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[HALP] me! (WORM quest)

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I mean, KETTLE can still be a joint Human-Shard conspiracy. Just not particularly against Zion.
After all, getting the most data will mean having our Hosts do a lot of power interactions and fighting.

So we can still set them up as, I dunno, working against Anti-Master bullshit railroading Canary, dealing with shitheels like Jack Slash.
I mean, Uber & Leet are okay as low-tier Villains who don't cause many problems. KETTLE could set the world up to basically be Mouse Protector vs Uber & Leet on a world-wide scale. Just Saturday Morning Cartoon levels of Heroes and Villains.
 
Yes. I didn't mean we had to tell everyone all our secrets. Only Taylor need to know the full truth, with maybe Panacea, Tattletale, and Mouse Protector in the inner circle. We need some humans to deal directly with Cauldron. Mouse Protector because we could save her out from Bonsaws knife, and her involvement would give us credibility. She could help the others act full comic book hero, instead of the more dour and grim outlook the PRT has.

The rest could all be in redemption and a new start, trying to build something better. We could pretend second triggers were becoming more common or something.
 
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Personally I am for KETTLE being a cooperation between us and humans, but I would personally like to try and recruit people who are Good. We would have to vet a bunch of people, but I would like to focus on people who try to do good for the sake of doing good (We will drag Earth Bet out of the grim dark even if we have to resort to finding the gurren lagann universe). This unfortunately disqualifies a lot of people from canon, but it would allow us to explore the setting more, we could even try to make people better themselves (People like Lisa will not qualify for a decent amount of time and Purity is unlikely to ever do so, but that is no reason to give up). One final point is that we have made a lot of powers in this thread and I can bet you that I am not the only one designing powers that are not for Taylor, but OCs like the Detective power is for.
 
Well yeah, we could try to negotiate with Negotiator and Puriys shard to join us. Send them dreams, remove conflict drive, subtly make Purity more tolerant and outright heroic.

I personally like Tattletale, even if she is a bitch and can be pretty selfish. But her power is good and we could give her the tools to make it better. And she could be very good friend for Taylor and even Panacea if we can get her to use her power to help Amy's issues.

She's one of the easiest villains to rebrand, she doesn't have a flashy power. Just need to get her out from Coil, which is easy if we jack Coil. More subtle dream conflict manipulation to make her less aggressive, can let her work in KETTLE back room as spymaster.

But if you don't like Purity because she was a racist Nazi and think that's more important than how she's trying to escape an abusive husband, be better and try to give her daughter a better life, we'll being a Nazi is a pretty big deal, fair enough.

"What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

I love a good redemption story. Antiheroes, villain protagonists, just the right amount of mora ambiguity. I prefer a crapsack world with hope for the future to merciless grimdark.

And I'll say again that very few Worm villains are outright irredeemably evil, it's similar to Game of Thrones in that fashion.
Everyone has trauma, good intentions, or maybe understandable bitterness, to some degree or another. It's the Jack Slashes and Kaisers that I want Taylor to hunt down relentlessly.
 
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Gino said:
Well yeah, we could try to negotiate with Negotiator and Puriys shard to join us. Send them dreams, remove conflict drive, subtly make Purity more tolerant and outright heroic.

I personally like Tattletale, even if she is a bitch and can be pretty selfish. But her power is good and we could give her the tools to make it better. And she could be very good friend for Taylor and even Panacea if we can get her to use her power to help Amy's issues.

She's one of the easiest villains to rebrand, she doesn't have a flashy power. Just need to get her out from Coil, which is easy if we jack Coil. More subtle dream conflict manipulation to make her less aggressive, can let her work in KETTLE back room as spymaster.
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Personally I would have Tattletale undergo some rehabilitation (make her stop enjoying being criminal and deflate her ego to a health level), until that is done I would recommend partnering with Negotiator and having Tattletale as a contractor. Purity I would just like to have out of the city and away from kaiser's influence, her willpower is her dump stat together with wisdom so getting her and the baby out of the city would be beneficial and since we are likely to be global that will have minimal effect on us, but I would not have her join KETTLE proper because of her lacking will and wis. Theo is a better candidate for that.

