by Max Barry

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Region: The New Kingdom

Hello there fellow citizens of the Union. It’s me, Minister of Communications of Force Azerubia, here to bring you the 24th edition of the Union Weekly Recap. Sorry for having skipped one week but I had some important things to do but from now on I should get back to doing it weekly. Anyway, let’s go into the news.

- Justice Pridnestrovskaia moldavskaia has been impeached by the citizens. You can find the details here: https://forcens.com/index.php?topic=543.0

- The Union of Force has joined the faction ATOMIC with other fellow regions in preparation for N-Day. If you want to help us prepare for the apocalypse, join us here: https://discord.gg/psQb625 If you still don’t know what is N-Day you can check this manual:

OVERVIEW

N-Day is an opportunity for nations to come together and exchange nuclear weapons in a fiery Armageddon of mutually assured destruction.

To Participate

  1. Once registration opens, you can create or join a Faction. Nations outside a Faction can't attack or be attacked. You can join a Faction when you're ready and leave when you're not (to stay safe).

  2. When the event begins, nations will be assigned a random Specialty and begin to accumulate Production. You will now be able to spend Production, fire nukes and deploy shields.

  3. Watch your nation automatically generate Production at a rate of 1 every 2 minutes. Use it to build Nukes and Shield.

  4. Launch Nukes at other nations and use Shield to shoot down Nukes that are launched at you.

Tactics

The simplest way to play N-Day is to join whichever Faction seems most fun and start targeting Nukes at its enemies while shooting down anything incoming. Your Faction page's icon bar shows everything you need to know, including who's targeting anyone in your Faction, and who your fellow Faction members are targeting.

Attacking: Step by Step

  1. On your Production screen, spend some of your Production to build Nukes. These go into your Stockpile.

  2. On another nation's Nuke page, click/tap the TARGET button and select the number of Nukes to use.

  3. Once Targeted, it takes 10 minutes for your Nukes to reach a READY state (3 for Intel Specialists). Note that your Targeted page is public: All nations can see who is targeting whom.

  4. When your Targeted Nukes are ready, click/tap LAUNCH.

  5. Your Nukes are now categorized as Launches for you and Incoming for your target. Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. When they do, they earn Strikes for you and inflict Radiation on the target, which reduces their rate of Production. This also earns Score for your Faction and reduces the enemy Faction's Score.

Defending: Step by Step

  1. On the Production screen, spend Production to build Shield.

  2. Find Launched Nukes to destroy. Your top priority is any Incoming Nukes launched at you. Secondarily, you may wish to target Incoming Nukes on anyone in your Faction (see your Faction's Incoming page), and also keep an eye on Targeted Nukes that may threaten you or your Faction in the near future.

  3. Click/tap DESTROY to deploy 1 Shield per Nuke.

Strategy

Strategically, it may be wise to avoid attacks on nations or Factions until you are confident of obliterating them, since this eliminates the possibility of counter-attack. Smaller-scale attacks, which damage but don't destroy an enemy, can lead to an escalating series of grudge-related nuclear exchanges.

On the other hand, targeting an enemy can be an effective warning. And it takes Nukes 10 minutes to be ready to launch, so you can't leave it too late.

Scoring

Each Nuke that reaches a target causes Radiation damage, which reduces the target's rate of Production generation and counts as a Strike for the attacker.

A Faction's Score is Strikes minus Radiation.

Duration

N-Day lasts for 24 hours, after which point, an Arms Control Agreement means that no Nukes can be launched. (In-flight nukes can still land, however.)

The "winner" is the Faction with the highest score; if, that is, nuclear war can be said to have a winner. Which we say it can. It's the Faction with the highest score.

FACTIONS

Once registration opens, Factions can be founded by a Regional Officer of any region. Any and all Regional Officers of that region can update the Faction's official text to issue instructions to Faction members.

Factions can be made open to all members, or restricted to the region's members only.

You can leave your Faction, which is a good way to stay safe if you're signing off for the night. However, you can only do this if you're not engaged with the enemy! That means:

  • You must not have any nukes targeted or launched at another nation; and

  • No nukes can be targeted or incoming on you.

Note that in practice, this can make it challenging to leave a Faction, since you may be frequently targeted.

