I'm curious to see how much my views change as the quarters go on. My guess is that I'll probably post a new version of this before earnings (my guess on the future based on events in the quarter) and right after earnings (did anything change given AMD's results and commentary).

• FY 2023 outlook (Feb 2023)
• Original 2023 outlook (1/25/23, before Q4 2022 earnings).

Data center

• For FY 2023, I'm guessing about $7.6B and $2.2B in operating margin. Or about 25% growth vs FY 2022. I hope I'm underestimating here, but Cotter gave a target of 20%. Not exactly the cheery 2023 estimates that I was hoping for going into Q4 2022 earnings, but given the slowing DC environment, it might qualify as "good".
• My original expectations were that 2023, particularly H2, would be a big pivot point for DC sales. Unlike prior EPYC years, AMD's supply and product scope are now strengths rather than weaknesses. AMD has a full, strong stack vs Ice Lake and SPR. And for the first time, AMD should have a good supply for Milan/X, Genoa/X, Bergamo, and Siena across N7 and N5 nodes. Substrate was a limiting factor before, but I don't even think substrate will be as limiting as originally thought for 2023 and 2024 given AMD's securing supply, the slowdown that's hitting ABF providers + more of them going for the higher margin HPC substrates, and likely TAM slowdown. Because of the TCO and performance advantage and Intel's need to feed its alligators, I think Intel will struggle to compete on price.
  • It'll be interesting to see how the MI-300 does in presumably late 2023. Outside of supercomputer sales, earlier MI series hasn't done much. But there's so much AI FOMO in the air and the MI-300 does look technologically impressive that maybe Q4 2023 or FY2024 is the first time we see a glimpse of broader MI traction.
• DC has its normal long-term risks like increased non-86 penetration / diversity of workloads away from x86, in-house equivalents, design automation, and an earlier and stronger than expected Intel comeback in late 2024. I've never assumed that AMD wouldn't have to compete hard for business.
• What bothers me more is the AMD's short-term shift from saying "strong visibility into their customer supply chains and things are looking good" to "cloud customers are having digestion issues in H1 2023, but they'll pick it up in H2 2023". Is there another shift coming?
  • I'm a little surprised that the market totally shrugged this piece off in the Q4 2022 earnings call, but the stock had taken such a beating that I suppose the market was happy that it wasn't Intel. I think we're going to see some headwinds with clients trying to get more ROI out of their cloud spend, pausing in hiring or layoffs from CSPs, and just the hangover from bonkers infrastructure capex of the last few years. Unless there's a big drop in TAM, the hope is that share gains + whatever growth remains in the overall TAM can still power a lot of growth for a much smaller player like AMD.
  • AMD's DC Q3 2022 YOY growth did slow down materially vs previous quarters. How much of this is a secular downturn vs a competitive response vs just a function of its larger base? AMD's Q4 2022 server market share flattened out vs Q3 as well.
  • The 1DPC vs 2DPC controversy also makes me wonder. Despite AMD's assurances, I notice that Genoa is a bit of a paper launch vs. Milan which had CSPs like Azure and Oracle lined up on day 1. I'm guessing that the hyperscalers care the most about 2DPC and are waiting (I'm sure there's some digestion issues too). If AMD's BIOS solution for 2DPC isn't sufficient to make them happy, then things could get ugly.
• AMD is unlikely to ever get another opportunity like 2023-2024 for DC. Lets see what years of building up your supply, value chain, and product stack get you vs a broad slowdown. If AMD milks for margin, is too conservative instead of going on an aggressive land grab to lock in those sockets, or trips over this 2DPC issue, they will have wasted an opportunity of a lifetime.

Client

Before, I thought that client was going to be bleak in 2023.But I'm a bit more optimistic on client than before. So, I'm upgrading to...bad?

• I'm guessing $5.5B in sales but after seeing how rough Q4 2022 was, I'm only expecting ~$600M in operating income. Q1 and Q2 will be the biggest margin suck. Even for an easier YOY H2 2023 comparison, those Vermeer-era margins won't be seen for a long while on desktop.
• From a sector demand perspective, supplier and OEM reports for Q1 and Q2 sound terrible with many in the industry looking to H2 2023 for YOY growth because of easier comparisons and going through inventory glut and the resulting pull-forward of demand. There is macro inflation / recession pressure on retail and B2B commercial. On top of that, client is the last Intel profit center stronghold that's still somewhat upright. Intel is going to fight like a wounded animal as shown by their H2 2022 scorched earth strategy.
• Desktop: Raphael is a solid product. However, it had a terrible environment to launch into, and I think AMD's ego got in the way. Their pricing strategy at the start was terrible, the platform costs were lousy, the X3D launch pre-empted their non-X3D launch for the high end gamers, and they were going up against a much more competitive, desperate Intel.
  • If I were AMD, I would've gone for AM5 penetration over margin, but I suspect that given the large inventory bulge at AMD for new client launches, AMD overreached and thought that it could get volume and margin. AMD pricing quickly had to retreat quickly which isn't a good look. In this new world, a premium brand strategy will not work on retail hobbyists if your product doesn't dominate the competition. Luckily, the stock market is probably going to be forgiving on client given its well-worn story plus the new AI FOMO.
  • I'm a bit more optimistic on desktop now. AMD will keep most of these lower holiday prices as their baseline. Platform costs (mobo + DDR 5) have improved considerably. The fog of war has mostly lifted from X3D launch, and X3D has people talking about AMD DIY more positively. Still going to be an ugly market, but I think AMD has come to grips on this new era with reduced expectations. AMD has a mountain of inventory to get through though.
• Notebook: The one chance that AMD has for client not being so brutal is notebook sales. Like DC, AMD should have a lot more supply relatively speaking. Unlike Raphael, Phoenix and Dragon probably have the largest notebook CPU edge over Intel that it's ever had. Notebook is their second most strategic market after data center and shares similar performance / power constraints that should play well with Zen 4. They have a compelling stack of N7, N6, N4 notebook CPUs on paper.
  • AMD claimed 250 designs wins but that's across the 7000 series which includes Zen 2 - 4. RPL mentioned 300+ designs (not sure if this is only RPL). There's design wins vs quality of those designs which has hurt AMD in the past. There's also design quality vs design *volume* which has also been a weak point for AMD.
  • One problem for Phoenix is that AMD's value chain on notebooks has historically seemed weak. There is no direct-to-customer channel like data center cloud hyperscalers or DIY desktop. I'm sure AMD has burned some OEM bridges too with spotty supply. And Intel is probably fighting especially hard here. Asus, who took big bets on AMD earlier, being predominantly Intel at CES is probably a good example of the fight behind the scenes.
  • But so far so good. Early reviews, leaks, and rumors look to be where I was hoping AMD for the 7000 line would be (across nodes): pretty good performance with much better power consumption. I have especially high hopes for 7040U. Ryzen AI is very on trend. I'm very curious to see those initial use cases. It was very interesting that AMD is going straight at Apple with their comparisons.
• AMD really needs to build out their commercial channels for client. Retail is just too volatile to scale AMD to the next level. I think Moshkelani needs to be replaced with somebody with more experience on the commercialization side. Laptop product launches have been terrible for over two generations. Once the easy money of Zen 2 and Zen 3 disappeared, AMD's client performance was poor with Zen 4. I think AMD is being too cute on their segmented product launches which is doing more harm than good.

Gaming

• FY2023 forecast: $6.5B in sales and $1.06B in operating margin. Q4 2022 earnings were a very pleasant surprise. Channel health does look to be improving.
• RDNA 3 launch is somewhere between disappointing and bad. Even ignoring the hype cycle, the RDNA3 launch was probably one of the rockiest launches that I've seen from AMD across the board in a while. The "we could've created something similar to 4090 if we wanted to" was especially sad. AMD's rapidly retreating 7900XT pricing is a bad brand look, but at least AMD is re-learning something about pricing.
  • If All The Watts is right (oops account and tweet deleted!), then there's some hope for slightly better performance from Phoenix and Navi32, but I'm not counting on it (although judging by recent leaked scores, the results look relatively ok). I do think that RDNA 3 will sell better than RDNA 2 (if you ignore crypto sales which won't be around YOY) because the supply for RDNA 2 was so bad for so long.
  • The one plus side to gaming is that the channel seems to be in better shape than PCs. Perhaps this says more about Nvidia's response in consumer GPUs vs Intel's in consumer CPUs. But it looks like they were a more obliging partner for AMD to clear the channel. The crypto-tsunami of used last-gen graphics cards doesn't seem to have affected the market that much so far. The more time that passes, the less of a potential factor it'll be.
• Su said that console sales tend to peak in year 3. PS 5 availability is only now good after almost 2 years of launch. So, the console market probably has enough gas for solid sales growth for 2023 and maybe a bit more. But the margins are low.

Embedded

• Su was more reluctant to talk about YOY growth for H2 2023 vs H2 2022 given the strength of H2 2022. Still keeping my original forecast of $5.9B in sales and $2.9B despite this given the strength that Lattice and Intel PSG / Altera is seeing (assuming this isn't coming at Xilinx's expense)
• I've seen industry forecasts of FPGAs growing at about 15% a year. With my total ignorance of FPGAs + Peng's dreamy presentations, I'm going to say that I think people are sleeping on Xilinx's earnings power. I think their hardware as software approach + their majority market share + their being supply constrained and AMD helping out with supply will let them grow faster in those gigantic TAMs. Say 20-25% which is a big deal given those ~50% operating margins.
• Xilinx is probably the most real AI traction that AMD has. Let's see what it can do for the legacy AMD businesses via XDNA.
• If these hopium forecasts hold true, data center and embedded could make up about 53% of sales and 76% of operating margin contribution from the business units (ignoring Other). This is much more the new AMD which I think a lot of people, including asset managers, will have trouble wrapping their minds around. Client and gaming are still important business lines. However, I think that AMD's future growth will be more slanted towards commercial compute like DC and embedded. Those TAMs are growing, and AMD's competitive positioning is much stronger there.

Overall

• Sales range of $23.5B to $27.6B, but I will go with $25.6B. My earnings range goes from $3.23 to $4.12, but I'll go with an expected non-GAAP EPS of $3.66. DC update clipped my original estimates, especially on the higher end of the range. PC recovery + commercial notebook strength + 20-25% Xilinx growth would be the biggest source of upside. DC H2 2023 rebound story not panning out would be the biggest source of downside. I think the market overall has given AMD a pass on client for Q1 and Q2.
• I also think the market views AMD as a 2nd or 3rd shelf AI play. It isn't top shelf like Nvidia, but the AI FOMO is strong. AMD has enough AI plays to benefit from a halo effect on valuation on top of its current growth narrative. I think the AI FOMO is one of the reasons that AMD has managed to climb back to $100.

