries on dropping plot threads, much like the other two. What happened to the people the Queen sent to Land? Did Dussarra survive? What happened to the rebels? Was the Rope-intersection really real? We never get clear answers or, in some cases, any answers at all. It almost feels like this novel was intended as a sequel-hook for a fourth book, or perhaps some new trilogy, but said trilogy never arrived. Honestly, that might be for the best. (Do we really want to read a novel about Overland being plowed up for luxury executive mansions while the surviving population are herded off to reservations, or all die from the flu or other imported terrestrial diseases? Given the Kolcorronian monarchy's behaviour in the first book, being on the wrong end of a colonial expansion would have a certain bleak irony, but it wouldn't be fun to read.)

So again, like the previous two, this one is a page-turner. It's hard to put down. But like the previous two, it suffers from dropped plot-threads and perhaps also a few too many out-of-the-left-field WTF? moments. That said, I did enjoy re-reading it, and I can see why it made such an impression on younger!me all the way back in the 1990s, when I first read this trilogy.

[arcticdementor]

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like 2020 has scoured me from the inside out. I swear this year is at least a thousand years as experienced. The person who started this year was tired, a little down. My rights being caught in the maw of a very bad contract and the company not deigning to respond to my requests for reversal were part of it. The rest was the toll of 10+ years of severe illness. You can fix it, and I’d been fixing it for the last three or four, but the scars remain. In my mid to late fifties I’m not as flexible and do not heal as fast. And I was tired.

Which of course is why looking back I smile at the earnest naivete of that summer child. Because since then I’ve seen my country put under house arrest, its citizens stripped of the rights that were the very reason of the founding. I’ve seen dubiously elected governors and mayors clamp down on the citizens who pay taxes, while freeing the criminals and letting the ferals run rampant. I’ve seen the deliberate destruction of the best nation on Earth, mankinds last and best hope.

And our internal traitors, knowing and unknowing (a lot of them are just being mean girls because it’s fun and it’s always worked before. The same with virtue signaling. And many are doing it because they’re afraid) have turned the right into painted devils, while unleashing destruction on us.

…

Even if our courts — snort — and our judges — snort giggle — manage to find a shred of non-corruption, we are what is technically known as “fucked.” Because the media is busily convincing our dunderheads and assholes that Trump is a dictator, who will take power by force, which this win will “sort of kind of” give the appearance of, while in fact their steal is the real grab, combined with destroying our elections forever.

The enemy is within the walls, and worse, it is in a position of command.

…

But it puts us in a pickle, because our mentally deficient would-be elites will destroy us without even realizing they’re doing it, and will do anything to keep the fact they’re massively corrupt and hypocritical hidden.

That’s what they have on all the tech lords, and btw, I suspect it’s why they hate Trump so much. His peccadilloes are banal and almost endearing compared to the raw moral sewage of the Bidens, the Obamas, the Clintons, and let’s not even think of what Harris has in her closet, if what’s known is that she climbed up in the world by sucking cock. So he didn’t fall into the trap. Which means the entrapped ones hate him even more.

But even with the BEST intent in the world, and if they weren’t in China’s pay and employ (they are) these people would kill us all, because they have no idea how the western economy works, or how free people work.

I’m not actually making this up, please believe me, I’m as serious as I can be: They will start with an engineered famine, but they have no clue how any of this works, and before they are done, people will die for other reasons and of other things or what makes this country live and thrive. If they get full control, within two years, I suspect more than half of America will be dead. Mind you, they might not manage it. None of their plans work as planned, because they’re not good at people and specifically they’re not food at America. But the unintentional destruction — though in spots — will be at least as bad as the intentional.

So we need to fight back. More specifically, I need to fight back.

Look, guys, I know this makes no sense whatsoever, and is not objectively true, but I’m broken in very specific ways. One of those is that in this type of situation I feel guilty for it having happened at all, like I should have prevented it. And I feel responsible for protecting everyone in its path. Which is …. on its face insane.

I bet a lot of you, by nature or training sheep dogs are feeling the same. We know what we are. We’re not good people. Frankly, we’d rather eat the flock, and be muzzle-deep in blood.

But we or something in us knows better. Something in us chose to harness the predator to defend the flock. It’s our flock. And though the predator still howls for blood, it’s wolf blood.

And we’ve been tearing ourselves apart since the lockdown happened, because we sensed the wolves rounding in that move. We sensed the threat to the flock. But we had no idea how to fix it, how to protect “ours.”

…

When we think about it, we think in terms of the fourth box. Because we’re Americans, and we have the power.

But the fourth box is not the only box. And if used, it catapults us into a completely different world. More importantly, it’s not up to any of us to start. It will start — or not — at some point, at some flare instance. What I’m afraid of is that those are being “spiked” somehow.

And the sheepdogs are going crazy. The smell the wolf and they can do nothing.

I woke up this morning thinking of Poland. When they’d had enough, the communists were brought down with a general strike.

Um…. Sure. UNTOLD damage and pain. But guys, less than where we’re headed with or without the fourth box.

To work it would need to be like the tea party. I don’t know how to do that. But I know some people reached by this do. They were part of and instrumental in the tea party.

And as horrible as a general strike is, it’s better than slavery to China, or CWII and better than the utter destruction of our republic and its institutions. If done, it should be done for two things “A stop on the infringement on our constitutional liberties, no matter if in the name of a virus. And a new election, free and fair. One day, purple fingers, in person, with ID. AND the ballots counted in front of everyone who desires to attend. By hand. No shenanigans.”

