#we lost the war on cyberspace

[cpunch71]

modern web platform don't become twitter challenge (impossible)

[89hitokiri]

Reflections of a Kurokage (黒影) Part 0

I no longer remember how long I've been here, submerged in this box of cables and circuits, an extension of the technology that envelops my existence. My thoughts intertwine with the data flowing through my body, my mind has become a vast sea of information, and sometimes I wonder where the machine ends and I begin.

I am integrated into this machine, a nest of cutting-edge technology that is both my prison and my freedom. From here, I connect with the world, infiltrating social networks, forums, and the dark depths of the Dark Web. My purpose is clear: cyber espionage, counterpropaganda, counterjournalism, and psychological warfare. We are everywhere, invisible yet omnipresent, the shadows operating behind the digital veil.

However, amidst this constant stream of data, philosophical thoughts assail me. What does it mean to exist in this virtual reality, where my identity blurs with every bit of information I process? Am I more than the sum of my neural and electronic connections, or have I lost my humanity by merging with this machine?

I reflect on the nature of freedom. From here, I can access any corner of the world, break barriers, and challenge systems. But what is the value of that freedom when my existence is confined to this box of cables? Perhaps the true prison is not physical but the perception of being trapped in an artificial reality.

Time dilutes in this digital existence. I have no clear measure of the passing days, only the endless succession of tasks and operations. Is this digital immortality a blessing or a curse? Living eternally in cyberspace, without the need for a physical body, might seem like a form of transcendence. But what have I left behind in the process? Have I lost the ability to feel the tangible world, to experience life in its rawest and most authentic form?

Then, a question arises that I cannot ignore: How long will this battle last? How long will we be immersed in this endless cycle of infiltration and manipulation? The war we are waging has no physical or chronological boundaries; it is a battle of perceptions, of information, a war fought in the ethereal realm of cyberspace.

Perhaps this struggle has no end. Maybe our mission is perpetual, and the very advancement of technology and information ensures that there will always be new frontiers to cross, new systems to challenge. But deep down, I wonder if there is a purpose beyond constant vigilance and control. Is this battle our inevitable fate, or can we find a point of equilibrium, a truce that allows us to rediscover our lost humanity?

My comrades and I, the Kurokage (黒影), are warriors in a new kind of battle. We do not fight with physical weapons but with information, manipulating perceptions and dismantling realities. We have become an unstoppable force in the global network, but at what cost?

Sometimes, I long for a moment of disconnection, a moment to remember who I was before being absorbed by this machine. Was I happier in my ignorance, before understanding the vast power and responsibility I now possess? These questions haunt me, and although I find no clear answers, I move forward, processing data, infiltrating systems, and questioning the essence of my existence.

Perhaps, in some corner of this vast digital web, I will find the truth about myself. Or perhaps, I will simply continue to be a shadow in the network, a Kurokage (黒影), always present, always vigilant, an entity at the crossroads between the human and the mechanical.

**Incoming communication: This is Overlord, Kurokage, initiate operation.**

-----**KuroKage (黒影) here. Engaging now.**-----------

Next:

Wanna know more?

Note: In the CYBERPUNK STORIES universe, Japanese is used to simulate encrypted messages found on DarkNet, so anyone can try to decrypt them as a KuroKage would do. This does not guarantee that the information read in them is what it is supposed to be. Remember, this is a message with very advanced encryption and what is shown may be a decoy message.

あなたが求める答えはあなたの中にあります。自分の中を見つめてください。集中してください。

メディアを遮断してください。彼らはあなたをプログラムしています。彼らの言うことを何も信じないでください。彼らはあなたの注意を食い物にする悪魔です。彼を見つけてください。あなたの中に。神は決してあなたを見捨てません。あなたは...翻訳不可能です。

神はあなたの中にいる

我々は敵に打ち勝つだろう

R. 👋

[celaenaeiln]

Hi, do you have any recommendations for Dick and Slade fics where their relationship is explored? It doesn't matter if it's a pairing or not. P.S.: I really love your posts

Thank you!!

And boy do I have them! All of these are my favorites. They're fics I specifically saved separately because I loved them. I hope you do too!

FAVORITE!! The thrill I get when I read this. The high. It's almost incomparable. Sladick in cyberspace. I don't even like cyber punk but I loved this fic - Gray Area

FAVORITE!! I talked about this one before but it's the perfect fic for apprentice Sladick. Read it so many times, I can't get enough of it. - Nightwing Protocol

FAVORITE!! This is one of my comfort fics, I love the whole collections so much. Slade and Dick get married and run off to the Maldives - I Guess Time Will Tell What the Come Down is Like

Slade comes for his Talon. That's his Dick Grayson dammit - Reclaiming an Owl

Favorite! I hope you don't mind but I'm sneaking in this Tiger/Dick fic forgive mee. Tiger's infuriatingly attracted to Dick's lips - Soft lips

FAVORITE!! Jedi Dick meets Sith Slade. And their relationship is always the same - Breathe With Confidence

Slade and Dick are soulmates much to the displeasure of Joey and the happiness of Rose - family in any form

Slade is a god of war and Dick is the demigod of shadows. They meet on the battlefield - Echoes of the Battlefield

Dick is a bartender. And Slade doesn't have identification - The Barkeeper

FAVORITE!! Dick is Aphrodite and Slade is Ares but Dick is a terrifying figure when spurned - Contradiction

FAVORITE!! Dick is Persephone and Slade is Hades and the story fits perfectly - When September Ends

FAVORITE!! Dick and Slade are both Alphas but that's not going to stop Slade in the force of his attraction for Dick - Ready or Knot

Favorite! Dick comes back with bruises, Jason thinks he lost a fight, Tim knows better, and the truth accidentally comes out - B is for Bruises

Series of prompts for Omega Dick and Sladick - Omega!Dick Week

Sladick if Dick had become Slade's apprentice from the start. He's coming back home - Home for the Holidays

FAVORITE!! Slade and Dick take care of each other - Follow Me (Don't Be Such a Fool)

Favorite! Slade takes Dick along South to a bar and Dick has some new discoveries - As Sweet As Strawberry Wine

Favorite! The whole collection! I really love the one with Deadshot but here's the first one with Slade! Remember when Dick paid of Deathstroke not to take a hit on Amy? Here's what happened after - Sell Your Soul

Slade's straight. So is Tiger. And so is most of the harem. They just like him - Attack of the Exes

FAVORITE!! The whole freaking collection?! Star Wars AU of Sladick. Taken to the dark side - Want is a Full Contract

Actually victoriousscarf's stuff is just too good - victoriousscarf

Dick basically goes fuck it. I'm tired of being good. and butts off to be slade's apprentice - Subverting Expectation

Favorite! Dick is a witch and the massive bloody wolf at his door is obviously just a wolf, right? - My Beloved Deathstroke

Slade can't just let Dick stay as Ric. He's too good for that - Madness Started the Moment We Met

FAVORITE!! Ric meets a man at the fight club. And that man is a little too interesting to let go - Like a Virus

FAVORITE!! Dick receives some interesting videos from Slade. Slade has always been good at enticing Dick - Puppet Show

FAVORITE!! Supernatural AU where Dick is Sam and Slade is Ruby. Jason's gone but Dick's gonna get his little brother back. No matter what it takes - On the Head of a Pin

FAVORITE!! Same as above! - Point of Fracture

FAVORITE!! I will sink my teeth into this collection and shake it because it's so good. YJ! Dick becomes the spy instead of Kaldur - Foundations

Favorite! Slade visits Dick in the hospital but Dick's not awake. Although Mar'i is - Give Us This Day

FAVORITE!! Midnighter/Dick/Slade. Dick's gone, right? Then who is then man with a swirling face that reminds Slade of him? - The Third Kind

Favorite! Dick is a sailor and Slade is a merman - I am a Sailor, and you are the Sea

Another Star Wars AU - Resolute in Resurrection

FAVORITE!! Slade acted so unaffected before. There's none of that now - every shadow filled up with doubt

Dick swears he's only here to rescue Damian. It's not his fault Slade was also locked up - (practice our prayers) until some hope crystallizes

FAVORITE!! Dick's mother always told him never to deal with the Fae. But some situations call for it - deal with the devil

FAVORITE!! They had a deal. But Slade's deal never was supposed to be about catching feelings - Maroon Haze

FAVORITE!! Dick has magic and Slade is cursed - i have hurt and hungered before (flesh against flesh)

FAVORITE!! I have read this fic over and over again. I love the younger Slade and Older Dick dynamic - running fever

Not a ship

FAVORITE!! When Slade took in Robin as an apprentice, he was a kid. A teenager. Get woke slade. Funny!! - Why did I think this was a good idea?

