Category Archives: Stories

February 24, 2022 · 20:36

Pristine and weird

There are times when the dream is nice, really really nice. But nice does not cut it, it was also confusing. I was in some kind of mansion, not a normal mansion. The mansion seems to be in the UK, the gardens around the mansion had a British feel to it. It was the inside. At the very centre of the ground floor was a kitchen, or perhaps better a kitchen combination. Around that kitchen was a collection of cells. Each cell had an entrance part, that would link to reception areas. These would connect to some form of living room which connected to 3-4 smaller rooms. One was for some kind of office manager as well as business executives. It was some kind of consultancy firm, but it all was extremely high end, like the Rolls-Royce of consultancy firms, for the really really wealthy or important ones v(so it looked at least), but that was not what was weird. It was the software that the office managers looked. Its foundation was like a blend of Norton Commander and Norton Utilities, but like it was given to Adobe and they went to town on it. The front page, and everything connected could be edited and maintained to their own pleasure. Headers could be personalised, front screens were adjusted, and all subsequent screens were matched to a personal version. They seemingly all connected to some cloud setting. One manager started with some version of Calendar and a ToDo list. The left side connected to applications that this office manager needed. Different managers hd different profiles. The first one had a green setting, another was blue based, but that level of personalisation is one I have never seen before. It was like Adobe combined its colour abilities in an office setting, complete with dashboarding, database and some kind of presentation software. I saw glimpses of the presentation software, there were Powerpoint/Keynote elements, it had Prezi elements and it was free-flowing. Almost like any part could interact with Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator and substance. It was weird and at times confusing, but everyone had its own true free and personalising side. It then dawned on me that most software is all about ‘the company view’, no one allows for TRUE FREEDOM AND PERSONALISATION. Cloud software should allow for this and such a system would be high end, and I reckoned that is why it would be an Adobe setting. On this foot, there is off course the rewarding idea that Microsoft could lose another slice of business, short sightedness and non evolved.  A side that niche players like Adobe with its Subscription software could optionally become a much larger opposition to other cloud system subscription players. A setting of such personalisation has other impacts too. But that is not the exercise of today. I saw files with two part headers, files with a blockchain part, a descriptive part and some time part. It as more than just time opened and time edited part. It had the last 5 edit times, timezone mentions. Localisation points, Computer GPS info, with linked map location (what office). This what I saw was all real next level shit and more important, it was the first time I saw a system that was designed for THE USER, not the propagation of a company. It was really nice, to adjust ANY part to the need of the office Assistant or business unit. An approach I never seen before to this degree, is this where we are going in the cloud? All files a much larger stage of interaction, with block-chaining on every part, an almost forensically secure system. 

Did I glimpse into what could come, what was possible, or did I not look into the right direction? I cannot tell. The mansion was overwhelming. Every business lounge was like a business lounge you see as a sitting room for the rich and famous. It was a confusing setting, but in all this the computers came back. I do remember that one office had an Apple setup, the others had some kind of Sony display, with some kind of super-slim computer attached to the display foot. I had never seen it before but it was no wider then the display foot, I initially didn’t even see it was a separate computer. The 32” Sony display looked amazing. I cannot tell what was more build to impress, the computer or the software both were amazing. And then I woke up.

An interesting sidestep in office software on a new level, a level office software never contemplated before and in this Adobe might have a large inside track, a track players like Microsoft are unable to tread, their ego stands in the way on too many points in such a track, as such, a player like Adobe could win a good chunk of that business. 

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February 23, 2022 · 05:35

Salad with that?

It has been a while since I wrote about gaming IP, and I am not sure if it is really IP, but it is something the Sony and Luna developers might like. Even as I haven’t written about making games since January 25th when I wrote ‘daemonis more’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/01/25/daemonis-more/), an idea came to mind. I was watching ‘First we feast’ in this case the episode with Tom Holland and an idea came to me. You see, food has been in gaming for the longest of time, but we never set the bar of necessity there. Yes, most of us made at least one setting of Elsweyr Fondue (I always play a Khajiit), but it was not until Monster Hunter when I saw that there was a massive upside to having a meal before fighting. We forgot the sustenance setting and even as that is a mere copy, I thought it would be an idea if we add to that. 

