Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I would imagine the guy doing stock trades isn't a member, merely a hireling. There is a difference between being on the Council and working for the Council. The former implies standing and some degree of equality. The later doesn't.

They don't even absolutely need to be in the know. It would just be a stockbroker who had a strange rich old client who refused to do business over the phone but did everything through handwritten letters.
They kind of have to be.
The kind of economic activity they did during the Vampire War would have been evident to anyone with financial training as adversarial activity. And some of it would be illegal by modern financial regulations.

There's probably a bunch of banks and financial firms wholly owned by the White Council who are entirely inside the onion, just like the Venator Umborum are entirely inside the onion.
If they trust mortals with guarding shoggoths, they are going to trust mortals with money.

Its just that Harry doesnt have any interest in that end of things.

=====
And frankly, who does the janitorial work at Edinburgh? Its not Avalon, the building isnt sentient.

Who sweeps the halls and gets the cobwebs? Who washes the restroom after someone gets an explosive case of the runs? Who unclogs the toilets? Who does the laundry? Who does the supply runs to, among other things, stock the on-site clinic? Who decontaminated the meeting halls after the mistwraith killed 50 people? Who handled the bodies?

In Turn Coat, there's a prepared buffett that Dresden tells Molly to help herself to when he goes to talk to Ebenezar; who prepped it? Dresden has had brownies handling his housekeeping since Summer Knight as a gift from Summer Lady Lily.
Who does it for the White Council?

The closer you look, the more the idea of a wizard-only facility, of a wizard-only organization, looks implausible.
Either there's a passel of contracted spirits or Fae doing support, or there's mortals doing this shit.
 
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They kind of have to be.
The kind of economic activity they did during the Vampire War would have been evident to anyone with financial training as adversarial activity. And some of it would be illegal by modern financial regulations.

There's probably a bunch of banks and financial firms wholly owned by the White Council who are entirely inside the onion, just like the Venator Umborum.
If they trust mortals with guarding shoggoths, they are going to trust mortals with money.

Its just that Harry doesnt have any interest in that end of things.

=====
And frankly, who does the janitorial work at Edinburgh? Its not Avalon, the building isnt sentient.

Who sweeps the halls and gets the cobwebs? Who washes the restroom after someone gets an explosive case of the runs? Who unclogs the toilets? Who does the laundry? Who does the supply runs? Who decontaminated the meeting halls after the mistwraith killed 50 people?

In Turn Coat, there's a prepared buffett that Dresden tells Molly to help herself to when he goes to talk to Ebenezar; who prepped it? Dresden has had brownies handling his housekeeping since Summer Knight as a gift from Summer Lady Lily.
Who does it for the White Council?

The closer you look, the more the idea of a wizard-only facility, of a wizard-only organization, looks implausible.
Either there's a passel of contracted spirits or Fae doing support, or there's mortals doing this shit.
And quite frankly there are plenty of bindable fae who could be used as stockbrokers. You don't need to touch iron to use a plastic keyboard.
 
Current Tally:
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Jul 17, 2024 at 1:05 PM, finished with 135 posts and 24 votes.

  • [X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
    [X] Maybe... maybe you're right, this might take too long to roll out
    [X] Harry, I believe in the Ten Commandments, I've also killed people, the Knights of the Cross kill people when they have no other choice, what you are describing is a hurdle ot cross, not a reason to never set off on the road, not when it could save lives
    [X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
    -[X] "Emotions aside", you pause, taking a breath, both to calm down and to punctuate the change in your argument, "this doesn't make Law violations easier, or force the Council to change their policies at all. If anything, such a separation would make it harder for people to turn into full-on mad cackling warlocks. It just removes one victim from the equation."
    [X] Passenger Pigeon Incarna Plan Go!
    [X] If the flaw is not wrongdoing, but the perception of wrongdoing, then the solution is the adjustment of how it is perceived.
 
And frankly, who does the janitorial work at Edinburgh? Its not Avalon, the building isnt sentient.

Who sweeps the halls and gets the cobwebs? Who washes the restroom after someone gets an explosive case of the runs? Who unclogs the toilets? Who does the laundry? Who does the supply runs to, among other things, stock the on-site clinic? Who decontaminated the meeting halls after the mistwraith killed 50 people? Who handled the bodies?
Likely artificial spirits / golems like the one in Merlin's house.
 
And quite frankly there are plenty of bindable fae who could be used as stockbrokers. You don't need to touch iron to use a plastic keyboard.
Even aside from that, is there any reason to assume that no wizard, no fae, no supernatural can build tech that can ignore techbane?

