Category Archives: Stories

July 22, 2022 · 20:56

And then there were two

Part 3

He woke up the next day nice and refreshed. He had breakfast, read the paper and was considering what to do next. He knew he had the watch, but the watch was dangerous, even the trip into the past of Rotterdam was a lucky but dangerous setting, he realised that. He basically survived a bombing that might not have killed that many, but it made 20,000 homeless, even if knocked down the impact could have been severe, so he was happy that the watch was in his vault. He was about to walk away when the paper caught his eye. He had looked at the International news, the business news but it was a corner that he usually ignored that was the eye catcher. Vandalism in Paris, there was a photo of a place he recognised, it was an image from the Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis Church he visited the day before. He looked over the article, someone broke in broke several of the tombstones, the ones on the side of the one he visited. These people were less subtle. The authorities were investigating the senseless act of vandalism, they were pursuing leads.  

He put the paper aside. Apparently he got there in time, but who else was looking for the clock? There were several thoughts, but none of them made sense. Too specific for tomb robbers, too violent for thieves and in that the surrounding stones were damaged, not the most subtle of ‘explorers’, there was more to this. He checked out and walked back to the train station and boarded the train to return to Paris, this needed to be investigated. 

CROSS Architecture. Wir sind ein junges, international tätiges Architekturbüro mit Standorten in Aachen und Amsterdam.

He needed to learn who else wanted to stake a claim on that watch. Getting the ticket and getting to the train was relatively simple, he got off where he needed to board. There would be a train in 35 minutes. He saw a shop, bought the Guardian and got to the platform. It was 10 minutes later when the train arrived and he got to the seat assigned to him. He didn’t feel like looking at the environment he was travelling through, he did that yesterday. He decided to read the paper, even if the information was pointless and in some cases useless. It kept him occupied. Some of the information was interesting, but for the most it was the proverbial waste of time, reading it was as useful a passing of time as watching paint dry. It took a little over 157 minutes to get where he needed to go and from there he walked the same path towards the church. When he got close to the church he saw the abundance of police cars. Too many to be useful, this was a presentation to the people. He kept his distance and looked around. It was then that he saw the Imperial House just next door. He walked on the other side of the street until he was directly opposite the Imperial house and crossed straight to the restaurant. He saw that one of the tables was free and sat down. He waited to be served. He ordered the spring rolls and noodles. He ate slowly taking in all the traffic, all the people and memorised it all. He switched between his normal and Olympian vision and nothing sprang out to him, it was about 20 minutes later, just as he was ordering more tea when he noticed it. A man and woman, passing by a third time. His Olympian vision saw nothing stand out. They were human, nothing special. Yet they were observing the church they were taking turns at looking around and they had each others back. They were a near perfect team, observing and checking all the elements they could see. He felt decently safe, as he was eating and drinking tea. He was done, he saw them walk off and they would be back in minutes. They were very good. He got up and took a turn to the left. He saw the crossing and crossed the Rue de Rivoli. He walked into the small street and looked around, there was not that much traffic, there was none looking at him. He stood in a corner and waited, the couple walked past the crossing focussing on the church. He focussed his Olympic vision on the couple, he would now be able to find them anywhere fast. He walked away and left the area of the church. It took 20 minutes before he passed a nice cafe. He walked in, ordered a beer and took a small table. The beer was served, it was a Stella Artois, he took his time, savouring every sip and let time pass by. Every now and then he looked out and focussed on the two he needed to investigate and it was not before 7 PM when their direction changed. He waited another 10 minutes and he moved in the direction the couple had vanished towards. It was a small trip, a mere 15 minutes. When he got close he saw where they were. They had taken shelter in the Cour Des Vosges, what seemed to look like a suite on the second floor. Very convenient for him, so he slowly walked around until he had enough privacy to get up and he did as fast as he could. At every moment looking around for prying eyes. When he got to the upper floor he saw that one of the windows was open, it was one that led to the corridor where they were staying. He waited in a corner, he saw the couple leave the room, they were talking to each other, speaking softly, but for him it was not a problem, they were discussing diner and the excellent quality of food that the Cour Des Vosges served. That was a nice surprise, it meant that he had time to investigate the room. He waited around 10 seconds and walked into the corridor, walked to the door and slowly gained entrance to the room. He was cautious not to leave any prints, not to leave any footprints or any kind of disturbance. The drawers and lockers were all filled with clothes and all kind of stuff, so far they looked like perfectly ordinary tourists. It was then that he noticed the small safe. It was easy to get entrance and there was what he hoped for. Hopefully a clue, images, documents and maps. The maps were of Paris and Rhodes. He memorised the documents as fast as he could and he memorised the maps, the Paris one was useless, he had been there, but the post-it on the map stated that the watch was most likely in the tomb of Jacques III Thuret. He looked at the other map. It was Rhodes, there was no post-it, but the documents gave the information he needed. He carefully put everything back in exactly the same order and left the room. He left the hotel in the same way he came in, as he left the hotel he saw a window with the restaurant, in the corner he saw the two enjoy whatever they were eating. It seemed to be a lamb dish. He walked off. Whatever came next, it would be in Rhodes. So he signalled a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Charles de Gaulle airport. Time to see what Rhodes brought to the equation.

