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Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump: Day One

I'll pin a comment with highlights as the day goes on.

Watch at 1 pm eastern on C-Span or Youtube

Impeachment schedule

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached an agreement yesterday for the impeachment trial schedule, which officially kicks off at 1 pm eastern (pdf).
The first day will focus on the constitutionality of impeaching Trump, with two hours of argument allotted for each side. A vote will be taken on the matter, which is expected to allow the trial to continue.
If either Trump’s defense or the Impeachment Managers wish to call witnesses or subpoena documents, they must file their motions by Wednesday morning (see section below on witnesses).
Then, each side gets up to 16 hours, spread between two days, to present their arguments for and against conviction.
Uncertainty exists around the schedule for Friday-Sunday due to Trump’s lead attorney requesting time off to observe the Sabbath. He withdrew this request after the Senate leadership released their agreement. It is likely the Senate will amend the agreement to hold trial over the weekend.
UPDATE: The Senate will convene every day, including Friday through Monday, for the trial.
The senators next get 4 hours to question the House managers and Trump’s lawyers, followed by time to debate and vote to subpoena witnesses and/or documents.
Finally, each side is given 2 hours to make closing arguments. The Senate must then vote on the article of impeachment. A total of 67 votes are required to convict the former president. A vote to bar him from holding future office is only possible if conviction is successful.
TLDR: Without witnesses and if the Senate decides to hold the trial Friday and Saturday, the final vote to convict or acquit Trump is expected early next week.

Trial briefs

In their first trial brief filed last week, the House impeachment managers laid out their case that former President Donald Trump is "singularly responsible" for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. Starting with his claims of mass voter fraud before the election, the filing explains that Trump “spent months using his bully pulpit” to undermine democracy, “seeking to convince supporters that they were victims of a massive electoral conspiracy that threatened the Nation’s continued existence.” Following the Electoral College vote, the impeachment managers continue, Trump “aimed” his supporters “straight at the Capitol” and failed to “take swift action to stop the violence” on Jan. 6.
”It is impossible to imagine the events of January 6 occurring without President Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match, and then seeking personal advantage from the ensuing havoc.”
A large portion of the brief deals with rebutting the argument put forward by Senate Republicans: that an official no longer holding office cannot be impeached and/or convicted. To do this, Rep. Jamie Raskin’s team go back to the beginning of our nation and examine evidence that the Constitutional framers intended for impeachment to be available after a president is out of office.
”It is unthinkable that those same Framers [of our constitution] left us virtually defenseless against a president’s treachery in his final days, allowing him to misuse power, violate his Oath, and incite insurrection against Congress and our electoral institutions simply because he is a lame duck. There is no “January Exception” to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution. A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
Yesterday, Trump’s new legal team responded to the charges brought by the House, accusing them of engaging in “political theater” to pursue an unconstitutional goal. As evidence that Trump did not incite the violence of Jan. 6, his lawyers stipulate that the former president “used the word ‘fight’ a little more than a handful of times” and only “in the figurative sense”. Furthermore, Trump’s team raises objections to the quick pace of the impeachment, the House’s use of Trump’s words prior to Jan. 6, and the inclusion of the rioter’s garb and stated goals.
In a brazen attempt to further glorify violence, the House Managers took several pages of their Memorandum to restate over 50 sensationalized media reports detailing the horrific incidents and shocking violence… There was no investigation. The House abdicated that responsibility to the media.
Trump’s lawyers dedicated over 30 pages of the 74 page brief to arguments that Trump’s speech preceding the insurrection is protected by the First Amendment. Their position hinges on the belief that Trump did not incite violence:
”There can be no dispute that elected public officials engage in protected free speech when they speak out on investigations of voting regularity and fairness… a difference of political opinion...cannot be punishable where all that was done was to encourage investigation of voting irregularities and peaceful political speech.”
Finally, the filing concludes with an argument we saw during Trump’s first impeachment trial: that impeachment requires a crime be committed.
”House Democrats’ theory on insurrection collapses at the threshold because it fails to describe any violation of law whatsoever.”

Witnesses

So far, the biggest questions involve the details of how the Impeachment Managers intend to make their case. Rep. Raskin has been fairly vague on their overall plan in public statements. Ultimately, however, the decision to call witnesses and subpoena documents is up to the senators themselves.
"If managers decide they want witnesses, there will be a vote on that, which is the option they requested," Schumer said.
The minimum 51 votes required to approve a motion to present witness testimony are not guaranteed, as members of both parties have expressed a desire to see the trial ended quickly.
“This is based on a public crime,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “His intent was unhidden and so I think there’s a danger as there always is for a trial lawyer and prosecutor to over-try, to add more witnesses that prove the obvious.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) compared the situations this way: “Imagine if the Ukraine call were streamed on the Internet." And given how dug in most members of both parties are, he observed: "It’s not clear to me that there is any evidence that will change anyone’s mind.”
Some possible witnesses to call include: The aides who planned the rally (Caroline Wren, Megan Powers, Maggie Mulvaney); Brad Raffensperger, who Trump tried to pressure to “find” votes in Georgia; Capitol rioters who said Trump motivated their actions; constitutionality experts.
One line of Trump’s defense brief caught my attention in particular: his lawyers claim there’s no evidence that he didn’t act to stop the riot and didn’t condemn the violence for hours, as the media reported. The time directly preceding and following his speech seems to be the most unknown to the public. White House aides like Mark Meadows would have key information on Trump’s words and actions during this window, which would go a long way towards proving intent to incite an insurrection.
Edit to add: Aides to the House Managers have given some statements to Politico this morning...
The aides, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe mechanics of the Senate’s trial, emphasized that they intend to present a visually gripping version of events that draws on the personal experiences that will resonate with many of the lawmakers who fled the violent insurrectionists.
“It’ll be more like a violent crime criminal prosecution, because that is what it is,” one of the advisers said. “It will tell the story, the full story of … how the president incited it. Jan. 6 was the culmination of that incitement with his conduct leading up to it giving meaning and context to his words.”
...The arguments Tuesday will be led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House manager, followed by Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I), key members of the House Judiciary Committee.
The managers plan to name-check Chuck Cooper, the longtime GOP-aligned lawyer who wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Senate has the authority to convict Trump even though he is now a private citizen.
Based on this, I'm assuming video evidence is a large part of the case the House will make. The aim is to make the vote to acquit as painful and damaging as possible; to make it clear what exactly senators are saying is acceptable from a president.
In my opinion, Republicans are going to use the constitutionality argument as a way to "justify" acquitting Trump of the charges. We'll probably see a few in favor of conviction - Mitt Romney comes to mind - but not enough to reach 67. I hope I'm wrong, that's just my prediction at this point...
submitted by rusticgorilla to Keep_Track [link] [comments]

How to Survive Camping - I brought home some new "pets"

I run a private campground. Winter is - obviously - our slow season and I have to say that it’s nice to not have people around. Seasonal budgeting is a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it you can reasonably predict how much you need to set aside throughout the year. After that you just sit back and enjoy the winter snow, maybe catch up on your Netflix queue, waste time on Reddit, or battle off hell-spawned thorn bushes littered all over the place by an ancient evil from Ireland.
You know, just normal campground manager things.
Anyway, if you’re totally new here, you should really start at the beginning and if you’re totally lost, this might help.
I heard back from the university student that was working on the book left behind by my mother. They got through it a little faster than expected, mostly because they were fascinated by what they found inside. I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, all of you read these posts, so I’m sure a journal left behind by my ancestor would be just as interesting.
The journal has clearly been read a bit, the student said. Not just when it was written, but by more recent generations as well. They asked about where I found it and I explained it was stored in the attic by my mother.
“Well, it was in pretty good shape until someone spilled something on it. We think it was grape juice.”
So that put into context that early childhood memory where mom freaked out when I spilled grape juice all over the kitchen table.
Anyway, they were able to separate the pages and take photos of the surviving text. For such a disastrous spill, the writing remained legible, albeit blurred and faded. I forwarded the photos they sent me on to my brother. The book remains with the university as it’s probably safer there than at my house. I don’t need it, so long as we have a transcription of the text in our possession.
Then the student asked if I’d be willing to come in and talk about my family’s folklore. The book was full of superstitions and traditions, they said, and they were certain that there’d be some professors interested in the verbal history to go with it. It was unusual to find such a detailed account written out like this.
“My family never really talked about the family folklore,” I lied. “My parents died when I was in college and I wasn’t interested before then.”
The student expressed disappointment, thanked me for the book, and that finished our call.
I’m waiting to hear from my brother if there’s anything that might help with our current situation. In the meantime… I couldn’t keep avoiding Beau forever.
I mentally prepared myself for the confrontation as best as I could. My arguments were ready. The harvesters were unreliable help. They used me as bait and tried to stuff me into a raincoat. If I went to them, they might interpret my current vulnerability as a sign that it was time to recruit again. Perhaps they might even welcome the opportunity to claim the campground for themselves. I don’t know what their motives are. Besides, even if their intentions were honest or if Beau agreed to stand by and keep them from doing anything shady, the remedy was still dangerous. I was human, after all, and liable to simply die from shock if they cut me open to pull the thorns out.
It is in my lungs now. I can feel them when I take a deep breath.
Okay, yes, other people have survived more traumatic surgeries with them, but I’ll take any excuse I can get.
The lady with extra eyes had tried to kill me as well, but there was at least an established pattern that I could trust. She’d befriend our family and remain a helping influence for generations, until some catalyst put her at odds with us. Then we’d kill her, she’d be reborn, and it’d happen all over again. This is what I believe is happening, judging by the bones buried under the tree in her yard. If we were at the beginning of that cycle, then the spiders were far more trustworthy than the harvesters.
I went to Beau as he stood waiting in the yard that morning. His expression was unreadable, but that was hardly anything new. I took a deep breath and launched straight into it.
“The fairy said I should go to the harvesters,” I said. “I’m not going to. They said I have time still and I’m going to try to find a different solution.”
I held my breath, pensively waiting for his response. He merely raised a single eyebrow, the sunlight glinting off the row of hoops decorating it.
“Do as you will,” he finally said dismissively.
“Wait, you’re not going to argue?”
I was astounded.
“That is not my nature. I do not coerce or use deceit. You are mistaking me for a human again, I believe.”
I muttered an apology. I was. Beau is a rather simple creature in how he handles his interactions with people. He offers a drink. If the individual does not accept, he kills them. The choice, as always, remains with the person, and the consequences are theirs to bear as well.
It seemed Beau was thinking much the same thing, for he abruptly turned and started to walk away. Clearly he was no longer interested in teaching me how to better use my knife today. I would have to bear my consequences alone.
“Make your mistakes, campground manager,” he said as he left. “I trust your will to live will eventually overcome your fear.”
Which is a pretty ominous thing to say, so I admit I wasn’t terribly excited to go searching for the spiders after that. However, I am also very stubborn. I get that from my mother and my father. I’m sure that surprises no one. Beau’s warning chilled my enthusiasm, but it also made me a bit angry. This was my body the harvesters would be cutting into. A little consideration would be appreciated. I know that these inhuman things are cruel, but sometimes I just get a little tired of it.
The lady with extra eyes, at least, had her moments when she was kind.
I went off into the woods in a foul mood. I went on foot because I didn’t want the noise of the four-wheeler’s engine to scare off the spiders. My staff have been observing them since the lady’s death and the consensus is that they mostly act like normal spiders. Mostly.
I thought I’d start with finding some thorns left behind by the fomorian. It’s been quiet lately. Perhaps the fairy and the fomorian are avoiding each other, waiting to see what the other one does instead of being the first to strike. The fomorian seems to be content to let the seeds he already littered about keep spreading. Most of the patches I’ve ripped out are growing back. A few didn’t and I can only assume the spiders are to thank for that. Perhaps they webbed the roots I left behind so that they couldn’t grow.
I picked a thorn patch that was near the edge of the old woods. I didn’t want to venture in any further than I had to. For one thing, it’s been stupid cold down there. I don’t know if it’s because it sits in a depression or if I’m just noticing it more because I’m on foot, but this winter is shaping up to be intolerably cold. Even the locals are starting to complain.
But more importantly, I didn’t want to run into the fomorian or his steed. It bothers me that I encountered the fomorian without the dapple-gray stallion. This means that the stallion is going off on its own occasionally. Since it apparently still has a desire to stomp in my skull and eat my flesh, I’m a little uneasy about potentially running into it without its master.
And I don’t want to run into the fomorian because I’m in no mood to hear him gloat about how I’m going to die.
I settled down onto the ground near the thorn bush. The snow melted and soaked into my jeans, which I quickly regretted, but I didn’t anticipate being out here very long. Just enough to talk to the spiders.
“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s me. Kate.”
I peered intently into the bush, straining to see a sign of movement. It would be a bit silly to have a conversation if there weren’t any spiders inside. Of course, you could also argue that it was silly to have a conversation with spiders at all. But this is old land. These are not ordinary spiders.
“I don’t know if the lady reborn hates me,” I continued. “I think I would, if I were her. That assumes she’s been reborn already, that is. I’m assuming that big spider is her. I hope it is.”
I was rambling. I took a deep breath and tried to rein in my uncertainty. This would either work or it wouldn’t and if it didn’t, the only thing I had to lose was a little bit of my time.
“Well, if she doesn’t hate me and is willing to aid my family again… I could use her help. I think I’ve got a shot at helping the land and saving the trees, but I need a bit more time. I need to find a remedy for the thorns, but I can’t do that if I’m dead. And I think… I think I might be dying.”
The morning before I left, I coughed blood into the sink. There were soggy bits in it, black pieces like tiny strips of bark.
“So if you could just relay all that to her, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll come back to the deep woods tomorrow. See if I can find her house.”
Nothing. No sound, no movement from the bush. My spirits sank. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’d gotten my hopes up that there would be… something. Anything to keep me from having to resort to the harvesters.
I stood up, my joints stiff from the cold. There was frost on the outer layer of my jeans. I brushed it away absently, already thinking ahead to the fireplace back home and maybe a mug of hot chocolate.
Then something grabbed my ankle.
I don’t think there’s any way to train yourself out of being startled. It’s ingrained so deeply into the human instincts that there’s no reasonable way to be rid of it. What can be trained is how we react to unexpected stimuli. A lot of people freeze. I know which of my staff members freeze when startled because I have someone sneak up on them during their first week on the job to see how they react. If they freeze, then they get placed somewhere a little safer.
It’s not hazing if it has a purpose, right?
My parents made sure that I would not freeze.
As the icy grip of something wrapped around my ankle, I reacted on pure instinct. I jerked my foot out of its grasp and jumped, putting distance between myself and whatever had touched me. I glanced down before I landed and saw a hand protruding from the snow, pallid and shriveled, stretching dirty fingers out to claw at the soil in an effort to drag the rest of the arm free.
When I landed, I made sure to drive my heel down onto the hand. I heard the satisfying snap of bone. Then I ran. I did not look back.
The frost. Rule #17. While it can get cold at night, you should not see frost forming inside your tent. If you are woken by the cold and see frost, call the camp emergency number. Stay calm and stay in your tent. We will come get you.
It was all around me.
This cold I’ve been complaining about? It masked the approach of the frost. I could think of no other explanation for how it had come up on me so abruptly.
I ran. The only defense against the frost is to get away from it. I slipped on the icy road and painfully made my way up the steepest hill leading up out of the deep woods. My eyes stung and I felt frost forming on the edges of my lips. How deep in was I? How far had it spread? All around me, hands erupted out of the snow, flailing for purchase, trying to snatch at my legs as I ran past them, a macabre garden sparkling with frost like the morning dew.
I didn’t think I would make it back to the house. Already, I felt like I was slowing down. The cold burned into my lungs and I wheezed for air. I couldn’t sustain this pace. My body simply wasn’t capable of sprinting for such a long distance. Worse, it didn’t seem to be making much difference. Fingers broke out of the snow around me like flowers blooming in early spring and my ears were filled with the popping of ice-coated joints that stretched and strained, trying to drag themselves up out of the frozen earth.
They wouldn’t stop coming.
I reached the top of the hill and veered off the road. There was a chance to survive this, one that was at least better than trying to outrun it. My pace slowed considerably once I hit the snow that hadn’t been partially cleared by our trucks. I stumbled through it, ripping my ankles away from the hands that grasped at the hem of my jeans. I felt like I was clawing for whatever scrap of forward momentum I could gain, fighting the very air itself as it burned into my nose and cheeks.
Before me loomed a mound of debris. With one last burst of effort, I ran the last few yards and then collapsed, chest heaving, onto the side of the thing in the dark.
The cold continued to press in around me. The air itself sparkled with ice. I borrowed my body deeper into the mound of leaves and sticks, desperately seeking the warmth, the safety, of a creature far more powerful than I. More powerful, hopefully, than the frost that tested the distance between us, crackling as it formed a thick layer of ice on top of the snow.
“C’mon,” I hissed through chattering teeth. “Do you really want to mess with the thing in the dark?”
It slowed. Then, mere feet away from where I huddled, it stopped. The hands that had broken through the snow went still and then, slowly, slipped back under and into the earth, leaving behind small mounds of disturbed snow as the only remnant of their presence. The cold, too, began to subside. I remained where I was, shivering violently, wondering when it would be safe to get up and leave.
I soon became aware of something sharp stabbing into my side. In my desperation to find safety I didn’t notice at first. I shifted, lifting myself out of the debris and away from whatever was jabbing me through my jacket. I turned to look, as it hadn’t felt like a stick. It was far sharper. Like a needle.
It was a thorn. My head swam with dread, like I was as light as a feather. There was a thorn inside the body of the thing in the dark.
“I’m sorry,” I said frantically. “I’ll put it all back. But I need to know.”
I pulled away sticks and leaves from the side of the mound. I dug a hole into the thing in the dark until enough had fallen away to pool around my knees that I could see clearly what was inside it.
Vines. Black, twisting vines, their long thorns webbed with spider silk. As I knelt there, staring in horror, a myriad of spiders crept out of the darkness and stared at me with glittering eyes. Slowly, carefully, I put the branches back. I packed them back down. Then I stood and backed away.
“I’ll take care of this,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I’ll take care of this for you.”
The thing in the dark is less active in the winter. I think it hibernates. I can only hope that was the reason for its silence.
After a while it felt like the air was warmer and my shivering abated somewhat. The frost had hopefully moved on. I left the safety of the thing in the dark’s presence and returned home. I brought some firewood in with me, once again thinking about that fireplace and some hot chocolate.
It wasn’t until I took my jacket off that I realized that my back was covered in spiders.
As usual, I reacted with violence to being startled by something so horrific. I screamed and threw the jacket away from me. It hit the wall and the spiders scattered in all directions like a dandelion in the wind, scurrying across the wall and vanishing into the crannies and crevices along the floor and ceiling. I remained still for a long time, heart pounding, and then I went into the kitchen and poured myself a strong drink. I didn’t go back to pick up the jacket until hours later. It took some effort. Every time I walked towards it I remembered the sight of all those spiders, clutching the fabric, immobile and how their black and brown bodies blended into the fabric. How it took a few seconds as my brain pondered why my jacket seemed fuzzy and then one moved a single leg and the realization came unraveling down.
There were no spiders on or in my jacket when I finally picked it up and put it away. I’m not sure where they’re hiding, but they’re certainly in my house still.
You see, I think they’re coming out at night.
The first night after that happened, I woke at some point feeling like there was something stuck in my throat. I was only half awake though and the feeling quickly passed before I could start coughing, and I quickly drifted back off to sleep. I’m trying to pretend that this is just my overactive imagination. That there aren’t spiders crawling down into my lungs while I’m sleeping.
This has been happening for a few days. In the morning my chest feels heavy. Like the muscles to breathe in and out aren’t responding quite as well as they should. The feeling passes around midday.
I don’t know if I’m getting better. But I know this - it’s not getting worse.
I’m a campground manager. I wish I could be surprised by what’s happened to the thing in the dark. Unfortunately, it makes a terrible sort of sense. The fomorians were conquerors. They were tyrants. They subjugated everything within their grasp, crushing the will to fight out of them or killing the ones that refused to submit. The fomorian’s war with the fairy is only a prelude for what is to come if it wins.
It will conquer my land. It will destroy the creatures that refuse to bow to it and rule over the rest. It will do the same to the town, to the surrounding farmland, and on and on until it can stretch its reach no further. Perhaps the humans living here will take no notice. The inhuman world is separate from our own, for the most part. It is only in places like old land that we are thrown in directly alongside it. Or perhaps we’ll notice in the more subtle ways, in how crops fail more frequently and sickness seems to lie deep in our bones. In a weariness that cannot be abated and a sadness we wear like an old jacket.
I wonder if there are other parts of this world that already suffer under a fomorian’s rule.
The fomorian has poisoned the thing in the dark. It is a creature that is unlikely to submit, so he will destroy it.
At least there’s the spiders. Small, insignificant creatures that the fomorian will easily overlook. They’re fighting as best as they can to slow the decay.
And now they’re trying to save both of us. [x]
Since you've all been asking about the journal.
Read the full list of rules.
Visit the campground's website.
submitted by fainting--goat to nosleep [link] [comments]