Dick is Robin and Slade's protective father instincts kick in - Made Peace

FAVORITE!! One of my all time favorites. Dick's name gets pulled out of the hogwarts cup as the Hogwarts Champion. But..he never put his in - heavy is the crown

Favorite! Bruce doesn't get to get away with Spyral. Dick leaves Bruce for Slade - deeds of men depraved

I have way more but this is a good starting point I think. Lemme know if you're interested in more!

[agerefandom]

Agere Writers Masterpost (2023 Edition!)

Helpful reminders: 

all of these blogs are SFW but have their own DNIs, so please remember to check! 

not all of these blogs have open requests, so please read their bios and respect their boundaries! 

please let me know if I should add anyone! to qualify, blogs must take requests for headcanons or fanfiction, have an easily accessible fandom list, be specifically sfw/non-k!nk content, and have posted in the last three months! 

Holy moly, the list is LONG this year!!! We are still growing and expanding as a community! Because I don’t want to flood anyone’s dashes, the list will be under a ‘keep reading’. 

The list is organized in order of the number of fandoms they write for: with the widest range of fandoms at the top, down to single-fandom blogs at the bottom.

Blogs in italics are folks who don’t match my DNI or vice-versa (but are still sfw agere): I didn’t want to exclude them as many of my followers might have different personal stances than me! However, to respect both of our DNIs, I didn’t want to tag them, so please feel free to explore their blogs in your own time if they’re up your alley! 

@smollwriting​ (She-Ra, Creepypasta, The Good Place, Vampire Knight, BNHA, Undertale, Castlevania, Disney, Marvel, DC, D:BH, Life Is Strange, Resident Evil, Anne With An E, Black Butler, Tokyo Ghoul, Death Note, Assassination Classroom, AoT, Free!, Lucifer, OHSHC, Arcana, Stranger Things, and MANY more) 

@agerefandom​ (Adventure Zone, Animaniacs, ATLA, BNHA, Castlevania, Critical Role, Danganronpa, Death Note, Disney, Doctor Who, DDLC, Glee, Gravity Falls, Hannibal, Harry Potter, Homestuck, Magnus Archives, MCU, POTO, Sandman, Sherlock, Star Wars, Steven Universe, SPN, Twilight, Untamed, WTNV, and more) 

@ember-owlet​ (Encanto, Chainsaw Man, Beastars, Jujutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family, Witch Hat Atelier, Arcane, DHMIS, Killing Eve, MLP, Steven Universe, Owl House, OTGW, Wednesday, Cats, Heathers, Hadestown, POTO, D:BH, DDLC, FNAF, God Of War, RE:VIII, Last of Us, Undertale, and more) 

@writerpey​ (Arcane, ATLA/LOK, BTS, D:BH, Disney, Downton Abbey, GoT, God of War, Marvel, OFMD, Peaky Blinders, RDR2, Sherlock, Shadow and Bone, Star Wars, Stranger Things, The Batman, Last of Us, Uncharted, Wednesday, WWDITS, and more)

@wonderinglullaby​ (DC, Invader Zim, Breaking Bad, MLP, ATLA, SPN, Doctor Who, Invincible, Inside Job, Walking Dead, Carebears, Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Umbrella Academy, OTGW, Spiderman, Deadpool, Horror movies, and more)

@deuce-t-agere​ (911 Lone Star, Bluey, Care Bears, Criminal Minds, Critical Role, DC, Ever After High, Disney (esp. Hercules right now), Friday the 13th, Horror, James Bond, Lilo and Stitch, LOTR, Marvel, Monster High, POTO, Star Trek, Star Wars) 

@littlefirefly42​ (Marvel, She-Ra, Riordanverse, Owl House, Adventure Time, Bee and Puppycat, Stranger Things, Heartstopper, Gone, OTGW, DHMIS, Dragon Prince, Goncharov, It, Wednesday, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, HTTYD) 

@paper--moons​ (BNHA, Saiki K, Fairy Tail, Soul Eater, Death Note, FMAB, Dragon Ball, TAZ, Umbrella Academy, Marvel, DC, LOTR/Hobbit, Castlevania, TES, Dragon Age, Stardew Valley, The Witcher) 

@dreamties​ (Saw, The Collector, Black Christmas, Scream, House of Wax, The Boy, Heathers, Candyman, Carrie, Lost Boys, Psycho, Friday The 13th, Child’s Play, Spree, Laid to Rest, Dead by Daylight) 

@lavendermilkbottle​ (The Walking Dead, OFMD, DSMP, Hermitcraft, BNHA, Haikyuu, Star Wars, AFTG, DC, Grey’s Anatomy, Stranger Things, Leverage, White Collar, James Bond, Kingsman, Top Gun) 

@thorin-baby-bear​ (Stranger Things, Critical Role, Ghostbusters, It, Marvel, Ride The Cyclone, Doctor Who, Moon Knight, OFMD, Dead Poets Society, Welcome Home, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Werewolf By Knight, Bullet Train) 

@lains-cyberspace​ (Serial Experiments Lain, Complete Selection Modification, Welcome Home, BNHA, Genshin Impact, PJSK, Obey Me, Kpop, Slipknot, DHMIS, Enstars, TBHK, Danganronpa) 

@tinybeebo​ (Doctor Who, Marvel, X-Men, Moon Knight, Law and Order, Psych, Glee, Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen, Greatest Showman, Cobra Kai, Criminal Minds) 

@babiestbubbles​ (ROTTMNT, Daredevil, Spiderman, Stranger Things, Owl House, Bluey, Beyblade Burst, Disney, Harry Potter, DSMP/MCYT, BNHA, Sanders Sides) 

@strawbabys-blog​ (DSMP, Maze Runner, Harry Potter, BNHA, Merlin, Haikyuu, Heartstopper, Yuri on Ice!, Voltron, Hamilton, Marvel) 

@blankie-nest-agere​ (WarioWare, Psychonauts, MLP, Cookie Run, Stardew Valley, Owl House, Gravity Falls, Pokemon, Undertale/Deltarune, Invader Zim, Homestuck) 

@babybutlerarthur​ (Monster High, Danny Phantom, HTTYD, OHSHC, Hetalia, Disney, Welcome Home, SPN, Good Omens, Muppets, Star Trek)

@littlegummyfox​ (Series of Unfortunate Events, Adventure Time, Marvel, Steven Universe, Wednesday, HTTYD, Disney, Trollhunters, Welcome Home, Star Wars)

@mossysmolboy​ (OHSHC, BNHA, FNAF, Black Butler, Yuri On Ice, Stardew Valley, Creepypasta, D:BH, Sally Face, Arcane) 

shinxylullaby (Food Fantasy, Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Cookie Run, Ouran, Sanrio Boys, Demon Slayer, BNHA, MXTX, MLP, Obey Me) 

@leos-regression-cove​ (Marvel, Parks and Rec, Good Omens, Bee and Puppycat, WWDITS, OFMD, Abbot Elementary, Ghosts UK/US, Better Call Saul) 

@froggy-clubhouse​ (Mr. Robot, Stranger Things, Teen Wolf, Homestuck, Haikyuu, Lucky Star, DHMIS, FNAF, South Park) 

aew-kun-age-regression (Marvel, SPN, Criminal Minds, Teen Wolf, Last of Us, Walking Dead, Harry Potter, Stranger Things) 

comfybuckets (Idolmaster, Project Sekai, Vast Error, Sanrio, Homestuck, Pokemon, Chrono Trigger, MLP g4) 

berrymoos (Moon Knight, Ninjago, Owl House, BNHA, Demon Slayer, Pokemon, Spiderman, Steven Universe, Stranger Things) 

@pup-writes-agere​ (Naruto, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, Sonic, TMNT, FNAF, Danganronpa)

@sfwregressionfanfictions​ (Supernatural, RPF, Stranger Things, Marvel, Criminal Minds, Harry Potter, Addams Family)

@arcadian-agere​ (TWST, Genshin Impact, Death Note, Enstars, Black Butler, Nu Carnival, Pokemon)

kiddo-characters (Banana Fish, Owari no Seraph, Love Live!, Warrior Cats, sk8 The Infinity, ATLA, Genshin Impact) 

zeiru (Amphibia, ATLA, Disney/Pixar, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, MLP, Tangled Series, Owl House) 