That wizards cant build or enchant it?
That the svartalfar cant? Dresden commissioned one for stuff like binding circles, and we know they can work with iron.
We see the inside of the svartalfar consulate in Chicago; thoroughly modern.


I mean, IIRC Odin uses computers at Monoc Securities. Winter Lady Molly uses a smartphone.
The idea that the wizards would look at all their peers leveraging human innovation as force multipliers and not try to keep up is....implausible.

My understanding is simply that it came down to smartphones, and Butcher trying to invent a reason why many of the plots of the Dresden Files didnt come down to "And Dresden made a phone call to Edinburgh and a war party of Wardens and/or his grandfather showed up a couple hours later".

Which is also presumably why he killed off most of the Wardens in Dead Beat.
Likely artificial spirits / golems like the one in Merlin's house.
Wizards cant build artificial spirits. Bind them yes, build them no. Build golems certainly.
But if you are going to invest effort in convenience and none in securing one of the pillars of your factional power?
Then you are literally too stupid to live.
 
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Its explicit Word of Jim that they did.
That they have been doing this since before the Renaissance. Heck, that they are responsible FOR the Renaissance in the Dresden Files universe.

Its not relevant to Dresden's plot, because the Dresden Files is an urban fantasy series, not epic fantasy.
At least, its been urban fantasy prior to Peace Talks/Battle Grounds.

But when you are explicitly waging war against an entity that controls most of modern Latin America, and only being held to a stalemate because your enemy has moles inside your organization?
You have to know your enemy, and the world they operate in, very well.

Seriously, they are wizards. INFORMATION is their stock in trade. Blowing shit up is a nice secondary, but its not their primary specialization. Wizards know things.


The US did not. Really. From a distance of half a century, its easy to underestimate the degree of misunderstanding that existed between the power blocs during the Cold War, both political and military. That Evil Empire rhetoric from Ronnie Raygun Reagan was something he genuinely believed.

As for Nixon, the man was explicitly unstable
Several American diplomats, staff members, friends, and family, knew Nixon indulged in alcohol and had trouble battling insomnia, for which he was prescribed sleeping pills. According to Ray Price, he sometimes took them together. This affected his acuity and understanding of his surroundings on several occasions; from John Ehrlichman calling him "looped", to Manolo Sanchez, a Republican operative and special counsel to the President, thinking Nixon had a stroke or heart attack while on the phone with him, to not being able to pick up a telephone call from the British prime minister during the Middle East crisis. Both Nixon's daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower and friend Billy Graham acknowledged this fact, after his presidency. Nixon also took dilantin, recommended by Jack Dreyfus. That medicine is usually prescribed for seizure attacks, but in Nixon's case it was to battle depression.[14] Also, Henry Kissinger portrayed the 1970 incursion into Cambodia as a symptom of Nixon's supposed instability.[15]
To the point where his own staff told people to ignore things like nuclear launch orders from him.
Its like trying to retrofit strategy into a lot of Donald Trump's decisions.


Its true that Butcher isnt an International Relations expert, or a worldbuilder on par with people like Tolkien or Jordan.
But his intent appears clear.

OK since @DragonParadox covered the Dresden Files side of things I'll briefly cover the history side of things:

The conflict between the USA and the USSR goes back to the 1920s when communism first started to be noticeably on the rise. The confusion and misinformation about the Soviets was self-inflicted by the US Leadership.

Ronald Reagan was the on who was most similar to Trump, in fact one could argue that Reagan was the Trump of his era just younger and the same way Trump believes in fighting China today Reagan believed in fighting the USSR then.

Richard Nixon on the other hand was neither as unstable nor as out of control as most people think. It's just that he was a deeply offended bastard whose loss to Kennedy drove him into such a state of bruised ego driven wrath that he willingly became his own villainous caricature. Most people think of Nixon as someone who went insane when in fact he went this:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prPmxw2Cm-o

Just without the intervention actually being done by friends, family and helpful strangers and instead being done by his political enemies and allies.
 
OK since @DragonParadox covered the Dresden Files side of things I'll briefly cover the history side of things:

The conflict between the USA and the USSR goes back to the 1920s when communism first started to be noticeably on the rise. The confusion and misinformation about the Soviets was self-inflicted by the US Leadership.

Ronald Reagan was the on who was most similar to Trump, in fact one could argue that Reagan was the Trump of his era just younger and the same way Trump believes in fighting China today Reagan believed in fighting the USSR then.