While outside a Faction, you cannot be targeted, and do not generate any Production.

Before joining, it's worth making sure a Faction isn't currently under mass bombardment.

SPECIALTIES

Nations are randomly assigned a specialty.

Military Specialists build Nukes faster: They receive 50% more Nukes when converting Production.

Strategic Specialists build Shield faster: They receive 50% more Shield when converting Production.

Economic Specialists can accumulate more Production: Their production cap is four times larger than the other specialties.

Intel Specialists can finalize targets faster: Their targetted nukes reach READY in 3 minutes instead of 10. They have no Production advantages.

Cost of Nukes/Shield in Production Points

Military Specialist

Strategic Specialist

Economic Specialist

Intel Specialist

1 Nuke

0.67

1

1

1

1 Shield

2

1.33

2

2

PRODUCTION
Non-WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 1 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 50 (200 for Econ Specialists).
WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 10 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 150 (600 for Econ Specialists).

Production can be spent on Nukes or Shield.

WA NATIONS
World Assembly members will accumulate Production 10x faster than non-WA members, and have their Production limits increased by 3x.
It is allowed to switch WA membership to receive this benefit for different nations, but (as per regular site rules) you are only allowed to have one nation in the WA at a time.
Keep in mind that if your Production is over the non-WA limit when you resign membership on a nation, the Production on that nation will decrease down to the limit (i.e. if you resign with 75 Production on a non-Econ nation, the Production will drop to 50).

We ask that you refrain from switching WA for N-Day purposes more than once every two minutes. You will not be punished for this, but it is against the spirit of this change to the event mechanics.

NUKES

Nukes are purchased with Production, kept in stockpile until ready, then targeted and launched at an enemy nation.

Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. While in-flight, they can be shot down by any nation using Shield. If they're not, each Nuke generates 1% of Radiation in the target and earns 1 Strike for the attacker.

SHIELD

Shield can be used to knock out Launched Nukes. You can shoot down any in-flight Nukes regardless of who they are aimed at.

Locate in-flight Nukes under Launches or Incoming, and use the DESTROY button to eliminate them at a rate of 1 Shield per Nuke.

It is possible to waste Shield if multiple nations deploy Shield simultaneously to knock out the same Nukes.

TARGETING

Target a nation by viewing their Nuke page and clicking/tapping TARGET. You may then select how many Nukes to target from your Stockpile.

It takes a short time for a Targeted Nuke to reach a READY state, after which it may be launched. This is normally 10 minutes, but Intel Specialists are faster, finalizing targets in only 3 minutes.

If not launched after 1 hour, Targeted Nukes automatically return to your Stockpile.

RADIATION

Radiation is generated in a nation when it is struck by a Nuke.

Radiation proportionately reduces a nation's Production generation rate. For example, 20% Radiation reduces Production generation by 20%.

When a nation is 100% Radiated, it is destroyed and no longer able to launch any Nukes nor use any Shield.

Radiation is irreversible.

You can leave a Faction when irradiated, but this does not affect your Faction's score.

SCORE

A Faction's score measures strikes and radiation that occurred while those nations were a member. It is unaffected by nations joining or leaving the Faction.

GLOSSARY

Term

Explanation

Production

Used to buy Nukes and Shield. Automatically generated by all non-destroyed nations in a Faction.

Nuke

Unholy instrument of death and destruction.

Stockpiled Nuke

A Nuke that has been purchased with Production and is sitting idle, awaiting a target.

Targeted Nuke

A Nuke that has been targeted at a nation. A targeted Nuke takes 10 minutes to achieve a READY state, after which it may be launched.

Launched/Incoming/In-Flight Nuke

A Nuke that has been launched at a nation and is currently chewing up 3-5 minutes of in-flight time.

Shield

A unit of defensive technology. Possibly involves lasers or satellites or something.

Strike

A record of how many Nukes have successfully landed on targets.

Radiation

A record of how many Nukes have struck the nation. Reduces Production generation.

Faction

A group of nations sharing a common interest in survival and/or bloodlust.

Score

Strikes minus Radiation.

Read dispatch

- Illyrus has been appointed Justice by Founder Renegalle following the impeachment of Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia.

- The Internal Affairs Restructuration Project has been suspended by Prime Minister Caduceo.