TL/DR- hellish experience with sickness and injury + euthanasia then hellish experience with adoption and return leaving massive void…I feel better writing this.
Some days I feel like you two are a distant memory, And I can look back on your photos and smile, I can look at your urns and paw prints and find some measure of comfort Whatever bitter measure of comfort is possible knowing you both were only 3 years old and then 14 months old.
Until it became Spring.
I lost you both in the winter, With the snow banks piled high, Winter flurries and blizzards coating the world in beautiful, sparking snow that hardly registered with me because I was spending all my energy trying to move forward.
Then time goes slower, life finds a bit of meaning and then the birds come back The sun lingers longer at night The smell of earth and melting snow Fills the air and shoots of wildflowers start surfacing Each day growing more in the sun Snow banks have melted to reveal last falls decaying leaves
I walk the remaining pup in evening twilight and everything is such a painful reminder
You’re not here. The season has changed and I have left you both behind.
I tried to fill the missing parts by adopting a dog. I was ready, I researched your breed, I researched where you came from, I found you by chance, you warmed up to me and my existing pup. You were not a replacement, you were your own dog. For the first time in months, I was happy.
You quickly befriended us. You were doing so well with your training. Your were learning routines. Had careful introductions. Started to get used to a crate.
I thought maybe this is the dog I will be able to keep. This is the dog that will make it. I put you on a puppy schedule even though you were a rebellious teenager. I focused all my energy into helping you adjust to a new life. You were not aware of your large size but you had such a good heart.
Your previous home knew nothing of this kind of aggression. I asked about your history. I even did meet and greets with you. My other dog did meet and greets with you. You were listed as “friendly with people and dogs”.
Until you decided that I am not allowed to be shared. With anyone. Not family, not friends, not even my existing dog. As soon as I am near you, you treat everyone differently. It started slowly and the warning signs were there over time but kept being dismissed. I was told it was just an “adjustment period” and he was “stressed” but I was noticing gaps in your training and you we’re severely under socialized. Not your fault. We did the decompression and backyard time only.
Strangers? Off limits. Stopping to talk to someone 30m away? Off limits. You growled. My brain is going positive reinforcement? place training+ muzzle? Sudden movements meant you flipped into growl and bark mode. Loud noises and you flipped into growl and bark mode. I’m thinking afraid? Counter conditioning? How long?
Even my own dog, who you did slow and careful introductions - I’m aware of the 3:3:3 rule- you suddenly stood and stiffly blocked his way. I’m thinking baby gate? Good treats when both are in the room with me? Place training? Reassess with new dog on drag line at all times still?
I am already mapping out in my head how to make you feel safe, how to make others feel safe around you, how to make you stop hurting yourself in a crate, how to help you feel ok being alone for short times and I tried it and I thought we were making headway.
Then you nearly bit a family member for standing up beside me. This was someone not 5 min ago you were outside playing happily with while I watched from the window.
That’s when I knew. This was not going to work. You are afraid, you are protective/resource guarding and you are insecure and you are going to break my heart and my small dog is not safe.
An friendly off leash dog calmly approached us and you growled with all lips curled back and I realized - you need to be muzzled. This is not going to work.
I don’t have the emotional capability left to train/manage your resource guarding/feaaggression when I can’t “trade” me. You don’t even want treats or toys. People can’t even toss you treats. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for find a behaviourist to deal with the sudden surge of resource guarding or fear based aggression. Truthfully- I have no idea what I’m even looking at but it’s something that needs professional intervention and is above my skills. And I have tried.
I was told friendly, sociable, confident dog. You have some much work ahead of you. Work I can’t put in. Maybe at one point I could have done it. But not now. I’m tired.
So I gave you back to whatever fate awaited you and disclosed everything that I saw. For that I am sorry. I don’t know what happened to you. I fear what happened to you. It’s put me to a pretty bleak place.
Maybe I should have given the new dog more time. Maybe I should have managed him better. Maybe I never should have got him in the first place. But how do you curtail resource guarding when YOU are the resource. What to do with a dog so scared/resource guarding that he will escalate to a bite so fast aside from keep him out of that situation or manage it. I realized my little dog was not safe around him and my mind was then made up. That dog needed work and I feel horrible I was not able to do it and may have even contributed to his behavior.
I wish all the events of the last 5 months didn’t happen. I wish one day I will stop being sad and angry all the time but I don’t think that’s going to be any time soon.
I feel even worse giving that dog back because maybe I could have made it work. But at what cost.
If you read this far thanks for reading. I just needed to put this into words. Im just feeling defeated. I am not going to adopt or get a puppy again I’m going to let the dog I have live the rest of his life without more changes and maybe we can find some happiness.
Please know I am aware dogs from rescues and humane societies will have issues and need decompression and structure and training. I just wish this turned out differently is all.

Anyone got any interesting DIY methods for avoiding car theft etc, we all know whats available in the shop for purpose but anything creative that would possibly throw a potential theif off or help in vehicle abandonment and recovery thereafter?
I'm after low cost but big putt off.
This is a half serious post, but I'm half after ingenuity and creative things, so I guess my suggestions would be a set mousetrap in the glove box lol! Or perhaps a hidden camera in the fuel filler cap that once opened takes a video of said thrives. Or padlocking a sign on the front of the car that says "STOLEN VEHICLE IF SEEN DRIVING" , which you'd remove before driving and reinstall on parking up.
I'm not after critique of my suggestions, or comments about effort etc, crime exists and I'm just madly curious if anyone has a simple, great and cheap way to deter it that no one else has thought off. I guess the wackier the better :)

my wife's car has a check engine light, throwing out error code P0171 (Fuel System Lean - Bank 1).
I looked around for a vacuum leak, looked for anything loose or broke. MAF looked pristine, but did not replace yet. I do not think it's her gas cap. I say this because her car recently started sounding like an import, I can hear her coming from down the street. I pulled off the engine cover and peered behind the engine where the two O2 sensors and catalytic converter are located, and it's awfully sooty back there. That seems to be right where the sound is emanating from. Kinda smells exhausty too when I've got my head in there.
Anybody have any experience with this issue? Am I on the right track?

Wondering how much it would cost. I was quoted 1k to replace 2 actuators. Is this the going price?

Horizon Forbidden West was the only game on the PlayStation that I wanted to play. However, I couldn't justify buying an entire console just to play it. As a result, despite being a fan, I just played the game for the first time when it became available as a cloud game in PS-Plus.
After playing really good games, I usually sit and let the credits roll, enjoying the music and reflecting on the game as a way of respecting the work of the people who went into making it. But sadly, unlike Zero Dawn, I didn't feel the need to do that this time.
I'm afraid this post will turn into a rant, and despite gaining some catharsis from reading such rants here on Reddit (specifically after combat), this isn't really what I want to do. Instead, I'd like to lament, praise the game where it inspired me, and share why it let me down when it didn't follow through.
Praise I can give without reservation goes to the world design. The entire map is beautiful, with all its varied biomes, and most importantly, the different tribes that inhabit it. Guerilla excelled at giving all of them unique identities through architecture, fashion, tribal markings, and history. It is all beautifully worked out, and whoever was responsible for that can be truly proud.
This leads well into the characters that live in this world and their relation with Aloy. I truly find almost all of them (I don't really care for Zo) intriguing and inspired and would have loved to see how they clash and interact with Aloy, who is, if we're being honest, often arrogant and rude. Yet all of them fell short in development. Most grievously, I believe the AIs were hard done by. Games often, when addressing truly sentient AIs, play into the question of whether they should have the same rights as humans and be treated as equals, with the clear answer that, yes, obviously they should. Yet, at the same time, it seems they are content to reduce them to plot devices.
GAIA was named after a primordial divine creature. All the world was made from her, and it is an apt descriptor if we look at how complex such a mind must be. Distributed across the entire world, directing countless machines and terraforming equipment all at once, a mind that has tended an empty earth for hundreds of years before and watched the rise of tribes across the globe. But in the game, she is reduced to an exposition machine. She has no sense of humor, isn't adventurous or maternal, or even flirty, nor is she unknowable and mysterious. She delivers every conversation with the impassivity and monotone of a corporate secretary who doesn't care much for her job but is too integral to ever be let go.
Similarly, I was excited to meet the subfunctions, and two of them stood out as particularly interesting. The broken HADES had so much personality in the short conversation we had with it. As a monster brought low, HADES still believes in its purpose, but lacks the ability to act on it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, HEPHAESTUS was more robotic than any other subfunction, yet it still exhibited a distinct personality. HEPHAESTUS displayed neither hate nor malice, and it didn't want to destroy anything. It simply recognized that local human populations were a threat to the things that mattered to it, and thus they needed to be culled. This is similar to how humans would cull wolves living near settlements to feel safe. HEPHAESTUS was driven and never deviated from its purpose. It was a true psychopath, ruthless and cruel not out of evil, but simply because it saw no reason not to be. I didn't expect a deep dive into all the subfunctions, but it felt inadequate that each subfunction was only given a sentence to speak and no other interaction before being cut out, losing their intelligence, independence, and individuality, to become a light on the wall.
Introducing interesting concepts in characters and then never exploring them applies to almost all of the companions. Varl and Zo were deeply spiritual people who were both confronted with the reality that their religions were just stories that became myths, either invented to explain the world or distorted through time until they became dogma that they believed in.
Hekarro was crippled, and losing an arm comes with a loss of ability and a massive mental toll. We see a little of this with how much anger he carries when we first meet him, but this seems to fade without any need to confront it. For that matter, his abilities seem almost unaffected by the loss of an arm; he is still an outstanding fighter against machines and humans alike. Even climbing a sheer cliff face isn't a problem for him, and that's just not how humans work. Through him, we could have explored PTSD, feelings of helplessness, the need to accept that we can't define ourselves through only one thing all our lives, and instead have to see value in the self rather than just what you can do, but no. The deepest we go is that he has conflicting feelings about his replacement arm. (Sidenote: Did my game glitch, or did he just not use it ever outside the small quest where he shows it to you? Even when Regalla was advancing on the chief, he wasn't using it.)
Erend already had some character development in Zero Dawn, too bad that he appears to have forgotten that. He is a clumsy meathead, and everyone seems fine to bully him a little about it. He considers himself a useless failure, and every time he mentions it, everyone just awkwardly grins like this kid. Someone give him a hug.
Interestingly, Alva, as the companion that gets introduced the latest, has the most complete arc. She confronts the shortcomings of her culture, her worries about her family, duty vs. her own interests, and how the paragons of her myths were dickheads in real life. And she's having a great time with it, despite it all, the big nerd.
Finally, Beta... Beta is a living foible for Aloy's own preconceptions. As much as Aloy dislikes being praised, she has a certain attachment to being the only one who can save the world, the chosen one created to heal the very earth, and suddenly she is confronted with someone who has the same theoretical qualifications as her but doesn't ever confront her self image. At the same time, Aloy takes quite a bit of pride in that she managed everything alone and became so great through only her own merits, but that is, of course, only partially true. Rost cared for her and loved her, and despite their disagreements, he gave her a home to grow in. Beta, by comparison, was truly alone, and it left her broken and despairing. While the game eventually sort of addresses this, it is way too little and only stuffed in at the end. It feels like bad pacing to me and an insult to people who actually grew up in abusive conditions when they portray it like all is needed is one nice conversation for you to get over yourself. I understand there are limitations of what you can do in the context of a game, but I don't think that is a sufficient excuse. (Another sidenote, does the name Beta imply that there was another attempt to make a Sobeck clone, or is Sobeck herself the Alpha?)
Beyond that, Regalla is introduced as a main villain and then promptly ignored, to the point that I felt nothing about her when it came time to decide her fate. I actually thought it was a rather interesting plot device in Zero Dawn that Helis thought of himself as your great opposite and chosen of the sun when he really was just an obstacle in your way and a tool for HADES (and a tool, period). Applying the same to Regalla doesn't quite track though, given that she isn't just a fool, but actually in proper ideological opposition to Chief Hekarro. There was great potential there for exploring their common past, examining the drive for vengeance against the need for peace, but instead, she became a one-note antagonist, and we had less than 15 minutes of interaction with Hekarro.
Similarly, the Zeniths are introduced as maniacal egocentric bastards and only really used as an evil Deus Ex Machina. Aside from Tilda, I don't remember a single one of their names and couldn't even be bothered to look them up. They didn't work well as caricatures of greed and excess because they actually had a lot of power. It would have worked marvelously with the metaphors for CEOs and the hero worship of the Quen if we could have exploited their shortcomings. Perhaps we could have learned more about the individuals by investigating old Far Zenith facilities, or we could have managed to turn some of their tech against them by using old login credentials because they stopped caring about basic sensible security procedures and were still using legacy code. Alternatively, we could have had the boss fight against the blonde guy be a fake-out once the shield was down, where he still talks the same big game but goes down in a single hit because they hadn't been in real physical danger in a thousand years. We could have also made fun of their clothing and design choices, which all screamed more money than taste. Unfortunately, none of these things happened, and all we have is the Zeniths showing up, doing some things, and then going away.
This leads somewhat into Aloy and the team just being a bit dumb in this game. They make barely any efforts to learn about the Zeniths, even though they are helpless against them. Aloy finds their base by accident and never even sets up a camera. They allow Regalla enough free reign that she can just march on the Grove twice, essentially unopposed. And there are so many moments where Sylens should have become a bigger priority: when he lured Aloy into the West, when he delivered her to the Zeniths, when it became clear that he was responsible for the civil war and no doubt had more plans, when he first demonstrated a weapon that can kill a Zenith, and when they were exposing themselves to Zenith attack without that weapon. They never tried to get to him, instead running directly into a doomed scenario with Cauldron Gemini.
As expected, this has turned into a rant, so I'll quickly double down on that and list some of the most irritating points:
Why introduce so many new options without examining their impact on gameplay? More and more arrow types clog up the weapon wheel. Acid, adhesive, and purgewater are just versions of fire, ropecaster, and useless, respectively. So many open-world activities are locked behind equipment that you only get through main missions. Why not unlock them through well-developed side missions that can be completed anytime and that main missions may point to?
What is this massive focus on melee combat in a game that so heavily focuses on avoiding damage? The only occasions where I have found the complex weapon combos to be useful were in one-on-one battles with humanoids. Machines don't get staggered, so you can't pull off the entire combo without dodging, and multiple humans fire on you and their own people indiscriminately, so you can't focus on melee there either.
Why remove the long dodge? All enemy attacks have so much area that you need to abuse the i-frames to survive, and even then, I constantly get staggered even without being really hit (played on hard). Why nerf the jump slowdown? It wasn't game-breaking any more than concentration is now with the larger pool and refresh speed, but not having the zoom was helpful for short range.
Why does nocking another arrow cost stamina and have to be re-learned? Why hold onto the "buy better gear with money and machine parts" system but also introduce a crafting system where you use money and machine parts to improve your weapons? Either system works fine on its own, but it is annoying when I have to spend ages improving a weapon I bought for a lot of money, and at the same time, it's frustrating when I discard gear that I have invested effort into upgrading.
Why are you trying to be a platformer when it really doesn't work for you? Why are machines now able to spam their attacks without cooldown (Stormbird kept dive-bombing me, Thunderjaw was just shooting constantly)? Why did you replace so many canisters with purgewater (hooray, a status effect that doesn't debilitate their physical attacks at all and whose only benefit is that it accelerates better status effects)? Why did you replace canisters amongst variants? My brain is small and can't keep track of what is where when they still look the same.
Why is HEPHAESTUS capable of producing so many Hunter Killers, even though the whole point of Cauldron Sigma in the Frozen Wilds was that he could produce there without restrictions? Why are about 2/3 machines apex? Why build so many new spectacular machines that aren't properly balanced? Elemental Clawstriders spew more stuff than a Bellowback but don't have a single tank, large machines are so full of attacks that unless you exclusively use Tearblast, they will always die before you can cripple them. Projectiles are psychic and track you not only mid-flight but also target you while the machine doesn't know where you are. Agile creatures have their only weaknesses at the back, which you'll never see.
Monkeys.
I could probably go on, and this was cathartic, but there is no need. In conclusion, I played Forbidden West in its entirety, and I'll likely do NewGame+ as well and maybe replay it some other time, but it's not a great game. It has too many big flaws and wasted potential for me to love it, and I hope for better, maybe even in DLC.