So as an adventurer, you get the option to buy recipes, you can find and buy books with forgotten recipes and more important you can offer them to the local tavern where you live. So we can set a new set of elements to flourish a town. There are all kinds of side quests you can gain there. More important, we can set like the impact of a bard (which I discussed earlier) the impact of food. In the beginning there is one main meal, but as the tavern progresses which it does as the town progresses, it can do more and in each stage the recipe is either replaced or added as more recipes are only for a larger tavern, a larger tavern with a cook and as that escalates the town flourishes in other ways too. You see, you can be the centre of the universe, but that is not how the universe works (it only works for me this way, LOL), it is directed by all kinds of cogs and as we are able to grow cogs, replace cogs we see a much more interesting place, a place that grows different almost every time we play it, which adds to RPG games in no small way. So if writings become increasingly more important we will see that only the larger towns will have a bookshop and that also iterates a new set of options.

This is now possible because streaming and the PS5 are now of such size that we can add to the complexity of an RPG (and even more, but that is at present for Amazon eyes only). 

We can add to all businesses in all kinds of ways, but the clever part is not doing it, but setting the stage where it can grow and it can maze YOU the gamer into a setting where the game becomes at times a surprise. Think back to Elder Scrolls Oblivion, consider Chorrel, it was always the same (as were other places), but what happens when the change is not something you control, what if tomorrow you go into your RPG town and suddenly a store is upgraded and another store is added? In a game you are the antagonist, but what is the wonder of the game when at times you are merely the spectator? Not a cut scene, but the evolving nature of the town through the game and the game play you in part brought? It makes for a new (and very old) version of RPG gaming and that is where you will find the gamers. In a place where they never expected to be, where they are a force to be reckoned with, but not the stage master. We see some of the elements in the latest RPG games like Horizon2: Forbidden West, but it can go further and over the next 5 years it will, it will be a new standard of gaming because the PS5 allows for it and streaming consoles like the Google Stadia and the Amazon Luna allows for it. That is where optionally gaming will go and the first one with a real original and captivating game will get a nice slice of a cake that is expected to grow to $25 billion by then, should you doubt me, that is fair, but consider the people going nuts and tweeting all over the place on HFW on nearly all social media channels, originality accounts for that and Guerrilla delivered. Yet in this world there is space for more than one player and as Bethesda sold itself to Microsoft the market for close to 120 million PS4 players and 15 million ps5 players is now wide open. They said that the next elder scrolls is not coming to Sony, fair enough, but will happily become competitors, for several software houses the idea of servicing up to 135,000,000 gamers is appealing. I do not know what the streamers do in numbers, but Amazon (if they accept my terms) will grow by well over 50,000,000 consoles. So there is a market and whoever becomes the most innovative game designer will laugh all the way to the bank, every day for the rest of their live they go to the bank. And Microsoft? Who cares, they made their bed, now see how it pans out for them.

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February 19, 2022 · 18:14

Direction of education

I have been contemplating a separate direction of optional IP. You see, the studios are all focusing on the ‘next big thing’, to seemingly achieve that they tend to go towards the big successes and hope that they have one more slug to deliver. This is not a bad plan, but there is an equal danger on that larger stage not meeting expectations. This is not some curse, it comes from expressions like ‘it rains on the just and unjust alike’, ‘dress for success’, and that list goes on. Yet when we look back, what did Star Trek look back on? What inspired ‘Dallas’, ‘MASH’ and several others? Then I remembered something, something I saw 45 years ago and it still comes up in my mind every now and then. It was a series called ‘Once Upon a time’ and it ran for a long time. It was originally called “Il était une fois…”, a French educational program created by Procidis.

It is time to dig into such a corner (not that corner). You see, we forget that those who inherit the world might not vote, but they are a powerful group and the big wigs seem to forget that THEY too were young once. Consider Marcus Aurelius, the fifth of the good emperors. He died in 180 AD, he was also a philosopher who wrote Meditations, a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. Some still call it a literary monument to a government of service and duty. I was taken aback when I read [6] “to disbelieve the professions of sorcerers and imposters about incantations and exorcism and the like” written by a person who died 1600 years before BS Puritans decided to burn 14 women at the stake in Massachusetts Bay for witchcraft (Salem). All whilst these puritans optionally were afraid of women who merely needed a good fuck (optional speculation). In the end 19 people and two dogs were burned, 1600 years an Italian told them the truth of the matter, and it is time that historic figures more in a life like setting are the stuff of inspiring on TV and not cartoon like. I have nothing against cartoons, yet it is time for the next generation learn on how inspiring, innovative and generation crossing these greeks and Italians were. Some of the Italian practices are still in use 2000 years later. Julius Caesar started encryption by coding his messages. Aurelius wrote a guide that still inspires today. And that is before we consider Homer, Aristotle and a few others. History needs to teach and the classrooms aren’t getting it done, so it is time to give them a hand and the streamers are always looking for new IP, but they seemingly forgot to what the past achieved and what could be possible. Everyone wants another Game of thrones, yet those under 14 needs to be prepared for the future and a good grasp of history is the way to go. If I can create a way to create a concept of burning down a nuclear reactor using an invention from 1900 by Mr Perzy I, what could the next generation achieve when they get a good grasp of Homer, Pythagoras, Gauss and Hilbert, how good could this world end up being? There are of course no guarantees, but considering that the Pentagon cannot be relied on to properly vet translations, people elect a person as president who seemingly is proud on ‘I grabbed her by the pussy’, we seem to ignore basic knowledge and it goes beyond mathematics, or basic philosophy. As I personally see it the media (TV) has forgotten to educate, it is all about the wow, the numbers and the profit and there is every chance at least one generation is coming up short, and we get that it is not all fun and all Game of Thrones, but we need to do more, or streamers should do more to offer a wide interesting scope of educational programs. We could rely on the Squid games to control the population but is that the way big wigs want to go at present? They need numbers for circulation, for ratings and when you decrease the population by X, those numbers would never be reached. Now an argument could be made that certain ratings are easier met when you only have 78% of the population to work with but that requires math, does it not? 

