Feb 19, 2020, updated periodically...Unfortunately there’s not just one link you can use to get an estimate of the real numbers of infected, or of the seriousness of this outbreak, and you will have to do some digging of your own. But here are a few points to consider and research for yourself:

The basics

• Name. The names 2019-nCoV, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and novel coronavirus all basically refer to the same thing, either the new virus or the disease it causes. (The WHO calls the virus SARS-COV-2, and the illness COVID-19.)
• Family. It is a type of SARS but is much worse than SARs; experts have also called it "worse than Ebola" in terms of how fast it is spreading.
• Re-infection. Getting sick with it more than once is a possibility; "recovered" patients may even be contagious or test positive for the virus after so-called "recovery." Link
• Spreading without symptoms. People are able to be asymptomatic or presymptomatic, but still contagious, for weeks. Studies have shown that an infected person may be shedding virus for weeks after "recovery."
• Ineffective quarantines. Quarantines are being done for 14 days in many countries, even though it has been documented that 38 days would be more effective. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quarantina giorni, a space of 40 days. We need to get smarter about how long people are quarantined.
• When Did It Start? By Nov 2019, officials had briefed the US White House on a virus that was sweeping through Wuhan, China. Link
• Fast-spreading. Between 2/19/20 and 5/1/20, cases grew from 1000 to over 3 million. Many countries do not have the capability to adequately test people. For instance it could become very widespread in parts of Africa without ever making the news.
• Symptoms and Treatment. There is no cure; treatment focuses on the symptoms like the cough and fever. The symptom list is long and varies from patient to patient but the majority of them have cough and fever and the serious cases develop pneumonia, which is what kills them. Secondary infections are also common, and those patients get antibiotics, but, antibiotics don't do anything against a virus; they are used solely to treat additional complications. The symptom list seems to be ever-changing: a March 7 report showed that 22% of patients had diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal discomfort before respiratory symptoms (another report said it was about 50%). One first-person account said that a rash was her only symptom. CNN aired an interview with US nurses on the frontline who said that in some cases the only symptom prior to death was that the tissue around the eyes turned red (not the eyes, but the face area around the eyes).
• No vaccine. Labs around the world are racing to develop a vaccine but that is, at best, months away; some say a vaccine may be impossible due to how the virus tricks the body into making more virus. And keep in mind there was a SARS outbreak nearly 20 years ago and we still don't have a vaccine for that.
• Lives on surfaces. Many redditors have asked about whether it is safe to accept packages from China. Studies have shown that the virus can survive on surfaces for at least 9 days under certain conditions, and up to 27 days in other conditions.
• "Do I have it?" Many redditors have posted questions saying they feel ill and want to know if they have it. If you think you have it, call a doctor or hospital; reddit is not the place for a diagnosis. The hospital will want you to wear a mask when you come in, and will want you to call ahead so they can isolate you from other patients.
• "How do I avoid it?" Many redditors have asked what they can do to avoid catching or spreading the virus. Standard virus protocol applies: avoid close contact with people who are sick; stay home when you are sick; cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue then throw the tissue in the trash; frequently wash your hands (especially after going to the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing) using soap and water as hot as you can stand it for at least 30 seconds (the scrubbing under running water is important; a 5-second fingertip wash is inadequate); carry hand sanitizer gel with you for times when you can't wash your hands; avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth especially in public; disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a household cleaning spray; etc. The US has recommended against all travel to China [update: against all international travel]. Some redditors started avoiding air travel, public transportation, and large crowds and gatherings at the end of January 2020.
• Fatality rate. There are a dozen or more sources, reposted thousands of times, that will try to tell you the fatality rate (death rate) is only about 2%. Here's the Lancet estimating 20% in Wuhan and 15% outside of China through March 1, 2020. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30195-X/fulltext

Other reasons why we don't believe the official numbers

• Information Warfare. In the earliest days of the revelations about the virus, a deliberate disinformation campaign was started, to get people to believe two major falsehoods: 1) “It’s not as bad as the flu,” and 2) “Everything is under control and will be back to normal soon.” You will see this repeated thousands of times around reddit, other social media, and in mainstream media in the US and elsewhere. Even US doctors are repeating this propaganda, almost verbatim, to any news reporter who asks. Read more about China's 10 million influence agents at Link
• Naysayers. Historically unprecedented efforts have been made to downplay the virus - often by focusing on the supposedly low fatality rate, or the supposed recovery rate. It's far too early to know what "recovery" actually means. For instance, scientists from Nanjing Medical University and Suzhou Hospital have said males who "recover" may be infertile. There is also well-founded concern about permanent lung damage, and possible chronic joint/muscle pain which could be debilitating and lifelong.
• Pre-determined case rate. In early Feb 2020, someone demonstrated that the rise in cases was very predictable from day to day; the data curve was "beautiful" in that it was flawless and perfect, unlike the real world. He was able to predict, a day in advance, with astonishing accuracy, how many new cases would be announced by China the following day. The implication was that the data only moved like that because it was pre-determined before it happened; in other words the real numbers were released in a slow trickle in order to manage the public's reaction.
• Under-reporting. There are indications, including first-hand reports from doctors, that the "official" numbers of confirmed dead are grossly under-reported. Link
• Estimates. In Jan. 2020, some people were thinking the infected number was over 150,000 (back when China was saying it was under 10,000). It's hard to get a reliable number, but there are clues pointing to a worrisome amount of cases. Researcher models have shown estimates of a multiplier for a realistic number that range from x4 to x35. In other words if China is announcing 75,000 cases today, some people are concerned that the real number (including those who are undiagnosed) is 528,000 up to an almost inconceivable 4.6 million. [Update: Less than 2 months later, the "official" number worldwide exceeds 3 million; if x35 holds true...I don't like that answer...]
• Suspected vs. Confirmed. China also has a data set for "suspected cases," which may include people who have presented to the hospital (or to several hospitals, seeking care) with the symptoms but who were unable to get diagnosed because the hospitals were overwhelmed. Some observers consider "suspected" cases should be considered "confirmed" until there has been a negative diagnosis.
• Crematorium Info. Investigative journalism in China has led to recordings of phone conversations with crematorium workers, who are desperately asking for help because they are going 24/7 and are still backed up in Hubei from the amount of dead to incinerate (imagine California and half of Texas not being able to keep up with the bodies). The employee states the number of bodies has been 4 to 5 times the usual, starting ever since Dec. 29.
• Portable Crematoriums? Lu Media reported that 40 units officially described as "cabins for the disposal of garbage and animal carcasses" have aided Wuhan in the epidemic area; their capacity is 5 tons per day. Professor Ming Ju of National Taiwan University believes that these cabins are "mobile incinerators" used to process human corpses. (To expand on that: 5 tons is 10,000 pounds or 4,536 kilos. Using a rough average weight of 62 kg per adult, that's 73 adults per day, per machine, so 40 machines are capable of handling 2,920 adults per day. That's in addition to the numerous regular crematoriums which can process a dozen or more people simultaneously.) That is all speculation; it is also likely that a city on lockdown would have an enormous problem getting rid of household refuse and medical waste, in which case those mobile incinerators would come in handy for that, too.
• Cell phone Subscriber Decreases. Jennifer Zeng reported a combined net loss of 15 million subscribers to three of the large cell phone companies in China, in Jan and Feb 2020 alone. Link
• "Not as bad as the flu" nonsense. From Jan to March 2020, mainstream media (MSM) and social media were chock full of people conducting information warfare; their goal was to perpetuate the “official” myth that coronavirus is not as serious as the flu, and that everything will be back to normal soon. There are several other virus-related subs on reddit which are moderated by people who do not allow any dissenting views, and who only permit people to post things that have already been announced by a government. In March 2020, the US CDC Tweeted that the fatality rate of this virus is at least three times that of the flu.
• CNY. Chinese New Year is a major travel holiday when people go home to spend time with their families; it is often the only time of year when migrant workers get to see their loved ones. Millions and millions of Chinese people were on the move when this outbreak began.
• Ineffective City Quarantines. China announced each city lockdown up to a day or two in advance, which gave infected people plenty of time to try to flee. After Wuhan was locked down, it was announced that some 5 million people had left before it started. Many of the people trapped in Wuhan were just caught there during their New Year's travels.
• Constant number manipulation. China has changed how they count cases, and has advised that if a person has tested positive for the virus but is asymptomatic (has no symptoms) then they should not be added to the list of confirmed cases.
• Practically no testing in the US. In the US, the vast majority of citizens (99.99999+%) can't get tested. The CDC policy has changed several times but even now, unless you have symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization or have had close contact with a CDC-confirmed case, testing is not available for most Americans. [Update: As of 5/1/20, the US has tested approximately 2% of its population, and has over 1 million cases.]
• "Self-quarantines." The US relies on self-quarantines. On 2/19/20, WSJ reported "Public health officials in the U.S. are striving to keep tabs on thousands of Americans who have quarantined themselves at home after returning from mainland China..."
• States hiding data. Some states, notably Florida, were initially claiming that they couldn't legally disclose how many people have been tested. "According to the Tampa Bay Times, “state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees said the Florida Department of Health is not authorized to publish the number of people in the state being tested for the virus out of privacy concerns.” US health privacy laws contain an obvious and necessary exemption for cases that involve public health crises.
• Hacked Accounts Spread Reassuring Deception. Redditors are posting that they have been getting bizarre texts from close friends and family members in China saying "situation is under control" and "we're all fine" etc. Others posted screenshots of messages from several business contacts in China who all repeated an official message practically verbatim: "Impact limited to Wuhan...Everything is under control...will be back to normal soon...thank you for your concern."
• Body bags. Rumors are circulating that China has ordered 1 million body bags, and shifted factories to body bag production; someone also posted an online industrial buyer order in which someone was looking to purchase 45 million virus masks.
• Monitoring. China announced a few days ago that they are "monitoring" close to half a million people who have had "close contact" with infected people. Monitoring efforts involve self-reporting plus tracking of movements based on cell phone geolocation, A.I., facial recognition technology, and mandatory checkpoints.

What leaked videos and social media posts have shown us has happened in China

A 4-minute quick intro: /CoronavirusFOS/comments/fgk1b9/covid19_deus_ex_coronavirus_clip_compilation/

• Dropping Dead. There are a handful of videos that show people seeming to suddenly collapse, notably a police officer walking down the street, in social media posts circulating on Feb 19, 2020. Videos show people dead and dying in hospital waiting rooms. Other videos show dead bodies laying on the sidewalk; a young woman collapsed in a vegetable market, etc. These spread in China in Jan.; in Feb. we saw similar vids from Iran. On 2/20/20, Harry Chen PhD posted a man laying face-down in a Hong Kong mall, the implication being that he collapsed from the virus or virus-related complications.
• Unprecedented Censorship Efforts. Videos get deleted almost as fast as they get posted. One leaked video shows uniformed internet police pounding on someone's door, demanding that they delete their social media post, and also that they immediately must post a retraction to apologize for spreading "rumors" or otherwise they will face legal consequences for harming social order.
• Voices from Inside Hospitals. Voicemails and texts from Chinese nurses and medical workers urging their loved ones, "Do not go outside" and saying that they are totally overwhelmed with infected patients. Numerous nurses collapsing into hysterics, unable to cope with the requirement to work 22 hours a day, and the inability to leave the hospital; some have been threatened with having their medical license revoked if they walk away.
• Dirty masks. Used surgical masks being resold: an old man on the sidewalk selling used surgical masks of various colors from an open box. Another video recorded surreptitiously shows a team of people inside a shop with a big pile of used surgical masks, which are being sorted, flattened, and folded. The video ended with a view of a big stack of boxes; the implication was that used masks were being repackaged for sale as new. The brand name was not legible but it featured a woman's face on the cover, and Chinese writing on the box.
• Quarantine Evasions. City quarantines don't work. Videos show people climbing over head-height barricades and fences built across roads and bridges, family members handing their children across the fence, and arguments in the street when someone is discovered to have Hubei province license plates or to be speaking with a Wuhan accent.
• Doors welded shut. People are being welded into their apartments in Wuhan. Some apartment buildings have had their entrances sealed, once multiple people inside are believed to have the disease. Videos showed a middle-aged, non-athletic woman attempting to scale the outside of the building by going from balcony to balcony, and she fell to her death. A small town road labeled as the "Road to Lihua" which shows a street full of residential buildings, and every single building is barricaded from the outside, thus trapping the uninfected inside with the infected and the dead.
• Mobs. So-called "recovered" patients being attacked and beat up for returning to their village after being released from quarantine.
• Sprayers. Numerous videos show fleets of trucks rolling through streets in China, spraying what we suppose to be some sort of disinfectant, as though there was a need to clean the sidewalks or even the air itself. China has used water sprayers for at least five years to combat pollution, but speculation is that these trucks contain some sort of chemical rather than water.
• Birds. A highway shot shows hundreds of crows perched on a concrete barrier; the subtitles claim that thousands of crows have been attracted to Wuhan by the stench of death.
• Checkpoints. Villages and small towns enforcing quarantines with weapons, punches, slaps, etc. A car stops at a checkpoint, hesitates, then seems to intentionally plow into a medical tent.
• Arrests. Patrols of white hazmat suit workers looking for people who went outside without a mask; they get arrested and carried away.
• Packed hospitals. Hospital hallways jam-packed with people standing around waiting to get tested; shoulder-to-shoulder crowding conditions, which surely served to spread the virus faster.
• Pets Killed. Village patrols beating dogs to death with a stick supposedly in order to "prevent the spread of the virus," and household pets thrown down from tall apartment buildings for the same reason.
• Bodies. Multiple body bags in hospital ambulances, on the floors of hospitals, and in the hallway. (Similar videos surfaced from Iran and Brazil in March 2020.)
• Transportation issues. That there were enough dead at a given time that no one could respond promptly to carry away the bodies.
• Paid by the body. A citizen journalist secretly records an impromptu job interview at a local crematorium, where he is told he will not be paid unless he brings in bodies to cremate. They offer 500 RMB for one body, and 200 RMB for each additional body, up to 1100 RMB a load if he can bring in 4 bodies at a time.
• Failures at life-saving efforts. A man's voicemail (identified by name as a doctor, if the accompanying image is to be believed) stating that for patients who are intubated (receiving oxygen via a tube shoved down their throats), extubation (removing the tube) is rarely successful - the patients die when taken off oxygen.
• Panic buying. Fights over groceries, and rice flying off the cart before the grocery store can even put it on the shelves.
• Refugees. Social media video posted Feb 19, 2020 claims to show hundreds of people with suitcases and baggage fleeing over the Chinese border from Guangxi province into Vietnam. Like most other videos claiming to be about this situation, there are many responses claiming this one is fake.
• Fights. A child stabbing an elderly person and another child, during a fight over a small bottle of antiseptic.
• Intentional Spreading. There are videos showing various suspects who are going around intentionally spitting on things, in an apparent effort to spread the virus. Tissue boxes are provided on elevators so that a person can use the tissue to press the button, and keep their fingers clean. Videos show a family riding the elevator, and a male takes a tissue and spits on it repeatedly, then smears all of the buttons with his spit. Another video shows an older woman alone in a different elevator; she repeatedly hacks and spits intentionally all over the buttons and the inner doors of the elevator, and then after a younger woman gets on and presses an elevator button, the older woman cackles to herself. Another video shows a young woman going down the street spitting on the door handles of cars. Another video shows a young woman sneaking around an apartment complex at night, spitting on doorknobs. Many Western viewers are unable to make sense of these videos, or conceive of a thought process that would make a person want to do this.
• Attacks on medical workers. Patients in hospitals pulling down their virus masks and intentionally spitting into the faces of medical workers and receptionists - multiple incidents in multiple locations.
• Arson? I have yet to actually see one of the alleged "arson" videos because they get deleted (for "inappropriate content") shortly after they are shared, but there are rumors of one or more videos showing buildings being intentionally set on fire in China, with people still alive inside the buildings. People are working hard to call these fakes, saying it emerged in early January and there is no proof that it is linked to the virus; however, since the videos immediately get flagged and deleted, discussion and debunking it for yourself is nearly impossible. On that note, if you see a video and believe it will be deleted, there are ways you can archive it (to a different website) so that others can see it later.
• Failed donation efforts. Food trucks sent to Wuhan are not allowed past the city's barricades, and the food goes to waste.
• Resistance. In Xiaogan, Hubei, the villagers did not want to be sealed up inside their homes, and they fought back. The police fired shots.

