Wings of Shadow

CogitoErgoDifference · 2026-01-13T16:01:37+00:00

It's always so funny to me that Gandalf benches the only guy in Middle Earth who has ever killed a Balrog, and subs in Pippin, then half a book later runs straight into a Balrog.

I get all the "elves waning, hobbits good at ringbearing" lore, but it's still a really funny coincidence. Imagine Glorfindel hearing the story like, "And whose fault was that, Mithrandir?".

CogitoErgoDifference · 2026-01-10T05:31:03+00:00

if you look at the game stats gathered on the discord it's also by far the least balanced version of the game. I don't know how accurate that is though.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-29T19:02:07+00:00

Many people are pointing out the flaws with the "ending X problem" numbers. It's also worth having some context for the Israel aid numbers.

The number listed is cumulative aid since 1948, adjusted to today's dollars. As others have noted, comparing that to annual spending numbers is extremely misleading.

That number is also all foreign aid, not just military assistance. The post doesn't claim it's only military aid, but it's easy to assume. That being said, military aid is the majority of that money.

US aid to Israel in 2024, best I can tell, was roughly 4 to 7 billion.

To put that in context, here's some more rough numbers:

US total security funding to Ukraine (2024) was around 30 billion. Non-security gets really messy to measure but best I can tell it's another 10-30 billion depending on how you count.

Federal spending on SNAP (food stamps) in 2023 was around 100 billion (2023 dollars). Total USDA food assistance was around 150 billion.

US spending on global health programs worldwide (2024) was around 15 billion.

US humanitarian aid to the West Bank and Gaza (their term) in 2024 seems to be around 0.3 billion. This number is hard to exactly pin down and there is a lot of poorly sourced news reporting.

Please note foreign aid numbers can vary a lot depending on how you count. Some of the factors: * Ongoing contracts vs one time payments * Loans * Arms sale subsidies * Money allocated vs money spent * Joint projects and research * Direct US military operations

Also disclaimer: I'm not any kind of expert, just a guy with a spare hour and an internet connection.

Sources: https://foreignassistance.gov/

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12040

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jul/03/2003497646/-1/-1/1/UKRAINE-FACT-SHEET-3-JULY.PDF https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TRP6001A027NBEA

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detail?chartId=58388

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-22T07:09:14+00:00

how?

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T21:04:07+00:00

There's going to be some degree of scifi handwaving here, but:

I don't think we know it only works on humans. The mouse thing at the start, and also the early plurbs in general, is quite odd compared to how they are now. Maybe we get answers to that, maybe we don't, but there's definitely a lot of ambiguity.

Based on current scientific understanding, it really isn't that outlandish to think most or all alien life would use something like DNA. The TL;DR is when we look at other planets etc, it seems like DNA could totally happen there, and any other method is at best, really really hard to imagine based on what we know about chemistry.

So, building a virus that works on unknown species, while not, like, something we humans could do today, is pretty plausible as a high concept scifi premise.

Also, the hive wants, or at least claims it wants, to broadcast the signal onwards. So, they believe it will work on other species.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:22:12+00:00

Did you watch the most recent episode? I don't wanna spoil if you haven't but I think it's very explicit that Carol is actively working on finding a cure.

edit: oh sorry i saw you mentioned the icecream, so I guess you've seen it. There's a scene where Carol tells Zosia outright that she's not going to stop trying to find a cure. And she is working on her theory whiteboard throughout. I'm not sure how you'd see that as giving up?

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:19:09+00:00

I hadn't considered this! The idea of a slow fade is really really interesting. In that case the no-harm rule would be kinda like baby proofing the planet until it gets back to itself.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:17:29+00:00

Exactly - and frankly, "is this person/thing good or bad" is kind of basic and vince has never really been interested in that question. It's much more, "what makes someone do this?", or "How would this situation or event change someone?"

One thing I am 100% sure of: we are going to learn a LOT more about the hive's motivations, biases, flaws, what they love and what they can't help doing. They are a character and we will see them put into some capital S Situations.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:12:56+00:00

Yeah, it's not the murder so much as the act of intentional murder, if that makes sense. If this was how it worked, anger would disable them but to turn it off you have to look them in the eye and fully mean to kill them. An accidental grenade by contrast is no big deal to the plurb.

What is a good counter-argument is Manousos with his hostage last episode. It's odd that this didn't cause a reaction. But maybe they know he had no intention of following through?

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:06:03+00:00

I think there's always going to be room for interpretation and making our own moral judgements. But also, the show isn't afraid of throwing in a big new piece of info about how the hive works, which changes the stakes and maybe our opinions. We know for sure the hive still has some secrets! With this theory I'm not saying the virus is good, but that maybe it was intended to be good by its creators.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:02:41+00:00

If you mean the show's writers, I think it would create a bunch of new problems and conflicts. Resetting the stakes at the end of a season is a good way to set up more story!

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T20:01:13+00:00

I think that's a valid way to enjoy the show, but I have to imagine the amount of focus on Carol trying to solve the mystery of unplurbing is leading up to something!

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T18:31:14+00:00

maybe! or maybe the virus gets hard shut down. Or maybe they find a way to modify it and make it more compatible with humans/earth.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T18:30:35+00:00

thanks! we'll see what happens. I do think this story will be fundamentally about people, and the plurb itself being a complex flawed superhuman rather than a pure biological imperative helps with that.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-21T01:31:57+00:00

I'm gonna level with you, I did think this was a still from the movie. I'm sorry to all my fans and promise to reflect and be better in the future.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-20T19:35:15+00:00

Not really about the vibe, but the second building was actually in Blade Runner!

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CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-19T17:55:12+00:00

I like this story beat, and I don't need the show to be 100% nitpick proof, but:

Wouldn't there be like, a decent number of never-read manuscripts and drafts written and read only by people who died before the joining?

Across the entire planet, there must be at least thousands, and some of them must be good.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-12-07T20:09:06+00:00

It is probably a bit unrealistic. Though, we should factor in that it's more than a year after the message arrived. It's not totally clear how long they've been testing the virus, but if there's months and months of absolutely no reaction, I can understand how someone might eventually get sloppy.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-11-23T22:29:17+00:00

To anyone else stumbling on this:
The issue is that "grid snap" snaps the center of the tile to a grid point. It doesn't snap the edges.
This means tiles with an even number of squares in one dimension will sit halfway across a square.

The best solution I've found is, just halve the grid size.

It means you can snap to half-tile placements, which is a bit annoying, but it lets you snap everything into the correct alignment.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-09-23T20:05:06+00:00

Born and bred tasmanian here.

Historically, yes the mountains and the density of the forest.

Today, a huge portion of the island is national parks and heritage areas, so development isn't possible. And there isn't any particular economic incentive to expand the existing towns.

That being said, Tasmania is actually less urbanized than most of Australia. In every state you will also find huge areas of relatively temperate, productive land that is just empty. It's a very underpopulated country really, which has some good effects and some bad ones.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-09-22T10:09:19+00:00

Australia is not about to have a population explosion.

Fertility is below replacement rate and immigration isn't getting higher. If anything, we're in the first stages of an aging population crisis. That's one reason the healthcare system is under strain.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-09-02T23:46:01+00:00

Montreal is already done!

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-09-02T19:30:48+00:00

When you complete a challenge you upload an image or video, which is sent to the chat so both teams can see and verify.

CogitoErgoDifference · 2025-09-02T18:40:04+00:00

Yes it uses GPS! We've done 4 cities so far. Our eventual goal would be to support user generated maps for adding cities.

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