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February 14, 2022 · 14:00

The IP I saw

This is not about my IP, but it seems to be a story that involves IP. Whether it is to be, a mere story for TV or whatever. It was odd. It started that I was part of the civil forces of the US Navy, I was setting up mobile systems. These systems were not what we see now. They are compact made Pelican boxes. The US Defence department had switched to a Scala modular concept (from the 70’s), so that a lot could be done in the field. The pelican box was slim and also a monitor stand, it was easily adapted, a ghost drive and a test station and a system could be set up in minutes. I saw my printable display in use, the display box was in the pelican box. The printer behind me was spewing out displays one per 4-5 minutes. Something was going on, some assigned sailors were more about pranking IT than doing any work. This was weird as I felt it was a wartime condition. My boss was a civil engineer called Jeremy. He stopped took me with him and we left.

The next moment I was in some cyberpunk environment. In a version of Chinatown with a large square that had all kinds of business around them. We went to the brothel there. It was high end, the people were given keys, keys with the images of toddlers on them, like a 50’s print. I saw man and couples disappear to a higher floor. We went down, into the basement. We made checks on systems. We checked the cyber defences. I signalled a girl, she came with a package, it was a birthday present. I paid the girl and looked, the were new B&O wearables, they were earrings with build in speakers. The sound was supposed to be very soft and would feel on the person like they were in a music hall. They were the latest. Jeremy suddenly moved to the side and pulled me back. It was a courier, the courier was never to be messed with, he walked over and gave Jeremy a liquid drive. Jeremy connected it and checked to content. He wrote a note to the courier and set some kind of 3d stamp on it. He courteously handed it to the courier who nodded, took the note and walked away. 

Then I was suddenly outside again, I tried to speak to an elderly couple. He noticed me and raised his collar, the collar was some form of Fennec ear system, With the collar raised he could hear whispers all over the square, I whispered “something is wrong with Jeremy”. I looked at him, he nodded made a gesture to his wife and they went inside. The last thing he did was nod at me and gave some kind of ‘vanish’ gesture, I did so. 

The scene changed again, I saw a courier arrive at a door, he handed his weapons over to the guard, a short machine gun and a pistol, the guard moved aside and let the guard in. I was suddenly whisked away to the birthday girl, she loved the earrings and was comparing them to the ones she had, she was really happy. I do not think she was my girlfriend, but she was not family either, I walked over to the food stand and bought some food, suddenly there was a fight between couriers, their guns were blazing and we all took cover, I saw the friend getting hit and she was dead before her head reached the ground, I was hiding in a corner and noticed that one courier was killing all the girls. I panicked and grabbed what seemed like a sword, when the courier was near I Plunged the sword in his side and when that happened, the sword split into 4 parts. And swerved in him like a helicopter. He was dead immediately. I saw the drives and a few other items, I took the opportunity and pushed his credit card in his hand and pushed the transfer button on top of my card. I also saw a few things I had never seen. The credit card action took 3 seconds, which was unnaturally long, but I thought nothing of it. It might have been the stress. The other courier stopped, nodded at me and walked off. 