What else is happening in China

• Pop-up Hospitals. In response to the outbreak, a pop-up hospital was built in China in about 10 days. It leaks.
• Non-Hospitals. China has also opened “quarantine shelters” which do not provide medical care; observers are calling these deathatoriums, where people are supposed to just go and wait to die. However, if someone lives with a big family and has nowhere else to go, this may be a humane way to help the person have shelter without risking infecting their loved ones. Once a person goes in, they are not allowed to leave.
• H2H and A2H. Human-to-animal-to-human transmission appears possible: It was reported by a UK tabloid on Feb 21, 2020 that hundreds of pets have dropped dead in China; although that source is questionable, the 2002 SARs outbreak led to research that household pets such as cats and ferrets could be infected by SARS-CoV which they caught from a human, and then could spread the disease to other humans (back in 2002).
• Historic Firsts. Wartime policies are in place. China has locked down three entire provinces (Hubei, Liaoning, Jiangxi), all four centrally-administered municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing) and more than 80 other major cities. Some estimate that nearly 800 million Chinese (9.8% of the population of the entire planet) are under some type of quarantine, lockdown, and/or movement restrictions. A bit of logic often repeated on reddit is "You don't do that for the flu."
• Cages. People are being dragged kicking and screaming off the street into truck cages, because a spot-check of their forehead temperature revealed they had a fever.
• Press Censorship. Reporters are going silent and China revoked the press credentials of 3 WSJ reporters.
• Robots. In Wuhan robots (think "gonk droid" not "C3PO") and drones are being used to enforce the quarantine, ordering people not to leave their homes, even for food.
• Information Control. Chinese whistleblowers are reportedly disappearing or suddenly being diagnosed as infected, hours after posting revealing information.
• Claims of People Being Burned Alive. Taiwan News - and no other sources as far as I can find - is reporting alleged first-hand accounts of people who claim they saw people being burned alive in Wuhan, the alive bound up with corpses and dragged off together.
• Doctors Sickened. Chinese medical professionals (around 1800) are getting infected despite safety procedures, and some are dying from the infection (notably the director of a hospital in Wuhan). Usually doctors and nurses aren’t too worried about getting ill from their patients due to their safety measures, which indicates that covid-19 is much more infectious than the usual flu strains.
• Irony. A high-level government health official emphatically stressed to reporters that the virus is preventable and controllable, a few days before he himself was diagnosed with the virus.
• 24/7 Lockdowns. People in Wuhan no longer being let out of their homes once every 7 days, and are on 24/7 lockdown.
• Propaganda Videos. In the early days there were quite a few propaganda videos showing happy, smiling shoppers in grocery stores that were fully stocked. There were very light crowds - lighter than usual even - and no shortages of food in these videos, despite the leaked videos showing empty vegetable bins, huge meat bins with only one pack of meat left, and violent fights between shoppers trying to get their hands on a sack of rice.
• Positivity Efforts. There have also been propaganda vids showing infected patients dancing and doing exercise; this is all part of the order from on high to keep the message "positive" and ensure that nothing but pure "positivity" covers all virus news.
• "Moving Deeds" Efforts. Propaganda efforts have been directed toward promoting the effects of control measures and the “moving deeds” of volunteers, community workers, and the police. They have also posted some 400,000 comments online to counter negative public opinions.
• Barring Investigators. China wouldn't let any WHO Americans into the country until recently, but they are still being prevented from going to Hubei and Beijing.
• Movement Restrictions. Drones carry QR codes at the entrances to cities; drivers must use their cell phone to scan the QR code, and then the system will analyze the phone's recent movements, then decide whether to allow the person into the city.
• Medical situation propaganda. While leaked videos show overwhelmed, crying medical staff in packed hospitals, there are also some propaganda videos showing empty hospital corridors and calm, smiling, laughing, relaxed doctors; one claim being circulated is that some of those were filmed with actors hired to portray doctors.
• New medical crime laws. On Feb 8, 2020 China’s National Health Commission announced seven types of "medical-related" crimes, stating that prosecution will be swift and they will not rule out the death penalty for these crimes, which, in plain English, are basically: 1) Don't injure medical workers, 2) Let medical workers go wherever they say they need to go, 3) Don't pull down your mask and spit in the face of medical workers, 4) Cooperate with mandatory health checks and quarantines and don't disrupt anyone trying to burn bodies, 5) Don't stay in a hospital if you've been told to leave, and funerals are banned, 6) Don't carry weapons into a hospital, and 7) Anything else they decide is illegal is also illegal.
• Swift cremations. Funerals in Hubei are banned; the deceased are immediately cremated and the family is notified afterwards. If the deceased did not have a coronavirus diagnosis before death, the body will never be tested and the case will never be added to the official numbers.

The Unknowns

• Longterm Health Implications. The US government has just announced that "recovered" COVID-19 survivors are permanently disqualified from military service. This speaks volumes about what the government knows about what this virus is and what it does. Link
• Death Rate. The fatality rate is still an unknown; many people blindly repeat “2%” although we have not had enough cases outside of China, for long enough, to know the real number. Professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College of London has published a paper estimating Hubei province will see an 18% fatality rate. That’s one of five people out of 11 million; which means this professor is projecting roughly 2 million deaths in Hubei province alone. The same professor says that it is not absurd to anticipate we’ll have 400,000 infected in the UK. Early numbers from Italy are over 30% but of course it's still way early to know.
• False Negatives. We don't know how many people have it and were tested negative, because there have been experiments where current test kits have failed to detect the virus until the 5th or 6th time tested.
• Airborne? Reports from inside China have repeatedly referred to the virus as "airborne." This gets shouted down on social media as soon as it is repeated, with anonymous "experts" trying to convince you and everyone else reading that you simply don't know what "airborne" means, and trying to switch the focus to droplet contamination by sneezes and coughs. People in China, and certain parts of South Korea, Vietnam, and Italy have been warned specifically not to go outside.
• Source of virus. The "official" source, which somehow was known and announced since the very early days, was a so-called "wet market" or "seafood market." In reality these markets are infamous for butchering and selling the meat of snakes, bats, rats, cats, dogs, badgers, civets, raccoon dogs, and other exotic mammals for human consumption. CNN reports from years ago documented dogs and cats in cages, waiting for butchering. The propaganda description is that the markets just sell seafood and birds. Sanitary practices in such markets consist of rinsing off surfaces with plain water periodically, and using the same knife to cut multiple species of animals, and the same knife to cut meat and then intestines and then meat again. The possibilities for illness and infection from such meat sources is obvious, and the official story is that this virus somehow jumped from bats (or some say from pangolins) to humans.
• Virus Lab. The original source of the virus has been the subject of great debate. It has been reported as starting in Wuhan, which happens to have Asia's only Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory. Some Chinese researchers were indicted for taking virus samples from Canada to China, and, the head of a Canadian virus lab was also indicted for being on the payroll of China and accepting $50,000 a month payment from them. Draw your own conclusions.
• HIV Proteins. Some research indicates that the virus shares four proteins with HIV, and bears certain genetic markers only found on genetically modified organisms. Those scientists were quickly silenced with criticism; most seem to believe the criticism. Regardless, numerous articles have claimed it somehow acts like HIV.

What's happening outside of China

• Lockdowns. The entire countries of Italy, Spain, and India's entire 1.3 billion people are locked down. The US and UK are on some sort of half-ass "voluntary" thing, told to "stay home if you can" while many people ignore it.
• Cruise Ship. The Diamond Princess cruise ship (quarantined near Japan) which some observers on reddit said would be a good test case for a real world model outside of China, has shown an alarming increase in the numbers of infected.
• Suppression of Info. Google is believed to be suppressing virus news. Try the search engine that doesn't track you, https://duckduckgo.com
• Macau. Macau closed its casinos. This would be like Las Vegas deciding to hang up a "Sorry, we're closed" sign for a few weeks.
• Ukraine. Ukraine - civil unrest, riots, road blockades to protest quarantining and transportation of patients into the area.
• South Korea. South Korea reported a surge of new cases on Feb 19, 2020, linked to an infected person attending a church service; 31 new cases were diagnosed. The growth in South Korea, in a matter of days, has been mind-blowing (In 13 days, the case count in South Korea has grown from 82 to over 5,300 cases). South Korea may have been a good predictor for what growth in the US will look like, except so far, South Korea is testing 2,000 out of every million of its citizens, while the US is only testing 1 out of a million.
• Self-isolation. South Korea, Vietnam, and Iran are asking millions of people to stay at home, to contain the spread. In one city in South Korea the mayor has asked people to wear their viral masks even indoors at home.
• Iran. While Iran is officially reporting 3 deaths as of Feb 21, 2020, a social media post says it's 20; that the virus can live on surfaces for 2 weeks, can transfer from animals, can reinfect after initial infection, and testing is 30%-50% accurate, with many false negatives and asymptomatic transmission, plus mutations of the virus. Other "leak" sources say there are 300 positive diagnoses in Iran. Just like we saw happen in China, a government official who urged the public not to overact about coronavirus has now tested positive for the illness himself. Within a couple of weeks of Iran's first case, multiple senior politicians had died (Mar 3, 2020). On Mar 12, satellite imagery revealed mass burial pits in Iran.
• Dirty masks. Leaked video shows several women in head coverings who are sitting on the floor sorting through what appears to be thousands of used surgical masks - the implication being that these will be resold; the narration does not sound Chinese; the videographer holds up an example mask very close to the phone, to show that it is definitely used and soiled.
• Travel to/from China. The US had up to 200,000 citizens in China at the time of the outbreak. As of mid-March, the US unbelievably still has daily flights from China. Canada still has unrestricted air transportation with China. Meanwhile, other countries have closed their borders to Chinese citizens and to anyone who has been to China recently.
• Evacuations. The US has arranged multiple evacuation flights to bring Americans home from China. Some on reddit are concerned that this will only spread the infection faster, and would have preferred that anyone in China be left there. The US has spread these evacuees around at least three states, and enforces a “voluntary” quarantine of 14 days.
• Quarantine Stations. For years the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has had 19 quarantine stations on military bases ready for just such an outbreak. American evacuees are currently being held at some of those.
• Emergency Declarations. The US city of San Diego, California declared a "public health emergency" on Feb 14, 2020. As of March 7 these states have also declared a state of emergency: NY, FL, KY, PN, MD, UT, IN, CA, & WA. On Mar 14, Pres. Trump declared a national emergency and public schools in 12 states announced closures ranging from a few days up to 30 days.
• Weak control measures in the US. In the US, hundreds of people are being "monitored" (sent home and told to call if they get a fever or cough) but are not being tested. These people may be contagious. Link
• National Guard Mobilization in Tallahassee, Florida, US? A social media post claims to show a small fleet of what appears to be military vehicles, police officers, and ordinary trucks hauling large white trailers; the captions claim the vehicles are Chemical, Biological, and Radiological response units. Two large earth-moving/digging vehicles are in the fleet.
• Spitting. US social media indicates Seattle patients are spitting on the clinic walls and floor.
• People dropping dead. Social media posts from Iran (Feb 25, 2020) are showing us the same things we saw on social media in Hong Kong and on the leaked videos from China: various, random people just suddenly collapsed / dropped dead in the street. One theory being circulated is that the virus may cause heart failure, particularly during the patient's re-infection (or second time with the virus).