Monday Morning Quarter-Backing: Why I'm disgusted with Dan Gryder (DC-3 Guy)

On January 12th, mere 3 days after the fatal accident involving N3RB, Dan Gryder decided to proclaim the cause of the crash as suicide, doing so in a 6 minute video here that you should watch before reading this.
Additionally,
FlightAware Link
Kathyrn's Report
This post does not serve to determine the cause of the crash. That job is reserved for the NTSB -- not our job. My problems involve the irrelevant information provided, the information provided without context to smear someone, and the general jump to make crazy conspiracy theories.
First, Dan Gryder starts off by giving a background of the owner, Richard Boehlke. Including this was the statement, "had long previous ties to florida, air florida, the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks and training terrorists, if you google Richard Boehlike from those years down there theres a long story there....he was also involved in a mob/mafia deal so you can do your own research on that."
As far as I can tell, and this is the problem with just telling people to "google it" instead of making actual claims and citing those claims, that there appears to be no connection between Richard and the attackers other than chance.
To start, this "connection to the mob/mafia" seems to be complete BS. The only connection that I can find is that Richard Boehkle owned a development corporation called Crossings Corporation, which built a building financed by Capital Consultants. Crossings was then sued by Capital Consultants, who claimed they didn't make all their payments. I can't find specifics of the lawsuits, but it seems Capital Consultants won. Story
So, the "connection to the mob" seems to be having a ill-predicted financial venture financed by a 1B+ fund that was invested in plenty of things? There does not appear to be a shred of evidence that Boehkle had any knowledge of any misdoings by Capital Consultants. (I have not researched the connection between the mob and Capital Consultants, but given the connection between Boehkle and Capital Consultants is so thin, no connection between Capital Consultants and the mob would connect Boehlke to the mob)
On the connection to 9/11, it seems even crazier. A 9/11 conspiracy theory book states that Boehkle's was connected to the Owner of Capital Consultants (via the earlier mentioned connections) which invested in a Georgia company owned by a lawyer and that lawyers son was married to a gal whose sister was married to the guy that ran Saudi intelligence over the time period of 9/11. That is 7 degrees of separation. As a comparison, my mom's college roommate is married to one of Obama's roommates (making me 4 degrees from Obama), my Grandparent's used to be neighbors with the Bushes (2 or 3 degrees from the elder Bush depending on how you count). The point is, even at 4 degrees of separation almost everyone knows everyone. 7 degrees of separation is crazy, especially given how thin some of those connections were. (On Facebook, the average degree of separation between everyone is 3.5)
Dan also mentiones Senexus, the company on Boehkle's Linkdin. Of note, Dan claims the website is down, it's not: https://senexus.com/news/.
Next, Dan talks about his theories early in the crash. He claims the ATC audio doesn't make sense, and mentions the pilot as being Boehkle explicity. At this time, I can't find a single article or source actually mentioning who the pilot is. Dan Gryder doesn't state he knows Boehkle, can he tell his voice from the audio? Dan even states in the comments, "The pilot was owner Richard Boehlke. He was a private pilot with no Citation type rating, and no single pilot endorsement." Where's the evidence that Boehkle was onboard? Wheres the evidence Boehkle didn't have a charter pilot flying him, or someone else? (Hell, if Dan had bothered to wait for Senexus' website to load he would have seen that the President is also a pilot)
But that's just the beginning, at 4 minutes in, it get's worse. Dan states, "It's Rick in the left seat, who is at the controls, who is the other passenger? I don't know, but this is Ricks preconceived flight to end it all. What was he looking for? Those steep 360s in the descent looking for a place to die...this is nothing more than pilot suicide"
"To me, this was a completely preconceived precalculated flight, his only question when he took off was where he wanted his crash site to be"
Dan Gryder has seemingly done 0 research, certainly nothing that the NTSB would do. How the fuck would he come up with what the pilot's state of mind was without talking to any witnesses, seeing any search history, etc? How is he able to determine that it was suicide from flight aware track data, he doesn't see the control inputs, he sees the outputs. And with Dan making verifiably false claims, such that the rate of descent was ever increasing, which we can see is false, why are we to believe in here?
It manages to get even more crazy,
Dan also writes in the comments that, "You are about to find out who the mystery passenger was, and what his relationship was to Boelkhe." and "You will be...when media catches up."
Some other issues there are are why would someone not just nose-dive, Dan answered this with "He had to place the wreckage where he wanted." However, a field is a field and there seems to be no special connection to this field in particular.
So let's recap:
It may very well be the case that this was suicide. But to assume that with no real reasoning and a complete lack of knowledge on the accident is disgusting. To do so especially by peddling 9/11 conspiracy theories should make Dan Gryder reevaluate his life choices.
To see someone so well regarded in the aviation community, including videos with u/Schteevie (Flight Chops) and u/JustPlaneSilly, using their platform to spread conspiracy theories should disgust all of us.
If this crash was Boehkle, how would you feel watching it as a family member? How would you feel if you saw a video on youtube from a well-respected pilot making a baseless theory of suicide, of making irrelevant and unsubstantiated claims of connections to the mob and 9/11?
submitted by Zeus1325 to flying [link] [comments]

