//------------------------------// // Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain // Story: Light Despondent Remixed // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain It’s eleven months later. The investigation into the Montreal Incident is underway, and they can finally relax. As much as anyone can relax, anyway. Sitting in an unremarkable conference room in an unremarkable building in Seattle, there’s an FBI agent next to a pegasus. The walls have papers pinned everywhere that have been scribbled with a rainbow of shorthand. A roll of paper divided in half like french doors, covered in asymmetrical patterns of lines and dots scrawls across a long table dotted with random objects, including cans and a cartoonishly large jug of beer from White River Junction in Vermont. A tall, thin black dog with pointed ears and a long snout looks up at the agent and gives her best ‘now now now right-now’ whine. “In a minute, Alawa,” the agent sighs. “Listen to your dog or wolf or blue bay shepherd or saarloos or whatever,” the pegasus says. “Nichols, we’ve been here for hours. It’s not the end of the world if you take a break.” “It is, in fact, the end of the world,” the agent points out. “...Point taken,” the pegasus says, “but you won’t cause it.” “You’re sure, this time?” the agent asks. “Do you want quantity or quality of work?” the pegasus asks. “Because as far as I can tell, you aren’t giving yourself much of a choice.” “Alright,” the agent says, and with near Herculean effort he pulls himself up from his well-worn, sweat-covered pit-of-nineties-design office chair. “Alawa does need walkies.” Alawa makes a noise that is not quite bark, cough, or growl. Somehow this implies to the agent that she wants something more than walkies. Perhaps some ice cream. Yes, ice cream would be nice. But before he gets up, he takes a look at the documents that fur the walls like the pelt of a beast he has taken home after a successful hunt. His eyes catch on a few.   Interview with PER Private Eudicott Tangerine, (PET) captured during the Portland Disaster by Ivan Bliss Viktor M. Kraber Conducted by PHL Investigator Dusty Rush (IDR). IDR: “What is Shieldwall planning?” PET: “Even if he trusted me with it, I shouldn’t tell you.” IDR: “Then tell me what you do know.” [PET is silent.] IDR: “Come on. Nobody here is going to hurt you.” PET: “So you’re just going to… to get a telepath? Pull it out of my brain? Torture me?” IDR: “We don’t do that here. Besides, you said the man that brought you in… he told you if your so-called friends and officers think that little of you, they deserve even less respect than they give. That’s what you said to us.” [PET is silent.] IDR: “Look, I have friends that were in the Equestrian army. And they said that for all their willingness to join up, all the patriotism… at the end of the day, they all felt disposable. They were treated the same as the Newfoals. You don’t owe them anything. You gave everything to them, and–” PET: “Don’t patronize me. Being disposable is the same in any army. And especially don’t talk to me about loyalty, trait–” IDR: “I’m working to save a world. Just from behind the scenes, mind. And don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that. I was one of the Stranded, you know. I was homeless during the Expansion. I ate malnourished grass in city parks. I’m not a traitor, and neither are you. We’re just victims of someone else’s failures.” [Pause.] IDR: “I wasn’t able to see my family for two and a half years. In that time, I was fighting, day after day, month after month. Like you, I imagine.” PET: “How did you know!?” IDR: “We have records of every pony that used the Geneva Portal. You were one of the Stranded too. So I’m sure you remember those bad months. Are you telling me you willingly went through with everything?”  PET: “No, I didn’t… I didn’t have a choice! It was this hostile world, or–” IDR: “You always have a choice.” [IDR departs. Tape resumes 40 min. later.] PET: “If I tell you everything, there’s only one thing I want.” IDR: “Name it.” PET: “I just want to rest. A quiet cell. No duties. Maybe some books. I’m just so tired… I haven’t seen my family. I’ve been in the same position in the PER for three years, fearing for my safety, living under cover identities, not getting attached to anything. I just want things to… to stop.” IDR: “That’s perfectly doable.” PET: “Alright. Then… here’s what I know. I know that Shieldwall needs the teleport spikes to bring something over. And I know that whatever he’s doing, it’s Big. Capital B ‘big.’” IDR: “How big?” PET: “As in, ‘big enough he’s been funneling all his Newfoals somewhere.’ You haven’t ended up with a lot of ferals, lately. Have you noticed that?” IDR: “... As a matter of fact, we have.” PET: “Right. Anyway, I’ve been where he’s keeping them before… it’s this big, top-secret blacksite. Either behind the Barrier or Equestria. And they’re building something big. I wasn’t able to see it, but I know it’s in some kind of staging area or hangar.” IDR: “Did he talk about what it was going to be used for?” PET: “All I know is that it’s meant to establish a hoofhold(1) in America. We’ve tried before, made some raids, but nothing’s worked.” IDR: “Then why is he so sure this one will work?” PET: “Good question. Ask anyone from the Blackdog raids,(2) they’ll tell you that Canada is a Celestia-damned nightmare.” (1) Tangerine is referring to the infamous Blackdog Raids, carried out on the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, in which the Solar Empire “disappeared” towns such as Aillik and Hopevale, and attempted to make their way to St John’s.  (2) In fact, we did – see attached file 2022/08/3A. The first concrete information we received about Project Fillydelphia. If we could’ve captured Haddon, how would things have gone differently? –Agent Nichols Interview with Terry Baldwin, brother-in-law of Viktor Kraber. Found in an ATC file cabinet after subpoenaing them in the wake of the Montreal Incident. Terry Baldwin: Viktor stories(1). Right, yeah. Here’s the thing about Viktor. He was…. Look, something was never right with Viktor. Up in here. He knows it, I know it. [Terry taps his head.] Terry Baldwin: I got some great Viktor stories. See, it’s back in 2015, we’re talking about Dragonball Super at this horrible bar with me, Kate, and Howie… and, well, Heather. Heather’s what we call en femme at the moment. She’s still figuring shit out. We’re having a good laugh about it, and… and these skinheads walk in. See, here’s the thing. Viktor has a broken left arm. This was after he jumped off a bridge. Those KKK-looking [CENSORED] start harassing us our table. Call me [CENSORED] Heather queerboy, call Viktor and Howie [CENSORED]-lover, then when they see Viktor’s Star of David they go [CENSORED]. But then they talk shit about Kate. My sister. They tell her they hope to… man, [CENSORED], I don’t wanna even say it. I’m about to stand, but … here’s the thing. Before I can? Viktor? He looks at me, and he says: ‘How about some dinner and a show?’ He’s drinking a bottle of this gawdawful light beer. Bought it with a fake ID. So, he’s looking at me the whole time, his [CENSORED] face doesn’t change, and he just slams the bottle into one of those [CENSORED] [CENSORED] faces. First guy goes out like a light, but the bottle doesn’t break. Viktor, he hits the other guy with it, bottle still doesn’t break, but at the same time, he takes a knife to the gut. Bottle breaks this time, he glasses that [CENSORED] over the face, knife still in his gut. Whole time? He’s got this look like someone dosed him with the good [CENSORED].  So he keeps whaling on one of them with the bottles. Me? I join in, I come out with a broken collarbone and some broken ribs. Viktor doesn’t even notice the knife. So, when we’re down to one Nazi, I ram him to the floor with my good shoulder.  “Vik,” Kate says. There’s a gash in her head, she’s bleeding. Viktor looks at her, and says the obvious. “Head wounds bleed a [CENSORED] lot, I’ll get something to-” “You have a knife in your [CENSORED] chest!” Kate says back. So Viktor says, “I think I’d notice something like that,” and Heather says that no, he totally has a knife in there. So Viktor’s like “Someone should probably do something about that.” He yanks it out. Doesn’t even blink. Nazi’s about to get up. So Kraber takes the knife, still covered in his own blood, and jams it through the Nazi’s foot. “Now stay down there and think about what you’ve done,” Viktor says. Cops come? Viktor lies through his teeth. He says he got hurt bad, and that they attacked first. So, we back him up. The Nazis, they’re saying that Viktor attacked them, but the thing is, Viktor knows how it looks they say a guy with a broken arm attacked first, he plays up the whole wounded animal thing, acts like he barely speaks English and he just doesn’t understand how America works. He gets out of any jail time without a hitch. Cops got him on self-defense, and me, Heather, Kate, Howie? We’re upstandin’ [CENSORED] citizens. Defending a Jew with a broken arm. Then on, I keep him with me if I plan on being in situations like that. Can always use a guy like him that. Sure, he enjoyed hurting them, but… there was always this feeling. Like he could do that to anyone, any time, if he wanted. He just didn’t want it. But, y’know, one more thing. Kept me from getting too scared of a guy that doesn’t blink at the thought of glassing a man. See, Viktor’s white. I’m black. It’s like pulling teeth to get them thinking you feel pain just like anyone else. Would you believe Vik’s actually older than me? But no, they leave me feeling like every breath I take I’m gonna cough up a lung. Send me out of the hospital without any painkillers. Viktor, though? They gave him tylenol and motrin, cause again, this a man who can walk around with a knife wound and a broken arm like it’s nothing. He gives me his meds, says he’s sorry it’s not Oxy, but he doesn’t want me gettin’ hooked.  