We Just migrated out of the city, it finally run out of things to scavenge, at least in the areas that wouldnt have the risk of the old skyscrapers falling on you, that or some guy shooting you from some roof top. The three of us a good ways out found an old radio station thought it be funny to see if we could get it running, turns out we could needed fuel for the generator and some random cables needed replacing spent a hole day just doing that got it running though turns out the old government had some songs to play over the radio if the world went to shit for some reason played those since that's all we had, it was nice to hear music again even if we almost broke the radio trying to figure out how to turn it on, a few songs later and a quick little talk into the void turned it off and went to sleep after I was woken up and we got ready to keep moving, you can imagine are seprise when we see a few cans of gas along with food and water with a note requesting a song, scared the shit out of us, we ran back inside just waiting for a solid few hours until we decided we wasn't gonna get a arrow in the gut when we stepped outside, argued a good while till we decided to stay that day as well and play the song thanked the dude for the stuff and played him his song "we'll meet again" dave thought it cliché, I for one thought it was an inspired choice, as it turns out though the next day we get a little note and more stuff, i still want to know where they get it all, but I'm thankful of that stupid little joke, we stayed, we ended up getting a few fans, got a little community now, I even see someone sneaking around outside the walls and then we find notes and some stuff left behind but i get it was nervous as hell when people started showing up hell I'm still nervous with so many people bring around, shame dave didn't live long enough to see this place thrive but eh I'm old now the dead don't haunt me like they used too. So thats it, the story of old world radio thanks for listening in folks here's one last song before we shut of for the night https://youtu.be/lDYfQhoOvZc

I’m brainstorming a simple mod that makes everyone overpowered but not totally game-breaking. Here are some civ-specific changes thus far:
Tomyris: +10 combat strength vs injured units; kills heal up to 50 HP
Pericles: +10% culture per city-state you are suzerain of
Cyrus: +10 movement for all units for 10 turns when declaring surprise war
Gorgo: +2 combat strength per slotted military policy
Mvemba a Nzinga: building a Mbanza or theater square grants 7 free apostles each
Lautaro: Killing an enemy unit within the borders of an enemy city causes that city to lose 99 loyalty, or 100 loyalty if that civilization is in a golden or heroic age
Tamar: Killing a unit provides faith equal to 3000% of its combat strength
Montezuma: Deleting a military or religious unit provides faith equal to 2000% of its combat strength; deleting a support unit grants 25 gold
Sumer: War carts +20 combat strength, ziggurat +11 science +11 culture (+22 culture beside rivers)
Vietnam: Districts grant +10 culture when built on woods, +10 science on rainforest, and +10 production on marsh
Arabia: Cost of religious units does not increase
Spain: Missionaries and inquisitors gain +2 charges and heal adjacent units (both military and religious) when they convert a city for the first time. Gurus can also heal military units; conquistadors healed by a missionary, inquisitor, or guru have their movement fully restored and can attack again
Japan: (with Heroes and Legends Mode enabled) can summon unique hero Kamikaze who is a category 5 hurricane
Georgia: +9001% production toward walls. All districts of a city gain walls when walls are built in that city. All districts also gain urban defenses with steel. Walls and urban defenses gain +9001 HP and +10 attack range (but not sight range). Gain unique unit Georgian Death Robot (replaces Giant Death Robot) with Automaton Warfare golden age dedication or can be bought with 10000 faith while in a golden age. Georgian Death Robot gains urban defenses when steel is researched.
Unfortunately I don’t have the modding experience necessary to add half of these, but what do you guys think of these? Are any of them too broken? Do you have any other ideas for OP buffs?
I also haven’t browsed much yet for other mods, so if someone else already implemented any of these ideas please send me a link because I want them.

Please use private messages as I won't receive chat messages on my phone
 
Clearing out a bunch of mostly unplayed games from my collection. Buyer pays shipping from 07042 or local pickup available. Happy to combine multiple items to ease shipping costs.
 
Available games
All items marked as condition 5 are new in shrink wrap.
A War of Whispers [4] (deluxe edition + bonus custom towers [clay] and farmhouse pieces [3d-printed]) - $50
Babylonia [4] (excellent condition, only played once) - $35
Bardsung (retail edition) [4] (played through first chapter, excellent condition) - $90
Blue Lagoon [4] (excellent condition, only played once) - $20
Call to Adventure [5] - $20
Champions of Midgard [3] (box a bit worn, components in excellent condition) - $30
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated - The C Team Pack [5] - $15
Concordia Venus [5] - $60
Dandelions [5] - $15
Destinies [4] + Destinies: Sea of Sand [5] (base game only played once) - $40
Equinox Golem Edition [5] - $25
Forests of Pangaia [5] (KS edition) - $70
Forest of Radgost [4.5] (oak pledge, opened but never played) - $100
Funfair [5] - $25
Furnace [5] - $30
Frostpunk [5] (Kickstarter core pledge w/ Frostlander expansion) - $115
Gloom of Kilforth [4] (excellent condition, includes Pimp My Gloom, Dark Gloom, and Encounters, Fully sleeved) - $110
Hibachi [5] - $30
Hive [5] (includes Mosquito and Ladybug) - $20
Honey Buzz (Deluxe Edition) + Honey Pot Expansion + Wooden Coins [4] (played once, all retail components replaced with deluxe components and everything combined into main box. only exception is fuzzy bees, which were tossed and kept the retail tokens since the fuzzy ones get dirty very quickly and look terrible) - $100
It's a Wonderful World: War or Peace [4.5] (opened box but envelopes inside are untouched) - $15
Jaws [5] - $25
Kingdomino [3] (good condition, a bit of shelf wear) - $10
Meeples & Monsters: Kickstarter Edition [4] (excellent condition, played twice) - $40
On Tour + Promo Dice [4] (excellent condition, played twice) - $30
On Tour: Paris and New York + Promo Dice [5] - $40
Power Plants [5] (KS edition) - $50
Raiders of Scythia [5] - $30
Rumi K [2] (pretty beat up, also awkwardly long box to ship) - $5 local only
Skulk Hollow + Ancient Relics Mini-Expansion [4] (got in a trade, never played, excellent condition) - $35
Small World of Warcraft [5] - $35
Stars of Akarios [4] (played through a few mission and reset everything, excellent condition, all minis have a sun drop wash applied - sample image here: https://imgur.com/a/TIQJ7V9) - $120
Stars of Akarios: The Ships of Akarios [4] (only used for a couple missions, excellent condition) - $45
Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef [5] - $40
Tiny Towns [4] (played once, excellent condition) - $20
The Magnificent [5] - $30
Valor & Villainy: Minions of Mordak [5] - $30
 
Wishlist

• Moonrakers: First Encounters expansion
• Rising Sun: Daimyo Box
• Village Attacks
• Tigris & Euphrates
• Quodd Heroes
• War Room
• For Science!
• Sniper Elite deluxe upgrade kit
• Heroes of Tenefyr
• Battle for Greyport
• Mage Knight standard edition

https://turtletimeline.com/united-airlines-electric-air-taxi-route-in-chicago/
United Airlines and Archer Aviation have announced the launch of the first air taxi route in Chicago to start 2025, an important step forward in their urban air mobility (UAM) network.
The selected point-to-point route will utilize Archer’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which will provide residents and visitors in the Chicago Metropolitan Area with a safe, sustainable, low noise, and cost-competitive alternative to ground transportation.

Infrastructure for eVTOL aircraft operations

The partnership with ComEd, the Midwest’s largest utility company, will establish the necessary power infrastructure to support eVTOL aircraft operations in and around the Chicago Metropolitan Area.
RECOMMENDED: NASA determining how electric air taxis can safely integrate into U.S. airspace

Chicago’s transportation leadership

Chicago has a long-standing reputation as a major transportation center and leader in mobility innovation. With ORD being United’s largest operations hub, it provides an ideal location for United and Archer to ramp up their UAM operations.

Archer’s mission to unlock the skies and United’s purpose to connect people

Archer’s mission is to unlock the skies, freeing everyone to reimagine how they move and spend time. The company is based in Santa Clara, California. United’s shared purpose is “Connecting People. Uniting the World.” The company is headquartered in Chicago.

Expanding UAM infrastructure across the United States

The electric air taxi route in Chicago is a key milestone in the race to develop UAM infrastructure in the US, and this is just the beginning. The long-term goal is to expand to other cities across the United States, providing a convenient, sustainable, and cost-effective mode of transportation during commutes to the airport.