COVID Facts That Every Person Should Know (But Most Don't) - Canadian Version

Updated January 8, 2020
DISCLAIMER: I wear my mask, wash my hands and try not to touch my face. I limit my social interactions. I follow most rules, even though many don't make sense. This is NOT a “COVID hoax” or “anti-vaxxer” post.
I agreed with lockdown measures that were taken in March 2020, when a lot was unknown. We did not have full knowledge of whom the virus affected and we did not have better treatment measures.
But science and data over the last 10 months has clearly shown that our approach needs to change.
“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much” Walter Lippmann, 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner
SO WHO IS COVID DEADLY FOR? Data from government public health websites.
PUBLIC HEALTH CANADA https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid ... s.html#fn1
Out of 16435 COVID related deaths in Canada, 89.2% are in the 70+ age group.
Percentage of COVID deaths in the 0-49 age group: 1.1% (this is a total of 192 COVID related deaths in Canada)
NOTE: It is important to make the distinction that just because someone dies WITH COVID does not mean that they died BECAUSE of COVID. COVID deaths may be inflated due to this distinction. False positive cases may further inflate this number (more on this later).
LONG TERM CARE HOMES https://ltc-covid19-tracker.ca
70.3% of all COVID related deaths in Canada have been in long term care homes
PUBLIC HEALTH ALBERTA https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-a ... istics.htm
Average age of COVID-related death in Alberta: 82 years old.
Out of 1241 COVID related deaths in Alberta, 97.1% have had 1 or more co-morbidities.
Here is the breakdown: * 3 or more comorbidities: 75.0% * 2 comorbidities: 14.4% * 1 comorbidity: 7.7% * No comorbidity: 2.9% (highly likely to be in the older age demographic)
NOTE: Comorbidities included are: Diabetes, Hypertension, COPD, Cancer, Dementia, Stroke, Liver Cirrhosis, Cardiovascular diseases (including IHD and Congestive heart failure), Chronic Kidney disease, and Immuno-deficiency.
STATSCAN REPORT: COVID 19 DEATH COMORBIDITIES IN CANADA (from the first wave, until July 31, 2020) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45- ... 87-eng.htm
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
We must acknowledge that these stats are all people and each number represents a human loss. We are all empathetic to that.
Now, the data clearly states the obvious: 1. A LARGE majority of COVID related deaths have and are still occurring in long term care homes. 2. COVID is a deadly threat to persons with co-morbidities and/or persons above the age of 70. It is not a LONE killer by itself. Note that any disease is dangerous to this population set, not just COVID. 3. For a healthy person below the age of 70, there is greater than 99% chance of COVID recovery. This is no worse than the flu.
This is all good news, because we know who COVID affects and who we desperately need to protect. We also have other good news…
GOOD NEWS #1: VITAMIN D3 DATA
Vitamin D acts a key function for strengthening our immune system and is primarily acquired through sunlight exposure. There is a strong correlation that a Vitamin D deficiency will likely result in a serious case of a COVID infection, lowering hospitalizations, deaths and long-term COVID effects.
Vitamin D3 was shown to be deficient in 80% of hospitalized COVID patients in Spain [2].
The most comprehensive scientific study of Vitamin D deficiency in correlation to COVID patients was conducted in India over a span of 6 weeks [3]. Out of 154 patients, 63 severe cases needed ICU. Out of these, 61 patients (97%) had a Vitamin D deficiency. Overall, India has shown to have a lower strain of COVID, possibly because Vitamin D deficiency hits a much lower percentage of the population (due to more sunlight).
The UK government has already promoted Vitamin D to the entire population and is giving out free vitamin D handouts to persons most at risk for COVID [4].
4000 IU daily is recommended to create a strong immune response to COVID [5].
GOOD NEWS #2: BETTER COVID TREATMENTS
Doctors have improved the mortality rates of severe COVID cases, using better ICU procedures. A person hospitalized in March 2020 was 3 times more likely to die than someone hospitalized in August 2020 [6].
GOOD NEWS #3: ASYMPTOMATIC %
At least 17% of the population is estimated to be asymptomatic to COVID [7]. Many are immune to the danger of COVID.
The converse argument, of course, is the possible asymptomatic spread of infection which is difficult to detect. However, if an asymptomatic person does not interact with the vulnerable portion of the population, then what difference does it make?
Instead, why not focus on controlling spread in the SMALLER vulnerable demographic where it really matters?
BAD NEWS #1: LOOKING AT CASE NUMBERS USING FLAWED PCR TESTING
PCR tests, in their current form, are faulty and ineffective [9]. In Dec 2020, the World Health Organization confirmed what was known for months; that high cycle threshold PCR tests result in a high amount of false positives and that testing labs around the world need to reduce their threshold values [10]. The US FDA has also warned of the risk of false positives from PCR tests [8].
It is important for everyone to understand what a Polymerase Chain Reaction test does. A PCR test is looking for RNA, which is a small particle of any cell (just like DNA). In this case, we are looking for the coronavirus RNA.
The amount of RNA in a saliva/nasal swab is very small, so PCR tests amplify the sample to help detect it. Each cycle doubles the material. One becomes two. In the next cycle, two is amplified to four, and so on. In Canada, and most of the world, specimens are amplified to a minimum value of at least 35 cycle thresholds (Ct). That creates over 17 billion copies of the material, enough to be able to detect any viral particle.
However, a Canadian National Microbiology study stated that specimens with Ct values greater than 24 were found to be viral culture negative [11]. What does this mean?
That if RNA is found at a Ct value of 35, the virus cannot be cultured. It cannot be grown. Because it is DEAD. The RNA is simply a remnant of a past COVID infection. A FALSE POSITIVE CASE. This case does not reflect an active infection nor is it contagious. That person was infected weeks or months ago.
This has been known irrefutable scientific fact for months: PCR tests are not reliable unless we REDUCE Ct values. Why are we creating worldwide mitigation policies based on this?
Lastly, and most importantly, using number of cases for policy making does not reflect the bigger picture. Someone with little or no symptoms of illness is NOT a case.
Instead, our main concern should this: How many of those cases are getting HOSPITALIZED and who is DYING?
THE BAD NEWS #2: LONG COVID
Long term effects of COVID; persistent symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, respiratory, brain and heart issues can continue for weeks and months for some COVID cases. While there is still more research to be done, here is what we know so far.
King’s College London and the UK National Health Service have compiled the largest data set on this topic, using information from 4182 confirmed COVID cases [12]. Here was the breakdown of how many experienced long COVID, by duration of symptoms. The study also states that these numbers were comparable to Sweden and USA.
The susceptibility to experience long COVID is increased by the following factors, but can occur in low proportions in healthy individuals as well:
Long COVID is a definitely a concern, but it does not warrant ignoring the negative long-term health effects of a lockdown.
BAD NEWS# 3: LOCKDOWNS DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
If you believe that a lockdown puts life and health ahead of the economy, you have been gravely misled. Lockdowns kill and destroy more lives than save lives.
The World Health Organization themselves do not advocate for lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus [13].
The first and very comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of a lockdown in Canada was performed by Dr. Ari Jaffe, an infectious disease expert, who initially supported lockdowns but is now a strong opponent. His study concluded that the lockdowns in Canada will result in 10 statistical lives lost for every 1 COVID life saved [14].
Reasons for these lockdown deaths is due to restricted medical care such as
Moreover, the following repercussions of a lockdown are also not taken into account. All of these have a negative impact on life expectancy and illness.
The Canadian Mental Health Association concluded a study on all of the above, with 3027 participants Canada wide [15]. Here are some highlights:
A Canadian Psychiatric Research report has projected an increase of between 418-2114 excess suicides in Canada (depending on 1.6% to 10.7% increase in unemployment) [16].
Lastly, lockdowns are causing our general health and immunity to be being lowered. We are locked down at home, with increasing mental health issues, stress, lack of sunlight and lack of exercise. This further lowers our bodies’ response to any sort of infection, including COVID.
Using lockdowns, we have only looked at short term gratification, while disregarding long term destruction.
BAD NEWS #4: HOSPITAL OVERCAPACITY
The ideal measure to avoid a lockdown is to increase hospital capacity as much as possible.
Unfortunately, hospital space and staff shortages have always been a problem, even before the pandemic [17]. Every flu season in the last 3 years has had hospitals running at over capacity. Don’t let COVID distract you from the historical failures of the government.
This may sound ludicrous, but a simple online search will prove it. Here are a few news articles from previous years addressing that concern:
Dec 2017: https://bit.ly/38wEqwn
Feb 2018: https://bit.ly/2M5dIU4
Jan 2020: https://bit.ly/3nZ5laR
Canada, despite being one of the biggest spenders for health care, sits far behind for services provided. As of 2019, out of 28 developed countries, here is how Canada ranked [18]:
Between Mar 15-Jun 13, 2020 (the first lockdown), the Ontario surgical backlog had an average increase of a whopping 11413 surgeries per week. This led to a total of 150000 backlogged surgeries, which is estimated to take 84 weeks to clear (almost 1.5 years) [19].
We were completely unprepared for additional medical concerns, let alone a pandemic. Why has the government not addressed the hospital capacity issue? This is the most IMPORTANT factor in avoiding a lockdown. Why is the public paying the price for government inadequacy?
BAD NEWS #5: CANADA’S ECONOMIC SITUATION
Socio-economic factors are the greatest indicator for the health of the population. Lack of finances do affect mental health, physical health and life expectancy. Look at any third-world country. Look at the impoverished demographic of any population set.
Canadian Annual Deficit:
2019: $19.8 Billion [20]
Projected for March 2021: $381.6 to $398.7 Billion [21]
This is an increase in deficit of almost 2000%. THIS IS REAL. This is NOT a typo. Imagine your $20,000 student loan becoming $398,000. By far, this is the HIGHEST deficit in Canadian history.
Within the last year, Canada has had the worst increase in Debt-to-GDP ratio in the world, which has risen by 80% [22]. We have spent the most amount of money in proportion to what our economy generates.
Our Minister of Finance resigned during the summer. A day after the Fall Economic statement was released on Nov 30, 2020, our Deputy Minister of Finance also resigned.
Our current Minister of Finance has no background in this field. Watch this video of her in Parliament: https://fb.watch/23ypw_Ru1_/
The following industries have been devastated: Aviation, Tourism, Entertainment, Hospitality, Restaurants, Fitness, Retail
Our official unemployment rate in October 2020 was listed at 8.9% [23]. This is deceiving. This is artificially held low by government subsidies and by ridiculous requirements to be considered “unemployed”.
The true unemployment number could be as high as 30%, if not more [24]. That means a staggering 10 million Canadians unemployed.
218000 small-to-medium businesses are at risk of closing permanently [25]. That is 1 out of every 5 businesses. This was based on July 2020 data, before a second lockdown was announced, and is clearly much worse now.
On the other hand, large corporations are thriving. The price of a lockdown is not equally borne across the Canadian population.
We are all in the SAME storm, but not the SAME boat.
WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT STILL IMPLEMENTING SUCH DAMAGING POLICIES?
This all started with a wildly incorrect and catastrophic model of COVID deaths by Dr. Neil Ferguson, from the Imperial College in the U.K. He projected that, unmitigated, COVID-19 would kill 326,000 in Canada this year [26]. Similar projections were made for other countries. Dr. Ferguson’s faulty projections, without being reviewed, led to a swift global lockdown and mass hysteria.
Using the Wuhan lockdown as a example, with a “75% reduction in interpersonal contact rates” however, he predicted deaths would fall to under 46,000 in Canada. Coming to the end of 2020, we are at approximately 15000 COVID related deaths in Canada [1]. While that is still a tragic number, it is nowhere close to what was predicted.
Dr. Ferguson has a history of incorrect modeling, apart from COVID. [26] [27]
In March 2020, Dr. Ferguson admitted that his COVID modeling was based on a 13-year old computer code that was intended for a “feared influenza pandemic”.
We shut down the world based on this? No one looked for a second opinion? His reckless advice set a dangerous precedent for lockdown policies and abuse of human and constitutional rights.
If the government realized and changed their approach now, it would essentially mean admitting they are wrong. (Personally, I feel they have succumbed to tunnel vision).