- A look inside the Cabinet and the High Commission, a report from the Prime Minister and a new medieval roleplay - everything that you will find in this August's edition of the Force Flyer!

Issue XXXVII
Headlines

A look inside the Cabinet and the High Commission, a report from the Prime Minister and a new medieval roleplay - everything that you will find in this August's edition of the Force Flyer!

REPORT FROM PRIME MINISTER CADUCEO by Caduceo


Good day once again, all you beautiful people out there! It's your Prime Minister Caduceo here for my monthly report. Since I'm required to release a report of my own every month as per the Freedom of Information Act, I've decided that I'll publish them in the Force Flyer for maximum transparency and reach!

Like my article last month, I'll also redirect you once again to Linkthis plan published during the start of my term and my campaign promises. This is the second month of my term and I'm quite happy to report some of the progress and future plans I have in store! Without further ado, let's dive into it!

What we've achieved:

  • Not much has moved with the Academia de nocturna except for the passing of the Academia de Nocturna Act, which legally provides the structure and bases for the Academy, and you can find that Linkhere. I will personally be taking up a few important topics and I suggest you do too!

  • Our population has stabilized around the ~170 mark during the summer lull and our recruitment methods are still doing the best they can and hopefully, we see that number rise relatively soon. Let's all hope for the best!

  • Our MoIA has added a segment to our Welcome Manual about the Discord server to let people be more aware of it and we have published a Civil Service dispatch which you can find here, and maybe even consider signing up!

  • Our former MoC Heonix resigned from his post and he was replaced with our current Minister of Culture, Sidervida. So far, they still need a bit more getting used to but they've helped arrange a Skribbl.io Contest, canceled the Emoji Contests, and I believe will help arrange more games for us to enjoy.

  • Sir Lashnakia has been appointed as an Advisor and a new MoFA, Oimatsu, has been appointed to take his place. Let us wish them good luck and hope he serves us well!

  • We've improved our RMB welcoming messages and they look quite organized and informative now.

What we're progressing on:

  • I will focus on publishing two more dispatches this month, one for the World Assembly information and another for our Graphics and Format Repository to ensure transparency and better quality of life.

  • Resume RMB questions as they seem to be a great source of activity and community interaction.

  • We will potentially see a Cabinet Meeting this month and a presentation I'll prepare for everyone, which will maybe reveal a new plan or two 😳

  • We have started preparing for N-Day and hope that we'll have a lot of fun when the event comes! For more info, drop by our Discord server or read this dispatch.

  • Our Ministries have been a bit quiet but honestly, most of us have been, though we're doing quite well.

What we're planning:

  • I've said it before and I'll say it again - World Assembly information will come soon.

  • A project for Comms will hopefully be unveiled soon but I won't say much for now. No promises, though!

  • A grand opening for the Academia de Nocturna is being planned when we have enough topics ready to be published. Join us so we can start up as soon as we can ;)

  • Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult seeing if the Force's Forces card project should move forward. Hopefully it will but it's rather blurry at the moment. We'll see what we can do but you can help out by joining us.

That should do it for the month of August! Thank you so much for hearing me out and I look forward to serving the rest of my term with you! Have a safe and wonderful day!




THE CABINET UNDER RENOVATION by Azerubia


August was a pretty calm month here in Force. There was not any big news like what we could have sawn last month and we could feel that people were starting to get back to school or work as fewer and fewer people became active. This was also felt in the government as many citizens realized that it was also following the trend. But that didn’t mean that the government wasn’t doing anything. In fact, behind the curtains, big reforms administered by Prime Minister Advisor United soviet states of russian imperial, also known as Texas, were happening.

Texas had been the Prime Minister of the New Western Empire for two consecutive terms and is mostly known here in Force for having helped create the “Hootship” Treaty between Force and NWE under the second Salibaic administration. Texas had joined Force while he was still Prime Minister of NWE but really started to get implicated after he had to step down from running a third time due to the regulations put in place in the Constitution of NWE for the number of consecutive terms allowed.