• United Airlines invests $5M in algae-based fuel

The difference between transparent LED electronic screen and conventional screen
https://www.xygledscreen.com/
In recent years, with the sustainable development of the market economy, urban high -rise buildings have been standing, and transparent LED electronic screens are widely used in the landscape painting and beautification of architectural art in urban glass curtain walls. If the customer is unfamiliar with the term of the transparent LED display, how is the transparent LED electronic screen different from the SMD ordinary screen?

1. Quality permeability and beautiful display of indoor lighting, beautiful display

As we all know, the SMD conventional display is not transparent, affecting architectural lighting. The LED transparent screen uses positive light or side emitting display technology. It can hardly see the efficiency of work through the naked eye, significantly improved transparency, and support machine stickers.

1. Lightweight design, saving steel structure costs

The SMD ordinary display is 42 kg per square meter, and the screen size is too large, which is a big challenge to the steel structure and original building structure of the screen main body. The transparent LED electronic screen can be installed vertically without glass. When it is installed behind the glass curtain wall, the weight of 16K G/is very light. It can be directly attached to the steel structure with a low load of the steel structure.

1. Strip light rod structure, which can be specially designed

The regular display of SMD can be limited by the rectangular structure. The aliens of the connector have some defects and have joint joints. The Jinhe LED transparent screen can provide perfect contour matching and natural curved transition. The main body of the product screen can support a variety of alien people such as cylindrical, round tables, triangles, and arcs.

1. Outdoor screen application, indoor installation, outdoor watch

The SMD ordinary display is installed indoors, which can cover the sun and vision. The transparent LED electronic screen provides very stable product performance, and there will be no external screen applications, indoor installation, outdoor viewing, waterproof and ultraviolet prevention.

1. Glass curtain wall, hidden installation, does not affect the shape of the floor

The SMD ordinary screen requires a large -scale steel frame structure during construction, which takes a long time and has a certain impact on the appearance and aesthetics of the building. The LED transparent screen is slightly configured during installation, which can easily connect to the wall and improve the overall appearance without damaging the wall.

1. Easy maintenance, heat insertion support, light pole maintenance

SMD general screen entity problems are mostly subsequent maintenance, or remove and repair the entire module or block. The transparent LED electronic screen only needs to replace one light bar, which is simple, fast, and reduce maintenance costs.

Not sure the best place to post this.
My Macbook Pro 2014 is out of commission and I'm having to make music on my work PC until I can afford to replace it. The PC is a good one, intel CORE vPRO i7, 16G RAM, etc. but I'm using an old Lexicon Lambda interface that I picked up in probably 2009 to connect to my HS5 monitors. The interface worked fine with my old MBP (and old OS) but I realize it's horribly old at this point. I work in Reason 11 and Live 11, the settings in Live work OK with my old interface, but when I switch over to Reason the settings have to be changed and the latency becomes SECONDS, which is not usable for playing any MIDI keys through the monitors, even though I'm using a 512 sample buffer setting. I've tried ASIO4ALL, the native Lambda driver, RealTek, MME, ... don't know what to do.
Trying to find the most cost effective solution to just make music out loud, I'm considering buying a new interface (Scarlet 18i6 probably). What are the chances this will fix my problem? I know I need to buy a new interface anyway so I don't mind upgrading but I'd prefer not to spend unnecessary moneys if it's not going to help in the immediate term. Thoughts from y'all? :)

Car: 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix, 3.8L standard. 140,000 miles, automatic transmission
Been smelling gas coming from my engine for months now while idling. Fuel trim is at around -2% at idle, and operating temps. It smells like an old lawn mower, that's the best way I can describe it.
I took the throttle body off to clean it, and noticed it had some fuel in it. I then checked this vacuum hose that goes to the top of the engine: https://i.imgur.com/kFE7JCt.png - and it had slight liquid on it, with a gas smell inside the hose. On older 3800 engines, this hose went to the fuel rail, on the fuel pressure regulator. But the regulator has since been moved to the gas tank.
Anyways, I ended up cleaning the throttle body, replaced the PCV valve (Only costed $3, why not), replaced some old hose fittings since they were dried out and just waiting to crack, and checked for leaks around the injectors/fuel rail. Nothing out of the ordinary?
My next idea is to check around the vapor canistevalve.
Any ideas on what I should do?

TLDR: Contractor wants partial payment for work he has yet to start because I fired him, and threatening legal action if I don't.
As the title states my contractor is trying to sue me after I fired him.
I fired him because he was showing up late, not showing up when he said he would(without any warning or notice), as well as showing up to do work at random times/without warning. He also was just all around shady, and made us uncomfortable when he was around.
We have a handwritten contract that states he will replace our back door, and tear out the old flooring in the ktichen/mudroom as well as put new flooring down. I would be responsible for all material costs as well.
The price for the door was quoted at $233 up front, and $200 for the install. I gave him an even $440 for the work. Plus another $100 to replace part of the subfloor in front of the back door.
The flooring was $250 up front to begin work and another $700 to put the new flooring down.
He did NOT begin work on the flooring, but is saying I must pay him 50% of the cost for him to do the flooring or he will take my to small claims court. The contract makes no mention of this at all, and he never once mentioned it prior to me firing him.
Does he have a legal leg to stand on here since these terms were not included int he contract, and he hasn't even begun the work he wants me to pay him for?
He also said that he would win in court because he "knows the judge" when he threatened to take my to Small Claims.. wouldn't that look incredibly bad for him?

Let’s start at the beginning. In late October of this last year, my (F38) husband (M39) of almost 10 years at the time, but had been together since high school (20 years) cheated on me. This was not the first time he attempted to cheat on me within the relationship but every time its been dismissed between us.
How the cheating happened, as I was told, was he was flirting via text with a barista at a local coffee shop. Flirting is okay with me in our relationship because its just talking and no physical interactions usually. Well the flirting turned to dick pics being sent back and forth. Yes, the person was a male. Eventually they decided to hook up. The day it happened, he dropped the kids off and school, went downtown to meet this guy, at a sex shop, and gave him oral there. Then he came home that day, acted like nothing happened, and we had sex that night. Note that our bedroom was not dead in the least bit and we were extremely active there.
He told me what happened the next day as we were driving back home from shopping, and I don’t think he realized that it was, in all technicality, cheating. And I broke down. I attempted to forgive him in the months following, but he never told me the “why” behind what he did. A few months later and I’m getting more and more frustrated and feeling more and more angry and depressed about the situation.
I asked for us to separate in the end of February, and he lost it. He took his weapon and left for work. I knew something was up so I called his coworkers, and he ended up being hospitalized for 72 hours on a hold. When he came back he wanted it to be like it was a year ago and I can’t. I realized when he was gone that I was so unhappy. With his recovery, I told him that I could not be his number one person and he needed to have a support group outside of me.
Recently, we had another massive argument. I asked him to leave again and he said no. I asked then to open up the marriage and he said no bc he doesn’t want to share me. So now every time that I talk to someone, they’re immediately the person I’m cheating with (remind you I have never cheated on him, not once) or the one he’s being replaced with. So I’ve asked him to leave and he did leave today to stay with a friend for a week.
I know this is a manipulation tactic but I’m scared to lose him purely bc of my children needing their dad but at what cost to me? His friends want me to comfort his bc he’s in a rough spot but it’s putting false hope for him that we could work and harming me by making me do that. I’m so frustrated and tired. Don’t even know what to do anymore.

Anyone ever send in a non-working esc that’s out of warranty to Castle? How much did it cost you?
“Tier Two Warranty This is what sets Castle Creations systems apart from all others. After a year of ownership or any damage that is the result of abuse, we will replace the damaged product for much less than the retail replacement. You will receive a brand new product and a new one year warranty.” https://home.castlecreations.com/warranty-and-service

