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Old 08-25-2013, 02:14 PM   #71
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
I'll take the ethnographic chameleon option.
Done!

Let's try to get one post from each player in a row somewhere that each of us can edit as required to keep an up-to-date concept summary of his four characters, all in one place for easy reference by others, so that we don't have to search the thread for the latest deltas.

Here's a template to help tame the horrid BBcode
Code:
  • TEAM: NAVY
    Posting: job Elevator pitch: slogan! Name: title Forename Name Origin: Place of origin Thumbnail concept: What the character is. Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters). Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: IMPERIAL OFFICE
    Posting: job Elevator pitch: slogan! Name: title Forename Name Origin: Place of origin Thumbnail concept: What the character is. Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters). Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: SURVEY
    Posting: job Elevator pitch: slogan! Name: title Forename Name Origin: Place of origin Thumbnail concept: What the character is. Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters). Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: MARINES
    Posting: job Elevator pitch: slogan! Name: title Forename Name Origin: Place of origin Thumbnail concept: What the character is. Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters). Description: What the character looks like.
You'll have to quote, copy, and paste. I don't see a way to display un-interpreted forum code.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 08-25-2013 at 07:28 PM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 04:05 PM   #72
sir_pudding
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

  • TEAM: NAVY
    Posting:Chief Engineer
    Elevator pitch: The heiress unsure of the legacy.
    Name:Lt-Cmdr. Tomiko Eichberger
    Origin: Foundation Starships and Space Stations
    Thumbnail concept: Great-grand-daughter of the most famous engineer ever. It runs in the family. But she's not at all certain about the direction her grandmother (Laura) took the political legacy, and found the politics uncomfortable. She's on a Survey mission to escape.
    Backstory: She was born in 472 on a starship, and has lived her whole life in space. From an early age she was naturally mechanical and developed into a talented engineer. When she was six both her parents were killed when their ship was destroyed. Alastair Lowell, a friend of the family and her godfather, was often a surrogate father for her. Like anybody raised in a totally artificial environment (and especially in the Foundation during the Formation Wars) she developed a keen appreciation for the fragility of life support and of human existence anywhere. Her lifetime of living on and working with starships combined with her natural gifts have given her an uncanny sense of a spacecrafts status and performance. Tomiko's partner of 31 years is Caroline Lowell and they have a daughter, Anastasia Eichberger (29) by ovum-ovum fusion and a son Nyoman Eichberger (12) (the Y chromosome was extracted from Tomitomo's archived genetic material). Caroline is Alastair's niece and something of the family black sheep having gone into academia rather than a Navy career, she's currently teaching Philosophy at the Regulus Academy. Anastasia is currently serving as a Navy Sub-lieutenant. Tomiko herself taught at the Academy (while on reserve service in the Navy) from 514-529.
    Description: Short, brown hair, green eyes (with a slight epithantic fold) tending toward plumpness within Navy physical requirements.
  • TEAM: IMPERIAL OFFICE
    Posting: Press Secretary
    Elevator pitch: The perfect parahuman propagandist, quietly fleeing utopia
    Name: Specialist Ada Solaris 496
    Origin: Simanta
    Thumbnail concept: Designed from the genes out and trained from decanting on to work in the propaganda machine of Simanta, Ada possesses all the qualities of a perfect Press Secretary. Perhaps her fleeing the Social Organism to work for the Empire wasn't quite unplanned….
    Backstory: Ada was produced by Creche Solaris in 496. Ada's Caste (Specialist) is designed for intellectual work and she was meticulously trained for social interface and information control. A decade ago she requested asylum with IDJ.
    Description: Attractive, brown hair and eyes; 5'11", 180lbs. She has noticeably more subcutaneous fat than a baseline human (Simanta has an average surface temperature of 4 C). Intense and more than a little creepy.
  • TEAM: SURVEY
    Posting: Intelligence Analyst
    Elevator pitch: The king of HUMINT
    Name: Lieutenant Kim Strickland (Imperial Marines)
    Origin: Seeonee
    Thumbnail concept: An intelligence officer with a flair for ethnological impersonation and a penchant for passing for a local in the finest tradition of the Great Game and the "Ethnographic Survey of India".
    Backstory: With a natural knack for fitting in any social group and an inexhaustible curiosity, Kim has sort of floated through life like a traveling anthropologist even before she was one.