His meds! Can you believe that [CENSORED]? Dunno if he hurt. He says he was alright though. (1) During follow-up investigation, Baldwin described being interviewed for a documentary. Subject’s paperwork regarding the documentary was disorganized, but the few leads we were able to track were dead ends. No documentary crews with the names Baldwin describes exist. A psych evaluation was also found, scrawled with the words ‘Hahahaha no ~HW’. HW = Harlan Wade? Must investigate further. –Agent Nichols Transcribed communication, recovered during the PHL investigation of Armacham through the use of hypnosis. Date of conversation unknown. Unidentified 1: “And that’s the proposal.” Unidentified 2: “This is madness.” Unidentified 3 - possible unknown GOI-4(1) contact: “Come on. You’re a corporation, and more than that, a human corporation. You take risks all the time.” Unidentified 2: “Not risks that could destroy h-” Unidentified 3: “Don’t make me laugh. I’m sure there’s a lot of people in F[REDACTED] who would disagree about the level of risk you engage in. The amount of pull you’re willing to have over an entire city…” Unidentified 2: “Are you threatening us?” Unidentified 3: “No, I’m encouraging you. You don’t want to see our equivalent of threatening.” Unidentified 2: “This plan is a shit show. Think about it for a second, [REDACTED](2) . We have plenty of leverage(3) as is. This plan could get us killed, nationalized, forced labor. We could lose everything. I’m not letting my daughter learn I was part of this.” Unidentified 1: “Then imagine for a moment, that you win and your daughter knows. Unidentified 3: “I’d prefer not to.” Unidentified 1: “Think about it. The other powers are fucked, [REDACTED]. But we do this, we’ll be one of the biggest powers in the new world. And we’ll stand as a symbol of victory. We agree to this, and we’re remembered as the men and women that saved humanity.” We haven’t been able to find those involved in this conversation. The redactions, the way we only have this transcript. We haven’t arrested [REDACTED], aka Unidentified 3, the man from whose memory we recovered this. After all, he barely remembered that it happened, and his lawyer made the case that if the memory of it had been erased from his mind and he hadn’t agreed, he couldn’t be charged for withholding information. The other two… well, we’re trying to investigate, but this isn’t much. All we have is [REDACTED]’s word of what happened. (1) NOTE: Group Of Interest-4, as referring to the group that helped to play both sides of the Montreal Incident. Information on them is… sparse. To say the least. (2) NOTE:  These redactions were included in the text - for whatever reason, they came out garbled. Even the hypnotists and dreamweavers of the PHL couldn’t recover it.  (3) NOTE: I don’t know why, but that emphasis bothers me. I’m sure there’s an inside meaning, but I can’t just ask every higher-up at Armacham “does ‘Leverage’ mean anything to you?” -- Agent Nichols     Report from Bellweather Newfoal Stable Zone Perimeter - dated May 2022 Vadim,  Well, I survived the Shieldwall attack, but I had to shoot off my own leg. And you said that shotgun pistol was a dumb idea! Doctors are telling me it’s fine, but, well, I know a bunch of Stumps who have it on good authority that it won’t be. I’m not happy - I’m very not happy - but I guess, in the end, it could have been worse.  Plus side, I’m on medical leave while I get fitted for a new leg, and I don’t have to go back to that place. Never liked that. Bellweather… ...Let me tell you. It was worse than you can imagine. I mean, sure. We tried. But there’s only so many things you can do to help an entire population of them when you’ve rounded them up into one town. It was… It was soul-crushing. Nobody likes POW camps, V. They bring out the worst in anyone signed on to oversee them. But, well… we tried. The scientists tried. But when you’re looking at all these newfoals, forced into this abandoned little splat of a town, and thinking about the Empire, then thinking about them, then realizing that this little thing striding dumbly along main street used to be a person. I keep telling myself we were doing valuable research, so it was a good thing we tried to keep them in good condition. That we repaired the town, so