When asked by the Force Flyer as to why he decided to start reforming some ministries, he stated, “If it isn't already well known, Force is a first for a lot of things due to the nature of expanding and challenging the ideas on the forefront of NS. Even throwing around the concept of Territories and a functioning Union is something not many regions get to, let alone implementing it. I had this in mind when Prime Minister Cad asked me to join him as a Prime Minister Advisor and one of the first things I did was take a 24 hour day and study. Study Force history and exact Culture and what I found was that Force has a trend of creating a new or existing idea, then moving on to another, forgetting about the previous idea, then what that idea fails making a new idea to fix it (i.e the High Commission was created due to a failure in the Internal Affairs Ministry for not advancing with the times and being operational, which is a failure in basically the Executive as a whole for not catching the failure of literally 90% of their job as listed in the Constitution which is tending to the needs of the Union). With this information in mind and the input from High Commissioner Salibaic the mission to reform the Ministries started as one to fix up the government as a whole. To challenge what can be done in our government and to try new ideas, much like how the Internal Affairs Ministry is taking a brand new approach to helping out Territories as much as possible. Now obviously not everyone is in favor of this change but we are always working to address every concern with these reforms no matter their region, rank, or importance.”

Texas’s work so far was mainly concentrated on two points, the Internal Affairs Restructuration Project and the Foreign Affairs Reorganization Project. Both were to add big changes to their respective institutions and plans were made to indicate what had to be done. The Internal Affairs Restructuration Project focused on the creation of committees inside of the ministry to better distribute their tasks between their civil servants. On the official plan drafted by Texas, there were 4 committees considered. The WA Committee whose task would be to ensure that nations in the Union would register to the World Assembly and record the fluctuations between the number of registered nations. The Union Stature Committee which would serve as a line that would help Territories voice their concern and suggestions to the Union government. The Recruitment Committee which as the name indicates would be the one in charge of recruiting new nations and finding new ways to attract them, they would also be the ones to organize the stamps and stamp fund. Finally, there would be the Specialty Committee which would be in charge of anything that falls under the Ministry of Internal Affairs but not into any of the existing committees. While the Internal Affairs Reorganization Project was made to help divide tasks between individuals of the ministry, the Foreign Affairs Restructuration Project was concentrated on changing the current positions held in the administration. The only big changes brought with the plan were the Diplomatic Councils supervised by Diplomatic Advisors. Diplomatic Councils would work as a group of ambassadors from different regions. Following the plan, these councils would ensure communications between the ambassadors and help them organize events between their respective regions and the Union. At their head, would siege one or multiple Diplomatic Advisor(s) that would be there to help organize the council and ensure their assigned ambassadors are doing their jobs.

As of the writing of this article, the Internal Affairs Reorganization Project has been signed by the Founder but has currently been put on hold due to judicial problems with the High Commission while the Foreign Affairs Restructuration Project has yet to have received this honour and may be subject to change. While in discussion with Texas, the Force Flyer has also learned that the Ministry of Culture and Communications should be the two next to be subject to Texas’s reviewing.




THE UNION ROLEPLAY GOES OUT WITH A BOOM by Azerubia


Something we all learn in life is that everything has a start and an end. Well, the Force Roleplay wasn't exempt from that and this month we saw the end and the beginning of another edition of the RP.

The 90s set roleplay which was once one of Force’s main regional attractions was discontinued after 6 months of loyal service. Minister of Roleplay Sumeka stated after being questioned by the Force Flyer on the reason for this sudden decision, “Well, in short, because I was not satisfied with the time skip. I did not realize that such a dramatic change in stats would occur, and so I decided the best course of action was to restart under a different time period. This time, I wanted to focus more on the roleplay aspect rather than the stats game. I put it up to a vote and the server agreed that a restart would be in order. And so I did it.”

The roleplay was once the most flourishing section of the Union but due to some recent events, it lost some of its momentum following some controversies which made it start to crash. The main problem that caused all of these were wars. Wars are normally an integral part of the roleplay but many people didn’t like it when it happened and just ended up quitting. This once caused a massive exile of members who were angry at the fact their nations were completely weak against some like Renegalle’s due to their stats. The roleplay didn’t help the small nations because most people didn’t actually try to defend them and that’s what started all of this. So, the most viable strategy for roleplay was just to invade your neighbours which gave you almost no repercussions and made you more powerful than ever. Because of that, multiple small nations decided to quit as they felt powerless against giant nations and just didn’t feel like playing because the game had turned into more of a battle royale than an actual roleplay. It wasn’t everyone that left but we could already sense inactivity setting in because of that.