I was suddenly the attention of several house ladies, one gestured me towards her and pointed to the ID tag of the dead man. She inspected the tag, he was from family Zhou, an important family in town. She looked at the stuff I had collected. She shoved several items and took two items “Too dangerous” she said and looked for something, she found a folder and gave me copies of 5 papers. “Manuals” she said I nodded and took the papers, I wanted to walk away. She said “you courier now”, she gave a super thin credit card, it looked like a business card, but it was more. She wrote on the back, it was an address “go there, they will teach you”, I considered that and nodded. She pointed at the other side of the square, eat soup there, say “我必须消失” show the card, do not give it to them, all will be fine. Thank you for protecting and avenging my girls. 

I walked off into a mist that woke me up. Was it about all the IP I saw? Was it about the story? I saw more but the view is fading, there was a cup of tea, in the tea were nano lenses, they improve vision, let you see more, but the change in vision was almost violent, as the nano enters the eye, the mind screams even if there was no real pain. Sub dermal plants that are ID tags for weapons, and the credit card I had suddenly stated 431,675,44. There are posts everywhere and you can check items, like credit cards. It shows a balance, or it can show the map of a place you seek they were called versa-posts. I know I saw more, but it is fading too much. So as I see it, this was merely a story, too many blanks.

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February 13, 2022 · 19:21

How did the cow catch the hare?

Yes, that has been a question for the ages and that question popped to mind when I saw ‘How did Saudi Arabia make it to the Winter Olympics?’ (at https://www.dw.com/en/how-did-saudi-arabia-make-it-to-the-winter-olympics/a-60736077). Weirdly enough it is not the weirdest question and it had been asked before. There was the Jamaican bobsled team (1988), the event could also be seen in Cool Runnings. Then there was Michael David Edwards (also 1988), a British man doing Ski Jumping and coming from a place where the highest hill is a trashcan, seen in the Movie Eddie the Eagle with Hugh Jackman as the bad as coach. So there have been examples in the past. As such there is plenty of material and I do not know the man, but if Fayik Abdi comes from decently wealthy parents he could have spend his youth skiing the slopes of Canada, Switzerland, Austria or France to get his skills up. And for any man it would be an honour to represent his nation in any olympic event. I would be happy to be the Hockey Goalie for Australia. Oh shocks we do not have a Hockey team (not the real one on ice anyway). So another dream squashed. But for Fayik Abdi it was not a squashed dream, he gets to be there. It does not matter how good he is, how far he gets, he got there making him one in 34,810,000 Saudi’s. And the quote “The 24-year-old found his passion for skiing in Lebanon, where his mother taught him how to ski when he was 4. During his childhood, skiing was just a hobby. But when Abdi got older, he wanted to take the sport seriously. He started traveling to the Swiss Alps in search of slopes, as he didn’t have the access to the sport living in his country.”

Shows us the story that matters. OK, I never would have guessed Lebanon, but I got the second part right and after 20 years he is ready to represent his nation. Yet in all this, I believe that the quote “The Saudi’s first participation in the Winter Games brings back memories of the nation’s first Olympic appearance in Munich’s Summer Games in 1972. The purported vision of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to explore new industries and encourage people in Saudi to be more active. He believes participation in Beijing will help achieve that goal” is equally important. Exploring new industries is always good, yet it does at times require nationalistic people with another brand of representation and there Olympians could set the larger stage. It does not matter if they do not get the first three position, participation is everything here and I believe that Fayik Abdi is doing more than representing his nation, he is cementing a different path that will bring honour to his family. As any person would be proud to do. If there is a side I have some issues with then it is “The Saudi Winter Sports Federation has had royal backing from the beginning. But it is still searching for business investors to build a planned indoor ski resort, which would help provide vital training access.” It is a natural setting against ‘indoor’ winter-sports, for the most the real feeling of that sport is the outdoors. It could be made for Curling, Bobsled, Figure skating and Hockey (the real one on ice). Curling and bobsled are out in the open, yet the other two would find all kinds of Islamic opposition in one case and with Hockey, there are two that might be surpassed over years, but that leaves Saudi Arabia 12th out of 12 and that is not a good place to be in, apart from the years of funds required. Making Curling with more nations and representation in men and women a much better option. Yes we see skiing, and that makes sense but how many people make that passion, that expensive passion a realistic option? Fayik Abdi should be seen as one in a million (35 million to be slightly more exact). And even if there is a larger need for its nation, it does not take away the achievement that Fayik Abdi reached, he became an Olympian. Just like Michael David Edwards and a few rare people who got into the stage against all odds. I remember how I could not make any Fencing team, no sponsor and no options, but that too is a sport Saudi Arabia could engage in, and they did. Lubna Al-Omair got into the 2016 Olympics, she might have lost, but she got saddled with Taís Rochel, a Brazilian who was number 80 on the world list, talk about bad luck. There are all kinds of sports and Saudi Arabia could be in many of them, yet my mind keeps on nagging towards the ‘planned indoor ski resort’, it does not sit well with me. You see, I have seen my share of snowboards on dunes and if Saudi Arabia has one thing more than oil, it would be dunes. So why not exploit that? Why not set up a station where snowboarders can board in near tropical heat? It will be a setting that requires a different bottom to keep the board intact, but that too is something that Saudi Arabia can ‘push’ for. And as we get a new stage of dune boards and  optional new kind of tracks, we will be introduced to (optional) indoor boarding. Anyway I digress, you see, the article touches on all subjects, but no one is taking that time to consider the achievement that Fayik Abdi got. He ended #51 in the first run, defeating 38 others which is a lot better than the (roughly) 38,433 people who did not get into the Olympics in the first place. Today is run 2, he might make it, he might not, yet at present he is on the short list of becoming one of the 50 best Olympians in the Giant Slalom and for a nation that never sees solid forms of water, that is quite the achievement. You see, Canada has plenty of snow (hills too) and only one made it to that list. So I think that we should make a little more noise on the achievement we see here. Because it is one I never saw coming. But then for me Jamaica was never a bobsled nation, so there is that.
Oh, and how the cow caught the hare? With a fishing rod (of course). 