    She attended Baden Powell University on Seeonee at 17 and majored in Anthropology. Prior to her senior year she took a year long tour of four planets. She was fascinated but also saw a lot that was horrible (and a lot of that horror was fixable). Rather than return home she volunteered for Imperial Service.

    She was assigned to Imperial Marines officer training at the Academy on Luna. Advanced standing for academic studies completed allowed her to graduate B.Mil. at 24. She posted to regiment as an ensign for one year and was confirmed as acting sublieutenant at 25. She spent the next four years posted to 7th Regimental HQ. Then she was assigned to Intelligence School. She's since had five years of boots-on-the-ground HUMINT experience before Staff College and posting to the INS Fritjof Nansen.
    Description: Skin the color of very milky coffee, brown eyes, 5'9", 140 lbs. Somehow average looking almost everywhere.
  • TEAM: MARINES
    Posting: Section Leader
    Elevator pitch: If there were an NCO shaped hole in the universe Bucky would spontaneously appear to fill it.
    Name: Cpl Brent "Bucky" MacAdams
    Origin: Hell (Tau Ceti)
    Thumbnail concept: Bucky's the kind of guy that never works harder than he needs to. He's a natural persuasive leader with a knack for finding the trick for every task. He's the kind of NCO that his Marines love because he looks out for them and smart officers love because he always gets the job done. Martinets and the overly motivated think he's lazy, which terminated his career in the Army of Hell. Soldiering was the only thing he was good at, so he volunteered for the Imperial Marines, where he fits like a glove.
    Backstory: Born in a nowhere town in the boonies on Hell in 475, he enlisted in Hell's Army as soon as he was old enough, and served in the tail end of the Formation Wars where he witnessed the effects of orbital bombardment. He was an infantryman, and later a supply chief. He retired and tried his hand at couple of jobs on Tau Ceti, realized he was a lot happier at soldiering so he volunteered for this new "Imperial Marines" outfit.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
    Bucky would have been in training in 507 and 508; sixteen weeks on Earth's Moon, sixteen weeks each on each of three foreign worlds with different gravities, sixteen weeks in free fall, at least five interstellar trips, three-day passes and two-week furloughs on alien worlds. Infantry school in 509 and assigned to the Regiment in reserve: whole thing together in one place at base, likely a couple of interventions. Riot school in 512. Five years in garrison on some planet with embassy-guarding, riot-control, hostage rescue, and anti-terrorist duties. Drop school in 517. Five years in MarDets on shipboard. Section Leader's Course in 522. Back into reserve. [Aviation School] in 527. Back to garrison on another planet. Sergeant's course in 532, but no promotion: assigned to Survey as a MarDet leader.
    Description: Pvt. McAdams is a medium sized nondescript man with lightly tanned skin, sandy blond hair, and grey eyes. On his back he has a large impressive full color tattoo of a hovering succubus with curling ram's horns, raven's wings, and wearing combat armor with the helmet unbuttoned. She's armed with a gauss rifle and bears the legend "Hell's Legionnaire" and "3/32nd Inf."

Last edited by sir_pudding; 09-06-2013 at 02:16 AM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 05:00 PM   #73
martinl
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

  • TEAM: NAVY
    Posting: Astrogator (and Astrophysicist)
    Elevator pitch: The Naive Idealist
    Name: Lt. Leah Brohn
    Origin: IDJ
    Thumbnail concept: Idealistic, cheerful, optimistic, and out-going. Brilliant at her specialty, and strong in math and physics. Does not understand why the existing colonies contest with the obviously-benevolent Empire. Despite academically knowing the explored colonies won’t welcome the expedition with flowers and tasty cakes of welcome, she still expects something like that internally..
    Backstory: Fist generation farmed fur. There might still be a few quirks in the farming process...
    Description: Jewel Staite.
  • TEAM: IMPERIAL OFFICE
    Posting: Ambassador
    Elevator pitch: Patient proponent of the long game.
    Name: Her Excellency Wukitelamy Drolegant
    Origin: Tau Ceti
    Thumbnail concept: A true optimist who believes in slow steady processes of incremental reform, and abhors in particular violent "quick fixes". Trusts the Empire's motivations entirely, but often disagrees with impatient policies. However, she will accept orders until they are changed, not disobey ones she disagrees with. Surprisingly willing to deal with and in Machiavellian realpolitik as long as she sees a long term positive return.
    Backstory: Was an assistant attaché in her colony's delegation at the Lunar Conference, where she got to see close up what a lot of the other colonies wanted. Sees the Empire or something like it as a necessity.
    Description: Middle aged Keira Knightley with matte black skin, lambent green eyes, and "Old Ivory" hair (all due to semi-permanent cosmetics). She exudes gravitas and trustiworthiness.
  • TEAM: SURVEY
    Posting: Scientist
    Elevator pitch: Boffin with a death wish
    Name: Dr. Kyth Haroldsson
    Origin: Targan ? (Mid Tech level Colony)
    Thumbnail concept: Social dynamist with outstanding background in social modelling. Loves weird things, weird societies more than anything else. Will obsess over discrepancies between social data and modelling results, worrying at them like a terrier until he finds an explanation for the difference. Inner conflict between his ability to understand and suggest things that would make society unambiguously better and his defeatism from never managing to get past proposals adopted, no matter how sensible.