How can they reverse course without getting politically skewered for going all in on what is now by far the largest public spending campaign ever, the most significant restriction on free society ever and the greatest peacetime damage ever inflicted on a generation, socially and economically, in modern history when it turns out it didn't make much of a difference? (Credit: Josh Kocher)
Instead, politicians have used the new “science” of DEMAGOGY - political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires, prejudices and emotions of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
Implement measures that make us FEEL safe instead of what is ACTUALLY safe. With only COVID in the spotlight, actions are based on “optics”. As long as COVID lives are down, why bother with the collateral damage from a lockdown and its accompanying non-COVID deaths? Politicians don’t have to wipe that blood off their hands. Ignorance is bliss. Let’s save 1 COVID life that is in the public eye, but it will cost 10 lives down the road, not in the public eye. This is known as the Corona Dilemma (see attached pictures) [14].
If we had always put health ahead of the economy, here’s what would have happened a long time ago.
Doing the above would save millions of lives globally. But we accept those risks despite high fatality numbers, in order to stimulate the economy. We leave the decisions to drive cars, consume alcohol, eat fried foods and smoke in the hands of the people. (Yes, they are not CONTAGIOUS so it’s a different form of threat, but a death is a death, specially if it is statistically preventable).
Another important point to consider is that politicians are making decisions while being completely protected from the consequences of their decisions. Their salary stays the same and their large pensions fully protected. This is a position of PRIVILEGE.
WHY IS THE PUBLIC SUPPORTING THESE POLICIES?
For the general public, there are many working from home with pay. They have little to lose with a lockdown, so it is easy to support it. Again, a position of privilege. They are unaware of our country’s disastrous economic situation or the dangerous effects of a lockdown.
But more importantly, public support is being driven by mass hysteria; from the fear-mongering and sensationalizing of news by irresponsible journalism and incompetent politicians.
QUESTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT
QUESTION: Why are high cycle threshold PCR tests still being used as the lone source for creating broad policies, despite their known inaccuracy and unsuitability? Can we stop with the constant regurgitating of daily case numbers?
QUESTION: Why are long term care facilities still experiencing COVID related deaths and not being protected better?
QUESTION: Why is the rest of Canada shut down when a distinct majority of the COVID related deaths are occurring in long term care homes, in age groups of 70+ and persons with co-morbidities?
QUESTION: Why do thousands of small businesses have to suffer when there is no proof that they are responsible for COVID transmissions?
Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table [29]: Restaurants, bars and clubs were the source of 0.7% of all COVID transmissions in Ontario. In fact, 58% of COVID cases do not know how and where the person was infected. The primary known source, close contact, adds up to 45% of Ontario COVID transmissions [29]. This means an unmasked setting for a prolonged period near someone close to you.
Have we seen Walmart and Costco take the contact information of every customer that enters the premises? No tracing = no cases = let them stay open.
Our politicians are blindly flailing at theories and superstitions to control this virus. How can a politician rob someone of their entire livelihood based on a hunch?
QUESTION: What is considered essential? Who decides this? Why is the LCBO (alcohol store ) open but gyms are not? To every person who is about to lose their job or business, is that not considered ESSENTIAL?
QUESTION: Why is a cost-benefit-result analysis not mentioned in any government policy?
QUESTION: Why has the government not put out a simple disclaimer to increase our Vitamin D3 intake, especially during the winter months? This one measure can possibly yield the MOST result with LEAST effort and collateral damage.
QUESTION: Why has the government not volunteered to take a pay cut, given that most of the population is suffering economically? Don’t CEOs take a pay cut when their company is in financial trouble?
NOTE: The New Zealand PM and her ministers took a 6-month 20% pay cut in April 2020 [30].
SIDENOTE: A Canadian MP who only holds 6 years in office gets a lifelong pension. Even a war veteran does not get this benefit [31]
QUESTION: Why are these policies being made behind closed doors? The Ontario government has abused its arbitrary emergency powers to make policies without the input of ALL members of Parliament. When did we give up democracy? Watch The Ontario Government Being Questioned About This In Parliament: https://fb.watch/22j-hpTDiL/
Why have those affected financially not been given a choice? If someone has to worry about putting food on the table and a roof over their head, they should have the right to go out and make a living. Let them decide for themselves whether they are willing to risk contracting COVID (a disease with a lethality rate of under 1% for the younger healthy working population).
QUESTION: Why is every international arrival subject to an archaic 14-day quarantine, when the Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Tam herself has said that there is little - if any - evidence of COVID transmission aboard aircraft? [32]
COVID transmission through travel primarily occurred BEFORE mitigation measures were implemented. Now, it is one of the safest public places you can be in. As of Jan 2, 2020, travel has only accounted for 2.5% of all COVID cases in Canada (with a known exposure setting). Most of these travel related cases are from early in the pandemic, before restrictions were placed [1].
Read the following fact-based article: The Irrational Fear Around Air Travel Needs To Stop (And We Need To Use Science Based Measures Instead): https://bit.ly/3rnS3GT
Why is rapid testing not conducted on arriving passengers? Results from the McMaster Health Lab rapid test study at Toronto Pearson airport: 99.7% were cleared or detected for COVID on arrival [34].
QUESTION: If someone got COVID and has recovered, they have built natural immunity. Why do they need to be vaccinated?
DOCTORS AROUND THE WORLD ARE SPEAKING OUT
Great Barrington Declaration: https://gbdeclaration.org
World Doctors Alliance: Letter to Citizens and Governments of the World: https://worlddoctorsalliance.com
MOVING FORWARD: WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
We have had 11 months to prepare and learn more. A lot is still unknown about COVID but A LOT IS KNOWN.
COVID is here now and we cannot stop it; that’s the harsh truth. Risk and harm cannot be completely eliminated. COVID will affect some people; that is unavoidable. It cannot be the SOLE reason behind making broad policies.
COVID is a harmful virus but not the killer virus it was projected to be.
There is a fine line between learning to live with COVID vs paralyzing our lives due to COVID, which we crossed a long time ago. Why are we hiding from COVID when we should use our knowledge to fight against it? Let’s stop the shortsighted and reactionary decision making.
We are we so focused on “number of cases and infections”? The test results are not reliable, and infections pose little or no harm to most of the younger healthy population. The important data is “number of hospitalizations and deaths”. In other words, shift our energy from “how do we limit COVID SPREAD?” to “how do we limit COVID DAMAGE?”
The long-term health and financial effects of a lockdown need to be considered. A lockdown will only transfer lives lost and destroyed. It will not save the overall excess deaths to a population. In fact, it will increase them in the long term.
The ONLY way out of this pandemic is through herd immunity, either naturally or through a vaccine. That vaccine is at least more than a year away for most people (another governmental failure). Moreover, there are many who will choose not to take a vaccine (personally, I will take it). We cannot have another 6 months of lockdowns. Every single day adds incredible amounts of short and long term damage.
A SUMMARY OF WHAT SHOULD BE DONE:
(Edit) Firstly, we should continue precautions to limit COVID spread. These are mitigation measures that may yield results without collateral damage: masks, wash hands frequently, don’t touch your face, reasonably limit social interactions.
I hope it’s clear: the problem isn’t number of cases. It’s the number of deaths and number of hospitalizations.
We know one thing for sure: Lockdowns should be our absolute last measure and that they will still come at a serious cost to society. Lockdowns are a REACTIVE measure to avoid getting hospitals overloaded.
Our most helpful measure to avoid a lockdown would have been to increase hospital capacity, but the government has failed us there.
Moreover, implement the actions below:
  1. Offer Focused Protection for the following: long term care homes, the vulnerable population and those that have UNAVOIDABLE interaction with them. The measure alone may reduce COVID related deaths by 90+%. Even if the above demographic is half of the Canadian population, at least the other half don’t need to be locked down.
  2. Let everyone else live normally, if they CHOOSE (of course, with cautionary measures)
  3. Promote a healthy lifestyle, nutritious diet and increase Vitamin D intake for EVERYONE. This alone may reduce the number of hospitalizations, severe cases and long COVID.
  4. BONUS MEASURE: All politicians need to take a pay cut. Sign the following petition: https://www.truenorthinitiative.com/politicians_need_to_cut_their_salaries
LET ME BE CLEAR. This is not about Lives VS. Economy. Health policy has been mistakenly sold as such. The truth is that a Focused Protection approach will save more lives and protect the economy. It’s a win-win.
This is about using everything we know to have an all-inclusive approach and look at the bigger long-term picture. To make decisions using science, data and logic, as opposed to fear and emotion.
Enough damage has been done. Don’t make the CURE worse than the virus. Don’t let political agendas get in the way of real help.
Free discourse is important because it helps to prevent bad ideas from blossoming and spreading.
We cannot simply accept the first viewpoint presented to us. Science requires many different points of view, rigorously tested, before arriving to a conclusion [35]. Science DEMANDS opposing opinions. Propaganda, on the other hand, silences it.
Something is VERY wrong when there is massive blowback to any questioning of the narrative. Something is VERY wrong when fear has become a virtue and courage a vice [35].
Something is VERY wrong when law enforcement questions the government about why they are forced to abandon their oath to the Charter Of Rights & Freedoms. Read their letter: https://bit.ly/3nW0Mhu
Please copy, paste or share this message if you agree.
SHARE ORIGINAL FACEBOOK POST: https://bit.ly/2IRbRRC
Samad Kadri
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
REFERENCES
[1] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid ... s.html#fn1
[2] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/more-than ... -1.5162396
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77093-z
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... n-d-supply
[5] https://www.nutraingredients.com/Articl ... in-D-alarm
[6] https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/11/03/ ... s-improve/
[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03141-3
[8] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/saf ... RHTwitterD
[9] https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
[10] https://www.who.int/news/item/14-12-202 ... -ivd-users
[11] https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/71/10/2663/5842165
[12] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20214494v2
[13] https://www.narcity.com/en-ca/news/lock ... rol-method
[14] https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/20 ... 2/download
[15] https://cmha.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020 ... NAL-EN.pdf
[16] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 8120310386
[17] https://globalnews.ca/news/7464926/coro ... -capacity/
[18] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/d ... mary_0.pdf
[19] https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/44/E1347
[20] https://www.budget.gc.ca/2019/docs/plan/toc-tdm-en.html
[21] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal ... -1.5209807
[22] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/ ... dp-covid19
[23] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-q ... 6a-eng.htm
[24] https://www.thestar.com/business/opinio ... ke-30.html
[25] https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/sites/default/ ... losing.pdf
[26] https://www.iedm.org/the-flawed-covid-1 ... wn-canada/
[27] https://www.nationalreview.com/cornep ... grace/amp/
[28] https://www.health.com/condition/cold-f ... every-year
[29] https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/1 ... tario.html
[30] https://globalnews.ca/news/6820459/jaci ... s-pay-cut/
[31] https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board ... -plan.html
[32] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid- ... -1.5797065
[33] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/epidemiological-economic-research-data.html
[34] https://mcmasterhealthlabs.ca/pdf/MHL%2 ... Tr6W2NgSCw
[35] https://financialpost.com/opinion/2020- ... he-science
[36] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/o/2020/opioid-mortality-covid-surveillance-report.pdf?la=en
submitted by SamadKadri to LockdownSkepticism [link] [comments]