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February 10, 2022 · 11:15

Out with the old?

It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome. 

I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.

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February 9, 2022 · 11:24

Where am I?

We ask ourselves that question, but last night I ended up in perhaps the weirdest place of all. It started with the setting of what I had been writing about the last two days. I saw some kind of palace in Tartarus. The design was based on circles and levels. One circle was the arena, one circle the food hall and one circle the baths. The man in charge (Nikolaos) was above all others, almost like a smaller circle, but shaped like crescent moons. The food-hall and baths led to barracks where the others stayed. One of several palaces in Tartarus, well protected by his personal guards and order troops. The bathhouse had a spherical roof. With small holes it was like a black roof with the holes giving light like the stars do, yet the stars were shown in different ways. One was like a cone shell, yet I heard it being called Libra. It was confusing. And that was when weird went towards absurd. I was suddenly in front of a castle door, not a real door, but like those heavy carton doors like in a trade show. The doors were from some castle (also in carton), when you entered you saw a spectacle, carton people, real people (visitors) and There was the mayor (Richard Garriott) and he was in his mid 20’s. It was the launch of a game, the relaunch of Ultima 1, yet there were things out of place. I saw ‘Return of the spectres’ which was Ultima 5. There was a window with the Avatar fighting (all in cardboard) with the saying ‘Sartre me, Sartre you’ like a taunt. There was a large playing card in another window. It was Iolo, with some kind of crossbow hidden in his right arm. There was an inn (an actual inn) and people were drinking goblets of beer and sausages were served. On the upper floor I saw a woman around 25, long blond hair looking gorgeous, seemingly portraying Jaana champion of Justice, next to her a raven haired Mariah the champion of honesty. Ginger Julia champion of sacrifice was playing the flute.

The scene was weird, like I was both in the future and the past, but I had never seen a trade show that held such a scene, or such a display of a castle, so I was wondering where it was all coming from. Still the idea to relaunch Ultima one, and set Mondain the wizard as a champion of the spectres (Hate, falsehood and cowardice) they were portrayed in names by Astaroth, Faulinei and Nosfentor. It could very well work, especially if the world you go through is a lot like what Bethesda has done in Oblivion and Skyrim. On the other hand in a similar shape it might be a great fit for the Nintendo Switch. 

It is clear that the series need more work, but what happens when we set Tartarus on a neutral stage. We are told that Tartarus is where the dishonored and the evil go, but what if that is not entirely correct? What if Tartarus is a place that holds all those who were unworthy to enter the Elysian Fields? That implies that there is a whole range of grey that is added to the dark and the black. A stage where Nikolaos opts for two solutions, the first to rebuild tartarus, but in another stage to see what to do with those unworthy of tartarus. A stage of creating a way to separate the two groups? It is interesting, and in that he would need champions and task masters. Champions of weapons, of shields, of physicality and of sustenance. In perhaps one of the most brutal environments, how to reason with those who lost the will or ability to reason? It makes for an interesting puzzle, one I would like to solve.

