Fighter pilot salary

The "R Mika is a bad character design" bandwagon never fails to disappoint. It's fucking Street Fighter. There is a green guy with electricity powers. He doesn't even electrocute you, he electrocutes his fucking self first and then you second. And you know what we did in the 90s? We shrugged our shoulders and nodded at each other, "Oh shucks! Capcom is so wacky!" What will they think of next? They thought of a 7 foot tall Mexican and then they took a lunch break for 3 months and decided that thinking of new characters for Street Fighter was hard work for a pre-globalized world with fair wages. Let's see, we can make a game in one year that pulls enough profit to pay for each employee that worked on this for....let me get my calculator out, that's 5 million dollars per person here at Capcom. Ahhhhhh just steal Bruce Lee and keep the money. And Fei Long was and is loved, for no reason, really. Back then, you could take risks on retarded ideas and people would still love you. Think about it - the fact that someone went to a board meeting, just got done making a sketch of Ryu, and another man spoke up and said said "Okay, and then we make an Indian guy with stretchy legs." And they did. And despite Indians having no cultural relevance to stretchy legs, or fuck, cultural relevance in fighting or games in general? We have Dhalsim. Are we better for it? Yes, he adds something to the game and because it was the 90s, it wasn't for diversity or hashtags, it was just because some idiots in Japan were not ashamed that they didn't know anything about India. They had no ideas then and they still released a Street Fighter every year because it was profitable. R Mika is a Dostoevsky character compared to T Hawk. They put Street Fighter on every system. They put it on a system with only 3 fucking buttons that couldn't produce anything that sounded human and told you to buy a controller for their game, and then told you to fuck off, No more street fighter games, and sorry about the controller you had to buy to play our game. Oh and all the characters sound like they have cystic fibrosis on the Genesis version, too. Look that up in Encarta. Games made money with no problem: For christ sake, they released a game where you needed to buy another game just to make the first game work - and it was a flagship Sonic game for $70 bucks...and it MADE money. Sonic and Knuckles was an extortion project, not a videogame. It didn't make "Uhh this game is successful, but we can't fund a sequel by ourselves" successful, it was "Let's put this faggot in a game about Pinball because Pinball rhymes with Spinball, a word we just made up." successful. The 90s were a time when you could make shit up without risk. You could fail at everything in life and still get a job in middle management making a good income. If Sonic Spinball could be made un-ironically, then so can your salary. Now kids without STEM degrees are called worthless by job-secure 59 year olds in hiring HR. "Look, I don't think you're qualified for this job, Microsoft Excel can be very daunting. 900 people are competing for this job, and I found 500 math PhDs in Bangladesh who are willing to do the work over Skype. "It says here you have a degree in History: I had a degree in history too, art history - it's just like regular history only less. Fuck you." So part of our interview is to figure out a way for me to justify why I can work here and why you can't - which is hard because, keep in mind, I have some brown people that will work over Gmail and pay for their own long-distance Skype credit, which saves me about 99% of an otherwise healthy worker's salary per year. A few questions: Do you have a math PhD? No? Do you have the motivation to work under pressure..hold on i'm not done...Do you have the motivation to work under pressure even if you're being paid in circus peanuts? It's not looking good for you. What makes you think you're in demand in a capitalist system that appraises your worth based on whether or not you can do a job better than poor people with the internet? Let me reiterate, I have a degree in art history - why should I hire someone that basically is just me + all other history? How do you think we stay competitive in the marketplace if we have people like me who have a degree in Peter Rabbit Illustration and don't seek out the absolute most unfortunate people with the best credentials? I have a guy with a math PhD from Nigeria that cleans our toilets remotely from a computer. What he doesn't know is that I piss all over the toilet seat on purpose. I literally just piss all over the toilet seat just to tell a black man to clean up my refuse, and godamnit if I will give back what Capitalism gave me just so I can go back to pissing vanilla-style. I work long-dick style from now on and I ain't going back to vanilla style. I can piss and shit anywhere I want and a black man controlling a robot will always be not that far behind me, remind me again why I'm not the richest man in the world? The economy has evolved - workers that used to use Excel 2005, now need to know Excel 2015 at this company - ...Excel 2005 was easy for liberal arts majors, but 2015? Much easier, actually. ..it's actually way easier for just about anyone to do work these days...and because of that, my piss gets cleaned by robots. Anyone can do this job and everyone needs it, hence piss robots. Only got one piss-robot but a long line of workers looking to pilot it. Poor people clean piss like it's their last day on earth...and if you piss as much as I do, they're spending their last day on earth a lot of times a day. It's Groundhog Piss day for these guys, and I am the groundhog. If some brown kid can convince me that I can call him racial slurs AND sign a non-disclosure agreement about said racial slurs, AND that he can get work done through GChat? Let's use the Groundhog Day analogy again..Name the only cool person older than 50. Bill Murray. I'm Bill Murray the Groundhog, baby. Devalue, debase, and reduce every last thing on this earth in the name of efficient markets and if you get to the end, you're Bill Murray. That's some economics they don't teach you in school. Welcome to the big leagues. I want a candidate that knows how economics works - not some socialist that reduces our competitive advantage in the world. We use Microsoft fucking Excel here. This isn't a fucking game. Microsoft Excel is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I'm still doing it 20 years later..it's practically the only thing I've done at this job for the past 20 years. The efficiency of being able to rename a servile little indian boy a SandNog on GChat in the same interface that I receive his work in and I get to pay him in beach shells? Uhh someone get me off the this gravy train because my goose is cooked and papa is ready to eat. That is why I voted Ron Paul - papa wants to eat. If the Efficient markets have worked themselves out to the point where I can call a desperate brown kid a sandnigger and get work that is more efficient and productive for it then we've won. Tell me what the difference is between a sandnigger that does good work and a white person that does good work? I'll give you a hint: If I can't call either of them sandniggers, there is no difference. Okay that wasn't a hint, that was the answer and I'm giving it to you long dick style. There are so many people from countries that I don't respect waiting to be hired... I'll eventually get to a Sophie's Choice situation - "Do I pick this guy who doesn't mind that I call him a CamelBoo (Jigaboo+Camel) or do I pick the white guy? Hold on with the Street Fighter and R Mika shit, I'm talking to you about economics - fucking always with the videogames, these kids. I pick the CamelBoo because Papa wants to eat. When I was your age, I could afford a car in 5 months on overtime pay alone, but I'm saving money on the fact that Banglor speaks a language that doesn't have a word for "Overtime". I want a payroll tax exemption for making him a non-salaried subcontractor, and he wants to understand why I keep asking for "More Clocks" in Google Translate. It's because your country is too poor to have a word that means getting more money at your discretion. It's a superfluous word for you. Of course you want overtime - that's like having four different words for "chicken wings". Of course I want to have the edible kind of chicken wings - I'm so rarely going to speak about a chicken's wings in the context of anything but fried chicken, the word is not necessary. Did you know that both Pakistan and the US don't have a word that represents the low-level humiliation of manning a robot that cleans my piss all day? Was there a word for the feeling of cool satisfaction that a man got from a nice shoe shine an affable and willing negro gave to man in Birmingham in the 1930s? No, but that shoe got polished. And so shall the toilet seat. That's a lot of math PhDs, that are literally just waiting to be called a nigger by me - a guy that still asks his employees to help him "log on the dotcoms" to check my aol email account. The real injustice is not that I continue to use AOL 3.0 like a security blanket, but that if a competing company is not filled with people like me I have to get more wizkid brown nerds to make up for it. I am a liability and yet I steer this ship away from the iceberg. I am the emperor with no clothes. I must bear the burden of the nakedness I have resolved to live in. I am exposed. And you are blaming me for spilling a little pee-pee or, god forbid, soaking the entire bathroom at work every 20 to 30 minutes? Even Jesus had to go to the bathroom when he was on the cross for 3 days. You think he just held it in because he was embarassed? Do you hold me to a higher standard than Jesus? It's a highly pissable bathroom and I'm a highly pissable man. That is my only sin. You think you have it tough because you can't get a job? I have to call 9000 kids named Rameen and sometimes I can't even make it to the end of the phone call to get to the part where I unapologetically make racial jokes that they don't understand. I called this one guy a SandySpook - you know, like the Sandy Hook shooting. I called him an entire massacre. SandySpook this, SandySpook that. I even got frustrated that he wasn't feeling shitty about himself, so I got obvious about it and started calling him "Dead Children". I literally called the guy Dead Children. He only started to notice that I was called him different things when I accidentally referred to him as "Dead Kids". If he had a problem with it, I got 8999 others who are willing to play part to their own degradation and abuse. I didn't make the rules of capitalism - if someone will clean up my piss by remotely controlling a robot for 5 cents an hour - do you get mad at the piss? No, you get mad at the toilet for being so pissable. Then you get mad at the entire bathroom for getting piss all over it. But do you blame the pisser or the piss-ee? No, he must piss. And maybe he doesn't have to piss all over the place, but who cares who has to clean up my piss if it isn't me? Were we talking about Street Fighter? Yes people were retarded and retarded people were a valuable part of the gaming economy. It was a good thing because we got interesting shit from retards. Retards with money are as useful as Investment Banks, they don't make anything to give the world, but they give their money to someone else that does and then the government has to give them welfare because they shit their pants too much. But it wasn't just retards that shit their panties... when UMVC3 was released so soon, people went apeshit. Maybe they didn't get the memo that that's how buying shit works. You are supposed to buy shit that you like and then it and things like it gets made again. You're not supposed to not buy shit that you like. Even fucking retard in the 90s knew that. There are indie games and then there are triple A games - the mid-tier games don't exist anymore, and 1 or 2 AAA games are all some studios budget out. The mid-tier is gone now. In the 90s, Capcom made SF2 for SNES and then they made SF2 for the Amiga. Is that really that crazy? Imagine being a Capcom employee in the 90s and you're coming back from your lunchbreak, which was a few days longer than you expected, in Italy, and you knew that you could make a profit by putting your game on a system that nobody has anyway - those SF2 devs had so much money that they didn't know what to do with: they literally did not know what to do with it. They made an Amiga SF2, an Atari SF2, a Commodore 64 SF2 - then they made some more SF2s, then they got millions of dollars for it. To this day, nobody knows what an Amiga is, yet they still pulled a profit on just the people that bought Amiga by accident. That's the 90s in a nutshell, you can make whatever you want because and you can make a profit from people that buy your shit by accident, and if you can't, you really had nothing to offer anyone. Buy more shares of Pets.com, it's 1997. Rocks.com and BagofEmptyAir.com are booming in the futures market. IT's the 90s and everything is great. This gravy train will never end." A few friends made Doom in a garage in a few months, and the economy had to start paying them in pussy because the dollars were all being used up. John Carmack was literally paid in stinky pussy for a few years. And this is why half of the 29+ year olds thought "Rai-You" says "Dookan" btw - nobody cared that Street Fighter sounded like shit, calculators were powered by lemons like 5 years before SF and you could make money investing in an internet company that sold ugly milk. There was a market for people that wanted to buy milk that was ugly. It was the 90s. You could make money just combining shit for no reason. In the 80s, Marketing scored it big by combining raisins and smokey black jazz musicians. To reiterate, they gave raisins blackface, and then told you that they go in your mouth, and ugh it was just gross - and back in the 80s, black people weren't useful or well-liked by white people until Social Networking, so really, the California Raisins were 0 for 0. Huge success. The 90s made Pogs successful. Pogs combined cardboard with itself to make garbage. And it was a phenomenon. You can't afford to make Street Fighter V in 2015, but we figured out a way to make people trade circles with value called money for circles of trash called cardboard, and then they sold us containers for that trash too: and nobody thought, hey isn't this Pogtainer a minitrash can? Did they sell me a mini trash can and call it a Pogtainer? Nobody just stopped and said, "Am I sure this isn't just a little trash can for cardboard?" for at least 4 years. People played with cardboard circles for longer than they played Street Fighter X Tekken, get your head in the game, Capcom. ...you can't afford to make your flagship fighting game. That's a problem. Just fucking scale back the technology already and make profitable games again. Games are too fucking expensive to make. Next gen is a disaster. It's unsustainable, just let it die. Start from scratch, bring back Lycos, pogs, ace of base, jell pens, and every other 90s codeword for trash because as soon as we start giving garbage value, so too will we get back to giving value to actual things. The commodification of capitalism was supposed to be scary because of the fear that we'll pump out shitty things that would sell. It's much scarier than that. We pump out shitty things that don't sell, and there are 9000 people waiting in line to do it, anyway. 9000 Bangladeshis working over the internet. 9000 people who work a day job on Reddit and Wikipedia, 9000 experts with LifeHack blogs stealing the same idea about saving money on shaving cream ortelling you why it's bad to shampoo your hair, 9000 girls who realize that they're not pretty enough to get paid to be naked unless they get cum in their mouth, the list goes on. In the 90s, If you waited 6 months, a computer three times more powerful came out, and internet speeds doubled - now instead of new computers, we look forward to pornstars that may or may not swallow cum. The innovation and progress of capitalism is truly upon us. We don't dare to wonder about things like space exploration as we stand in front of a threshold of doubt and a frontier unknown and take a step anyway. If we can't make spaceships, or find gratification in the grandiosity of an intrinsic sense of coming closer to something bigger than yourself, then just give me the porn. Everything is free, and if it's not, keep checking bittorrent, because it's probably fucking free. We forgot how to love, and when we see girls that love cum, we start to wonder and believe that we can love again, too. I'm not a homo, but that cum makes me feel things. And even if I was, she can guzzle cum like an Irishman at a swim-meet, i'll never love cum like that, not no way, not no how, not like that...and she does it for almost free, depending on how ugly she is. That's love. That's what I felt like the first time I played SFII - it kills me to know that the best times are behind me, and the closest I was to ever getting to experiencing what the true love of a mouthful of cum is like was when I was a supple, young child of 8. Things changed quickly because development costs were lower and shit was insanely expensive - Hardware and software was much more expensive than it is now - people paid $70 to $80 in 1990 dollars. That's crazy. People just threw money everywhere. There were companies that helped people sell things on Ebay, and they made a living. You can't even make a living on ebay selling things yourself. And the stockmarket proved that pyramid schemes could make you profitable - as long as someone that wasn't you had the shares of the hyper-inflated startup that tanked, it didn't matter that you made $50,000 buying options in a company that sells candy for raccoons, that's 50,000 shares someone who isn't me is stuck with. Chuck ROck 2 being $70 in 90s dollars makes a lot more sense now that people are burning money and raccoons have lollipops in their mouth, doesn't it? Square could justify selling a Final Fantasy game on a TI-83 calculator and still pull a profit. When a developer said "Jump" to a publisher for funding, they asked "How high?" right after "Are there at least 20 fat kids that are interested in buying this game to cover the entire budget?" Some of the most unlikeable, unfocus-tested, bullshit could make money because kids had grandparents. Nobody buys shit by accident and keeps it anymore, they'll argue on Apple tech support to get a refund for their 2.99 phone game. Why would you pay 60 bucks for a game with a caveman in it - they have never been able to make Cavemen likeable. But the 90s could try Encino Man, Chuck Rock, Joe and Mac, Flintstones, Adventure Island, Tomba... movies and games etc - what changed? Cave Men sure as fuck didn't - they literally sold Cave Man games to people and made a profit, now nobody wants to play cave man games? Fuck out of here. Cave Man games didn't change. People just don't want to waste their money playing as a Cave Man and they're willing to return the game and admit that they bought a game to play as someone stupider than they are. We can try to make the cave man cool, we can get Brendon Frasier, we can give them dinosaurs to ride on - no, like we have the internet now, nobody wants to play as a fucking cave man, not even by accident anymore. We're done. Nobody has made a cave man game since the 90s. Steam has a no-return policy and nobody so people will make sure they don't buy cave man games. There are no cave men in League of Legends or Dota. There are no Caveman in fucking any game that anyone likes. Would you rather live in an era where you could make money making things nobody likes and other things people like, or begging Capcom to look under the couch for development money for their most famous game that people already like. We had a market that was able to sustain CaveMan games being sold for 140 inflation adjusted dollars sounds bad, but let me tell you, Chuck Rock sold enough to get a Chuck Rock 2...on the Amiga, Amiga CD32, Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega-CD, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. Try to sell me Chuck Rock 2 in 2015, I dare you. I fucking double dog dare you. Kickstarter's incentive system better find a way to account for sloppy, almost blasphemous blowjobs, if they want to sell Chuck Rock in 2015. Pile of shit. Novelty was everywhere because innovation was highly rewarded in a society that valued things. You open up a magazine and see new games all the time: "What's this? Samurai Showdown? That's different." Nevermind that I have to go to the arcade and pay enough quarters to hear what Ryu says clearly, look at all these games we're getting. Now that people can understand what Ryu says at home, arcades are fucking dead. Oh, yeah, what a coincidence. As soon as Ryu doesn't talk through a speak-and-spell arcades die. Yeah no connection. I'm 12, I can make money at school selling Mortal Kombat fatalities because information has value when nobody has access to it. Is that a good thing? Fuck no, it's not a good thing. But I made it a good thing. I convinced a kid that Kitana has a "Fuck-Ality" and charged him $5. I wrote random button presses on a napkin and made money for it. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right. No James, I wrote the code down right, you're just doing it wrong - keep trying if you want to see titties. "Keep trying for titties" - the maxim that made people who they were before the internet. We had to try for those titties, and we always did. Kids risked juvenile records to steal dirty magazines of porn that wouldn't stimulate a 13 year old's dick in 2015. There was porn in the everyone's woods, and for some reason, it was always of fat girls with like, i don't know, gunshot wounds and stretch marks..real nasty bitches..it was just fucking gross, but in the 90s you found beauty in anything, especially because seeing areolas was a rarity for a kid. Why is it always the same woman, though? It was the same fat bitch with the bruises and shit all over her thighs. She was the Heidi Klume of porn-woods. Kids these days can spell titties wrong in Google and Google will correct them. No trying at all. "You Searched for: Parks in Connecticut? Did you mean: Steaming Hot Latina Pussy and if so, I found a few videos that you might be interested in.. i mean, it's whatever, no big deal, it's just instant 40 minutes of 1080p pussy and you're 13, so you probably aren't making a decision consciously anyway, but just thought I'd ask...dude this is crazy, girls are practically dying to give their picture away on these sites man, we've got all these results for you for free! Yo, you're so lucky I'm hooking you up, like 15 years ago all I had were the same 12 Jenna Jameson pics for some kid. Got him super hard, though. I'm Google. I feel kinda bad that you're 13 years old and you can't get fully hard unless I bring you weird shit like girls with cocks fucking clowns in the ass. You can't get hard from regular porn, and If someone calls you a faggot for liking videos of girls with cocks, which seems reasonable considering I remember when all I had to do was find kids pics of Sable from WWF, then Twitter will make sure your parents will lose their job for transphobia. The only time a kid is reduced to jacking off to a woman that looked like she went down all the broken rides at the waterpark at Great Adventure is because he can't get off to normal women anymore because he's been exposed to so much porn. Weird shit is everywhere now. Cuckolding is its own category on porn sites - that shit never existed in the past. Now obese women with thighs covered in black and blues are starting to become a category, instead of something you shame-cummed to after finding in the woods. This is not what I had in mind when I thought Capitalism would ensure that the cream was supposed to rise to the top. The most undesirable and obese filth-hogs are more desireable than supermodels, because nobody can jack off to girls in swimsuits, not even 11 year olds. Supermodels don't make money. If you're a woman and you're getting paid for having your picture taken, it's probably because cum is being dumped on your face. The Age of Pussy Deflation - the internet age - where 50 minute porn videos are just a click away. Pussy just pussy now homie. Imagine telling Cindy Crawford, "Hey, you're really hot and everything, but if you don't get some semen in that mouth before you turn 39, I'm not quite sure you'll capture the MILF market, which is a great market, don't get me wrong, but it's heavily targeted towards black men, which is fine, but it overlaps with the market of guys who don't like black guys in porn, and you have to take a side, Cindy. Which side are you on, Cindy? This is a big decision for you Cindy - are you yay or nay on the black cock? And keep in mind, both parties want to see your mouth full of sperm. Yeah, I know it's kinda different than what you're used to, but Porn Stars are the new supermodels. We've all got cum in our mouths now, Cindy, it's up to you to decide how much you wanna get paid for it. She would probably get a job at Trader Joes. A woman like that lived in an era where her titties made her a millionaire, and they were covered up and now you expect her to put a cock in her ass for a 40 minute video you won't ever pay her for? But you will pay for Anita Sarkeesian's Patreon because you masturbate to dirty filth-women, but princess peach is a national treasure. Ono couldn't get enough money to develop Capcom's FLAGSHIP fighting game even after it was hugely successful because games take years and millions of dollars in 2015. And there is still some kid in a ketchup-stained novelty gaming shirt complaining about the textures. "Oh, this looks like ass. Oh his hair looks like bananas. Oh this design is dumb." Nigga, I found out about T-Hawk by opening up a magazine and reading an article written by a community college dropout that could still find work in the field because the publication market was healthy. You could NOT get hyped about T Hawk. For one, he was mexican - which was very unimpressive in the 90s. Hot sauce or premium burrito places or whatever hipster bullshit that made Mexicans so cool today didn't have fucking retards cheerleading it. Burritos were good, but not This Needs a Subreddit good. For 2, he's fucking stupid, okay? "Oh, this Mexican Mestizo fights to defend his homeland." Oh great, now the Mexicans are invading our videogames and I have to fight for his right to be here, too? Fuck it, it's the 90s. This might have value. I paid money for an Aerosmith CD, and I didn't realize what a ripoff it was until I was able to download music for free. Turns out music is free all the time. If someone puts a sticker on a CD, be careful because music is actually free. It's worth nothing. You can just get it. In the 90s, we didn't know that. We didn't know music was worth nothing and Columbia House sent us Alannis Moresette cds in the mail and charged us for it, we said, "Oh these cds are an investment. I can sell these back for 5x the amount. It's the 90s, even Alannis Moresette is worth something. Now level with me here, if Rush or Pink Floyd or whatever has a sticker on it that says $20, what are the chances that another musician, totally unrelated to them are worth exactly the same? The 90s made sure that whatever was worth less, was more valuable because of everything else. It was the Friendly Capitalism of the 90s - If you made a Genesis game, and you played as a rodent of some sort, then godamnit, Sonic ain't the only $60 ticket in town. Make the filthy fucking rodent say "gnarly" a few times and do me a favor, stop being a worrying faggot and get him a pair of sunglasses. Of course you're gonna make a profit it's the 90s. Nobody knows what they're doing and we're making a killing.. I'll give T Hawk a chance. I gave Dhalsim a chance, and I know I'm genuinely not racist because there's no way I can tweet about it to everyone, so that must mean it's true. You can't confirm racism anymore - not being racist can sometimes be hard, but writing hashtags are always easy - and the benefits from getting high fives from cool black people come faster in the latter case. You can have your cake and eat it too, in 2015 - and then you can take a picture of your cake and lament about how "Trayvon would've turned 19 today...this cake is for him." But as soon as you log off, Trayvon's cake is as dead as he is. And lucky for you, you can eat dead cakes because you're a selfish fat fuck sycophant that gets self-congratulatory black people to retweet your cake-morality. "The cake is a lie" you laugh to yourself, because memes are a thing now too. What a faggot you are, you wish you could tell yourself. Also we were used to getting games all the time, so it didn't really matter. A game could be developed in a year, risk being innovative with characters and systems, and still pull a profit because they didn't have a $5 million dollar Chun-Li's Eyelash Physics Studio. You think Darkstalkers is even a thing anymore? Capcom will sooner develop a game where Cops kill black people to get that Twitter cash and keep the Darkstalkers name in one go. That's called a two-fer. Darkstalkers is now a survival horror game. Resident Evil 4 let you kill Africans, now DarkStalkers is a game about cops stalking black people. The cops are female so it's okay. Kotaku writes, " Goodbye Darkstalkers the fighting game, hello DarkStalkers: The SocioPolitical Commentary" - people flip their shit on Twitter "Capcom is politically and socially conscious? Finally!" Finally Capcom is taking a political stance. I was worried about them. Capcom. The company that can't afford to make the most popular fighting game on earth, after the most successful iteration of their game in decades, finally DarkStalkers is saying something...oh and it has an unreleased Macklemore track? Where do I sign up for this? I thought I wanted a horror-themed fighting game that aestheticized everything awesome about design in a solid fighting game, but nah, this got the Feminist Frequency "This is Fine For Now" award. Fuck off. This is not fine. Fuck off with this shit. You're killing games. Nothing is fine for now, it's all fucked up when I could get 3 Darkstalkers games in 4 years and now I have to embarrass myself by being middle-aged faggot when FFXVI comes out. By the time the next Final Fantasy game comes out, who knows? I might be dead, so I have to settle for playing this shit. I don't want to play as a bunch of queers. I shouldn't have to plan how I want to be ashamed 9 years in advance, but this is what the gaming industry has done. If you go to the Capcom offices and ask, "When are we getting another Darkstalkers?" 2 things happen: The first thing is that Capcom starts laughing in your fat fucking face. "It costs more to make Ryu's hair look like not-bananas than it did to make Darkstalkers 3, and that was all of our not-bananas budget that has to last until the Ken DLC. We can make 5 Darkstalkers games a year, or we can not make Ryu have hair that looks like bananas, and trust us, they really look like bananas no matter what we do. It costs millions of dollars to get the bananas out of his hair - Playstation 4 is so advanced, but unfortunately bananas happen until millions of dollars and a few months gets them off. Right now the bananas are on Ken, but we expect to make those bananas go away too when Sony fixes the overdraw issue on our credit line. Event Hubs and NeoGaf are posting gifs of Ken's Hair and Shoryuken has started blogging about it - they are at max cpm, we can't fight it, we just have to pay to un-banana everything. Thanks to technology, it'll only put us back about...yeah, 7 theoretical DarkStalkers games. We can bear that cost, I think - I think we can recoup 40 Dino Crisis games if we hit our sales targets. Capcom financial information is quantified by the dead games it has because it's easier to understand for people in a world where NOTHING IS FUCKING VALUABLE. YOU CAN'T FUND YOUR OWN STREET FIGHTER GAME, THAT IS A RED FLAG. WHEN YOUR GAME COSTS 93.4 BREATH OF FIRES TO ANIMATE SOME NO-NAME SWEATER WEARING FAGGOT IN THE BACKGROUND STAGE, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. You don't even have enough money to give him any context - he cheers when both players die and when both players win, and he sure as fuck isn't cheering about street fighting in general, because he continues to cheer after the match ends. Just fucking don't have him at all, save your money at that point. Just fucking put the money elsewhere, no not in the fucking un-Banana hair jar - that's a waste of money too! Oh my god, you people have no fucking clue. What happened to you Capcom. What happened to you that you give anyone who says the word "Fundmantals" on EventHubs a job. You're Combofiending again. Combofiending the death of your company, and you pathetic bastards can't even see it. He spells every other word wrong on the Capcom blogs, but we Combofiending. Peter spelled Dragon Punch wrong again...Ahhh...we can't fire him now, we Combofiending. Peter, you need to proofread your work. But we Combofiending. The second thing that happens when you ask about Darkstalkers? EventHubs posts about how Capcom doesn't give a shit about their old IPs. Ono makes a statement on Twitter, "no, no no, we love our fans, but we can't afford to make a PS4 Darkstalkers game!" EventHubs posters come together, "How depressing. Capcom is just sitting on all their mega-fortune IPs! They don't know how to run a videogame company!" and make an online petition . "Ono-San, If this petition gets 92 signatures, will you release Darkstalkers 4?" Ono responds, "Listen all DarkStalk Fan! Sony no money for Capcom. Money hard to find for DarkStalkers series just like nut hard to find for squirrel in winter. Breath of Fire phone game now! So sad!" EventHubs and Shoryuken get an influx of inquiries about DarkStalkers and the Fighting Game community and blogosphere lights up. Everyone talks about how good DarkStalkers is, many of whom played it for 4 minutes at a roller rink are using words like "fundamentals" and "footsies" to make sure they sound legit. Capcom eventually realizes that they can make a $40 total profit if the online commotion of DarkStalkers is any indication of market interest. Ono petitions Jewish financiers to get funding after Sony's refusal. Darkstalkers 4 is a reality but Capcom will be indebted to Schlekestein Brothers investment bank for the rest of the company's life span. OH, and Part of the deal is that Ono has to join the IDF, too. Ono writes "I did it for you hardcore Darkstalkers fans!" when he shows off pics of himself in his IDF uniform in Israel." "This me serving our investors!" and holds up his little blanka figure in the foreground of a picture of a dead Palestinian child - you can't put blanka in front of everything and have it be funny. Nobody gives a FUCK that this is going on Ono's twitter, all they care about is that in the reveal trailer that was just released..and that Felicia's fur doesn't have real-time physics.."It's a war crime!". Everyone that pretended to like DarkStalkers is now on NeoGaf writing in a thread about how important 60 FPS fur physics are to the competitive scene. All posts start and end with, "Remember SF X Tekken". Kotaku releases a video showing that female representation per male representation in the trailer is problematic. Many refuse to buy a game that doesn't support 4k resolution. "Inadequate texture filter for a 2016 game" starts trending on Twitter. Surprisingly, the Jewish narrative in the trailer is universally praised. IGN lauds the trailer: "Capcom has taken Sasquatch and has evolved him in a bold and innovative new direction: He is now able to talk, which he does before every match by explaining why the Iran nuclear deal is bad for the western world." The Jewish direction is extolled by the FGC, as well: Maximillian makes a "I react to Demitri's yarmulka DLC announcement" video, which is publicized on all the major primetime news shows and Max is given a timeslot after Bill Maher. His show is similar to his Twitch channel: It's called "Assist Me" and he just asks for donations, which he gets. "Capcom is daring to be political in the current climate!" they say. Ryu takes up rabbinical study, eats kosher, and uses a bulldozer every 6 months to destroy Palestinian banks. Ono realizes that this is the key to the game's success, so he announces that "Holocaust-Remembrance costume pack in the works!" and he makes the Guinness book of world records for Most Retweeted Advertisement on Twitter. Everything is looking great for Darkstalkers 4 again. Then it happens: Chaos. Ono opens Arturo Sanchez Rosetta Stone.exe to translate what every 14 year old white kid in the suburbs is screaming over on Twitter. "4-frame buffer window? What a blowup. Frauds will body gdlk players. Dead game, says a kid with very thin wrists. "Trailer shows hard knockdowns on DP. Game is so dead." Ono tries to reply with his broken english into the his Rosetta Stone software but the program can't parse it. Ono's plea for the fgc to "No worry! We work on game and make better!" translates into "I have serious apprehensions about Zionism and Israel's use of unilateral force in Gaza and other occupied territories." People are disgusted by Ono's antisemitism and refuse to wait. Ono pleads, "Just give Capcom some time!" "Remember SF X Tekken?" says a cool kid on Twitter with an anime avatar. He gets a few retweets but no girls. "Because you certainly don't remember the 8 million." Okay now that gets him some girl retweets. Now that pussy is on the line, he's fighting for Israel. Ono realizes the perennial insight - the ultimate epiphany - if he, as an IDF soldier and puppet of the Israeli nation can be anti-semitic, is everything meaningless? Just as information has lost value in the internet age, so does the meaning of language itself atrophy too? Does everything die "just like Street Fighter X Tekken" and does nothing ever truly live, "just like Street Fighter X Tekken"? The irony is that the Holocaust wiped out the Jews from the streets without so much as a fight, but the Jews killed street fighter with the Holocaust. See how smart shit sounds when you reverse the sentences. Have you ever thought that perhaps smart shit is reversing the sentences? That is the second thing that happens.