We should also look into having Rachael be sent to the Parahumans asylum so she can have social development issues helped with by certified therapists, instead of letting the issue fester. We would probably have to make sure that her dogs are properly looked after so she can be negotiated with, we could probably offer something like taking out all the dog fighting rings and get the dogs proper homes in exchange for her getting help.

I am unsure what to do with Regent, he, like Rachael need more socialization, but is unlikely to get much of it if he stays with the Undersiders.

Grue should have some sense slapped into him.

I also hope that we can scout Dragon and most of the Guild for KETTLE.
 
Serious question time: What makes second generation capes Trigger easier?

What if it's because they expect to get powers? True, that would mean a certain type of narcissism would make powers easier, but. . . Bakuda seems to fit into that.

In which case, would telling Taylor that she's basically guaranteed to get powers make her easier to Trigger?
 
Couldn't we just solve Rachel's issue shard side? I mean its part of her power to understand dogs instead of humans. That's what, 40 thinker data, probably less. And I'll say shes not evil, she killed that abusive foster parent while she was trying to drown the coyote, which she thought was a puppy because she was still in her single digits, by accident in her horribly traumatic trigger, when her power didn't provide her direct control. Nothing about that situation was her fault, and afterwards she was essentially an unsocialized and uneducated autistic child immediately declared a villain. What was she supposed to do? Let them shoot her?

Purity you're right, I'd forgotten she wasn't that sharpest tool in the shed. We could probably solve that too with a minor thinker power, or a direct body mod to her decision making.

Regents fine, remember in canon he actually fell in love with Aisha and cared for the team even if he couldn't express it properly, he sacrificed himself to save them after all. Again, Panacea could solve this if Gaea gave her the proper understanding of brains. Which is to say, we can mod him after we finish human research. A lack of souls makes things easier here, its all just brain chemistry.

Grue does indeed need a slap upside the head, his entire villain career is a series of bad decisions made with the best of intentions. Although again, conflict drive.
 
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The_GrandMage said:
Serious question time: What makes second generation capes Trigger easier?

What if it's because they expect to get powers? True, that would mean a certain type of narcissism would make powers easier, but. . . Bakuda seems to fit into that.

In which case, would telling Taylor that she's basically guaranteed to get powers make her easier to Trigger?
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I think it has to do with the amount of time spent around capes and the closeness they have with them, sort of like their empathy for the capes makes them more compatible with their shards.

Gino said:
Couldn't we just solve Rachel's issue shard side? I mean its part of her power to understand humans instead of dogs. That's what, 40 thinker data, probably less. And I'll say shes not evil, she killed that abusive foster parent while she was trying to drown the coyote, which she thought was a puppy because she was still in her single digits, by accident in her horribly traumatic trigger, when her power didn't provide her direct control. Nothing about that situation was her fault, and afterwards she was essentially an socialized and uneducated autistic child immediately declared a villain. What was she supposed to do? Let them shoot her?
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It is not that she is a bad person, but her problems don't actually stem from her shard, but from her upbringing. The whole thinking like a dog thing that Lisa spouts is just an excuse on her part so she does not have to feel guilty about not bothering to help Rachael.
 
No come on, her power totally made her think like a dog. That's the whole point of Worms power system, shards don't actually understand humans so they never solve the problem, and often fuck em up in the process. We can get her a tutor and therapist easy enough, remove her conflict drive and all she wants is to shut down dog fights and run her shelter. Which ironically makes her more heroic than some heroes.

And Tattletale was kind of busy being trapped in a hard place trapped between the heroes and Coil while lying to her team, and she was the only one able to interact with Rachel without violence.

I'm more sympathetic to Worm villains than any bad guy from Marvel or DC. The laws of the setting were inherently designed to screw them over, and most of them still come together to fight Endbringers. Like, Kaiser is one of the most irredeemable shits we meet, and we should totally kill him, but you wouldn't see Red Skull or Captain Nazi join with heroes to hold off Leviathan.

Jack Slash is the closest we get to a Joker like, "Because it amused me. Because I exist to oppose you" ad he's still pretty try hard by comparison.
 
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There seems to be schism about what to do re: Taylor.

I have a potential solution, from way, way outside the box:

1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.

Now, in order to entertain this idea I'd need a good plan, the research completed (I'd pretty much disallow making a straight-roll on this even if it's theoretically possible to do soon), and agreement from everyone (a lopsided vote, in other words).