Part 4

Still to be continued (remaining as evil as I can)

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July 19, 2022 · 20:34

Recap and time stitching

This setting all started on 

Mr. S. King resigned (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/08/mr-s-king-resigned/)
Another episode (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/02/another-episode/)

I still have to add parts 3 and 4 here, but I forgot where I left them. As such a recap becomes pretty essential.

The story starts with a message, a message in an envelope under the door of an apartment in London. The envelope had no stamp, no address merely the text “μελλοντικός κυβερνήτης του ταρτάρου” (future ruler of Tartarus), the back stated “Αιών” (Aion). The letter was actually in English and gave him a notion that something was about to be wrong, things are out of order and he was requested to fix what was wrong. The letter ended with “I will owe you a great deal if you succeed”. There was nothing to go on, but then he looked at the letter deeper and the letters reshaped in another way, the text gave him “Το παλιό μου ηλιακό ρολόι μεταμορφώθηκε από τον Jacques III Thuret σε ένα ρολόι, ένα ρολόι τσέπης που δημιουργήθηκε το 1712, έχει μια κρυφή ισχύ που είναι πολύ επικίνδυνη. Μπορείτε να δείτε το ρολόι αν κοιτάξετε αρκετά βαθιά, είναι κάπου στο Παρίσι, κάπου εμφανές.” He considered the text ‘somewhere obvious’, it seemed like a clue, a hidden clue, but for now, he had no idea where that was. He took the taxi to St Pancras International and got a ticket to Paris. The train would leave in a little under an hour, so he went into the station and got a Lamb shepherds pie and a coffee. As he was eating the pie, he was pondering the note, the idea that he was being played, but the note seemed sincere and only an Olympian could read it, so he was a little lost. And he knew very little about Aion. He was a master of time, but he had no idea how it all fitted towards Jacques III Thuret. He had to Google the name and it as a famous clockmaker, not a watchmaker. So the facts were all over the place, but it seemed to him that Aion was not the type to be careless with words. So there was a lot more to be done.

This concludes part one of a few parts and it is part of a two or three parter (still in doubt on this and it is not a cliff hanger).

Intro of the sequel
There is a lamp, it is old, very old. It is like the ancient greek oil lamps. It looks like a teapot with an elongated flame holder, but that would not be the largest issue, the issue was that the light was stronger than a modern 50,000 Lum LED torch, and it has been lighting the little room it was in for thousands of years. The room was out of sight and out of mind, it was forgotten by everyone who every knew it existed and forgotten by the relatives of those who once knew. And if you listened as careful as possible, you would still hear nothing. It was a sunny day, and the people were walking around, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the view. It was Platia Rimini, and if someone had been watching, they would have noticed that the bottom of the well near the centre was bleaching ever so slowly, and the bleach patch was increasing, very very slowly. These are the two intros and they are related. I will write more soon. The idea came to me on the train on the way home and I see the entire episodes in my mind, but the ideas are still erratic and chaotic, so I need to make sense of it all. And add it here. With a movie, a mini series and a TV series in the bag (designed), as such this series is becoming (to some degree) public domain fodder. Anyway, it was an idea that united items that have divinity in use, a setting that the divine is not a static setting, it is a setting that is malleable and it could reflect in massive ways, but that is part of the story, what was benign and almost innocent 2500 years ago, becomes a weird setting in today’s environment. Like TNT, like several other inventions, they suddenly made sense. But the inventions of then, the relics of then were not invented with the same setting, with the same idea in place. As such we can create a new environment, one that I am about to create. 

It is there where I set the stage for the third episode in that event. Optionally it is merely at the end of the first season, not a cliffhanger. I personally believe that season 1 should not end in a cliffhanger. I have nothing against cliffhangers, but to rely on them for a second season seems wrong, as a storyteller, the story should keep people vested, not the need of ‘How does it end?’ And as such I have some personal issues with cliffhangers. 

And for now I need to set a few central issues in motion, I also need to find a few facts (to make the story easier to swallow). So I hope to tell you more about it soon.