at least we weren’t… well. You know what I’m thinking. But there’s no real way for me to have gone to work their and not felt dirty the whole time. In a way, I’m almost grateful for Shieldwall taking that load off our shoulders. Even if he has that many more newfoals, I’m glad I don’t have to go back to work there. --A Letter to my friend Vadim from one of the soldiers at the BNSZ. I never liked that place. Always made my skin crawl. Cousin Kaley never got out of there. This was one of the earliest signs of Shieldwall’s “Project Fillydelphia.” Maybe I’m drawing too many lines, but… the disappearance of that much ponypower from this town, combined with Shieldwall’s projects, well… that raises questions. --Agent Nichols Name: Unknown - alias “Mr. Quill.” Physical Description: Fur Color: Dull purple fur Mane Color: long dirty blonde mane Eye Color: N/A - possibly eyeless Cutie Mark: Unknown Often seen wearing sunglasses. Wanted For: anti-PHL activities, the bombing of the pony/human integrated Stabletop Nightclub in Boston MA, illegal manufacture of weapons, and suspected involvement with the PER. --Calling him PER never exactly sat right with me. There was something about his profile - about his willingness to harm other ponies - that never sat right with me. In fact, we’ve reliably been able to shield people from more violent PER attacks by pushing the Integrated Settlement Plan.  But Quill does not fit with that pattern. A lot of things don’t sit right with me. --Agent Nichols Forum thread titled “The Ship?”. Conversation took place August 23rd, 2019 on the Spacebattles forums. Cr0w T. R0bot: You seriously think it was PHL that let loose the ship, @TurnA? Keroko: Barely a week and it’s already turning into a ghost story over here. People are saying they’re seeing it fly over middle-of-nowhere little towns. EZero: Are they? Huh. Interesting. The symbol has a number of strange connotations - it and the advanced magitechnology suggest equine connection, but their emblem implies an anger. A violence. I can’t make a real conclusion just yet.  Doctor Fluffy: @Keroko: I feel your pain. My home was full of conspiracy theorist assholes even before the War. Throw in a good amount of apocalyptic panic, and I won’t be surprised if I start seeing cults to the thing. @EZero: That’s very interesting indeed. @TurnA I’m with Crow. That makes no goddamn sense. Lovikov is, always has been, and always will be an asshole. He shot my dog once. In no sane universe would anyone with the PHL want to work with him. It’d be like…. Like PER making a truce with HLF. Despicable. Keroko: @Fluffy you’re expecting cults? HoofBeats(1): @Fluffy I was in Germany during the Europe Evacuation. The stuff Kraber and Lovikov did… that was the stuff of bucking nightmares. Bad as this all is, I refuse to believe the PHL would ever enable that. You’d need beings of Equus with an utter disdain for ponies that borders on the suicidal. TurnA: @Hoofbeats Then where are these ponies? EZero: @Keroko: He’s not wrong to expect them - the end of the world and these stressful conditions have a way of exaggerating fringe beliefs. TurnA: Of course they did! Look, theyre the only ones that can field something like that and make it disappear. The only ones who have that power. They want Lovikov to be a menace so they can do all the fucked-up shit they want to us.  Doctor Fluffy: @Keroko Why wouldn’t I expect them? Besides, I’m already seeing that horse-head symbol around. @TurnA: That’s crazy. You’re crazy. The PHL doesn’t want to take over the world. TurnA: Well, they seem to be pretty good at it. Havent you noticed the way theyve wormed themselves into the government, the laws their pet senators have made tht practically throw money at them, The way the FBI is practically at their beck and call? The pushback against any Indies? Doctor Fluffy: Because God forbid the PHL start pushing back after the HLF blew up a city… TurnA: @DoctorFluffy Acknowledge my other points, you coward.  Doctor Fluffy: Right. Because I’m a coward for thinking the PHL’s right to have all the money to save the fucking world.  TurnA: @DoctorFluffy They’re taking over our government, Fluffy. Look what Gardner’s troops did to that Lost Children concert. The ones I know for a fact you were with. Shooting up a peaceful concert. Clamping down on anyone that so much as disagrees - I know full well that they’re going to start shooting people for writing graffiti. How’s it feel, Fluffy? Being a Jew and knowing that you’re one of the fascists? You think I’m a bastard? You’ve expressed a lot of hate for Viktor Kraber, but I can’t wonder if you’re projecting a bit what with being a Jew with the real Nazis in this conflict. (1) (2) HoofBeats: @TurnA The buck, bro?! Come on, that’s a sick thing to say to him! Doctor Fluffy: [post redacted by mods.] HoofBeats: Frozen Tartarus, fluffy Peptuck (Moderator):  User TurnA has been banned for grossly inappropriate behavior. Note: I keep an eye on forums such as these - I like to have a view of the  unfiltered views of the average American. (1) One of the most prominent pony members of the Spacebattles forums. Musician.  (2)This post was later deleted by mods.  (3)Both Fluffy, aka Johnny C. Heald, and Viktor Kraber, are Jewish.(4) (4)I’ve met them both. They’re alright. File 2022/08/3A. Interview with “Newfoalsland” colonist Hardy Boiled (HB). Conducted by PHL Investigator Dusty Rush (IDR), May 23, 2022. HB: “What kind of officer does that?!”  IDR: “Now, I know that y–” HB: “He could have shot us at any time! But… he called us his honey pot. He barricaded us in this rock, shot the airships down… he crippled us and left us to bleed out! In what bucking universe does this make any sense?!” IDR: “Honestly? It doesn’t. I think it was a pointlessly cruel thing to do. I think that by anyone’s laws of war, he should face a trial.” HB: “One of the runaways having compassion for us? Huh, I never would’ve th-” IDR: “Don’t.Now, go over it again.” HB: “What’s to go over? We were told we’d start the first pony colony in Canada.” [NOTE: Various PHL and even Independents have beaten him to this. I decided not to mention it, as HB’s emotional state was volatile enough.] IDR: “And then…” HB: “And then we get that message. The one I told you about. The one from Shieldwall that says to hold fast, that soon we’ll become the bulwark of a new invasion force that will take Canada.” IDR: “Sounds like propaganda.” HB: “Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But we were promised great things, you bucking piece-of-horseapples traitor. We were told we’d be a great port. We were told we’d crush you under our forelegs like bugs.” IDR: “Sure. And then?” HB: “And then that guy, Caillier(1), he surrounds us. Starts shooting our ships out of the sky. And Shieldwall doesn’t even lift a hoof to get to us.” IDR: “And?” HB: “We were stuck there for almost two weeks, monkeyfucker. I started having to make soup with rope in it. Someone joked about cannibalism and we had to throw him in a dugout we were using as a brig. Sometimes, they’d randomly shoot at us from outside our firing range. One of them hit our food storage. It was a nightmare, every minute of every day. The uncertainty was eating me alive.” [Pause.] HB: “Finally, that bucker Caillier strides in and takes us without firing a shot. And all those TRAITORS I WAS SURROUNDED BY JUST-” [Extraneous rants redacted.] IDR: “So, what is your experience of trying to hold Canada? Do you think Shieldwall could hold i-” HB: “If nobody even cares what Caillier did to us, then I don’t think so. A land invasion wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work. He’d need something pretty special to establish a hoofhold over here(2).” Note: Since Lyra’s death, there’s been a clear and present pattern of authoritarian behavior among PHL. And it scares me. I was talking with JTER (abbreviation unknown - Garrett) and he described how many PHL he’s talked to who seem to have  - in his words - chips on their shoulders. How many of them seem entirely too willing to take power wherever they can. Who believe that anything they do is justified, on the basis that they’re saving the world. We’re saving a world. But I don’t see how this justifies being cruel for the sake of cruelty. IDR Nichols’ Notes: (1) Caillier refers to Augustin Caillier, the French Navy officer infamous for an absolutely barbaric blockade known as the Strangling of Newfoal’s Land, as detailed in this document. It commenced on May 1st. When questioned about it by PHL command, Caillier refused to apologize for his actions, and claimed ‘I only wanted them to know how it feels. And now, they have an abject lesson in how they’ve made countless millions feel. I hope they learn it well.’(3) While this earned him a (deserved -- Agent Nichols) reputation for cruelty, nothing ever came of it. (2) Shieldwall, it seems, kept his troops pretty heavily in the dark - all information we’ve been able to gather from before the Montreal Incident is rather light on facts and far heavier on fluff. I suspect a subtle geis used to keep these ponies from giving any specifics - or to force them to forget it. (3) This quote shows the inherent difficulty with actually punishing PHL officers, a problem that continued until the hours after the Montreal Incident with the [covered by coffee stain] of the ear, a broken jaw, minor loss of vision in one eye, and a concussion, and a large dent in the boot of one Viktor M. Kraber, earning the officer a court-martial and being cashiered