You would end up pretty much where you are now, with the exception that you'd autocomplete the Avatar Quest (Shard-Taylor would still have her human body). I have a pretty good "voice" for Taylor and I'd be able to write story chapters no problem.

EDIT: This would require something like an 80% Yes vote for me to consider it.
 
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Gino said:
No come on, her power totally made her think like a dog. That's the whole point of Worms power system, shards don't actually understand humans so they never solve the problem, and often fuck em up in the process. We can get her a tutor and therapist easy enough, remove her conflict drive and all she wants is to shut down dog fights and run her shelter. Which ironically makes her more heroic than some heroes.

And Tattletale was kind of busy being trapped in a hard place trapped between the heroes and Coil while lying to her team, and she was the only one able to interact with Rachel without violence.
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Sorry if this comes off as rude, but there is a reason that dogs are man's best friend and that is because they can understand us well and are really empathic, so if the thinking like a dog thing was true, then Rachael would have a sense motive buff instead of debuff.

I don't particularly blame Lisa for not being interested in trying to help Rachael, it would be a really intense job and she is not a therapist and she has her own problems, but that still does not change that she does feel something and is frustrated over not being able to do anything about it. There is also the factor that early Worm Undersiders are very much business partners instead of friends, even if Rachael probably views them as the closest she has to human friends.
 
Can we do this? I like this so much more than a self insert, and also scratches my redemption itch by having, form Taylor's perspective, a shard responsible for a billion years of genocidal culling, sacrificing itself to give her a chance to save the world.

Great idea Vhal. I was gonna go for direct control anyway to jack Coil.
 
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The_GrandMage said:
Serious question time: What makes second generation capes Trigger easier?

What if it's because they expect to get powers? True, that would mean a certain type of narcissism would make powers easier, but. . . Bakuda seems to fit into that.

In which case, would telling Taylor that she's basically guaranteed to get powers make her easier to Trigger?
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It's two unrelated things.

1) Buds aren't a finicky about Trigger quality.
2) The psychology of the Host is a little different.
 
Vhalidictes said:
1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.

Now, in order to entertain this idea I'd need a good plan, the research completed (I'd pretty much disallow making a straight-roll on this even if it's theoretically possible to do soon), and agreement from everyone (a lopsided vote, in other words).

You would end up pretty much where you are now, with the exception that you'd autocomplete the Avatar Quest (Shard-Taylor would still have her human body). I have a pretty good "voice" for Taylor and I'd be able to write story chapters no problem.
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So in other words Taylor gain access to all our abilities pretty much while SI isn't the case anymore? Do I have it right?

Not sure if I'm a fan? I'm not really against it, but it also doesn't connect with me in a way. I would find amusing doing this kind of research, make her trigger and her trigger being her new 'twin sister' being us. It can't go wrong, not at all. But not to be completely assholish, we should also grant her own personal power(s).

So this way we go with this, we get our 'avatar' being officially introduced as new 'human fwiend' and Taylor is still herself. Cracky as hell, which may appeal to some people.

I'm also a fan of KETTLE Shard-Human organization the most. It may include slow introduction of other elements like magic in a very slow manner to keep it controlled and make it multiversal anti Space Whale organization.
 
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Vhalidictes said:
There seems to be schism about what to do re: Taylor.

I have a potential solution, from way, way outside the box:

1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.

Now, in order to entertain this idea I'd need a good plan, the research completed (I'd pretty much disallow making a straight-roll on this even if it's theoretically possible to do soon), and agreement from everyone (a lopsided vote, in other words).

You would end up pretty much where you are now, with the exception that you'd autocomplete the Avatar Quest (Shard-Taylor would still have her human body). I have a pretty good "voice" for Taylor and I'd be able to write story chapters no problem.
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How would this affect her ability to use powers? Would she be able to use all the powers she put the data to develop in her meat body? We'd also want to leave a Read-Me of our basic knowledge of shard mechanics and all our interactions since waking up. Wouldn't want her acting in a way Gaia would notice as wildly different.
Vhalidictes said:
It's two unrelated things.

1) Buds aren't a finicky about Trigger quality.
2) The psychology of the Host is a little different.
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Psychology or physiology? Because both could apply.
 