    Kyth is an utter pacifist, but not a pushover. Will stand still and look you in the eye while you stab him. There are religious (technically cultural, as he’s no longer a believer even though he follows 'the Law') reasons for this, but he doesn’t discuss them.
    Backstory: As soon as travel opened up again after the ToL, Kyth was sent by his not quite a cult church from his barely industrial colony of Targan to Todos Santos to learn enough high tech social science to give his religion an edge. When he came back, his proposals to help the ReMastered Church displeased the church fathers (for the predictable reasons), and he made it to Imperial compound just ahead of the assassins.

    Since then, he has traveled as a gunslinger dynamist and grown a carefully cultivated demeanor of a cheerfully philosophical cynic with an obsession for the weird. The Mink psychologist who vetted him for this mission knows better - Kyth seeks redemption. The Mink are cool with that.
    Description: T. J. Thyne
  • TEAM: MARINES
    Does my marine proposal fit here?
    Posting: job
    Elevator pitch: slogan!
    Name: title Forename Name
    Origin: Place of origin
    Thumbnail concept: What the character is.
    Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters).
    Description: What the character looks like.

Last edited by martinl; 09-03-2013 at 08:53 AM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 06:14 PM   #74
Adina
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Louisville, Ky
Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

  • TEAM: NAVY
    Posting: The Captain
    Elevator pitch: Reserved, undemonstrative, professorial, "British" officer.
    Name: Captain Alastair Lowell
    Origin:His family were Mayflower Space Navy when Tom Eichberger was an entrepreneur with bad business ethics.
    Thumbnail concept: Stiff upper lip and master of understatement. Fences sabre, plays the violin. Fanatical Imperial, saw horrible events during Formation wars. Manners of a college professor usually (and sees teaching/mentoring as an important part of his leadership); icily sarcastic when annoyed with someone who deserves it. Will listen to subordinates' input until he makes a decision. Scarily cold and controlled in a crisis.
    Backstory: Currently 98. Made Captain at 49 during the Formation Wars. Promoted to Rear Admiral ten years ago he took a cut in grade to command a Survey Mission.
    Description: Michael Gough
  • TEAM: IMPERIAL OFFICE
    Posting:The Ambassador's 'aide'
    Elevator pitch: Secret Squirrel disguised as bored gigolo.
    Name: title Juan Garcia
    Origin: wild-caught mink
    Thumbnail concept: A medium-height, medium build, taciturn man with inconspicuous manner, medium colouring, brown-green eyes…. Always watchful, he is something more than a mere bodyguard: a fully-operational Secret Service officer.
    Backstory: Redacted.
    Description:
  • TEAM: SURVEY
    Posting:Chief of Social Sciences / Social anthropologist (and morale officer)
    Elevator pitch: grandfatherly, quasi-rabbinical, community psychologist
    Name: Dr Joshua Rabin
    Origin: Eichberger Foundation Ships & Habitats
    Thumbnail concept: Grandfatherly, "rabbinical". Good listener. Curious. Likes people. Passionate and enthusiastic. Unhurried, takes his time. Likes a good argument, sorry a ‘spirited discussion’.
    Description: Jack Axelrod, specifically as Shmeil Pinkus on NCIS.
  • TEAM: MARINES
    Posting:Rifleman
    Elevator pitch: Big grizzly bear on-duty, teddy bear off-duty.
    Name: Pvte Dmitri Feodorovich Karapyetchenko
    Origin: The urban jungle.
    Thumbnail concept: Talented street kid makes good.
    Backstory: Orphaned, ran away from well-intentioned but horribly dysfunctional orphanage at 13. Ran the streets till he killed a rival gangbanger defending his crew. Joined the IM to get off-planet.
    Description: Tall (6'5"), lanky, broad-shouldered redhead.