to a position as a desk sergeant. Caillier’s actions were never truly punished, and it was not until the Raid of Massacre of Massacre of Defiance (I know what I fucking said. Don’t dress it up. - Nichols) that the PHL were forced to accept accountability. – Agent Nichols NOTE to Agent Nichols: Stop injecting your opinions into this. – Agent McKayla Kespar NOTE to Agent Kespar: No. – Agent Nichols Interview with Sophie Jones (SJ), prisoner taken during the raid on Defiance. Conducted by FBI Agent Mona Claiborne (AMC). SJ: “Look, I don’t know any more than you. All I know is that one day Lovikov was gone, and the next three days we were replacing him and his favorites. But the thing was, they started coming to camp within like… a day of the announcement. Or two. You don’t just uproot yourself to cross the country from Colorado like some of these people did within a day. It didn’t make any damn sense. Defiance… well, it started becoming an unfriendly place. Cause, and I can’t stress this enough, they were scary motherfuckers.” AMC: “What was so scary about them?” SJ: “Well, my brother… he was with Lovikov. He got captured on the rig, so I was alone when these people came in. They were… they were the kinds of people that Spader never wanted in the HLF. Militia groups from before the War. People that were too afraid to join the army but wanted to be in one all the same. I think actually getting an apocalypse broke something in them. And… anyway, I remember there was this one, this super fit guy with gray hair, carrying an AR-15, he walks by me, he looks at me… And it’s like he’s not seeing a person. He’s seeing meat and how to cut it.” AMC: “But you stayed.” SJ: “Come on. Don’t most people? People stay because it’s what they know. And I stayed in Defiance even as those people kept coming in like someone left the tap on the asshole faucet on, and people I knew just got worse and worse.” Note: When pressed for a description, the one given matched Anton Kessler, a far-right militia leader connected to several anti-government standoffs in Colorado, Oregon, and Idaho.  This greatly conflicts with the press release by “Commander” Arnold Soldano.-- Agent Nichols NOTE: So, clearly, Lovikov had been in contact with these groups for awhile. Only question is - how extensive was his network? Who helped him? And how long was this going on beneath our nose? – Cloudwatcher The Archmage of the Solar Empire, in response to a memo submitted by the Newfoal Catalog Bureau. To: Upper Crust, Newfoal Catalog Bureau. Your proposal to research the Anomalous Newfoal ‘Reaper’, allegedly deployed in the ‘Battle of Portland’, 16 Anno Imperator, has been rejected. There simply isn’t enough data or concrete evidence of her existence for me to deem it as worthy of the resources of the Solar Empire. We are looking for empirical results, not myths and salt-lick projects Sincerely, ~Archmage Twilight Personal Addendum: Seriously, Upper Crust, stop chasing these fantasy stories of Super-Newfoals. I know the composition of the ponification serum and its spell matrix back-to-front, and trust me, a Newfoal with the capabilities described of this ‘Reaper’ simply cannot happen...  Private Addenda: - This marks the third unconfirmed case where something weird apparently happened when a Newfoal was converted under exceptional circumstances. I’ve tried replicating this under laboratory conditions, but have had no luck so far. And, while I may have attempted to create improved ponification strains and breed-models, anything with half the level of prowess this ‘Reaper’ was suggested to possess has proven counterproductive. - There are too many undocumented anomalies recorded on Earth to dismiss these rumors out-of-hoof, but until a ‘Super-Newfoal’ comes into our custody for a proper debrief, I’m inclined to believe that ‘Reaper’ is an exaggeration of the truth. That kind of power would imply a degree of mental flexibility which could prove dangerous in the long-run. - And I specifically structured the Conversion Protocols to cut off such independence of thought. We need competent servitors, not free-thinking agents with access to the untapped magic of the human soul… Furthermore, reports from surviving PER in Portland claim her to have been slain by one human and one traitor unicorn. I fail to see potential in something taken down so easily. NOTE: The term ‘salt-lick’ project is confirmed by PHL ponies to be analogous to the term ‘pork-barrel’ project. Also, this is one of the few Imperial memos we were able to recover. This definitely hints at a buildup of some kind…  – Agent Nichols From ‘Beachcomber’s Blog’, the blog of a PHL pony by the same name. Dated August 8, 2022. Who is Ivan Bliss? This man saved PHL workers, pony and human alike, from