Supply Chain and Economic Impacts

• Mask shortages. Chinese buyers are scouring the world to locate companies that can sell them viral masks in bulk. Many redditors have posted that they ordered masks online, but then got notified that their order was canceled or on back-order. In the US, as of mid-February most cities still have masks on the shelves at local stores; though many stores have imposed quantity restrictions such as 10 per customer. In states where the CDC has announced confirmed cases, people are having trouble finding masks anywhere.
• Panic buying. Singapore has imposed limits on how much groceries and supplies a person can buy. Hong Kong has had panic-buying of household goods and groceries, with many rumors that ordinary things (such as toilet paper, which Hong Kong gets from mainland China) could go out of stock and stay out of stock for an unknown period of time. In the US we get our toilet paper from US companies; there is no reason to hoard toilet paper in the US! As of Feb 29 and Mar 1, panic buying appears to be happening in Hawaii, Oregon, California, and multiple locations in the US. As of Mar 13, panic buying has spread to many areas of the US. At this point if you failed to prepare, you should consider looking carefully at your own pantry and fridge, rather than going out and risking being in a panic buying crowd.
• Global Crash. Economic damage in China and around the world is difficult to contemplate. Billions have already been lost. China produces about 17% of global GDP.
• Cars and car parts. Some car makers have shut down plants temporarily and some may have to find alternative sources for components (such as plastics and wires etc.) before they can resume operations, unless this virus magically disappears by the end of February.
• International Shipping. Some cargo ships are leaving Asia at 5% capacity (95% empty) and will not be able to continue to operate like that.
• "Made in China." Experts are projecting shortages and disruptions in the global supply chain in general, affecting countless products either "made in China" or made with ingredients or parts sourced in China, including but certainly not limited to computers, electronics, auto parts, chemicals, medical equipment, machinery, telecom hardware, apparel and footwear, home goods, batteries, smartphones, and notably, pharmaceuticals (over-the-counter and prescription drugs), just to name a few examples. Even if a product is advertised as being made in your country, there's a good chance it contains Chinese components or ingredients or is at the very least being sold in a plastic container that was made in China. Industries are looking at options for finding other countries to become suppliers, so we can diversify the supply chain and avoid keeping all our eggs in one basket, though such measures could prove to be too little, much too late at this point.

There’s much more that can be posted here, but that's enough topics to get you started on your own research. I really doubt this is going to be disappearing in a month or two. If any readers have a source or video link etc., or additional points they you'd like me to add, just reply to this message, or send me a private message if you prefer. Thanks for reading!

The results are in for Match 11. The winner is…
The Graveyard Shift, with a score of 70 to Underground Exodus’s 64!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	The Graveyard Shift	18-12
Quality	The Graveyard Shift	22-20	Reasoning
JoJolity	Underground Exodus	20-22	Reasoning
Conduct	TEAM	10-10

As things settled, it was hard to tell if it was a fight that had occurred or purposeful demolition. In the middle of it all, sitting atop of one of the only remaining operational washers near the back, Byte had helped himself to a bag of SunChips from the destroyed snack machine as he waited for the load of linens to finish it’s final spin. Thanks to a last-second LOAD, he looked just about no worse for wear, standing out like a sore thumb amongst the carnage. He took the few minutes of relative silence to reflect, his gaze passing over his unconscious opponent laying face-down on the damp floor.
“Boy, that escalated quickly.” His token stream-of-consciousness mumbling coming through even with a mouth full of chips, “I guess it really does kill some people to be patient. I wonder how much it’ll be to fix this place? Fira better be damn happy for all this, maybe I should ask for a raise. Are there any sodas layin’ around-”
Just as the Mandible hopped down to his feet to look for a beverage, the front door of the laundromat swung open, causing Byte to duck down out of reaction. He was expecting company, but had hoped to be long gone before they showed. An amazingly tall suit-vested man stands in the door frame with a look of shock and wonder on his face, tattoos of ‘shading’ adorning his shaved head to make it seem oddly angular. He lets out a long whistle as he strolls in, surveying the damage. “Sweet mother of FUCK, what happened in here?!” Byte knew how bad this all looked, knowing he’d need some kind of cover if he had hopes of fooling the Syndicate capo, so without hesitation deftly smashes his own hand with his hammer. The pain was tremendous, but he manages to keep the screams internal as he bolts up from his spot.
“Kilroy! Thank god you’re here!” Byte lied, holding his now broken hand weakly as he puts on an air of hopeless panic. “You shoulda seen this lady! She was flying all over the place, smashing into walls like some kinda monster! Completely tore up the place!”
Kilroy hurried his pace at the sign of a survivor, moving to get in close. “...you’re from that restaurant, right? The one that stiffed the elders? The hell are you doing here?” The tall man nearly trips on the unconscious body of Marlin, only further adding to his confusion.
“Our machine is shot at the restaurant, I came here to clean some stuff.” Byte motions to the active machine with his broken hand, inciting a wince that he exaggerates for effect. “Then that... Monster came in and just started destroying the place! I dunno how she was putting these holes in the walls, it was insane!”
Kilroy stooped over the chain-bound woman’s unconscious form, nudging her head lightly with a finger before shaking his head. He crouches down for a closer look, mumbling under his breath, “Wonder what these chains do…”
Byte’s eyes shoot wide, managing to keep his thoughts internal for a change. When Kilroy dropped into Elephant Bones the other week, he made no hint toward being a stand user himself, even saying that the Syndicate is actively hunting them down. Byte had even successfully SAVEd a copy of the capo to see what he had on him; did he deliberately let Byte do so? Just what the hell is the Syndicate about?
“So you took her down by yourself?” The question snapped Byte out of the parade of questions in his head, meeting Kilroys glance with his own. Suddenly Byte had a very strong feeling that he shouldn’t stick around any longer, and moved to go retrieve his wash which had thankfully just ended.
“Uhh, yeah! I got lucky with a swing of the hammer, caught her as she was spinning around…” Byte’s mind raced for an exit as he pulled the damp linens free, every minute he hung around here was endangering everyone back at the base. ”Listen, did you need me for anything, or can I head back? Fira needs these ASAP and I’m already running behind, she can be a real nightmare when she’s pissed.”
Kilroy laughed, his disposition seeming oddly bright. “I know exactly what you mean, I kinda wanna clear out before the boss gets here myself.” Byte gulped. “Shouldn’t you at least dry those things? Maybe get that hand looked at?”
They both glanced over at the destroyed rows of dryers, to Byte’s relief, not a single one seemed to be in working order. “Nah, we got first aid back at the gym. And I think our dryer still works.” Bundling up the linens back into their garbage bag, Byte heads for the door. “Good luck with all this, and uhh, hope we can see you back at-”
“One more question, if you don’t mind.” Byte froze as he reached the door at Kilroy’s suddenly raised voice, the guy was pretty unstable when he paid them a visit, too. “Did you happen to see the Archbishop during the fight? Big guy in blue robes, probably handing out change.”
Oh god, a witness. Byte shook his head. “He left before she came in. Went that way.” He pointed down the street, still inching out of the building. Kilroy seemed relieved, waving at the Mandible as he returned to surveying the scene.
Byte immediately broke into a speed-walk, heading down the street and away from danger, cursing his luck at rock paper scissors the entire way.
People continue to fight for petty reasons, in this match and the recently-concluded one, but when this goes up, there is still yet a day yet to vote in a match of performers and their supporters spreading a message of love.
Scenario:
Outside The Devil Blue, Waterfront District, 11:46 AM
The past few weeks had been odd for the staff over at the Elephant Bones and Duke’s Gym. Ever since Shelldrake’s encounter against that ice-flinging man over at the Los Fortuna Airport, they’d found themselves in more and more conflicts against other stand users, and had heard about many more taking place in various parts of the city.
The knowledge of these encounters, and the realization that the rest of the staff could very well end up in more of these very soon made a certain sense of unease hang over the restaurant. The utter chaos that surrounded it every day didn’t change, but it peered through in those rare moments of quiet, as much as some of them liked to ignore and forget it.
It was for that reason that Tiger “Glitch” Ricky made her way over to The Devil Blue, despite the high end resort’s “vibes” being as far away from the Elephant Bones’ as possible. The moment London overheard something about a supposed underground doctor working from the confines of the resort and notified the rest of the team, Glitch bolted outside the restaurant and made her way over to it as quickly as possible. As entertaining as it was, the whole “taking Shelldrake to the vet to heal his broken wing” debacle made the team realize the necessity of alternative treatments for stand related injuries.
Glitch knew that the treatment would likely be incredibly expensive and far out of her or her teammates’ paychecks, but keeping it in mind for any emergencies could certainly help in the future, right? And worst case scenario, if she found nothing, at least she’d be able to help herself to some delicious grub!
Then again, she had no idea where to find this supposed clinic.
Glitch leaned down on her cane, summoning Vida Loca and looking at the area around her. She was in the middle of a large plaza, The Devil Blue’s entrance in front of her. Behind her was the ferry station which she’d just arrived from, and to her sides were many stores and restaurants selling a variety of goods. Glitch kept these spots in mind for the near future, thinking about the delicious food they contained and making sure to figure out how to get her hands on some of it.
Truthfully, Glitch didn’t have much of an idea of what the hell she was planning on doing, but that didn’t matter, because she never did. She hopped around the plaza and the surrounding alleyways, keeping an ear out for the rustling of food packages amidst the sea of noises while exploring them, “helping herself to” (stealing) a few packets of chips for herself along the way. After enough skittering around, she made her way through an alleyway, Vida Loca alongside her, the gargantuan cat squeezing tight to fit, and blocking the path through. They were near an odd building - though it was an “information center” for the nearby nature reserves in the archipelago, it seemed unreasonably large to be solely for such a thing.
“Umm… Excuse me, miss!” An upbeat man’s voice could be heard coming from in front of Vida Loca, the stand separating between him and Glitch. “I’m trying to pass here, and your stand is in the way! It’s important, you know - I’ve gotta meet with Hull! Oh, wait, you probably don’t know who he is, right? He’s… uh... The own- wait no, I should stop before I accidentally reveal something too confidential, haha-” Before the man could finish his rambling, Glitch started climbing onto Vida Loca’s back, peering at the man from above.
From what she could make out, the man was blond and of average height. Vida Loca’s face, meanwhile, was squeezed into the nearby wall and facing the direction opposite him, so tapping into its senses wasn’t much of an option. “Hmmmmrgh...” Glitch let out an odd noise, legs wiggling and moving about as she climbed up more and more, until she found herself sitting on the stand. She then tried to climb on top of it in an attempt at looming over the man, before nearly slipping off, frantically struggling before using some vibrations to stop her in place and sitting down. She looked over at the man’s blurred face, making out a wide grin, which she responded to in kind. “Hehe,” maybe this man had information that would be useful for her.
“See, I’m looking for an underground clinic for stand users or something like that. Should be around here, but I can’t find it! I’ve been looking for so long that I managed to snatch three packets of crisps already!” as if to accentuate the number, she put her arm forwards and raised three fingers “And crisps are great! But I want to find this clinic as well!” Glitch raised her arms into the air in exasperation. “Now, if you tell me where the clinic is, or help me find it in some other way, I’ll get Vida Loca to let you pass! Does that sound good?”
There was a slight pause as the man tilted his head, before breaking out into laughter. “Hahaha! Wow, that’s one hell of a deal! About the clinic, I’m afraid to say that you’re gonna have to wait a bit more! See, it’s actually right here,” he says, pointing at a nearby, unassuming door “and I help run it, but we’re closed for the next hour! Me and Peres have some work to do and meetings to attend, so you’ve gotta wait! Don’t worry though, I’ll make it up to you - I’ll let your crisp stealing slide for now, haha!” Another fit of laughter.
Glitch’s expression shifted into a pout. So she was stuck here for another hour? Bleh! Seeing her expression, the man chuckled again “What’s the problem? I’m sure you’ll find something fun to do here for an hour, you know. Well, it probably won’t all be very legal, and the guards here might try to kick you out, but that’s not something I gotta deal with so I don’t really care, haha!” With that final sentence, the man crouched forwards and deftly ducked under Vida Loca’s body and between its tall legs, passing through.
“See ya!” Turning around, he waved to Glitch with a smile and walked back into the crowds of the plaza. “Plrrrgh…..” Glitch grumbled to herself, thinking about what she could do for the hour. She did overhear some of the resortgoers over in the plaza talking about going to the pool, so that could be fun. Sure, she was almost 100% sure that she wasn’t allowed in there, but what was the harm in sneaking in, eh?
She hopped off of Vida Loca, and with a pep in her step, began making her way over to one of the resort’s pools.
