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Trying to look into Chaos Dwarf lore/army rules, but not sure where to find them? Look no further!
People seem to be loving my lore dumps, and since I've already covered the Daemons of Chaos and the Ogre Kingdoms, my next course of action is clear: talk about the snaggle-toothed, hat-obsessed Babylonians we all know and love. My primary sources of fluff and crunch for the Chaos Dwarfs are the Legion of Azgorh supplement for 8th Edition Fantasy Battle, and the much older 4th Edition Chaos Dwarfs Army Book. As always, bits of crunch will be in bold, to help out those who are only reading this to predict how the Dwarfs might behave. To be clear, lore and rules devoted to the Chaos Dwarfs are much sparser compared to the Daemons and Ogres, which is why I've been forced to dive into 27 year old literature to write a comparable post. As such, minor inaccuracies are to be expected. Do be a dear and point them out for me, and I'll be sure to correct them with haste. Also, for the three of you that want some mood music while you read this wall of text, I'd recommend the Word Bearers Chant from Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate. While it's from a different Warhammer and is only a little younger than the 4th Ed Army Book, it's perfect for this occasion. And without further ado...
General Fluff
The Chaos Dwarfs (henceforth referred to as "Dawi-Zharr", "Chaos Dorfs", "Chorfs", or "Hat", at my convenience) were originally a subculture of Dwarfs that travelled to the eastern edge of the World's Edge Mountains, and found the lovely region known as the Dark Lands. This wasn't what made them evil, though. The evil was caused when Chaos suddenly appeared, and separated the two groups of Dwarfs while it was bending the Lizardmen over. Abandoned by the Ancestor Gods, like good ol' Grimnir, the Chorfs were instead saved from oblivion by the entity known as Hashut, who is either a very strong Daemon or a very weak Chaos God. He's definitely some kind of hell bull, though. The combination of Hashut and the construction of the capital of Zharr-Naggrund saved the Dwarfs' bacon. Allying with Hashut led to the Chorfs acting far more pragmatically than their western kin. Mass slavery? Sure! Daemon-powered hell machines? Why not?! Using magic? It'll slowly turn you to stone, but hey, go nuts! Despite this innovation, the Chorfs have more or less sat on their hands since then, with the exception of their attempt to engineer the ultimate Greenskin: durable, disciplined, and dark green. The resulting Black Orcs promptly led a huge slave revolt and escaped. Due to this epic fail, the Chorfs now prefer either normal Greenskins, or Hobgoblins: nomads native to Warhammer Mongolia who are both bigger in stature and bigger in dickishness than normal gobbos. The clever boys and girls in class are probably saying to themselves right now, "Hold on, I thought Dwarfs were immune to Chaotic influence!" In small amounts, yes. Unfortunately, the Hats are constantly exposed to Chaotic energies due to their use of magic and Daemon batteries. This leads to mutations that include, but are not limited to, growing fangs, petrification, and sprouting bull bits below the waist. Thanks, Hashut!