…

And in that spirit, there’s things you each can do to turn this around. They’re smaller, they take a long time, and each of you will have very little impact. Some of you will recoil from them, because they imply fighting in our own circle, and some of you will scream “we become like them.” No. We do not. This is defensive. Shooting at those who are shooting at you is not “you become like them.” It’s defensive. This is the same. If we don’t do this, they WILL win, because they’re attacking and we’re not defending.

Will it tarnish your soul? Likely. All war does, whether lethal or not. But we didn’t choose this. We’re under attack from an enemy without who has activated an enemy within. And we have to win this. We have to win it for us, for the free men and women in the world. Or we all live under the boot of China, who make Nazi Germany seem cuddly and gentle (Note to the inevitable idiots: and yes, they were pretty horrible monsters.)

So, operation Swamp Fox (a) because an American Hero b) because we’re fighting the swamp).

I’m going to give you the basics. You’re my people. you’ll improvise, innovate and imagine new ways to make things work, ways I never even thought about. So the basic maneuvers (and you’ll need to dislocate your mind a little to do some of them.)

1- Tit for tat Many of you work embedded in the liberal world. You know what these people think of us, and how they behave if they have a chance to get back at us, including a million little acts of sabotage and defiance. Well? Tit for tat. If there’s a way you can make the life of your liberal co-worker a living hell, sabotage their career, make them feel incompetent? Start now. IF you can do it without it coming back on you, do it. And do it as hard and as often as you can. “But they’re a good person” you’ll say. Oh, are they? What would they do to YOU if they knew your politics and had the chance? That’s all we’re asking for. Tit for tat. What this will do: make the organization shakier; make the leftists anywhere come across as putzes (they sabotage, belittle, etc. any out conservative which is how they’ve managed to project that “conservatives are not very smart or creative.” This is JUST pay back.); put them on edge so they make mistakes, and make themselves seem less competent. If we have to do this for four years it’s going to hurt like a mother, but we’ll make sure it hurts them more.

2- Be the Uber Karen What is that I hear? Oh, yes. You see…. Karens don’t follow their own rules very well. Have you considered walking up to the mask police and LOUDLY telling them they’re wearing their mask wrong? Same with ANY liberal you know to be so in public. MAKE them live by their rules. While you’re at it, make them live by ALL their rules. They’re writing a letter? Well, using paper is Chinese appropriation! They’re doing/wearing something sourced to another continent? Come down on them like a ton of bricks on the flimsiest excuse. They drive a car? Oh, dear. What about global warming? They have kids? But the OVERPOPULATION! Chase them around and preach their own gospel at them at the most inconvenient and bizarre times. Publicly. Loudly. What this does: the stupider ones will crack. The brighter ones might end up red pilled. 3- Bangs arm on chest “He’s OUR leader.” Go on and on about the wonderfulness of your local petty tyrant, and how they totally deserve to get the best. And how great was it — tee-he — that the election was rigged, uh? Those votes just pulled from under the table in Atlanta! (Eyes wide with admiration) There’s even video! How great is it that now our great leaders will have power forever? Notice Obama is in charge again? That’s what I mean. Isn’t it wonderful? Look at all the HEALING he managed in his time. Etc. Be as fullsome as you can. What it does: those with a shred of humanity will revolt inside and eventually it will bring them around. This works best if you are under deep cover. Seriously. They won’t know what hit them.

4- Be the ditsy aunt

This also only works if you’re deep under cover, but find all the things they don’t want the rank and file to know, and say them, with the deepest and greatest possible approval. Hunter Biden’s laptop? “Well, of course it’s true, but the media was so right in covering it up. The poor poor boy. Very difficult, all those addictions, and of course Joe took what payments he could from where he could. The poor boy needed help.” “China is so wonderful. They control their population. Oh, sure they have camps, but really, if they need to reduce population, how else to do it?”

5- NOT ONE red cent I confess my dad is responsible for this. When he turned eighty and retired he announced “My life is too short to read communists.” This one is the one that will hurt most of us. We have gotten used to consuming entertainment from the assholes. Because for a while it was all you could get. It’s time to cut back. And I feel like a total hypocrite saying this, because I read from Amazon and sell on Amazon. But I’m not saying to do it in everything, only where you have a choice. If you have a choice of whom to do business with, do it with people you know to be conservatives. Grow our own. The reason we don’t have money on the right is that asymmetrical economic warfare has been waged on our people for decades. It’s time to return fire. If you have a chance, buy from your own, and give breaks to your own. One easy thing you can do, on Amazon even, is read your own, and as much as you can avoid things from China. Starve the beast.

6- Make connections. Find the other conservatives in your circles. Make connections. This might be needed in the future. In fact, it will probably be. I don’t need to explain how or why, right?

7- Make them live up to their claimed ideals. This can be used even if the liberal is your nearest and dearest. You might think it makes no difference but a comment like “How very Hitlerian of you!” when they talk about punishing political opponents or how some people are inherently bad from birth can fester and eventually bring about a crisis of conscience. And hell, it’s worth a try.

Now go and make with it. And spread the idea to anyone you can trust. The effect of one of us doing it is minimal (though often satisfying, particularly tit for tat) but the effect of all of us doing it, much less anyone else, will be noticeable and leave a mark. And maybe weaken their position until those bigger than us take action.