the HLF attack on the Sorghum, stealing the very boat the HLF used to infiltrate it and making his way to Mackworth Island. On his way through the city, he killed countless PER, risked his life to save the unicorn Rime Ice, and cleared out Maine Medical almost singlehandedly. Rumors persist of some kind of super-Newfoal on the roof that he killed, but the PHL have proven tight-lipped about the body they recovered from the hospital rooftop. However - we do not know who Ivan Bliss is. I have talked to PHL, told them about him. There’s a lot of people that’d vouch for him - bit racist, abrasive, mentally unstable, but damn if he wasn’t effective. Everyone who talked to him agrees that he sounded Scottish, but it sounded to them like something else, australian, british, german, was pushing through. And nobody knows a man who fits his description. My good friend Nebula, a thestral  of Mackworth Island, recalls him very fondly… though she has one thing to say. He seemed… broken. Perhaps he was, in fact, running from something. Whoever you are, Ivan, wherever you are, wherever you’re going to, we thank you. I very much wish I could see you in person… A great many friends of mine owe you their lives. It’s almost embarrassing how long it took us to realize that Bliss was Kraber. It’s not too important to the greater investigation, but I find it interesting to see his impact in Portland. --Agent Nichols Internal memo from R. Gardner to various high-ranking officers. Memo dated August 23, 2022, during the HLF purges culminating in the Massacre of Defiance. ‘Alright, so somebody is going to explain to me just why the hell an HLF Captain has two fucking Thunderchild-class ships, and they’re going to explain it to me now! Guns can fall off the back of a truck, but those?! Bullshit!’ NOTE: Gardner was clearly becoming unhinged by this point. We need more comprehensive psychiatric examinations to prevent another Lost Children Massacre, or God help us, another Defiance. It was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. Never again. – Agent Nichols Internal memo from Dr R. Bowman to those same officials. ‘LOLNO’ Classic Bowman. --Agent Nichols. Berlin Daily Sun Manhunt continues for Leonid Lovikov? The infamous HLF leader who made camp outside our city has, by all accounts, disappeared. But to where? What place would take him? A previously unknown second-in-command, Arnold “Arnie” Soldano, has stepped up to fill the role.  “These unfathomable acts are indefensible during a time such as this. Under my leadership, Defiance’s citizens will do everything in their power to help humanity.” We’ll watch Soldano with interest, but for now, we’re keeping a close eye on Defiance. We understand the fears, but Defiance - after all - is a refugee camp. To take the fight to them, to cause that much collateral damage against people with no place to go, would be near as unthinkable as the Portland Massacre... I was suspicious of this at the time, but there was little I could do - I was on the trail of Mr. Quill, Hope, and Shieldwall. I regret that sometimes. My personal impression of this - later proven right - was that this was a puff piece, meant to lure people in. I have experience with HLF controlling institutions of small towns. It also conflicted with the stories and rumors I was hearing from Defiance. Saying you’re different from someone like Lovikov is one thing, but it’s another to be drawing in people like Richard Ides, Anton Kessler, Jessica Briggs, or Arnold Soldano while giving that same line. I didn’t like it.  --Agent Nichols   Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph PER Attack Thwarted in Coaticook, Quebec ...when who should appear but one Leonid Lovikov, armed with high-quality military-grade armaments. Energy weapons, even, of the sort that are rumored to be possessed by the Reavers(1). HV Penetrators. They valiantly fought off the Potioneers, dismantled the Aerosolizers, and saved many a home from Newfoals. But the strangest thing was that - by most estimates - they arrived before the PER attack began. Regardless, their help was... Lovikov displayed an alarming ability during this period to sneak through borders, with some reports even placing his splinter group near Newfoundland and Labrador. It still bothers me that we haven’t found all the connections that he used… or all the HLF members with this experience. It could cause trouble if someone like Galt knew how to do this… (1) For the record, I never bought this. Why would the Reaver Plan include someone as unstable as Lovikov? They didn’t even arm Defiance, no matter what Soldano said. It makes no sense.  --Agent Nichols   Interview with one of (few) captured EHS members. Dated 2023/07/05 Heliotrope: “You’re going to tell me what the EHS is planning. Right. Now.” Unidentified EHS Prisoner (UP): “No.” NOTE: This prisoner had no Equus Refugee Identification Card (ERIC for short). Attempts to identify them are ongoing. Heliotrope: “Tell me, now. I’ve heard enough stuff to make putting you away for a long time very easy, but I can talk to them about getting your sentence commuted, and -” UP: “I said no.” Heliotrope: “Seriously? If even half the stuff I’ve heard about your group is true… selling everything out, spitting on Lyra’s legacy, making ponies work themselves to death?! If you were HLF, I’d get it. But you! You’re a pony yourself! How…. how can you think so little of yourself?!” UP: (Laughs) Heliotrope: “... am I amusing you?! Do you think it’s funny what you would’ve sold children into?! I saw your tests. I saw the slaughterhouses you made. You torture ponies. You consulted with the scum of any races to create the vilest things I’ve seen anyone do to themselves!”  (Pause) UP: “All you’re doing… all you’ve ever done… is prove us right.” Heliotrope: “And what the fuck does that mean?” UP: “Doesn’t matter. My being here doesn’t matter. None of it matters. The book’s already written. It might have been easier before we knew, easier to believe the lie, but now we know the truth. This is what we’ve always been. Twice over, maybe more.” Heliotrope: “What are you talking about?” UP: “You were quite prominent. Think about it, Heliotrope. How often have we forced others to be like ourselves? Acted like we were the arbiters of how The World Should Be? How we’ve forced our world into endless, meaningless stagnation and plan to do it again and again? I know you’ve experienced it before.” Heliotrope: “Maybe you just don’t know as much as you think you do. I’ve nev-” UP: “I don’t mean before. I mean before. I’m betting you remember some of that, don’t you? You walk through an unfamiliar door and feel like you’ve already been in the room.” (Laughs) “Actually, this is reminding me of something really funny.” Heliotrope: “What? Like, ha-ha funny, or ‘But Doctor, I am Pagliacci’ funny?” UP: “The definition of insanity. To do the same thing, over and over again, to keep trying it, even though it keeps failing… and yet, somehow, expecting it to somehow be different this time.” (Prisoner laughs again, harder, almost nonsensical) “Oh, that’s rich. That’s really rich. They should have said that to him, he’d have laughed. Or cried.” (Pause) “Anyway, we’re not Pagliacci, Heliotrope. None of us are.” Heliotrope: “Who the hell are you, then?” UP: “We are a monument to all our sins.” (Laughs) “We’re the motherfucking Krikkitmen.” Heliotrope’s Note: Well. That was… unnerving. Okay, more than unnerving. Subject was… God. I don’t even know.  I didn’t know where he was from. Everything about this pony is a cipher. And the way he talks… it’s like nothing I’ve heard. I’d say madness, but that doesn’t work. Despair, but that also doesn’t work. And the thing is… He’s right. About one thing, anyway. I have had a lot of episodes of deja vu. I don’t want to think he knew, but… I know that he knew. I don’t know how. But I do. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense. But here I am. I told the PHL I couldn’t get another word out of him, but I honestly didn’t want to be in that cell a second longer than I had to. It is that last one that catches Agent Garrett Nichols’ eye.  “Where have I seen that before?” he asks himself aloud. “Krikkitmen... sounds science-fiction. British? Does it involve sports?” The google search following is not very helpful. He’s heard the word used before, he just doesn’t know where. He knows he’s seen graffiti of it, metastasizing on buildings like cancerous tumors.  But he knows enough to see it as a threat.  Garrett is a veteran of both Defiance and the Montreal Incident. He’s seen things you wouldn’t believe, attack ships on fire off the sh Except none of that reference is true, save for the part about attack ships on fire. Garrett has seen things he very much does believe, he just wishes he didn’t.  Something that people pretend not to know about Garrett is that once, some PER - who were young, hotheaded, and did not know how this worked - went after his family. Threatened to ponify his daughter Audrey. He and Craddock had not taken that well. Garrett especially. Garrett, for example, had been so incensed that it took Craddock and three others to pull him off what had once been a PER member. He’d used his bare hands to do it. The quiet rage that Garrett felt towards Defiance and the Montreal Incident did not eclipse that one horrible moment where his family had been threatened, but it was one of the only things he could imagine that approached it. “We’ll really have to do something about that,” he says solemnly.