Lore of Hashut
The Chorfs' signature Lore is fueled by their big, bad bull daddy. It has an interesting quirk related to miscasting, where the first time a miscast happens, the caster's Toughness is boosted, to represent them petrifying due to overdosing on magic. Their lore attribute is boring in comparison: direct damage spells do boosted damage against targets weak to fire. As for the spells themselves: Breath of Hatred increases the chance of melee attacks dealt by nearby friendly units to hit; Burning Wrath is a close-range, stronger Fireball; Dark Subjugation is a typical leadership-lowering hex; Curse of Hashut is a character-targeting direct damage spell; Ash Storm is busted, since it weakens a unit's fighting ability, forces them to only move, prevents casting, makes the terrain around them hazardous, AND makes the target unit weak to fire; Hell Hammer is a stronger Burning Head with a less predictable pattern; and Flames of Azgorh is a circular direct-damage spell, with bigger hurt at its center. Spicy stuff overall. #Generic Lords & Heroes There's only two generic Lords choice available to the Hats. The first are the unremarkable melee beatstick that are the Chaos Dwarf Lords. The second are the Sorcerer-Prophets, high priests of Hashut, heads of Chorf government, and (on the table) wizard lords who are able to use the Lores of Metal, Fire, Death, or Hashut. In the hero department, the Daemonsmiths are both the favored of Hashut and talented designers of evil engineering. In battle, they're a unique combo of wizards (since they can use Metal, Fire, or Death) and Engineers (they can also boost war machine accuracy). Infernal Castellans are melee heroes who head the dead-tough regiments of Infernal Guard (more on them later), and can pack great weapons, guns, shields, and even a rifle-axe hybrid called a Fireglaive. Bull Centaur (again, more to come) Taur'ruks are the mightiest and most intelligent mutants among the Chaos Dwarfs. Due to their bestial power and resemblance to Bull Daddy, they're favored as shock troops or temple guardians (no, not the cold-blooded kind). Last, and certainly least, are Hobgoblin Khans, who are such backstabbing bastards that they'd rather ally with the Chorfs than with their own, green fellows. Unfortunately for them, Chorf views on species other than their own typically lead to the Khan getting demoted via "iron spike through the brain". Yikes.
Troops & Cavalry
Since the Chorfs make extensive use of Greenskin slaves as fodder, they'll be fittingly first to the chopping block here as well. Everbody knows Orcs, Goblins, and Black Orcs, but Chorfs also take along Hobgoblin Cutthroats (called Sneaky Gits in older, derpier fluff), who are similar in subterfuge, psyche, and function to Nasty Skulkers. The Chorfs themselves are terrifying in melee. Your typical Chaos Dwarf Warrior sees every other species as little more than slave-fodder to fuel the furnaces or gorily grease the wheels of Chorf industry. In battle, they pack either axes and shields, or blunderbusses for blistering ranged superiority. A step above the normal Warriors are the Infernal Guard, who are everything awesome about Dwarfish stubbornness rolled into a single package. Like Slayers, they fight to atone for a great shame in their past, but they battle in absurdly tough plate that has been lovingly melted onto their skin. If that wasn't cool enough, they can actually retire from the Guard and clear their name by being enough of a badass, unlike those idiot Slayers. In-game, they can bring great weapons, Fireglaives, or blunderbusses. A half-step above them are the Infernal Ironsworn, Infernal Guard who act as the personal heavies for Sorcerer-Lords. Chorf cavalry is, more or less, Hobgoblin cavalry, with their Wolf Raiders doing typical Goblin Wolf Rider things. However, Chorfs also possess Bull Centaurs, who are former Dwarfs that went a little too hard on the Chaos. Mutated into massive bull-legged beasts, they possess a power and hunger that Ogres would find quite flattering.
Big, Scary Monsters
Do you like cows? Metal, perhaps? Then you'll love the Chaos Dwarf monster roster! First up are two monsters that are also mount options. The Lammasu is a Chimera-esque monster with a crusty humanoid face. Chorfs are fond of them because they suspect that Lammasu were once Dwarfs, before Chaos had its way with them. They have a unique attribute where enemy melee magical attacks are disabled if a Lammasu enters close-quarters. The other option is the Great Taurus, monsters native to the Dark Lands which also happen to be GIANT FLYING HELL COWS THAT ARE ON FIRE. If that wasn't cool enough, Lore of Fire spells heal them, and a stronger variant called a Bale Taurus has a built-in breath attack. Chorfs also make use of Chaos Siege Giants. The same corrupted lugs used by the Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen, except with their limbs and skin replaced or grafted with hell metal. Some tasteful examples of these body mods include huge chain flails and claws specialized at climbing or leveling walls. Of course, Chaos being Chaos, the Chorfs also have daemon monsters, known as K'Daai. Summoned with extensive blood rituals, these hellish fire elementals are promptly enslaved and sealed in daemonic metal bodies. When the time comes, they're awoken, transforming from an inert metal shell into a raging inferno of burning, melting hatred. This places them 1st in the Most Metal Thing in Warhammer Fantasy Competition, just ahead of Valkia the Bloody. Regarding crunch, they cause automatic flame damage in melee, crumble like undead, and damage themselves more and more as the battle progresses. The two calibers of these burning golems of death are the K'daai Fireborn, which are the modest size of Trolls, and the much larger K'daai Destroyers, which exist to fucking melt and incinerate everything around them with the fiery hatred of Taco Bell exiting your colon. Grungni ain't gonna help you against this.
