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Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    Stress
    0​
    Office Stress
    0​
    XP
    5​

    Matsura Asuka
    Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
    Age 24 (Legally 25)
    Year 12 AF (After Flight)

    Design Stats
    Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
    Structural Engineering - +2
    Chemical Engineering - +1
    Mechanical Engineering - +1
    Ballistics Engineering - +1
    Electrical Engineering - 0

    Personal/Political Stats
    Social Skills - 0
    Politics Skills - 0
    Importance - 2
    Income - 1
    Investments - Ohara

    Resources
    Power - 0
    Wealth - 2

    Designs
    Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
    Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
    Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
    Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
    Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
    Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
    Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
    Rhino Demon Train Hunter
    The world's first airliner
    The world's first pulsejet airplane

    Assets
    Slide Rule
    Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

    Languages
    Albian
    Gallian

    Familiar Vices
    Drinking
    Prostitutes
    Dancing

    Family Life
    - Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
    - Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

    Upgrades
    - 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

    Ohara Airworks
    Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

    Owner
    - Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

    Engineers

    Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
    Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
    Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
    Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

    Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
    A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
    Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
    Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
    Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

    Tezuka Kenji, ???
    A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
    Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
    Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

    Hasegawa Morio, 26
    A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
    Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
    Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

    Kawamura Yosai, 25.
    Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
    Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
    Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

    Koide Hatsu, 24.
    One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +2, Structural +1
    No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

    Kobayashi Ayao, ???
    Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
    Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

    Adachi Ren, 24
    Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
    Chemical +2, Electrical +1
    Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

    Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
    The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
    Ballistic +3

    Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
    A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
    Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
    Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
    Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

    Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
    A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
    Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
    Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


    Other Employees
    - Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
    - Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

    Assets
    - Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
    - Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
    - Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)
    Expanded Cast

    Akitsukuni Industry
    - Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
    - Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
    - Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
    - Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
    - Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
    - Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



    Character Families
    - Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
    - Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
    - Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
    - Yachi's Brother: Exists.
    - Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
    - Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
    - Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

    Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
    - Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
    - Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
    - Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
    - Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
    - Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
    - Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
    - Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
    - Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

    Westerners
    - Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
    - Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
    - Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
    - Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
    - Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
    - Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.
    Available Tech
    • Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
    • All engine mounts
    • All wing types
    • Basic reinforcement
    • Wing warping and ailerons
    • Basic water radiators
    • Flying Wings
    • Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
    • Valved pulsejets
    • Basic weapon mounts and turrets
    Tech not Yet Developed
    • Custom engines
    • Monocoque construction
    • Cantilever Wings and associated tech
    • V and T tails
    • Tailless designs
    • Aluminum and titanium
    • Cellulose surfacing
    • Any kind of radar
    • Weapon accessability mods
    • Interruptor gear
    • Geared propellers
    • And Maybe Other Stuff
    Akitsukuni
    Island Nation

    Government
    Constitutional Monarchy
    - The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
    - The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
    - The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

    Economy
    Developing Mixed Market
    - Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
    - The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
    - Exports are few, mostly cultural.
    - Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
    - Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

    Politics
    The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
    - Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
    - Purity Club: 9%
    - New Independents: 26%
    - Fairness Association: 11%
    - United Communist League: 2%
    - Monarchists: 1%
    - Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

    Demographics
    Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
    - Population: 55 Million
    - Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
    - Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
    - Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

    Military
    At Peace
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

    Aspects
    - Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
    - Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.



    The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

    I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash

    Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.​
     
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  • Informational
    • TortugaGreen said:
    Make the flight attendant also be the mechanic, so you can reduce crew sizes, as both flight attending and engine servicing and tracking are both tasks that don't take exceptional attention. Servicing the engines in flight would be interesting even with accessibility though, as wing walking is always right and this plane is probably not going to be super slow.
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    Artificial Girl said:
    The problem with this is like... a flight attendant is supposed to be poised and elegant and look their best. A flight mechanic is gonna wear coveralls spotted with oil and other engine fluid and probably smell like petrol.
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    More problematically, the engine is usually outside the aircraft, which is usually traveling at several hundred kph, as compared to an airship's stately <100 kph top speed. You're not going to just pop outside, climb along the slippery wing or up a bit of scaffolding, dick with the engine while the airplane may or may not be falling out of the sky, and then swing back inside to serve gin martinis stirred not shaken.

    The flight engineer's job is to make sure that fuel and oil pressure is being handled properly on each of the engines. They monitor all the dials and lights required to make sure that each of the engines is behaving correctly, tuning the propeller pitch if a variable pitch prop is present, and calling out RPM values etc. to the pilot and copilot since the dashboard is already stupidly cluttered for most aircraft prior to 1980 and adding engine things is just not feasible.