​
My reply is as follows:
It is a supreme love that is at the core of our human initiated contact efforts. Often, when I read about contact workers going out to engage The Others That Experiencers Call ET (TOTECET) one of my pet terms for the “ETs”, I get a pleasant feeling of pressure in my chest and a smile forms on my face.
There is much to our relationship with the so-called "visitors" that I suspect lays beneath the surface of our conscious minds. I am not the only contact activist that has imagined, at least once, that they might be in love with us. This is only true however for contactees who describe uniformly positive interactions. According to the FREE Experiencers Survey with over 4000 responders, about ten percent of survey sample had negative encounters and wanted them to stop. Thus, the overwhelming majority had either positive or neutral interactions.
Will the alleged “aliens” betray the trust that contact activists have in them? Not yet in my experience with them. During three decades of promoting volunteer contact work, I have not heard of negative encounters that could clearly be attributed to what are now called “UAP intelligences. In my opinion, they are not likely to betray our trust in the future.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY NOT AN OPTION
The word “love” is problematic for many UFO fans. We have the scientific model of UFO investigations that exhorts its practitioners to strive for “objectivity” in their research. Yet contact is occurring under the control of a non-human intelligences that have not been willing to play by institutional or amateur science’s rules. Flying saucer intelligences manifest at the time of their choosing, and they can exercise near total control over the situation during reported CE-3s and CE-4s. In addition, UFO intelligences appear to be far smarter and have more advanced psi skills than any scientist that is bold enough (perhaps “reckless” would be a better term) to proactively attempt to engage them as contact networks are doing. So, let’s forget about the value of “scientific objectivity” for a while.
PUSHING OUR EMOTIONAL BUTTONS
It is my strong belief that much of what might be very intimate relationships with UFO intelligence exist at an unconscious level. We remember our sightings and other contact experiences, but then again there are missing time incidents. I recall having two of them.
Harvard University’s Dr. John Mack was impressed by the raw emotional power of the contact experience. Many of those he investigated, while only under what he described as a light form of hypnosis, became overwhelmed when describing their encounters. He witnessed tears streaming down their faces, and expressions of both fear and love. As one contact worker from Quebec Province told me during a contact network meeting in Roswell, "The ETs really know how to push our emotional buttons."
CONTACT DOWNLOADS ARE A KIND OF CHANNELING EXPERIENCE
I had a contact download in the February of 1994 that revealed to me the tremendous emotional power of contact. It was a kind of an "awake dream." In less than a minute, a complex narrative unfolded in my mind. There was a visual component like watching a movie in one’s head, as well as an unspoken dialog that expressed complex thoughts. It initially appeared in my consciousness as a sort of outline. Over the next hour or two the sketch was filled in with much rich detail. Although the initial "transmission" was less than a minute, when I described the experience in written form, the narrative filled many pages. I consider such “contact downloads” to be a form of channeling.
Generally, I accept that most of what people receive during “downloads" are not being very accurate. I think of them as "theater of the mind" productions in which non-human intelligences (presumably ETs) co-create with human subjects a kind of “tutorial."
As the agents of these types of encounters appear to be totally telepathic, they have access to one's entire store of memories to create images that are familiar to us, thus making the “lesson” more acceptable to the experiencer. This kind of telepathic experience in rare cases contains information that is verifiable. This happened to me on two occasions during fieldwork in the 1990s. In advance of the appearance of UFOs, I had a contact download in which I was informed when, where in the sky and the number of saucers that were going to show up. In contrast to these two incidents, most of my telepathically derived information is totally unverifiable. For these reasons, I consider this type of phenomenon to be akin to "fairy tales for adults.”
I LOST CONTROL
The February 1994 download was special. That channeling session had such an impact on me emotionally that I could not describe it in public without weeping. It was like pushing a button. Towards the end of the telling, I used to get all choked up and tears started streaming from my eyes. It was astounding that I had completely lost control. And this is coming from a physician who for a decade worked in an ER under the most frightful and trying conditions that comes with that line of work. So, I guess you might say that I am not a pushover when it comes to dealing with adversity. Yet, just trying to describe this one particular anomalous experience triggered a forceful psychological response.
SUBJECTIVELY ACQUIRED MATERIAL
Subjectively Acquired Material (SAM) is the name Dr. Greer gave such downloads during the 1990s. On February 2, 1994, I “subjectively acquired” the following material from which I wrote the narrative below.
IT STARTED WITH THE WORD “EXPERIMENT.”
I recalled this term being used by CSETI members when discussing why extraterrestrials stage CE-4s, the so-called “alien abductions”. The notion was that they are trying to expand their knowledge of us by taking selected individuals onboard their craft. It is a behavior that humans understandably find bewildering or outright frightening. Perhaps such events are some kind of scientific research project on humans. Such discussions sometimes make the unpleasant analogy that we are being treated “like lab rats.”
As part of this channeling type of experience, I visualized a lecture hall with several CSETI activists speaking to one another at the front of the room. Dr. Greer’s first assistant, Shari Adamiak was there. In what might be considered an “awake dream”, I heard her say that “experimentation” might be the motivation behind some people being taken onboard.
As these thoughts were being “downloaded” into my consciousness, I got the distinct impression that the source was an ET female. She was slender and incredibly intelligent. The sensuous delight that I experienced just standing near her suggested that I might have known her for some time. She appeared to be a so-called “Zeta” type of being. This alleged category of extraterrestrial, according to the star map analysis of the Betty and Barnie Hill case, presumably comes from a star system called Zeta Reticuli.
I thought that she might perhaps be of mixed human-ET ancestry. I clearly perceived her emotions. She was not unfriendly, but I sensed that she was offended to the point of indignation concerning our use of the word “experiment.” It was if she was saying,
“You people, you humans, call our encounters with you experiments. Well, let me tell you a thing or two.”
STAR MAP DISPLAY
The next packet of information was reminiscent of material that contactee John Salter claims he received during a friendly on-board encounter with ETs in 1988. I imagined that I was being shown a kind of star map that traced the course of an extended migration through space. At the level of knowledge, I became aware of a massive exodus between star systems, one that lasted for a long time, generations, perhaps even centuries.
The tone of her presentation was somewhat didactic. She was recounting the history of her people. I sensed however an undercurrent of irritation, perhaps even scorn. I imagined her saying, “It took us a very long time to get here, (meaning our star system) and it required much individual and collective sacrifice.” I got the impression she was referring to the loss of numerous spacecraft with many of her people dying during the journey.
ARRIVING ON EARTH
The waking dream continued with the ET female stating, “For us our arrival to your star system was like a rebirth.” The harsh conditions of deep spaceflight were replaced with life on a beautiful planet, the one humans call “Earth.” I got the distinct impression that items from my storehouse of memories were being incorporated into the “dream.” I saw a male “Zeta” child dancing around a maypole in New York City’s Central Park. The scene unfolded near the carousel where my parents used to take me for rides on the painted ponies. Holding the ribbon as he danced, a sun shower poured cold rain down upon the “Zeta” child.
The ET female continued by explaining that they were here to assist our less advanced civilizations during a critical transition time in our development. Her tone changed from stern to sardonic. “You humans think you are so special, but you’re not!”
Then almost coyly she added. “We’ve been this way with others.”
A SENSE OF OUTRAGE CAN BE A MOST PASSIONATE FORM OF LOVE
At the level of thought, I became aware that this was the history of her people. They travelled through space, from one developing culture to another offering assistance. In no uncertain terms, I was informed that this was a religious duty that they willingly embraced no matter what the cost. The emotional power of her communication increased. She was clearly expressing outrage, and I understood it to be a most passionate form of love. I recoiled from the torrent of feelings emanating from her whole being. I was bent over in shame, as this physically frail non-human female blasted her telepathic message into my mind.
“So, don’t tell me this is an experiment!
“This is the history of our people!”
“This is how we express solidarity and offer assistance to developing cultures of intelligent beings!”
“AND THIS IS HOW WE EXPRESS OUR DEVOTION TO GOD!”
I recall reacting to this final part of the message, by pleading something like,
“Oh please, kind lady, please don’t be so angry with me.”
As I stated above, I have trouble understanding how this message had such power over me. For over 15 years I could not describe it without weeping. When I mention “a supreme love”, I refer to the power to evoke such a strong emotional response in a contact experiencer like myself. I suspect that I am not the only one to feel this way.
Addendum: Several years ago, in response to this narrative a question was posted, “So, what you’re saying is that the Zeta traveled for generations in space light years away, sacrificing many generations of their people just to arrive here to help us get through some unknown transition?”
MY REPLY: No, I am not saying that! I am asking the readers to try and wrap their minds around an analysis that is counterintuitive. I regret that I did not make my message clearer.
What I am proposing is that “UFO Central Intelligence”, “TOTECET”, the “ETs” or whatever you want to call them, aims their messaging at our hearts not just our heads. I believe, but cannot prove, that my contact download was deliberately co-created to successfully stir powerful emotion. The particulars of the message should not be believed. It is a legend. There is no way we can possibly verify such a narrative as true. We should thereby not believe that ETs are "sacrificing many generations” of their people just to get here to help us.
But while I can readily doubt the accuracy of this legend with my intellect, on an emotional level, it is tremendously appealing to someone like me and by inference for countless numbers of other UFO experiencers as well. This emotional conditioning that I refer to is probably taking place at night while we are in the dream state, and/or as in my case, during a pair of missing time experiences.
They have this power that currently manifests in only a tiny fraction of one percent of the population that dares come forward and be identified as "contact experiencers." But why should UFO intelligence limit itself to less than a fraction of a percentage of the Earth’s people? No less than 5-10 percent of the population have had a UFO sighting in the course of a lifetime. And I am not including in this estimate misidentifications with the planet Venus or other prosaic explanations. Why should there not be an unconscious mental link with every human that has a bona fide UFO sighting? I can see no reason to rule out this possibility.
Studies of so called “abductees” indicate that they are pretty ordinary. Experiencers come from all racial groups, countries, religions, occupations and we all have the same neuro-physiological and mental/emotional machinery. A technologically advanced and totally psi capable civilization(s) can probably tap into the consciousness of anyone they choose. To top it off, whoever the so called “aliens” are, they are not going away anytime soon. What we call "ETs" may have possibly been with us since the human race’s humble beginnings in Africa.
I believe they are approachable and potentially helpful. That promise of assistance for a planet that is “going to hell in a hand basket” has spurred me to promote contact work as a daily volunteer activity. In any case as a retired physician, it certainly beats golf as a hobby.