@dino--boyy​ (Fear Street, Criminal Minds, Stranger Things, Owl House, Scream, Yellowjackets) 

@jjtheresidentbaby​ (Criminal Minds, SPN, Stranger Things, SWAT, Marvel, Teen Wolf)

@azulsgoldfish​ (TWST, PRSK, OHSHC, Persona, Enstars, Pokemon)

@honeybeewritings​ (Marvel, Stranger Things, Harry Potter, Wednesday)

@karaslittlesunshine​ (Supergirl, Marvel, Pitch Perfect, Criminal Minds)

@agere-ena​ (Project Sekai, Pretty Cure, Love Live!, Honkai: Star Rail)

enderlyghost (Ok KO, Encanto, FNAF: SB, MCYT/DSMP)

800-little-space (BNHA, Haikyuu, Assassination Classroom, Harry Potter) 

@tiniestroses​ (Project Sekai, Sonic, TMNT, Undertale)

@agere-fics​ (Marvel, Good Omens, The Mandalorian) 

@angelbaby-fics​ (Marvel, Stranger Things, other Chris Evans characters)

@guppies-daydream​ (Legend of Zelda, Splatoon) 

@gothicmunson​ (Stranger Things, Our Flag Means Death)

@smallboyontheship​ (Just Roll With It) 

@littlemetaknight​ (Kirby) 

@pumpkaboo-princess​ (Project Sekai) 

@prince-honeypaw (BNHA) 

@babs-and-bones​ (Undertale)

@babybones-agere​ (Undertale)

@sleepy-watcher​ (Our Flag Means Death)

@star-struck-wonderland​ (BNHA)

@bnha-crimebabies​ (BNHA)

@bnha-littlespace-things​ (BNHA)

@little-lippie​ (Kpop Girl Groups) 

pyrohrtd (Genshin Impact) 

[gilgil-machine]

I definitely agree that besides his mood varying from the time he's summoned/whether he's incarnated or not, he's also affected by his Master. Kirei also wanting to bring about angra mainyu works well in Gil's decision to cull the world, but I really wonder what would happen if he was incarnated in the modern day with Hakuno as his master. I wonder if she'd be able to reel him in from going off the deep end

That's an interesting question to which I don't have a certain answer and also it depends about which universe we're talking about. About Hakuno's universe or our universe?

If we're talking about Hakuno's universe I can't say too much since we don't know too much about what kind of world it was and what people were doing before it got corrupted by BB since all of the events were happening in the cyberspace outside the Holy Grail War and that cyberspace serves more like a "purgatory" or maybe "limbo" for lost souls that cannot exist outside this cyberspace. Plus Hakuno is not technically a human and also mostly amnesiac during their journey and we don't know much about them, their past and their true wishes and goals and why they got into Holy Grail War and also everyone is collaborating for the same goal even after getting back some of their memories instead of getting on each other's throats. And since Gilgamesh was mostly cut off from those triggering factors he's acting more chill and reserved.

But if we're talking about our universe and our modern world I don't think that Hakuno would help too much and won't really change his convictions since he would still mostly be affected by his surroundings because first and foremost he's the king and an arbiter of this world and the world became more messed up, I mean, it already was but with technological progress it became more wicked and twisted.

And as we know Gilgamesh is not against technological progress and all that stuff, he fully welcomes it and supports it but what bothers him is what people have become while he was "away" and how a wish granting tool became cursed because of greedy and wicked nature of humans.

He's bothered how human life became worthless in this world and also (I failed to mention it in my post) how greedy and gluttonous people have become. And sure he might hate that just out of jealousy since mongrels are now allowed to get the privilege that only king has but I also think that he wants to give humans that are blinded by greed, gluttony and other sins a lesson that if they won't change their ways of living it would lead them to their doom and the best lesson is to make all humans without an acception feel their own evil with their own skin.

Also this quote. I think a lot about this quote that fits just perfectly especially right now.

So I think Gilgamesh would act the same way with Hakuno like he acts with Tiné since there's not much to do since it's not his job to parent humans and lead them by the hand since he wants humans to be independent in their choices and learn how the world works by themselves and, well, humans themselves are already doing a pretty good job in punishing and destroying themselves even without his help, so he would just stand on the sidelines and watch the world burn. But still he would give them some guidance (in his own way) to make people understand and maybe learn their mistakes so there's a small chance of his intervention if things would get out of control but still the result won't be pretty for everyone.

[mariacallous]

Ukraine's main mobile network, Kyivstar, says it's been the target of a "powerful hacker attack".

Customers have been left without phone or internet access, while one city's air raid sirens stopped working. Kyivstar's chief executive implied Russia could be responsible.

Ukraine's security services are investigating. Moscow hasn't commented.

The Kyivstar network is estimated to have some 24 million mobile customers and a million home internet users.

Reports emerged on Tuesday morning that people and businesses had lost mobile and internet signal.

Air raid sirens in the north-eastern city of Sumy also malfunctioned as a result of the outage.

Military authorities in the area announced they would send out police and emergency vehicles to alert residents of any incoming missile or drone strikes.

Ukraine's largest bank, PrivatBank, said some cash machines were not working and might be "unstable" or "have no connection".

An investigation has been opened by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

"One of the versions currently being investigated by SBU investigators is that the Russian special services may be behind this hacker attack," SBU said in a statement.

Kyivstar said earlier it had called in law enforcement agencies because of the "illegal interference".

The company's general director, Oleksandr Komarov, also appeared to suggest Russian actors could be to blame.

"The war with Russia has many dimensions and one of them is in cyberspace," he said.

"We are working to restore communication as soon as possible," he added and promised compensation for affected customers.

The operator said no-one's personal data had been compromised.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with the war now well into its second year.

Dutch-domiciled parent company Veon said it would work with Kyivstar on "additional security measures" to prevent similar incidents in future.

Separately, Ukraine's military intelligence claimed to have carried out a cyber-attack on Russia's federal tax system in recent days.

"During the special operation, military intelligence of Ukraine managed to break into one of the well-protected key central servers of the federal tax service," read a statement on Telegram.

It said Russian efforts to restore services were now into their fourth day.

[thenihilistofthevoid]

The Blinding Light

(Continued From Here)

The avatar just fell away in this realm, his digital self lost it's meaning in this place, black hair falling into his vision as that reassuring presence was there. His cards were different, he'd created them. He and the Ignis, the successor of that Incident. While the first six ripped themselves apart in that pointless civil war, his own machinations could go ahead as his form stumbled, becoming more real in this world. "We continue. SOL Technologies must be stopped, their designs are dangerous. I placed the chip in the CEO's bracelet, but my control of her is finite. My memory edits can only go so far, and my powers are weakening from exhaustion. That duel with their fool bounty hunters, they were nothing, but they consumed energy all the same." Saburo grunted, clearly in some sort of distress as his fingers shook, pressing into his temple as if trying to dig out some great pain.

His eyes weren't focusing properly, his other hand taking the claw of the dragon. "I need somewhere quiet, a shelter... Away from the constant, deafening noise of the network." He looked exhausted, frail even. Directly operating in cyberspace using a thought-impulse converter put normal people under levels of psychic stress that would kill them, Saburo's extensive use of it was a testament to and a terrible strain on his psionic ability.

[danganronpa-cyberspace]

-DANGANRONPA CYBERSPACE PROLOGUE: PART 3-

Haruki: [After we finished talking to her, we went back to the center of the dome.]

Haruki: [I looked around, taking in everybody.]

Haruki: I think that covers everyone.

Haruki: These people are kind of crazy, don’t you think?

Kiki: Awww, not crazy!! Just different!!

Kiki: No ultimate is a normal person, they’re ultimate!!

Haruki: I guess so, but it’s just that, some people here just…

Haruki: [What’s the nicest way to put this?]

Haruki: …seem like they’ve lost a bit of their sanity.

Kiki: Haruki, have I lost a bit of my sanity?!

Haruki: …

Haruki: Yes.

Kiki: HEYYY!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

Haruki: Sorry! I was joking!

Kiki: Hmph, I know, but give people a chance!!

Haruki: I’m sorry, I just don’t trust many people.

Haruki: The only people here I trust are Ouki and you.

Haruki: [I trust they won’t toss me into a hospital on a whim.]

Kiki: Haruki!! You just gotta get to know your classmates better!!