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July 16, 2022 · 19:05

The place of choice

We all have. Place of choice, in some cases we have many. For horror it is the Nostromo, for Fantasy it is Lothlorien, for action it is whereever the action is you watched in a game or in a movie. So when I saw ‘How Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Franchise Subverts the Sci-Fi Genre’ I was puzzled. This translates to ‘undermine the power and authority of fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes’ from these we see that Guerrilla did more than the right thing. They offered a side of sci-fi that was new, unique and appreciated by millions of fans. The Gamerant article also gives us “Most notably, it blends futuristic elements with primitive ones to produce a unique new aesthetic. Additionally, instead of looking to the stars and imagining a future where the problems of humanity are solved by taking to the stars, it instead plants its feet firmly on Earth and imagines a future where humans instead try to solve the planet’s ecological problems.” It is a view, one that is shining with science fiction, in addition we see “The appeal of this dream is easy to understand, as Earth, as beautiful as it is, has finite resources which would seem to be incapable of continuously supporting a growing population. Furthermore, humankind’s time on Earth has resulted in ecological disasters from deforestation, warfare, commercial farming, and mining, to name but a few harmful human activities.” It is true and it also gives us a new setting, science fiction not as a setting of the future we desire, but as a setting it show us the flaws of realism. We can look at so many other games, but the larger stage is that we are destroying the world we live in and whilst we see President Biden play the Khashoggi card (as that would guarantee cheaper oil), the reality is that squandering oil will be the death of millions, and we did it to ourselves. Instead of embracing a future where we could exist better and longer, we seem to adhere to the Twitter vibe attacking Elon Musk and the setting of Fake accounts was never and is never properly addressed and the media is every bit as guilty on that part. 

We see media subverting reality whilst politicians, trolls, fake prophets buy clicks to forward their agenda. Kwork made millions on this, and consider that a firm offers 100.000 visits visitors for $20. OK, they offer more access, so it is not more twitter alone. But this setting shows that there is more and Twenvy offers 5,000 Twitter Followers Every Month for a mere $69 a week unless you want the ‘200 Twitter Accounts Sending You Traffic’ it will be more then, and that doesn’t require fake accounts, so where do these +6487 accounts come from? Explain please. I found a simple one in under a minute and there are thousands out there. Al making a buck out of Twitter. How do these connect? It fits the bill of major social changes, pretentious social changes that affect us all. We are given “Social media bots and Russian trolls promoted discord and spread false information about vaccines on Twitter to sow division and distribute malicious content, according to new research led by the George Washington University. Using tactics similar to those at work during the 2016 United States presidential election, these Twitter accounts entered into vaccine debates months before U.S. election season was underway.” What no one is considering, which accounts wee used and how long they remained active, there are no time lines and here we get back to the Horizons series. The story is all about a time line. From Zero Dark to Forbidden West we are shown a world consumed by greed, technology driven and pushed beyond its limits. In the games (both) Ted Faro, his greed, recklessness and lack of foresight led to the extinction of all life on Earth via an advanced military platform, also known as the Faro Plague, whose design and development he personally conceived and oversaw. A stage that was part of the story and never dug in too deep (it was not needed for the story) yet it is a reality that I shown in our world today, greed overarches common sense. Self-repudiation is ignored for what some call the comfort of the people, it does not give us the the part where self-repudiation halts automated revenue and slows down greed. A similar side is seen in security and as such we are given one part that is ignored. Science fiction tend to push outward, Guerrilla took it into a new direction and pushed it within us, pushed it towards the reality of today. It is science fiction and it could be seen as a new direction of science fiction. There was a reason Soylent Green was so good. I remember creating a prequel 3-5 years ago. In that version Chris Hemsworth played William R. Simonson when he was still young. The prequel still based on Make Room! Make Room! (By Harry Harrison) but the premise also looks at where we are almost now and that is the part, not realism but near realism and that is the part that Guerrilla got right. Not the technology of the old ones, but the mindset of the old ones and there we have a much larger stage. Guerrilla never subverted the science fiction genre, they added a branch, a branch that already existed and is now becoming a major branch in that tree of representation. The realisation how our dystopian future is based on our flawed screwed up self. I would call it a version that is true and real, but has enough fiction to make it a wondrous trip, fiction that is based on science. Star Trek might have preceded the mobile phone and the iPad, but the reality was that it was the people that drive it and as such we should ask the hard questions. Why is the media avoiding the fake accounts of Twitter, why are politicians using click farms to proceed their own agenda’s? Because they can and that is the premise of any dystopian future, it comes because nothing was done to prevent it. Perhaps Guerrilla is one of the best teachers of all, showing our flaws and showing that there is a price for everything. They aren’t alone, but their following is one of the largest at present and in that world size matters, it always has.

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July 13, 2022 · 20:20

Questions, presumptions and speculations

There is pretty much no country in the world that hasn’t heard of Canadian Mobiles, Rogers Telecom and the mess that they are in. I wasn’t paying attention initially, because things do go wrong at times. There can be many to point at in some blame game, but the overall setting is that things just go tits up at times. As such I looked in different directions. That was until yesterday when I saw news that people had been without mobiles for three days, that definitely got my attention. You see things do go wrong, but for a setting of this size to be out of check for that long a time takes a lot. As such I started to look and today I found (at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/massive-rogers-outage-caused-by-a-maintenance-update/) ‘Massive Rogers outage caused by a maintenance update’, this did not make sense to me. I checked ‘bleeping computers’ and beside the name we share, I found nothing really negative. So when I saw ““We now believe we’ve narrowed the cause to a network system failure following a maintenance update in our core network, which caused some of our routers to malfunction early Friday morning,” Staffieri said in a statement published Saturday.” There was something really wrong here. It is possible to loopback a server and realign routers in a matter of hours, this was something else, but so far I could not find anything that gave a decent explanation of the matter. You see, it is a setting of mere hours, so mobiles to be out as well as emergency services, that takes a hell of a lot more. My personal experience (which is not great) is well beyond basic and my graduate degree makes me wonder what actually happened. As such, my mind started to wander through the decades of IT experience and I suddenly remembered something from the 80’s, It was less than a year after the first virus was created. It was called a jigsaw worm. But about that soon enough. 