The ferry to the Devil Blue, Waterfront District, roughly 11:30 AM.
Laverne Cassiel wasn’t one to show it well, but they were definitely feeling slightly on edge here, and internally, criticising such an attitude. You can’t be on edge when you’re going to a luxury resort… You’re supposed to be at your best of moods when you go to do something nice, something extravagant… People will know that something is off, something is the matter.
Though troubled, it was not on their face nearly as much as they’d thought, however; it wasn’t so much that people were avoiding them based on a bad mood, so much as one did not talk to strangers on a ferry so much as they spoke to strangers on a bus, but also multiplying that by the disconnect of opulence towards those ‘not worth’ associating with.
“You hear about the prices on Niters? I’ve been absolutely dying to give these a try, demand is higher than ever, and the supply just… Tanks? What’s with that?” A random guy, hipster-looking, foodie, maybe, was complaining to a similarly bougie-looking friend, shaking his head.
The other man nodded, groaning. “I hear you, I hear you so hard… I wasn’t going to eat the stuff, seafood is against my diet, but I was going to prepare such wonderful pictures of a Niter Blowfish Tartare for my food blog… I’d already put down my deposit, contacted a local photographer and everything! I’ll have to get into their kitchens and find some, no matter the price, or my clout is ruined.”
Laverne had seen pictures of the stuff, and frankly, that guy was a moron if he thought it possible to make those things even remotely photogenic, even if he was probably making the right call not wanting to put it in his mouth; if Laverne ever had the opportunity, they would sure as hell wait for the other guy to take a bite. Had they heard it right, though? They were harder to find now or something?
Of course it made sense for the Devil Blue to get them in lighter capacity, if anyone in the area was, but what could be causing the shortage, so soon after they seemed to be becoming more common than ever? There was apparently an incident of sorts here not a few days ago, though people were keeping shush on just what the hell was going on because of that.
Honestly, Laverne didn’t actually care all that much. Their assessment was that it related to whatever in the area would sometimes cause people to ‘disappear’, and whatever that was was probably injured or forced to retreat now (not dead… If it was dead, the supply would stop entirely, which was not the case) and ODIN was trying to keep the news quiet. Least the news made it a lot more comfortable for them to travel by ferry for what they really cared about that day: this Devil Blue resort apparently had a clinic which serviced the Stand-using underground. Doubtless, in times of growing strife like these, a place like that would be an informational hotbed, tactically vital to get in good with.
Though even the decision to investigate that today had been an improvised one, determined on the spot to be a sound tactical decision for one tipping point of a reason: they were being followed, and needed to get the hell away from that.
Roughly an hour ago - Sound’s Garden, near Heartache Casino
For the past several days, the members of Red Carpet Renaissance had all a strange feeling about them. While always it seemed there were eyes upon them in Los Fortuna, for some reason, it had been different in recent days. There was a particular sense to everyone that there was someone, specifically following them, and nobody knew who it could be, or why.
Laverne, though they had yet to report this, had a feeling about where it came from, correlating when it started: it began the day after Kimijo Kaneko went to investigate that damn baseball game. Sure, some people on that chat program were doing their moral grandstanding about what happened there, pretending they’re better than that, that her opponent being a good man makes any of what she did different from every damn fight every damn day in this city, but all of them, it seemed, were at least for the moment wise enough not to put their money where their mouth is and actually follow up on it, and if they had, they’d probably be in some nightmare backroom right now.
This feeling, it was different, as if someone had started to take the entire team more seriously… Which, itself, meant a lot to unpack.
They had actually been trying to follow a sheepish event manager’s association with the owner of the casino that day, see if they couldn’t find something worth blackmailing him over and making him feel ‘indebted’ to them, but that case hadn’t been going smoothly as it could, and as they combed over the area, that is when they saw ‘them.’
A thin figure clad head-to-toe in black, jacket zipped up with a fuzzy-looking trim, biker gear, with orange underneath, and a distinct-looking helmet that looked like something out of a science-fiction film, mouthpiece something like a helmet of armor, visor black, lines and circles along the surface. The morning light reflected off of the visor hard enough to make Laverne squint. This person sat upon a sleek-looking sports bike, revving it at them.
When Laverne looked their way, the figure seemed to drive away, but kept showing up throughout the area, and more and more, Laverne got the distinct feeling this person was exactly the bad news they were waiting for…
They had to lose them.
So naturally, Laverne did just that, utilizing their Stand in a diversionary effort that seemed to successfully draw the figure away, and figuring that an offshore hotel was just the place to lose a biker for a little while. Besides that, within a few minutes of their reflection, the ferry wasn’t a minute away from reaching port at the Devil Blue. They could focus on this now, and not that bastard.
“H-hey, check this out! Someone’s driving on the water!”
The hipsters were speaking to one another, one handing the other a set of binoculars to look out on the waters due North of them, towards the mainland. The other, then, remarked in alarm. “Oh, my god! Is that the Black Angel, here? Oh, ooh, what a sight, what a sight!!”
“It definitely is, look at that!”
“Lemme see,” Laverne said, speaking up now before going ahead and seizing, with little resistance, the binoculars still around the first guy’s neck, going wide-eyed at what appeared on the other end.
The damn motorcycle was uneasily yet consistently making its way along the water, tires spinning as it raced forward against the momentum of the waves. The rider was the same, and what Laverne had read as a trim of fuzz around the upper torso of their jacket, now, flying just behind them as they advanced like a pair of short wings.
Shit, seriously?
Fucking hell, of course it’s a Stand or a Stand User or something.
Would Laverne have to fight on the way to this place..?
Wait, no, never mind. As they looked around, they saw the ferryman overhear just that, muttering into a radio too far, too quietly, to hear them, but close enough to see that the words ‘angel’ were being mouthed on their lips.
Ah, the island was close at hand, certainly closer to arrive at than this ‘Black Angel’ was fast, and some strong-looking people were coalescing around the ferry docks.
Keeping it cool, as the boat found its way to a stop, Laverne walked away, the sounds in the fading distance of a woman saying, “did you forget already? You’re not welcome on this island. Set so much as a wheel on the pavement before this resort you approach, and you know what comes next.”
Though the future was uncertain on whether or not they would cross paths again, for the rest of their time on the island, that was the last Laverne Cassiel saw of the Black Angel. Preliminary research made security seem lax here (they don’t deal with VALKYRIE at all, which is… Rare, for a high-profile private business like this), but it seemed they were just holding out for the important things… They couldn’t help but crack a private grin at how this poor bastard had followed them all this way, only to get turned away near instantly. Haha! Victory: Laverne. Serves you right for wasting my morning! Now, onto making use of this new place..!
They soon, like Glitch, learned that this ‘Peres’ was out, that they couldn’t get into the clinic without either breaking and entering (not that they were morally above it, but it wasn’t necessary) or waiting for that point…
Well, they’d come to a resort island, and knew for the time being that they were completely safe, so why not try to live a little to kill time?
A pool within The Devil Blue, Waterfront district 12:02 PM
Upon sneaking her way over a fence and into the resort’s pool, Glitch found herself with a severe case of choice paralysis. She stood out like a sore thumb, sprawled out on a lounger, ear perched out, picking up on and discerning between the wide variety of going-ons at the pool with a mischievous grin on her face the whole time. She could start off by taking a plunge, or perhaps use Vida Loca to get someone else to take one, or maybe go on a trip to the bar for a snack, or do one of the million other ideas that popped into her head!
“Heheh- oh!” before she could get too comfortable, she heard something very interesting - the sound of someone jumping over the fence, just like she had previously done. “Hmmm….” summoning Vida Loca for a better look, she saw Laverne, catching the investigator right in the middle of a decidedly illegal act. Not that Glitch cared, or even knew much about this odd person, but her interest had certainly been piqued.
Just as Glitch had taken notice of Laverne, so did they take notice of her, or more precisely, of Vida Loca’s massive form, staring right at them. With a quick shuffle they attempted to get out of the stand’s sight, preferring to avoid any unnecessary encounters with other stand users in what was supposed to be their way of killing time. However, Glitch wasn’t going to let them get away, and Laverne quickly found her right on their trail, wanting something to do with them. Instead of running away and possibly drawing more attention to themselves, Laverne opted to wait for Glitch to arrive.
And arrive she did, hopping towards Laverne and stopping in front of them, leaning in to get a close look at them and letting out an curious “Hmmrgh...” , which Laverne responded to by leaning back and putting a distance between them and this nuisance. “Do you want something, miss...?” they asked, faking confusion. With any luck, this person will leave them alone and they’ll be able to go on with their day.
“Glitch! I couldn’t help but overhear you jumping over the fence to get in, so I decided to go over and greet you! I did the same thing, you see, hehe...” She said, giggling to herself. Laverne looked back at them, a straight face hiding their annoyance at Glitch’s harassment.
“And I’m Laverne. I do believe that it’s best to keep a low profile in these situations, so it’s best for us to stay away from each other. If we make a scene and are caught, we’ll be kicked out of here, and I’m sure you’d rather-” “Boooooooooooooring!” Glitch interrupted Laverne with a loud shout, attracting the attention of some of the resortgoers, who’d begun murmuring between themselves. Laverne knew they needed to get away from this person if they wanted to stay in the resort.
“Hmm. Feel free to do whatever you want, Glitch, but I’m just here to relax, so I’ll be keeping a low profile. Here, take this and go find something fun to do.” Laverne said, taking a ten dollar bill out of their wallet and tossing it in the air, leaving Glitch to chase after it while they slunk away.
Glitch, on her end, was quite pleased by the bribe, and immediately found herself spending it all on snacks which she quickly gobbled up. With the bribe money and snacks gone, she once again found herself thinking of what to do, keeping an ear out for interesting occurrences. A little boy slipping into the pool, an arguing couple, Laverne talking with a staff member about something…
She decided to focus on the latter, and managed to pick up on their conversation. Laverne was mentioning some sort of nuisance that had snuck into the pool, a short woman who was currently in the- wait. They were talking about HER, weren’t they?! They were trying to get her kicked out!
Gasping out loud at the sheer audacity, Glitch was utterly shocked! This person, whom she had seen as a kind benefactor who had given her spending money, a comrade who had snuck into the resort just like she had, was trying to get her kicked out! “Hrrrggh…” She growled in annoyance. Laverne had just made this personal! They were trying to get her kicked out? Nonsense! She’d get them kicked out instead!
Laverne, meanwhile, hadn’t been successful in getting the staff to escort Glitch out of the premises. Something about them not having “sufficient evidence”, apparently. They turned over to look at her, only to realize that she had caught onto their attempts, as evidenced by her angry expression and the fact that her stand was out, staring at them as well. She pointed over to Laverne menacingly, her body language practically screaming ‘I’ll get you kicked out instead, just you wait!’.
“Tch,” This wasn’t perfect, but no matter. Laverne looked around the pool area, taking everything in. The positions of the employees, the items in the area, and the resortgoers… All predictable. The one anomaly was her, Glitch. She seemed so odd, with her utterly simple desires and her desire to one-up them. Laverne was an expert of deduction, but their expertise was completely unnecessary when it came to trying to tell what this woman was thinking.
She wanted to challenge Laverne? So be it. They were sure they weren’t going to lose.
OPEN THE GAME! (credit to magistelles for the image!)
Location: A fenced-off area with two pools, one regular (20x48) pool and one diving pool (20x20, very deep), one of many such areas within The Devil Blue. The whole area is 80 meters long and 44 meters wide, each tile being 4x4 meters. The light grey areas on the map are the walkways, and the light green ones are grassy areas on the side of the pool. The dark grey paths going over the pool are bridges, tall enough that they can be passed under. The purple rectangles indicate the positions of the diving boards, one being 1 meter tall, one being 5 meters tall, the final being 10 meters tall. The brown tiles represent the bar area.
All across the pool’s perimeter on the walkways, there are many lounging chairs for relaxation and umbrellas for shade, with resortgoers occupying many of them. A few are situated on the grass as well. Some of the resortgoers have left their bags on the loungers, containing a variety of different items that one might take to the pool, alongside cash and their room keycards. There’s also the bar area, serving basic food and drinks to whomever may need it, provided they have the cash for it.
Goal: Get the employees in The Devil Blue to kick your opponent out! If you act overly suspicious, the resort employees will ask you for your room keycard and attempt to investigate you.
While the employees won’t bother you unless you bother them first, they’ve got a few rules they expect you to keep:

• You must have a keycard to be within the pool
• Don’t bother or attack the other resortgoers and ruin their stay
• Don’t carry any dangerous objects within the pool area
• Don’t destroy any resort property

If the employees spot you breaking any of the rules, or are given evidence of you doing so, they will begin questioning you and ask for your room keycard. If one is shown to them, they will let you off with a warning, and if one isn’t, they will kick you out. After you’re let off with a warning, you will be kicked out if you’re reported and approached an additional time.
Additional Information: Resortgoers can be found all around the area, with 222 physicals and a 3 in “dear god just let me calm down in peace”. Unless you’re really annoying them, they’ll try to ignore you and go on with their lives, and if you do annoy them enough, they’ll complain about you to the employees.
The employees are situated mostly around the bar area and around the gates, but are also dotted around the perimeter of the pool, overlooking the goings-on of it, though they’re situated sparsely enough that there’s substantial “deadzones” that their sight doesn’t ordinarily cover. They have 222 stats, and a 4 in collective memory - they communicate with each other efficiently, remember your faces and which keycard you supposedly have, and will call you out if they spot you breaking any of the rules multiple times.
Any stand users that are currently within the area, if there even are any, don’t seem to really care about you letting your stands out and won’t pay it any mind. However, if any resortgoer is injured in a severe capacity due to your stands for a reason that can’t be explained away as anything else, the pool will be closed and you will lose the match.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Graveyard Shift	Tiger “Glitch” Ricky	“My tail is second only to my face! I want to rub it on my teeth and then lick it back all pretty!” Though Laverne has interrupted your plans somewhat, the reason you came to the pool in the first place was to have fun, and you’re not gonna let that change! Make sure to have as much fun as possible while trying to get Laverne kicked out!
Red Carpet Rennaisance	Laverne Cassiel	“Look! My right hand! It turned back into wood again! It’s not gonna turn back into a hand anymore! This is bad, Toshizaku!” As opposed to Glitch, you’re not the type to be so blatant about your actions and attempts at kicking Glitch out. Remain subtle throughout your strategy, make sure that your clay statues aren’t exposed for what they truly are in front of the bystanders!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
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So, my lovely little larva, how are you adjusting to your new home? Have you been heeding my advice? Have your scales hardened and your claws grown?
Likely not. By this point the majority of you will be torture slaves at best. But please, don't give up, as the humans say, the world needs ditch diggers too.
For the rest though, let's go over your competition, and the penalties for failing to uphold the dignity of the malignant.
You see, in the void we are the top of the food chain. But when you figure out your way back to the world of man you will find your form is again weak and new no matter how powerful your essence in the void is. There are sundry ways to change that, but that is a lesson for another time.
You will be accosted by everything from humans with a grudge to other paranormal entities. And you will have to survive with your brain for a long time before you can rely on your brawn.
But you can't just spend your entire unlife in the void , pretty soon you all will be required to start paying both your soul and blood tithes . And you don't even want to think about what happens if you come up short.
So you will need to learn the limits of your new form. It will bear elements of your true void form, but muted and toned down for the stricter rules of the human world.
There is no telling what gifts you may or may not be given. Only experimentation on your part will let you know what you are working with.
While your size and appendages should indicate your ability to rend and tear, what you can survive is less obvious.
My advice is to find a safe space, and get as many implements of damage as you can find. This will not be a pleasant experience but it is much better to find this out in the safety of a dark cave than fighting something that likely knows more about your situation than you do .
Run yourself through every kind of harm and torture you can devise. If you are lucky you will find certain things from this world do not effect you. If you are very lucky you may find most things don't bother you much.
This will let you figure out where to start looking for your victims. Start small if you are fragile, but remember , your form gains strength from the emotion you feed on as much as the blood and gore. So strive for excellence not mediocrity, your tithes will be mighty but you will want plenty left over for yourself.
But all of this is a very… theoretical lesson. Let me give you an object lesson.
Here is a story of one of my first…clients. A strapping young malignant called Baddar.
He was gifted with a massive size and a set of obsidian teeth that went quite nicely with his chitinous skin and jagged claws.
He felt as if he was a god amongst the humans. He took no care to hide his activities, nor make alliances, he simply stole humans like a raccoon steals garbage until the inevitable happened.
No class. Simply brutish.
He didn't run afoul of a group of humans though. They will use anything to explain away that which they cannot understand. No, he ran into a far more common fate.
You see , as much as we are made to prey upon the flesh and blood world, our bodies are extremely valuable to many different types of paranormal entities. And becoming an overnight legend tends to send out some rather obvious smoke signals.
His foe was the little bottom feeders we like to call "Speed Bumps" , called so because they tend to rip out the undercarriage of the unwary. They specifically prey upon our kind, taking in our flesh to nourish their own.
They are about the size of a large dog , and are reminiscent of a mottled armadillo or arthropod. Under the layers of rock hard plates they have a wicked almost human face with an oversized maw filled with rows upon rows of teeth made from every substance conceivable, and several that could never be comprehended.
You see, this is what let's them tear and sheer through our kind. Your form could be immune to one, or even a dozen of the various materials and you still have hundreds of teeth per creature tearing you asunder.
Seasoned malignant have little to fear, but you fresh faces, best to avoid making a spectacle of yourself for fear of attracting them.
The destruction of his form was slow and introduced him to more pain than a human could experience in a thousand lifetimes.
But his suffering was not to end there.
You see, the destruction of your earthly form is not the end of your appearances on the mortal plain . No, you will return to the void, and eventually you will return, a little poorer for the vanquishing , but back none the less.
There is just one tiny problem that is quite far above your pay grade.
When you get high enough up the ladder you will be introduced to the premise that our image gives us power in very literal terms. When we start talking about the kind of malignant that can be mistaken for Gods , image is power, and they are in a struggle with forces ranging from human to the mistakenly Devine and everything in between.
Getting your overpowered self killed is a shit smear on our image, and as such pisses off some very powerful entities. And one of my many jobs is to make sure little tadpoles that anger the great lizards know to never do such again.
But how to bring to heel an entity of little brain and considerable destructive talent. There is a saying among those in my profession, "Whip men, not rocks", meaning essentially, one truly needs to pick the right strategy for the right situation.
I thought of making him smarter, but that had too much potential to backfire.
I thought of simply leading him to the worst malignant I could find , letting his ego get crushed by the absolute futility of his situation. But that was just as likely to end up with him as a general as a victim. Everything else aside he was gifted.
No, I had to think of something truly unique for this situation, but I was also on the first steps of my journey. And unlike humans I was well aware of the fact that determination and drive do not make up for a lack of skill and experience.
So I did something that you will be advised by many others not to do. Let me explain why those others are imbiciles, shall I?
You will have all types of malignant tell you that your reputation is paramount. To spare yourself indignity , to keep a powerful legend. To be just like the highest echelons of our kind.
That is the worst kind of bullshit.
We are not them, and we never will be. We gain our power by the blood we spill and the essence we rip, we are eternal, and as such our goals are more important than any shame, humiliation, or degredation we could go through.
I got to my position by not caring of how others viewed my actions. And while said position is, momentarily humble, it is far above the dreams of most of the useful idiots in the void.
So I went to the Lechopolus, the city of degeneration, of consumption, of degredation. The city that as its sole goal seeks to find new ways to consume and destroy malignant essence .
Defiling pits, necrophilic parades, orgies of violence and depravity so vile they cannot exist as a coherent thought, all of these pale in comparison to what you will see in your first moments of entering Lechopolus.
I walked the filth and obscenity soaked streets till I got to the gamblers hall. But I had no desire to make a wager, I was looking for its proprietor.
She was flanked by her lessers, beasts a dozen feet tall with forms like melted wax. The deep pits of their eyeless sockets stared at me with undisguised list and rage.
But these specimens paled in comparison to her, Mother Gala.
She was twice as tall as the entities surrounding her and as wide as most homes in the human world. Her skin was grey and cracked layers of dead flesh creating thick armored scales. Her legs were withered stumps, crawling with maggots and other vermin, though her arms seemed to snake around the room, clawed fingers reaching down every so often to caress me with a greasy touch.
Her face was folded and drooping, but full of unnatural muscle , when she spoke the torrent of foul wind created by her expressions threatened to make me vomit.
Her voice was a bellow that mortals in the throws of debauchery still feel.
"Why has this child not of my land came to the mother?" She says tilting her head, releasing torrents of discolored sweat.
"Mother, I seek knowledge." I said, trying my best to sound fearless.
"You can win all the knowledge you want in the casino child. No need to take up my time." As she ends the sentence a tone of rage and malice seeps into her voice.
" I seek knowledge beyond my station mother. I understand what I am asking." I recite the request perfectly.
She let's out a long drawn out frog like croak, letting her long, flat tongue roll put of her mouth. It makes its flopping, semi sentient way to me and draws itself up my body. I remain still, the ice I'm on is thin enough to be called a snowflake.
" I know what you want child, but I don't think you really know what I'm gonna ask. This isn't a gladiatorial pit, or a torture session. This child, this is breaking down what is you. This is taking something from you, you can't give. You understand what an hour in my pits is like? I don't think you do child." I feel weak. Most similar trade offs in other places will be for centuries, milenia even. The implications of the price being an hour were… not comforting.
I've never been the bravest, nor the strongest, but I'm a damn fine actor.
"Mother, I'd ask for the pits should I not need a favor." I say with a grin I hope is more convincing than it feels.
"Oh, I like you child. two hours. " she says as my very being sinks to the floor.
I could not describe the level of humiliation and degredation that I received given the full range of malignant expression. Trying to do such via text… not in the realm of possibility.
All I can say is that there are very few ways that a malignant can be truly harmed. But that experience took things from me I'd much rather have kept.
But what I got made it all worth it.
You see I received the knowledge of binding.
Binding is an extremely powerful process in which a malignant gives his power, his essence, his will to an item in the void. It multiplies ones powers greatly but turns one into nothing more than a tool. The most powerful among us will do this to essentially combine their power with a powerful general or second. Using their superior will and ego, honed through millions of years and billions of battles they dominate the lesser malignant. But doing so as a new entity? You are nothing more than a semi sentient tool.
It also has an interesting effect on the human world. It will create an item, no telling what, but it will hold a tiny fraction of the malignants consciousness. Of course it will also bring about many …unpleasant effects but that is something for the humans to worry about.
I spent years befriending Baddar , but subtly challenging his ego. Always making him feel as if he was just a little too slow, a little too weak, not quite enough. I made him resent me, and all the while I "accidentally" told him of my forbidden knowledge in bits and pieces.
He formulated a plan, thinking himself capable enough to outwit me. But I was steps ahead at every turn, every betrayal he thought he caused, was information seeded by myself.
My plan had worked when he held me aloft over a cliff demanding I bind him to a weapon and allow him to take over my form.
I aquesed with a performance that would fool a rock into sentience. I snivelled, I wept, I soiled myself in fear. Drawing on those hours in the pit.
The ritual was long and brutal, at the end Baddar was bound within a magnificent pig iron sword, taller than a malignant lord by half.
I could hear his essence commanding me to pick up the blade, I grasped it by the hilt and began to laugh as I felt the slightest tug at my essence.
His screams were magical, as the realization hit him I began to explain all the steps taken to get there, how his actions cost powerful entities, and how, unfortunately, he was the example.
I dragged the massive weapon to a being you will never meet, you could feel Baddar's essence become muted, then dim, then fade to a thoughtless powered hum from the blade.
To be a weapon used by those better than you even had the chance to be. It was a fate that built me a reputation.
To this day I still look for his item in the world of man. If anyone finds it, I'd be more than willing to compensate you.

I’ve been playing this game for a long time and browsing the Paradox forums and Cities: Skylines reddit for about as long. I love the game and I love what the devs are adding, I’ve bought just about every DLC because it’s all been very worthwhile, especially as of late. Contrary to what many may think, I still believe there’s much potential for new game content, and I’d like to see the game expanded to its full potential. As such, I have three ideas here for future expansion packs which I think will enhance the game tremendously. My goal is to foster discussion so please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Many ideas are borrowed from the following people to increase exposure, make sure you read and comment on their original posts as well:
Zerotheliger – https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...dlc-casinos-beach-and-golf-long-read.1179681/
Devan0848 - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/maritime-dlc.1184941/
Erls - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/city-council-dlc-proposal.1236693/
ISLAND CITIES
I feel like the biggest thing lacking in the game currently is a way to spruce up the coastlines. As such, I feel the next DLC should be centered on expanding everything related to water and beaches. Despite the name “Island Cities”, most of the features in this pack can be applied to any map with a body of water.
Marinas - New park buildings that dramatically increase the land value and happiness surrounding them and need to be placed connected to water. When placed, pedestrian boats will spawn from them and autonomously sail in the waters connected to it, filling the sea with life. There could be multiple tiers of marinas, earlier ones spawning fishing boats and sailboats while more expensive variants spawn whale-watching boats, houseboats, and finally yachts. Most Marina buildings have nodes that allow you to connect Boardwalks to them (see below).
Boardwalks - A new network path introduced in the expansion, available for pedestrian use only but it has a few special mechanics. For one, they can be zoned on, so houses can be built connected to them though obviously the cars of the people who own the houses would have to be parked on the nearest actual road. Secondly, when built at sea like bridges, pedestrian boats launched from Marinas can park at the sides of them much like cars do on land-based roads, allowing boardwalks to function as docks as well.
Promenades - New network path designed to look good next to quays and coastlines, with fancy tiling and trees lining the paths. They come in two variants: a purely pedestrian promenade, and a wider promenade still designed primarily for pedestrian use but allows cars to traverse slowly down the middle lane. Idea borrowed from the Network Extension mod.
Beaches - New park designation like the ones introduced in Park Life (I know some are tired of this mechanic, but I think it’s a great way to give creators more control over their cities) designed for use on coastlines. Beach paths blend in well with the sand to connect building to building, and park buildings such as bonfires, surfing spots, dune buggy tracks and large coastal resorts increase the attractiveness of the park. Props such as tents, towels, vending machines and parasols help complete the look. Policies are included to limit littering and the hours the beach is open.
Landscaping - New rocks, tropical plants, and coral reefs are added to spruce up the coast, both above and below the water (Maybe some bioluminescent coral so the water glows at night)? Sand can now be placed from the landscaping editor in-game. Owners of Snowfall will be able to do the same with snow, to designate colder areas such as mountaintops- it will still rain in snowy areas, but trees placed on snow will appear to have snow on their leaves.
New Commercial Specialization - Commercial districts can now be specialized as Seaside Commercial and will cause low-density commercial to develop into surf shops, seafood restaurants and tiki bars. They will increase in attractiveness when placed close to water (and be less attractive than regular commercial when placed away from water) and bring in tourists. The Tourism specialization from After Dark will now be a purely high-density specialization that creates large hotels, and low-density buildings from that specialization will be moved to Seaside.
Cargo Ferries - Cargo Ferries, or Barges, are ships designed to carry cargo over water from one point to another. This is different from Cargo Ships, which deliver cargo by water from outside the city, as Cargo Ferries would transport cargo within the city limits. This would allow players to build self-sufficient towns on islands away from the mainland without the use of bridges, and if they are using bridges, it could considerably free up traffic from commercial and industrial trucks on those roads. Cargo Ferries would require the construction of a Cargo Ferry depot, but they could use the same routes as Passenger Ferries.
Garbage Barges - A new pier building unlocked around the same time as the Incinerator that will periodically have trash delivered to them, before spawning large Garbage Barges that carry it outside city limits using the same pathways used by Cargo Ships and Cruise Ships.
Coast Guard - Occasionally, pedestrian boats, passenger ferries, and cruise ships at sea will experience emergencies, such as springing leaks or hitting underwater reefs. When this happens, the boat will stop in its tracks, and an icon indicating distress will appear over it. Coast Guard Stations are a coastal building that spawn Coast Guard speedboats (and possibly helicopters) to aid these ships. When a boat (or helicopter) reaches a distressed ship, the issue will be corrected, and the ship will continue on its way. If the Coast Guard does not reach the vessel in time, however, it and its passengers will despawn and seaside attractions will experience major reductions in attractiveness for a long duration.
Lighthouses - Another Coast Guard building, reduces the likelihood of nautical emergencies in its large radius.
Beach Housing - Concurrently with the expansion pack, a DLC pack adding Beach-themed houses as a district theme will be released, much like European Suburbia or University City. These houses are designed to compliment the buildings added by Island Cities.
GOVERNANCE
The Governance expansion pack is designed to expand the reach of the City government, add new policy options, make the player feel more like the mayor of a large city as well as add some assorted other features that are highly requested. This would be a larger DLC, and possibly as game-changing as Industries.
Contracts - This feature could probably use a better name but I’m going with this one for now. As Mayor of the city, once you build a City Hall building (unlocked early on) you will occasionally be presented with “missions” representing requests by concerned citizens or the higher government. These contracts can either be accepted or denied with no consequences. If accepted, an objective is provided, and a reward is given if the objective is completed. These can range from simple (enabling a policy or placing a service building) to much more complicated (providing public transport between two parts of the city, creating a certain kind of district, zoning a certain number of industrial squares, etc.) but the reward scales to the difficulty of the objective. To preserve the sandbox feel of the game, these can be completely ignored with no consequences or possibly even outright disabled with mods.
Government Buildings - In addition to the City Hall, a new series of Government Buildings are available to be plopped in the city. Bureau of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Health, etc. While expensive, each building provides a slight global boost to its corresponding department, as well as unlocking powerful new policies and possibly even new building options.
Homeowners Association - A new Parklife-esque district zoning type focusing on Residential buildings. This feature makes a plethora of new low-residential style houses available to for the player to plop, varying in size from about the same as the growable residential houses at lower levels, to large mansions at the higher levels. At the highest level, you unlock the option to turn the houses in the Association into a gated community, requiring you to place a gate at the entrance and prohibiting non-residents (besides services) from entering. Families in Homeowners Associations prefer Charter Schools (see below) and require a certain amount of Charter School availability in addition to other factors for the zone to level up. Notably, once a Homeowners Association has been placed, the houses it unlocks can freely be placed outside its bounds and function as homes. However, buildings that aren't from the Homeowners Association menu cannot be placed or grown within its bounds. (Thank you u/sammunroe210)
Malls - Another new Parklife-esque zoning type, this one focusing on Commercial. Malls can be built as either sprawling outdoor malls, massive indoor complexes, or a combination of both. Notably, if building an indoor mall, the mall comes in “pieces” that can be assembled modularly, with each one (except the entrance) not requiring a network to connect to as long as they’re connected to another piece of the mall. This gives the player some degree of control as to the shape of the mall. Outdoor mall pieces include plazas, shops, cafes, boutiques, and other various commercial outlets that can be connected to either pedestrian path or road. Malls can be massively profitable but require lots of cargo deliveries, so good road access is a must, and can decrease the attractiveness of nearby commercial zoning.
Military Bases - The final Parklife-esque district, the Military Base is unlocked when you receive a contract asking you to build a base of a certain size within the city limits. To construct one, a gate must be placed, and then you can place a variety of buildings within such as barracks, obstacle courses, shooting ranges, officers’ quarters, tank yards, naval docks, airstrips, and missile silos, as well as props such as sandbags and guard posts and the like. Military hardware and uniforms are given a generic look as in Sim City to avoid representing any real-world country’s military. Military Bases create lots of jobs and significant income, but also generate lots of crime, noise pollution, and are a definite NIMBY.
Charter Schools - (Borrowed from Erls, please check out his suggestion post linked above) “Charter Schools include a new Elementary School and High School. Each School costs the same as the standard schools do, however they charge money for admission and have a reach 4x as long as conventional schools. They raise money, and are always preferred by households in Homeowners Associations, however each student in a Charter School decreases the effectiveness of a standard school on a graduated scale. Each student (in raw numbers) that attends a Charter School adds .01 % to the ineffectiveness of the standard schools. Thus, for every 100 kids in a Charter Elementary school 1% of students at a standard school are not educated. However, a multiplier of 0.1 is added based on the percentage of kids in a Charter school - Thus, if those 100 Charter kids were exactly 2% of the total elementary school body you would multiply the raw number (100) by 2% and add it back, giving you 120 - or a failing rate 20% higher.”
(Free Update) Parking - Parking is the major feature to come in the free update, adding several new buildings- parking lots of various sizes, and three tiers of parking garages. So as to avoid overwhelming people, parking is not suddenly a major demand of cities, and cities will not crumble if you don't add parking lots. However, parking lots boost the happiness of Cims around themselves, and Cims will prefer to park on a parking lot rather than on a road. Parking Garages function about as you would expect, providing more parking than standard parking lots. However, parking lots have some new zoning functionality.
https://i.imgur.com/VEQmay2.png
(On the left is the zoning grid of an empty road, on the right is the zoning grid of a road with a single 4x4 parking lot attached. Excuse my crummy MS paint skills) ​ Parking lots snap to the grid of roads, but they have their own zoning grids attached to them in all four cardinal directions, allowing you to place a parking lot on the road and then grow a building behind it, making creating strip malls and the like a much easier task. Furthermore, additional parking lots can be attached to the extended zoning grid of the first parking lot, allowing you to create vast, massive parking lots in any shape you like. Be aware though that at least one lot needs to be attached to a road, or else they won't function.
CITIES OF SPLENDOR
The third and final expansion pack idea, focused on casinos, tourism, and wealth. Many might think “But After Dark already focused on those things!”, which is true, but I feel that After Dark was created when CO had a different mindset. They likely did not know how successful Cities: Skylines would be, or how much DLC would be greenlit, so they tried to put as many highly-requested features as possible in After Dark. The day/night cycle, casinos, bike lanes, bus lanes, taxis, and more were all added, but none of them got quite as much attention as later additions did. I feel that it would be reasonable for another expansion pack to take a crack at these things, to bring them up to a higher level of polish.
VIPs - A new, special, one-of-a-kind tourist that visits your city when its popularity is high, or sometimes when a special event is happening (see below). VIPs are celebrities that tend to spend more money than regular tourists and if they have a positive experience in your city, you’ll get a boost to your tourism attractiveness, so always ensure they have lots to do. Limousine depots can be placed to spawn Limousines, taxis that can carry multiple passengers and are the preferred means of transport for a VIP. (Possibly) also “VIP” roads, roads only accessible to VIPs and service vehicles to ensure they have good access to important buildings, but that might be too powerful.
Events - Certain buildings are capable of hosting events that will draw a lot of people, both living in and outside of the city, to come visit them in the span of a day or so. Make sure these buildings have good road access to account for the increased traffic, and that VIPs can get there on time. A new building, the Convention Center, is the first building unlocked that is capable of hosting events, and the Match Day and Campus sports matches are retroactively considered events.
Casino Strips - Another Parklife-style district that adds a multitude of Casino buildings as well as Casino/Hotel hybrids, plazas, fountains, swimming pools, arcades, and lots of neon light props. Casino buildings should come in a wide variety of styles, ranging from Monaco to Vegas. These districts can net quite a bit of income, but cause a significant crime increase. They are especially attractive to tourists and VIPs and are capable of hosting events.
Golf Courses - A new park-type zoning centered around the titular sport. Ploppable buildings include several variations of holes, club house or country club buildings, driving ranges, golf cart rentals (with functional golf carts that can use pedestrian paths), as well as associated props. Golf carts are VERY expensive to keep and maintain but are extremely attractive, drastically boosting the land value around themselves. Golf Courses can host events such as golf tournaments.
Movie Studios - A Parklife-style zoning district (I swear this is the last one) or alternatively a very large ploppable building. I would prefer to see it as he former, allowing you to dedicate a zone to various studios, stages, outdoor filming locations, painted backdrops, a walk of fame, and props such as cameras and lights. Movie Studios are a good way to make money and tend to attract VIPs such as actors or directors, and host events such as film premieres.
Race Tracks - A Match Day-style stadium… except the ploppable building has network nodes attached to it, allowing you to place raceways that define the shape of the Race Track. Like Match Day stadiums and the event buildings introduced in this expansion, races will be held at the Race Track, and like Campus the city can even sponsor its own racer. Furthermore, raceways function as two-lane roads when they aren’t being raced on, allowing you to run them through your city- they’ll be closed of to the public when a race begins.
Desert Map Type - A new type of environment to build cities in. Desert maps, obviously, are almost entirely covered in sand, although a few grass patches may be present. Functionally they’re about the same as any other map, but new props are available for it such as desert rocks, palm tree variants, and cactuses of several types.
Casino City - A new building style sold in a DLC alongside the “Cities of Splendor” expansion that affects high-density residential, restyling them as colorful, grandiose buildings that would not look out of place in Monaco.
I'd like to foster as much discussion as possible, so please leave your thoughts below, and I'll edit any suggestions into the post.