My reply is as follows:
It is a supreme love that is at the core of our human initiated contact efforts. Often, when I read about contact workers going out to engage The Others That Experiencers Call ET (TOTECET) one of my pet terms for the “ETs”, I get a pleasant feeling of pressure in my chest and a smile forms on my face.
There is much to our relationship with the so-called "visitors" that I suspect lays beneath the surface of our conscious minds. I am not the only contact activist that has imagined, at least once, that they might be in love with us. This is only true however for contactees who describe uniformly positive interactions. According to the FREE Experiencers Survey with over 4000 responders, about ten percent of survey sample had negative encounters and wanted them to stop. Thus, the overwhelming majority had either positive or neutral interactions.
Will the alleged “aliens” betray the trust that contact activists have in them? Not yet in my experience with them. During three decades of promoting volunteer contact work, I have not heard of negative encounters that could clearly be attributed to what are now called “UAP intelligences. In my opinion, they are not likely to betray our trust in the future.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY NOT AN OPTION
The word “love” is problematic for many UFO fans. We have the scientific model of UFO investigations that exhorts its practitioners to strive for “objectivity” in their research. Yet contact is occurring under the control of a non-human intelligences that have not been willing to play by institutional or amateur science’s rules. Flying saucer intelligences manifest at the time of their choosing, and they can exercise near total control over the situation during reported CE-3s and CE-4s. In addition, UFO intelligences appear to be far smarter and have more advanced psi skills than any scientist that is bold enough (perhaps “reckless” would be a better term) to proactively attempt to engage them as contact networks are doing. So, let’s forget about the value of “scientific objectivity” for a while.
PUSHING OUR EMOTIONAL BUTTONS
It is my strong belief that much of what might be very intimate relationships with UFO intelligence exist at an unconscious level. We remember our sightings and other contact experiences, but then again there are missing time incidents. I recall having two of them.
Harvard University’s Dr. John Mack was impressed by the raw emotional power of the contact experience. Many of those he investigated, while only under what he described as a light form of hypnosis, became overwhelmed when describing their encounters. He witnessed tears streaming down their faces, and expressions of both fear and love. As one contact worker from Quebec Province told me during a contact network meeting in Roswell, "The ETs really know how to push our emotional buttons."
CONTACT DOWNLOADS ARE A KIND OF CHANNELING EXPERIENCE
I had a contact download in the February of 1994 that revealed to me the tremendous emotional power of contact. It was a kind of an "awake dream." In less than a minute, a complex narrative unfolded in my mind. There was a visual component like watching a movie in one’s head, as well as an unspoken dialog that expressed complex thoughts. It initially appeared in my consciousness as a sort of outline. Over the next hour or two the sketch was filled in with much rich detail. Although the initial "transmission" was less than a minute, when I described the experience in written form, the narrative filled many pages. I consider such “contact downloads” to be a form of channeling.
Generally, I accept that most of what people receive during “downloads" are not being very accurate. I think of them as "theater of the mind" productions in which non-human intelligences (presumably ETs) co-create with human subjects a kind of “tutorial."
As the agents of these types of encounters appear to be totally telepathic, they have access to one's entire store of memories to create images that are familiar to us, thus making the “lesson” more acceptable to the experiencer. This kind of telepathic experience in rare cases contains information that is verifiable. This happened to me on two occasions during fieldwork in the 1990s. In advance of the appearance of UFOs, I had a contact download in which I was informed when, where in the sky and the number of saucers that were going to show up. In contrast to these two incidents, most of my telepathically derived information is totally unverifiable. For these reasons, I consider this type of phenomenon to be akin to "fairy tales for adults.”
I LOST CONTROL
The February 1994 download was special. That channeling session had such an impact on me emotionally that I could not describe it in public without weeping. It was like pushing a button. Towards the end of the telling, I used to get all choked up and tears started streaming from my eyes. It was astounding that I had completely lost control. And this is coming from a physician who for a decade worked in an ER under the most frightful and trying conditions that comes with that line of work. So, I guess you might say that I am not a pushover when it comes to dealing with adversity. Yet, just trying to describe this one particular anomalous experience triggered a forceful psychological response.
SUBJECTIVELY ACQUIRED MATERIAL
Subjectively Acquired Material (SAM) is the name Dr. Greer gave such downloads during the 1990s. On February 2, 1994, I “subjectively acquired” the following material from which I wrote the narrative below.
IT STARTED WITH THE WORD “EXPERIMENT.”
I recalled this term being used by CSETI members when discussing why extraterrestrials stage CE-4s, the so-called “alien abductions”. The notion was that they are trying to expand their knowledge of us by taking selected individuals onboard their craft. It is a behavior that humans understandably find bewildering or outright frightening. Perhaps such events are some kind of scientific research project on humans. Such discussions sometimes make the unpleasant analogy that we are being treated “like lab rats.”
As part of this channeling type of experience, I visualized a lecture hall with several CSETI activists speaking to one another at the front of the room. Dr. Greer’s first assistant, Shari Adamiak was there. In what might be considered an “awake dream”, I heard her say that “experimentation” might be the motivation behind some people being taken onboard.
As these thoughts were being “downloaded” into my consciousness, I got the distinct impression that the source was an ET female. She was slender and incredibly intelligent. The sensuous delight that I experienced just standing near her suggested that I might have known her for some time. She appeared to be a so-called “Zeta” type of being. This alleged category of extraterrestrial, according to the star map analysis of the Betty and Barnie Hill case, presumably comes from a star system called Zeta Reticuli.
I thought that she might perhaps be of mixed human-ET ancestry. I clearly perceived her emotions. She was not unfriendly, but I sensed that she was offended to the point of indignation concerning our use of the word “experiment.” It was if she was saying,
“You people, you humans, call our encounters with you experiments. Well, let me tell you a thing or two.”
STAR MAP DISPLAY
The next packet of information was reminiscent of material that contactee John Salter claims he received during a friendly on-board encounter with ETs in 1988. I imagined that I was being shown a kind of star map that traced the course of an extended migration through space. At the level of knowledge, I became aware of a massive exodus between star systems, one that lasted for a long time, generations, perhaps even centuries.
The tone of her presentation was somewhat didactic. She was recounting the history of her people. I sensed however an undercurrent of irritation, perhaps even scorn. I imagined her saying, “It took us a very long time to get here, (meaning our star system) and it required much individual and collective sacrifice.” I got the impression she was referring to the loss of numerous spacecraft with many of her people dying during the journey.
ARRIVING ON EARTH
The waking dream continued with the ET female stating, “For us our arrival to your star system was like a rebirth.” The harsh conditions of deep spaceflight were replaced with life on a beautiful planet, the one humans call “Earth.” I got the distinct impression that items from my storehouse of memories were being incorporated into the “dream.” I saw a male “Zeta” child dancing around a maypole in New York City’s Central Park. The scene unfolded near the carousel where my parents used to take me for rides on the painted ponies. Holding the ribbon as he danced, a sun shower poured cold rain down upon the “Zeta” child.
The ET female continued by explaining that they were here to assist our less advanced civilizations during a critical transition time in our development. Her tone changed from stern to sardonic. “You humans think you are so special, but you’re not!”
Then almost coyly she added. “We’ve been this way with others.”
A SENSE OF OUTRAGE CAN BE A MOST PASSIONATE FORM OF LOVE
At the level of thought, I became aware that this was the history of her people. They travelled through space, from one developing culture to another offering assistance. In no uncertain terms, I was informed that this was a religious duty that they willingly embraced no matter what the cost. The emotional power of her communication increased. She was clearly expressing outrage, and I understood it to be a most passionate form of love. I recoiled from the torrent of feelings emanating from her whole being. I was bent over in shame, as this physically frail non-human female blasted her telepathic message into my mind.
“So, don’t tell me this is an experiment!
“This is the history of our people!”
“This is how we express solidarity and offer assistance to developing cultures of intelligent beings!”
“AND THIS IS HOW WE EXPRESS OUR DEVOTION TO GOD!”
I recall reacting to this final part of the message, by pleading something like,
“Oh please, kind lady, please don’t be so angry with me.”
As I stated above, I have trouble understanding how this message had such power over me. For over 15 years I could not describe it without weeping. When I mention “a supreme love”, I refer to the power to evoke such a strong emotional response in a contact experiencer like myself. I suspect that I am not the only one to feel this way.
Addendum: Several years ago, in response to this narrative a question was posted, “So, what you’re saying is that the Zeta traveled for generations in space light years away, sacrificing many generations of their people just to arrive here to help us get through some unknown transition?”
MY REPLY: No, I am not saying that! I am asking the readers to try and wrap their minds around an analysis that is counterintuitive. I regret that I did not make my message clearer.
What I am proposing is that “UFO Central Intelligence”, “TOTECET”, the “ETs” or whatever you want to call them, aims their messaging at our hearts not just our heads. I believe, but cannot prove, that my contact download was deliberately co-created to successfully stir powerful emotion. The particulars of the message should not be believed. It is a legend. There is no way we can possibly verify such a narrative as true. We should thereby not believe that ETs are "sacrificing many generations” of their people just to get here to help us.
But while I can readily doubt the accuracy of this legend with my intellect, on an emotional level, it is tremendously appealing to someone like me and by inference for countless numbers of other UFO experiencers as well. This emotional conditioning that I refer to is probably taking place at night while we are in the dream state, and/or as in my case, during a pair of missing time experiences.
They have this power that currently manifests in only a tiny fraction of one percent of the population that dares come forward and be identified as "contact experiencers." But why should UFO intelligence limit itself to less than a fraction of a percentage of the Earth’s people? No less than 5-10 percent of the population have had a UFO sighting in the course of a lifetime. And I am not including in this estimate misidentifications with the planet Venus or other prosaic explanations. Why should there not be an unconscious mental link with every human that has a bona fide UFO sighting? I can see no reason to rule out this possibility.
Studies of so called “abductees” indicate that they are pretty ordinary. Experiencers come from all racial groups, countries, religions, occupations and we all have the same neuro-physiological and mental/emotional machinery. A technologically advanced and totally psi capable civilization(s) can probably tap into the consciousness of anyone they choose. To top it off, whoever the so called “aliens” are, they are not going away anytime soon. What we call "ETs" may have possibly been with us since the human race’s humble beginnings in Africa.
I believe they are approachable and potentially helpful. That promise of assistance for a planet that is “going to hell in a hand basket” has spurred me to promote contact work as a daily volunteer activity. In any case as a retired physician, it certainly beats golf as a hobby.