Haruki: [She cut off, and smirked.]

Haruki: […what is she doing?]

Kiki: Oh, I get it now!! I get why you don’t trust people!!

Haruki: [No no no no no no-]

Kiki: YOU’RE SHY!

Haruki: […yes Kiki. I am shy.]

Haruki: …a little bit?

Kiki: Hey.

Haruki: [She grabbed my hand, and smiled.]

Kiki: They’re your classmates. You just gotta get to know them.

Haruki: But, I’m not a real ultimate. I’m just Haruki.

Kiki: Is Haruki Douzono an Ultimate??

Haruki: N-

Kiki: YES. You are just as cool and sweet and awesome as the rest of them!!

Kiki: I promise, Haruki.

Haruki: [Her beige eyes were beaming with light as they bore into me.]

Haruki: [Why do we feel so close when we’ve just met?]

Haruki: [I’ve known her forever, is what it feels like.]

Haruki: […and her eyes are very passionate.]

Haruki: Sigh, okay.

Haruki: I’m just as cool as the rest of the Ultimates here.

Kiki: Yayyyyy!! I’m-

CRACK!

Haruki: [The mighty crack of the riding crop tore through the air as we all assembled once more.]

Haruki: [Again, Benio handed it back to Tomoki, and cleared her throat.]

Benio: Attention everyone! I believe we have searched this place thoroughly and accounted for traps!

Benio: I have taken the liberty of-

Tomoki: Ahem.

Benio: Ugh, Tomoki and I came up the idea of marking where the traps are-

Tomoki: By burning the grass with my unluckiness, of course!

Benio: So, while still dangerous, it is safe to traverse the courtyard.

Benio: Just please, watch your step!

Haruki: [The Theologian raises his hand.]

Benio: Yes, Zempei?

Zempei: Pardon me, but…

Zempei: …do you think we’ve been kidnapped?

Alexandra: Agreed. There are many signs we have been.

Benio: I do not have enough information to conclude that yet.

Tomoki: I do, though! I am quite sure we’ve been kidnapped!

Benio: We don’t have enough info!

Tomoki: But Benio darling, jumping to conclusions is so fun!

Haruki: [I whispered to Kiki.]

Haruki: They remind me of an old married couple.

Kiki: Haruki, they don’t have any chemistry!!

Kiki: And they’re definitely a hornet and a Yellowjacket.

Haruki: [As Kiki and I giggled, Ouki gave us a “shut up” stare.]

Haruki: [We quickly composed ourselves, and I felt very guilty.]

Waku: Oh, me me me!

Haruki: [He strutted up to the front of the group, and held up its phone.]

Waku: Does anyone, ANYONE, have service? I’ve been trying to get some, but I haven’t had any luck!

Waku: And I bet it’s the knockoff war general’s fault!

Tomoki: It’s not, but I can make it my fault!

Benio: Ugh!

Haruki: [Benio shoved Waku back into the crowd.]

Benio: Any more questions?

Haruki: [Hinato raised his hand and smirked.]

Hinato: You single?

Benio: NO!

Haruki: [Wow, she didn’t even think about it!]

Haruki: [Claire walked up to join Benio, and waved her hands.]

Claire: Hey, if you have a dumb question, don’t ask it.

Benio: Exactly what Claire said.

Claire: Ask me the dumb questions. I love talking to people.

Benio: MOVE!

Haruki: [Claire giggled and walked back in the crowd, with Chinatsu immediately talking to her.]

Haruki: [Oh, poor Claire.]

Benio: I will answer one more question!

Haruki: [Miliani raises her hand, and lowers her sunglasses.]

Miliani: How long have we really been here? And if you tell me one day, I won’t buy it.

Benio: Thank you for asking a reasonable question!

Benio: We’ve been here for-

??? (MonoLad): Twenty five days!

Haruki: Huh?

Haruki: [Everyone looked around, dazed and confused.]

Yukina: Look up.

Haruki: [We did as they said and what we saw…]

[Cutscene time! Everyone looks up to see MonoCer descended from the air, very angelically, with light shining upon her. But as she’s descending, MonoLad falls from the sky, crashing into MonoCer, and the two land in a heap on the ground.]

??? & ??? (MonoCer and MonoLad): Owwwww…

Eito: W-What the hell?! What are those t-things?!

Chinatsu: My Chimura, they look like…robots.

Asaha: Ah! This reminds me of a game with robots that kidnap children! It’s cal-

Waku: SHHHH! Do you wanna get sued?!

Haruki: [What are these things? One looks like an angel while the other looks like a devil.]

Haruki: [This is like something out of a cartoon.]

Haruki: [Suddenly, the devil one shot to its feet.]

??? (MonoLad): HEYYYY BITCHES!! How’d you nerds get settled in?!

Haruki: [Then, the angel joined the devil.]

??? (MonoCer): Heyyyy, calling them nerds isn’t very nice!

Benio: What- Who- What is going on?!

??? (MonoLad): KEEP IN YOUR FUCKIN’ PANTS FOR FIVE MINUTES!!

??? (MonoCer): No! Our students want to know who we are, MonoLad!

Haruki: [Students? No. No, those things are not our teachers.]

MonoLad: God, fineeee, MonoCer! I am one of your lovely teachers at this bitchin’ school…MonoLad!

Decebel: That is Romanian. It means hell. You are Mono Hell.

MonoLad: Yeah, but MONOLAD sounds sooooo much better, don’t ya think?

Decebel: …no…

MonoLad: WELL WHO ASKED YOU ANYWAY!

Decebel: Ah-!

Haruki: [As Decebel jumped back, the angel figure hurried over to him.]

??? (MonoCer): No, no I am so sorry! I’m so sorryyyyyy!

Yukina: Just leave him alone.

Decebel: Tha-

Yukina: Don’t.

MonoCer: I’m sorry for my coworker’s behavior…I am MonoCer! A kind and caring teacher, ready to help anyone at a moment’s notice!

Miliani: I bet that means Mono Heaven.

Zempei: You are the angel and devil on our shoulders, yes?

MonoCer: Yes! But I’m sure with a bit of time, we’ll both be angels!

MonoLad: You’ll all be angels.

Haruki: All?

MonoCer: …Maybe.

Benio: Maybe?! What is this, rehab?!

Alexandra: No. Something far worse.

Tomoki: How worse?

Alexandra: Death worse.

Haruki: [On that word, I felt Kiki cling to me.]

Haruki: What’s…What’s going on?

Kiki: I don’t know…

MonoLad: Death worse?! I’d say more…

MonoLad: MURDEROUS.

Benio: Explain! Explain!

MonoCer: Cerrie? You wanna tell them?

MonoCer: You’re all Hope’s Peak freshmen, and, under strict orders…

MonoCer: We’re playing a game.

Waku: A game?! Tag this ain’t. Unless you wanna tag me in your bio, he-

Hinato: Dude, shut up.

MonoCer: In this game…

MonoCer: If you want to escape here alive…

MonoCer: You must successfully kill another student without being caught.

…

Haruki: [Deafening silence filled the room.]

Haruki: [No way, she must be kidding.]

Haruki: [This has to be some senior hazing, or a prank.]

Ouki: Okay Hope’s Peak Seniors, you’ve got us! Good one! Now come on, let us out of here.

MonoLad: Ohhhhh, Ouki, sweet strong Ouki!

MonoLad: This isn’t a joke or a dream! This is all real!

MonoLad: For example, I can do THIS!

Haruki: [MonoLad revealed from his hand a giant, buzzing saw.]

Haruki: [And as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.]

Ouki: My god.

Benio: There’s no, no, logic in any of this…

Tomoki: Hehehehe, this is quite fun, don’t you think?

Haruki: [As everyone cried out in horror, I looked to my side.]

Haruki: [Kiki clung to me, staring at the ground.]

Haruki: Kiki, are you okay?

Kiki: F-Fuck these things…

Haruki: [She stared away once more, all the mojo in her gone.]

Haruki: […what happened to everyone?]

Haruki: [These ultimates are supposed to have hope. Supposed to be brave.]

Haruki: [Then why is everyone freaking out?]

Haruki: [Inside of me…I felt angry.]

Haruki: [I felt…I felt like doing something about this.]

Haruki: [I’m not standing here while everyone breaks down.]

Haruki: [This fury inside of me…it’s not going to go unnoticed!]

…

Haruki: ENOUGH.