    The flight engineer does not conduct in-flight repairs. The flight engineer does not have the ability to fix anything that has straight up died on you. The best they can do is hopefully do something to try prevent a malfunctioning engine from turning into a burning engine, which can actually just straight blow up the fuel tank and kill you or cause the wings to start failing due to the head and then rip off and kill you, or any other number of things depending on that engine (electric power, hydraulics just to name a few) that may fail and then kill you.

    In an airplane, especially with passengers, if your engine goes, you're immediately in an emergency, and you are landing that airplane at the nearest available time.

    Edit: I mean for fucks sake this is the B-29's flight engineer station:

    Fucking apparently the flight engineer controlled throttle on the B-29???? I don't know how typical that is but what the actual fuck. Talk about some fucking teamwork in that cockpit. Can you imagine being a pilot and having to talk through every step just to throttle up the engines?

    Or imagine being on a mission and getting attacked:
    "Bob, quick, give me full throttle! We need to get out of here!"
    "Negative sir, we've got oil pressure lights on all four engines, those hits must have punctured the oil sumps! We can only manage 50% or the cylinders seize and blow the whole works!"

    God that must be terrifying.

    Edit2: Oh here's a fun video:

     
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    It's a bit off topic now, but a few pages ago people were discussing the navy and naval aviation, so I wanted to express some hopes for the rebuilt navy. I don't expect this to happen, but it would be so cool and that's what's really important, right?

    With Akitsukuni's navy basically destroyed, they need new ships. Not building things with big guns is a non-starter, both politically and technologically: this is the age of the dreadnought battleship. However, a destroyed navy combined with a burgeoning aviation industry gives an opportunity to move towards something like the refit Ise-class hybrid carriers (Ise and Hyuga). Half big guns, half floatplane carrier. There's a lot of problems to work out to make this work so early (those are WWII designs), and the Navy kinda hates us, but a hybrid carrier is probably politically a lot more viable than a pure carrier and more likely to get Navy support (if I recall previously in the quest, the Navy already attaches floatplanes to some of their ships in a more ad-hoc manner). Plus, we're hopefully in enough of an interwar period for the Navy to be allowed to try weird things instead of doing panicked rush-builds of known functional ship designs. This also starts building institutional knowledge towards building and operating carriers and carrier-mounted planes in the long run.

    Sure, we're likely to get something like the Mogami-class aircraft cruiser at this point (or worse, since that's already a 1930s design), but screwing up a design like that is how you learn what not to do so the next design is better.

    Also, we don't particularly control the Navy so we can't force this, but we do have political power (that would be better expended on social programs and making life better for people instead of killing people who aren't members of the cultural ingroup).

    In conclusion, battlecarriers are a dumb idea but SO COOL and that's kinda the path tech takes in this world sometimes (see: tsar tank) and I hope it happens again here.
     
    siflux said:
    It's a bit off topic now, but a few pages ago people were discussing the navy and naval aviation, so I wanted to express some hopes for the rebuilt navy. I don't expect this to happen, but it would be so cool and that's what's really important, right?

    With Akitsukuni's navy basically destroyed, they need new ships. Not building things with big guns is a non-starter, both politically and technologically: this is the age of the dreadnought battleship. However, a destroyed navy combined with a burgeoning aviation industry gives an opportunity to move towards something like the refit Ise-class hybrid carriers (Ise and Hyuga). Half big guns, half floatplane carrier. There's a lot of problems to work out to make this work so early (those are WWII designs), and the Navy kinda hates us, but a hybrid carrier is probably politically a lot more viable than a pure carrier and more likely to get Navy support (if I recall previously in the quest, the Navy already attaches floatplanes to some of their ships in a more ad-hoc manner). Plus, we're hopefully in enough of an interwar period for the Navy to be allowed to try weird things instead of doing panicked rush-builds of known functional ship designs. This also starts building institutional knowledge towards building and operating carriers and carrier-mounted planes in the long run.

    Sure, we're likely to get something like the Mogami-class aircraft cruiser at this point (or worse, since that's already a 1930s design), but screwing up a design like that is how you learn what not to do so the next design is better.

    Also, we don't particularly control the Navy so we can't force this, but we do have political power (that would be better expended on social programs and making life better for people instead of killing people who aren't members of the cultural ingroup).

    In conclusion, battlecarriers are a dumb idea but SO COOL and that's kinda the path tech takes in this world sometimes (see: tsar tank) and I hope it happens again here.
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    Ahem. /Puts on Quest Mistress hat.