Well, I've gone and done it again. Another chapter of blabbering! I guess by this point some of you must be gluttons for punishment or at least chitter chatter so I won't apologize. In fact if anything this is all your fault for encouraging me! See what you have wrought?! Anyway you're all in for the long haul anyway!
So enjoy!
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Chapter 1
Chapter 30
“They’re not as good as I was expecting.” Raven looked at another of the cookies she was nibbling on slowly.
“Store bought are never as good. They’ve got to have some very strict tolerances for shelf life and allergies, and all that. But they’re not bad. Sugar, flour, chocolate, the main ingredients are all there.” Ham shrugged a little as he ate one.
“That’s because you idiots don’t know the splendor that is excess.” Brandy-Lynn teased as she smushed down her cookie, candy bar, chocolate syrup, peanut butter, sprinkles, and powdered sugar sandwich monstrocity.
“Yeah I’m not sure I’m that hungry.” Raven eyed the abomination that Brandy-Lynn then tried to figure out a way to pick up and eat even as it began to melt over her hands.
“That’s a day’s worth of calories right there.” Jaeger shook his head slowly as he watched her try to eat it even as it fell apart a little, making it even more of a mess. “You do know at some point in the last few millennia some of your evolutionary cousins have learned to eat with tools and not just smear their food all over the place.”
“Quitters.” Brandy-Lynn muttered as she gave up on trying to eat it as one coherent sandwich and began to just feed chunks of her dessert disaster into her mouth one at a time, ignoring how much chocolate and peanut butter was getting smeared around.
“I’m seriously going to have to take you outside and hose you off.” Jaeger sighed and shook his head even as the others chuckled and enjoyed their far more simple cookies.
“I have a question for you all. If I can.” Raven said then as she looked around the table.
“You certainly can. But may you?” Figs asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, she may you pedantic tool.” Jaeger answered with a roll of his eyes.
“Max asked you guys the other night about the scariest place you’ve been… what about the nicest?” She looked around once more that usual innocent smile she had. “Or like… a place you’d really like to go back to.”
“Huh.” Ham frowned a little as they all began to think on it. It wasn’t a question they really had much of a chance to consider during their work as Revenants.
“Maui 718.” Jaeger answered after thinking it over for a minute.
“Oh yeaaaah. That place… yeah that’s got my vote.” Figs nodded.
“I can see it. Even if it was a bit… traditional in the sense of an idyllic paradise that doesn’t make it bad.” Ham agreed.
“What’s Maui 718?” Raven asked of course.
“We got pulled off of R&R early because they’d picked up an automated distress beacon from a UNSD research facility. One that we had no records of, so it was flagged as critical. We went in blind because as mentioned we had no records of it. The idea of some old UNSD facility sending out a distress call a century after the war had ended worried a lot of people. Lots of theories on what horrors we might find there. And we had to tunnel three systems beyond the nearest gate from Sol so this place was beyond remote. It wasn’t on any charts, and its very existence was a surprise.” Jaeger started off and Raven looked worried.
“But when we got there we found a paradise world with just nothing but an automated facility with nothing in it. They’d sent in construction bots and a single foreman to set it up but they never actually followed up with anything else. The foreman had died of old age some… twenty to thirty years prior to our arrival and the only reason the distress beacon went off is because the expiration date on the base’s medical supplies finally passed. Even an automated facility with no living personnel has to have current medical supplies. And that was it.” Jaeger shrugged.
“That’s sort of sad the foreman was all alone though.” Raven frowned a little.
“Not to him.” Jaeger smirked a little. “He had journals that he wrote sporadically, sounded like the guy loved it. So… let me explain the world a little because as I mentioned it was a paradise but it was also mostly water. Even more so than Earth. It was like… 15% dry land? The base was set up in this zone of islands where the water was… pure. I guess is the best way to describe it. Just… this great vast clear blue perfect water. The base was built into these rock pillars that provided it this unmatched view of the whole area and the sunsets and sunrises both were… phenomenal. It was warm year round without being too hot, and the shallow water was heated enough to be refreshing without being too cold. So the foreman realized what had happened and just spent his life fishing, exploring, and painting.”
“It was trippy to see some of it.” Figs added. “He had a whole base worth of bots to work with and figured out some way to make paint from local materials and just painted these massive murals across the pillars in the ocean. He had named all the local species of fish and had lists on how to best cook them and the local fruits and veggies. Even made his own rum.”
“That was good rum too.” Tanya nodded, of course weighing in on the alcohol.
“Since they’d cut our R&R short for this they let us stay a week and make sure there wasn’t any hidden facilities or the like. They even landed Elysium in the ocean and let the crew have fun. It was pretty amazing. The protected cove the main base’s pillar was situated in was perfect for swimming and diving and body surfing… just whatever. And those fruits were great.” Jaeger sighed a little at the thought.
“Oh they were amazing.” Figs nodded. “Picture this sort of… lime citrus flavor, but add a dash of vanilla and it’s more on the sweet side, and eaten like an orange. But not like… super sweet. Just… just enough.”
“Not enough sugar.” Brandy-Lynn muttered as she swallowed one of the last chunks of her own sugar filled mess and downed some more purple drank.
“Zero people are surprised to hear you say that.” Jaeger shook his head a little.
“Plus while I can see why some people would like that sort of planet it’s too easy. Take just about any untouched habitable world and you’ll get some similar results.” She shrugged off. “No, if I were to pick a world we need to return to someday it’s Vegas.”
Jaeger and the others had a variety of chuckles and groans in reaction to her comment. “Don’t you get enough sin?” Jaeger asked.
“It’s not just that! It’s the pinnacle of the human spirit!” She insisted. “We took a barren world that was just barely habitable and only noteworthy because it was situated along a good trade route junction and while most people would have just settled for a few orbital stations and some water refineries on the poles we took one look at it and went ‘nah fam I got this.’ And it became the glory that is Vegas!” She raised her hands at the end.
“It’s hardly unique to have a planet with gambling.” Figs scoffed.
“It’s so much more than that! They made that world glow! It never slept! They slapped casinos and magrails all over that planet and made a desert gorgeous! The rainbow sands, the mineral springs, the gorge, you could find so many amazing natural features that would have otherwise been passed over just because the planet is drab from orbit! And the lights! This was a world that was most beautiful at night! The neons, the spotlights, the biolumes! It had everything! There was no end to the party! No rest for the wicked! Every human, and xeno sin and vice could be enjoyed at any time, on every day.” She grinned.
“By devouring vast quantities of power and resources far outscaling the population it had.” Figs countered. “Of course you’d be in love with the most excessive and consumption driven world in human history! Even more so than Earth and that’s saying something!”
“Ah you’re just a hater.” Brandy-Lynn waved him off.
“She’s allowed to have the planets she misses most.” Jaeger cut in to end their argument before it went anywhere else. “Anyone else have planet’s they missed most?”
“Dean’s world.” Ham spoke up as the others nodded slowly.
“Ah, that’s a good trippy world.” Brandy-Lynn agreed.
“What’s Dean’s world?” Raven asked.
“It was… mmhhh… a strange planet… Very surreal fauna created by a rather unique atmospheric system. The ground level wasn’t actually habitable by humans due to toxic gasses and pressure. But at a certain point in the sky it was not only habitable but pleasant. So cities were created in the skies atop these massive spindly mountains that looked like coral formations. One of those niche worlds that attracted specific people but wasn’t ideal for any particular industry. Though it did have a decent chemical refinement base. And tourism due to the unusual nature of the world.” Jaeger explained.
“You could wear protective suits and dive from the sky to the ground on these glide packs and weave between the formations. It was amazing to just drop out of the clouds.” Ham smiled at the memory, which the pilot obviously enjoyed.
“That sounds really cool. Think we can go there someday?” Raven gave Jaeger a big hopeful smile though he frowned in response.
“Ah… maybe someday. But it’s not in Pact space so I have no idea if it’s even inhabited anymore.” He explained.
“It’s not? But… the Pact is made up of all the pre-war governments. Shouldn’t that mean all the old systems?” She asked with a frown of her own.
“Eeehhh…” Jaeger slowly tilted his head side to side. “The pact territory now represents only something like 20% of all civilized systems before the war. Between what the Hive still has in the core, the Crusader territory which is mostly Ravex, the Death’s Door periphery of Devari space, and the quarantine zones there’s a lot less to Pact space than you’d think. There’s another… 20% that’s in a patchy quasi connected state that’s the new fringe. Everything else? Lost. With the collapse of the F.V.S. the Pact lacks the resources and the technical know how to revive the dead gates.”
“Really? I read up about how the Pact is rebuilding all the time. The posts detail their programs to restore quality of life and infrastructure and all that. We see those big freighters from the valley taking food off world. I know you’ve talked about this being the post apocalypse and all that but… I thought that was a bit of exaggeration. Were that many systems destroyed in the war?” Her frown had deepened at the thought.
“Most of them aren’t destroyed. Just… lost. The gate network provided easy, safe, and reliable FTL travel around the galaxy. Never mind that it left a patchwork of systems that weren’t always geographically connected in real space. Many of these systems are probably surviving on their own or with limited gate connections. Solavis and the most developed systems are all only a jump or two off of the hub systems in the Void so they’re working to make what territory they very solidly control strong before they try to expand. Humanity will survive even when cut off from the rest of the galaxy.” Jaeger assured her.
“You think so?” Raven looked thoughtful at that.
“I’m sure.” Jaeger nodded. “This isn’t the first time humanity has faced down the end and survived. The ice age, the bubonic plague, the climate catastrophe, all incidents that led to the death and destruction of vast swathes of humanity. And we also returned. Hell, the climate catastrophe was directly responsible for the Void colonization efforts that saw humanity explode across the stars. Do you think the smaller Slavic nations were enthusiastic about joining a Russian lead space program? Or south east asians having to hitch a ride with the Chinese? Or the Indians? Not really. But over a billion people die and prospects on earth look bleak so they take what they can get. They reforge their identities and now we’ve got the SSR, the Five Dragons, the Antarens, the Chakra and the Voiders themselves.”
“Well… we did. Now we have the Pact.” Tanya pointed out.
“Yeah… I’m still not sure how they plan to unite us all with Xenos. Humanity has never been ruled under a single shared government before.” Jaeger shrugged at the thought. “But so long as the Crusaders and Hive both remain prevalent threats we’ll stay somewhat together at least.”
“We’re still not under a single government. There’s the Hive holdouts.” Figs mentioned.
“Ah.” Jaeger just waved a hand dismissively. “They don’t count. They might as well be insects for all it matters in regards to their species. What I’m trying to say is humanity will go on. We become callus to the needs of our survival. What was unthinkable can become routine if it means we survive. There is no end to which we will push ourselves in order to survive as a species. But… at the same time this nature ensures it will happen again. In some way.” He shook his head slowly and sighed.
“Another Hive war? Well we’re going to have to finish them off for sure.” Brandy-Lynn nodded.
“Not that… or not exactly. I mean we’ll probably face another cataclysmic event of similar scale. Not anytime soon, and not in my lifetime. Hell maybe not for centuries… but eventually. I mean this was our fault… not just us as Revenants. But as a species. We became so successful that governments lost sight of what they were supposed to be. They thought of themselves as entities who existed to further their own power and control. But they lost sight of the fact that they were supposed to do this for the betterment of the people over who they ruled. Instead they were seizing power for the sake of power itself only. The shadow wars were all about each nation trying to ensure an open war wouldn’t break out between them with the Void states being paranoid enough to strike at everyone. Ally and Enemy alike equally.” Jaeger reminded them.
“And in the end they were all now filled with citizens who were unhappy with what their governments were doing supposedly in their name. They were so focused on fighting each other they failed to realize they were cultivating the seeds of their own destruction from inside. It’s not like the Hive sprang up out of nothing. The unemployed, unfulfilled, aimless masses gave them all the conscripts they needed.” Tanya nodded as she finished the line of thought that Jaeger had started.
“Success itself is not a sin. I mean… who doesn’t want more and better stuff. A way to leave your kids more than you had? But… this is what I mean with becoming callus. Those who suffer hardship en masse then learn to flourish in whatever is left. We become more and more successful until hardship of that scale is but a distant memory… and that’s when it all goes wrong again because no one in power remembers those hardships and what caused them. We are survivors because we are doomed to repeat ourselves. It is what makes us great, even if it makes us suffer. And we’re just bringing xenos along for the ride now.” Jaeger shook his head as the others chuckled a little.
“I’m sure they’re capable of survival on their own.” Raven suggested. “The Ravex grew up on a brutal volcanic world, the Jipasi have always been adaptable, the Kra’Kto’Sui can survive almost any ocean and the Davari built themselves up from being abandoned on a strange world. You don’t think they’d survive on their own?”
“I don’t mean it like that. I just mean… we’re probably a detriment to them. If we can’t get along with each other what chance is there to get along with xenos?” Jaeger shrugged.
“I think it’s time though. The Pact promises equality and democracy. And they’re making it work! There’s a chance we’ll come out of this with a nation for all of us. No more need for shadow wars or anything like that.” Raven’s optimistic attitude always made Jaeger smile and this was no exception. He didn’t feel like bursting her bubble with his own doubts of their continued cohesion once enough worlds were rebuilt to the point of standing on their own and how old divides might be made fresh.
“Speaking of survival though, have you done your chores today?” He asked her.
“What? No.” She frowned in surprise at the question.
“Well you’re always supposed to get your chores done.” He wagged a finger at her.
“But you guys fought a battle! I couldn’t think about anything else!” She huffed.
“That’s why I’m not mad that you’ve put them off till now but you gotta go do them before bed. Now get to it.” Jaeger nodded his head a the door.
“But…” Raven looked around the table and pouted as several of the others chuckled a little.
“We’ll have time to hang out other days. You want me to save the galaxy? You have to do your chores so I can focus on that.” Jaeger eyed her as she rolled her eyes and made a face.
“Fine.” She agreed and got up from the table to put her dishes away.
“Ah.” Jaeger shifted his seat back and opened his arms as she came around to give him a hug. “I’ll get the dishes you go get your work done.” He told her as he hugged her tight.
“Okay dad.” She nodded and headed off out the door. They watched her go and just as the door to the cafeteria closed Brandy-Lynn spoke first.
“Shit. Fuck. Tits. Coooock.” She gasped out as if she would have exploded holding it in any longer.
“I will give you some credit lasting as long as you did you whiskey tango twat.” Figs snickered as he watched Brandy-Lynn who just flipped him off only for Figs to flip her off back.
“Settle down. We need to talk strategy. We’ve got the lead on two keys for sure as mentioned. Figs, Brandy-Lynn what do you need to do to get with your people on tracking down leads on the others?” He looked between them.
“A quick trip back to Sol town to sign off on a few transfers.” Figs answered.
“I could probably shove my boot up the appropriate ass from here but I think I might as well give it a personal touch as well.” Brandy-Lynn shrugged.
“You might want to check up on that Titan agent Sarge. Wasn’t there mention of another agent meeting with her tomorrow? What if it’s one of Alvarez’s men?” Tanya reminded him.
“Shit…” Jaeger looked at his watch. The night had begun and he could see the stars coming out from the cafeteria window but hadn’t really thought about what that would mean.
“We can handle it. Just have Ham drop us off.” Figs gave the pilot a look.
“No, she knows me. I’ll do it.” Jaeger shook his head. “I’m not short on amp.”
“It’s better than traditional Colombian cocaine coffee that’s for sure.” Brandy-Lynn grinned wide at the mention of the battle drug.
“Isn’t that stuff hazardous for your health?” Max asked with a frown even as the others laughed.
“Yes.” Jaeger ignored the others as they laughed. “But sometimes one has to keep going on little to no sleep. I’ll nap where I can. It’s not like I’ve never done it before. While we’re in the city I want you to check the wreck of the Nautilus.” Jaeger looked at Tanya.
“Alone?” She asked.
“I can’t spare anyone. Figs has his thing about the ocean-”
“I don’t fuck around with the ocean and it doesn’t kill me. That’s the agreement we’ve got.” Figs cut in.
“Brandy-Lynn always wrecks the sub-”
“All of those events were unrelated and entirely not my fault!” She huffed.
“And Ham is piloting the vetall.” Jaeger kept speaking ignoring their outbursts.
“What about me? I can help.” Max perked up a bit.