War Machines (AKA what you're here for)
If there's anything the Dawi-Zharr are renowned for, it's their daemon-infused war cannons, rocket launchers, etc. that can pulp entire armies with impunity. There's the classic Hellcannon, naturally, but that's just the start of it. Chorfs also use Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher, which gives Gelt a golden jealousy boner every time he thinks of it. Pissed-off fire spirits act as both ordinance and targeting systems for fear-inducing anti-infantry rockets, while anti-large ammo used good old-fashioned explosives and grappling spikes to make sure the explosives reach their target. No wall's gonna save you. Okay, but what about the Dreadquake Mortar? Its ammo is so big, explosive, and evil that it causes localized daemonic earthquakes wherever it lands, making it Queen Bess on 'roids. Unfortunately, without forking up the points cost for an Ogre to load the damn thing, it has pathetic reloading ability. For the Daemonsmiths who made baking soda volcanoes at a young age, there's the Magma Cannon, which is functionally a giant fuckoff flamethrower. An interesting note: the Magma Cannon, Mortar, and Deathshrieker can all be put on a steam carriage, which gives them natural cover, a bit more protection, and allows them to be towed around the battlefield by... The Iron Daemon, AKA the Steam Tank... from HELL. Powered by an eco-friendly mix of steam and tortured daemonic fuel cells, the Iron Daemon can bring either a set of anti-large cannons, or the anti-fortification Skullcracker. Speaking of cracking skulls, it also has spiky wheels, which allow it easier movement and pretty nasty melee defense.
Legendary Lords
There's tons of minor candidates for LL spots, which I'm probably going to add at my discretion. That being said, there's four fleshed-out figures I'll bring up here. The first is Astragoth Ironhand, the High Priest of Hashut and the mightiest Sorcerer-Prophet still living. The petrifying effect of magic on the Dwarfen body means that Astragoth is stone from the neck down. Thankfully, having a Masters in engineering meant he could build himself a robo-body to replace his crappy rock-flesh. Said robo-body is, unfortunately, still Dwarf-sized. Put Astragoth in a mecha the size of Ghoritch, CA! I dare you! Next notable character is Drazhoath the Ashen, another Sorcerer-Prophet, head of the exiled Legion of Azgorh in the Tower of Gorgoth. He holds Astragoth in contempt due to the whole exile deal, but is more than happy to go for slave raids in Imperial lands or sell his wares to Chaos Lords, such as Mr. Maggot himself, Tamurkhan. Now for the most boring lord, straight out of 4th Ed: Zhatan the Black. He's so boring, he can't even use magic, AND he's the lackey of a Sorcerer-Prophet. Laaaaaaaaaame! You know who's not lame? Tordrek Hackhart, who used to be a normal Dwarf Engineer until he was exiled for one too many assassination attempts on his rivals. He escaped in his robotic squid submarine-ship, the Black Kraken, and now roams the seas. That's right, a Chaos Dwarf pirate.Awesome.
Okay, but when are you writing one of these on Kislev or Cathay?
Honestly? I don't plan to. Scraping together enough lore to write a post of this size on either of those factions requires a level of lore knowledge seen only in Lormaster of Sotek. The other problem is that any preexisting lore for either Cathay or Kislev is going to get heavily reworked for Warhammer III, so my post would be outdated before the game even comes out. If you're hurting for lore, the wiki pages on Kislev and Cathay should have everything you need.
"Why you can believe the Bible" -- debunking a video
This video attempts to explain why one should believe the things the christian bible says, specifically because:
it's a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses, during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophesies, and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.