Chapter 1
​
For decades, humans and a dozen other races expanded through local star systems, competing against each other but never gaining a significant enough advantage to allow one to dominate.
​
This continued until the Dominion arrived. A massive ship flew through known space, indifferent to the calls of inhabitants. Making no attempt at first contact, the ship ignored all sentients in its path, passing through every battle line unscathed, and instead dropped a mining station in a white dwarf star. Shortly after, a Dominion base was established in an nearby uninhabited system.
​
Confused, the humans and other races continued their attempts to communicate with the obviously vastly superior technology. Other Dominion ships came and went, often under military guard, but paid no attention to the line of ships outside their base and the sublight radio waves they were transmitting.
​
Finally, the commander must have gotten tired of seeing ships milling around and built a radio to initiate contact. He didn’t say much other than introducing himself and his race, and that it was their right as Class Two species to have a Dominion ambassador if they requested one. Despite the differences between the assembled aliens, they unanimously agreed.
​
A month later, Laen arrived from the Dominion.
​
The ambassador from Ultrua waved his tentacles around excitedly in the drab room. On the other side, seated in a comfortable but equally drab couch, the Dominion’s representative sat trying to focus on the words coming from the translator and not the non-sensible tentacle waving.
​
Laen nodded enthusiastically, trying to end the conversation. “Yes, ambassador, I agree completely. No, I can’t do that. Not even a little. Yes, as I previously mentioned—“
​
His next sentence was a little more excited than she liked and she dodged a tentacle that seemed aimed at her, although the translator on her arm assured her it meant ‘slime accumulated between shower tiles.’
​
“Ambassador, I realize Household Artificial Intelligence is your main export. No, I cannot authorize any trade of Dominion technology. Yes, I’m sure they’re very good machines—fine. I’ll take one.”
​
She almost immediately regretted agreeing to purchase something, as the Ultruin’s gesticulations became even faster. Laen struggled to keep up with the translator.
​
“Again, I can’t offer technology. How about…ah…umm…Gold! I’ll give you thirty tons of gold,” she said, suddenly remembering that the ambassador for the Achrans had promised that exact amount in exchange for a mineral survey of a nearby planet. She didn’t know what the market price for gold was in this sector, but she didn’t care. It was useless to the Dominion after they had moved to subspace quantum technologies centuries ago.
​
Judging from the way the Utruin was moving its entire body now, Laen guessed he was getting the better side of this deal.
​
“Yes sir, I agree. I’m happy we could come to an agreement. If you’ll excuse me, I have other duties to attend to.” She pointed to the door emphatically, and the ambassador reluctantly began oozing out of the room while continuing to jabber away in his native tongue. Or rather, tentacle.
​
“Yes, I’m sure. Wait no, just one. No, one unit, not one shipment.” She slammed the door closed after checking to make sure no tentacles were still inside the doorframe.
​
Laen fell on the couch, mildly hoping it would collapse and she would be seriously injured, just to bring some excitement to the day. She hated this. She had a promising career in a completely different field, and suddenly her life was turned around and sent to the darkest corner of the galaxy, just because some knuckle dragging squid who hadn’t figured out how to build nanoscopic singularities requested an ambassador.
​
She recognized the flaw in her last thought just as her wrist computer buzzed again. Angrily, she slapped the button. “What?”
​
The secretary recoiled on the screen, but remained professional. “Your next appointment is here.”
​
Laen forced herself to calm down. It wasn’t the secretary’s fault. In fact, she probably didn’t want to be here any more than Laen did. “Already? Did my last appointment go long?”
​
“I’m afraid so.” Laen wasn’t surprised. The Ultruin like to talk. Or punch. Whatever served as communication for his species.
​
“Alright send him in. Or her. Or it. Whatever comes through the door.” She ended the call and leaned back on the couch again, silently willing the supports to fail.
​
The door opened and a being two meters tall and relatively skinny stepped through. He seemed much more like what a proper sentient should look like. Her own race was not much different, except that she had blue skin. “You must be Laen. I am Bradley Cardot, the representative of the Human…” his voice trailed off as he saw the simple chair opposite the couch where Laen was seated, still covered in slime from the Utruin ambassador.
​
“I’m so sorry! Let me get a new one.” She activated her wrist computer. “Gren, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said apologetically, hoping it would make up for her outburst earlier. “The gentleman from the Human…sorry, who are you representing again?”
​
“The Human Confederation.”
​
“Right. Of course. Anyway, the chair is soaked and we need a new one. Can you grab one from…somewhere?” Her voice dropped almost to pleading. She couldn’t think of words any more. If anything else went wrong, she silently swore she would abandon all attempts of diplomacy and spend the rest of the day in a hot bath.
​
The secretary delivered a clean chair and dragged the soiled one out of the room, trails of slime following it. Laen suddenly had a horrible thought about where the ‘slime accumulated between shower tiles’ the Ultruins were so vehement about came from.
​
Mister Cardot sat in the clean chair and opened his briefcase as the door shut. “Miss Laen—I’m sorry, how do you wish to be called?”
​
“Laen is fine. It’s the only name I have, besides my social identifier number.”
​
“Right. Thank you again for seeing me. On behalf of the Human Confederation I’d like to welcome you and extend—“
​
“I cannot offer Dominion technology under any circumstances.” That was the first thing every diplomat asked for. Maybe she could save some time in this appointment and take a break before the next.
​
“I wasn’t…I didn’t finish…” The ambassador trailed off. Laen wished he would hurry up and leave. Her professional demeanor failed and she felt her face scowl as she tried and failed to keep smiling.
​
The human stared at her quizzically. “Are you okay?”
​
Laen was not prepared for that. “I’m sorry, what?”
​
“You don’t seem to be very happy right now. Is everything alright?”
​
She stared back for a few seconds. “No, it’s ‘fine’. Everything’s just peachy,” she bit out sarcastically. “You want to know how ‘fine’ this is?”
​
Bradley looked concerned, but she continued. The flood gates were open, and she was going to have her say.
​
“I didn’t want to be an ambassador! I was never interested in diplomacy or politics or xenos or any of that! I’m an accountant! Do you want to know how I got here?”
​
Bradley was silent.
​
“I was meeting a colleague in the government center. I walked past the door to the Executive Director of External Affairs and Relations Regulations Committee’s Record Keeper’s Assistant’s office, and the Record Keeper was in there talking to his assistant and he came out and almost bumped into me and he shoved an envelope at me and said ‘there’s a ship leaving the galaxy from dock one twenty four in fifteen minutes be on it and here’s everything you need to know.’” She was almost crying as she babbled.
​
The man had stayed perfectly still throughout her tirade. Laen hardly noticed as she launched into the next part. She had revealed too much, she thought. How would she fix this latest blunder? Hot tub for a day wouldn’t be enough. Not even a week. And what about Bradley Cardot? She didn’t even pause in telling him her deepest concerns. She couldn’t allow him to leave with that information. She would have to arrange an accident of some kind and get a new human ambassador. She had never killed or ordered anyone murdered before, and the thought made her stop mid-sentence.
​
She would have to consider how to deal with Bradley later. While she had a captive audience, she may as well spill her feelings, even if she had to kill him later to cover it up.
​
“Nobody cares. They never cared,” she said tiredly. “Do you know I had over a hundred coworkers? I was connected to the net during the whole trip. The only message I got the entire month I was traveling here was an automated mail to inform me of my job change.”
​
She turned around and dug through her bag. “See this pamphlet?” She held it up for him. It was a folded paper with a pleasing yellow color, titled “So You’ve been Conscripted to be an Ambassador? How to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself and the Dominion”. She tossed it to him and he broke his pose to catch it from the air. “That’s what they gave me to prepare me for this role. The Dominion doesn’t care about me enough to train me. They don’t care about you enough to send someone competent. There’s nothing you can offer them and they know it. I’m only here to satisfy some archaic rule somewhere.”
​
Bradley was flipping through the pamphlet. “This says you can order a preemptive strike against Class two civilizations!”
​
“Yeah, it does. Technically, beyond my presence and availability as a representative of the Dominion, you don’t have any rights at all. My contact at the Forms and Regulations for the Department of Ethical Treatment of Inferior Sentients and Species told me which forms to fill out to have any inhabited planet here glassed by the military with no questions asked, and no one back home would even blink. I could make myself the governor of all your planets and parade Dominion military ships around as long as I had the right documents to make the captains go where I wanted.”
​
Bradley was oddly calm at the revelation, and continued to read the pamphlet unaware that she was still considering revoking his living privileges after the conversation.
​
Laen sat in the couch and continued while he read. “Our technology is so much more advanced than yours. I’m not trying to be insulting, that’s just how it is. Our two civilizations don’t need any of the same materials. We’re only in this galaxy to mine white dwarf stars, and you’re still scraping asteroids for resources. If you didn’t try and make contact, we could have lived in the same sector for decades and never crossed paths.”
​
The human ambassador nodded. “Our people have a theory called the Fermi Paradox. It’s basically what you just said, where an alien civilization is so advanced they have no interest in us, maliciously or otherwise.”
​
Laen nodded. “Just a few minutes ago, I traded thirty tons of gold for a robot that changes the thermostat! I don’t want a robot! I’ll probably dump it out the airlock without opening it.”
​
Bradley’s jaw dropped at the price of a House AI. “That’s quite a lot.” He closed the pamphlet. “Do you know what you need? A vacation.”
​
She was about to ask what that was when he pulled his own computer from his pocket and turned it on. Although it looked similar, she was certain it was ancient technology compared to hers.
​
“Check this out. This is a beach in the Bahamas.” He turned the screen to show her.
​
Every hot bath she had ever had paled in comparison to the paradise in front of her. She could tell the temperature of the vista just by the reflection of the sunlight on the water, which stretched to the horizon. Never on all the city planets she had lived on could she have imagined so much wasted space.
​
She could almost feel the water on her body, and had an intense urge to know what the sand would be like under her feet.
​
“It’s beautiful.”
​
“Come on. I’ll take you.”
​
“I can’t. I have my duties to attend to, and I think I have to be impartial.”
​
“Not at all. Like you said, the Dominion doesn’t care what you do. You can even accept bribes.”
​
That made her pause. “Really?”
​
“Yeah. It was in the manual. Page fourteen, I think.”
​
“It explicitly said that?”
​
“From ‘unenlightened civilizations with no relevance to the Dominion’, yes.” He opened the pamphlet and pointed to a paragraph.
​
“Wow. I must have dozed off for that part. But you’ll still use this as leverage in negotiations, or something. How do I know I can trust you?”
​
He looked at her with something she couldn’t quite understand. Maybe pity, or compassion. “You said no one cares about you, that you weren’t important. I’m telling you that you are important. To everyone in this sector, you are the most important person in the universe. You have the fates of billions in your hands, even if they belong to Class two civilizations. We have to trust you to do the best you can.”
​