[Barterverse] Wealth of Planets 9: Consent of the Governed

RoyalRoad
Index
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Zakabara Prime
Pohanadas was a forebird at a sulfur mine when humanity arrived. When they introduced their credits and new economic innovations to the galaxy, she was one of the many skilled workers recruited into the newly formed University of Zakabara Prime.
There, she studied many things, from reading and writing, to the industrial mining innovations that Earth had provided, to the scientific method and its history that provided context.
From the GalacticNet, she also read a great many things. There were so many new ideas, so alien to her thoughts and societal upbringing. For example, there were those intoxicating ideas of democracy and freedom. The government banned these ideas, as much as any idea could be "banned", but there was simply too much information for them to regulate effectively all at once when the floodgates opened.
Unlike many others in her trade, Pohanadas did not inherit her position in mining as a family business; she had worked hard for it, sweat and blood and all. She understood the allure of a system where people earned power instead of being born into them.
Pohanadas joined an underground group of other similarly minded Zakabarans. They started a reading club for government banned literature.
They called themselves The Students.
Zakabara Prime-Second Border
"It's a Bohor trade ship," the sensor officer said, "they're not responding. Their radio might be broken."
"Could be spies or the start of an invasion," the commander sneered while peering at the screen, clearly not believing in his own invented lie for even a second, "they deserve no mercy for trading with the rebellious Seconders, fire!"
Planetary Palace, Zakabara Prime
"One of our ships just shot down a Bohor trader. We counted six civilians on board in the wreckage," Canouah reported.
"Did they pass the midpoint line into our territorial space?" Popptaw asked, more as a curiosity than expecting an answer that would actually change her mind on the indifference she felt about their deaths.
"Yes. Our crew said that their radio was off, and they were not responding to hails. We did not fire the customary warning shot or further attempt to get the other ship to divert course," Canouah sighed, "should we express our regret at the incident to the Bohors and let them know that we are investigating the incident?"
"Investigate? Our own people?" Popptaw said incredulously, "what's next, we beg for forgiveness? No, it's their own fault for landing on the traitor planet! They caused this incident! Tell the galaxy to stay away from Second!"
"Wouldn't that aggravate the humans and encourage them to invade us?"
Popptaw assured him, "no, they don't have the claws to do that. They know that if they attack us now, they'll face a long and hard battle, and the other species in the galaxy won't side with them. Their whole Galactic Union will be revealed as a farce, and they'll lose far more than they gain."
McDonald's, Zakabara Second Location
Things were much better now.
Mollikutta sat down at a high bench, savoring her delicious apple pie. Over the past few months, Earth's companies had moved aggressively onto Second. She suspected that human authorities may have something to do with it. They were encouraging corporations to invest in her planet with something called "tax credits", whatever that was.
The best part was she no longer had to avoid her people or go out in public with an armed guard at all times. After all, she was now the rightful leader of Second. There were real elections to be scheduled in a few months, but she'd win those easily with the popularity she gained with lifting the blockade.
Popptaw's downright idiotic ban on out-of-system goods worked in her favor too. Earth goods were suddenly flowing into the system through the Galactic Union enforced free trade zone over Second. Some of them went right into her factories, got repackaged, and then sent to Prime.
It was the oldest tariff evasion trick in the history of protectionism. American carmakers often imported vehicles that were mostly completed from developing nations, assembled a final few parts onto it, and then sold them as Made in the USA. British merchants did the same thing to spice imports during the 19th century, when they didn't just resort to smuggling. Ancient Athenian boaters used it to evade grain tariffs.
All these Zakabaran sales bans and tariffs did was to funnel all out of systems goods to Second, which mysteriously made their way to Prime spaceports anyway. This was great for Second businesses. Less good for Prime.
As she ate, Mollikutta felt a warm presence sidle up right next to her. It was the human again. She'd actually grown to like him the last few months. He was polite, professional, and he never made any unreasonable requests of her, even if he did save her life and job.
"How's the pie, Governor?" Mark asked, amused. He'd actually ordered a meal here too. Usually, he didn't like spending that much time out in public, but the governor was friendly and the people of Second loved humans. Besides, he was hungry.
"Delicious," she replied in between bites, "might be one of your people's best food exports."
"I heard they're actually growing the apples in greenhouses on Second now," he corrected casually as he bit into his sandwich.
It was a small, friendly reminder of the prosperity that humanity was bringing to her planet.
"Yes, many of the ingredients are now homegrown," Mollikutta affirmed, "and we appreciate the collaboration between our peoples. Don't think we've forgotten that."
"Oh I wasn't implying anything of that nature," Mark smiled, "but speaking of collaboration, we're interested in starting another new business on Second."
"New business? For you?" she snuck a glance at him, surprised. Usually, bureaucrats handled these kinds of mundane requests, not the guy who they sent to topple regimes and assassinate enemies of the state. Maybe Mark was thinking of retirement? She did hear that some people in his line of work did try to make a small profit to feed their nest eggs…
"Not me, my people. It'll be another joint venture again. Kind of like this fast food restaurant. This time though, we'll need many birds who can read and write," Mark started listing his requirements.
"Like students from the Institute?" she asked.
"Some of them, maybe even the teachers," he said, "and we need some construction workers to get involved."
Teachers and construction workers? She couldn't recall a business that required people like that. Maybe a new school? But that doesn't make money or make sense for humans. "What is this business, exactly?" she asked, curiously.
"Have you ever heard of a radio station?"
Underground Students Meeting, Zakabara Prime
The Students at first read relatively harmless works. Several human literature pieces had been banned for no apparent reason at all. They portrayed comedy, tragedy, love, life, and all the beautiful and ugly things in life. Many of these themes appeared perfectly normal to Zakabarans. It seemed like humans weren't that alien after all.
Then, some of the more daring Students started introducing slightly more dangerous works. Some more political content here and there. After all, politics by itself is nothing more than the affairs that concern the city and its people. They read philosophy, eastern and western. Confucius and Plato. The duty of citizens to their leaders, and the equally sacred responsibility that the government had in protecting its people and enabling their prosperity.
And that's when everything changed.
"It says here that 'people are by nature, all free and equal and independent, and no one should be subjected to the political power of another without consent.' What a world that would be!" exclaimed Pohanadas, quoting a translated work of Locke.
The other Students agreed. They read more. Hobbes, Rousseau, Ho Chi Minh.
Then, some of them started to discuss their own government in the context of these books.
"Revolt is the right of the people," Shikoba declared one day. She was another popular leader of The Student organization. Today, she had gone back to quoting more Locke and explained, "the reason our planet has fallen behind the humans and other galactic powers is simply because our government is incompetent."
There were some murmurs, mostly in agreement. Everyone knew that the way Zakabara Prime ran things was not good. They had read dozens if not hundreds of works on governance, and Popptaw was just not a good leader by any of the metrics proposed in the books. They all joked that Shikoba would make a much better leader.
"The Seconders' declaration of independence in the Galactic Union today proves that this right is not exclusive to humans," Pohanadas agreed, "we deserve the same chance at freedom and a competent governor as all sentient beings do!"
What had started out as a book club started to grow into something more. As more people joined The Students, their membership ballooned beyond a mere college club. Workers, laborers and professionals, seeing their friends and peers in it, began to trickle, then flood in.
There were too many for a single meeting for all. They formed different charters and branches. The radios that are now being mass-produced were now being used to transmit some dangerous ideas about how things really were.
While she waged a cold war against the invaders from Earth in space, an underground society that was friendly to the values of their enemies was forming right under Popptaw's beak on Zakabara Prime.
Bookstore 28, Zakabara Second
Rehhuna watched as the alien entered her store. She didn't have anything against the alien traders. But as any prudent shopkeeper knows, you have to keep a close eye on them just in case.
Then, she recalled a picture from one of her books. It was a human! In the flesh!
"Hello, how may I help you?" she called out courteously. Rehhuna knew that the humans were the master of business. If they liked her bookshop, she was sure she'd get a lot of sales in the future.
"Hi Rehhuna," he greeted her, glancing around. She was confused how he knew her name, but he continued, "I'm Mark. You have an amazing shop here. So many good books. And it just smells… right."
Rehhuna blushed hard at the compliments. She replied proudly, "indeed! We have a large section of popular human books." She pointed at the shelf, then giggled and waggled her eyebrows mockingly, "many of them are even banned by the Popptaw regime!"
Popptaw's bans on books have been thoroughly ignored on Second after they declared independence. The bans effectively increased their prestige, and many Seconders owned one of those or another to show off their patriotism.
"I saw. Those are my favorite, but I might need to come back and check out one written about early Zakabaran developments in flight controls" Mark nodded, "I brought a few old human books with me that you don't have yet. I think you might like them."
New human books?! And she thought she was having a good day just a minute ago…
"What kind of books?" Rehhuna squealed. "Are they more human philosophy?"
"Some of them are," he said, bringing out stacks of them from his backpack onto the counter. They'd been translated. She read the titles off their well-painted covers. The Wealth of Nations. Common Sense. Infantry Attacks by Erwin Rommel. The Updated Anarchist Cookbook.
"Wow," she exclaimed almost breathlessly. She'd heard of some of these books, but nobody had translated them for printing yet. These must be worth their weight in gold. She asked hesitantly, "so how many credits are these going to cost me?"
"They're free," Mark replied breezily, "all yours now! And you can print as many copies of them as you like. Have a good day!"
Then he walked out the exit.
Wait, what?
After a few confused seconds, she picked up her phone while cradling her new babies, "hello! Get me print shop number four right away please!"
Zakabara Second Spaceport
Zoron didn't usually take on cargo deliveries, but this was different. The people who gave her the cargo transferred an obscene number of credits to her name before they even loaded it onto her ship.
It was some Bohor merchant who she didn't recognize. She looked him up on Traders Only. He had a private profile, and apparently no electronic history whatsoever. That was kind of a red flag, but she overlooked it. The massive amount of money he'd given her would make a sizable dent into her dream home fund. A middle-class single family home in Seattle she'd had her eyes on since her prolonged stay on Earth.
By this point, she could probably afford the down payment on a mortgage, but as all honest non-human merchants knew, debts are a scam. The humans kept trying to convince her otherwise, but her fuel hedging contract was where she drew the line on their craziness.
That was different. Fuel hedging just meant she got the same price for fuel every time she parked at Earth. Even if she might miss out on extra profits if the fuel was cheaper, it was more stable. And it would help her out in case the fuel prices rose. Reducing risk is good for long term business, after all.
This cargo delivery, however, was all sorts of mystery. The Bohor trader had told her to not open the massive crates under any circumstances. Which made her want to open it that much more.
Then again, he paid a lot of credits. Her sensibility got the better of her curiosity. She was an honest merchant, and who cared what was in it.
She was supposed to get to Second, and then wait for a local bird…
"Hello, anyone home?" said a bird poking her head into her spaceship cargo.
"Hey, I'm here. What's your name?" Zoron asked.
"Contra," the parrot replied. It was the right codename, so she allowed access to her hold for the mysterious crates. The bird carefully cracked one open, and a stack of white bricks fell out.
One of the bricks spilled a bunch of equally white powder onto the floor.
"Ah shoot," the clumsy bird swore as she tried to clean up the mess with her wings.
"It's fine! I'll get it," Zoron said.
"Contra" looked at her suspiciously but allowed her to vacuum up the powder. It kicked up a dry, sweet smell that reminded Zoron of burnt cane sugar. The bird finished inspecting the contents of the crate to ensure that they were all there, minus a small pile of powder.
As she was leaving, Contra warned her, "do not eat or inhale the powder! It's uh… very toxic. Make sure to clean off any residue left with clean water if you can."
A team of workers came by and loaded the containers onto their convoy of heavy forklifts, and she watched them drive them towards the direction of a covered hangar.
I wonder what that was all about, Zoron wondered.
Market 38, Zakabara Prime
Popptaw was shopping for delicious honey at the market. Yes, it was a product from Earth, but she didn't feel too bad about it. After all, the rules were for the peasants, not for her.
Besides, this honey was technically repackaged on Zakabara Second. The humans sent them in large gallons to a repackaging facility there, where they would be filled into jars, also imported from Earth. While Second was no longer abiding by their rules, they were still technically a part of Zakabara and therefore exempt from these rules.
These import ban circumvention measures made Popptaw very unhappy, but she kept quiet about the few items that she wanted and simply raised taxes on the rest.
Today, she noticed one of the honey vendors was handing out some booklets to her customers. She ambled over and asked, "what were those papers you were handing out?"
"Oh, it's nothing," the merchant said evasively, "just some light reading material."
Popptaw narrowed her eyes. It was never nothing. "Let me see."
Reluctantly, the vendor took one of the pamphlets out and laid them on her booth table. Popptaw snatched one away from her and started to read its contents.
It was promoting quotes and passages from some book named The Wealth of Nations. She racked her brain to think what back to where she remembered that from. Then it hit her. This was one of the most dangerous human texts banned by her decree!
"Arrest her and confiscate her goods!" she said imperiously to one of her guards. They stepped up to grab the poor merchant, who started sobbing her innocence. "We'll see how much you like distributing enemy propaganda after a few lashes of the whip and getting your wings clipped!"
She'd make an example out of this stupid bird. That ought to stop anyone else from getting any silly ideas.
Radio 3764 R, Zakabara
"Today, we've got some more tragic news from Prime Capital. The barbaric practice of clipping the wings of people who disagree with Popptaw has been going on for years, but the frequency has really stepped up on Prime in the past few months. We've got another 4 reports just the past couple days."
"The weakest charge so far is the one of a honey merchant named Corrun, who was merely handing out pamphlets questioning the pointless protectionist policies of the Popptaw regime. Our hearts and prayers go out to her at Prison 2-9-2."
"When the sun rises over Zakabara Prime and dawn comes for her people, Popptaw's crimes will be exposed to all Zakabarans, and together, we can be one people. United again in our heritage and our freedom."
"You've been listening to Radio Free Zakabara," the speaker said, signing off with their slogan, "broadcasting Free Media to Unfree Planets."
Underground Students Meeting, Zakabara Prime
The bird with her ear to the radio silenced the room. "Shhh they've got another one."
The Students all looked expectantly at her as she listened carefully. One of them took out a piece of paper in case he needed to jot down notes.
"Ok, write this down: weakest. Corrun. Prison 2-9-2. Dawn."
Two days later, they snuck two birds into the prison with a wire cutter during the shift change at dawn.
Like the radio told them, it wasn't very well guarded.
Elementary School 1, Zakabara Second
Mollikutta watched as her daughter played with several of the other kids her age in the playground. Most of them were Zakabarans, but there were a few aliens who were now sending their offspring to the increasingly prestigious school that Second now had. They even had a human couple move into their city a while, and everyone was speculating about where their future kids were going to get educated.
"Hello, Governor," Mark said from right next to her. This time, she didn't see him coming at all. Her species is known for their laser sharp vision, useful for tracking prey, not for peripheral situational awareness.
At least she'd had enough experience working with him to not jump when he snuck up on her. She suspected he did it on purpose.
"Hey, Mark," she said, then asked to throw him off balance, "do you have children?"
"No," he answered after a while, not expecting the question. "I'm waiting until I get a little older."
"You're old enough they send you on these dangerous missions to other planets," Mollikutta winked theatrically. "I can introduce you to some pretty birds I know."
"Thanks, but I don't think that's how that works," Mark laughed, "why the sudden interest in my life?"
"I don't know. I guess I don't know what I'd fight for if not for her" she said, pointing at her daughter with her wing. Changing the subject, she asked, "anyway, why did you come here? Is the radio station going okay?"
"Oh yeah, the radio station is going great," Mark reported, "judging by the reports of radio sales on Prime, we're getting many new listeners."
"Prime? I thought the radios are for our people," she asked.
"They are, but they also reach Prime," he said nonchalantly, "it's important to educate your people, and if Primers get a listen too, that's not a big deal. Their people aren't your enemy forever, right?"
"True," she agreed, "eventually the will of the people will prevail on Prime, just as they have here on Second." She left out the part about how the will of the people of Second were at one point mere hours away from lynching her.
"We do have something else we want for your people to import more of into Prime though, other than pamphlets and messages," he continued.
"What is it?" Mollikutta asked.
Mark thought about lying to her for a second, but decided to answer honestly, "drugs."
"Drugs? Like medicine?" she asked, confused. Why would Mark want to send medicine to their rival?
He chuckled a little before giving an answer, "not exactly medicine. It's a somewhat addictive substance called cocaine. We think we can hook Prime soldiers onto it. I'm just warning you ahead of time not to let your people sample it when we transfer them through."
"I see. What does this substance do to birds?"
"It makes them very happy for a while, until it doesn't. More importantly, it'll make us a lot of money. Which we'll need for something else," Mark explained. He didn't bother to hold back. It wasn't like the Governor was going to go running to Congress and explain to them how they were funding their entire outfit off the books.
Mollikutta wasn't sure of the implications of this but agreed anyway. Her people were going to take a slice of the profits of sales, and they would be fine as long as they didn't taste the product. If that brought in profits, it would be good for her planet, right?
"One last thing," Mark said, "spaceport fifty-two."
"Spaceport fifty-two?" she asked. That was a vague request. It was one of the remote spaceports on the dark side of the planet that was only occasionally used for surplus mineral exports. "Do you need it for some landing pads to bring in your goods?"
"We think we're going to need it soon for some other operation," Mark requested, "the entire spaceport."
The entire spaceport?! That's a lot of volume. Are they starting some new corporation on Second that she wasn't aware of? No matter. It was just a spaceport, and the humans always brought profits.
"Ok, we can start redirecting its regular traffic to nearby spaceports," she planned, "I'll have my office work with your people. Anything else?"
"Nope," Mark said. Then he advised, "you should really make sure to diversify your investments. This whole tariff-circumvention thing is great for Second right now, but I wouldn't count on it lasting forever. Maybe try financial services. Your people are good with numbers, right?"
Galactic Union HQ
"You must do something about those Zakabaran outlaws, Secretary General Wilson" said Meeps, the Bohor ambassador. She added angrily, "you have all those armed ships! Use them!"
Amanda couldn't argue too hard because she was entirely in agreement with Meeps, but there was simply not the political will or legal justification to start a war over it.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Ambassador. I truly am. But I'm afraid we can't just start an invasion of Zakabara Prime over what may be an accident," she said, "we'll do a thorough and independent investigation into the matter-"
"My people are tired of those arrogant chickens!" Meeps interrupted. "You guys don't know what it was like in the galaxy before you came around. They were almost as bad as the frogheads."
Amanda was fully aware of the history of bad blood between the Zakabarans and their neighbors. They traded so much surplus food that they ended up using it to bully other planets like Bohor. Furthermore, she was aware that Meeps was drawing this comparison to the Ribbiths to goad her into agreeing.
"We're really trying our best, Meeps," she explained, "but a bungled invasion would destroy our credibility. And we can't just punish them for things they used to do."
"What about just a retaliatory strike?" Meeps bargained. "Blow up a few of their traders. See how they like that! I know you humans use a similar policy instead of war. What's that phrase you use again?"
"Proportional response," Amanda replied automatically, "but we don't use that against civilians. That's against galactic law now, too. It's not an option here."
"You need to do something!" the otter faced alien declared. "We send hundreds of our young pups to Earth to train for war, so that our traders can be safe. Our people demand a response!"
"Like I said, Ambassador Meeps, we're going to thoroughly investigate this incident," Amanda promised, "our people have a long memory. You've seen the Ribbith war crime trials. Your people will get the justice they deserved."
As Meeps hung up, Amanda breathed a sigh of relief.
They were doing something, but she couldn't just tell the Bohors that on the phone.
Planetary Palace, Zakabara Prime
The Fifth of November passed mostly uneventfully on Earth.
On Zakabara Prime, it was anything but. Encouraged by the recent events and the significance of the day in Earth's history, Shikoba, Pohanadas, and The Students had called for widespread protests for political reform in the government demanding elections be held.
At first, it was peaceful. Protesters lined the streets, far more than any of the Students imagined possible. They chanted slogans, waved signs, and Student leaders gave speeches about the progression of civilization and the inevitable rise of freedom and self-rule.
Then, as it seems to always go, it got ugly. Internal security troops poorly trained at riot control used batons and big shields to beat back the protesters who were attempting to get to important government buildings to have their voices heard. The rioters threw rocks and rotten fruit.
"There are too many people protesting to arrest them all," Canouah insisted. This was not his first riot, but this was the first one where the people on the streets espoused a unified ideology and had a singular demand. It was absolutely terrifying. He suggested, "we can try to wait them out or-"
"Or we can just give them what they want!" Popptaw sneered sarcastically, "we didn't hold on to power this long by caving in to the whims of the masses. Shoot a few, and if they don't go home, we'll kill a few more until they get the message!"
By the end of the night, the protesters had gone home. With them, they carried the bodies of dozens of their comrades who had been shot.
That last event should really have been the final red flag for Popptaw and her regime. An angry mob doesn't retrieve their fallen; that's what an organized military does.
She ignored it, like she did the hundred other red flags before it.
???, Zakabara Prime-Second Border
"Mark" read off the report of the latest civilian trade ship shoot-down incident. The names of the pilot and crew. The families they leave behind.
Then he began to read the casualty summary reports from the latest Prime protest turned violent.
Sometimes even the people who lived and died without recognition other than an unnamed star on a wall needed some extra motivation too.
"This is what we're dealing with. And I've just got word from homebase: Operation Galewind is a go."
Zakabara Prime
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable," one famous Earth President had said. And when the protesters went home with tears in their eyes and daggers in their hearts, they didn't need to read Kennedy quotes to understand his meaning.
Several other local protests were brutally suppressed. Those protesters went home too. Popptaw declared victory for the government. Triumph of the Zakabaran spirit, she called it. Nobody was listening anymore.
The revolt started in a newly industrialized lumber mill, of all places. A government tax collector and six security troops were ambushed by a small group of workers who had several of their friends killed in the protests.
Wielding simple iron tools, they easily killed all seven of Popptaw's people. Then, taking the soldiers' weapons, they prepared to hold their lumber mill.
"They have some demands for us," a Lord of internal security reported to her.
"Demands?!" Popptaw beak almost dropped to the floor. That was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard..
"Yeah, they want clemency for themselves and justice for the workers we killed-" he started to reply.
"Justice?" she nearly choked on those words, "we'll show them what justice looks like on Zakabara Prime. We aren't like those weak birds on Second who cave in to dangerous mobs!"
That afternoon, an entire platoon of security forces came back to the lumber mill and massacred every last one of the workers, under orders not to let the news of the insurrection spread.
And like every one of her failed policies and bad decisions over the last few years, the most obviously predictable thing happened:
It spread.
If anyone needs a good visualization of what Popptaw looks like, imagine a parrot but with the surprised Pikachu image frozen permanently into her facial expression to convey shocked outrage every time one of her bad ideas immediately results in its most likely outcome.
Also, if we were being realistic here, the CIA would be an equal opportunity coke dealer. They would probably sell to any alien they could get their hands on, instead of just Prime. But there is a certain poetic irony in having your enemies fund your operations against them, so this is more fun.
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Galactic Economics 3: The Unbanked