THESIS: The arguments and evidence presented in the video completely fail to support the above position. It's a huge post: feel free to only tackle a specific section or 2, I think they're mostly self-contained. In some cases I say that I suspect the speaker of being dishonest. If you don't like that, just know that he straight up calls people "ignorant, or evil, or both" [34:07] and "fools" [56:03] (stated as a fact, not merely his opinion) for using specific arguments or not accepting his conclusion. I think he opened up the Pandora's Box of guessing others' intent and so I've done it as well, though I've tried to be as responsible as possible. If you think I've been unfair, please let me know why. TL;DR and conclusion next, for your convenience...
TL;DR & Conclusion
The speaker first presents the question: "why the bible?" (I've tried to phrase this more rigorously as: "why should anybody consider the bible authoritative on the truth of the Universe?") The speaker then presents his answer, and dissects it to address and support each claim within it. However, his methodology for investigating the question actually rests on the premise that "there is no higher authority than the bible" (in his own words, 12:35-ish). This is a direct answer to the question he's investigating, and therefore any answer which rests on this premise is circular. I demonstrate that important portions of the speaker's argument do seem to rest on this premise and other lines of fallacious reasoning, and so his answer seems to be based on invalid reasoning and should not be trusted. The speaker also fails to present compelling evidence for any of the claims which make up his answer, and often relies on fallacious arguments. His arguments include:
Questionable interpretations of biblical passages: citing passages widely believed to be forgeries as if they are eyewitness testimony, and reading "between the lines" and other forms of motivated interpretation
Unsound interpretations of the history of the bible: preferring a "very early" authorship of New Testament books, against the consensus of modern scholars and without giving any justification; and citing absence of evidence as evidence of absence (argument from silence), in a case where the old adage actually holds true
Errors in analyzing probabilities: preferring less likely explanations over more likely ones, or not applying Occam's Razor where it would help
Straw men, an appeal to consequences, an argument from popularity, affirming the consequent, and other fallacious arguments
Even ignoring the circularity of his methodology, the speaker fails to come close to proving his point. That's not to say he's wrong: the bible could be an authoritative source of information about the Universe, and he's just failed to piece together a valid argument which supports that position. I don't think that's the case (and I've done just a bit to rebut that position), but it's possible. However, after viewing this video and considering all the poor arguments it presents, I still think it's far more likely that christianity and its bible originated entirely due to mundane natural events, maybe akin to what's proposed here. In my own experience, however flawed the arguments presented in this video are, I've seen them used a lot. I hope that some readers might see how to debunk an argument they consider sound, so that those folks can reconsider their position and build stronger arguments in the future.
Video Overview
First off, this video attempts to answer the question "why the bible?" In the context of the video it's pretty clear what he means, but it's vague out of context, so I'll rephrase it more rigorously: "Why should anybody consider the bible authoritative on the truth of the Universe?" For the most part the video is a systematic dissection of the speaker's position.
The "Egregious Flaw" in Methodology
At [12:35] the speaker says the following, to rebut the objection that 'proving the bible using the bible constitutes circular reasoning'. He's trying to get in front of this objection because most of his reasoning is, in fact, an attempt to prove the bible using the bible.
The question is "why I choose to believe the bible". ... The answer to that question for me resides in the bible itself. Now why would I appeal to the bible in this way? Because there is no higher authority than the bible. See, if I were to appeal to another authority, then I would be conceding that there is a higher authority than the bible. So this might be a problem in any other area, and any other field -- however, I'm making the argument that this is the higher authority, and therefore by definition I cannot appeal to another authority.