When she didn’t say anything he continued. “If you look upwards to the Dominion, you’ll find what you said is true. You and your job are completely irrelevant to them. But we, who you’ve been placed in charge of, care very much about you. Even if it’s only in our best interest.” He smiled. “I’ll make sure your trip isn’t interrupted with any diplomacy stuff. Unless you’d like some actual training.”
​
She laughed. “That would give you a huge advantage against everyone else in the sector.”
​
Bradley only smiled.
​
Laen nodded. She knew he was just diplomatic, being nice to the person with big guns behind her, but right now she didn’t care. “Alright. Let’s go.”
​
“Right now?”
​
“Yeah.” She activated her wrist computer. “Gren? Cancel all my appointments for the next month. I’m going with Mister Cardot. And use my diplomatic credit to treat yourself to something.”
​
One week later.
​
Laen was sprawled on the beach, her knees soaking in the gentle waves while her back relaxed in the heat from the sand. She had made Bradley find the exact spot in the picture, and he assured her she was lying on the very grains of sand depicted.
​
The beach was deserted aside from her, a waiter holding a half empty cooler full of beverages, and two dozen armed guards hiding out of view.
​
She had no idea what day it was. Bradley had promised two weeks of uninterrupted relaxation, and true to his word no one was able to introduce themselves without going through both his bodyguards and hers. Just beyond the horizon, she was sure, swarms of boats still challenged the police blockade, but here it was completely peaceful.
​
An annoying buzzing wafted over the breeze from her cabin. She had brought her wrist computer on the chance she might need it, but she hadn’t looked at it once since she got here. There was no need for any communication, as far as she was concerned. She had told her ship she would be back in touch and that she hadn’t been kidnapped and there would be no need for the Dominion to abduct another passerby to maintain headcount.
​
It was nice here. She should leave the ship and set up shop on Earth. It would give the humans an unfair advantage but who cares?
​
She did. She cared. Bradley was the only one who cared enough to ask if she was okay. She could care about them in return.
​
Laen applied another layer of sunscreen purposefully designed for her blue skin and laid back on the sand, closing her eyes. She had almost fallen asleep when she suddenly bolted upright.
​
“I forgot to give the Ultruins their gold!”
​
Chapter 2
​
Laen walked onto the cramped bridge of her Dominion-issued diplomatic shuttle to see the full force of the Ultruin battle fleet arrayed before her.
​
The shuttle’s pilot, sitting in the chair on the left, greeted her with a wave before turning back to the controls with boredom. She couldn’t blame him. Nothing exciting was going to happen for a long time.
​
She wondered what she was wearing, but couldn’t risk taking the time to look. The only thing worse than showing up in your pajamas to a diplomatic incident was showing up in pajamas and then appearing embarrassed about it.
​
On screen, the Ultruin ambassador was gesticulating angrily, unaware that Laen had only now gotten up from her bed.
​
It didn’t matter. The Ultruan language was usually fast and chaotic, with multiple tentacles making signs at the same time. But now the ambassador was using a very formal, very slow pattern. The movements took long enough to communicate anything that a few minutes of skimming the text logs was enough to catch up on his ramblings.
​
Once she finished, she interrupted the Ultruin. “Thank you for that speech, ambassador, but there’s no need to declare war. I have your gold in an Achran bank. I will tell them to transfer it immediately.”
​
She let her mind wander while the translation of the alien’s words crawled across the screen. There was a lot of movement for so little communication. It took about fifty separate gestures to form one word. Why was this language so inefficient? She glanced at the screen again and saw he was only half finished with his sentence.
​
What was in the kitchen? The tiny shuttle boasted a one-square-meter kitchenette with all the amenities of a fourth-class restaurant in the middle of a random slum back home. There should be some leftover green paste, or was it the orange paste? If Gren ate all the green paste while Laen had been on vacation, she was going to have some harsh words for her.
​
Her mind came back to the moment to see the Ultruin staring at her silently. After a look at the text logs, she forced her nicest diplomatic smile for the being threatening her life.
​
“Again, I apologize for the delay, but surely if I add a late-payment fee to what I owe you we can leave as friends. It’s not as if you’ve delivered the AI either, right?”
​
The shuttle pilot cleared his throat. Laen glanced over at him. He was pointing at a cardboard box sitting in the co-pilot’s seat across the aisle. It had Ultruin shipping labels plastered all over it like a hobo’s attempt at wallpaper. Laen briefly wondered what address they used to ship it to her shuttle in the middle of empty space.
​
“Alright, so you have delivered the AI. But is thirty tons of gold really worth declaring war over?”
​
The Ultruin gestured some more. Laen leaned over to the pilot. “When we’re done here, toss the box out the airlock,” she whispered. The pilot nodded.
​
“Really? Wars of reimbursement are permitted for transactions over twenty thousand Konevs? And I suppose thirty tons of gold is more than twenty thousand?”
​
More gesturing.
​
“That’s great, but we surrender. We’re willing to hand over what we owe you. No need for hostilities, right?”
​
Still more gesturing. Where had she seen those movements before? Suddenly she remembered and now she couldn’t get the memories out of her head. The Sushi place with Mark had been a disaster. First of all he was as generic as possible, without a single defining trait. And then the giant tentacle monster the chefs were about to serve somehow escaped and gobbled Mark up. At least he wasn’t able to ask for a second date, and when the Dominion army finally dealt with the monster the sushi was surprisingly good, though slightly singed. Laen watched the Ultruin and wondered if he had any distant relatives in her home galaxy.
​
“Alright fine, have it your way.” She turned the viewscreen off and turned to the pilot. “In case you didn’t get that, the entire People’s Republic of Ultrua has declared war on me personally, and the Dominion by extension.”
​
“I didn’t, thanks. Was I supposed to be paying attention?”
​
“Nah. I was barely paying attention. So the Ultruins are just going to shoot at us for a while, and then maybe surrender. Tell me if something interesting happens.”
​
The pilot smirked. “Will do. Class twos, am I right?”
​
She stopped halfway through the hatch. “What is that supposed to mean?”
​
He pulled his helmet off so he could turn to face her. “They’re just so dumb! I don’t know why we bother talking to them at all.”
​
A wing of fighters blazed past the windows, peppering the skin of the craft with tiny kinetic slugs. Realizing the shuttle had no fighter defenses, the fighters slowly flew in front and emptied their magazines into the sitting shuttle. Inside the shuttle, of course, it was completely silent. Laen stepped back into the bridge to address the pilot.
​
“There are some very nice class two people I met. Just because their civilizations aren’t as old or as advanced as ours doesn’t mean they as individuals aren’t every bit as intelligent as your or I.”
​
“Ma’am, I don’t mean to insult you, but surely the Ultruins have spent more money on ammo in their little war than they could have made if they just took the gold.”
​
“The Ultruins might be a special case, but this is still the action of one man. Even with the support of his government. All the others in the fleet are just following orders. You can’t apply a generalization of one individual to an entire group.”
​
Megaton warheads splattered across the windshield like bugs. The glass automatically polarized to prevent ionizing radiation from reaching the passengers.
​
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry I insulted your friends. Happy?”
​
It was probably as good as she was going to get. “Close enough. And thank you for refraining from making that comment while the channel was open.”
​
The pilot laughed. “No kidding. Do I look like a class two?” A horrified look crossed his face as he realized he made the same joke a second time. “No, I’m sorry. I just-“
​
Laen smiled. “It’s fine.” She gestured to the light show outside. “Let me know when they get bored.”
​
Walking back to her room, she stopped at the refresher station to check the mirror. She sighed contentedly. Sometimes, success was not showing up to a declaration of war wearing pajamas. Today’s definition of success meant forgetting to change into pajamas from yesterday’s clothing, and wearing that to a declaration of war instead.
​
She would take whatever victory she could, especially because Gren had indeed eaten all the green paste and left Laen with the disgusting orange stuff.
​
Bradley Cardot, the human ambassador looked surprised. “They just opened fire? Then what?”
​
Laen shrugged and reached across the table for a pitcher of cool-aid. They were sitting in an empty room at a high-end human restaurant reserved for diplomatic events. Being able to order almost any drink known to humanity, Laen naturally chose cool-aid. “I grabbed a snack and went back to bed until they stopped.”
​
“That’s it? How did it end?”
​
“After a few hours, I had my pilot fire a warning shot through a small moon. They surrendered after that.”
​
“What happened to the Household AI? And the thirty tons of gold?”
​
“According to the document they signed, I returned the AI for a full refund. However, the whole thing started because I forgot to give them the gold, and the Ultruins don’t have thirty tons of their own. To process the whole transaction I have to pay them the original sum, without interest, and then they will refund it back to me.”
​
Bradley was clearly questioning the mental capacities of the people involved in the surrender document.
​
“It was seriously the only thing we could agree on. I was ready to give them both the AI and the gold just to get out of the talks a few hours early, but they wouldn’t have it.”
​
“That does sound like them. It’s still troubling, though. You shouldn’t have been in battle. Doesn’t the Dominion have a military ship you could have called for backup?”
​
“Well yeah, but I wasn’t in any danger. All Dominion ship hulls are statically placed.”
​
“What does that mean?”
​
Laen paused. “You seriously don’t know? As in Universal Static Positioning?”
​
Bradley shook his head.
​
“The molecules of the hull are in a form of stasis locked to relative ship position. Nothing except weaponry or tools designed to disrupt that stasis can damage it. Didn’t you already know that?”
​
He shook his head again.
​
Laen suddenly had a moment of clarity. “Oh! I keep forgetting you’re a class two, and USP is class seven tech. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you-“
​
“It’s fine. And I appreciate that you don’t think of us as technologically inferior. Even though we are.”
​
“Please, don’t mention this to anyone. I’m embarrassed just telling you.”
​
“Laen, It’s fine. I wasn’t insulted. And I won’t tell anyone.”
​
The Dominion ambassador breathed easier. “Thanks. But seriously, don’t tell anyone about Static Positioning. I could get court martialed just for saying the name to a class two.”
​
The Human smiled. “I won’t. Humanity will learn it the hard way when we become class seven. But for now, you can’t continue traveling through space in a shuttle, even with indestructible armor.”
​
“What do you mean?”
​
“The Ultruin’s thought they could win against you because all you had was a single shuttle.”
​
“But there was a Dominion ship only ten minutes away, if I was actually in danger.”
​
“They knew you weren’t in danger. They wanted to intimidate you. If they were actually declaring war on the Dominion, they would have gone to one of the Dominion bases.”
​
“I suppose. What do you suggest?”
​
Bradley smiled wide. “The Human Confederacy would like to offer you a diplomatic warship.”
​
“A warship? What am I supposed to do with a warship? I don’t think even the Ultruin’s would hesitate to fight someone with one warship.”
​
“Ah, but it’s not just one warship. It’s one Confederate warship, crewed by humans. If the Ultruins or anyone else open fire on you, they are not only declaring war on the Dominion, who couldn’t care less, but on the Human Confederacy as well. And we do care.”
​
Laen nodded slowly. “And by riding in your fancy ship, I would also be officially endorsing you.”
​
The man cocked his head to one side and smiled at her.
​
She wasn’t sure what to say. Picking up her glass of cool-aid, she maintained eye contact and drank the contents while being intimidating as possible.
​
Sensing her trepidation, Bradley continued. “I’m sure a Dominion equipped shuttle has every luxury Humans can’t imagine, but it must be extremely cramped on board. You can just park your ship in the hangar and take a stroll down the corridors once in a while-“