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February 8, 2022 · 12:44

That red wire

In consideration of the previous story I was contemplating a few things. You see a bright person in the 80’s came to the conclusion that any TV series needs a red wire. It was all good in the 70’s, but the stories were almost made to formula. Intro-hero-setback-optional setback 2-clues-conclusion. And many series had a similar construct. So this bright person set a red wire throughout the story which would find conclusion around the finale of the season. It was a bright idea and it has been around for decades. It has various names, but it remained a red wire. So as I am contemplating the journey for Nikolaos the red wire comes to mind. At which point I also recalled season 6 of Dr. Who (that series with the pretty redhead and a time traveller). In one episode (Demon’s run) by Steven Moffat we get introduced to a line. “Demons run when a good man goes to war” In this I considered that line, but something else as well. You see organised crime has one thing in common with corrupt politicians. It is unfathomable loss. When you hold the corrupt politician to account by killing his or her children and grand children, they will suddenly be about the innocent people. They never cared when they were filling their pockets, but they forgot about that. So if the power of Nikolaos is not merely his ancestry, what if he had to align Tartarus? What if his job is to find the champions to do his bidding, how powerful would the person be that was robbed again and again? What happens when his vengeance, the everlasting executing of the children and grandchildren that robbed him again and again in an arena whilst the transgressors watch to see their children being slaughtered and unable to do anything about it? What level of loyalty will Nikolaos get from the person he enabled to get even with the demons who robbed and haunted him? And the red wire is not merely that, it was to create the location, to create the prisons from which the people watch their children die, the seats where the lesser demons are entertained and the list goes on. What if the arch-demon is not created from evil, but from good?

What could the lesson of frustration do when it gets pushed beyond limits? You see, this is not some raving, some of this comes from Marcus Aurelius, who gives us “The art of tempering your fury with an infuriating existential truth”, it is not about the fury we get from some, but from those who place themselves ABOVE the law. Like the corrupt, and that sets a larger piece in motion. “he considered what makes life worth living and instructed himself: “Tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.” He spared himself the additional self-inflicted suffering of outrage at how his body failed him”, but this goes beyond the setting of body and soul, it comes from the setting that those who intentionally harm ones body and soul, ones sanity will push for larger dangers, the danger that the man does not break, but gives up and gives in to an unfathomable level of insanity killing their children again and again, a never ending rage. If we consider that evil never had that, it is fuelled by mere greed, those who they go after will have been good (to some degree) it could fuel a much larger rage than anyone has ever considered. I believe it is one of the settings why we anger over treason, treason against the values we embraced for a life time. And the path to impose an enduring unfathomable loss is reached. 

You see Machiavelli gives us “Nothing makes a republic so stable and strong as organising it in such a way that the agitation of the hatreds which excite it has a means of expressing itself provided for by the laws”, stability stops or lessens treason, but the greed driven will always find a path that tells them that it is acceptable what they do, as such in that setting the transgressions against a good man are intolerable and seen beyond what any fury would give us. It is the one lesson that ends the sanity of the corrupt person, the corrupt politician is hit even harder as he was seen representing the state and as such the fury intensifies. So in that setting we see any good man become infuriating beyond what any demon could fathom making any good man the most dangerous of arch-demons. And let’s be clear, if there is a hell and it is ruled by an angel, would that angel in its foundation not fear the arch demon? If Tartarus is set on a different premise, would such an arch demon not an asset? 

To get there we cannot have a simple 2 or 3 episode finale, it needs to be fuelled by a red wire throughout the season. Its lesson reverberating throughout the season as the Olympians teach Nikolaos why mankind was so dangerous. We see it now with political ploys, interest groups trivialising pollution, media siding with the advertiser and we can call many more examples, but the people are the ones in the middle, so when they get angry that nation stops. We have seen it in many places. Yet consider a fictive example in the US, what do you think happens when 250,000,000 people have had enough? Do you think this is impossible when the US collapses? Do you think the Wall Street executive that hesitates to run for his (or her) life has any chance to get out alive? In a nation where its army can turn on that nation becomes the most volatile of nations, and when a person is perceived as the good man, when he calls for war, do you think that will end nicely? Unfathomable loss can be seen in many ways, but it is never seen from the point of the corrupt. Consider what they hold dear and consider what they fear. Treason is the most explosive of powder kegs and when we see that, we see the beginning of a red wire, when that is set in motion we merely need to check the list of all the elements required to make the story complete. So as I see an arena with an audience and in the honor box we see the parents of the children getting slaughtered again and again, all screaming for mercy, for their innocent children all whilst the audience cheers, another life cut down and the rage of the good man who was transgressed upon ready to kill again and again and again. To get to that stage we need to set the elements and that is still some achievement, but Marcus Aurelius is there to temper the idea and that is also the best ammunition to use. You see, Marcus Aurelius gives us “by gently encouraging them to think the same way” yet that too becomes a weapon, especially when the good man has nothing left, robbed by the corrupt and that becomes fuel to the fire. Because the good man will never accept corruption as a vice and therefor corruption fuels as corruption does and in this both mercy and innocence are the first victims in this internal war. Corruption and treason have a much larger role to play and that becomes part of the red wire. 