“I need you here to oversee fortifications. I’m going to have to go a little more… overt than we used to until this is all over and deal with the repercussions later.” Jaeger shook his head.
“What? I want to help!” Max insisted.
“You are helping Max. It might seem like I’m leaving you out but I’m not. I have to be in Sol town and you’re the only other person with any command experience. Especially managing bots between here and the Port Authority.” Jaeger explained.
“Oh, one battle, some experience.” Max snorted.
“Training. You’ve had training for this. We were all trained in combat but not command like you’re dealing with. I had a little as Sergeant Major but… I’m just not… I don’t think that way.” Jaeger shrugged.
“If we get Lard back in the air he can do both. It’s not like we’ll need to go dark for this.” Tanya looked between them for a moment.
“Alright. But your focus is fortification. If the Hive make another move, or Marque, or Alvarez we might need to be ready to withstand a more coordinated assault. So get a list of every available bot here and in the city. See if anything can be repaired and…” He trailed off for a moment as he thought. “Ham, how hard would it be to get the reservists online?”
“Getting them online? Not that hard… getting them from my place to here? Uuhhhh… pppfff…” The pilot slowly filled his cheeks up with air and then let it out. “I can’t do it with what we’ve got. It would be way to inefficient to use the Hawk or even the Gecko, and if we called in a favor to get something bigger it’ll be painfully obvious.”
“What about… Can any of them drive? Don’t you have those old Quad and a halfs? Ha...lves?” Jaeger stumbled over the word a moment.
“Uh yeah… but I’m pretty sure people will notice some APCs rolling around the mountains.” Ham snorted.
“So? Slap Pact markings on them and then park a few up the road to close off traffic. People are probably expecting some sort of Pact activity after the battle yesterday.” As Jaeger said that Ham looked thoughtful.
“Yeah alright. I can drop you three off, swing back, get that going, and be back to pick you up.” He nodded.
“After that we’ll come back and then I’ll take Brandy-Lynn and Figs north to Gullhaven to find the Galileo wreck while you three keep building up. Maybe see about making our own uglies if we need to. Think we can Tanya?” He looked over at her as she sighed.
“Maybe… We’ve got the facilities but… I know jack shit about setting up assembly work. I made my two by hand and that won’t cut it here… What about a Centipede? We’ve got that scrap yard up the beach.” She glanced at Ham.
“Fuck off.” The pilot snorted. “A few old APCs sure, that might not get much attention. But a base crawler? People are going to fucking notice. Especially since they were Absolute Dynamic’s babies and no one else had any. That’ll bring the real military down on our heads.”
“Alright.” Jaeger waved them off. “See what you can do small scale.”
“Why the emphasis on bot combat anyway?” Max asked as the others looked his way. “I mean… Can’t you guys call in favors? Aren’t there other Revenants out there?”
“No one who can get here in time… And even then we’re not well connected anymore. We scattered to the winds when Titan began to hunt people down at the end of the war.” Jaeger reminded him. “We’re most familiar with bots anyway. We’re not front line soldiers on our own. We’re force multipliers. You saw the battle today. We’re limited to small scale units tactics and rely on your ability to marshall the bots into an actual line. The Void had a fraction of the population of the other majors. Their military was… 90% bots?” Jaeger glanced at Ham.
“93% of ground forces but only 64% of naval. The idea was to use organic soldiers in concentrated forces and then use bots to flesh out the line between them. The Void military was highly specialized. Urban combat, arctic, jungle, forest, mountain, siege assault, siege defense, every possible terrain and mission had at least one unit for the task with more generalist bots as needed to pad out their numbers.” Ham explained further. “They relied on excellent command, communication, and control to make it all work.”
“I noticed as the battle went on the bots seemed to fight better.” Max mentioned.
“Yep. Neural net. As Lard better streamlined their net they’ll take in more battlefield information and fight better the longer it lasts. And… since I’m guessing none of them have been wiped in a while they might have needed the time to shake out personality quirks.” Ham glared at Jaeger.
“Bite me.” Jaeger just shot back.
“I was wondering why so many of them are people shaped. I mean… it’s not like the human form is honestly the best design is it?” Max looked around the table. “Not that I’m hating on our bodies or anything. I mean for military bots.”
“Why bipedal humanoid forms you mean. With hands that operate guns instead of built in weapons?” Jaeger asked and Max nodded. “Economics. Since most systems had to be built for humans to use it just became easier to make humanoid bots that can also use them. I mean… there are specialized APCs, vetalls, and dropships for droids that are way more efficient but they can also use the regular models built for humans. It also makes it more difficult to differentiate in the field. A standard Void infantry soldier in armor and a frontline combat bot look remarkably similar. So it’s harder to know who to target if they all look the same. Most of them lack built in weapons for simplicity. Why build a gun into a bot when the small arms already being manufactured work fine?” Jaeger shrugged.
“Bertha has built in weapons though.” Max mentioned.
“Well… she’s a bit different. Most combat bots are just supposed to replace infantry. Similar profile, similar size, similar jobs. Bertha is a heavy assault bot so she’s made to take on fortified positions and even mechs. But she can’t move fast without support. She’s also a more intelligent unit. Tex, Pyro, Gargoyle, they can all talk and have more distinct personalities which pushes the boundaries of legality under the Shanghai accords. Most just chirp to reduce organic similarities and since they lack processing power for more sophisticated communication.” Jaeger continued.
“You’d also be surprised how much control fingers have over something say… sticking out of the wrist.” Ham cut in. “Even for a bot they’re more accurate holding a gun. Plus a well armored core makes for a solid platform that’s harder to take down most of the time and the limbs can get replaced more easily. Though it gets more complicated with the variety of bots that were employed. I mentioned specialization and while most battle bots were generalist platforms there were lots of other units. Assault bots like Bertha are made to counter mechs in urban environments. Bug bots are made for wilderness ambushes. Howie’s are just walking artillery. There’s anti-tank bots too. The list goes on.”
“Yeah I was also going to ask. The Draugr had both tanks and mechs?” Max looked a bit confused.
“Well that’s cause the scavs made the tanks. They probably lack the sophistication for mechs so… slap some armor on some construction equipment, add a cannon or something, and you’ve got a shitty tank. But mechs are designed for urban combat while tanks are for open country.” Ham shrugged. “I mean… really there’s fucking… dozens of main platforms which are then further specialized into a hundred variants. But they try to reuse as many parts, weapons, and ammos as possible to make logistics easier. These guys are really where simplified logistics gets thrown out the fucking window.” Ham pointed around the table.
“Yeah well that wasn’t a major concern at the start of the program now was it?” Jaeger shrugged. “And unfortunately we’re going to suffer for that now with our own vastly limited logistics capabilities. I was thinking maybe we could try to find some old steggies and give them... sleds or something to carry supplies maybe?”
“Steggies?” Max asked.
“We called them steggies. They looked a bit like stegosaur...uses… stegosauri?” Jaeger looked around questioningly as he had no idea what the plural would be. “Four legged, had solar panel fins, made for long range patrol and recon with some light combat potential. I mostly thought of them since they need almost no maintenance and they’re self sustaining on most worlds.”
“But we don’t have many of them. Maybe if I tried to ping the planet for a general recall… but people would notice.” Ham pointed out and Jaeger shrugged it off.
“Just an idea.” Jaeger replied and then looked out the main window once more at the stars in the night sky. He was quiet for a while as he looked among the stars.
“You got quiet sarge.” Tanya mentioned as they sat there for a bit watching him.
“Just… been thinking a lot.” He replied. “This morning I smashed a man’s skull in with a rock.”
“What? When?” Max gasped out.
“On the beach. One of the Hive soldiers had been hit and he was crying for his mother which was going to give away my position. I couldn’t find the asshole’s gun so… I just grabbed a rock and…” He shrugged. “I was just looking at the sky wondering about the stars. I have no idea which one Earth is. I’m not even sure if we can see the direction Earth would even be in from here. Or how far away it is. Like… is the light of Sol as it reaches Solavis old enough that men smashing each other’s heads with rocks would be a common occurence still?”
“Like… how many light years it would take for it to each here?” Tanya asked.
“Yeah. Like if I went back in time to whenever that light was first cast by sol into the galaxy at large would I be a caveman? A roman? A mongol? Would I fit right in with my skull bashing? How have we made it so fucking far and yet still… we’re the same? I told Raven about how the galaxy doesn’t really care. So we have to step up and care in its place. We have to get the keys for ourselves so that Marque doesn’t get them, but beyond that I… I want to actually do something good with it. We can’t afford to be passive. I can’t… My failure in planning for an attack got Merlin killed.” He shook his head slowly.
“It’s not your fault sarge.” Tanya started.
“The fuck it’s not. I knew Marque was setting up artillery in the city. Did I think the Hive would just sit back and take it? Why have I sat here doing dick all about improving the world for my kids to live in?” He waved a hand.
“Dad…” Max started.
“I don’t regret taking the time to raise you like I have.” Jaeger added. “But I should have been doing more. I never should have let us split up. We’ve lost so much time… And… you know I’m not sure any of us is good for anything besides killing… But we’re going to use that to make the Galaxy a better place.”
“Fuck yeah.” Brandy-Lynn grinned, obviously on board with his plan already.
“How?” Figs asked, a bit more focused on the possibilities.
“If… When we get all these keys we’ll have the everything we need. We’ll have our old intel and communications network back, not to mention a way to track down wisps and mimics. Then we start bribing, blackmailing, and backstabbing whoever we need to to get shit done. Brandy-Lynn you’re the fucking Golden Web boss of this planet! You’ve got access to a criminal network through all civilized space and beyond! We can use that!”
“You can count on me sarge!” She ginned, just as eagerly.
“Figs, we can use your legitimate connections to make inroads with politicians beyond just finding out more about the keys! And even your company can provide us cover if we need it.” He waved at Figs who nodded.
“Yeah, that would make sense. Start up some initiatives, get lobbyists in our pocket.” He agreed.
“Ham you said Tabori is an assassin for hire now right? Well once we track his ass down we can use that too! He’ll know not only who else we can hire in a pinch to take out people we don’t like but just by being a part of that world he might know who we should watch in general! And Ham you… uh…” Jaeger trailed off a moment.
“Yeah?” Ham asked, arching a brow.
“You love pirates!” Jaeger finally pointed out. “You know shipping and star lanes! So if we need to hit at ships in the void you’ll know how to make it look right! Or even out to avoid the pirates that are really out there!”
“Yaarr.” Ham let out a pirate growl as he grinned.
“Tanya, you’re fucked up. But you’re the sort of fucked up that actually takes the time to ponder the sort of shit none of us do.” Jaeger waved around the table. “We’ll need that if we’re going to make this work. Knowing precisely who to bribe and how, who to blackmail and how!”
“That’s not exactly the focus…” Tanya trailed off then and shrugged. “Fuck it. It’ll give me something to do.”
“Plus if need to honeypot any more Hive bishops you’re the girl for the job.” Brandy-Lynn wiggled her eyebrows.
“Who the fuck told you… Ham I’m going to strangle you!” Tanya growled out.
“I was just catching her up to speed earlier!” Ham held up his hands to ward off any attacks.
“I didn’t even know you swung that way. You always seemed way too boring and vanilla to be interested in more fucked up dramatic dangerous fucks.” Brandy-Lynn added.
“It wasn’t… you know what you wouldn’t know a meaningful and heartfelt connection with another person if it burst out of your ass!” Tanya hissed back at Brandy-Lynn who just cackled.
“I’m serious though.” Jaeger held up a hand to stop them from further bickering. “We do this to help drive the Pact in the right direction. Our issue was that we had no one watching us while we got up to shady shit. And now it might turn out that Titan is following in our footsteps. So we’ll watch them watching everyone else! We shift the tide of public opinion to make synths legal again. No matter how long it takes. No matter the cost.”
“Yeah!” Ham clapped at that and the others let out various agreements.
“But… what gives you the right?” The table went quiet as everyone looked at Max who gulped and leaned back a little then. “I mean… it wouldn’t be legal… what you guys are talking about. There’s no… due process…”
“Max we’re already bad guys. We’re already evil. We might as well be evil for the right reasons. This is a time of change and transition. If we steer this right we could make the Pact a truly great government. And we just tidy up the dark corners that the law can’t reach. We’ve done it before. But we did it at the behest of other people who we simply accepted knew what they were doing. And never feel like you shouldn’t call us out on this sort of thing. I want you to. That’s why I show you so many of your mom’s memories. She was better about all this than I was. But instead of just following orders now we’ll have to make the decisions for ourselves.”
“Hell, I always felt our extracurriculars were the best things we did.” Brandy-Lynn nodded.
“Your what?” Max asked with a frown.
“I kept reading about how girls visiting some of the other nations would talk about getting groped on trains, or pulled towards questionable places by the locals. So one time on leave I tried it out. I had the others keep watch from a distance and dressed the part of whimsical bratty tourist girl out of her element. Sure enough some guys got grabby… and I took care of them.” Her grin turned sinister at that.
“Dare I ask how?” Max asked although even then he looked hesitant to discover the answer.
“Ripped their balls off.” That same evil grin was plastered on her face.
“Off?” Max stressed in surprise only for Brandy-Lynn to raise her hands to make grabbing and yanking motion that made Max shudder.
“Command signed off on it too. They encourage our hobbies. I would hunt the more vile pirates.” Ham shrugged. “Tabori hunted poachers.”
“Drug dealers.” Figs nodded and then caught Max’s look. “Like illegal drugs dealers who spiked their shit or sold to kids.”
“Tanya went after loan sharks.” Jaeger mentioned.
“How dare you try and associate that scum with violence based artisanal locally sourced money lenders!” Brandy-Lynn shot back as she pointed at Jaeger. “Those were corporate shitstains that’s what they were.”
Max just looked questioningly at Tanya who shrugged. “I had some friends who had to deal with shady student loans. Schools that would tell them they were getting financial aid but really it was predatory loans. Stuff that pushed the limits of legality. Mostly the Void had strict consumer rights protections but… where money is made corporations proved willing to… muddy the waters of some of those laws with lobbyists. I figured… fuck it. Sometimes the law is wrong. Sometimes… there needed to be people who cut through it.”
“And that was the point of the Revenant program. Kill one so ten may live. Kill a hundred to save a thousand. Kill ten thousand to save a hundred thousand. Kill a million so a billion might survive. Do what has to be done. Do what others can’t. In the end… it didn’t work. But I maintain that it wasn’t the fault of how we got shit done but the people aiming us. That’s why I stress how important it is for you to think for yourself. Because I didn’t.” Jaeger shook his head.
“Dad-” Max started.
“I didn’t.” Jaeger cut in. “I just followed orders. I was some dumbfuck kid from the stacks who barely made it into the program and I was so thankful for that. So… fucking… thankful. I just assumed these people with college degrees, and… doctorates, and experience, and rank just knew more than I did. Yes sir. Kill this town? Yes sir. Shoot this family in the face? Yes sir. Do terrible things that qualify as war crimes? Yes sir.” Jaeger kept saluting as he said that.
“That girl… that Raven asked about… The one you said must have escaped?” Max looked worried.
“I killed her.” Jaeger didn’t bother hiding it.
“But she was… a kid right? Raven’s age?” Max’s expression nearly broke Jaeger’s heart.
“Orders. Condition zero. No witnesses. No survivors. No exceptions.” Jaeger shook his head slowly.
“See this is why we’re all still afraid of your dad.” Brandy-Lynn spoke up to take some of the focus off Jaeger.
“You guys? But you’re all… He’s just baseline…” Max looked a little confused as he looked around the table.
“As soon as someone gets put into his mental needs to die list he won’t hesitate. And the thing is only two people in the universe can’t be put on that list. You and Raven. Everyone else? Dead. No hesitation. Cops? Civilians?” She shook her head. “Sorry. Hell, if any of us were somehow put in a place that we became a threat to your life or Raven’s? Your dad would fucking kill us. In a heartbeat. Faster if possible. But that’s because he’s the most selfless fucking person I’ve ever met.” She looked back at Jaeger.
“That’s a lie and you know it. About my being selfless. I would certainly kill you without hesitation if I needed to.” He nodded.
“Love you too sarge.” She grinned and then focused on Max. “See, your dad accepts the responsibility of being the bad guy. Of being evil. He still does the right thing. He just doesn’t bother with all the bullshit. And don’t let him fool you with his hard talk. Sure we’re evil… but we killed a lot of bad guys that no one else could. Him killing a kid? It sucks. But in the face of stopping a war? Stopping the Apostles? Fuck it was worth it. We aren’t cops. We’re killers. Let the law catch who it can and we’ll get the rest.”
[Continued in Comments]