Richard Nixon on the other hand was neither as unstable nor as out of control as most people think. It's just that he was a deeply offended bastard whose loss to Kennedy drove him into such a state of bruised ego driven wrath that he willingly became his own villainous caricature. Most people think of Nixon as someone who went insane when in fact he went this:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prPmxw2Cm-o

Just without the intervention actually being done by friends, family and helpful strangers and instead being done by his political enemies and allies.

This is not the place or time for a detailed discussion of US-USSR relations during the Cold War.

As for Nixon, I will simply refer you to this:
outrider.org

Nixon's Drunken Run-ins With the Bomb

Trump isn't the only president we've worried might misuse the nuclear codes.

View: https://www.npr.org/2010/07/06/128337461/nixon-considered-nuclear-option-against-n-korea
 
Worth remembering how time impacts your place in the economic system. They're not just old money, as far as most economic systems are concerned they're Original Money.

The council probably got its accounts when lamp oil was the hot new commodity, and are more in the business of owning big tangible stuff than in the classic image of a finance bro. I wouldn't be surprised if they owned whole or in part many major banks and stock trading platforms themselves.

For example, some wizards getting into the Manhattan Company back when it was a water company and holding on to various levels of control until it became JPMorgan Chase.

The answer to "how do wizards play with the market when they can't interact with the modern world" is mostly likely they they shaped the fundamental system to their advantage before your great grandfather was born and an appreciable part of the market now plays ball at Smug Wizard Memorial Park.
 
Worth remembering how time impacts your place in the economic system. They're not just old money, as far as most economic systems are concerned they're Original Money.

The council probably got its accounts when lamp oil was the hot new commodity, and are more in the business of owning big tangible stuff than in the classic image of a finance bro. I wouldn't be surprised if they owned whole or in part many major banks and stock trading platforms themselves.

For example, some wizards getting into the Manhattan Company back when it was a water company and holding on to various levels of control until it became JPMorgan Chase.

The answer to "how do wizards play with the market when they can't interact with the modern world" is mostly likely they they shaped the fundamental system to their advantage before your great grandfather was born and an appreciable part of the market now plays ball at Smug Wizard Memorial Park.

This is how I imagine it working yes, the Merlin is personally old enough that he could have personally made his money off betting on the right side of the South Seas bubble. While most of the others are not as extreme... being a seer means you have the mother of all inside trading opportunities all the time. You do not need to see the future you can just see the present and once you have done it once you can just invest in something safe and let the money grow.
 
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You do not need to see the future you can just see the present and once you have done it once you can just invest in something safe and let the money grow.
Also divination is very good for seeing if investment really are safe and that the country isn't about to be invaded or something. At their level of both money and time what makes a investment safe is totally different.
 
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@DragonParadox Errors.
Yet none of the pieces fall anywhere near you and through the cries grow and grow until you can barely hear yourself think it is not actively harmful, just aimless and lost.
Find the place where the Lost was murdered, take five steps counterclockwise shed a drop of blood under a full moon step through and you'll seek the thing you seek.
Find an image draw by the sorrowing be they skilled be be they not, but they must not have known the Lost, burn it, break it make it dust by the moon neither full nor new in a place where nothing grows then step through
The idea of someone mass producing a means that get around the Laws is would make the next meeting descend into a search for tar and feathers.
 
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This is how I imagine it working yes, the Merlin is personally old enough that he could have personally make his money off betting on the right side of the South Seas bubble. While most of the others are not as extreme... being a seer means you have the mother of all inside trading opportunities all the time. You do not need to see the future you can just see the present and once you have done it once you can just invest in something safe and let the money grow.
There's also generational wealth in the extreme to consider. Arthur got his master's super ward fortress, why not his financial estate?

Mundane family might get some of it, but Wizards live for a long time and can get pretty insular. It seems likely to me that the really old ones would be more attached to their spooky side connections by the end. A third generation wizard estate could be reach over a thousand years of continuous wealth generation without requiring any individual heir be particularly impressive.

There are other long lived people running around, but wizards are really well placed for tying it to the fortunes of the mortal world.

It also probably helped that they're based in the UK, and almost certainly isn't a coincidence that an English wizard is Merlin. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's a reason that to this day the British Crown owns the equivalent of 1/6th of the planet's surface.
 
Worth remembering how time impacts your place in the economic system. They're not just old money, as far as most economic systems are concerned they're Original Money.

The council probably got its accounts when lamp oil was the hot new commodity, and are more in the business of owning big tangible stuff than in the classic image of a finance bro. I wouldn't be surprised if they owned whole or in part many major banks and stock trading platforms themselves.