Last edited by Adina; 09-08-2013 at 09:08 AM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 06:51 PM   #75
Luke Bunyip
 
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Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

  • TEAM: NAVY
    Posting: job
    Elevator pitch: slogan!
    Name: title Forename Name
    Origin: Place of origin
    Thumbnail concept: What the character is.
    Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters).
    Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: IMPERIAL OFFICE
    Posting: job
    Elevator pitch: slogan!
    Name: title Forename Name
    Origin: Place of origin
    Thumbnail concept: What the character is.
    Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters).
    Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: SURVEY
    Posting: job
    Elevator pitch: slogan!
    Name: title Forename Name
    Origin: Place of origin
    Thumbnail concept: What the character is.
    Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters).
    Description: What the character looks like.
  • TEAM: MARINES
    Posting: job
    Elevator pitch: slogan!
    Name: title Forename Name
    Origin: Place of origin
    Thumbnail concept: What the character is.
    Backstory: What the character has done and experienced (if it matters).
    Description: What the character looks like.
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Last edited by Luke Bunyip; 08-25-2013 at 09:51 PM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 06:59 PM   #76
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Very splendid! Double rum at noon!

I'd also like to congratulate you all on the quality of your character suggestions. I'd have been happy with any but two of them, and the captains in particular were hard to choose among. In the end I just couldn't give up on Luke's captain entirely and kept him on as First Officer; a few of the rest of you will also find I have provisionally accepted amalgams of two or more of your suggestions shoe-horned into the same boot, and poor Jeff is playing one of someone else's characters (because the Ambassador doesn't need two aides quite as much as he needs at least one counsellor at interstellar law).

What did you all think of the process? Challenging? Disappointing? Sadly devoid of inspiring input from colleagues? Tedious? Laborious?

How satisfactory is the outcome? If the assignment is unsatisfactory do please speak up and we'll fix it. If the mash-ups and reassigned characters don't suit you in the posts where they ended up say so and we'll work out what can be done.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 08-25-2013 at 10:24 PM.
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Old 08-25-2013, 09:03 PM   #77
Adina
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Louisville, Ky
Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
and poor Jeff is playing one of someone else's characters (because the Ambassador doesn't need two aides quite as much as he needs at least one counsellor at interstellar law.
<shrug> Neither the aide or the ambassador were high on my list. I think I'll manage once I have a better feel for the rest of the ambassadorial team.

Quote:
What did you all think of the process? Challenging? Disappointing? Sadly devoid of inspiring input from colleagues? Tedious? Laborious?
Challenging. PC's of eight is a lot all at once. And I don't like designing in a vacuum.( Not that negotiating roles would necessarily be any easier.)

Quote:
How satisfactory is the outcome? If the assignment is unsatisfactory do please speak up and we'll fix it. If the mash-ups and reassigned characters don't suit you in the posts where they ended up say so and we'll work out what can be done.
Of the eight; I had three I really liked, three I thought were solid, and two I felt were just completing the assignment. I got two of the three I liked (and I knew I couldn't get all three) plus I get Bear? I'm happy. And I see some interesting characters in other hands as well.
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Old 08-25-2013, 09:47 PM   #78
Luke Bunyip
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
In the end I just couldn't give up on Luke's captain entirely and kept him on as First Officer.
Made me do a reappraisal of the character when I read that. Not even playing yet, and I'm thinking about inter-character dynamics +1