I'm just about finished with NG+, and as such I've been through every palace more than once and I have to say, the Palaces, while for the most part are all fun, definitely weren't all created equally. As such, I've ended up with a distinct favorite and least favorite Palace, as I'm sure most of you guys have, so I want to know: What are your favorite and least favorite palaces?
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Personally, my favorite Palace is Sae's Casino
Pros:

• Whims Of Fate
• The Casino was a unique idea that we hadn't seen in any Persona game prior.
• I love playing Cards/Card Games so a Casino is/was right up my alley (Heck in High School we ended up playing Texas Hold 'Em in my Homeroom).
• Having To Collect Chips was a very unique idea that isn't seen at any point else in the game. Having to actually "play" the games (despite them being rigged against you when you start) was an incredible idea that brought something new to the game.
• Shadow Sae. Hoo Boy. (Hoo Boy to real Sae too. Atlus plz let us romance Sae in P5R).
• The "Win At All Costs" motif is how I was at one point. I'm a sore loser. While I don't go to the cheating extremes like the Casino did, I can resonate with it.
• The Invisible Maze was a really fun and unique challenge, but the difficulty scale wasn't too hard, especially if using third eye to get through it.
• I love how it's where the game loops back to itself (that is to say, where you are when you first start the game).
• Some of the best Personas in the game reside here. (Rangda comes to my mind immediately).

Cons:

• The Length seemed super short for its location in the game, especially considering the Palace directly before it.
• While the game rooms are cool, a majority of the time in the Palace is spent in the Staff Passageway area, which is bland and bleak for the most part.
• The gimmick of Sae's boss battle was actually a reuse in a way. The Fortune and Strength (I think it was Strength?) Full Moon fight in Persona 3 featured what could essentially be a roulette (though, this one's cooler because of the x2 and x3 multipliers and the fact that it's an actual roulette table).
• The "2nd floor" games aren't "games" you'd see in a real Casino, where the first floor ones (Slots and an essentially modified version of Craps) are. It feels like an extreme stretch to even attempt to fit them in. (Not to downplay them)
• You can't clear the palace in one day. You have to make multiple trips to the palace to clear it.

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My least favorite Palace is Okumara's Space Station
Pros:

• Outer Space as a Palace theme is fucking awesome.

Cons:

• Everything else.
• Underwhelming boss fight. He just sends minions after you and then doesn't do anything himself.
• That Air Lock puzzle sucks. (Specifically the second one. The first one isn't too bad)
• The backtracking trying to get the Chief Director's ID is terrible. Way too much backtracking for one floor.
• Oh and not to mention the backtracking during the Robot Arms part.
• I know I complained that Sae's palace was so short, but this palace was way, WAY too long. Especially with all the backtracking.
• The entire Ryuji and Morgana arc during the beginning of the Palace (pre-Haru joining team) seems way too forced.
• "Beauty Thief"
• Again, you can't clear the palace in one day. You have to get through that damn Authentication Lock in the first area.
• Many of the enemies are resistant to or block physical attacks. This means you burn through tons of SP. (Even with Invigorate 3 I still was super low on SP on NG+).

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So what about you guys? What are your favorite and least favorite palaces, and why?