I cannot tell how Canada runs it business, but EVERY phone I know will have the option to call emergency services and I was seeing all kinds of news that this was not possible. This was more than just a maintenance update.

Speculation
When going back to the Jigsaw worm, someone had the idea that surpassed a data virus. He created a program that was incomplete. It was like a jigsaw of 4 pieces, the key of part ‘A’ called the lock of ‘C’, the key of ‘C’ called the lock of ‘D’ and so on, when the 4 combined it became a powerful worm, causing mayhem on networks and as one part was created for networks that piece could be set to a TokenRing solution or any other network. The puzzle was interesting, it as novel, but it never got the attention it deserved, and it was forgotten over time, but I do remember it. So now, as we have the Internet of Things, that ‘solution’ becomes a lot more important. And to give you the rundown lets make a new one. In this one we have a 3×3 puzzle. 

Here the important part is piece 8, you see, the previous edition had a weakness, or one that could be detected decently easy nowadays. When we invert the solution, the key does not proclaim it is there, but the lock leaves a flag, each piece its own flags, 8 flags in total. Try finding 8 specific flags on a server system of a telecom company, good luck with that idea. The 8 pieces finding each other and linking and sitting dormant somewhere, optionally in a cloud space that is as badly managed as it is monitored. When the 8 flags are turned piece number 9 comes into play and sets one flag, and the 8 connected pieces accepts piece 9 in its midst and mayhem gets surpassed by chaos in the least acceptable way and it will take a long time to find, because a work does not need to replicate too often, it merely needs to be there. And unless you replace each piece of equipment and purge all data from each system, the damage will merely continue over time. 

This is not my invention, it is almost 40 years old. Well over a decade ago we were taught and others were clearly taught that self-repudiation was going to be a big thing. But there is a group of people where greed and stupidity are neatly and efficiently packaged, such a person tends to be a  member of a board of directors and they were really driven to get as much profit out of everything.  Speed over self-repudiation, greed over privacy and now the chaos will come, more of it and more often as well. 

Could I be wrong?
Of course I could be wrong, this could be a simple setting of stupidity, lack of resources, lack of procedures and policies, it could be that simple. Yet in that how much of these elements needed to go wrong for people to be days without mobiles, without the ability to reach emergency services. Consider that setting and wonder what really happened. I cannot fathom what happened, because I do not know these systems to the degree I would need to know them. But in my speculations, I also realise something else. Canada would never be a good target, but the US, the US could be and Canada was merely a dry run of a new developed system. Is it the one I speculated on? I have no way of telling and in the end it might be merely a speculation that leads to an interesting story, one for TV, or one for the big screen. I will let you consider what I wrote here and consider that no telecom provider when down the way Rogers Telecom went down. In Australia Vodafone had issues, but that was simple a fire in a key component as such the damage was clear and the impact as well. It seems that Rogers Telecom has no idea what the damage is and no idea what the impact will be.

Suddenly my speculation is not that far fetched, is it?

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July 12, 2022 · 21:36

The blind seeker

This is not a riddle, it is simple. I cannot tell what the rules are for getting a script. I created three of them and I get it, it needs to be a certain format, it needs appeal, but as a storyteller, I do not care, and that is not some short sighted look. Around 35000 stories are submitted and only 350 get made. I am not some person seeking wealth (well I am, but not in stories), and as I have stated in the past. I lived the FX slogan, ‘The Story is everything’, it has been true for the longest of time and it ill remain true decades from now. So as I recall an article I wrote in ‘The stage of a game’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/09/24/the-stage-of-a-game/) almost 2 years ago, someone in Hollywood or Netflix should have woken up.

The fact that a comic (1965-1982) with artists like Don Lawrence; Oliver Frey; Gerry Wood; Philip Corke; Ramon Sola; Ron Embleton; Miguel Quesada can still tempt the mind of the reader a generation later should have alerted them to the setting that they have a winner here. In the age when special effects and CGI are so close to the real thing that we can no longer tell the difference whether something is real or CGI should have triggered the idea that the Trigan Empire could be big bucks. The fact that this remains a hidden treasure is delighting in so many ways. The series I started to follow at the age of 5 (2 years after it was released) and still has this appeal on me and on thousands who were around when they first appeared is a wonderful feeling. It gives rise to the appeal that Flash Gordon had in the 50’s to the previous generation and this generation who is a lot on the Hogwarts stage. Every generation has its special stories and to consider that the next generation could enjoy on the screen what the previous generation loved in equal measure in comic books, is overwhelming. I wonder if it ever becomes real. Well, Valerian became a reality in 2017, 50 years after the comic book launched. Even as the movie flopped (according to the numbers), I was happy to see it and as part 2 is now ready to be filmed and a part three is on route to become a reality too, I merely hope that I live long enough to see all three parts. But the small voice in me silently hopes that the Trigan Empire will become a reality too. And there is a lot more in the comic books that never graced the American shelves. Don Lawrence gave us Storm, the Spanish artist Vicente Segrelles gave the world a comic named ‘the Mercenary’ in an age of knights, magic and dragons. 