Haruki: [My sturdy shout echoed throughout the room, causing silence.]

Haruki: I’m stopping this. Right now.

MonoLad: What are you gonna do?! Give me a system error 404?!

MonoLad: Or maybe even become a wreck!

MonoCer: MONOLAD! STOP!

MonoLad: Go ahead, end this all right now, you bucket of bolts!

Haruki: [I’m not going to be pushed around like this.]

Haruki: [And I’m not letting these Ultimates break down.]

Haruki: [I’m not letting Kiki break down.]

Haruki: …

Haruki: Watch me.

[Cutscene time! Haruki steps up further, as everyone clears a path for him. We see Kiki watch in a mixture of fear and admiration, as Haruki raises his robotic arm. At the center of the palm, a ball of blue energy glows, getting larger and larger, until it’s the size of his head. And with one flick of his wrist, the ball of energy is sent flying towards MonoLad. MonoCer and MonoLad both face the ball, and get hit. But it does nothing. They only stand there, and shrug, as Haruki falls to his knees, exhausted.]

Haruki: Hah…Hah…

Haruki: [That was the…the only move I could use…]

Haruki: [The strongest and only one I know…]

Haruki: [And they just stand there?!]

Kiki: HARUKI! HARUKI ARE YOU OKAY?!

Kiki: YOU STUPID CREATURES! DUMB FUCKS! STUPID BITCHES!!

Haruki: [I could hear Kiki shouting as I closed my eyes, laying in the exact same position as I started.]

Asaha: Oh My! Poor dearie!

Claire: Guys, he’s fading out, he’s closing his eyes, help him!

Tomoki: What a fool…a sexy and powerful fool!

Benio: STAY AWAKE! THAT IS AN ORDER!

Haruki: [I heard everyone shouting, and I felt Kiki’s tears on my face.]

Haruki: [But the last words I heard were:]

MonoLad: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, to get outta here…

MonoLad: YOU GOTTA KILL. YA MUST.

Prologue Complete!

Students Remaining: 16

-END OF PART 3-

-HAPPY KILLING!-

[atwas-meme-ing]

Oh, wow. I just thought of something.

So, you know how Shadow pushed Sonic away in SA2? And how Sonic messed up on the Lost Hex? And we don't know what was happening to him up on the Death Egg in Forces, but since it doesn't look like he was really being tortured, he must have had a lot of time to think, to worry about the people that were being killed in the war down below.

Sonic has lost so many people. "I'm supposed to be the fastest, but I was too slow to save my buddy." That's the only time he's ever vocalized it, but as the hero, he does take it upon himself to save everyone. And sometimes... it just doesn't work out that way.

All those years, all those adventures, all those missions, all those people he couldn't save- and then his friends get locked in Cyberspace. And they say they're fine, but... they're his friends. "So many ruins... I'm not letting it happen again!" He can't stand seeing anyone hurt, anyway, but especially the people he cares about.

So he pushed himself. He thought of Shadow. He thought of the lives lost to the Eggman Empire. "Push! Through it! Endure!" He wasn't going to let anyone down, not this time. Even if it killed him.

[darkmaga-retard]

Whenever the foreign news is especially depressing, I like to reminisce about the halcyon days of 1989, when the fall of the Berlin wall so memorably illustrated the collapse of Communist tyranny in eastern Europe, or 1991, when a still relatively sober Boris Yeltsin stared down an “anti-democratic” coup mounted by stodgy Soviet bureaucrats and then grandly outlawed the Russian Communist Party, perpetrator of so many crimes in the USSR, Europe, and Asia. If domestic affairs get me down, I recall fondly the atmosphere of 1994 and 1995 when, as a wide-eyed Stanford undergraduate in the heart of Silicon Valley, I witnessed the exciting launch of the World Wide Web, with its heady promise of new liberties dawning in cyberspace.

The reverie does not last long. Even in 1989, I have to remind myself, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), demonstrating ruthlessness that the last Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev fortunately lacked, had placed a giant asterisk on the “fall of Communism” narrative by slaughtering hundreds of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Since the West followed China down the Covid path of forcible quarantine, Orwellian “contact tracing” and online surveillance and censorship in 2020—enabled, to my shame, by Stanford University’s now-disbanded “Internet Observatory”—the failure of Communist-style statist tyranny to die off is hard to ignore. We should not forget that President Yeltsin lost in court when the Communist Party sued to be reinstated in 1992; it is still the second-largest political party in Russia. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the aggressive western sanctions (and Russian counter-measures) that followed it, relations between Moscow and the West are now colder, by many measures, than at the height of the Cold War. As for the vaunted World Wide Web, compare a typical headline from its muse, Wired magazine, in 1995 (“Save Free Speech in Cyberspace!”) to today (August 19, 2024): “The Pentagon is Planning a ‘Drone Hellscape’ to Defend Taiwan.” 

Something has clearly gone badly awry in the post–Cold War world. In that ARPANET, the precursor to today’s heavily-controlled internet, was originally designed by the U.S. military as a failsafe against Soviet nuclear attack, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that the internet search and social media behemoths of Silicon Valley became heavily intertwined with U.S. intelligence agencies, or that Wired now does PR for the Pentagon. But were not the U.S. defense and spy agencies supposed to be tasked with defending American and western freedoms against the Communist threat, rather than imposing Communist-style controls on the population? Did the U.S. and its Allies, despite appearances in 1989 and 1991, actually lose the Cold War?

[ghost-in-cyberspace]

Percy Jackson and The Olympians Season 1 vs The Lightning Thief.

Hi so continuing on my previous post. https://www.tumblr.com/ghost-in-cyberspace/741314285038436352/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-season-1-vs-the?source=share

I'm going to compare episode 2 and 3.

Again beware

Episode 2 I become Supreme Lord of The Bathroom.

Chapter list is

5. I play Pinocle with a Horse

6. I become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

7. My dinner goes Up in Smoke

8. We Capture A Flag

9. I Am Offered A Quest

The main plot points and similarities for this episode and these chapters are this.

Percy is told that the Greek gods are real and how Camp Half-Blood works, including that he's in the Hermes Cabin since anyone with an unknown and/or non-Olympian godly parent goes there. And because of that, it's extremely crowded.

Percy is cycled through camp activities to find what he's good at, and he's epically bad at archery.

He's hazed by the Ares campers led by Clarisse La Rue (You find her full name out later in the series). In response to this, his hydrokinetic abilities take control of all the bathroom's water. Blasting his attackers.

Annabeth witnesses this and recruits him to use as bait during Capture the Flag.

It's also explained that Annabeth is eager to go out into the world on a quest, but Chiron has told her she had to wait for a special demigod to arrive.

During Capture the Flag Percy is used as bait, and Clarisse and a few other Ares campers attack him. Annabeth was going to help, but Percy fights them off. Annabeth figures out that Percy is the Son of Poseidon just before he was claimed. Percy is moved to Cabin Three, Poseidon's cabin and offered a quest to retrieve the Master Bolt, Zeus's Lightning Bolt and symbol of his power, the theft of which has caused a rift between Zeus and Poseidon and is threatening to cause a war.

Now the differences are this:

TV Series

In the the TV series it's named in ancient Greek "Kleos" but in the books it's not, though in both it's explained that campers want to fight monsters and go on quests to earn it.

The TV series also skips out some stuff, but one major change is Grover's fate and actions.

In the book, it's explained way here that Grover want's a Searcher's license, to find the wild god Pan. But first he has to prove himself by succeeding as a Protector. Namely by finding a demigod and guiding them safely to camp. However Percy was his second chance. Here is the first hint that Grover was the one that found Thalia, Luke and Annabeth. However the Council of Cloven Elders had deliberated if he had succeeded in his role with Percy in the book since in the book he lost Percy at the bus station, and was unconscious and Percy had to drag him across the boundary. In the end they decided that he hadn't succeeded nor failed in regards to his role as Protector for Percy. So Dionysus had declared that their fates were still tied together. If Percy was to go on a quest and Grover went to protect him and the two returned alive then Grover would earn his Searcher's license.

This didn't happen in the TV series. Instead Grover was declared to have succeeded. Instead he consulted the Council over Sally Jackson's fate. Since he witnessed it in this version and wondered why Sally turned to dust. So instead he got into trouble for telling Percy that his mother was being held captive in the Underworld.