​
Laen choked on the cool-aid and coughed all over the table, narrowly avoiding Bradley. She wiped the liquid running down her chin with her sleeve, abandoning her intimidating stance. “I’m sorry, did you say hangar?”
​
“Yes. The ship I have in mind has a small hangar that would be more than enough-“
​
“How big is the kitchen?”
​
“I don’t know, probably about the size of this room?” He gestured at the walls. They were about ten meters by twelve.
​
“Do they stock cool-aid?” She asked, while lifting the glass that contained what cool-aid she hadn’t spilled.
​
“They…certainly can.”
​
“And do they serve the food we just ate?” Bradley had treated himself to a pork roast, while Laen had consumed five consecutive grilled-cheese sandwiches.
​
“Not exactly, but we can customize the menu to your liking. All on the Human Confederacy’s bill, of course.”
​
“I’ll take it!”
​
Bradley took a deep breath. “I’m glad we could be of service.”
​
A day later, Laen was almost jumping up and down with excitement. She was trying not to actually jump, because if she had she would have knocked her head on the overhead. The Perseverance was a Human Confederacy heavy cruiser, which meant it was slower than a light cruiser and less armored then a dreadnought.
​
The passageways were just as cramped as one her shuttle, they just went in straight much lines longer. But there were more open areas, like the gym, hangar, and galley. The bridge was another area with a lot of open space, but that was just to fit more viewscreens and buttons and switches.
​
Her shuttle, which lacked a name, was parked quietly in one corner of the Perseverance’s hangar. The rest of her crew declined to step onto the “Human death trap” and preferred to stay in a ship that wouldn’t vent atmosphere if it hit a micrometeor going a mere quarter of the speed of light.
​
The kitchen had been her first stop. It was filled with appliances and machines with functions she couldn’t even guess at, but she made the head chef promise not to start the next meal until she was there to watch. Being able to eat food with texture while being in space would be the ultimate luxury.
​
Now, she was climbing through the many hatches to get to the bridge. Her first stop as commander of the vessel was the Dominion supply base, one of the two bases operated by the Dominion in this galaxy.
​
“Have we arrived, captain?”
​
Captain Williams turned to face her. “Aye, ma’am. We are within radio hailing distance.”
​
“Open a channel!”
​
She waited excitedly for something to happen. Nothing did.
​
“No response.”
​
“Why would they be ignoring me? Wait, did you say radio?”
​
“Yes ma’am, our sublight communication is radio based.”
​
“That’s why. The base doesn’t have radio equipment. Call my shuttle, please.”
​
The main screen changed to show her shuttle pilot reading something with his feet on the console, ignoring the red lights that appeared whenever his foot bumped something. Seeing her on his own screen, he jumped and straightened his posture, hiding his reading material under his seat. “Yes ma’am. How may I help?”
​
“Contact Commander Devrak, please, and route the call to the bridge of the Perseverance over the sublight comms.”
​
“Right away.”
​
A moment later, Commander Devrak appeared on the screen.
​
“Yes ambassador Lon, what can I do for you?”
​
“It’s Laen.”
​
“My apologies, Lon. Why are you interrupting my day?”
​
“Do you remember that piece-of-junk shuttle you gave me?”
​
“I was ordered give you the Mark 25 model. Otherwise all you would have gotten was an oxygen mask and a pair of plastic angel wings.” Commander Devrak apparently wanted nothing to do with this conversation.
​
“Haha, very funny. Well, I got a new ship! See it on your scanner?”
​
“Nope.”
​
“Of course you do. It’s the biggest thing around besides the station.”
​
Devrak squinted at something off screen. “Oh, there it is, I mistook it for a garbage scow at first. No, it is a garbage scow. Does it even have USP?”
​
Laen glanced around nervously. “Ah, no, these are class twos, Devrak. No USP for a while.”
​
“Well, have fun. Somewhere far away, preferably.”
​
“Wait wait wait. I haven’t even shown you the firepower I have.”
​
Devrak sighed. “Whoever decided to give you firepower is clearly the worst tactician ever. Fine. What do you want to do?”
​
“Just launch a training drone and watch!”
​
The commander leaned back in his chair and spoke to someone before turning back to the camera. “Your drone’s launching now.”
​
Laen turned to Captain Williams. “Do you have the drone in your sights?”
​
“Bogey detected on our starboard bow, twenty five degrees by ten. Mass: eighteen thousand kilograms. Distance: eleven thousand meters.”
​
Laen jumped up. “Main guns to starboard! Prepare a full broadside!” She didn’t know if that was proper military speak, but she had watched a dozen space pirate movies to prepare for this moment.
​
The captain nodded to his crew. “Fire on my mark. Three, two one.”
​
There was a loud reverberation throughout the ship as eighteen cannons fired simultaneously.
​
After a few seconds, the tactical officer spoke. “Target impacted.”
​
Commander Devrak, still on screen, looked bored. “Are you sure?” The drone doesn’t show any damage.”
​
The tactical officer continued. “Sixteen of eighteen shells hit the target.”
​
Devrak’s expression stayed the same. “The accelerometer doesn’t even show its course changed.”
​
The captain turned to Laen. “Normally, against a target of that size we would use missiles or flak guns. The main guns are accurate to a thousand kilometers if we’re firing on ships our size.”
​
“Thank you Captain. And you, Commander Devrak, for being a good host.”
​
“Unwillingly. Good travels, ambassador. I’d hate to hear something bad happened and I had to rescue you.” Devrak closed the connection.
​
Captain Williams ignored the commander. “Where to now, ma’am?”
​
She pointed her finger forward. “To the edge of the universe!”
​
Just then, her communicator buzzed. “Hello?”
​
“Ma’am, it’s Chef Ganovich. We’re ready to prepare the next meal, if you’d still like to watch!”
​
“Are we having cool-aid?”
​
“Yes ma’am.”
​
“With grilled cheese?”
​
“As you requested.”
​
“Don’t start without me!” Laen turned off the communicator and almost ran out of the bridge but turned back to Captain Williams. “Take us anywhere! I doubt Devrak wants to see us anymore!”
​
The captain sighed. “Plot a course for Earth.” Under his breath, he muttered “I hate grilled cheese.”
​
Chapter 3
​
In a darkened room deep within the Perseverance, four crewmen conversed secretly.
​
“She’s up to no good. We have to stop her.”
​
“And you’ve seen how she treats the crew. She would do the same in our place.”
​
There were muttered agreements as they plotted. Suddenly, the hatch slammed open and Captain Williams strode through, accompanied by Chef Ganovich.
​
“What’s going on here?” The captain said angrily. “Gentlemen, are you conspiring?” The crewmen shrunk back.
​
Williams raised his voice. “WITHOUT ME?”
​
No one made eye contact.
​
“I told you I would be five minutes late, and you’ve started without me! Were this on the record, you’d be reprimanded for failure to adhere to protocol!”
​
Crewman Banes stepped forward. “We’re terribly sorry, captain. I take responsibility. We were waiting like you asked, and I just mentioned how eating macaroni and cheese a fourth time this week upset my stomach, and that started the conversation.”
​
Williams nodded. “Apology accepted. Now, let’s get this started in an orderly fashion. I understand some of you have complaints about our guest. As your captain, I represent the crew to the higher ups, including Miss Laen. Crewman Banes, why don’t you start.”
​
“Thank you, captain. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been having nothing but grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, and nachos with cheese all week. I understand our mission is diplomatic in nature, but must we suffer just because she never saw cheese before?”
​
“That’s certainly a valid complaint, and one I share as well. Let’s hear Crewman Korenski.”
​
Korenski looked up with an evil grin. “She didn’t sign any agreement with us, but here we are ferrying her around the sector. She’s no good, I say. You saw what she did to the Ultruins, and that’s what she’ll do to us.”
​
The captain looked confused. “What, exactly, did she do to the Ultruins?”
​
“You saw, in the news, with the rest of us. The battle of…of…what was the battle called?”
​
Banes shrugged. “I don’t think they gave it a name. And it was in the middle of empty space, so there aren’t any planets to name it after.”
​
“There was that moon. The one she gave a piercing to.”
​
“Aye, though it wasn’t quite a moon. Moons orbit planets, and this object was sitting alone. It was more of a dwarf planet.”
​
“Don’t planets necessarily orbit stars?”
​
“Not necessarily. There are rogue planets between star systems.”
​
“Really? I didn’t know that.” Korenski shook the surprise off his face and returned to scowling. “What was this rogue planet’s name then? We can name the battle off of that.”
​
No one knew. Everyone took out their pocket computers and data pads to look it up.
​
One of the crewmen who hadn’t spoken yet found it first. “KX-9404-&kpX_\5.”
​
Korenski nodded slowly. “The battle of the rogue dwarf planet ‘kay ex dash nine four zero four dash ampersand, lowercase gee kay, uppercase ex, underscore backslash five’. It doesn’t really have a ring to it.”
​
Captain Williams checked the time. “Regardless, you were saying?”
​
“Right then. She dishonored the tenants of honorable warfare and humiliated everyone involved. The least she should have done is destroyed half their fleet in defense, and maybe painted some dents on her own hull to make it look like an actual battle. Instead the Ultruin commander surrendered without taking a single casualty!”
​
“And you’re upset…why?”
​
“It’s dishonorable. When I think about all those Ultruin sailors, returning to their homes unharmed when they should have been given honorable deaths, it makes me angry!”
​
Someone in the back spoke up. “Don’t blame the squids for having better looking wives than you!”
​
After a round of laughter, Banes joined in. “If you want an honorable death, Korenski, tell your wife what you tell us about her cooking!”
​
Williams spoke up. “Alright, that’s enough. Korenski, the Human Confederation is not allied or affiliated with the People’s Republic of Ultrua in any way, and we do not care whether they were humiliated or not. She conducted warfare in an honorable manner as far as we are concerned, and that’s as far as you need to be concerned.”
​
“Aye, captain.”
​
“Chef Ganovich, do you have anything to add?”
​
Ganovich cleared his throat. “As far as the food, Miss Laen appears to be a simple good hearted soul. All she cares about is watching all manner of meals involving cheese being made in ridiculous quantities. And maybe galactic domination. It’s hard to hear over the mixer. Regardless, she’s also a diplomat, and even if she demands the men stick to her meal choices, she will at least phrase it in a way that makes us feel better about it.”
​
“My thoughts exactly. Does anyone else have a specific complaint?”
​
Another crewman in the back spoke. “I’m responsible for cleaning her quarters. She leaves hairpins everywhere!”
​
“I’m pretty sure all women do that. Anyone else?”
​
The crewman wouldn’t be silenced. “And she has a dozen bottles of shampoo!”
​
Williams grimaced. “That’s even less of a complaint. Is there anyone else?”
​
No one spoke except the same crewman. “And you should see the shower drain!”
​
“I will speak with Miss Laen about the food. The other issues are not at all relevant.” Without waiting for a reply, the captain turned and walked out the hatch.
​
Williams met Laen in the executive conference room.
​
“Miss Laen, thank you for coming.”
​
The blue skinned ambassador was nervous. “Of course. What is this about?”
​
“I’m sorry for alarming you. It’s nothing serious. I just wanted to discuss something in private.”
​
Laen did not appear less nervous.
​
Williams continued. “We are happy to provide whatever food you enjoy, however, the men are used to a more…traditional diet in the service.”
​
“They don’t like cheese?”
​
“They do, just usually in much smaller quantities. And I don’t know about your species, but humans can get constipated from eating too much.”
​
Laen put a hand on her stomach. “Is that what that is? I’m sorry, I should have known you would object. Human space food is much more diverse than the Dominion’s. I was just so excited about being able to chew instead of just swallowing.”
​
“I understand. You can still order whatever you want, but would you mind if the crew returned to their scheduled menus?”
​
“Of course not. And there’s no need to treat me special. I’ll have what the crew is having.”
​
Williams smiled. “I think you’ll enjoy it. And I know there’s cheesecake for desert.”
​
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 38%. (I'm a bot)