So many awesome stories that one wonders how blind are these Hollywood seekers, these diggers for Netflix, Hulu and Apple+? A stage that is merely waiting to be found by a limelight, any limelight. Dozens, if not hundreds of comic books, all undiscovered as they never graced the American comic book shelves (a speculation of mine). Yet in the stage of what we see now and what we hear now, so many series flop. I honestly do not know why, some I have never seen, some I saw and it was not my favourite, yet it was not bad. The reason of what we see and what some things are rated as follows definitions that some might think ludicrous and mostly because we do not understand what drives the ratings. So under those rules will series like the Trigan Empire and the Mercenary make it? I cannot tell, but I hope they do, to see my childhood hero (Valerian) make it to the big screen was mesmerising, I hope to see the other two there as well.

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July 9, 2022 · 15:52

The dream that teaches

This is not some article, this is a story, a story about a dream, a dream I had. In this dream mankind was done for, greed finally won and this planet was going down fast. But there was hope, a ship was made, a ship that looked a lot like the one we saw in the movie Titan AE (yes, the cartoon). Anyway, the ship was loading. The people were boarding through 8 gates each quarter of the ship got two gates, a high and a low one, and they all went to different floors. I was walking down one floor, the gate had two trenches, the normal one and a first class one. I was in the first class one, not because I was a VIP, but because I think I was a crew member. As I was going through the gate the doors started to close, there was a door every 100 meters and I had passed the 6th or 7th door and I saw the 8th door slowly closing. Just for a second I hesitated, then I started to run as fast as I could, I got past door 8, I had to duck for the 9th door and the 10 I got by diving and rolling just before the door would close. I ran over the gangway into the ship.

I was in the ship, and I saw confusion everywhere. Then I felt the shudder, the engines were preparing a launch. I shouted people to get into any cabin, any room with seats and buckle up. I ran towards the hatches, they were closing too. I saw the panic of people still outside. There was nothing I could do. I ran to a comm board, I tried to raise the alarms, but my security clearance was not high enough. I felt the strong shudder, it was lift off time. I saw a chair ran to it, sat down and strapped in. On the other side of the room was another man with three women, all strapped in, all looking confused and all but one passengers. One of the women was a deckhand, or steward. I could not tell, but her rank was decently higher. Lift off and the g-forces were pushing me in the chair, the ship was taking off, leaving well over half outside and who knows what supplies never made it onboard. I felt the acceleration and I lost consciousness, or I drifted away in some sleep like statement. It was four minutes later when I came round, at least that is what my watch indicated. I looked at the others The officer was already on the systems trying to look for an explanation. I introduced myself. Engineering assistant Lazarus, Ma’am! She nodded. Do you know what happened? I shook my head. Not a clue, I was before door 8 when they started going down. I ran as fast as I could and here I am. She nodded. We need to get to the bridge, follow me engineer. I followed her, she seemed sure and determined. Just the I like my officers to be, knowing what to do next. We got to the central ring where the elevators were, my ears started to hear something odd, I could not put my finger on it. But she opened the door and entered, she looked around and as I entered she seemed to be speaking, but no sound came out. I suddenly remembered the white noise. I grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the elevator just as the doors were closing. We got out, but barely. She looked almost haunted. Tried to shout at me, but still no sound. I pointed at her mouth and shook my head. I pointed at my ears and shook my head. I think she got the message. She was still silent, this was going to take some time. We walked to another elevator a quarter of the ring further. I heard almost the same sound, my ears were affected as well, not as much as the voice. The elevators were rigged, but why? Then I remembered, the AI will monitor any usage. But its camera’s would pick up our gestures and voices. It could lipread as well, so the action made no sense. But for now we were stuck on this floor. 

This was the first part of the dream, the dream took me forward instantly (by a lot), the AI was partially hacked, not the AI itself, an AI cannot be hacked, but the AI was Arabic, the hackers did away with the profile parameters, they disabled linguistic options, gestures and lipreading. The AI would not know what was going on. In the end the AI was hacked, not by attacking the AI, but by hacking the access ports to the AI and disabling access to it. Each port was replaced by a simulated null: port that streams data and numbers, but the numbers would make no sense and as the AI took more resources to figure out the data given, less resources, other than the bare minimum would be available for all other duties. A hacking achievement never seen before and the hackers ended up with nearly all planetary goods and not much people to dump into space. The biggest heist in history and the witnesses that were still around were floating in space, not alive at all.