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February 8, 2022 · 01:30

Mr. S. King resigned

Intro
Yup, that is the setting. My mind casually created new IP, this IP is (me thinks) a TV series, as I have not dreamt it all it is still in the open, but it is a weird one. It is seemingly a thriller/horror making this the domain of Steven King and I have no idea what I am doing here. Yet the idea to some extent was with me before, yet in that instance there were differences and the story was going in a very different direction. But here we are in St. Helier a man is sitting on a bollard watching the boats. He does this often although he does not know why. He feels that it gives him rest, a feeling of completion, but the reason eludes him. It was about an hour alter when a boat docks and the people run from the boat screaming. He looks at the boat but he sees nothing. People, staff from the boat, all in a panic. His curiosity gets the better of him and he approaches the boat. He watches as the people run screaming and then the silence surrounds the boat. He looks at the boat, but he sees nothing, there is no fire, there is no crazy person, it is dead quiet. Then he sees it, it is inside the boat, first one, than half a dozen then dozens scorpions all crawling over the boat and the dead people in the cabin. He had no idea how dangerous they were, but the people on the boat indicated that these were dangerous. He looks at the boat, the removes the plank and cut the lines. Scorpions cannot swim, or at least that is how the story goes. He pushes the bot way just as the police arrives alarmed. They ask him what he think he was doing. He points at the aft deck and the police now sees them too. The policeman in charge grabs with microphone from his collar and talks into the mouthpiece. He is asking for assistance. 

Part X
The man is walking on the northern shores, he is walking wet trying to clear his mind, the last two days had been rather weird. It was when he came to Le Pinacle when he heard some kind of song, but he could not see anyone. He saw the ruins, it was where the music was seemingly coming from. He had been there several times when he was really young, but not in years. He walked towards parts of the ruins when he noticed the brazier. He did not remember a brazier, and walked over to check it. There were flames coming from it, the coals were weirdly cool, but the flames were hot. He looked and wondered what was going on, the music was slightly louder but there did not seem to be anyone playing. He looked for a radio, perhaps someone hd left the radio. He didn’t seem to see it, but there he noticed a stone trapdoor, or what might be one, the stoned were different and as he picked up the stone square, the square gave way, came up like it was on a joint. He looked down and saw the steps in the wall, stones coming out from the wall like small plateaus forming a ladder. He was curious, he had never noticed the stones before. He climbed down and down and down. It took a long time and they must have been 20-30 meters below sea level when the stones came to a floor, slightly wet sand was greeting him. He saw another brazier and another. It was a not so long corridor going into a room. The room was not big and it held a statue. The weirdest thing happened. The statue moved.

Pluto/Hades

The stone man looked at him. “Hello grandson. I am Hades” The man had no idea what to think. He was quite perplexed. The statue continued “In this temple of Pluto I can talk to you. The ship is part of a test, your first test but not the only one. Solve the test to open up memories and knowledge. Solve the riddle to find out what happened and what can be done to stop it. It is up to you to decide. Your first gift awaits you when you are ready, for you are the grandson of Hades and Zeus, son or Ares and Macaria. Let the testing begin.