He asks the question "why do I consider the bible authoritative?", and he investigates it under the premise that "there is no higher authority than the bible". The main premise underlying his entire investigation is a direct answer to the question he's investigating: this is the definition of circular reasoning. But doesn't he make a good point? Wouldn't any other premise corrupt his investigation and bar him from reaching the conclusion that "there is no higher authority than the bible"? No, that's ridiculous, and here's why... For one thing, when the speaker says that his question is different from any other question in any other field, and yet fails to give a sufficient explanation for how it's different -- that's special pleading. Sure, maybe it's impossible to investigate whether any given thing is the ultimate authority. But even if that's the case, it doesn't make circular arguments valid. Including an answer as a premise forces one to interpret all the evidence in a manner consistent with the premise, or to only consider evidence that's consistent with the premise -- which of course forces the investigation to reach the conclusion stated in the premise. That's what a premise is: a foundational assumption which guides all subsequent reasoning. It is not constraining in any way to assume that a thing might not be authoritative, in order to investigate whether or not it is authoritative -- it's the only honest way to investigate any question. The speaker should be more than willing to assume that he might be wrong, and then undertake a fair investigation from there. If he's right and the bible is the ultimate authority on the Universe, then he can only demonstrate that by comparing it to extrabiblical reality. And again, if he's right, everything in the Universe should agree with the bible -- and even the nay-sayers ought to accept that as proof! Why is he unwilling to strike the killing blow to his opponents' arguments, if he's certain that he's right? In the following sections I'll show how this circular reasoning appears to lead the speaker back to his assumed conclusion.
The Speaker's Answer
Presented at 11:05: see very top for quote. I'll address it claim by claim, as done by the speaker...
Claim 1: "... it's a reliable collection of historical documents ..."
At 15:08, the speaker cites the following as evidence in for this claim:
The bible was written on 3 different continents
In 3 different languages
By over 40 authors from multiple walks of life: kings, generals, fishermen, tax collectors, doctors, historians
In 66 volumes, covering hundreds of subjects
Over more than 1500 years
So what? In all these ways it's similar to the Hindu scriptures, but does the speaker give any credence to those? Though he does mention other religious texts [3:57] and even presents them as alternatives to the bible, he doesn't discuss these so-called "strengths" of the Hindu scriptures (or any others) in his lecture: I think either he's unaware of them, or his premise -- that the christian bible is the highest authority -- has caused him to exclude Hindu and other scriptures from his investigation, because analyzing them the same way he analyzed the bible would cast doubt on his assumed conclusion. So, "why the bible?" when the Hindu scriptures and perhaps others are so similar in the ways the speaker cares about? Who knows? He didn't address it, though he should have. But even if there were nothing remotely comparable to the bible in these ways -- why should it matter? Does the number of languages used to compose something somehow affect is authority? For that matter, does composing one work on the corner of 3 continents somehow make it more authoritative than another one composed on the edge of the Indian subcontinent, or in the middle of North America? And why should we care how many people wrote it, or their backgrounds, or how many separate books it's composed of, or how long it took to write? I know what he's getting at: he's trying to say, "how could this many people, over such a long time, across such large swathes of multiple societies, all be wrong in the same way?" Well, that's a fallacy called 'argumentum ad populum', an argument from popularity. Just because a bunch of people believe something, that doesn't make it true, or even likely to be true. All the bible authors were Jews and early christians living in Eastern Mediterranean societies; they were well aware of earlier Jewish oral and written traditions, and likely tried to constrain their work to enhance rather than refute the existing traditions; and the works which weren't popular or didn't agree with existing traditions were not included as canon! The bible's internal consistency (such as it is) doesn't indicate that its contents are true -- it indicates that its authors prioritized internal consistency. The speaker has made an argumentum ad populum, derived from evidence heavily affected by sample selection bias and observer bias. It's a terrible argument, built on terrible evidence. After a bit of thought, anybody who isn't operating under the speaker's circular premise should be able to see the problems with this argument. At 17:40, the speaker seems to claim that the author of Luke was a historian, and that we should trust them at their word when they make claims, because as a historian they researched the claims before publishing them:
Luke was not an eyewitness -- he doesn't claim to be an eyewitness. He's a historian who claims to have traced the information from the eyewitnesses. ... The fact that this man was not an eyewitness, but collected information from individuals who were eyewitnesses [...], and has followed everything closely for some time past, and he wanted to write an orderly account. ... Luke's goal is history and chronology.