ZELENSKY AND TRUDEAU IN KYIV ON 10 JUNE, PHOTO PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offers Canada help in overcoming the consequences of large-scale forest fires.
Canada is among those who can help us recover from this disaster.
Of course, we will not stay away from the disaster Canada is facing now.
"Massive wildfires, colossal environmental losses, and threats to people... Ukraine is ready to help extinguish fires if Canada needs such international assistance."
Details: Zelensky emphasised that for Ukraine, the meaning for international relations is precisely that "We should always take care of each other when support is needed, and really help [each other]."
Background: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Kyiv on Saturday that Canada would participate in a multinational effort to train Ukrainian fighter pilots and provide Kyiv with a new military aid package worth 500 million Canadian dollars.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: Canada^#1 help^#2 KYIV^#3 Canadian^#4 Mutual^#5
Post found in /worldnews.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

1. TFA releases June 19th
2. TLJ in June
3. TROS somewhere later this year

Why later this year? This changelist is not final and can change, if you have feedback I would very much like to hear it, because it is a very difficult movie to get right. I am happy with how it is now, but its not great and many shots don't look good yet. I am also still trying to get certain changes to work, I began working on this one much later than TFA and TLJ and it is a slow process, that is why this one takes longer.
​
I would like to say before you read the changelist that I kept the planet killing Star Destroyers. As much as I don’t like the concept, when removed the stakes fall flat. The second act does not feel very hopeless and everything that happens feels more like an inconvenience than a real threat. Also, going forward, everything that Star Wars will release in the future surrounding the rise of Skywalker will have the destroyers be planet killing weapons. You can already see this in the Darth Vader comics for example. We see that Palpatine's plan will be written so that it was his back up plan for years before his first death at the death star. So that is why it stays in this edit.
​
Next up I have the changelist below, again, please give suggestions, tell me what you like and dislike, I will read all comments and consider everything and see if it works.
Here is my work in progress opening scene for anyone interested
​
​

• Opening scene’s until the resistance meeting:

Added a new crawl, WORK IN PROGRESS, the original crawl is just awful
Added 6 new establishing shots for mustafar, slowing the opening scene down a bit, (Vaders castle, Two volcano eruptions, and Kylo Rens ship approaching) For the last shots Massive Thanks to Seize The Frame for sending me their original High Quality files, If you don’t know them, check out their amazing Fan Film here https://youtu.be/owrmLeX20CY
Added Vaders castle behind Kylo Ren as he holds the wayfinder
Changed Snoke clones to Palpatine clones
Moved the falcon scene to after the training
Moved the Leia and Luke fighting sequence to right after the Exegol scene extending it using deleted material from the documentary, this way the movie starts of ‘grander’ like the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga should, and it perfectly flows into the training scene with Rey and Leia, it also slows the start of the movie down a bit
Removed line “I’m gonna run the training course” and changed the order of the small dialogue, it feels more natural now
Removed Kylo Ren interfering with Rey’s training
Added a new vision for Rey, it is about Rey’s parents and her darkness, because that is her story this movie and this sets it up clearly
Added the falcon scene to after the training and before the falcon gets back to the base, it flows much better since they just talked about the falcon in the previous scene
Removed the chess scene, it is moved to the end of the movie
Added falcon leaving lightspeed
Removed Boolio
Removed line “Last shot maybe forever”, I honestly have no idea why Poe would say this, he is a good pilot and should be confident so if he is afraid to crash that is weird
Added a wipe to Rey reading the Jedi texts
Added a small scene showing the Falcon all in smoke, little bit less claustrophobic scene this way
Removed line “attacks start in 16 hours”, what happens in this movie can NOT happen in 1 day and it is weird to have the big final Skywalker movie play out in one day
​

• The gang leaving until crashing in the sinking fields:

Removed line “It’s what you would do”, I feel like she says this because Carrie passed away, but for the sake of the movie IDK why she would say that
Added Kylo Ren’s vision to after the gang leaves the planet, this scene gives Kylo Ren a reason to rebuild his helmet, he feels guilty about killing han, he cant go back to leia, and rey refused him
Added Coruscant in the background of the First Order meeting
Removed lines “Well done and I like it” about Kylo Ren’s mask, it makes the first order less intimidating if they joke around
Removed line “That is an excellent name”, who says this??? She now immediately says Im Rey
Moved Kylo Ren finding out where Rey is to when they are in the vehicle with Lando, splits the scene up on a better point and thus slows the pace a bit
Removed Pryde looking suspicious to Kylo Ren, it only adds confusion to this cluttered movie, I want to keep is focused
Added pieces of the original much better speeder chase music
Colour graded some drone shots that look very different to other shots
Removed line “Ive seen that ship before”
Added instead two quick shots of young rey and the ship leaving
Removed line “Rey I need to tell you something”, it never pays off (I know Finn is force sensitive, but that is still hinted at without this line and removes confusion)
​

• The cave with the snake until leaving Kijimi:

Moved the joke with Leia to remove dialogue about the “I need to tell you something”
Removed line “I don’t like bones”, it sounds very childish
Added sith whispers to the dagger
Removed line “this dagger has done terrible things”, we can hear through the screams
Removed Poe wanting to shoot the snake, he should trust rey and not be dumb
Removed a shot in Ochi’s ship, because it is used later
Added voice lines to the Knights of Ren giving them a personality
Removed a shot of Kylo Ren’s approaching ship, this way it is a bit more obvious that Finn senses something instead of the audience already knowing, and it makes the “Reveal” of Kylo Ren’s ship more exiting during the extended sequence
Added trailer shots, extending the Rey Kylo face off as long as possible
Removed the explosion of Kylo Rens fighter, he can’t survive it unharmed
Added the ship leaving Pasaana as Kylo Ren watches, slowing the pace down a bit
Changed line from “And me” to “Me” after Finn asks who sits on the throne, because in the vision it is just rey
Removed the Chewie reveal, but left in the Hux and Pryde scene, Hux is otherwise barely in the movie and in this scene he shows his annoyance of Kylo Ren
Added a shot that was removed earlier of Poe flipping some switches, it makes the scene flow better
Removed Finn shouting “LETS DO THAT”, why would he say it so happily after 3PO saying it is something bad, Poe now just says “I know a black market droid smith”, and 3PO turns around
Added a transition going to Kijimi
Removed line “I want to see your brain in the snow”, silence works better
Removed lines “You were a …”, they are under fire and it is a tense moment, why is there room for banter?
Removed line “Don’t Jakanka”, it is not very funny and Poe has absolutely no authority, it also makes Rey a bit more aggressive
Moved Finn and Poe dodging Rey, now they are startled of Rey’s aggresion instead of it being a joke
Removed the interaction between Rey and Zorri, Rey now just reaches out with her hand offering peace, no cliché badass line of I think you’re okay
Added a voice line to a Knight of Ren, they look for Rey
Added a remix of the Cantina band from A New Hope to the Kijimi bar scene
MIGHT BE DELETED IN FINAL CUT Added an extended scene showing the bar on Kijimi
Removed lines about R2D2 making a backup, it is cluttering the scene for no reason removing any consequences from the movie even before the memory wipe has even happened
Removed line “Sad” from D-O, why say sad during a sad scene, we know how to feel as humans
Added a small scene with D-O and Rey and the squeaky wheel, it is one of the few moments in this movie where we slow down and are with the characters and their feelings, it is a nice scene
Changed the colour of Kylo Rens fighter from red to yellow indicating his other fighter being destroyed and this being a new one
​

• Everything on the star destroyer:

Removed lines “which way? I have no Idea follow me”, they now just shoot the two stormtroopers and it cuts to marching stormtroopers, they enter the destroyer with a big battle? Nobody else comes until Pryde sees the ship? Why follow Finn when he doesn’t know which way to go? It also builds a bit more rest in the movie when not every scene has a blaster fight or something like that
Rearranged the Chewie rescue to not have three people kill 20 or so stormtroopers
Removed line “Hey guys, and chewie laughing”, they are literally captured by 30 troopers and Poe was shot…
Moved Pryde telling to terminate Poe Finn and Chewie to before the Rey and dagger scene
Added Sith whispers from the dagger calling to Rey
Removed line “You are hard to get rid of”, Rey just ignores Kylo Ren now silence works better
Moved line “I never lied to you”. It’s a cheap retcon of TLJ, he now says it later in the scene and he seems more confident
Removed awkward stance after the first vision of rey during the duel
Removed line “rey, I know what happened to them” and added line “Rey, I never lied to you”, after Rey tells Kylo to stop talking
Removed the interruption of the Pryde and Poe and Finn and Chewie scene, we now have the focus on Rey and Kylo
Removed Kylo Ren asking Rey where she is again, and telling her she doesn’t know the story again
Removed line “she isn’t on Jakku”, its just dumb they didn’t find her after Rey’s mother says this
Cut a few frames to make Rey more aggressive after the second vision
Removed lines “you know why Palpatine wants you dead?”, instead Kylo ren says he has her now, Kylo Ren’s objective is to get Rey to join him so that is where his mind is at
Removed lines about Finn telling Rey something while under fire……….
Changed the colour of Kylo Ren’s starfighter to yellow
Reordered a few shots before Kylo tells Rey about Palpatine to not cross the 180 degree rule (This causes disorientation for the viewer)
Removed line “Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me”, the previous set up for this line was cut
Removed lines “you’re his granddaughter, and my mother was the daughter of Darth Vader”, we understand how bloodlines work and we are told three times in a few seconds Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter
Added line “But”, to bridge Kylo Ren’s sentence
Removed line “and take the throne”, now Kylo Ren just offers Rey to kill Palpatine together, it’s a much more tempting offer to her now
​

• Death star 2 wreckage until resistance speech:

Removed lines “What is that? It’s the death star”, we can see that for ourselves
Added sith whispers to the dagger
Removed the dagger fitting on a place on the death star from where they are standing
Changed line “why is there never an R2 unit when you need one” instead of “Is every day like this to people like you? Madness”, we know 3PO’s memory is wiped, he doesn’t need to remind us like this, he can make a joke about R2 instead
Added more Sith whispers luring Rey to the dark side vault
Recut the Lightsaber fight, many little changes to fasten the pace, big changes are: Removed Rey and Kylo looking at the first wave while both having the opportunity to kill each other, Kylo Ren now instantly runs after Rey when she jumps, shortened Rey and Kylo looking at each other for a long time again, Removed Rey force blocking Kylo…….Most changes are to make Kylo Ren appear stronger and Rey more aggressive (thinking about adding music here)
Added the medal shot from the trailer
Moved line “I did want to take your hand, bens hand” to before healing, giving her the reason before and leaving Kylo Ren in silence after the healing
Changed Kylo Rens fighter colour from Red to yellow
Rearranged scenes to make it seem like there is more time passing instead of everything happening so fast
After Lando scene we go to ahch-to
We start at early morning on ahch-to and it slowly gets lighter indicating the passing of time
Added wipe and extra establishing shot with flying porgs, slows the pace down and shows porgs!!!
Added more Porg sounds than only one shot, now it feels like they live there again instead of being shown once
Added an extra establishing shot breaking the scene up between Luke catching the lightsaber and Rey and Luke talking
Luke’s hair is now thinner
Added another establishing shot slowing the pace down and indicating passing of time
Removed the flashback to Luke and Leia training, it is used at the beginning of the movie
The Finn and D-O scene is placed after the R2 and 3PO scene, now it feels like much time has passed
Removed Lines “Palpatine wanted Rey alive”, Palpatine wanted Rey dead the entire movie, even in TLJ Snoke wanted Rey dead, so it makes no sense to suddenly want her alive, he can change his plan now as he said to pryde, but he can not always have wanted Rey dead, now the big thing Finn wants to tell Poe is that they can get much information about Exegol through D-O
​

• Exegol scenes and ending:

Changed the colour of every bolt fired from a star destroyer throughout the battle from green to blue because Pride says to fire Ion cannons
Removed Finn seeing the signal transmitter before Rey enters the sith cave, now the resistance just enters Exegol first
Added Finn seeing the signal transmitter to after Rey entered the wall thing, now we have a set up and instantly go to the signal transmitter
Removed Pryde ordering to change the signal to their ship, now Finn discovers it with us at the same time suggesting his Force abilities better
Removed lines “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here”, same reasoning as before his original plan was not to want her alive in the movie and trilogy
Added voice lines to the Knights of Ren humiliating him
Cut some shots of Rey fighting the Red guards because the movie uses the exact same scene twice…
Added music during Palpatine discovering the Dyad of the Plagueis scene in Episode 3, as a callback
Made the Jedi voices louder
Added Jon h’s force ghosts during the final battle with Palpatine and Rey, now it is a conclusion to the Skywalker saga
Changed I am all the Jedi to I am a Jedi, and Recut the scene to not have it be the exact same as thanos vs iron man
Added coruscant to the victory montage
Zoomed the lesbian kiss in a bit, I feel like if you want to do it as Disney you also should have the balls to show it properly and not have it flash by far away in a shot
Added the chess scene to the Tatooine sequence, showing them moving on to the future together not just Rey
Added Ben Solo force ghosts, OF COURSE he should be there

Hello everyone! This is really just a positivity post I'm wanting to put here. Within my local X-wing community, I have brought it upon myself to start themed leagues, and they have been going very well! Whereas only a few people can make the scheduled tournament days, the leagues has everyone involved at their own time, and has been great for community involvement.
So far, I've only ran 2 leagues. First was the AndoRogue One league, wbich was during winter. Everyone has to use either Rebels or Empire, with lists only using a mix of X-wings, Y-wings, and U-wings, and TIE Fighters, TIE Strikers, and TIE Reapers.
Our Second league we ran this past spring was The Mandalorian/Seige of Mandalore League, inwhich everyone had to meet a points threshold of Mandalorian-related pilots in their lists, force users limited to Ahsoka, Maul, and The Child, and all Mandalorian pilots get free Beskar Plating! Also, they fought in clans and had to win as a team, as well as having The Darksaber coming into play!
Now, our league starting up for the summer soon, is going to be Use The Fours: an Initiative 4 Only league. Ships will be extended, but upgrades will be standard, plus some additional bans (Roark, Heightened Perception, Buzz droids, etc.) For this league, movement and shooting will occur just like objective/obstacle placements: alternating! So any one of your i4 pilots can become an 'ace' in here, and the game turns into even more of a chess match! Plenty of pilots can now shine in this league!
I'm very happy seeing how much engagement our local community has had with these themed leagues, and I have plenty more planned up for the future!

For example, Wedge Antilles and Luke Skywalker are primarily X-wing pilots but they flew snow speeders at Hoth. How long does it take to become proficient in the new spacecraft or is it immediate?

Reducing the amount of lines I own. Majority here are exclusives.
Great - Mint Condition unless noted with small defects.
Never taken out of boxes.
Primarily use PPG and Ebay for pricing w/ condition in mind.
Shipping not included. U.S. only.
Cash Local Pickup: Southern Puget Sound Area.
Comment below and PM for interest, questions and pics.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/Rp4nv4B
​

• Sour Patch Kids #5 Lime Sour Patch Kid 1000 pcs 2019 ECCC $420

Ad Icons

• Honey Nut Cheerios #21 Buzz 2018 Funko Christmas $25
• General Mills #34 Franken Berry Funko Shop $32
• Hostess #26 Fruit Pie the Magician Funko Shop $12
• Hostess #28 King Ding Dong Funko Shop $14
• Pez #52 Peter Pez 2019 Toy Tokyo Corner $8
• Pillsbury #41 Pillsbury Doughboy Shamrock Cookie 2019 ECCC Crease $45
• Kellogg's Rice Krispies Snap! Crackle! Pop! 3-pack Funko Shop $30
• Ratfink #15 Rat Fink GITD 2019 Toy Tokyo $30
• San Diego Comic Con #53 Toucan 2019 Summer Convention $6

Animation

• Care Bears #432 Christmas Wishes Bear 2018 Funko Christmas Crease $25
• Care Bears #355 Good Luck Bear Flocked 2018 ECCC Crease $85
• Fairy Tail #481 Gajeel (Dragon Force) Metallic 2019 ECCC $100
• Jonny Quest #826 Hadji Funko Shop Cut $9
• Jonny Quest #825 Jonny Quest w/ Bandit Funko Shop Cut $13
• Loony Tunes #395 Pepe Le Pew 2018 Summer Convention $80
• Loony Tunes #396 Playboy Penguin 2018 Summer Convention $19
• Loony Tunes #735 Road Runner Funko Shop $100
• Loony Tunes #734 Wile E. Coyote Funko Shop Crease $100
• Samurai Jack Aku & Samurai Jack 2-pack 2019 Fall Convention Crease $185
• Scooby Doo #631 Werewolf Funko Shop Crease $60
• The Flintstones #697 Betty Rubble Funko Shop Crease $60
• The Flintstones #696 Wilma Flintstone Funko Shop $70

Disney

• #552 Eve Box Lunch Earth Day $21
• #52 Pizza Planet Truck w/ Buzz Lightyear 2018 Fall Convention $80
• #96 Flower Crease $45
• #95 Thumper Corner $50
• #232 Maleficent Hot Topic $11
• #400 Wall-E Box Lunch Earth Day $25
• Mickey #90 #1 Mickey Orange/Yellow Funko Shop $13
• Mickey & Friends #607 Trick or Treat Dewey Funko Shop $40
• Mickey & Friends #606 Trick or Treat Huey Funko Shop $40
• Mickey & Friends #608 Trick or Treat Louie Funko Shop $40
• Moana #376 Maui Shark Head 2018 ECCC Crease $65
• Moana #421 Tamatoa Neon GITD 2018 Summer Convention $60
• Pirates of the Caribbean #423 Redd Disney Parks Exclusive $14
• Toy Story #377 Army Man 2018 ECCC $50

Dragon Ball

• #514 Beerus Flocked Funimation Excl. Crease $70
• #434 Great Ape Vegeta 2018 Fall Convention $95
• #759 Perfect Cell 2020 Spring Convention GITD $55
• #518 Super Saiyan 2 Gohan Gamestop Crease $33
• #402 Super Saiyan Broly 2018 Summer Convention $48
• #154 Super Saiyan Vegeta Gold Chrome 2018 Toy Tokyo Crease $23
• #676 Vegeta (Over 9000) Hot Topic $40
• #317 Whis Metallic 2018 SDCC $125
• #362 Zen-Oh Galactic Toys $25

Freddy

• #56 Elwood Blue 2019 Box of Fun 3000 pcs Rip $10
• SE Freddy Funko Baseball Teal 2018 ECCC 1000 pcs $90
• SE Freddy Funko Black 2018 SDCC Funko Fundays 5000 pcs $70
• SE Freddy Funko Make a Wish 5000 pcs $75
• SE Freddy Funko Surf's Up! Batman 2019 Box of Fun 5000 pcs $85
• SE Freddy Funko Brown Pants 2019 ECCC $130
• #59 Franken Freddy Funko Shop $30
• #58 Officer Freddy 2019 Fall Convention $30

Funko

• #16 Big Al Funko Shop Crease $5
• #15 Egor Elf 2018 Funko Christmas $10
• #03 El Diablo Black Suit Funko Shop $25
• #12 Fin Du Chomp Blue 3000 pcs 2019 ECCC Funko Shop $25
• #12 Fin Du Chomp Funko Shop $15
• #12 Fin Du Chomp Orange Funko Shop $15
• #14 Flaky 2018 Funko Shop $15
• #13 Frank Von Viener Funko Shop $15
• #09 Gill Purple Funko Shop $9
• #11 Salty Funko Shop Crease $9
• #10 Sam Green Funko Shop $10
• #04 T-Bone Black Funko Shop $12

Games

• Borderlands #42 Handsome Jack $25
• Cuphead #331 Cagney Carnation 2018 ECCC Crease $58
• Overwatch Roadhog and Junkrat Blizzard 2-pack Cut $20
• Overwatch #441 Ashe $20
• Overwatch #383 Junkrat Dr. Junkenstein Boxlunch $15
• Overwatch #549 Lucio Robot Blizzard Corner $8
• Overwatch #497 Pharah Anubis Amazon $10
• Overwatch #520 Reaper Pumpkin GITD Blizzard $20
• Overwatch #400 Reinhardt Coldhardt GITD 2018 Fall Convention Crease $22
• Overwatch #346 Soldier: 76 Grillmaster 2018 Summer Convention Crease $10
• Overwatch #307 Sombra Glitch 2019 ECCC $35
• Overwatch #423 Zenyatta Cultist Blizzard $40

Game of Thrones

• #65 Beric Dondarrion 2018 NYCC $50
• #84 Night King Crystal GITD HBO Shop $10
• #64 Olenna Tyrell 2018 Summer Convention $35

Harry Potter

• #61 Moaning Myrtle Translucent GITD 2018 Summer Convention $40
• #68 Professor Quirrell 2018 Fall Convention $40
• #83 Rita Skeeter 2019 Summer Convention $40
• Ginny Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley Quidditch World Cup 3-pack 2019 ECCC $160
• Fantastic Beasts #26 Fwooper Funko Shop $10
• The Crimes of Grindelwald #28 Zouwu GITD Funko Shop Corner $9

Haunted Mansion

• #578 Constance Hatchaway Phantom Bride $40
• #49 Ezra in Buggy Disney Parks Exclusive Crease $50
• #575 Madame Leota $35
• #619 Mansion Groundskeeper Boxlunch Exclusive $13
• #580 Merry Minstrel Hot Topic Excl. $12
• #577 Mummy Spirit $13
• #576 Opera Singer Phantom $13
• Phineas, Ezra, Gus (Hitchhiking Ghosts) Chrome 3-pack Target $30
• #793 Victor Geist Disney $40

Heroes

• DC #144 Batman Orange Chrome 2018 Toy Tokyo $23
• DC #144 Batman Red Chrome 2018 Funko Christmas Crease $13
• Gotham #77 Bruce Wayne $11
• Pride #141 Batman Rainbow Crease $12
• Suicide Squad #106 Deadshot Masked $10
• Shazam! #260 Shazam GITD Hot Topic Crease $15

Marvel

• Ant-man #87 Ant-man unmasked Corner $18
• Marvel Universe #06 Captain America Damaged box $10
• Marvel Studios #338 Iron Man Mark 1 2018 Summer Convention $30
• Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 #519 Stan Lee Astronaut 2019 Fall Convention $25
• Marvel #438 Thor Classic 2019 ECCC Crease $85

Movies

• Mad Max Fury Road #42 The Nux Car $55
• Anchorman #949 Brian Fantana Scented 2020 Summer Convention $35
• Elf #638 Buddy Elf Raccoon 2018 Funko Christmas $19
• Escape from New York #1008 Snake Plissken 1000 pcs 2020 NYCC $270
• Jay & Silent Bob Bluntman & Chronic 2-pack 2019 Fall Convention $90
• Min in Black #718 Agent J Funko Shop Crease $10
• Romeo + Juliet #708 Romeo Chase Corner $25
• Tomorrowland #142 David Nix $7
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory #254 Oompa Loompa Crease $25

Myths

• Funko #15 Bigfoot Snowy Flocked 2018 Canadian Convention Exclusive $110
• Chupacabra #19 Chupacabra Funko Shop $40