As I said, greed won, in the end, it would infect other places too, that is the outcome of greed, it never ever stops. 

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July 4, 2022 · 18:21

Awaiting new life

That is what we at times hope for. Some want to play the Last of Us on every Sony console, some want to return to the years of glory of master sergeant, we all have these moments. I am no different. I reckon my love for Spy vs Spy started in the 70’s when I discovered Mad Magazine. It took on new heights when the game came out on CBM64 in 1984, I think I got the game in 1986. I got an amiga version much later, but always the game was pretty good in embracing those who loved the comics. So when I recently learned that a later edition was cancelled because someone forgot to “ask the rights from DC Entertainment which owned the Spy vs. Spy IP.” OK, that was stupid, but it could be a windfall for DC Entertainment. Consider what we can do now. We can Make the game 3D, we can offer multiplayer on pretty much any system, we can select the intelligent NPC and above all, we can see the fun that the comics brought. We can have several modes. Starter, intermediate, Expert and actual Spy. We can set the stage a little different, we can have 6 and 8 options. With optional second window. The 6 and 8 options are different. We need to have at least one active trap and up to 5 or 7. We need one disarm scanner with options up to 5 or 7. So you can play offensive or defensive. And it becomes a challenge with 8 traps, so one trap is optionally never detected or used. The player decides and by selecting the NPC to be aggressive or passive it will select its traps and detectors (machine learning), then we can add the option of location and even if we include the levels we had in the past, we can add (or unlock additional stages). There is an option to play with two and the screen will be similar to the one we had in the past. We could offer a wink to Splinter Cell and add the Russian embassy level (adjusted for the new Spy vs Spy game experience), and there are so much other options to add. This would work great on the Nintendo Switch too. So this could be a new DC title on Sony, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, Nintendo Switch, Netflix and whatever contraption Microsoft has. To be honest, it has been a while since we saw a game that was out on ALL hardware and the game does have options in my mind, but I am biased as my love for the characters never faded, not since the early 70’s. I reckon it merely awaits new life for the person with the guts to try this, optionally DC Entertainment might add this to their to-do list. There could even be a screensaver mode. Just select both sides to be NPC and watch how the machine learning mode kills itself. I wonder if anyone ever considered that?

Another day, another game in the limelight. And there is so much more good stuff, almost forgotten, but not by all, I hope to introduce you to some more. Yet soon it will be time to introduce the grandson of Hades to the adulterers and the punishment that could still exist today. It was not merely the fact that Medusa took the vow of celibacy, the fact that she committed adultery against Athena and the duties bestowed on her. And as we move, we return to the cave that still exists, but not in Greece, it is a cave on the mainland of Turkey, north of Cyprus. Sarpedon, now known as Incekum Burnu. So what happens when a new adulterer is added to the fold? What if the shortsighted lust of a girl, making one claim and then sleeping with another man. What happens when her reward is immortality as another Medusa? I wonder how dark I can make that story and what additional handles I could create.

Have fun. Oh and I apparently upgraded my house, the rains in Sydney gave me a free swimming pool, oh joy!

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July 3, 2022 · 00:48

Turned on by a candle

A few thought invaded my mind. In the first the twist I was contemplating for ‘Residuam Vitam’, and I will admit that it was not me who got me there, it was the writing of Hesiod. In Theogony he touched on something and it stuck somehow, it gave me the idea I needed to set the twist in motion and if this works I will have made my footprint in the fields of tragedy. I never aimed for that achievement, but it is nice to make it. Then my mind took a step into a very different direction. The direction of haunted place scammers. Scammers that take historic events and put them in motion to lure tourists and empty their pockets a little. So what happens when it is done with the wrong crowd, in the wrong place? My mind set in motion a place that was haunted. The people were walking in that haunted place, but one of the people was not exactly what he made out to be. He had another flashlight, one with altered LED’s that emit white and blacklight. So as he moved through the tavern he heard something and his hand went into his pocket and the second flashlight came out. There were five other players with him. Three men and two women, and as he moved towards another side of the tavern, he heard noises, then the noises of the couple sniggering nervously. The rest were looking around, he saw that much but not anything more. And the tour guide was next to the entrance door. It was then he decided to try the second flashlight. He switched his flash off and switched on 10,000 lumens with added blacklight. The sight that appeared was almost unworldly. The 6 people lit up like Christmas lights, as were two individuals in black outfits. Yet all that paled compared to the 6 ghosts that suddenly took shape, as well as several weird signs all over the wall. The ghosts were suddenly less invisible and taken aback in almost equal measure, one of them slashed out to one of shapes in a black outfit. The person howled like a little girl, but with a hoarse male voice. The ghosts were doing damage and as he saw the damage occurring, he switched of the flashlight, the symbols were there, but started to fade fast and as the symbols faded, so did the ghosts. There was screaming and people running for the exit, the tour guide leading the exodus from the tavern. 