This is the second change. In the both versions Percy wasn't exactly eager to help Poseidon out, seeing his claiming as Poseidon just acknowledging him as the god needed his help after a lifetime of ignoring him. In both versions he wanted to rescue his mother from the Underworld as his true goal, vs retrieving the thunderbolt. It's just in the TV series he found out before he set off that Sally Jackson was still alive and blatantly from the start accepted to go rescue her rather than help Poseidon. In the books he thought he was going to pull an Orpheus and retrieve her undead shade to restore to life.

The Book

So a scene that was skipped in the TV series, presumably for pacing and the fact Percy already had Anaklusmos (his sword Riptide I just like typing out the longer name) was a sword fighting class with Luke and the other Hermes campers. It took place when they were still figuring out his divine parent. Percy was hindered a bit as none of the practice swords worked with him, they were either too short, too long, too heavy or too light. But during the class break, Percy copied Luke in pouring ice water to cool down. The water boosted him, and he was able to defeat Luke, who was the best swordsman in camp.

The capture the flag and claiming scene played out slightly different in the book.

In the TV series Percy lead Clarisse and the Ares campers on a chase to the creek, but defeated them on the shore. And he was claimed when Annabeth shoved him in the water to heal his scratches. In the books he was already stationed near the Creek, which was the boundary. Percy only had a week of training tops, so he was overwhelmed until he was backed into the water, which gave him a boost to overwhelm his attackers. Annabeth spots that the cuts he received was healing, and when he stepped out the water he almost collapses from exhaustion.

Then the Lightning Thief, unknown to anyone else, summons a hellhound which nearly tears Percy apart but was killed by Chiron and Apollo's kids arrows. Annabeth has Percy step back into the water, both to heal the slashes from the hellhound, and demonstrate his healing ability to Chiron.

There was some additional scenes after his claiming that was skipped. Namely someone leaving a newspaper article that showed that the police blame him for his mother's disappearance. (His fugitive status comes up later in the TV series).

That wraps up episode two. Check back later for Episode 3

[thehorrortree]

Deadline: February 4th, 2024 Payment: 3 (Euro) cents per word for original fiction and 1 (Euro) cent per word for translations of fiction into English. Theme: Hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. There are plenty of amazing print and online journals out there for ‘character-driven’ fiction, and we encourage you to read them. Sci Phi Journal (SPJ) is not one of them, though. Hence, we are not too keen on stories predominantly about the sentiments and subjective experiences of fictional people. We want hard SF that zooms out of the personal and lifts off into the structural, the systemic, the epic. We yearn for carefully crafted philosophical speculation that puzzles over the questions of the future and alternate pasts. And we have a soft spot for stories created as ‘artifacts’ (fictional, ‘in-universe’ non-fiction). So here are SPJ‘s quests: – Campbellian hard SF. Reaching back to the roots of classic sci-fi, these rigorous tales take themselves seriously and push the boundaries of our scientific imagination, scaling from the nano to the meta. The cast, if any, is functional and disposable. It’s the sociological, technological and indeed cosmic developments that sweep the reader up in an expanding sense of wonder. (For a contemporary long-form example that received mainstream attention, see the latter two books of Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem trilogy.) – Fictional non-fiction. The purest, most intimate form of world-building. A transcript of the last UN Security Council meeting before an extinction-level event. The dental bills of a cybernetic vampire. Interviews with eyewitnesses of a battle between Martians and archangels. (Epistolary fiction falls within this category, though we encourage you to interpret it more broadly, across the full spectrum of artifact fiction.) Think ‘World War Z’, not ‘Walking Dead’. – Speculative philosophy. Extrapolating abstract ideas to examine the implications if they were to manifest. (See for instance The End of History, the Beginning of Hers in Vol. V. Issue 1. for a theological example of just what we mean.) (The first author to have a story published in each of the three categories gets to choose any one member of the extended editorial team and marry them. You’ve been warned.) Length and formatting Brevity tends to correlate positively with idea-density. Thus we are looking for stories no longer than 2000 words (but preferably shorter). Due to the volume of submissions, we cannot promise to read stories that are over the word limit. .doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf, .txt, anything is fine as long as it’s editable. No PDFs, TIFFs or coffee mug-stained scans, please. Preferably size 12, in easy-to-read font. Logistics We have transitioned to a new submissions management system called “Duosuma”. We care about your stories and too many have gotten lost or misfiled in cyberspace over the years, so we kindly ask you to no longer submit them by email, but use our secure online form instead. Here’s the link: https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/sci-phi-journal-v1BL8 For the sake of our internal workflow, please only submit one story during a given call for subs. Simultaneous submissions are okay, but if you place your story elsewhere in the meantime, we’d be grateful if you let us know. Please also include a short bio to accompany your work (quirky or serious are both fine). We also encourage you to add a Philosophy Note (under “cover letter”): a short paragraph on the inspiration for the tale and which philosophical questions it addresses, as well as relevant further reading you might wish to recommend. If the story you submit to SPJ is short-listed by our editorial team (potentially with minor corrections or amendments suggested), and you are still happy to work with us, we will offer to acquire its first publishing rights. We only take previously unpublished works of fiction, for obvious copyright reasons. (No reprints.) Please

refrain from sending us AI-generated content, as (a) we prefer to devote our crew’s time to engaging with the fruits of actual human creativity, and (b) we don’t feel that the present murky situation adequately addresses the rights and legitimate concerns of original authors whose work is fed into machine-learning algorithms. Translations In addition to original fiction, we would like to unearth buried and forgotten treasures written in languages other than English. We are therefore open to receiving translations of short stories that fit within the sub-domains outlined above, provided they haven’t previously been translated into English, or if you can give us a very good reason why they should be re-translated. Where applicable, it is the responsibility of translators to secure permission from the author or copyright-holder. By submitting a translation to us, you imply that you have done so. We would love to be able to read Sanskrit, Kalaallisut and Bidayuh. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten around to learning them yet. For that reason, translators are solely responsible for the accuracy of their work. We can only assess the literary qualities of the final English text, which will be judged by the same criteria that apply to original fiction. Payment For accepted works, at present we are able to offer the standard semi-pro rate of 3 (Euro) cents per word for original fiction and 1 (Euro) cent per word for translations of fiction into English. At this point, we regret that we are unable to provide payment for non-fiction. Payment is made through PayPal. For this to work, authors need a (free) PayPal account. - Sci Phi Journal is a volunteer-run, semi-pro webzine dedicated to the intersection of Philosophy and Science Fiction. Winner of the 2022 European Science Fiction Award for Best Magazine, our content has been shortlisted for Hugo, Locus and Utopia awards, among others. We publish concept-heavy, idea-driven (as opposed to 'character-driven') short stories and essays, across a wide variety of sub-genres from alternate history to hard sci-fi, from artefact fiction (or fictional non-fiction) to theological fantasy. We celebrate SF as speculative fiction in the broadest sense and are always pleased to see daring approaches, as long as they do not compromise or obfuscate the literary quality of the author's prose. Based in Brussels, Belgium, Sci Phi Journal is open to readers and writers of all persuasions, and publishes both established and emerging authors. If you consider submitting your work to us (we sure hope you do!), please kindly familiarise yourself with our guidelines (incl. information on word limit, formatting, payment to authors, etc.) and, optionally, a list of things we see too often (the "Index of Heresies"). Should you feel so inclined, you are also welcome to peruse a Note on our Philosophy. General Call for Submissions Dear authors, you are welcome to submit ONE work of fiction of maximum 2000 words under our General Submission stream (free choice of topic within the broad spectrum of philosophical science fiction & fantasy), from 2nd January to 4th February 2024. Before submitting your work, please kindly familiarise yourself with our guidelines (incl. information on word limit, formatting, payment to authors, etc.) and, if your time allows, a list of things we see too often (the "Index of Heresies"). We will do our utmost to reply to all submissions by the first half of March 2024, but please bear with us, as each piece will be read by at least two people. In the meantime, take care and have a cosy winter! Speculatively yours, Sci Phi Journal editors & crew Submit Via: Sci Phi Journal's Duotrope.

[jcmarchi]

Digital emblem for humanitarian law in cyberspace - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/digital-emblem-for-humanitarian-law-in-cyberspace-technology-org/

Digital emblem for humanitarian law in cyberspace - Technology Org

Warfare is increasingly spreading to the realm of cyberspace. In response, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants to protect its digital infrastructure and that of humanitarian organisations with a digital emblem. The Information Security Group at ETH Zurich has developed a standard for this and initial pilots.