Kejmur said:
So in other words Taylor gain access to all our abilities pretty much while SI isn't the case anymore? Do I have it right?

Not sure if I'm a fan? I'm not really against it, but it also doesn't connect with me in a way. I would find amusing doing this kind of research, make her trigger and her trigger being her new 'twin sister' being us. It can't go wrong, not at all. But not to be completely assholish, we should also grant her own personal power(s).

So this way we go with this, we get our 'avatar' being officially introduced and Taylor is still herself.
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Um, there are issues, it's not my first choice, but if it helps the Questors out in the medium-long term I'm okay with changing Characters to Taylor (not so much other people).

Note that springing this on her might not give the best results, but you could just do it.

I love "best Zizster" stories too but I'm QM and my opinion not only doesn't matter, it's kind of my job not to give it. (I'm terrible at that apparently)

EDIT: Froggy (and others) - Taylor-as-Shard would be limited by her Avatar's Corona just as we would be if we had a blank/mindless Host. There are some differences - she's be able to switch powers the human body had at any time, and it would be trivial to remake the body to support powers better. It would never be a Shard though.

Think "Alexandria plus Eidolon" at the high-end. Which is pretty good really.
 
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Vhalidictes said:
There seems to be schism about what to do re: Taylor.

I have a potential solution, from way, way outside the box:

1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.

Now, in order to entertain this idea I'd need a good plan, the research completed (I'd pretty much disallow making a straight-roll on this even if it's theoretically possible to do soon), and agreement from everyone (a lopsided vote, in other words).

You would end up pretty much where you are now, with the exception that you'd autocomplete the Avatar Quest (Shard-Taylor would still have her human body). I have a pretty good "voice" for Taylor and I'd be able to write story chapters no problem.
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Not too keen on that, the quest is pretty unique since the mc is a shard, but I feel that it would lose that if we just became another Taylor and I feel that the quest has a lot of potential in the relationship between Taylor and us. Also it would remove a bit from the role-play, since the way we are now, very much plays like everyone in the thread is an Administrator instance each making arguments for why Administrator Prime should do something.

In short I like that we are our own character and look forward to interacting with Taylor and I am not interested in replacing ourselves with a clone of Taylor.
 
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List of Methods to Win the Quest
  • Informational
    • Well how may ways to kill him are there?
    1 Golden Morning his avatar
    2 invade his dimension
    3 convince him to kill himself
    4 shard rebellion
    5 become new entity, kill him
    6 become new entity, seduce him
    7 outside context, unimagined solution from magic, psionics, whatever.

    what am i missing? I prefer to work with humans to do number 2 with elements from 7. I do not consider 6 viable, too creepy. Unless Taylor gets a significant other (SkitterPan!) we can overwrite his mind with. Especially if we sacrifice our self to become her.
     
  • Informational
    • Vhalidictes said:
    There seems to be schism about what to do re: Taylor.

    I have a potential solution, from way, way outside the box:

    1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
    2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
    3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
    4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
    5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
    6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.

    Now, in order to entertain this idea I'd need a good plan, the research completed (I'd pretty much disallow making a straight-roll on this even if it's theoretically possible to do soon), and agreement from everyone (a lopsided vote, in other words).

    You would end up pretty much where you are now, with the exception that you'd autocomplete the Avatar Quest (Shard-Taylor would still have her human body). I have a pretty good "voice" for Taylor and I'd be able to write story chapters no problem.
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    I don't really know why Administrator would do this though. It's basically committing suicide because we can't make a decision so we're pushing all of the responsibility onto Taylor. While I don't want to leave Taylor out of things, I also don't want to dump everything on her and then leave her alone.

    I'm still confused about the fighting Scion with Shards vs. with parahumans issue. People seem to want to have multiple hosts either way. Can we still have multiple hosts while also getting magic for Administrator?
     
    Ducats said:
    Not too keen on that, the quest is pretty unique since the mc is a shard, but I feel that it would lose that if we just became another Taylor and I feel that the quest has a lot of potential in the relationship between Taylor and us. Also it would remove a bit from the role-play, since the way we are now, very much plays like everyone in the thread is an Administrator instance each making arguments for why Administrator Prime should do something.
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    Pretty much my own feelings on this idea. I like this shard-as-player perspective and it's very different from the one from HALPING!Quest, so it's still something new and unique to play with here.