That is all my mind saw, and it is not part of any of the stories I am working on, so I have no idea where it fits, but the LED field is new, and the occult was always about symbolism, so what happens when these symbols get a different illumination? Perhaps the grandson of Hades will get to face this new challenge, perhaps it will go nowhere, but for now, with the spin expanding and the story of ‘Residuam Vitam’ gaining momentum I feel decently satisfied. Will it become a real mini series? I do not know and to be honest, I am not sure if I care. The story is running its course and it is nearing completion. Time to set the next parts to paper and finalise the story, because that is what I am about, I am in part nothing more than a storyteller, as are many others. And it is the creativity that allowed me to create my IP, allowed me to design new 5G roads and allowed me to set the premise of more. But with ‘Residuam Vitam’ and ‘Keno Diastima’ I feel alive, I created something that might not go anywhere and perhaps some will like the stories I told. Like Hesiod, Herodotus and many others we performed for a small crowd and it made us happy. 

Yes, I have no business comparing myself to these two titans, but if I have seen anything. I doesn’t matter what we are in life, it is what comes next that matters and if you doubt that, consider the law failing the people again and again, governments faltering over Syria, Yemen and Ukraine and those who should do something ending up doing nothing at all, they perhaps fill their pockets. That will be the total sum of their achievements. 

And realising that, I might be a much larger success than anyone even I imagined. 

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June 30, 2022 · 21:48

Into sanity

That is at times the goal, to stay sane. After watching Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan one after another, there seems to be the need in me to see if the insanity of war can be translated into a game. Yet when we see the Russian forces missile bombing a shopping mall, a civilian shopping mall and then using trolls to spin all kinds of fabrications, the idea to release a triple helix DNA virus in Moscow and watch mankind die off by 97% seems to be an acceptable alternative. When we are confronted with opposite sides of ones self to this degree, insanity makes sense. Yet how do we go back into the realm of the sane and more important do we want to? You see, Al Jazeera gives us ‘Putin condemns NATO’s ‘imperial ambitions’, warns Finland, Sweden’, my mind goes ‘Really, you stupid fuck! You wanted to be the bully, you decided that it was OK to commit atrocities, fire on children hospitals and shopping malls!’ And from there I release Santox666, a triple helix bio-toxin. The initial test states that it takes 432 days to remove 98.4% of the global population. No Russia, no pollution, and I reckon Greed will be gone too. This bio weapon was designed to withstand cold, so Siberia will never be a safe place. Perhaps that will shut the stupid fuck up. After creating a stealth weapon to stop Iran, after coming up with an optional solution to let Iranian reactors meltdown, I set my creativity towards a more noble goal. To rid the planet of people so that the planet can repair itself. So am I insane, or am I the only sane person remaining? I am open to suggestions in either direction. What do we do when the insanity of any war becomes too much? Have you considered that?

The push into sanity is not a nice one, it is not shallow and more important it will hurt like hell. When you are left you your own devices and confronted by the feelings of self and the disharmony of imbalance, a setting of pain is all we have to look forward to and even if the pain is not physical, the psychological pain could prove to be a lot worse.

So now Russia has additional issues. What was a bully action became a larger stage where nations sided with NATO, the nations sided against Russia and now Russia is not merely facing the 21st largest army in the world, it will be facing several nations that are in the top 10 and they could not even hold up against the Ukraine, so what happens when their remaining forces will face NATO as well? Defeat is not the only problem they face, defeat is one thing, the abandonment of hope is the next stage. And above all that a creator of games and IP just found a new play-toy to test on Russia, a toxin that equally removes THEIR citizens. As I once stated organised crime and corrupt politicians have the same weakness, it is ‘insufferable loss’ when what they love is put to death they all become the same snivelling whining chihuahuas, it will be all about the innocence of those future victims. The setting of insanity is back into play. To defeat the monsters we must be willing to become the monster. Even if we realise that we should not be allowed to continue afterwards, we must make a choice. Side with the future of Gaia, or side with sanity, so mote it be. And as such it becomes time for Santox666 to be released.

The setting of insanity is a dangerous moment, even more so when it remains unchecked. When all checks and balances are removed, the power of insanity is a lot more dangerous than you think. Should you doubt that, then consider the response that Vladimir Putin gives “The Russian leader also said on Wednesday that he would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after the two Nordic countries join the military alliance.” Finland and Sweden did not start this, they were threatened and they chose. As such the larger stage is not what he claims, it is what he did and what did he do? He allowed for the needless shooting and bombing of innocent civilians, he bombed hospitals, civilian buildings and a shopping mall, a wooden church that was a historic place. All needless acts of an insane person. Guess what? I can be similarly insane. If my solution works on an Iranian power plant, which is a Russian design. It might work on EVERY Russian plant. And consider that Russia without power freezes over quite quickly, the problem solves itself. If my solution can sink the Iranian fleet, it can do so to the Russian fleet as well, not all mind you, because there are limits to my design and I never faced them with the Iranian navy, I most likely will with the Russian navy. All settings in a war with insane minds, but I am willing to go on faith here. I am reminded on a line that Lee Marvin stated in the Big Red One: “We are not murderers, we kill murderers!” Well, it said something to that effect, not exactly, and with the actions the Russians show that they are not killers, they are merely murderers under orders by some insane person. And I am willing to be equally insane. So I gave birth to Santox666. OK, it will do more than just take care of the Russians, but they will be removed too so it is a win-win for Gaia. 