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Not all traders were taking Galactic Credits.
That was consistently a problem whenever cards and virtual currencies replaced cash in human society.
In tech business terms, this is called adoption.
In financial terms, there's a slightly fancier name for the people who didn't have an account: the unbanked. In modern banking, it is sometimes used as a more politically correct synonym for "poor".
Unfortunately for Galactic Credits, adoption was low, and the unbanked were the vast majority of traders.
In a human financial system, the way that banks solved this problem eventually was through incentives. Other than simply being convenient, credit cards were exclusive and gave off a feel of luxury. It made people feel richer than they are. But what really drove adoption over the edge was spamming them to everyone through the mail and promising they'd get discounts and money for using them.
Also unfortunately for Galactic Credits, the alien traders that used it didn't feel luxurious and rich. Instead, they had a sneaking suspicion that they were being ripped off by the humans. They just weren't sure how.
Some, like Zikzik, saw the convenience benefits, but the galactic aversion to debt and taboo of anything more advanced than a barter system counterbalanced with their innate businessbeings' need for efficiency.
Sarah had no idea why. All she knew was that only a quarter of the traders coming in were open to using Galactic Credits, and new traders were coming in every day. She can't go down to the spaceport, set up a booth, and try to talk every new merchant into ignoring all their financial instincts to adopt GCs!
This was unsustainable.
It was time to get an expert. They needed someone who could help resolve the problem and get more traders on board.
She'd found him on social media.
Dr. Max Stearns had struck it rich working at an early fin-tech startup, got bought out by Bank of America, and then retired at 35. He came out of retirement to teach graduate level Economics classes at a local college, and then somehow fumbled his way into a Professor position. Darn it, he was just here to not be bored out of his mind, not get a second wind in his career as an academic at age 50!
For a profession that was increasingly favoring non-tenured instructors over professors, it was a testament to how much they wanted to keep him there. It turns out he was almost as good at explaining things to students as he was at designing financial systems.
So, when Sarah, who was most definitely not a student though she could probably pass as one if she wanted to, came to his predictably empty office hours, he thought maybe she was lost. After the initial confusion, apology, and introduction, Sarah started explaining her problem.
In short, aliens have an extreme reluctance to adopt credits, blah blah blah.
Normally, Stearns was thinking, people would be charging for this. But like all nerds who know a good problem when they see one, he couldn't resist tackling it. He was nerd-sniped.
"You actually have two problems," he began, "first, your system isn't worthy of trust. Your company is non-sustainable and everyone knows it. The other human traders bought into it because they know they wouldn't risk much by doing it. As you can see in these charts you're showing me, they're immediately converting their GCs back into cash. And when they want credits because they've agreed generally to use it, they come back to you, buy GCs with cash, and then immediately use them on the traders."
"The human traders are well aware of your position, but they're temporarily using the system because it is far, far more convenient than barter. Unfortunately, the alien traders don't have that intuition. You're being kept afloat now by selling and trading goods, not by your business of being a financial firm," Stearns continued.
"I've thought about starting to charge the other human traders a fee to keep the business sustainable," Sarah explained, "but wouldn't that drive them away?"
"No. In fact, judging by what you're saying because the transaction costs of bartering is so high, the benefits the human side derives would keep them there even if you charged what would normally be considered absurdly high fees. This is one of those very few cases where charging people money might actually make them more likely to use your business!" Stearns replied. Then, he made a rough waving gesture with his hands. "I need to see more details and there needs to be an iterative process to build a model, but I suspect you would keep almost all of your human traders even if you charged a fee as high as about 20% for each transaction."
"Twenty percent!" Sarah yelped, "that sounds like an exorbitant fee! Wouldn't they just start another currency system?"
"Hah, it's an estimate, and you probably don't have room to lose any human trader right now. But no, they can't replace you. They'll face the exact same problems you face now. If they try to replace you, they'll also have to deal with the fact that they've just discredited your credits system. In fact, the aliens will probably trust them even less."
"Ok, I'll think about adding a fee structure for the humans," Sarah said thoughtfully, "what was the other problem you were going to mention?"
"Your second problem is actually an opportunity. Every functional economic system is a system of incentives and disincentives. The only incentive you're giving the aliens to switch to your credits is one they clearly don't understand. You need to provide incentives they do understand. Or, in this case, maybe disincentives if they don't switch."
"Like what? Get the spaceport to ban them from trading if they don't recognize GC?" Sarah asked.
"Nothing that extreme. And if you did that, I suspect they would simply meet up in orbit and exchange goods there. Without money, it won't be efficient for them, but for some, it would be an acceptable alternative. No, you'd need to provide them a more soft touch but clear disincentive that they understand when trading without GCs to drive them away from barter."
"Can you give me an example?" Sarah asked.
"Ah this is where I normally start charging an hourly consulting fee," Stearns smiled but made a dismissive wave as Sarah began the motion of pulling out a wallet, "but I think I'd rather have a stake in this. A bit of your company and the opportunity to go into space and see what I suspect is about to happen there if your little venture succeeds. Think about it, and let me know."
"I'll be in my office."
Sarah and Jen split the company evenly four ways: one for each of them, one for Benny and Junior combined, and one for Stearns. It was incredibly generous, they knew. Normally, the first few startup employees would get up to one or two percent of the firm, but this was a financial company without anyone with financial experience, and they'd owe it to Benny that they'd gotten their start.
After all, it didn't matter how big their portion of the pie was, if the pie was zero. And that's what their pie was right now: a big fat zero. It didn't make any money; it facilitated some of their food trades and ensured they got more profits there, sure, but it required them to be constantly recruiting and cutting into their time actually selling stuff to the aliens.
Sarah was sure that it was only a matter of time before a big bank caught wind of this and simply put them out of business. The only advantage GC had was they started first. Stearns had said that the first mover was an edge, yes, but they'd be nuts if they were gonna just rest on their laurels and depend on it.
They needed Stearns, and from their meeting, he seemed genuinely interested in helping them grow the enterprise. He had seemed to be surprised to be offered that much stake in the company, but the women both agreed that all they had so far was a good idea, which was worth nothing without good execution.
If anyone could turn their novelty into a business, Dr. Stearns was their guy.
And if him giving notice to his employers that it was going to be his last quarter at the college a week later was any indication, it was generous enough.
The first thing Stearns did was institute a human merchant transaction fee as he had suggested.
Except in very rare circumstances, most payment networks used by humanity charged a fee. In the US, this was around 1-3%.
In countries where networks are growing, the percentage is lower to encourage growth.
In countries where networks have high transaction costs, the percentage is higher to reflect costs. Having to barter was the ultimate transaction cost.
At Galactic Credits, they charged 8%. This was an extraordinarily high fee, calculated using careful models, but the alternative was literally bartering, which all the human have agreed by now is just plain dumb.
So, they grumbled at the fee, but not a single human trader got off the network.
They used this newfound income and the allure of the stars to poach the branch manager and several of his employees at the BoA office next doors, and put them to work selling the idea of cards and currency to the aliens.
As time went on, they noticed that more and more human traders were beginning to specialize. It used to be they all bought and sold. Now, some were only buying, or only selling. As Stearns had predicted it would, behavior started to change.
The aliens saw that more humans were now coming to the spaceport with only a card and driving away with goods, or vice versa. It signified trust in the system. Some of them started signing up not intending to use it, but just to try to figure out what the humans were doing.
A few of the more daring ones even started asking about using credits to pay for their fuel at the spaceport facilities, which many of the human traders were happy to facilitate, for a fee.
Stearns put a stop to that pretty quickly when he learned about it. They just signed up the spaceport authorities for an account and cut out the middlemen.
Sarah and Jen also noticed that some human traders complained about the transaction fees to the alien traders in small talk.
For the alien businessbeings who saw trade as an adversarial relationship where the trader on the other side of the table was someone to be convinced or even defeated, the humans’ complaints actually increased trust in the Galactic Credits system.
After all, if Sarah was ripping the other guy off, maybe she’s not ripping me off so much.
Adoption among aliens reached half by the end of the week.
The second thing Stearns did was to start offering incentives for the aliens to sign up, or rather he made it uncomfortable for them not to.
Normally in a payment system, the merchant eats the cost of each transaction. When you swipe your card at a point of sale terminal, you don't pay the fee, the merchant does. She may charge you more money to use a card, which is not supposed to be allowed, or she may just quietly up some of her prices, but that's another story.
In the Galactic Credits system, because all the transactions took place in the hands of a human, the human had to pay the cost of doing business on both sides, both when they were buying and selling goods. This was the target of a lot of the complaints from human traders, especially the increasing number of exclusive buyers.
This was where the incentive came in.
Human traders that agreed to only buy items from aliens that took galactic credits had their buy fees waived.
This incentive was supposed to be enough to drive business towards the alien traders taking credits at the expense of the others, but not enough to force humans who exclusively sold items (fruit truckers like Benny) to become exclusive buyers to avoid fees. After all, the fee was 8% but this was a gold mine. Everyone was making exorbitant profits from the aliens.
Moreover, Stearns wanted the complaints to change. The human traders could still complain, but he wanted them to complain about something else.
He reasoned that businessbeings that were part of a standardized galactic trade network instinctively understood the value of institutions. An institution responsive to complaints is an institution good for business. This would logically drive up adoption.
Unexpectedly, this second reason did not even come into play. They would only much later learn why.
The incentives themselves, on the other hand, started to work…
Gorok belongs to a species that developed out of an ocean planet, called Ara. The R is silent.
Their civilization had started underwater, and after hundreds of thousands of years of development, the Arans managed to breach the surface of their ocean world and reach the stars using technology developed and refined in water.
To the casual human eye, they were humanoid robots, robotic feet and manipulators, with a head peeking out from an aquarium. Many traders called them "dolphinheads" behind their backs.
Because of how long it takes for an underwater species to develop anything, they often took a long view of things. The dolphinheads were an old species. They didn't mind taking things slow. Some might even call them patient.
In Sarah's view, they were just goddamn stubborn.
Gorok isn't a particularly obstinate member of her species, but the average of stubborn is still stubborn. It was annoying to have to deal with her, and a few of the human traders openly joked about punching her and her stupid fishbowl face if the security guards were not there.
Gorok does not trust these human Galactic Credits.
N'har is an unremarkable bipedal humanoid businessman. His planet, Yis'meh is known for incredibly beautiful and jarring landscapes, formed from active tectonic plate behavior and extreme weather patterns at high altitudes.
On the list of most interesting things on his planet, his species does not rank top 50.
Like most of the galaxy, he too had no concept of money, credit, or literally any economic system more complex than barter.
N'har does not trust these human Galactic Credits.
Scrulvi is from a species of six foot tall hedgehog-like quadrupeds called the Dlaivo.
They are born with incredibly hard shells, grow poisonous spikes on their back, and can gallop deceptively fast. Also, they breed very quickly. In the early days of their development, some combination of these factors was how they survived.
It was definitely not their brains. Most galactic species consider the Dlaivo to be the dumbest species to ever gain sentience and reach the stars. They survive in spite of their brains.
When they finally discovered FTL, predators on their home planet were actually still a major threat to their average resident because the Dlaivo had never found a solution to them. A neighboring species (the Bhaks) pitied them, decided to use their planet as a military training camp, and killed off all their natural predators for them over a couple of months of target practice exercises.
The Dlaivo thanked them profusely and never considered the possibility that they might be there to occupy and sell their people into slavery. Which, to their credit, the Bhaks did not do.
The Dlaivo were the butt of many village idiot jokes in the galactic community. For example, some would joke that the underwater Arans actually discovered how to make fire at an earlier point in their development than the Dlaivo.
Like other galactic beings, however, their prejudice against credits ran deep.
Scrulvi does not trust these human Galactic Credits.
Scrulvi trusted the humans, though. After all, Sarah and Jen had never cheated him. None of the human traders ever did. Sure, it seemed like they were giving the other traders better goods for their items, but the humans’ goods were very valuable, everyone could win, and Scrulvi almost always stumbled into one small profit or another anyway.
When Sarah offered to give him a credit account and to start trading with credits, he didn't understand, but Sarah is so nice! Surely, what she's offering can't be bad for him.
So Scrulvi stumbled into the greatest profit of his life when he was the only trader landed on the spaceport taking credits when Stearns’ incentives program got announced.
He offloaded all his sale items, filled his cargo hold with the highest quality fruit, all in record time, and with a fairly big chunk of change in his credits account.
He didn't know what to do with the credits, but maybe he can ask Sarah about that the next time he comes back to Earth… oh well.
N'har, the unremarkable, did not trust these credits, but he was seeing with his own six eyes what it's doing. For some reason, all the humans wanted to trade with the idiot Dlaivo next to him first.
Thinking about it, hah, they must be scamming him out of all his goods.
When Scrulvi took off half an hour later with a full hold, he was shocked. This must be some new scheme the humans are running with their new credits.
But when another Dlaiva (seriously, how did these morons even figure out how to operate spaceships?) took off ten minutes after she started taking credits, he was beginning to wonder.
Alright, maybe he was the mark, but he was burning to know what the trick was. The worst he has to lose is a little of his cargo, right? And whatever clever scam the humans thought up, maybe he could learn it and try it on someone else later.
He beckoned Sarah over, got a credits account, and took off half an hour later with a full hold of fruit and some leftovers in his credits account.
Must be a long con.
Gorok did not fill her hold that day. She watched angrily as the other traders around her all offloaded their goods and filled their cargo with fresh fruit.
One after another took off.
She refused to take credits from this Sarah human.
It was silly. It's just all numbers on a viewscreen.
She was a trader. She traded goods, for goods.
That's how it's done. That's how it's always been done. And that's how it'll always be done.
Eventually, the other traders in orbit complained that she was occupying the landing pad for far too long. She was forced to leave Earth without conducting a single sale or transaction.
After this trip, Gorok did not make many sales. Dwindling profits meant that she was forced to trade her ship in for a relatively small underwater plot near where she grew up. She built a beautiful home, had many little Arans, and lived happily ever after.
Not everyone was built for the offworld trading life.
They quit the fruit business. That was a side hustle that built up capital for them initially. What Galactic Credit had now was a bustling bank business that no longer needed that extra profit on the side to sustain their business model. And they didn’t want to remain in competition against their customers.
Benny Jr and Jen had done a little side project on a jailbroken Bohor air filter, and found that with a little tweaking, they could have the air filters intake the aerosolized oxides of carbon clogging up the atmosphere and forge them into beautiful pure diamonds.
They were selling that on the side for now, purely because of how profitable it was, but it was likely once everyone else figured that out, the artificial diamonds flooding the market would force a commodity crash, like gold had when alien gold flooded Earth's markets. There were rumors that the De Beers diamond monopoly company was buying up numerous Bohor air filters from the newly opened Johannesburg spaceport in South Africa.
Other than that, the fees were more than covering all their cost of doing business. The lawyers, the accountants, the servers, and a sizable salary for every founding employee.
Over the alien trader booths, more and more traders started putting up the signs that said, "I ❤️ GC”. Sarah was especially proud of those signs. They were given to traders who would take GC for all transactions to signal to humans that they were open for business.
By now, this was most of them.
Some new traders would occasionally come down and not have an account. They would quickly get an account and one of the GC signs, or rarely, they would refuse and be asked to leave by other traders waiting in line in orbit.
As it turns out, peer pressure was often just as powerful an economic force as a market incentive.
Getting the alien FTL comms tech from a bunch of technical drawings to interface with the Galactic Credits site was not easy, but Jen and her team of engineers had done it. They'd put together the first financial application on the GalacticNet, and to go with it, the first offworld point of sale system in the galaxy.
You can instantaneously access your credits account from one side of the galaxy to another. Several backup systems were also copied from existing human credit card systems, like offline transaction storage and carbon copy card sales slips.
After the traders' credits cards were upgraded to chip cards, Galactic Credits were rapidly becoming indistinguishable from any other payment systems on Earth.
As a result of the aliens' consumer economies being restricted in scale by barter, their GalacticNet was used much like the human Internet was in its early days: for academic, governmental, or military use.
Much of the traffic was for big picture information exchange. What passed through the FTL comms were big news headlines, research data, emergency calls for help…etc. Without widespread consumer goods in most societies, there were no personal computers, tablets, and phones.
It's not that aliens couldn't produce those goods; in fact, their electronics were in some ways much more advanced than human ones, but few people had them. They were produced in big batches, and then bartered off one by one to people with goods that electronics makers had.
The first consumer apps on the GalacticNet were made by humans because the first consumers on the GalacticNet were humans. And like the academics who watched normies flood the Internet in its early days, the existing users on the GalacticNet were filled with fascination, mixed with a noticeable trace of horror, as the residents of Earth began to flood the GalacticNet with porn, social media, games, businesses, and more porn.
At first, it was lonely. The GalacticNet wasn't much different from the Internet, plus a few brave aliens who would venture to upload videos introducing themselves to the masses of Earth.
Not to be left behind, some other civilizations started buying consumer electronics from Earth traders and handed them out to their people. And what started as a lonely project was starting to make the galaxy a closer, more connected place.
What the residents of Earth saw was definitely not what they expected.
As Sarah learned more about the way the galaxy worked, the more she felt bad for the aliens. From what she heard from the traders, saying that life sucked outside of Earth was an understatement.
There were always shortages. Not enough things were always being produced, so beings had to share things that shouldn't be shared. Most beings lived in absolute squalor.
The tiny percent of traders that she'd interacted with are supposedly some of the richest beings to have ever existed in the galaxy, and yet they still sometimes have trouble upgrading their ships, finding supplies or maintenance, or even just to buy a nest or house. They had few luxuries and quality of life goods.
"Without widespread usage of currency, economies are extremely limited. Bartering is so primitive by human standards, that there are some economic historians who say no barter economy has ever existed in human history because currency is so vital to any real economic activity that they have always gone together," Stearns had said.
Other economic experts on Earth have been predicting the same thing since the news of lack of money spread. She didn't believe it until she saw the footage on GalacticNet. Video of what the aliens considered to be normal life looked like ghettos, or even worse, disaster zones.
They had been able to make and acquire the ships and goods they had, through tens or hundreds of thousands of years of inheritance and hand-me-downs. They could create technological marvels beyond humanity's current means, but they could only do so with time. Lots and lots of time.
On a technological basis, they were collectively a bit further advanced than Earth. They could travel between the stars, cure cancer, and modify the atmosphere!
On a GDP or production per year basis, forget about industrialization. The galaxy hasn't even fully entered the feudal age.
This paradox shocked humans to their core.
For Sarah: At first Galactic Credits was a project to make money off aliens. At some point, it started being a project to make aliens smarter, to make them understand money, so it was easier to make money off them. And now, she could only see a path forward for it as a charity or some kind of galactic advancement project.
The galaxy needed help — now.
Galactic Credits was about to hold the galaxy's hands through a speed run of the last three millennia of human economic development.
A couple months after Stearns started making changes, the whole company drove down to the spaceport.
As Sarah and co reached the trader booths, they noticed a mix of human and alien traders chatting and joking around.
"Oh how about this one. What's the easiest way to become a millionaire?" Asked a human trader, with one of the oldest money jokes in the book. After a pause where the other human traders respectfully didn't ruin his joke, he delivered the punchline, "you start as a billionaire and let your son go shopping with your credit card harharhar."
The humans grinned and the aliens made their approximations of laughter.
"Hey it's Sarah and Jen! Speak of credits and cards, and here she comes!" Zarko said as he noticed them approaching.
"Hey-o Zarko, here's Dr. Stearns. Dr. Stearns, Zarko," Sarah introduced the two, and they nodded at each other in the traditional universal greeting that's become commonplace on the spaceport.
"Ah! Dr. Stearns," said Oliver, a human trader, grinning, "I hope you're not here to increase our fees again."
"You better believe your fees are increasing. I know what you put in that OJ you sell. That much sugar isn't good for the poor alien children, you know?" replied Stearns, who could take it and hit back about as good as any boomer could.
The other traders pretended to look at Oliver scandalously. Hah, as if they weren't all pumping their goods full of additive sugars to get the aliens hooked.
"Speaking of orange juice, I was trying to offload two tons of it for some reactor fuel on Zakabara Prime, and unfortunately the exchanges there did not accept fruit juice as an acceptable trade item for reactor fuel. Guess I won't be taking my business there again," huffed Zarko.
The other traders nodded knowingly. Zakabara Prime rarely accepted food products in exchange. The Zakabarans were an incredibly protectionist planet that had many farmers who didn't like the incredible competition that Earth was bringing to the table.
"Actually, that's one of the things we came here to talk about," Stearns put on his serious face, "we're about to start making offworld Galactic Credits consoles available to the trading public, within a year. It would allow you beings to buy and sell from other traders from anywhere in the galaxy!"
By this point, many of the alien traders that had normally bartered or traded with each other would come to Earth to use the terminals that the human merchants had to conduct fractional transactions, for a processing fee from the humans, of course. There was a small but growing number of human traders that would come with just their tablets and process cargo for aliens for free all day.
Technically, this was rent seeking of the worst kind, but GC had not discouraged this type of behavior. For one, Earth was growing to be an increasingly popular destination for traders galaxy-wide. This was excellent for business, and it was cementing Earth as the trade goods and exchange center of the galaxy. All trade routes led to Sol.
For another, technically these processing merchants were providing a service, one that was only necessary because there was no offworld usage of credits.
Now, GC was about to put them all out of business.
The implications of this were not lost on the aliens. They didn't understand money, but they are not stupid.
Well, except the Dlaivo.
Those oversized hedgehogs are very stupid.
What the traders knew is that whatever the humans were doing with these credits on Earth was very profitable for the traders, and they no longer thought of credits as a scam or scheme, but rather an intricate new institution that was rapidly expanding.
Traders everywhere were whispering about Earth's new system. The idea of a currency was becoming less of a taboo. The pamphlets freely handed out at its spaceports certainly didn't hurt.
Skeptics were still coming down the gravity well to see how it all worked, and not all of them were convinced. But many lifted off with a full cargo of fresh fruit and a credits account…
If you could use human credits offworld, no one was really sure what could happen.
Not even the humans.
"Sounds good, where do I sign up?"
Sneak peek on themes for the next chapter:
This chapter was meant to be a natural stopping point for the first arc of the story. The next chapter gets a bit darker and deals with some pretty mature themes to set up the next arc. There's quite a bit of death, not due to war.
RoyalRoad
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Benevolent Evil (Chapter 19) Do Demons Dream of Black Sheep