For example, some wizards getting into the Manhattan Company back when it was a water company and holding on to various levels of control until it became JPMorgan Chase.

The answer to "how do wizards play with the market when they can't interact with the modern world" is mostly likely they they shaped the fundamental system to their advantage before your great grandfather was born and an appreciable part of the market now plays ball at Smug Wizard Memorial Park.
I do agree that this is how they made their money.

Arguably, thats how any significant supernatural player has made a lot of their money; the simple magic of compound interest would take $1 million dollars invested at 5% interest in a stable asset in 1800 CE all the way to $17.3 billion in 2000 CE.
Buy and hold. Diamond hands. :V

I head-canoned thats how Arawn survived being on the run for 90 years.

But active management and weaponization like the White Council is said to have done in the age of nationstates, money laundering and transparency regulations and FINCEN is not something you can do at one remove. Especially given how fast a lot of economic things can move these days; events like Black Monday do happen.

Nor is it something you can do without trusted people who wont narc or raise an alarm.

And while I cant find the exact quote offhand, I remember Butcher straight up saying this was something the Council did in the Vampire War, that they had economic specialists with centuries of experience for doing precisely this.
Thats not just something that requires usual money management, you need an actual economic warfare section.

This is how I imagine it working yes, the Merlin is personally old enough that he could have personally made his money off betting on the right side of the South Seas bubble. While most of the others are not as extreme... being a seer means you have the mother of all inside trading opportunities all the time. You do not need to see the future you can just see the present and once you have done it once you can just invest in something safe and let the money grow.
Eh. Ancient Mai is older than the Merlin. Rashid dates back to the first millenium CE.
I tend to assume for the really old wizards, the value of personal money is Enough. When Morgan was being hunted, Madeline Raith assumed that Dresden had multiple safehouses to shuffle him across, because thats what wizards do.

More to the point, its not just an asset to fund your own operations and those of your allies.For the White Council as a corporate organization, money is a weapon to be wielded against their enemies. You cannot use the weapon without being able to wield it at short notice, and you need to know how to wield it in a 21st century economy.

I would not be surprised if there are wizard financial and economic experts who go to university every couple decades to keep themselves current, the way Listens to Wind does the same thing for medicine.

Harry Dresden? Barely got his GED. He doesnt really truck in things like this.
 
This seems of topic. This isn't a political thread.

Of for...the self inflicted nature of misinformation on the USSR parallels the fuck ups of the White Council that led to the war with the Red Court in Dresden Files most likely by accident because as others have pointed out already Jim Butcher is not very good at world building so he grabs pop culture ideas he remembers from his youth or thinks are cool.

I was really glad to see a modified version of Vampires from Dark Legions as the starter villains in Dresden Files because that take on vampires is rare to see. Butcher probably didn't get the idea from Dark Legions as even back in the 90s that was an obscure video game, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was in part the inspiration for the Red Court.

Nixon's behavior and the video I linked to are relevant in the context of Harry's mother Margaret LeFay who from everything that is told and learned about her in Dresden Files was one such person herself.

As for Reagan/Trump? That is relevant to Harry himself. Harry has that sort of Black-and-White Insanity that drives him to declare a lot of grey moral characters as outright evil and him growing out of that mindset is part of his character arc in the books. In fact the reason Nicodemus threw Lasciel's Coin at Harry at the end of Death Masks was because he beat Quintus Cassius bloody and then left him to crawl over broken glass after the Knights left him alive.

Fun fact in Abrahamic religions planned repentance to avoid the consequences of one's sin is punished by death. As in if Cassius was actually telling the truth in that encounter the Knights would have executed him on the spot. He was attempting suicide by cop basically and Harry failed to notice this and instead was a self-righteous prick who beat a man half-to death to make himself feel better. That is why Nicodemus came back and "forced" Harry to pick up Lasciel's Coin.

Harry Dresden is a heroic deconstruction of John Constantine and the Blue-Collar Warlock Trope that character codified.

This is not the place or time for a detailed discussion of US-USSR relations during the Cold War.

As for Nixon, I will simply refer you to this:
outrider.org

Nixon's Drunken Run-ins With the Bomb

Trump isn't the only president we've worried might misuse the nuclear codes.

View: https://www.npr.org/2010/07/06/128337461/nixon-considered-nuclear-option-against-n-korea


And what precisely is your referral supposed to do? Cause everything it talks about I already said in the post you replied to.
 