Well, Luke probably wasn't a historian in any modern sense of the word, so "history and chronology" in any modern sense probably weren't his real goal. Modern historical research didn't really happen in ancient times, so I'm reluctant to accept that when the author of Luke says he has "followed all things closely for some time past", he actually means he's found enough objective evidence to support the claims he's heard. It's not what he explicitly says, and that was not the common practice at the time, so I find it hard to believe that's what he meant. Also, I don't think Luke 1:1-4 (cited by the speaker) implies that Luke tried at all to investigate the claims he received from others. Instead, this passage can easily mean that the author of Luke was told some stuff by people who claimed to be eyewitnesses, and he's just writing those things down because he believes them based on the story alone. It's not even clear that the author talked to the eyewitnesses -- he could have just talked to the "ministers" in verse 2, who told him they got it from eyewitnesses. The Lucan author could be recounting pure hearsay, 100 retellings deep, as if it's fact -- or he could have gone to the ends of the Earth to verify what he heard. But he doesn't describe his sources or methods, so we don't know, and it's hazardous to guess... Yet the speaker hazards a guess, and tries to pass off that guess as truth. In this case, I think he's forcing his interpretation of the passage to match his assumed conclusion, and to do so he's made a lot of seemingly unwarranted assumptions. Then at 27:47 the speaker says this:
"There have been more than 25,000 archaeological digs related directly to the subject matter of the bible. ... Not one of them has contradicted anything that we have in the bible, and the overwhelming majority of them have confirmed and affirmed the things that we find in the bible."
First off, I don't accept this claim at face value -- I'd like to see some citations, but the speaker doesn't give any. Also, biblical claims like the Genesis flood have been thoroughly debunked (though I think archaeology only played a small part). I bet a lot of archaeology has proved parts of the bible wrong, and Wiki seems to agree with me so I think I'm right to doubt the speaker's claim. But that's irrelevant to the point I'm going to make, so I'll move on... I accept that some places and events in the bible are factual. That's no problem. These were people writing about their society and their time, so it would be ridiculous if nothing in the bible were factual. But the fact that it contains some facts does not imply that all its contents are facts. "My name is Andrew Joslin. I live in the United States. I have black hair. I love cats." Those 4 statements are internally consistent, and 3 of them are true -- so does that mean they all are? No. One of them is false. In just the same manner, some things in the bible can be true, and verified by archaeology and science, while other things in the bible might be false. Just because we verified the Babylonian Captivity with reasonable certainty (Jer 52), that doesn't at all support the claim that a deity had anything to do with it (Jer 52:2-3).
Claim 2: "... written by eyewitnesses ..."
First off, from 19:31 - 20:50, the speaker very strongly implies that he thinks the traditional authors -- the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, John -- are the real authors of the 4 gospels. Over and over he says "Matthew is writing...", "his favorite words are...", "that's why we have his gospel written the way it's written", and other phrases which make it very unlikely that he is personifying the books, and far more likely that he is talking about the authors themselves and believes they are the same as the tradition says. But those authors are merely the church tradition, and this tradition is very much doubted by modern scholars. Additionally, multiple times in the video [13:54, 40:30] he cites 2 Peter as if it's authoritative on what Peter experienced and thought. But modern scholars believe this book to be a forgery and not written by Peter, so I don't know why anybody would consider 2 Peter authoritative on what Peter experienced or thought. If 2 Peter is a forgery then the reference at 51:20 is also problematic, because I suspect that a person who forges a book by Peter may also be so bold as to claim that all scripture is divine in origin, as an attempt to give more credence to their own forgery. All this makes me wonder how much the speaker actually knows about how the bible was written -- and if he does know what modern scholarship says about these things, I wonder whether he might just be throwing out the modern scholarly consensus in favor of his personal, pet beliefs (his premise that the bible is the ultimate authority). Neither is a good option, and either way you cut it this lowers my trust in the speaker. Finally, at 21:20 the speaker claims that John was an eyewitness to... something. He cites John 1:1-3 to support this:
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Okay, the author clearly says that he has both seen and heard certain, unnamed things, which have apparently convinced him of the truth of the message he is about to relay in the rest of his gospel. I grant that the author is saying he "saw and heard" things -- but what? It seems like poetic language, and it doesn't make any distinction between the things the author has personally seen, and what he has heard second- or third- or nth-hand from others. True, the author may have personally experienced some stuff as an eyewitness, but it's unclear from these verses what that stuff was, and how much of the remainder of this gospel is hearsay versus eyewitness testimony. I'm not even sure that the author of John ever claims to have seen Jesus -- perhaps the rest of John proves me wrong, but from this passage it's entirely possible that the things the author experienced firsthand were more akin to what modern parishioners experience in church, than to personally witnessing the things Jesus said and did. People today say they are convinced by their own experiences without ever having seen Jesus in the flesh, so perhaps that's what the author of John is saying in this passage. But even if the gospel of John were eyewitness testimony, that's still not great... Wiki says that "most scholars believe that John reached its final form around AD 90–110", so this would be eyewitness testimony that is, per most scholars, at least 57 years old at the time it was written down. We know for a fact that eyewitness testimony can be very unreliable. This study demonstrated the unreliability of eyewitness testimony for a somewhat mundane event. These are known cases where mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony resulted in a wrongful conviction and death row sentence, and here's a study which indicates that high stress negatively impacts the quality of eyewitness testimony (specifically, it affects the eyewitness's ability to accurately recall the events). If a crucifixion of a man named Jesus or Jeshua did indeed happen, then eyewitnesses to that event might have had some difficulty accurately retelling what they saw, even the first time they retold the story. This could be compounded with the eyewitnesses having heard rumors that he was a prophet, which might render their interpretation of what they saw vulnerable to suggestion. The long time period between the writing of this gospel and the events it describes is also problematic, because during that time it was passed on as an oral tradition, and continued retelling as a shared oral tradition can cause the recalled experiences to degrade in accuracy and become poisoned by later changes. That's how memory recall works: it's subject to errors and changes each time we do it. It happens to everybody, and to individuals as well as groups. It's not necessarily lying: errors can and do accumulate very quickly despite people's best intentions to be truthful. So from the passages presented by the speaker, it's far from a certainty that the author of John was an eyewitness to the events described in the gospel of John. And even if he were, eyewitness testimony is extremely problematic, and frankly I'd consider it more likely that this eyewitness testimony has been corrupted by the factors described above, than the purported supernatural events in the story actually happened as described. Maybe there's more evidence to be found in John, but I find the speaker's use of this passage alone insufficient to support his argument: to call this evidence is wishful thinking or motivated interpretation at best.
Claim 3: "... during the lifetime of other witnesses ..."
At 23:22, in support of this claim the speaker says there's a huge problem "dating the problem late". I don't know what problem he's referring to, because he didn't explain it as far as I could tell. He then cites 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 as support for "... during the lifetime of other witnesses ..." -- however, in those verses Paul explicitly says that he's recounting a story he's been told. I've heard some speculation as to whether this may be some type of early christian creed, in which case it would have been meant as a statement of faith, rather than a discussion of facts in evidence (I find this plausible, but I can't back it up with evidence so I'm treating it as mere speculation). But all speculation aside, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 Paul literally admits that he is not personally attesting to the veracity of what he's saying: he's repeating something he was told. Obviously he is personally attesting his own experience in verse 8, but all the rest is stuff that he was told and cannot attest to personally. So Paul was told that "the 500" and a bunch of other people witnessed the resurrected Jesus, and that most of them are still alive. Therefore, when the speaker later [24:22] says this:
"If you do the math, there are at least 301 eyewitness to the resurrection who are alive when 1 Corinthians was written.