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Start of the Book (First Chapter)
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Previous Chapter__//__Next Chapter
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Reglen had told me that demons sleep once a week. And now it seemed like that was one of a few things his sly mouth did not lie about.
Though, he never once mentioned their dreams were so lucid, vivid almost as much as the reality on its own. The sense of myself still as present as ever, every thought crystal clear.
Despite that, there was only silence, the calmness of my human mind that finally got its chance to rest.
My senses shut down, and the world that turned soundless for the first time since I arrived here—no more superhuman sight or hearing to inform me about every detail of my surroundings, to overwhelm my mortal soul.
The only darkness and light that now reached me were those of my own sapient dreams, accountable only to my inner self and whims of my imagination.
I exhaled, but there was no air present to obey my lungs, yet the familiar sensation of breathing coursed through my torso all the same. It felt so natural, so vital. Just as it once was, prior to the reincarnation, before cancer, before all of it.
Never in my life had I thought that I would be so pleased by the act of taking a single breath.
I looked down at my hands, and there was no more razor-sharp fingertips or dark-grayed skin.
Suddenly I felt my sanity reach back for me, my mental fortitude as strong as it once was. Absent was the craving for human blood, nor had I other instincts of my demonic nature trying to impede my reasoning. The thirst which I was subduing for so long, opting even to drink animal blood to ease it, was now washed away like drought by monsoon rains.
I was myself yet again in the way that mattered the most, freed from the invisible shackles the new body had imposed on my soul and mind alike.
It all seemed so clear, so right, now that human nature took its rightful place inside my psyche. I made a step forward; no stone crumbled beneath, nor did my feet sink into the soft soil. Just as I once remembered it.
A smile formed on my face, and I did not worry about hiding predatory teeth. Instead, I just stood there, delighted.
"Still, this is just a dream."-my reason reminded me. Acknowledging the simple truth I already knew.
But I inhaled as if none of that mattered, more than satisfied to enjoy the given respite, for a moment or two. Taking deep lung-filling breaths. Much like a marathon runner after finishing his race for the day.
I looked around, finally noticing the vast empty space, the white floor beneath my feet being the only solid thing I saw.
Further down, a wall of darkness -as if made of shadows- surrounding an island of light that contained me.
Yet above me shone the sun, like it was just a typical summer day around here. I even felt a gentle breeze on my cheeks, caressing the soft human skin.
"Hmm?! One would think--" I paused as I heard my own human voice instead of that deep demonic growl. A slight smile escaping my lips yet again.
"One would think..." -my train of thoughts continued- "I would have more imaginative dreams after what I have been through. Or maybe a nightmare?"
Far darker memories suddenly forming inside my mind. The brutality I had witnessed all too recently still pulled down onto my sanity.
The sight of a man bleeding profusely from his shredded neck and ruptured collarbone where his breastplate got punctured -myself feeling thirst rather than pity, hungering for the dark rich blood seeping from his torn arteries, my phantom heart lacking remorse or sorrow for his painful sobs and dying breath.
Cravings so opposite and abnormal to my true nature, sickening.
I remembered reading about soldiers or people who saw grievous things or suffered acts of such atrocious cruelty that they could not sleep without medication.
My shoulders getting heavy with every unwanted memory I gained in the last week. Every single one of them as if striving to prove it's the most horrid of them all.
Being burnt alive came very close, in my opinion... or at least should have.
The sensation of your skin turning liquid, the fading loss of sight in your eyes, the pain as the heat devoured parts of you like a starving beast—yourself inhaling the dust of holy metal that rips through your breath and phantom lungs alike.
It was something a natural human could never experience, as death would have saved him far sooner. Yet that demonic body made sure I had no such luck. Allowing me to survive the impossible by paying the price only those who were Deathless ever could.
For an immensely brief moment, I wasn't even sure if I ever wanted to wake up. What if I somehow got captured alive? What would they do to me then?
I could already imagine Inquisitors slicing me apart to harvest my body parts.
"They can fucking try!" -my grit for survival summarily dismissed such defeatist thoughts- "I ain't giving up!"
Dying never seems to be a problem in this world anyway; I've been here for just a week, and I practically already died twice. So there is not even a point in having any suicidal thoughts. It is living that fucking matters!
Yeah, I might be a dickless Demon and all that. But I am also Immortal. Fricking Deathless! No old age or fucking cancer can get me now. Never again will I be lying helpless in my bed, waiting for others to change my diapers.
And I honestly did find no small amount of comfort in that notion. Because there was nothing I hated more about cancer than that sense of self-pitifulness, the comprehension of how suddenly useless you are, a burden to your loved ones. Forcing them to sacrifice their time and energy to care for you while knowing very well you will die anyhow.
Every time my state deteriorated further, it felt like I was betraying them somehow. Mocking their tears and sacrifices made in a futile effort to make me into the man I once was.
Witnessing the sorrow my cancer-stricken state caused to my sister, the desperation in her face... it hurt. Morphine can win over the physical suffering, but nothing beats the pain the truth can give you.
The truth that I was betraying her hopes, the comprehension that she will never see me again because I failed to win against some mutated cells of my body that were now eating me from inside.
"Uhhh"-I exhaled with a heavy sigh.
"Sadly, there are worst things in life than being a demon... "
I understood that fact.
Plus, time was on my side now. I needed to play the long game here. The people of Noble Parliament and their broader civilization will advance scientifically, step by step -and with a bit of luck- slowly move away from their current primitive thinking.
There laid my chance... if I managed to live that long.
I could feel Nikolen's vast knowledge of local customs intervening with my modern education. Fusing into an array of conclusions upon which my mind finally had the time to ponder upon.
To get a glimpse of the world I found myself in.
And, to my surprise, they were quite advanced in some areas. Far more than I first assumed. For example, no matter how brutally militaristic, their religion did outlaw any form of slavery and prescribed a death penalty for it.
Mostly since enslaving people was something the servants of darkness overwhelmingly did. And having your native slave industry only meant there would be some despicable psychos who would sell human beings for the demons to feast upon them, thus literally feeding your existential threat.
Unlike in the history of Earth, where powers at be were too reliant on forced labor till the advent of the industrial age. Such a thing here was a major detriment to their survival and was thus tirelessly stomped upon.
The countless terrors of slavery aside, getting sold as food for some servant of darkness to consume, sounded like a horrid fate beyond words.
"Fucking Hell..."
Therefore the Inquisition, it seemed, did not only fight the demons. But also foreign nations, races, and religions that might want to facilitate a "trade" with the Demonic realm.
And suddenly, I could not but start thinking of them as relatively good guys... the good guys that I had just fought against.
"Shit!" - I sighed. "That Lord Belin and Reglen really screwed me there!"
If somehow, by some miracle, I had managed to ally with the humans, I might have helped them in this critical situation. They were soon to be invaded, and they did not even know about it.
Well.... technically, they did now. However, I hadn't exactly been planing to warn them about it by accidentally sacking one of their cities.
"Hell, I hope those fires haven't spread."- The smell of the smoke reaching harbor just as we escaped was still reminiscent with me.
And I wasn't sure they understood the sheer scale of the threat. I was trapped in the body of a demon, true. But that did not change where my loyalties lay.
"Humanity Fuck Yeah!"- my determination was cheering me on.
I could only hope Pareus the Valiant -the Grandmaster of Inquisition- and a man who already once saw what demons could do was up to the task of leading the defense of the Noble Parliament.
Naturally, I wanted to aid him in any way possible. But I was also not as naive as to think I could just come back or contact some high-ranking Inquisitor and say:" Sorry for those misunderstandings."
Nope, that bridge had probably been burned to the ground even before all of that happened in Nih city.
However, there were other ways to help mankind.
Maybe I could pretend to be on the side of the demons and then leak their plans? Though honestly, I did not fancy that option. And I doubt I would have the guts to kill civilians so as not to blow my cover and show them my true nature.
It would not take them long to realize how I was 'soft' on humans. And who knows how that would end.
Then another thought crossed my mind.
Even just getting me as far away as I can from this shitshow might turn out to be enough. Considering the servants of darkness still likely expected for me to fight on their side, adding some serious power to their invasion force.
Suddenly robbing them of their secret weapon -the strongest demon in recorded history- would surely present a severe blow to whatever they had considered doing.
Sadly I wouldn't be reinventing gunpowder or setting up an adequate production of it. Certainly not with my general lack of knowledge in regards to chemistry. I had not the slightest idea of where to even start with something like that.
Nor did I think I could accomplish anything like that by the time demons struck, even if I had a near-perfect understanding of such a topic.
Nevertheless, I might achieve some significant things in the long run, which could aid mankind tremendously.
For example, writing a book on Newtonian physics and Germ theory might be by far the best thing I could do for this world and its inhabitants. Of course, I did not possess every detail and understanding regarding such subjects. Nor is there Internet available for me to refresh my memory.
But hell, I was well educated in my previous life regarding the said topics. I knew the necessary mathematics and general principles behind it. However, actually deriving the equations instead of just writing them down from my memory will take some time, but I am confident I can fill in the gaps. After all, I did regularly solve those kinds of problems during my college years.
I even remember bitching to my physics professor about it. Questioning why we programmers even need to know how to derive the formula, challenging him to find real-world use for something like that.
His answer being - " Good luck passing exams without it."
And in the end, it is far easier to "come up" with the problem than the solution. Even more so considering all the time I have on my hands by virtue of not growing old.
So, in short, I might become the most outstanding scientist this planet ever had... by shamelessly claiming the discoveries from my previous world as my own.
Not to mention that the title of Dreadlord makes me an unmatched polyglot, allowing me to transcribe my understanding in a multitude of languages. Alchemists and scholars worldwide could end up reading my books without having any idea that behind my signature stood a Demon.
Hell, if things turned my way, I might one day end up exchanging letters of academic nature with some of them.
This whole continent -Allworld, the inhabitants call it- was relatively well interconnected considering its technological development. A network of messenger pigeons bred explicitly to carry information between the distant cities offered the means of relatively fast communication. Adding to that, the thriving trade network permeating every corner of their civilized world, actually made me optimistic about it.
Naturally, it wouldn't be easy to last here, and I would have to be careful. Hide in the shadow, away from prying eyes, secluded in some forsaken place.
In the end, I might die a gruesome death -hunted from all sides, humans and demons alike- yet it's not like I am exactly defenseless. Hell, my torso had looked like I ate a grenade, my ribs showing, yet I was still able to fight hundreds of disciplined and well-armed soldiers.
What will happen once I am fully recovered and able again to use pebbles as if they were bullets? My bare hands tearing metal like it's styrofoam.
And curse my stupidity if I ever again get ambushed and trapped as I had. I boldly proclaimed.
Yes, that could work. There is so much to do if I manage to reach safety and create a stable environment for myself.
And so, I inhaled once again. The sheer determination to get through this alive, now flaring inside me.
Surviving was the first and the main goal. The future came after it. I simply had to play the cards dealt. Using my overwhelming, supernatural physical prowess of being a one-man army to protect me.
Not to mention that I needed to stop believing the words of fricking demon summoners and such foul beings! This world doesn't forgive stupidity, a moment of weakness, or trustfulness at face value.
Far better to watch your own back yourself. Taking care not to ever again put myself in a vulnerable position.
"Huh !?!" -Suddenly realizing that sleeping too might not be in my best interest right now.
"I was still on the ship! Exposed on the front part of the deck."
The uneasy idea that somebody -be it the ghouls or the humans- might decide to just push me off of it, sending me sinking into the depts of the Ironwood lake, flashed through my mind.
I wasn't certain If I was getting too paranoid, but one thing was true. This world had quickly taught me not to be very trusting—Reglen fucking in particular!
"Do not take any chances!"- my sanity shouted.
The next second I found myself desperately wanting to be awake. Blinking and pinching at my cheeks for something to happen.
Fortunately, the nostalgia of being human didn't overwhelm me yet again. Even though the blinking wasn't something I was capable of doing inside my demonic form.
"I need to get up!"- trying to force it to happen with the words alone.