    The Akitsukuni Navy has NOT been destroyed. They took a beating, yes, and their most powerful and modern vessel was destroyed by an unlucky shot through the roof of a turret, but it is still the world's 6th largest and the most experienced navy in actual combat in the world at this point. They have definitely learned lessons from this war, but none of them are that they need proto-carriers.

    They might need submarines, and more of them. And good anti-submarine doctrine. They need more battleships, with better armor and better guns. They need a LOT more escorts and a better escort doctrine because they realized they can't afford to throw them away like Albia does.

    You might get some seaplane carriers or seaplane catapults on cruisers, though, since seaplanes are very useful scouting tools.
     
    It's worth pointing out that f irst purpose-made carriers didn't get rolling for a while, so we're likely to see dedicated seaplane carriers and seaplane catapults on cruisers first before someone goes "hey what if we made a floating runway".

    Like early aviation included crazy shit like literally flying the same speed as the ship so you were basically "hovering" and having people on the deck then lash you down so you could land. This ended up calling someone eventually.
     
    Artificial Girl said:
    Ahem. /Puts on Quest Mistress hat.

    The Akitsukuni Navy has NOT been destroyed. They took a beating, yes, and their most powerful and modern vessel was destroyed by an unlucky shot through the roof of a turret, but it is still the world's 6th largest and the most experienced navy in actual combat in the world at this point. They have definitely learned lessons from this war, but none of them are that they need proto-carriers.

    They might need submarines, and more of them. And good anti-submarine doctrine. They need more battleships, with better armor and better guns. They need a LOT more escorts and a better escort doctrine because they realized they can't afford to throw them away like Albia does.

    You might get some seaplane carriers or seaplane catapults on cruisers, though, since seaplanes are very useful scouting tools.
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    That's just the start of carriers. At some point, they'll want bombs on them. To do damage as they scout. And it'll go from there.
     
    I really desperately need to wrap my head around the plane design rules at some point, but for now I just have one question: Can we de-rate engines, only running them at half or three-quarters their designed Power, and get increased Reliability out of them? Or is that not something the system currently supports?
     
    thepsyborg said:
    I really desperately need to wrap my head around the plane design rules at some point, but for now I just have one question: Can we de-rate engines, only running them at half or three-quarters their designed Power, and get increased Reliability out of them? Or is that not something the system currently supports?
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    i will be implementing this for this round with the tuning system!
     
    I imagine wood, to start, since the iron mines are still getting revved up. Unless it takes us a while to go from design board to actual construction.
     
    I hope that we can pull off a rear-engine/pusher design without too much of a stability hit for the airliner. Be a lot quieter in the passenger compartment than tractor airplanes, though the difference is much smaller with wing nacelles than fuselage-mounted engines.
     
    Noticed something during my reread to add to the CAT snippet votes:
    open_sketchbook said:
    a beautiful little statue in blue and black which looked absolutely ancient, and you handed over a few pounds for it. A good paperweight with a nice story behind it.
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    Martenzo said:
    -[X] A statuette of an ancient cat goddess. Makes for an interesting conversation piece for your desk back at the office.
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    So if when Yachi gets adopted by a stray cat, we'll have to have a super-minor snippet vote for said cat to explore the office and end up staring at Matsura's cat statue :p
     
    [ ] Matsura hosts a picnic/barbecue/get-together for the office and any pilot friends Yachi wants to invite.
    [ ] The newspapers have had opinions on Matsura and Yachi during the war and during the peace. What does their scrapbook look like?
    [ ] Cats plz meow
     
    [ ] Coralie receives a letter from a Gallian paper asking for her account of traveling, flying, and fighting in Akitsukuni. She claims she's far too young to be writing memoirs, but notes and pieces of outlines start appearing on bits of scrap paper around the house over the next few weeks. What do they say?
    [ ] The newspapers have had opinions on Matsura and Yachi during the war and during the peace. What does their scrapbook look like?
    [ ] Cats plz meow

    Edit to add: Regarding naval aviation, rather than hybrid battlecarriers (as cool an idea as that is), I strongly suspect we'll see a Destroyer Leader/Flotilla Leader/Fast Light Cruiser class carrying seaplanes as part of the Navy's rapidly-developing escort doctrine.
     
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    Rule 2: Don't be hateful
    brmj said:
    It is not clear to my why this is suddenly so hard again when it had mostly stopped being a problem the thread had for like a month.
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    Because gender neutral pronouns do not flow naturally in English. Also Asuka is biologically male so male pronouns are technically correct in the case of said character.
    And yes, I also could not use genders neutral pronoun here because it feels grammatically incorrect.

    And it is not intended as flame, I just answered your question.
     
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