Star Wars

• #99 Ben Kenobi Smuggler's Bounty Crease $15
• #297 Boba Fett Futura Target $30
• #297 Boba Fett Gold Chrome 2019 Galactic Convention $30
• #102 Boba Fett Action Pose Smuggler's Bounty $55
• #91 Captain Phasma Chrome Smuggler's Bounty $14
• #63 Chewbacca The Force Awakens Flocked Smuggler's Bounty $15
• #158 Darth Vader Bespin Smuggler's Bounty Crease $16
• #09 Darth Maul Blue Box Crease $15
• #299 Darth Maul 2019 Galactic Convention $35
• #12 Gamorrean Guard Crease $10
• #159 Grand Moff Tarkin Smuggler's Bounty $15
• #103 IG-88 Smuggler's Bounty $10
• #237 Padme Amidala Geonosis 2018 ECCC $170
• #70 Red Snaggletooth Smuggler's Bounty $10
• #121 R2-D2 Jabba's Skiff Smuggler's Bounty Corner $13
• #89 Tie Fighter Pilot First Order Smuggler's Bounty Crease $7
• #298 Watto 2019 Galactic Convention $20

Television

• H.R. Pufnstuf #852 H.R. Pufnstuf 2019 Summer Convention Crease $65
• Elvira #375 Elvira Orange Dress 1500pcs Spooky Empire Crease $310
• TMNT #1019 Michelangelo w/ Surfboard 2020 Summer Convention $25
• The Green Hornet #856 Kato 2019 SDCC $10
• The Simpsons #824 Evil Groundskeeper Willie 2019 Summer Convention $25
• The Simpsons Kang and Kodos GITD 2-pack 2019 Summer Convention $80
• The Simpsons #765 Milhouse 2020 Spring Convention $25
• The Simpsons #825 Vampire Mr. Burns 2019 Fall Convention Crease $15
• The Umbrella Academy #1037 Young Ben 2000pcs 2020 NYCC $200
• Ultraman #764 Ultraman GITD 2019 SDCC $10

I still pour a lot of hours into this game, especially with the expanded galactic conquest thanks to the absolute battlefront mod and all the community maps. Something I've been doing lately is creating a hardcore ruleset that I challenge myself to play a GC campaign with.
A few examples:
Some space battles I limit myself to one role. Sometimes I play an imperial engineer that only stays on the star destroyer manning turrets and repairing the shields to get them back online ASAP if they get knocked out. Sometimes I mix it up and play as a tie fighter pilot only, with the job of only defending the star destroyer - targeting mainly rebel bombers on the offense. If I'm feeling really cocky I like to limit myself to 1 tie fighter life, once I die, I quit the match to auto-lose the planet, followed by penalizing myself with skipping my next turn.
Anyone else do stuff like this ?

I'm curious how many fighter pilots have eidetic memories? From what I can tell, part of operating a jet like that requires you to be able to regurgitate a lot of information on demand rather quickly. I imagine having a photographic memory would make the learning process much easier.
​
Video: Maverick throwing the NATOPS in the garbage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUavm_JgTuc

For example, Wedge Antilles and Luke Skywalker are primarily X-wing pilots but they flew snow speeders at Hoth. How long does it take to become proficient in the new spacecraft or is it immediate?

Do you want to be part of a serious and respectful community of adults from around the world who share your passion for space exploration, trading, excellence, and discovery? Look no further than 7Hills Industries!
We offer a friendly, drama-free, and organized environment with assertive and measured leadership to facilitate effective decision-making in organized operations. We provide support for regular and hardcore players through leadership, logistics, and operations/event-planning opportunities. We're dedicated to growing and expanding our organization.
With a fleet ranging from MPUV to Javelin, we have all the necessary ships for every lawful career, including science, exploration, mining, construction, transport, fuel, repair, supply, medical, salvage, rescue, and security.
Our supported divisions include Exploration, Engineering, Base Building, Mining, Hauling, Salvage & Repair, Trading, Combat, Escort, and Scouting. We also offer opportunities for Bounty Hunting and Personal Transport.
We value community, kindness, and cooperation, and we seek members who have strong interpersonal and communication skills, as well as the patience and perspective to pursue long-term goals. Our ultimate goal is to become as independent as possible.
If you are 18 years of age or older, you are welcome to join our ranks. Whether you have a big ship fleet or only a small starter, whether you are a Fighter or Transport Pilot, Racer, Trader, Escort Pilot, Officer, Team player, or Role player, you'll find a place in our organization. With our crew rotation, all members have their place. Join us now and become a part of the 7Hills Industries family!
For more information, visit our website at
https://www.7hillsindustries.com/
Discord channels at https://www.discord.gg/7hills
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPIQxZG54GRrDL_jO-CJBQ
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@7hillsindustries

I studied this extensively a long time ago. I became purturbed seeing this pattern online with deviant art weirdos making shit like the classic "heh nothing personell" character. Having been on 4chan and the internet for a long time at that point I'd seen it every where, and my senior year of high school, there was an autistic kid in my class that also had a sonic obsession. He drew the teachers and people he liked as sonic characters every day. after seeing this I went on a crusade to understand, and basically it is because autists are unable to discern information from facial expressions and how those expressions coincide with emotions in themselves and the person they are communicating with in real time. Some of the smarter, more motivated ones can overcome this a bit with practice just by memory. For some reason there is a disconnect in their brain relating to body language communication, things that are processed by our subconscious during conversations I.e facial expressions, body language, intonation in the voice, etc. That most people never even put second thought to, for them is like piloting a fighter jet with a 4g load on it in combat. So in short, cartoons but sonic especially and anime as well , have extremely exaggerated facial expressions to convey emotion in the animation. So for the autist, they can quickly equate exaggerated cartoonish anime mannerisms to emotions. it's almost a gateway for them into understanding the shit we take for granted. This is also why you see them acting like anime characters in public, in social situations, because a lot of times this is their only frame of reference for conveying emotions and their only way of translation if you will.

Picked up both of these this afternoon for £60. Dusty as hell and stinking of smoke but nothing a good clean won't resolve.

Many people in this Sub are very optimistic about BJP's win in 2024, and I understand.
Even I am a bit optimistic.
But I'm seeing a new wave in the poor section and somewhat middle class in the favour of RaGa.
The waves - 1. Mehengai Wave 2. Desh Bech Diya Wave

1. MEHENGAI WAVE

It's true that inflation is there, prices have increased. But we are still in a better position than most Western nations.
We have a very large population who are poor and malnourished, and that's depressing.
There is a large section that is uneducated. Uneducated, especially in terms of international awareness.
And that gives us people who are very brainwashed into freebie and subsidy culture.
I agree that poor section must be given welfare schemes and subsidies.
Schemes like free education for the poor are not bad, but an investment in the future.
But, the tax system is set in such a way that many people don't pay taxes, and if they do, they have very little savings remaining.
This doesn't allow GOV to collect more money and hence the domino effect, I will leave it to you.

1. DESH BECH DIYA WAVE

People are concerned about why GOV sold Air India to Tata.
After so many years of Socialism, people have no idea how a country will run.
They think money will grow on trees or fall from the sky, and then the GOV will give them subsidies and schemes and pay salaries to GOV employees. (I'm partially linking this with the TAX sentences)
Then, about selling ports and airports to ADANI and how he got at the top so fast and even crossed Ambani.
And now, because Adani fell a little, people are even more convinced that, " YEAH, we knew this guy was fraud. MODI ne DESH BECH DIYA. Now he is falling. Modi will fall, too." Etc, etc etc.
People also want permanent jobs and pensions, without thinking about the source of money and without knowing how the world operates.
Rafale scams and etc are also some narratives to sell people this wave.

1. HINDU MUSLIM WAVE

People are now happy with Ram Mandir and Kashmir issue, but they do not like the Hindu Muslim thing.
They feel that it's something that will destroy the social structure and the brotherhood and etc etc on the society.
But when they are told about Congress' karma, about shaking hands with Terrorists, and bootlicking British and Americans, they just think that its another BJP-RSS propaganda.
They can not look history apart from the Delhi Centric history, which sidelined many freedom fighters that went against Congress and Gandhi-Nehru.
They have no problem with Aurangzeb lovers. It's OK for them.
I don't know what to say.
If you want to add anything feel free. I'm tired.
TL;DR--- Padh poora chup chap.

the Cognitive-Integrated-Drone (CID) has been around for a long time, in fact many species discover the basic concepts before interstellar travel. at its core it is fairly straightforward, through progressive cybernetic replacement the inferior biological support system is replaced my machinery with higher tolerances.
there are three primary reasons to pursue this line of technology:

1. lifespan extension, by removing biological failure points some species could hypothetically triple their lifespan
2. life-support reduction, by reducing the amount of biological systems to support to the bare minimum a ship can save mass, size, weaknesses, and power load.
3. tolerances. despite continual improvements in engine and material sciences the speed and manoeuvrability of starfighters have been functionally stagnant for decades. the limiting factor is the ability of sapients to survive the forces involved. an isolated nervous system supported directly by machines can handle far more physical stresses that a biologically supported one.

unfortunately while resiliency is varied across species and individuals, the process always results in some of the worst madness ever seen. horrifying phantom pain, eventual complete collapse of the sense of self, and existential torment. always resulting in suicide. because of this, the use of CIDs in warfare has been banned in the Galactic community. of course, they get used anyways, the strategic advantage for any tyrant cruel enough to use them is undeniable.
​
the Human-Aardjren war started so soon after the humans entered the galactic stage that it's said that some people heard about the war before they heard about the humans. it began as a hybrid border dispute-ideological war when a human colony was claimed to be in Aardjren space and as such the population there was Aardjren property. this was in some ways unsurprising, the Aardjren were well known for their belligerence and avarice in equal measure. and for the first months, the war went as expected too, the Aardjren empire seeing victory after victory as technologically, numerically, and materially inferior human fleets were incapable of meaningful resistance.
however it seemed that the humans learned the lessons of war quickly. with their newbuilt ships abandoning the cruiser-battleship "ships of the line" doctrine in favour of the contemporary carrier-destroyer-corvette fleet compositions. more impressive was that they stopped losing as hard. even making successful defences at some strategic battles.
commentary at the time attributed this to Aardjren overconfidence, and the surprising aptitude of humans as starfighter pilots owing to an arboreal ancestry. however the real shock came a couple months after these surprising turnabouts. a new wave of human ships were commissioned. these ships were of an unusual design, many small ships, even smaller than corvettes, and their destroyers were not much bigger than corvettes either. and the carriers were large, and with an unbelievable compliment of fighters and the less seen heavy strike craft. speculation was that out of desperation they had the pilots quartering in their cockpits... which it turns out wasnt far from the truth.
this fleet did not lose a single battle.
the Aardjren were eventually routed from human space, and faced with a counter attack, they opened the negotiation table. Ultimately the Aardjren empire wound up paying stiff war reparations in the form of liberating a large number of slaves into the human territory as immigrants.
with hostilities concluded, communication with the human began in earnest. and as facts about the war trickled out, the galaxy trembled in horror. due to the horrendous toll CIDs were typically only used as superiority fighters. the humans had turned every. single. ship. in their fleet into a CID. not just the fighters, but the corvettes, and destroyers too. and in the most horrifying revelation of all. the carriers, large ships that could easily have the life support systems for a crew were instead "manned" by a network of CIDs. even the admiral of the fleet was integrated into her flagship.
it came out that this was part of the reason that the Aardjren folded so quickly at the negotiation table. faced with the threat of a nigh undefeatable fleet that could operate for years independent of supply or berth, even if they destroyed the human homeworld that very day, this fleet could haunt their space for decades.
when called to the Galactic community to defend their actions the human ambassador made a statement that terrified the horrified people into silence:
"they knew the risks, they volunteered"

Just coming into BBCF from Smash Melee, and boy is this different. I really like the concept of Fighting Games, and I want to get past the entry wall, but between the motion controls + knowing which moves are cancellable + what links into what, it feels like I will need to put in 20+ hours before I could properly pilot a single character (making decent basic decisions and being able to execute them).
Anyone have any tips on how to make the initial grind a little more fun? This first stretch where I feel like I have no intuition is really a drag for me.
Probably doesn't help that I'm trying to learn Susanoo, since his drive system adds a whole extra layer to what I have to ingrain into my mind. Other characters I kind of like the concept of are Kuyaga, Hakumen, and maaaaaybe Bullet (I main Captain Falcon in melee, so I guess these character choices aren't too surprising). If you've got character-specific stuff you wanna pass along, that's cool too, so long as it's not trying to suggest a different character based on difficulty ;P
Also, this is the first traditional 2d fighter where I'm actually considering trying to play seriously, so part of it's gonna just be my lack of experience with the genre (unless you count playing Vega in Street Fighter 4 but never actually getting good at the game lol).
Again, mostly just looking for tips on how to make the initial learning process a little more bearable/fun, as well as general discussion just for the sake of it.