Exhaling loudly.
The light around me flickered, and the surrounding wall of darkness shivered forcefully.
"Oh God!?"- I shivered for some reason- "Is somebody moving my body!?"
The sound of waves reached me from nowhere.
"Fuck!"- I shook my head violently. My eyes forcibly stretched open.
Yet, I was still there inside my dream—the dark walls made of vibrating shadows, still surrounding me.
Then things only turned worse once Nikolen's knowledge supplemented my understanding of the situation. A scene of him going through the Encyclopedia Demonologica suddenly vivid in my memory as if I was standing right next to the man.
A paragraph where Pareus the Valiant spoke about it: mentioning how even the demons can't sleep through the battle, regardless of what folk tales might say.
However... there was also a notion that -"The stronger the demon, the stronger it sleeps."
And my now paranoid mind did not take that point well. Knowing that I was substantially more powerful than the demons described in their literature. The length of my tail and the reactions of people who were educated and experienced in the matter made it all pretty clear.
Hell, even Pareus himself thought the first reports of me having a thirteen steps long tail was an exaggeration brought on by fear.
So if the strongest demons indeed required more sleep or tended to have a harder time waking up... how long would it take me to open those cyan eyes?
"Not to mention that I was grievously wounded...."- my concerns reminded me. The sight of my shattered demonic torso -its ribcage visible- flashed through my eyes. Reinforcing the notion of my vulnerable state.
"What if I was in some kind of demonic coma?"- another idea flickered inside my troubled mind as I shook my head, and anxiety found its grip around my heart.
I inhaled vigorously, tightening both fists.
For a second or two, the reasoning skills of mine and all the sanity I had left implored me to calm down. After all, those ghouls had risked their lives to recover my presumed corpse. Why in hell would they now turn against me?
They almost seemed to worship me, obeying my every command instantly with zealous determination and discipline. Not something you would expect from a group planning to kill you in your sleep.
And it wasn't like the meager crew we captured on the ship stood a chance of mutiny. Rather, it was far more likely they might make a run for it and jump into the lake, preferring its waters instead of staying on the same vessel with a demon.
Thus I had to be safe.
Also, how in hell could the ghouls have known that today was precisely a week since Reglen had summoned me? And that, therefore, I would fall asleep once we escaped, offering them a chance to strike. There was simply no conceivable way for them to extract such info.
Lord Belin and his group were too worried the Inquisition might find out what they did, so they left no paper trace. Their 'official' story was supposed to be that Reglen got captured and was forced to serve me. Acting unwillingly as a local guide, his vast skill, and familiarity with the surrounding landscape making him useful until he managed to trick his captor and turn the tables on him.
Myself being an idiot who had actually taken the words of a demon summoner at face value.
"Oh damn it!"
There was something ominous at being reminded by my sapience on how naive I had been. And my newfound paranoia flared once again.
"Grlin has some kind of superhuman intelligence? Or so he seemed to claim?"- Suddenly, I felt my reason losing the argument it started.
"What if he too has some ulterior motive?"- I voiced my thought aloud.
"They managed to take over the most fortified citadel of the north in a single assault. Plus, they figured out when the Inquisition would arrive and arranged a distraction by blowing up one of the city towers—and even decided on which ship they would take upon reaching the harbor. They thought of all of that! Yet somehow failed to scout their escape route?"
"???"
"Wait a second!?"- something else flashed inside my mind, a reminder of how Grlin had been encouraging me to try to fight our way through that street—stating that we can push through that pike wall.
"What if he and his kin actually wanted for me to exhaust myself !!? To weaken me before they themselves decide to strike !!?"
"But why??"- I looked at the floor, contemplating.
The first thing I remembered was why Reglen himself had done what he did. The sudden realization hitting me like a truck.
"Maybe they too wanted my blood!?"
Yes indeed!
After all, my blood was what brought them to life and gave them their newfound strength. So if they somehow got their hands on more of it...
"Oh My God !!!"- the knowledge I gained from Nikolen now flaming up my suspicions, informing me that the servants of darkness did indeed sometimes spill their precious blood onto the ghouls to improve or strengthen them permanently.
In particular, the corpse-lords did not shy from using the blood of their slain demonic brethren to accomplish such goals, even more so as their own servants were mindless puppets dancing to their every tune, unlike mine.
The description of the "Dreadlord" title stating as much.
"Wait, wait a minute!?"- The title of Dreadlord also claimed my minions would be fanatically loyal to me at the start.
I paused, breathing with considerable strain. The dark walls around me trembling slightly.
That sly merchant and the Alchemist had planned their trap well. I had to give them that. Making sure I arrived at the scene right on the day I was supposed to fall to sleep —just in case.
It was an elaborate piece of treachery.
But just because the first individual I had met here ended up betraying my ass. That did not necessarily mean that everyone else was out to get me too.
"Indeed..."
It was then that I also remembered the Goddess of Darkness. The memories and words from my afterlife all too vivid due to the vast amount of dark-karma she spent for that exact purpose. Making me memorize everything she had said verbatim—word for word. Even the way she pronounced each vowel, the tone, and the context of her voice.
​
" Show no mercy... they might seem nice at first because trust me, they will not spare you. In the best case you will burn alive like the sweet heretic of mine you are… ahahhahahaha"
​
The echo of her creepy laughter still fresh in my mind. Sudden realization dawning on me as the sentences she had once uttered, now started to form a completely different meaning.
​
"Actually... here is the thing. I have this new interesting group of amusingly ambitious... ehh followers."
​
The metaphorical smirk she had made upon saying those words now vivid inside my memory.
​
" And I arranged for one of them to personally aid with your reincarnation. That will make everything easier to deal with."
​
"Aham, they will be able to… introduce you to the world."
​
It was almost as if I was still able to hear her giggles.
​
"From there you will be able to easily extract knowledge of the world to use as you see fit."
​
"Hiiii!!!"- I gasped!
Wait! Wait a fucking second! Did she predict I was going to end up absorbing Nikolen's soul !? An influx of sudden comprehension blew my mind.
I inhaled rapidly but still felt as if somebody had knocked the breath out of me.
​
"Ohhhhh, it will be soooooooo sharp! I can't wait to see the look on their faces when they figure out they got much more than they bargained for… heheeh!"
​
My humble intellect instantly suggested how the thirteen-step long tail of mine was not a thing anybody would have expected to live to see.
Oh, sanity!!! Did she turn the tables on Belin and the rest of his co-conspirators too! Just for shits and giggles!!
I even remember the scene where I had told her how I, for one, liked supprises. And she answered with...
​
"HAHAHAHAH! Surprise! More like an ambush really hihihih"
​
"That is why I arranged for the summoning to occur in an obscure area, an isolated place where news travels slowly, and no one will notice a few villagers missing. It will give you a head start to prepare."
​
"Oh fuck!!!!!" - my mind belatedly connecting the dots now when I finally had some time to think and the data to work with. Not sure if Noble Parliament could qualify as an "isolated place" but the forest where Reglen summoned me sure as hell did.
"Oh, holy fuck!!!"
"Oh, holy fucking shit!!"
I was suddenly so overwhelmed with possible threats to my person that I couldn't even make up my mind on what should concern me the most at the moment.
"Wake the fuck up!!"- I yelled to myself, panic starting to seep from my voice.
I again heard waves crashing, even a splash of cold water somewhere near me.
Another noise soon followed, the sound of a heavy steel blade being dragged across the ship's deck, getting ever closer.
I instinctively focused on the threatening sound, feeling as if I could hear the very sharpness of the weapon nearing my sleeping body.
The light around me flickered once again, and the surrounding wall of darkness shivered as forcefully as before, shadows seeping down from its dark surface, like desert sand colored by night.
The very next second, the air itself turned stale, and the blade's sound grew stronger as it got closer. Another loud crash of waves reached me not a second later.
"Wake up !"- I shouted and looked straight up at the sun; my eyes kept opened against their will. The sunrays blinded me, but I held my gaze directed at the eye tearing light all the same.
My senses loosened, and I felt the touch of wind on my skin; the birds' chirping and the sound of not so distant footsteps gently reached me.
Then the reality shifted before I had a chance to notice—the demonic hunger and thirst crawling back into my mind and throat alike.
Myself still staring directly at the midday sun, yet it did no longer hurt or blind my eyes. Suddenly it felt no more uncomfortable than the light of a candle did when I was a human.
"Huh?!"
Only then did I discern that I was now half-awake, lying on the wooden deck, the sun shining directly above me. But I still tasted that stale stench of holy aura, the sound of a sharp blade slicing through the air reached me from the left.
To my horror, the demonic senses failed to expand and warn me of any incoming danger.
I rolled to the right haphazardly, absolutely unwilling to take any chances, the wooden boards creaking under the weight as I bolted upwards to regain the balance. The obsidian tail of mine flashing through the air.
One moment I was lying on the floor; a second later, I stood firm on my feet, the razor-sharp fingers ready to retaliate. The demonic senses of mine finally spreading to cover the surroundings.
Yet once I absorbed the situation around me, it wasn't what I had expected at all.
The large merchant galleon was sailing down a wide river, western winds pushing on its sail. Waves crashing into its hull as its wooded hull sliced through them. Tall masts and deck of the vessel teeming with hollow-eyed sailors.
Their ash skin heated by the summer sun as they struggled, lacking the experience needed to steer the ship with the same finesse as seasoned seamen. Using their superhuman attributes instead to overcome any shortages, scaling the ropes as if they were born on them.
Heavy armor they once wore now absent from their bodies as not to impede them in physical labor. A few held a knife or some tools in their hands, nothing which had a chance of hurting me.
Only Grayson -standing eight steps to my left- was still armed and armored, his blade swiping through the air as he practiced his mastery over his spear-sized blade that reeked of holy aura.
Only then did I finally notice that the sword in his hands was eerily similar to holy blades used by Inquisitors. This also explained why other Ghouls kept their distance from him.
It wasn't that they just were wary of his agile strikes accidentally striking them. Instead, their fear was far more related to their ghoulish nature and an absolute distaste for the holy aura the weapon emitted.
Most of them now halting whatever they were doing, gazing at me and the shadow my frame cast over the wooden deck.
I slowly inhaled, gazed around a bit more. Yet there was not a trace of any ambush or a trap, nor indication that the ghouls have been planning to strike against me.
"Back to work!"- commanded Grlin's voice in a moment's notice as he emerged in full armor from inside the upper cabins -"We have no time to waste."
He soon passed the ship's steering wheel, his heavy steps swiftly moving him closer to me, deceivingly quickly—every step he made visibly ever so more agile than what one would expect from his bulky figure.
A few steps to the right from him, I saw one of the ghouls lift a wooden jug filled with water and greedily drain all of it, inadvertently reminding me of how thirsty I actually was. My throat as dry as a desert on a scorching summer day.
My demonic senses expanded, and -to my horror- I could smell the sailors we had captured, almost hearing their hearts pumping regardless of the fact they were now held in one of the ship's storage rooms. Their rich, healthy blood calling to me like a glass of refreshing orange juice during a sunny day on a beach.
I looked to the side, trying to ignore the cannibalistic cravings imposed onto my sanity by the demonic nature. Focusing instead on the sound of water splashing over the ship's wooden hull or the tweets of the swallows flying above me.
Anything but the hunger which molested me.
"My Dreadlord, you are already awake? "- spoke Grlin when he neared me.
"Already?"- suspicion seeping from my voice. Did he maybe plan for me to get up later?
"Indeed, my Dreadlord. Don't powerful demons sleep for at least a full day?"
"I am not sure anymore."-I replied honestly.
"Aham."- he nodded-" Well, nevermind that inquiry, my Dreadlord. There was something far more severe than I wished to discuss."
"Me too, Grlin... me too."- was all I replied as my tail rose up.
I couldn't allow myself to turn into a paranoid maniac. But being burned alive once was one time too many.
"So many questions..."- my demonic voice echoing like broken glass.
....
.....
Previous Chapter__//__Next Chapter
​
Note: The link below shows what I meant in the previous chapters by stating that MC had his torso shattered and his ribcage was showing. (Just imagine there is no fire)How grievously wounded MC was.
Sadly I do not have the artistic skills needed to edit the picture. But if one of you feels up to the challenge I welcome it wholeheartedly.
PS: One more thing. Please, if you have time, write down comments regarding the story -your general thoughts and opinions- so I can improve. I had found them immensely helpful thus far. As they allow me to understand what the reader sees from my words, thus making it far easier for me to show you the world I created for this story.
submitted by _Sky__ to HFY [link] [comments]

college point spread predictions video

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Bet On It - College Football Bowl Predictions, Line Moves ...

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