A solution that was found to counter this inevitable doom was to do a time skip. With this, Sumeka hoped that interest in the roleplay but the problems it brought with it such as stats change inevitably were what caused its demise. Sensing the inevitable, a vote was then called to know what era was the new roleplay supposed to set in and the decision was made to go in the medieval ages, more precisely during the 1200s.

As a tribute to this roleplay who had helped us recruit so many nations, it was decided for it to go with a final boom and let everyone do their thing. Chaos was then unleashed as roleplayers started to create the most impossible scenarios such as Tigslarlowducken buying 50 million nukes, Len row creating a Bernie Sanders super-soldier capable of destroying entire armies and Premier Chip of Renegalle becoming a god. Some tried to escape from this hell that had become Earth but it was too late.

After that, the roleplay was halted for 3 days until the preparations for the medieval one were completed. As we are still at the start of it we can’t tell if it’s going to live up to its predecessor but we can see that the inactivity that hit the last roleplay before its last boom seems to try and settle again. This new roleplay is more diplomacy driven and we hope to see new nations join us at this conquest of the world.





A LOOK AT THE HIGH COMMISSION by Azerubia


Following the passage of Amendment 25 to the Force Constitution, a new government office was created with the intent to oversee the territories of the Union. Before that, this task was mostly given to the Founder of the Minister of Internal Affairs but as they didn’t have much time to do all that work, the High Commission was created. It has now been 2 months since it was created and the Force Flyer has decided to take a look at what it had done since its creation.

The current and only High Commissioner is Sir Salibaic. Salibaic had been selected to the office due to him being acquainted to work in the territories. He had been a House Representative for Heart, its First Minister and is now its Wolrd Assembly Delegate under the nation The Scottish Republic. It took almost 2 weeks for the High Commission to start working but it was mostly due to the fact it was lacking a discord channel where it could discuss its matters in privacy.

Another thing that was brought with Amendment 25 were the creations of Viceroys that would act as the delegate of each territory to the Union. The High Commissioner decided to appoint Viceroys only to the states since they were considered the only ones active enough. Both Aurhany and West intermarium were chosen by Sir Salibaic to act as Viceroys for Heart and RGBN respectively and with the benediction of the Founder, it was finalized. The High Commission also started organizing meetings between all territorial leaders to discuss matters such as population and the World Assembly. Currently, the High Commission is working on getting multiple things done and we should see more progress in the future. Most of their projects revolved around helping territories grow and help them communicate together such as helping the territories make their own recruitment and welcome telegram and also making a master factbook for each territory. Canterbury is probably the best example of that since they now have a brand new recruitment telegram and are starting to create a community. They have also been working with President Suter of RGBN to think about a way to create a legislative body in the region. Their biggest project of them all is certainly the Union World Assembly Exchange which should become the unified World Assembly program of the Union and help the World Assembly nations of the Union better communicate around the issues put up on vote.




OPINION: IS FORCE'S DEMOCRACY FLAWED? by Azerubia


For most of us, democracy is something we became accustomed to and we don’t realize how important it is and that we should be protecting and fighting for, as some people don’t even have the chance to live with it. Even in a game like NationStates, democracy should always be something we thrive for as it is what can most easily represent what the people, or in this case the community, want. But something as always bothered me in Force’s electoral system concerning the House elections.

In theory, the Force House elections can sound good, how they work is that each citizen has to give his approval to the candidates for the House in his region and if the candidates don’t get a majority of approval, he is not elected. If more candidates get a majority than the number of seats, it’s the one with the biggest majority who wins. Sounds great right? But the problem with that is that it allows what we call a tyranny by majority. For example, imagine Force has a population of 100 nations that are all divided between Faction A with 51 nations and Faction B with 49 nations. Continuing with that, let’s imagine the House of Representatives has 10 seats and that each faction submits 10 candidates for the elections in hope of having them all elected. Faction A can then decide to ask all their members to vote against Faction B’s candidates in the upcoming elections and vice-versa. Well, following Force’s democracy, all of the 10 candidates of Faction A would get elected with a 51% approval rating while Faction B’s candidates would all fail with a 49% approval rating. That would mean that the House, which is supposed to represent all the citizens of the Union, would be made of 100% of Faction A members even though they only represent 51% of the population. I know this is kind of an extreme example and nothing like that has ever happened to Force but it just shows you how much this democracy can be flawed.