Part Z
The man looked at the bot, he saw the focal point and realised that this was a curse. A curse by people who did not know what they had unleashed. He took control of the boat and set course due south. The boat was able to move decently fast so it took less than 3 hours to get to St. Malo There he saw the people taunting the boat, not realising what they had unleashed. In the time it took the boat to get there the catapult was done, he grabbed the statue hidden behind the cupboard and the scorpions who hd left him alone at first now came at him. He jumped over the railing and the scorpions followed slowly. He was at the catapult and put the statue in it. He thought that the people were screaming now, they screamed mercy, but the truth is that any curse needs time to complete and as he fired the statue, the scorpions vanished. Yet at the dicks of St. Malo things were different. People started to scream and run. As the statue broke into a thousand pieces he saw what seemed to be shades. They dissipated from the statue, but he could still see them. It would take days for the curse to wear off and many would die in the process. He looked at the carnage unfolding and he set course for St. Helier. It took another three hours to arrive and the police was already waiting for him. The police was shouting at him but he was not really listening. He docked the boat threw the keys at the captain and stated that the ship was clean. He made no other gestures and let them worry about the mess he had created with the hoses. The captain looked at the mess and then at him. “Scorpions cannot swim” and walked away. The police did not stop him, the captain had made a gesture t the policeman in charge. The news of St. Malo would reach them soon enough. He walked away and cautiously walked back to the shrine in the ruins. The statue of Pluto came back to life. “Why this way?” The man looked at his grandfather. A curse by people for people seems weird to dump it on Poseidon. “Great Uncle Poseidon please” the statue responded. “My apologies grandfather. Was this the right solution?” There is no right or wrong he heard. You made choices and choices have over time consequences. Time will tell what you set in motion, but yes, your great uncle would be upset to see a curse like that on the floor of his domain. There will be another test soon, but for now rejoice and start your journey. Reach out your right hand and receive your first present. He reached out and there was a small column of smoke and a bident formed in his hand. The Bident was light, but felt like steel. He opened his hand and the bident disappeared. The statue of his grandfather looked at him. You need to learn so much more, but we have time. I am immortal, you for now are not. The statue felt silent. He walked back and climbed the stair stones. When he emerged he heard voices. They were a little in the distance and he walked away from the sounds. He was about to look round when the darkness set in, the brazier was gone and where the trapdoor was was only rubble now. He quietly walked away, he had a lot to consider. 

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February 3, 2022 · 22:54

When a story makes for fictive IP

Yup, I have my IP, yet this time around it is not real, it is a fictive concept. It is my my way of giving the people at DARPA the bird (not in an insulting way) and explaining them procedure NA5 (na, na, na, na, na). So my playful mood was taking up the baton (aka the demon on my right shoulder) was calling me a pussy. It usually works and today was no exception. So as I was reading ‘Havana Syndrome may be caused by ‘directed energy’’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60237839) the brain went into overdrive and I started considering a few elements from the story. You see, I have had an experience in that direction, but I did not get sick. I learned a few years ago that when I am exposed to certain light levels AND white noise (like a projector or the sound of certain displays) I fall asleep. I cannot stop myself and drinking coffee after coffee does not help. When I sit down, coffee or not, I am out like a light. Works like a charm and annoys me to no end. So when I saw “in the last year, they have been taken more seriously with US officials encouraged to report similar symptoms. That has led to a flood of cases, numbering at least a thousand from around the world.” I put 3 and 3 together and got 27. You see it takes a specific brain with specific light, you see Paris in January has the winter sun and the winter sun in the early day is intense, but not too bright. Havana has bright most of the day and I reckon that when they start considering light intensity (not strength, or time of exposure) they will find a level of common ground. The white noise will hit everyone in different ways, but specific stressed people (generals, spy masters, command staff) will get a certain exposure. It will not hit all exactly the same, but it will hit them in similar ways. I reckon (and speculate) that those people who got sick will see over time that their ability to focus and concentrate will have been diminished. Consider that, a small white noise transmission, could be specific and might be just at the edge of hearing will do the trick. The issue is that not everyone is hit in the same way in the same time frame, but a specifically engineered projector lamp might do the trick, then that stops there will be a dozen other ways to expose people to white noise. What a way to disable military power. Not incapacitate them, but reduce their effectiveness. So when I saw “The panel found that psychological or social factors could not alone explain the symptoms although they could have compounded some of the problems for those affected. It also found that they could not be explained by environmental or medical conditions.” So when we get “non-standard antennas could create the effects on the human body. Such a source could be concealed and require only moderate power. It could also travel through the air and through walls of buildings” my mind had completed the hypothesis. A combination of light AND white noise. I wonder if they ever considered measuring and collecting the setting of white noise. The best solutions are the simplest ones. Consider Tinnitus a decade ago, it was casually dismissed and the people who had it had to grow a pair. Now consider the application of White noise and light, the light source cannot be managed, but there is this large disc in the sky that does it for us and the less elements that can be considered, the harder the cure will be. Those exposed to above certain stress levels and white noise could burn through synapses. Now, this is not fatal, it does not kill you but it will make you sick. You can heal from this, but the synapse is burned, it has an effect and I am speculating that it leads to reduced abilities in focus and concentration. Consider intelligence personnel and staff officers hit with that, it could impair armies.

So this is not IP, it is merely a fictive setting (for a story for example) to keep my mind busy. So thank you Gordon Corera for giving me this idea. Have a great day and consider that writers like John Le Carre started with the simplest of concepts to make the greatest of stories. Or in my disturbed language Hasta Lasagna! And do not skip the cheesy part.

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