Consider what I wrote, consider what the news is giving you, what can we do to move back into sanity. Should we continue on this path, on this dangerous path that will destroy the serenity of Gaia even further? Even Lord Hades would not condone these actions, not in the way things are playing out. And in all this, the way things play out we have very little options left. 

That is in the end the dangers, to let loose of sanity has a larger and more dangerous side. The question is where is the point of no return in that equation, because that is a line that you only cross once and there is no turning back from that crossing. I will let you consider where you stand, on the side of sanity, or will you cross the line? It is a one way trip, but Russia has left us no options and in that we might have enough support to make sure Russia sees the coming days as one of desolation. It was Stalin that enforced scorched earth. It was not the only option and the other options are about to become a reality for the Russia and whatever population it will have left, because that too will be under scrutiny and in 14 weeks the cold really sets in, and then the game changes, whatever shortages they have then will escalate faster and wider then ever before, and I am happy to release the solution that would shut down all 38 of them. I would call it the Chernobyl honey solution. It came to me through a snow-globe (see several previous articles). And I did mention that Santox666 is not hindered by the cold, didn’t I?

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June 26, 2022 · 12:47

Merge and collide

This is not some excerpt from facts, this is a story and it is very dark. It started when my mind created a new sled for cripples to go down mountains. Steering, braking system, comfort and a few other matters were completed when my mind turned sharply to the right. The voice that was inside me and it kept on telling me to go to Canada or New Zealand was rearing its ugly (and this time loud) head. New Zealand has nothing to captivate me, I do not mean that in any negative way. But the mind settled on the setting that I could finalise my life stating that I survived the Nuclear holocaust through bluff (Kiwi’s will get this). The mind wanders and the mind fills in the blanks. I like Canada, because I like Canada and the one woman that captivates my heart could be happy there (if she likes winter sports). But it is too soon for that and whilst we dream the impossible dreams, we also hinder ourselves by focussing too hard on one side and ignoring the other. We all do that, we all have that flaw and I am no exception to that rule. 

So the stage is painted, but what caused the selection of colours? For that we need to take a look at the BBC. The article that they gave us 3 hours ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61938111) telling us ‘Russia promises Belarus Iskander-M nuclear-capable missiles’ as such we need to consider John Wagner (writer), Carlos Ezquerra (artist), and Pat Mills (editor) created Judge Dredd, there they set in motion a person (megalomaniac) like Judge Cal who created Judge Fish, a silent partner (literally) in all his decisions. 

That is how I see the stage of Vladimir Putin (Italians name him Don Putana of Russia for some unknown reason) and the new real life version of Judge Fish ‘Aleksandr Lukashenko’. You see, this is how Vladimir Putin gets his win, he will let Belarussia ‘accidently’ fire one off and then he will deescalate whatever he can and how quickly has can, but the target hit (somewhere in Western Europe) will be done for. Hundred of thousands of dead, deceased and suffering beyond all measure. Putin will get his win, the bitches at Strasbourg will suddenly seem important with diplomacy hindering the anger of people a lot more and that will be almost the end of it.

Almost!
You see the world will go nuts, quite literally so and any oligarch out of Russia will be hunted down, their riches annexed, no matter what excuse they have. I reckon that zero tax places (like the UAE) will feel safer letting them go and claiming whatever wealth they took with them, including boats, houses and portable wealth. It might seem like some win, but it will be the most bitter of all wins and it will last us generations and nearly all people on the planet will see the Russian population as the curse of mankind. As I see it 2022 is the year it all went sour for way too many people. The Vatican will hide behind “Anno 2022 Deum rogamus quaerere victimas per stultitiam creatas.” After which they will close the doors to ‘protect’ the christian treasures of mind, soul and body. The Oligarchs will only have Russia to flee to and there will be nothing for them there, because money talks and they will have nothing left. The disciples of Putin will be hunted and haunted and anyone in league with the current administration will face the dangers the Russian people have faced for decades and now it comes for them too. 

That is what my mind drew and it might be fiction, it might be a story but in all this places like Canada and New Zealand beckon, and beside the joy of winter sports I cannot find another reason, well, I can but that would be too dark for this place and you might figure it out yourself. In all this when this goes bad Belorussia will cease to exist, it will be split over Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine. Aleksandr Lukashenko will flee to Russia and the Russians will throw him in a luxury Lubyanka room 3 by 4 meters with carpets and books and state that the criminal has been done with.  In the end the one guilty player will get away free, and the pussies at Strasbourg will make him an ‘untouchable’ diplomatic example and Vladimir Putin will have won his Nuclear encounter with the west and with America. That is the future of this story. 

Are you happy now? Enjoy Sunday!

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