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
What did you all think of the process?
I wish I'd got my fundamental into gear as quickly as the rest of the assembly. I've been involved in enough tendering processes to get a giggle out of the mental state it put me into being creative: "Must be more creative than the other players!!"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
How satisfactory is the outcome? If the assignment is unsatisfactory do please speak up and we'll fix it. If the mash-ups and reassigned characters don't suit you in the posts where they ended up say so and we'll work out what can be done.
Quote:
SURVEY TEAM
  • An ecologist
    Elevator pitch: Jimmy Wales meets John Pilger
I suspect that some of the more annoying characters in Red Mars may have had a hand in influencing this guy.
Quote:
IMPERIAL OFFICE
  • The Ambassador
    Elevator pitch: Not a politician. A negotiator.
Like this guy more than my inital sketch, who may have been based on an unsympathetic version of an Australian politican *cough*Turnball*cough*.
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Last edited by Luke Bunyip; 08-25-2013 at 10:14 PM. Reason: More detail required. Double+ Good
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Old 08-25-2013, 09:50 PM   #79
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by jmurrell View Post
Challenging. PC's of eight is a lot all at once. And I don't like designing in a vacuum.( Not that negotiating roles would necessarily be any easier.)
Yeah. Now we get to do the thing of generating a team four times over. Yugh! Everything else is pretty tight, but we still have to sort out why these four characters among the thirteen Survey bods are consistently together doing fun stuff when Adventure Happens. I know you won't want to make fundamental changes to the Rav Dr. Dayan, and I guess that sir_pudding is dialled in pretty close in that his Survey character has to be the Intelligence bubba. If Rudra Whatisrama were the chief Planetary Scientist and Dayan were the Chief Social Scientist that would make the PCs the senior echelon in Survey and naturally associated.

Quote:
Of the eight; I had three I really liked, three I thought were solid, and two I felt were just completing the assignment. I got two of the three I liked (and I knew I couldn't get all three) plus I get Bear? I'm happy. And I see some interesting characters in other hands as well.
Bear is a consolation prize (not a boobie prize) for having to play one of Luke's character suggestions. I wonder what I'm going to have to give Luke as consolation for having to play his brilliant cliché-busting captain as First Officer, and his Dean of Survey as Ambassador. I hope he likes his ecologist! There are — indictions — that he might want to play his Marines OR as a practical joker, and I hope that doesn't lead to "Bucky" McAdams leaving him behind on some planet.
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Old 08-25-2013, 10:51 PM   #80
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: [OOC] The Starship 'Fritjof Nansen'

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip View Post
Made me do a reappraisal of the character when I read that. Not even playing yet, and I'm thinking about inter-character dynamics +1
I strive to amuse.

Quote:
I wish I'd got my fundamental into gear as quickly as the rest of the assembly.
Sorry about that. I was careless about adequately informing everyone of my having started this thread.

Quote:
I've been involved in enough tendering processes to get a giggle out of the mental state it put me into being creative: "Must be more creative than the other players!!"
Heh!

Quote:
I suspect that some of the more annoying characters in Red Mars may have had a hand in influencing this guy.
You can change him quite a bit if you like. He's not determining anything yet.

Quote:
Like this guy more than my inital sketch, who may have been based on an unsympathetic version of an Australian politican *cough*Turnball*cough*.
And with the election only a fortnight away!

I'm never really strict about first-time-players' characters, but the Imperial Service is not like any bureaucracy you might know, still less like any competitive political system. It is impartial and efficient, a science-fiction concept. Imperial servants indeed contend fiercely over policy, but they don't scheme for promotion, conspire to bring one another down, etc. And once you get to four-stripers (or worse, higher) you are among a very strange set of monsters indeed. The Empire is staffed by idealistic fanatics: in the Navy, the Imperial Office, and a high rank, extremely cold-calculating ones. They may keep their mouths shut rather than talk the talk, but they definitely walk the walk. One playtester opined convincingly that FLAT BLACK ought not to have AI robots in it because they would steal the Imperials' schtick. Several details of your suggested ambassador couldn't work. So I salvaged features from your Dean of Survey. But that's just a starting-point.

If you're not comfortable playing a big wheel in the Imperial mercy machine, and if martinl is as fond of his ambassador as of his dean of Survey, you might swap places at the big table with him, allowing you to play the Dean of Survey as Marco Polo meets Mark Zuckerberg and him to play a more confident Imperial Office four-striper. That would mean martinl adding an explorer to replace his dean (I'm happy with the one he suggested—or for that matter with any different one he might since have been inspired by), freeing the aide for jmurrell to play (which he wanted), and letting you play your sympathetic shyster. But I think that to make that work we're going to have to find a way to spice up martinl's ambassador, because I sense that he finds his dean a lot more interesting.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 08-25-2013 at 11:26 PM.
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