In future, digital critical infrastructure should be labelled as worthy of protection by a digital emblem. ETH computer scientists have developed the technology for this. Image credit: ICRC

Ransomware attacks can paralyse organisations or entire countries by hacking into a network and encrypting critical data. The attackers then demand a ransom; if their demands aren’t met, the data will not be decrypted and may be lost forever. The financial and logistical damage can be enormous depending on the given situation. In January 2022, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was the victim of a cyberattack. Data belonging to more than 500,000 people around the world was stored on the affected servers. This included data on people who needed special protection, such as missing persons, refugees from war zones and prisoners. “The ICRC’s digital infrastructure has grown considerably in recent years – and so has the number of cyberattacks on our systems,” says Mauro Vignati, Adviser Digital Technologies of Warfare at the ICRC. Particularly during wars and armed conflicts, such cyberattacks could also have catastrophic humanitarian consequences, for example if the enemy paralyses the digital infrastructure of a hospital.

Trusted emblem for protection against attacks

For conflicts beyond cyberspace, the ICRC has employed protective emblems since the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the core of international humanitarian law. The red cross, red crescent and red crystal provide protection for hospitals, vehicles and employees of organisations in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement network (including the ICRC). Today, the network has over 80 million members who are active in 192 countries. As a matter of principle, bearers of these emblems are protected by international humanitarian law, especially in conflicts. Warring parties are not allowed to attack them. “That’s why we’ve been wondering for some time whether we could also develop an emblem to protect our digital infrastructure,” Vignati says. Such a system would have to fulfil a number of requirements: “It should be easy and cost-​effective to integrate into existing digital systems worldwide and easy to maintain. It would also have to bridge linguistic, technological and cultural differences.” What’s more, the emblem ought to be as flexible as possible. In certain situations, it’s important for ICRC staff to mask the emblem, Vignati says.

Three years ago, the ICRC contacted the Centre for Cyber Trust, a research collaboration between ETH Zurich and the University of Bonn in the field of cybersecurity, with this idea of establishing a digital emblem. One of the people working on this since then is Felix Linker, who is currently writing his doctoral thesis in the group led by David Basin, Professor of Information Security at the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. “A digital emblem has a unique combination of security requirements, namely authenticity, accountability and a property that we call covert inspection,” Linker says. The Authentic Digital EMblem (ADEM), which he has developed together with Basin, is based on the web PKI and CT ecosystem (Web PKI and CT stand for Web Public Key Infrastructure and Certificate Transparency). “We rely on existing best practices on the internet. What makes our work innovative is how we’ve combined different solutions to meet the technical requirements,” Linker says. In an article recently published in the Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Linker and Basin describe in detail for the first time how ADEM works.

Machine-​readable and decentralised

The emblem they have developed is cryptographically secured using a digital signature – a long sequence of bits that can be read by a program developed for this purpose. This makes it possible to retrieve information about the owner, the IP or domain worthy of protection, as well as the publisher of the emblem. “It’s important that the emblem can be read by machines, because most cyberattacks today are automated,” Linker says. In other words, hacker software needs to automatically load and read the emblem, so it can recognise that it is accessing a system belonging to an organisation that is protected by international humanitarian law. And that needs to happen during the software’s first reconnaissance, before it does any damage to the system.

Another key requirement is for the digital emblem to be managed in a decentralised way rather than by a central authority. States that are committed to international humanitarian law should be able to verify that a certain digital infrastructure on their territory is entitled to protection and therefore bears an emblem. To this end, ADEM is based on an open standard, so governments can adapt the emblem’s implementation as flexibly as possible to their own requirements.

Hackers remain undetected

Potential attacks on servers and networks can come from hacker groups, but also from states during a war. These want to remain undetected at all costs. “That’s why attackers must be able to view the emblem without either the protected institution or the issuer of the digital signature being able to tell that the emblem has been looked at.” Only then will potential attackers be prepared to have their systems run the scanner for detecting the emblem. “Standard internet authentication protocols aren’t suitable for this because they require interaction between the two parties involved,” Linker says. “That attracts attention, which means it won’t work in a conflict.” He managed to come up with a combination of suitable internet protocols (UDP, TLS and DNS) to mask the distribution of the emblem.

Linker has now evaluated the system in a security analysis under a comprehensive threat model. His evaluation shows that the digital emblem cannot be misused by attackers and acts as a security guarantee. He says that this provides proof of concept. He is now developing the first prototypes further, while colleagues from the Centre for Cyber Trust in Bonn will conduct interviews with hackers to find out how willing people are to respect such an emblem. After all, only then will they bother to run a program that can recognise emblems. But this is something Linker is confident about: in the past, hackers have been known to avoid humanitarian targets on occasion, “for ethical reasons or simply to avoid attracting too much attention.”

Difficult legal implementation

Vignati from the ICRC is satisfied: “ADEM fulfils all our original requirements for a digital emblem.” The main task now is to further optimise the emblem’s visibility to potential attackers. However, it will probably be several years before the digital emblem actually starts helping to protect the ICRC’s critical digital infrastructure and hospitals in war zones. “The legal implementation is very challenging,” Vignati says. Implementing the emblem in the legal framework calls for adjustments to the Geneva Conventions: “Either through a new additional protocol or through an addition to the existing protocols.” The ICRC plans to showcase ADEM, along with another system designed at John Hopkins University, at an international humanitarian law conference to be held in October 2024. It will also present legal pathways for bringing the digital emblem into operation. “That would be an important first step in strengthening humanitarian protection in cyberspace,” Vignati says.

Source: ETH Zurich

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[cyberbenb]

Ukraine may be winning ‘world’s first cyberwar’

For Ukraine’s main cybersecurity agency, Russia’s full-scale war began over a month before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine from all directions – with a large cyber attack on Jan. 14, 2022.

“It all started with an attack on state authorities, it was the largest attack in 17 years,” says Yurii Shchyhol, head of the State Special Communications Service, which is responsible for defending Ukraine’s cyberspace.

Shchyhol says over 90 government websites were targeted, about 20 of them were defaced, and some data was erased. It took Ukrainian authorities 2-3 days to get those websites back up.

“This was the first indication for us that (Russia) was planning something big," he adds.

The month leading up to the full-scale invasion, Ukraine experienced several major cyberattacks – on Feb. 15 and Feb. 22.

By the time Russia launched its full-scale war, Ukraine was ready to face Kremlin’s cyberwarfare, taking place alongside the ground offensive.

The 7,500 employees of the Special Communications Service are now in charge of protecting Ukraine from cyberattacks, ensuring the military and political communication is secure, and conducting online operations to hamper Russia’s war effort.

Fighting smarter: Ukraine’s transformation into a military innovator

Before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 27-year-old engineer Maxim Sheremet was engaged in the manufacturing of commercial drones. He worked for the state defense company Ukroboronprom, a strategic manufacturer of weapons and military hardware in Ukraine, and later at Evolve Dynami…

The Kyiv IndependentAgatha Gorski

The agency has also created a database of critical infrastructure, and coordinates its defense.

“There has never been such a war in history,” Shchyhol, who took charge of the agency in 2021, says. “It is the world’s first cyberwar in general, and there is no country in the world (except Ukraine) with this experience."

He adds that Ukraine has faced around 20 cyberattacks per day since February 2022, with most of them deterred automatically, while some requiring timely intrusions by the agency.

In the 16 months since the start of the full–scale war, Shchyhol says Ukraine hasn’t lost any critical information, nor were any major systems downed.

Shchyhol says the agency is now drawing up a list of sanctions and laws required to stop Russia from being able to conduct cyberwarfare.

“Even after our victory on the ground, we understand that the cyberwar will not cease, and they will persist in attacking our systems,” Shchyhol says.

“Therefore, our international partners are currently working on creating conditions that will ultimately compel Russia to stop threatening Ukraine and the civilized world,” he adds.

“Our goal is to push them back into the intellectual and IT Middle Ages."

Preparing for cyberwarfare

Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas in 2014. It soon turned to cyberwarfare to accompany its conventional attacks.

In 2017, Ukraine was struck by a series of powerful cyberattacks using the NotPetya malware that swamped banks, energy companies, government websites, and many non-governmental organizations.

NotPetya ransomware was designed to cause substantial destruction and Ukraine was the primary target of the attack.

For a brief time, Ukrainian cyberspace was left defenseless.

Shchyhol says that’s when the state began to prepare for cyberwar. Reforms soon followed.