My reply was as follows:
It is a supreme love that is at the core of our human initiated contact efforts. Often, when I read about contact workers going out to engage The Others That Experiencers Call ET (TOTECET) one of my pet terms for the “ETs”, I get a pleasant feeling of pressure in my chest and a smile forms on my face.
There is much to our relationship with the so-called "visitors" that I suspect lays beneath the surface of our conscious minds. I am not the only contact activist that has imagined, at least once, that they might be in love with us. This is only true however for contactees who describe uniformly positive interactions. According to the FREE Experiencers Survey with over 4000 responders, about ten percent of survey sample had negative encounters and wanted them to stop. Thus, the overwhelming majority had either positive or neutral interactions.
Will the alleged “aliens” betray the trust that contact activists have in them? Not yet in my experience with them. During three decades of promoting volunteer contact work, I have not heard of negative encounters that could clearly be attributed to what are now called “UAP intelligences. In my opinion, they are not likely to betray our trust in the future.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY NOT AN OPTION
The word “love” is problematic for many UFO fans. We have the scientific model of UFO investigations that exhorts its practitioners to strive for “objectivity” in their research. Yet contact is occurring under the control of a non-human intelligences that have not been willing to play by institutional or amateur science’s rules. Flying saucer intelligences manifest at the time of their choosing, and they can exercise near total control over the situation during reported CE-3s and CE-4s. In addition, UFO intelligences appear to be far smarter and have more advanced psi skills than any scientist that is bold enough (perhaps “reckless” would be a better term) to proactively attempt to engage them as contact networks are doing. So, let’s forget about the value of “scientific objectivity” for a while.
PUSHING OUR EMOTIONAL BUTTONS
It is my strong belief that much of what might be very intimate relationships with UFO intelligence exist at an unconscious level. We remember our sightings and other contact experiences, but then again there are missing time incidents. I recall having two of them.
Harvard University’s Dr. John Mack was impressed by the raw emotional power of the contact experience. Many of those he investigated, while only under what he described as a light form of hypnosis, became overwhelmed when describing their encounters. He witnessed tears streaming down their faces, and expressions of both fear and love. As one contact worker from Quebec Province told me during a contact network meeting in Roswell, "The ETs really know how to push our emotional buttons."
CONTACT DOWNLOADS ARE A KIND OF CHANNELING EXPERIENCE
I had a contact download in the February of 1994 that revealed to me the tremendous emotional power of contact. It was a kind of an "awake dream." In less than a minute, a complex narrative unfolded in my mind. There was a visual component like watching a movie in one’s head, as well as an unspoken dialog that expressed complex thoughts. It initially appeared in my consciousness as a sort of outline. Over the next hour or two the sketch was filled in with much rich detail. Although the initial "transmission" was less than a minute, when I described the experience in written form, the narrative filled many pages. I consider such “contact downloads” to be a form of channeling.
Generally, I accept that most of what people receive during “downloads" are not being very accurate. I think of them as "theater of the mind" productions in which non-human intelligences (presumably ETs) co-create with human subjects a kind of “tutorial."
As the agents of these types of encounters appear to be totally telepathic, they have access to one's entire store of memories to create images that are familiar to us, thus making the “lesson” more acceptable to the experiencer. This kind of telepathic experience in rare cases contains information that is verifiable. This happened to me on two occasions during fieldwork in the 1990s. In advance of the appearance of UFOs, I had a contact download in which I was informed when, where in the sky and the number of saucers that were going to show up. In contrast to these two incidents, most of my telepathically derived information is totally unverifiable. For these reasons, I consider this type of phenomenon to be akin to "fairy tales for adults.”
I LOST CONTROL
The February 1994 download was special. That channeling session had such an impact on me emotionally that I could not describe it in public without weeping. It was like pushing a button. Towards the end of the telling, I used to get all choked up and tears started streaming from my eyes. It was astounding that I had completely lost control. And this is coming from a physician who for a decade worked in an ER under the most frightful and trying conditions that comes with that line of work. So, I guess you might say that I am not a pushover when it comes to dealing with adversity. Yet, just trying to describe this one particular anomalous experience triggered a forceful psychological response.
SUBJECTIVELY ACQUIRED MATERIAL
Subjectively Acquired Material (SAM) is the name Dr. Greer gave such downloads during the 1990s. On February 2, 1994, I “subjectively acquired” the following material from which I wrote the narrative below.
IT STARTED WITH THE WORD “EXPERIMENT.”
I recalled this term being used by CSETI members when discussing why extraterrestrials stage CE-4s, the so-called “alien abductions”. The notion was that they are trying to expand their knowledge of us by taking selected individuals onboard their craft. It is a behavior that humans understandably find bewildering or outright frightening. Perhaps such events are some kind of scientific research project on humans. Such discussions sometimes make the unpleasant analogy that we are being treated “like lab rats.”
As part of this channeling type of experience, I visualized a lecture hall with several CSETI activists speaking to one another at the front of the room. Dr. Greer’s first assistant, Shari Adamiak was there. In what might be considered an “awake dream”, I heard her say that “experimentation” might be the motivation behind some people being taken onboard.
As these thoughts were being “downloaded” into my consciousness, I got the distinct impression that the source was an ET female. She was slender and incredibly intelligent. The sensuous delight that I experienced just standing near her suggested that I might have known her for some time. She appeared to be a so-called “Zeta” type of being. This alleged category of extraterrestrial, according to the star map analysis of the Betty and Barnie Hill case, presumably comes from a star system called Zeta Reticuli.
I thought that she might perhaps be of mixed human-ET ancestry. I clearly perceived her emotions. She was not unfriendly, but I sensed that she was offended to the point of indignation concerning our use of the word “experiment.” It was if she was saying,
“You people, you humans, call our encounters with you experiments. Well, let me tell you a thing or two.”
STAR MAP DISPLAY
The next packet of information was reminiscent of material that contactee John Salter claims he received during a friendly on-board encounter with ETs in 1988. I imagined that I was being shown a kind of star map that traced the course of an extended migration through space. At the level of knowledge, I became aware of a massive exodus between star systems, one that lasted for a long time, generations, perhaps even centuries.
The tone of her presentation was somewhat didactic. She was recounting the history of her people. I sensed however an undercurrent of irritation, perhaps even scorn. I imagined her saying, “It took us a very long time to get here, (meaning our star system) and it required much individual and collective sacrifice.” I got the impression she was referring to the loss of numerous spacecraft with many of her people dying during the journey.
ARRIVING ON EARTH
The waking dream continued with the ET female stating, “For us our arrival to your star system was like a rebirth.” The harsh conditions of deep spaceflight were replaced with life on a beautiful planet, the one humans call “Earth.” I got the distinct impression that items from my storehouse of memories were being incorporated into the “dream.” I saw a male “Zeta” child dancing around a maypole in New York City’s Central Park. The scene unfolded near the carousel where my parents used to take me for rides on the painted ponies. Holding the ribbon as he danced, a sun shower poured cold rain down upon the “Zeta” child.
The ET female continued by explaining that they were here to assist our less advanced civilizations during a critical transition time in our development. Her tone changed from stern to sardonic. “You humans think you are so special, but you’re not!”
Then almost coyly she added. “We’ve been this way with others.”
A SENSE OF OUTRAGE CAN BE A MOST PASSIONATE FORM OF LOVE
At the level of thought, I became aware that this was the history of her people. They travelled through space, from one developing culture to another offering assistance. In no uncertain terms, I was informed that this was a religious duty that they willingly embraced no matter what the cost. The emotional power of her communication increased. She was clearly expressing outrage, and I understood it to be a most passionate form of love. I recoiled from the torrent of feelings emanating from her whole being. I was bent over in shame, as this physically frail non-human female blasted her telepathic message into my mind.
“So, don’t tell me this is an experiment!
“This is the history of our people!”
“This is how we express solidarity and offer assistance to developing cultures of intelligent beings!”
“AND THIS IS HOW WE EXPRESS OUR DEVOTION TO GOD!”
I recall reacting to this final part of the message, by pleading something like,
“Oh please, kind lady, please don’t be so angry with me.”
As I stated above, I have trouble understanding how this message had such power over me. For over 15 years I could not describe it without weeping. When I mention “a supreme love”, I refer to the power to evoke such a strong emotional response in a contact experiencer like myself. I suspect that I am not the only one to feel this way.
Addendum: Several years ago, in response to this narrative a question was posted, “So, what you’re saying is that the Zeta traveled for generations in space light years away, sacrificing many generations of their people just to arrive here to help us get through some unknown transition?”
MY REPLY: No, I am not saying that! I am asking the readers to try and wrap their minds around an analysis that is counterintuitive. I regret that I did not make my message clearer.
What I am proposing is that “UFO Central Intelligence”, “TOTECET”, the “ETs” or whatever you want to call them, aims their messaging at our hearts not just our heads. I believe, but cannot prove, that my contact download was deliberately co-created to successfully stir powerful emotion. The particulars of the message should not be believed. It is a legend. There is no way we can possibly verify such a narrative as true. We should thereby not believe that ETs are "sacrificing many generations” of their people just to get here to help us.
But while I can readily doubt the accuracy of this legend with my intellect, on an emotional level, it is tremendously appealing to someone like me and by inference for countless numbers of other UFO experiencers as well. This emotional conditioning that I refer to is probably taking place at night while we are in the dream state, and/or as in my case, during a pair of missing time experiences.
They have this power that currently manifests in only a tiny fraction of one percent of the population that dares come forward and be identified as "contact experiencers." But why should UFO intelligence limit itself to less than a fraction of a percentage of the Earth’s people? No less than 5-10 percent of the population have had a UFO sighting in the course of a lifetime. And I am not including in this estimate misidentifications with the planet Venus or other prosaic explanations. Why should there not be an unconscious mental link with every human that has a bona fide UFO sighting? I can see no reason to rule out this possibility.
Studies of so called “abductees” indicate that they are pretty ordinary. Experiencers come from all racial groups, countries, religions, occupations and we all have the same neuro-physiological and mental/emotional machinery. A technologically advanced and totally psi capable civilization(s) can probably tap into the consciousness of anyone they choose. To top it off, whoever the so called “aliens” are, they are not going away anytime soon. What we call "ETs" may have possibly been with us since the human race’s humble beginnings in Africa.
I believe they are approachable and potentially helpful. That promise of assistance for a planet that is “going to hell in a hand basket” has spurred me to promote contact work as a daily volunteer activity. In any case as a retired physician, it certainly beats golf as a hobby.