Of for...the self inflicted nature of misinformation on the USSR parallels the fuck ups of the White Council that led to the war with the Red Court in Dresden Files most likely by accident because as others have pointed out already Jim Butcher is not very good at world building so he grabs pop culture ideas he remembers from his youth or thinks are cool.

I was really glad to see a modified version of Vampires from Dark Legions as the starter villains in Dresden Files because that take on vampires is rare to see. Butcher probably didn't get the idea from Dark Legions as even back in the 90s that was an obscure video game, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was in part the inspiration for the Red Court.

Nixon's behavior and the video I linked to are relevant in the context of Harry's mother Margaret LeFay who from everything that is told and learned about her in Dresden Files was one such person herself.

As for Reagan/Trump? That is relevant to Harry himself. Harry has that sort of Black-and-White Insanity that drives him to declare a lot of grey moral characters as outright evil and him growing out of that mindset is part of his character arc in the books. In fact the reason Nicodemus threw Lasciel's Coin at Harry at the end of Death Masks was because he beat Quintus Cassius bloody and then left him to crawl over broken glass after the Knights left him alive.

Fun fact in Abrahamic religions planned repentance to avoid the consequences of one's sin is punished by death. As in if Cassius was actually telling the truth in that encounter the Knights would have executed him on the spot. He was attempting suicide by cop basically and Harry failed to notice this and instead was a self-righteous prick who beat a man half-to death to make himself feel better. That is why Nicodemus came back and "forced" Harry to pick up Lasciel's Coin.

Harry Dresden is a heroic deconstruction of John Constantine and the Blue-Collar Warlock Trope that character codified.



And what precisely is your referral supposed to do? Cause everything it talks about I already said in the post you replied to.

I'm not sure I'd call Harry's Black and White vision of the world 'insane'. Consider he was a kid when DuMorne picked him up proceeding to be subtle abusive to him for most of his teenage years. He did not have a solid grounding in any kind of morality, much less a morality of magic right up until he meets the thoroughly inhuman Leanansidhe who persuades him to commit murder. He thinks he killed Elaine, discovers that he has been practicing Evil Magic (TM) and that one more instance of it will kill him. The person imprinting that on him is a centuries old wizard with an iron will, vast skills at magic... who is also terrified that his grandson is going to get killed for being a warlock. Harry thus gets the most puritanical for lack of a better word version of a White Council Education imaginable.

At the start of the series this version of morality stands in start opposition to the authority figure Harry first attached himself to and for whom like most abused kids he must have made excuses and to his Godmother whose later actions got him under the Doom by encouraging him to fight the bastard.

In an odd sort of way the journey of Harry Dresden mirrors that of someone with a strict religious upbringing being let loose in the outside world, complete with finding out the mentor he tried to emulate was not the paragon he thought they were.
 
Tie. Speak now or forever hold your pieces.
Adhoc vote count started by BoredMan on Jul 17, 2024 at 4:29 PM, finished with 151 posts and 25 votes.

  • [X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
    [X] Maybe... maybe you're right, this might take too long to roll out
    [X] Harry, I believe in the Ten Commandments, I've also killed people, the Knights of the Cross kill people when they have no other choice, what you are describing is a hurdle ot cross, not a reason to never set off on the road, not when it could save lives
    [X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
    -[X] "Emotions aside", you pause, taking a breath, both to calm down and to punctuate the change in your argument, "this doesn't make Law violations easier, or force the Council to change their policies at all. If anything, such a separation would make it harder for people to turn into full-on mad cackling warlocks. It just removes one victim from the equation."
    [X] Passenger Pigeon Incarna Plan Go!
    [X] If the flaw is not wrongdoing, but the perception of wrongdoing, then the solution is the adjustment of how it is perceived.
 
[X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
 
[X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
 
[X] Passenger Pigeon Incarna Plan Go!

[X] Maybe... maybe you're right, this might take too long to roll out
 
Harry thus gets the most puritanical for lack of a better word version of a White Council Education imaginable.
Not to mention, this is reinforced by years of Morgan stalking him, waiting for a single slip-up so he can cut off his head. That kind of harrying (excuse the pun) will mess with anyone, even if only subconsciously, if done for long enough.

[X] It's not means to circumvent the Laws. It's means against the corruption brought by breaking the Laws. Murder is murder, no matter if done with a bullet or a fireball. Rape is rape, no matter if done with drugs or mind altering magic. All should be punished accordingly. But if this allows more leeway in punishment? If at least one in ten of those who kill in self-defense will be spared the sword? If just one more law-breaker feels genuine regret? It's worth it.
 
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