So, I started asking myself what system could we use to fix these problems. At first, the most obvious answer would be to use a ranked-based ballot like what was used in the latest Prime Ministerial election. By doing this, the elections would concentrate more on the individuals than the parties and would let minority groups get some representatives elected but this method is not perfect. The main problem with this is that most of the time, the House Elections have fewer candidates than seats available meaning that with a ranked-based voting system, it would almost be certain that every candidate presenting themselves would get elected.

To try and find some other solutions, I decided to look at how other regions elect their legislative. I decided to see how the Pacifics and the New Western Empire (Force’s closest ally) worked. The Pacifics all follow a similar method to elect legislative with some regional differences. The legislative bodies in the Pacifics are not elected but in fact, every citizen is part of it or can easily join it. This system is helpful for them due to the sheer number of nations these regions host. It makes everything easier to manage and let citizens that could feel left out in the crowd of a thousand nations have the impression of their voice being heard. Force could probably use this with no problem politically but it creates a clash on the cultural side. The Union House as always been a simulation of legislative entities in countries and if it were to change to something like in the Pacifics, we would lose that simulation side of the House. At least, this system should be used for the states of the Union such as RGBN and Heart since they have difficulties having people be interested in representing their region and so having every citizen in their legislative would be a big help. On the other hand, the New Western Empire Senate is something very similar to the Union of Force House of Representatives and so their method would probably easier to implement. But how is the NWE Senate elected exactly? It’s simple, the New Western Empire uses a party-based electoral system to elect its Senators. Each party has to present a list of candidates in order of importance they are running and the citizens will vote for which party represents them and has the best candidates. Then, each party would receive a number of seats proportional to the percentage of votes they gained. For example, if there were 10 seats in the Senate and that Party A won 60% of the votes, they would get awarded 6 seats. Then, if they ran with a list of 10 candidates all in order, the top 6 would be the ones to join the Senate. This, in my opinion, would be the best choice to replace the current electoral system of the Union House. It would respect Force’s culture concerning the House and would allow minority groups to be represented more easily but without them being able to abuse it. The only disadvantage I could see for now would be that it would give parties a lot more power and would raise tensions between them. But in counterbalance, it would force more people to create their own parties and maybe even create some more choices than the current bland two-party system.




Editorial Team for this Month



Azerubia - Minister of Communications

Caduceo - Prime Minister


We're hiring for new positions! Learn More...
For more information, contact Azerubia through Discord (Azy#4617)
or apply forLink Civil Services!

August 2020 Competition Results

[hr][/center]

Competition

Winner

Submission

Union Skribbl.io Showdown

Suter

[center]N/A

Statistics



[hr]

Region

Nations

WA Nations

Force

168 (2)

50 (0) =

RGBN

55 (22)

15 (1)

Heart

29 (-5)

7 (-3)

Canterbury

12 (9)

3 (2)

The New Kingdom

7 (-2)

0 (0) =

Power

4 (-4)

1 (0) =

Read dispatch

- The Union Writing Contest has started and will end tomorrow. Join us in the discord if you want to see the submissions provided by the citizens or if you want to provide your own original one: https://discord.gg/VKFx47R

- Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia is now the new Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.

- The Court has ruled in favor of High Commissioner Salibaic and Minister of Internal Affairs United nations of colombia has been stripped from his right to vote and run for a government office for 6 months for malfeasance. You can find all the needed info here: https://forcens.com/index.php?topic=548.msg=3527

- The Union Roleplay has been rebooted yet again due to inactivity. The new one shall begin in the 1950s.

- Voting in the September 2020 Midterm Elections is now open. You can now vote here: https://forcens.com/vote If you want to change your ballot go here: https://forcens.com/vote/changevote.php

- The exit poll for the Justice and House elections are now out: https://strawpoll.com/3864ws47e https://strawpoll.com/hr9oyggxa

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