So! I have spend my weekend watching clips of Super Adventure Rockman, and reading the Archie adaptation of it. From both of those alone I can hear people asking "why?" to which my response was "to see if it REALLY was that bad". For reference, I have recently come down with a nasal infection due to allergies going haywire over the week (I get it's the first week of spring, but you'd think nature would let up on the allergies!). So I figured "why not?" So, first and foremost, Inafune actually apologized for this game, stating it to be "too dark". But then, Megamix and Gigamix are darker too! So that can't be the problem. I understand it used FMVs which lended slightly to the issue, but it didn't ruin everything. Now granted, there are times they reuse the audio or video clips to show when you go into battle, and everytime you take a shot or get hit there are sound effects. That's to be expected. But due to the hardware it was on, the recording can get a bit loud at times. Most of the cutscenes boil down to Rock walking in a location, maybe choosing a path, and occasionally being ambushed. A lot of Robot Masters being fought one after another can also get around to feeling tedious after a while. Nothing against the Robot Masters, it's just the setup: they're supposed to be bosses at the end of a stage, not spaced between a few enemies and exploration. But the real thing dragging the whole thing down in my opinion is Ra Moon. I'm going to copypaste my notes here so that way you can get a comparison between versions [with some additional notes I made in brackets like this]: - - - - Super Rockman Adventure timeline/notes:
(From the actual game and cutscenes)
* Lafront Ruins appears along with the Moon Temple and EMP field * Wily Travels to Lafront ruins * 3 Weeks Later, Wily stumbles across Ra Moon, who hijacks his computer and revives the MM2 Robot Master. Wily asks if it's a dream before Quickman confirms it isn't. Ra Moon introduces himself * Weeks later, Dr. Light notices a magnetic field over the Lafront Ruins, noting that IN ONE WEEK it has gotten much larger * Roll notes that that's where Wily went (I have no idea how she'd know this) * Roll Falls Ill * TIME LIMIT GIVEN: 2 Weeks until Roll Dies * Wily gives the world an ultimatum: Submit in 2 weeks or the world is destroyed * Light gives Megaman (and the original 8) a formula which will protect them from EMP interference) [Plot can be either the 8 help others worldwide and transfer the code OR that Rock goes almost alone aside from the following dictated by plot: Gutsman, * Roll says that people and robots believe in the power of love [This was originally shown in a flashback, I'm just putting it here so it makes sense chronologically] * Light sends support through items in the jungle * Rock makes it to the island, encounters Renbakun (a missile dropping enemy from Megaman 5) * He encounters a swarm of many different Mets and runs for it, reaching a fork in the road. Beat has done aerial recon and transfers data to Megaman, claiming that the left path is easier to get lost in, so they go right * Rock takes out another horde of Mets, and comes under attack by Metalman - METALMAN BOSSFIGHT - Metalman beaten *Megaman goes by the lake (Possible Bubbleman Bossfight?) - Bubbleman Bossfight * Megaman goes up the mountain, Beat brings him an E-Tank - Heatman Bossfight (Megaman beats him with Bubble Lead, location is on the mountainside * Wily is shown noting that Megaman used an E-Tank after the Heatman bossfight) * An Item Box is found, guarded by several Hari Harry and Kerog (AT LEAST 3 Hari Harry and 4 Kerogs, judging from the cutscene) * Flashman is encountered by the Mountainside and Rock notices. Flashman gets in a free hit on Rock by warping in behind Rock [in the cutside, the free hit is located on the side. Usually maximum competense would dictate a headshot from behind. However since Rock noticed Flashman, it is likely he anticpated this, meaning from a writing perspective if Rock dodges the shot the best place to hit would then be the legs, since the plot later down the line dictates that Rock uses 2 Chargeshots at once to take out Ra Moon.] - FLASHMAN BOSSFIGHT * Flashman beaten with Metal Blade (rip Flashman, you have a cool design) * Megaman goes through a small forest section up the mountain before discovering the Ra Moon Pyramid * Quickman states that if he beats Rock he will be the number 1 Robot, challenging him * Rock explains about the EMP, Quickman doesn't believe him, stating that Wily revived them all. Quickman gets in 4 FREE HITS. [Maximum competence dictates that due to superior speed, at least 2 of them are fatal. From a writing standpoint, if you choose to pin both of Rock's arms to the wall, that costs 2 of those hits and Rock has a 50/50 chance to escape at best before the 3rd hit {GUARANTEED FATAL due to a combination of Quickman's staus as a Rival of Megaman, as well as his superior speed} lands. ) - Quickman BOSSFIGHT * Rock explains that Earth will be destroyed by the EMP, which includes Dr. Wily, which leads to Quickman hesitating before getting in a killing blow * Shadowman appears and calls Quickman slow, and states that he (Shadowman) will be the one to end Rockman. [From a creative standpoint, this can result in either a 3 way battle or Quickman teaming up with Megaman to beat Shadowman, but the end result is Quickman taking his last hit from Shadowman.] * Rock is shown to be worn out after the fighting them, Quickman reveals that he now believe Rock, telling him to fight. Rock looks towards the temple and silently vows to take on whoever caused this. (Part 1 ends) * Ra Moon is seen extending it's tendrils into a black orb [I suspect this is him trying to form Ra Devil]. 6 Sniper Joes are seen working with Wily on Ra Thor. Ra Thor's blueprint is shown, with Wily claiming he'll "make the strongest Robot using the strongest computer" * Worldwide locations are shown with the blackout affecting them [This can be omitted, or at the very least shown to reveal that it has been at least 1 week since Rock left for the Ruins] * 3 Sniper Joes attempt to ambush Rock, but are defeated by Protoman, who warms him "there are lots of enemies here". * Megaman asks Blues why he's there to which Protoman responds "I figured when the world's in a pinch you'd be bitter to deal with it alone". Blues then states he'll work with Rock, but it would be better to work alone. * An Item Box is found nearby, giving Megaman an item similar to Proto Shield. [NOTE: This results in a defensive update which can halve damage, at the cost of also cutting your speed in half] * A flock of 15 Pipi appear. At least 3 Copipi get in a free hit and Rock escapes when a wall nearby caves in (yes I counted all the birds in the custscene) * Woodman appears, getting in 2 FREE HITS and a charging FREE HIT (which slightly increases damage) before slamming him against the wall [Meaning Rock takes 4 hits total. Maximum competense dictates at least the first hit is from Leaf Shield, as since they both know Woodman still has access to it, it makes no sense that Woodman wouldn't START equipped with it) - WOODMAN BOSSFIGHT * Rock walks into the front of the Temple Ruins. He blasts a wall and gets an E-Tank, which he uses. * Rock encounters a Fan Fiend, who claims that if he beats Rock "[he'll] become a real robot!" (Don't worry Fan Fiend, I already do consider you one, buddy) * Airman is encountered - AIRMAN BOSSFIGHT [an optional failure cutscene reveals Elecman saving Rock from Airman] * A bunch of Bunby Helis are encountered near an abyss. Rock jumps to the other side, grabbing an Item Box in his haste, which he then throws to the bottom in a hurry. A Picketmet is encountered. * 10 Suzy are encountered (yes, I counted them in the cutscene), an Item Box is found before Rock is ambushed by Crashman - CRASHMAN BOSSFIGHT [an optional failure cutscene reveals Fireman present to rescue Megaman] * Rock wins, going into another cavelike domain. He is then told by Blues to wait until dark to take on a bunch of patrolling enemies outside. * A Mouse-like enemy from MM5 reveals to Wily that Rock is in Snakeman's area. * Rock is spotted by a Blader and Ladybug bots forcing him to flee. He falls for a pit trap into a cave * Rock encounters sliding blocks [maybe replace this with Yoku blocks?] and is then ambushed by at least 15 Battonton. An exploding Search Snake attempts to cause a cave in on top of Rock. Snakeman attempts to ambush Rock but is foiled by Beat - SNAKEMAN BOSSFIGHT * Rock encounters the Met Family * Rock is ambushed by Needleman who gets in 3 FREE HITS - NEEDLEMAN BATTLE * Rock finds and uses an E-Tank * Rock climbs out of the cave, Geminiman enters from the temple entrance. Geminiman gets in 1 FREE HIT [Maximum competense rules that he could snipe Megaman from the entrance and get a free hit to the neck, which would slow Rock's aiming considerably] - GEMINIMAN BOSSFIGHT * Wily uses a hologram to brag to Rock about Ra Thor * Rock informs Wily about how the EMP field will kill everyone, which causes Ra Moon to cut transmissions. When Wily questions this, Ra Moon states it was a small glitch. * Rock wonders into a labyrinth * Rock comes across Magnetman at the exit to the labyrinth - MAGNETMAN BOSSFIGHT * Rock heads further into a circular room and Hardman tries to ambush him - HARDMAN BOSSFIGHT * Hardman is done in by an acid trap, which Rock escapes * Upon climbing the pillars, Rock is ambushed by Topman who gets in 1 FREE HIT - TOPMAN BOSSFIGHT * Rock goes through a vent, finds and uses and E-Tank * Rock crawls out of the tunnel, and then gets ambushed by Sparkman, who get in 4 FREE HITS * Rock gets the Spark Shot, but it's revealed that Sparkman fakes his death and shocked Rock into unconsciousness * Rock is captured by Wily, who then reveals that the RMs have been revived, and introduces Rock to Ra Moon * Rock tells Wily that the EMP field is destroying the world, and Quickman warns Wily that Ra Moon is decieving them * Wily orders the RMs to destroy Megaman [which, from a writing perspective, SHOULD result in a 16-against 1 Bossfight, or at least a Bossrush] * Ra Moon zaps all 16 Robot Masters and tells his origin story. Wily calls BS on Ra Moon being thousands of years old [which I completely agree with] * Ra Moon declares his intent to betray Wily and destroy the Robot Masters. When Wily states he loves his Robot Masters, Ra Moon acts like it doesn't exist. * Wily orders Ra Thor to destroy Ra Moon. Ra Moon then reveals that he controls Ra Moon. Ra Moon disables MOST of the RMs, save for Metalman and Geminiman, who freed Megaman from a trap. * Ra Thor gets 3 FREE HITS on Rockman. Wily reveals that Ra Moon's speed is twice of Quickman's and he is 4 times as strong as Hardman. - RA THOR BOSSFIGHT * Ra Moon reveals that he anticipated Ra Thor's failure, and created the Ra Devil as a fallback. Ra Devil takes an attack from all 16 RMs and laughs it off. * Ra Moon reveals that "your attacks simply replenish his systems" [which from a decent writing perspective translates into "The only attack that can harm this boss is the Megabuster"]. Ra Devil zaps all 16 RMs and Rock fights it - Ra Devil bossfight * Next cutscene reveals Ra Devil gets at least 1 free shot in on top of the fact that Rock's HP is half depleted by this point. Wily tells Rock that Ra Devil can be overloaded, and to attack Ra Moon directly * Rock asks the RMs to give him their energy, Magnetman takes an attack meant for Rock, followed by Hardman and Woodman taking a second attack left for Rock. - Second Ra Devil Phase? * Rock defeats Ra Moon with 2 Charge Shots combined.
ARCHIE ADAPTATION:
* Rock is fighting Breakman * Wily is betrayed by Ra Moon, who electrocutes him. In this version, Ra Moon has limited movement but uses his wires to reach [NOTE: From a writing standpoint, if you wish to make Ra Moon himself into a bossfight at the end, this gives him acess to grapples, electricity based moves, whiplike abilities, and laser blasts.] * Ra Moon tells Wily he will steal Wily's designs, have humanity destroy itself out of desparation, and leave no survivors * Ra Moon locks Wily out of most of his computers, and Wily escapes to a hidden lab while Ra Moon charges up an EMP wave * Ra Moon triggers the worldwide blackout, Rock has enough willpower to let out a chargeshot before being forced to shutdown * Rock wakes up, and is debriefed on the situation. * Dr Light says they have enough anti EMP coating to last a week. DEADLINE GIVEN: 1 WEEK * Cutman, Bombman and Gutsman also get protective coating * Breakman returns and is attacked by Ra Moon [Possible minibossfight against Ra Moon?]. Wily gets him into a secret lab and explains what happened * Wily reveals Ra Thor to Breakman, saying he planned for this, but needs more time to complete Ra Thor. * Rock and the others crashland in the Amazon, ambushed by Metalman * 5-against-4 Bossfight against Flashman, Bubbleman, Metalman and Heatman. * Rock claims he doesn't want to fight, Flashman says he doesn't care. - END RESULT OF BATTLE: Bombman disabled, Rock gets the 4 weapons. * Breakman reveals to Wily that Megaman has arrived * Woodman, Airman, and Crashman attack the group [Possible bossfight?] Rock talks them out of fightng * Rock explains the situation, Crashman agrees that things are suspicious * Quickman and Shadowman are shown eavesdropping, Shadowman stabs Quickman * Shadowman ambushes everyone, Rock and the rest retreat * Cutman and Bombman stay behind to heal the Wily RMs, Gutsman and Rush go along with Rock * Ra Moon bullshits his way into possessing Needleman and Snakeman (because plot) the instant they start to think that since the world is at stake, maybe this isn't the best plan * Snakeman and Needleman ambush Gutsman and Rock in a labyrinth * Quakewoman, Elecman, Centaurman and Timeman are revealed to be helping others across the world. Dr. Light reveals that people are beginning to run out of resources faster than anticipated due to panicking, and estimates maybe 100 hours at most * Geminiman ambushes the duo - GEMINIMAN BOSSFIGHT * Geminiman (or rather, his hologram) reveals that Ra Moon is at the heart of the Temple * Breakman returns with the rest of the RMs * 2 fights at once: 8-against 8 (MM2 VS MM3 RMs). FIGHT 2 is Megaman and Blues against Ra Thor. Rock gets Multiple weapons (in order): Bubble Lead, Spark Shot, Quick Boomerang, Metal Blade, Needle Cannon. - RA THOR BOSSFIGHT * Ra Moon takes out the MM2 RMs while they are caught up with the ones from MM3 * Rock equipped with Crash Bomb * Rock defeats Ra Thor with the rest of his Special Weapons (he directly states he used all the weapons energy) * Ra Moon, claiming the MM3 RMs to be his, tells them he will have revenge on Wily. The Robot Masters in question are Hardman, Topman, Magnetman, Geminiman, and Sparkman [I'm assuming that Sparkman recharged them? Could be wrong] * Ra Moon then claims that Ra Devil is "[Wily's design], perfected by my power". Ra Devil shrugs off a chargeshot and blasts Rock, leading Rock to land beside Wily * Wily reveals that between the remaining 5 MM3 RMs and Ra Devil, Ra Moon's power is diverted, and thus his attention is divided, leaving him defenseless. * Rock claims that one Chargeshot isn't enough and overloads to bring down Ra Moon - - - - END OF NOTES - - - - Do you see how little Ra Moon does throughout the plot, despite allegedly being the "main threat" here? Yes, he does make a worldwide blackout, but since this is his first action to the rest of the current cast, he is expected to do more than this. He remakes Wily's Robot Masters, which seems fine, and it does establish he can create them (Wily is visibly in awe when he asks if it's a dream). But this is where the problems start for Ra Moon. He remakes Wily's Robot Masters, but that is using someone else's design as opposed to his own planning, as without Wily stumbling upon him, he would've just collected dust. But it's not too late to turn things around just yet. Now granted, in the Archie adaptation, Wily is betrayed before his RMs find Megaman. But then that also adds the question "Ok, you've one upped the usual threat. Can you keep it going?" But sadly the answer is no. As the plot moves forwards, in the original, Ra Moon simply lets Wily use a hologram, that being the most direct he gets before cutting it off and lying to Wily (why someone who's a genius like Wily falls for this, I'll never know). In the Archie adaptation he possesses the MM3 Robot Masters, but until he is reached directly, that's the most he does. But wait, there's still the matter of Ra Thor to get to, right? Ra Thor was created by Wily using Ra Moon's tech in both versions, being made earlier in the original SAR than in the Archie Adaptation. Ra Moon chooses to highjack Ra Thor instead of fighting directly, despite showing him being able to use his wires to perform electric attacks, grabs, and possibly lasers in the Archie adaptation, again hiding behind something he didn't make. Rock defeats him (despite Wily claiming Ra Thor has no weakness, even though Ra Thor takes more damage from Spark Shock. You're welcome.), and in the Archie adaptation, it takes all his remaining Weapon Energy to do so. Ok so Ra Thor's been built up as a credible threat, but again, Ra Thor was made by Wily, and Ra Moon's still alive. So then Ra Moon attempts to up the ante, and reveals he used the Yellow Devil's blueprint's to make the Ra Devil, the REAL final boss of Super Adventure Rockman. The design makes the ripoff factor blatant. There's a few bits of gold, and the Ra Devil's eye looks like Ra Moon's but aside from that, it's a recolor (not that that's always a bad thing). Now, Ra Devil, as stated in my SAR notes is pretty much immune to almost everything (but not everything, since otherwise the Megaman series wouldn't be able to continue as a whole.) This cements Ra Devil's final boss status from a narritave standpoint, unless Ra Moon does the whole "I'll be back" thing. But as we all know, that doesn't happen, and Ra Moon only takes 2 chargeshots to kill. Now in the Archie version it's all down to the wire but in the original he just stands there and takes it. For an ancient supercompter, you'd think moving out of the way would be an easy thought process, but this is Ra Moon we're talking about. But the point still stands: When Ra Moon has run out of things to hide behind, he's defenseless. Sure, he had a decent start with a worldwide threat, but after that he's like one of those "Orcus on his throne" types who doesn't do a thing unless necessary, one of the villain archetypes I HATE. But back to the previous point most of you may have noticed, that being that Ra Moon hides behind others and takes credit. Now, I can hear some of you saying "But what makes it better when Wily does it?" Allow me to explain. Any Megaman fan worth their P-chips knows that the events of the whole series traces back to Wily's jealousy of Light, and that he stole the original 8 Robot Masters to get back at Dr. Light. Ra Moon doesn't even have that. But then Megaman 2 reveals Wily's own creations. It is important to note that in the Archie comics adaptation of Megaman 2, Light makes a remark that "There isn't an original bone in your [Albert's] body". But while Dr. Light could tell that Wily's batch took inspiration from Light's it brings a few ideas to the table (for example, Woodman is made mostly out of Hinoki cypress. Crashman's Crash Bombs latch onto targets as opposed to detonating on impact) Ra Moon doesn't have Wily's jealousy or history with Dr. Light. All we have is the word of a character who was just introduced that he is allegedly ancient and just takes credit for what he didn't do. And while we're on the subject of evil doubles, Wily even went as far as creating Copy Robot in Megaman 1, who matches Rock shot for shot. (Until Rock brings out the Magnet Beam.) But the point is that Wily's character and start is based on improving what was previously made, but UNLIKE Ra Moon, he can back up what he makes. Now yes, Ra Moon tries to outdo Wily, but unlike Wily he doesn't fight Rock directly. Wily, on the other hand does, through the Wily Machines (and eventually the Wily Capsules). And while some of you may point out that the Wily Machines might not count to them, let me tell you this: Ra Moon uses his wires offensively in the Archie adaptation, meaning that he does have the capacity to fight. But then if you argue that Wily doesn't fight you directly, in Megaman Powered Up, he visably flinches as he is hit with buster shots/oversized scissors/fireballs/icicles/bombs/energy arrows/oil/broom/whatever-you-use-depending-on-who-you-play-as. But he takes those hits, directly. Ra Moon only takes one hit and goes down, and even discounting that, he is defeated in a cutscene. No boss music, no energy bar. Just one hit. Wily, on the other hand, is able to keep coming back time and again with the Wily Machines we all know and...know. (And the hair puling Wily Capsules that may make our hair eventually resemble Wily's. Especially the Megaman 7 one.) TLDR VERSION: The reason why Ra Moon falls flat as a character is that he's all bark and no byte, and aside from acting indirectly, he only does a total of 2 things total to directly influence the plot. He can't keep up the threat factor of his first action and sits on the sidelines, and despite being able to defend himself, chooses not to (to the point of just sitting there in Super Adventure Rockman). He doesn't come back for more, and is the "orcus on his throne" type who doesn't do a thing until it's too late. This downfall for such a built up character drags down Super Adventure Rockman as a whole, and is the final nail in the coffin for why most don't like Super Adventure Rockman.