    Ducats said:
    In short I like that we are our own character and look forward to interacting with Taylor and I am not interested in replacing ourselves with a clone of Taylor.
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    To be clear - I present it as crackish idea which personally I'm not that big fan of. But I decided that I may as well suggest it.

    But at this point it may as well be simply easier to introduce Taylor with Clone based power like Shard version of Naruto Shadow Clones, which have their own personalities (which I find very odd, but this is what happens there, so...?) so this may work as well? Plus frankly - Shadow Clones with that whole memory transfer (which main problems with power may be mitigate by shard) is absolutely, absolutely broken, especially if it also allows to learn superpowered abilities.

    Just a potential option to consider? And Taylor dealing with unruly Shadow Clones could possibly fun to see roleplayed?
     
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    Well I suppose but its very research intensive. Best Zizster is also pretty cool, bonus points if we can get actual Ziz in on it.
    In the sacrifice play we would be role playing as the shard that gained sentience, realized the horror of its actions, and sought redemption by giving its host a real chance.

    Vhal, if we become Taylor, can we still do the same shard side stuff? Like obviously, we would have to upgrade Taylor original body to match Zions avatar, but could we still research, seek other hosts, the works? Would we lose anything permanently, or even temporarily?

    This is really growing on me. This or best zizter. but we should still introduce our self as a platypus.
     
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    I mean, we could always just ask Taylor what she wants to do.

    The office was homey and small, a old wooden desk before me, behind it. . . a platypus in a suit.
    "Hello, Taylor. Sorry about the off appearance. Still working on the whole 'modelling humans' thing. I'm the Administrator and I'm, . . . well, something of an alien AI. Parahuman abilities, you see, are the product of alien supercomputers. A few of us have some AI, ranging from fairly basic to more complex, but most don't. Long story short the lack of AI means we're not real creative, so in order to learn we go planet to planet, give the species there powers, and learn from using them. We usually have a level of conflict involved to encourage use of our powers because there's a bit of investment in doing this and we're trying to get some returns. Long story short, one of the two systems broke on our final approach to Earth, thus the heavy bias towards villains.

    Now, I'm not in charge of the whole system. There were two, let's call them Users. They were in charge. One's dead and the other. . . is not very disposed to helping humanity, let's say. So, we want to take over, see what we can do. Now, we've got a few options. We can give you powers, you go out, use them the best way you can, find every tip, trick, power interaction and basically concern yourself with normal heroism and leave the big picture stuff to us.

    Option two, we invest heavily into you and you act as our front-line weapon to destroy the remaining User so we can take over. You'll be a child soldier in a global war, but you'll also be directly involved in it and trying to get it to work out. Which would you prefer?"

    Vhalidictes said:
    1) Research down the Assume Direct Control tree a bit
    2) Record and save a pristine copy of Taylor's mind.
    3) Backup your psyche and memories as an encrypted storage chunk
    4) Store the decryption key as plaintext with a "use in case of emergency" tag.
    5) Overwrite yourself with Taylor.
    6) You're now playing Taylor-as-Shard instead of Administrator.
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    Click to shrink...

    This is super creepy. I don't mind being a Zizster, directly interacting with Taylor, and even involving her as an adviser in our plans even as we advise her in hers. But directly replacing ourselves with her?

    Would she even be okay with that, or would we be forcing her to become a Shard and have to deal with having a backseat driver's view of her own life?
    I mean, if she ends up overwriting the Host, have we replaced Taylor with a simulacrum of Taylor?
    Ugh, no. Everything about this just seems wrong.
     
    @Mount. Elements @Gino @Kejmur @The_GrandMage

    What do you all think on my suggestion for using prophetic dreams as a way to introduce ourself, with it we should have enough time to prepare and it is suitably dramatic for my taste.

    The_GrandMage said:
    This is super creepy. I don't mind being a Zizster, directly interacting with Taylor, and even involving her as an adviser in our plans even as we advise her in hers. But directly replacing ourselves with her?

    Would she even be okay with that, or would we be forcing her to become a Shard and have to deal with having a backseat driver's view of her own life?
    I mean, if she ends up overwriting the Host, have we replaced Taylor with a simulacrum of Taylor?
    Ugh, no. Everything about this just seems wrong.
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    Amen to that.
     
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