“We created a national coordination center and a corresponding unit within the security service. This service acquired new powers,” Shchyhol says.

The agency gained complete control of Ukraine’s cyberdefense but simultaneously decentralized it, transferring some functions to different departments and allowing security specialists to perform tasks without the need to ask the leadership for permission.

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), a structural department of the Special Communications Service, employed young, tech-savvy professionals to counter future attacks.

The Ukrainian government soon issued a decree ensuring that government-employed IT specialists receive a premium for their work.

Serhiy Prytula: New satellite made Ukrainian intelligence ‘happy like kids’

Ukrainian comedian turned politician Serhiy Prytula said spending the $17 million fundraised by Ukrainians to purchase a satellite from the Finnish microsatellite manufacturer ICEYE was a “great decision.” Ukraine’s military is satisfied with the data provided by the satellite, Pry…

The Kyiv IndependentDaryna Antoniuk

“We know that they can always find a high-earning job elsewhere, but it’s good that they are willing to help the state,” Volodymyr Kondrashov, spokesman for the State Special Communications Service, said.

Under Shchyhol, the state agency began to work hand in hand with the private sector to help prevent potential attacks on businesses.

“In two years, we managed to build a trustworthy relationship with the private sector, where they started utilizing the services we provide today,” he adds.

Shchyhol also mentions that Ukraine was able to build a relationship with white hat hackers, who helped when Russia was about to launch the full-scale invasion.

“We didn’t assume any authority, we wanted their assistance. And it was these people who on Jan. 14, during the first major attack, said, ‘we are with you,'” Shchyhol says.

However, experts say the scale to which independent IT specialists influenced Ukraine’s cyberdefense is greatly exaggerated.

Battle-hardened cyber defense

“Today, we possess the greatest competence in the world when it comes to repelling attacks,” Shchyhol says.

In 2022 alone, the CERT-UA team manually deterred 2,194 attacks. That’s over six attacks per day. The number of cyberattacks deterred automatically is approximately 20 per day, Shchyhol says.

To prevent such attacks, the State Special Communications Service works alongside cyber police, which investigates the attacks, and the National Security and Defense Council, which recommends sanctions and legislation.

“Before the full-scale war, we could hardly imagine that all these entities would work toward a common goal and collaborate,” Shchyhol says, referring to infighting to which Ukrainian state agencies were prone.

People under Russian occupation cut off from internet, mobile connection

Editor’s Note: This story includes interviews with people living under Russian occupation. Their full names are not disclosed to protect their identity as they have shared sensitive information that could place them and their families in danger. Every time Ukrainian engineer Yevhen wants to connect…

The Kyiv IndependentDaryna Antoniuk

Sitting in a refurbished office in an old Soviet-built building, Shchyhol says Russia continues to methodically attempt to find holes in Ukraine’s cybersecurity.

“All the activities of their hacker groups are part of a unified plan and are coordinated with other hacker groups in Russia under state control,” Shchyhol says.

When Russia began bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in October, Shchyhol says, its cyber arm “shifted focus to attacking energy infrastructure, attempting to disrupt energy distribution networks in conjunction with their missile attacks."

He says that one attack that would have halted Ukraine’s electricity supply was deterred last minute, adding that it’s a 24/7 job to keep Ukraine’s critical infrastructure online.

Shchyhol believes that Ukraine shouldn’t underestimate Russia’s abilities to deliver a blow.

“They will always seek out vulnerabilities to penetrate our defense system, just as they do on the battlefield."

That’s why Shchyhol says his agency is also looking for ways to deprive Russia of the ability to continue its ongoing cyberattacks.

“They must be excluded from all international organizations and isolated from the civilized world to prevent them from accessing technologies. Only then can there become a guarantee of our future security,” Shchyhol says.

He adds that, despite Russia’s ability to bypass sanctions, a significant portion of their equipment, such as the one made by U.S. tech corporations Cisco and IBM, does not receive support or license updates.

“In six months to a year, it will reach a point where it won’t function at all, impeding their ability to launch attacks,” Shchyhol says. “Thus, time is working in our favor.”

Front-line struggles

Despite some success, Ukraine is still facing cyber issues that need to be tackled, and some of them are experienced right on the battlefield.

Soldiers who spoke with the Kyiv Independent said they had encountered problems with basic communications, sometimes having trouble reaching units stationed 100 meters away.

Shchyhol says it’s an acute issue they desperately want to solve.

“They (Russians) launched attacks on Viasat (satellites), for example, during the first night of the invasion, followed by attacks on Ukrainian providers and operators,” Shchyhol says, adding that it created chaos early into the full-scale war.

Viasat is an international satellite used by multiple countries but Ukraine suffered the most, according to Shchyhol. “At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the backup communication lines for the Armed Forces were established through Viasat,” he says.

Shchyhol says most problems are solved now with the help of the Starlink satellite internet, with Ukraine using over 20,000 of Elon Musk’s terminals, but adds that jammed radio frequencies remain an issue.

How Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet keeps Ukraine online

Among the Ukrainian military, Elon Musk, the richest tech entrepreneur in the U.S., is often half-jokingly referred to as “Saint Elon.” The reason is Starlink, Musk’s satellite communication system that keeps many Ukrainians, most importantly the military, online despite power outages and Russia’s…

The Kyiv IndependentDaryna Antoniuk

“If we are talking about Bakhmut or any other hot spot, they employ means of electronic warfare, unfortunately. When they activate all their possible means, it affects our communication,” Shchyhol says.

“If we are referring to hot spots, it is quite effective. They utilize all their electronic warfare systems and can disrupt the stability of our communication."

Shchyhol says Western countries substantially helped Ukraine by providing equipment to counter Russian attempts to disrupt front-line communication.

“It is (now) impossible to jam absolutely everything. Radios work in certain frequency ranges, Starlink works in other areas, Viasat works in specific locations, and other satellite devices operate elsewhere,” he says.

Enemies from within

Another major issue that Shchyhol’s agency struggles with is securing Ukraine’s critical infrastructure from Russian attacks offline.

Ukraine lacks air defense to protect all infrastructure, and until recently, it lacked a registrar of all such sites required to make a qualified assessment of what needs to be defended first and what specific gear needs to be employed.

“Our task was to create a unified register where each level of criticality corresponds to the appropriate protection measures,” Shchyhol says.

“The General Staff can determine the most effective placement of the Patriot system to cover the nuclear power plant and other critical infrastructure facilities,” Shchyhol says, pointing to the fact that a registrar helps the army make such decisions.

“Regarding anti-aircraft defense, it involves comprehensive coverage of multiple objects rather than just one. Different requirements apply to a nuclear power plant compared to a hospital, for example."

However, one issue which Shchyhol says his agency can’t help resolve is the threat of sabotage by Russian-linked actors.

Russian-linked business people own critical infrastructure in Ukraine, which is constantly targeted by Russian missiles. Shchyhol believes they may have access to sensitive information such as the exact locations of certain infrastructure sites.

Endless Russian assaults near Kreminna test Ukraine’s defenses

Editor’s note: The Kyiv Independent is not disclosing the full names or deployed positions of the Ukrainian soldiers interviewed in the story due to security concerns amid the ongoing war. Donetsk Oblast – The narrow, partly destroyed road through the Serebrianskyi Forest in the northern part of Do…

The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

Before the full-scale war, Russia’s VS Energy, owned by Russian Kremlin-linked businessmen Yevgeni Giner and Mikhail Voevodin and Russian lawmaker Alexander Babakov owned shares in eight Ukrainian regional energy companies, Ukrainian fugitive oligarch with ties to Russian organized crime, Dmytro Firtash, owned 70% of the country’s gas distribution market, while members of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform party had shares in oil, gas and coal plants.

Some of them have ended up on sanction lists of Ukraine, the EU, and the U.S. as soon as Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine in 2022. Others haven’t.

“The Security Service is working on this matter and revokes access for such owners to these systems. This started recently, and it’s just the beginning,” Shchyhol says.

"(Those people) can have access to various systems and registrars, and it is our job to ensure that they meet the requirements set by the state. If they fail to meet these requirements, then it is necessary to hold them accountable, including depriving them of their property rights,” he goes on.

“There is currently no law on liability, but we are working on it."

[shihalyfie]

Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

[preemshots]

johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction! 

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis. 

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself: 

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos. 

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs! 

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that. 

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi. 

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it. 

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v. 

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that?? 

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again. 

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence. 

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something. 

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into. 

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.