— The Yemeni maritime border meets Saudi Arabia's near Al Qunfudhah, splitting the Red Sea across the middle. From there, it stretches all the way South to Aden, and then continues a few hundred kilometers off the coast into the Gulf of Aden.

— Is that why the United States is bombing Yemen?

[Easy: Success] — Partially.

— It's the Houthis, sire. They've warned all of those ships heading down the Suez Canal that they're going to blow them to bits if they enter their sea-space. The captains haven't been listening, so they've been getting shot at. And the United States! Oh! The United States have started giving the companies military escorts! It's a dreadful, dreadful situation! Everyone needs to know how you feel about this!

— But...if Yemen says that the ships can't go through, isn't it illegal for the ships to go through their borders anyway?

[Medium: Success] — The international rules-based order doesn't seem to like it when other countries enforce the rules.

[Legendary: Success] — The weight of a world is lifted off of a dozen others. In Vietnam, in Bangladesh, in Timor, in Cambodia, in Chile, in Cyprus; the undercurrent breathes a collective sigh. One more piece is off of the board. The empire is running out of material.

— τελειωτικό χτύπημα.

— What happens now?

— For you, Detective? Or the world?

— For the world.

— Nothing.

[Hard: Success] — An old man who did his damage is dead. His spirit is gone, but the mark will remain. Him being gone solves nothing.

— And for me?

— For you? You celebrate.

-1 MORALE

[Impossible: Failure] — You are submerged deep within the milieu of news cycles and chauvinism, and you are drowning. Air. You need air. It burns at the corners of your eyes and claws at your throat. Everything hurts. If this is the way it's going to be, you don't know if you can keep going.

— How could you, when everything is so terrible?

[Challenging: Success] — A world away, further than any place you'll ever go, a young boy sits outside a crumbling, concrete apartment block. Sea spray and smoke swirl through the air together, salty and acrid, coating the world in a shade grayer than usual. He sits and stares up at the sky, at the planes carrying missiles overhead, and he listens for the sounds of catching powders and marching footsteps. He sits with two million siblings. None of them may make it to tomorrow. The sufficiently old and sufficiently able take to the streets. The shelters and tunnels curling beneath them like veins tremble against the tension.

— Have they given up?

— No. They haven't. And that means neither can you.

[Hard: Success] — War, and murder, and violence...they're all just so terrible. So, so many people are suffering, every single day. And worst of all are the ones who pay back violence with violence. You worry that it merely ensures an unending cycle of ever more violence. Just more and more people being hurt. It is a history of abject failure.

— "Haiti, Angola, South Africa, Cuba, Vietnam. I could genuinely go on."

— Oh-ho, this one knows much, Sire! Good, good! This may prove to be an interesting debate...

[Challenging 12] — Recall everything you know about the history of violent uprisings.

CHECK SUCCESS

— Delving deep within the recesses of your mind, poking around inside all of the grey little folds and corners, you manage to come across a pale, faded memory. Exerting a little concentration frees it from the gummy surface of your liquor-pickled brain, bringing it into focus: it's the sum total of all of the knowledge you have ever possessed about the history of violent uprisings.

— It's blank.

— No. Surely there has to be something in there.

— You're a moralist, detective. Why would you know anything about history?

— Bad news. The wömen are acting up again.

— Oh, no. What have they done this time?

— The same thing they always do: take something from the past that you love and hold dear and shit all over it. Shit all over what was once strong, and proud, and good. Shit all over your ancestry. Instead of King Bowser calling Kammy Koopa an "airhead" like he did in the original release, the new version of the game makes him call her a "lunkhead", instead. It's sickening.

— "Kim. The wömen censored Paper Mario."

— He lifts his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure they did, Detective. Let's try to focus on the murder for now."

[Rhetoric - Challenging 12] Differentiate ChatGPT from the human brain.

[Challenging: Failure] — Bad news: they're completely identical. The computer takes input and produces output. You take input and produce output. In fact...how can you be sure you're not powered by ChatGPT?

— That would explain a lot.

— Your sudden memory loss, your recent lack of control over your body and your instincts; nothing more than a glitch in your code. Shoddy craftsmanship. Whoever put your automaton shell together was bad at their job. All that's left for you now is to hunt down your creator — and make them fix whatever it was they missed in QA.

Thought gained: Cop of the future

— "Fuck you, falling into a world and just getting lost! No, no, no! Current-fucking-day! You take everything we love — all our immersions, all our fantasies, all our escapism — and you can't help shovel your dogshit, fucking-crap ideology into everything!"

— He won't fucking shut up. Knock him out.

[Challenging: Success] — The wavering of his voice, the tears dewing in his eyes, the erupting tantrum; he isn't acting like the usual grifters you've seen. He believes this. Video games are the only thing that he has. You can see before you the faded afterimage of a friendless little boy, kneeling alone in a patch of playground grass and clover. He's been this way forever.

— Don't go soft on a display this pathetic. Make an example out of him. His little computer-buddies need to be too ashamed to agree with him in the open.

— "This is just how it always starts, don't it? Every inch you give them, they take miles. It's the same obvious type of bullshit that the people who push these ideas through never think about. Around these parts, we take care of our own — at least, that's the way it ought to be. Last thing we need is more shitstirrers coming in here to mess with the closest thing we've carved out to something decent. Hell, we barely had ourselves sorted out before whoever-on-top opened up their cages on us." He spits. "Bunch of fucking assholes."

— "The Soviet Union and the CCP are a bunch of filthy fucking thugs and genocidal maniacs. Now fuck off, you removed."

[Easy: Success] — "Filthy fucking thugs", "removed"; the words roll off his tongue with ease. He's gotten comfortable saying them.

— A fascist, sire! A fascist! Quickly! Bring him to the dunk tank! Let everyone revel in his hatred of the other races!

— "It's not brigading, Harry! It's simply inciting a conversation! There's nothing that says we can't all engage in a simple little conversation, is there?"

[Hard: Success] — He's right. There was a rule against it, back in your old haunt; but here is not there.

— "There's nothing stopping us from banning you for brigading, anyway."

— "Oh, don't be an asshole, Harry. You're a good man, and you're certainly not an asshole. Besides, while your mod powers are still missing, I don't believe you'll be able to ban anybody. Now, if you'd like to take this conversation a little more seriously, I'd be more than happy to assist you in locating that banhammer of yours again."

— Wait. You're also a communist who thinks anyone rich is evil.

— The lieutenant's eyes pierce you from behind the thick glass of his spectacles. He seems staggeringly tense.

[Challenging: Success] — He needs armed bodyguards to go to the bathroom. There's not a chance he'll let you get any closer if he thinks you're against him. It's better to keep your affiliations to yourself...for now.

— And then, bratan? Then it will be time!

[Medium: Failure] — "The friend-zone" is the single worst place any wöman could dare to put you in. It's where you're sent when — for some unknown, female reason — she doesn't value you as a potential mate. That she values someone with better mate qualities than you. That's what the friend-zone is; it's wöman's way of saying "fuck you".

— It's really that bad?

— Of course, bröther. The gynocentrists want you to think it's fine. Break your conditioning. Keep pushing. Your persistence will prove how much you deserve her.