... I don't think the speaker has any justification to reach this conclusion. Even if Paul believed it was true, does that mean we should believe it? Again, Paul need not be lying here, nor do his sources need to be lying, in order for this passage to be a falsehood. Everybody in the chain from the eyewitness(es) to Paul could be doing their best to report the events accurately, and they could still have gotten it wrong. Not knowing how long the chain from the eyewitness(es) to Paul actually was, again I'd say it's far less likely that the events described in the story are true, than that the message Paul delivers here was corrupted by false memories and erroneous retellings -- or even outright lies or exaggeration*** -- and therefore false. (***We don't know the pedigree of the story before it reached Paul, so we can't say that every middle-man retelling of it was honest. Even if you would die defending Paul's honesty, that still says nothing for all the people in the chain that passed this information to him.) The speaker uses these verses again at 29:06, where he says this:
But what we find here in this text is, again, over 301 eyewitnesses to the resurrection who were still alive when 1 Corinthians was written. Why is this important? This is important because that means that the gospel message, that the message of the bible, is falsifiable. ... When you're testing the veracity of a claim, if somebody's making a claim and that claim can't be falsified, that means you can't test the claim. Not a very strong claim, if you can't test the claim -- that means I just gotta trust you, because there's nothing I can do to falsify your claim, I just gotta trust you. This claim is falsifiable. When Paul wrote it, it was a falsifiable claim, and yet it was never falsified. That's a piece of evidence that has to be weighed.
First off, even if the claim was falsifiable at the time it was made, it's not falsifiable now, and now is when we are being asked to believe the claim. People of Paul's time may have been able to interrogate these supposed eyewitnesses, but we can't -- and we can't even be sure they ever existed -- so their testimony can't falsify Paul's account for us. It's unfortunate that the evidence we need to falsify Paul's claims may be lost to time -- but that doesn't mean we should believe what he says, and as far as we can tell it actually renders his claims unfalsifiable to us. Per the speaker's own logic, this is a good reason to doubt what Paul says. Second, as explained above, I don't accept that there were "over 301 eyewitnesses to the resurrection" still alive in time to read 1 Corinthians. Even if there were living eyewitnesses at that time, the following problems must be overcome before claiming this as evidence:
Maybe 1 Corinthians wasn't published anywhere these eyewitnesses could have seen it, in time for them to falsify it. It's a letter to the church of Corinth (far from Judea, where we'd expect most eyewitnesses to remain), written in a language foreign to them (Greek), at a time when few people could read
Maybe eyewitnesses saw it and didn't falsify it because it matched their (incorrect) understanding of what happened. It is possible for everybody to be wrong in roughly the same ways, that's how witness collusion and legends work
Maybe eyewitnesses saw it and did falsify it -- but one of the following happened:
They chose to leave the area instead of risking voicing their objections to a popular belief
Their objections were overshadowed by the louder and more numerous voices which ended up informing the books of the bible
They voiced their objections verbally and never wrote them down
Their written objections were lost over the centuries (including the purposeful destruction of "heretical" texts by the church, rulers, and individuals)
We just haven't found the document yet
All of the above are perfectly reasonable explanations for why we don't have a specific, ancient document in our hands. Also, for what it's worth, I'd like to mention that here the speaker is literally using absence of evidence as evidence of absence: this is an argument from silence, and it's fallacious here because it affirms the consequent by completely ignoring other very plausible explanations. Arguments from silence are perfectly fine when the absence of the thing necessarily implies the falsehood of the claim: for example, the claim "I have a green horn sticking out of my forehead" is falsified by the absence of a green horn sticking out of my forehead. Arguments from silence also be okay evidence (though not very conclusive) when there are good reasons to believe that if the claim were true we should likely have the evidence we lack. But here it is a no-no because what we know about the production, preservation, etc., of ancient documents gives us the most likely explanation for why we don't have the evidence. So yeah, that's a horribly fallacious argument... And this one's obvious enough, and the speaker seems intelligent enough, that I'm going to just say it: of all the arguments the speaker makes, this is the one that most makes me suspect dishonesty. Maybe he's chosen to present this paper tiger in place of a good argument because he knows he has nothing better. It makes me suspect he's consciously chosen not to investigate his question, but instead seeks to prove his foregone conclusion by any means necessary. Not that he's outright lying -- I think he really does believe his foregone conclusion. But I think he hasn't set out to honestly investigate it, and this awful argument is, in my opinion, a direct result of that flaw in his methodology. At 30:44 the speaker states that the NT was written "very early", which I guess is supposed to support the "by eyewitnesses, in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses" prong of his answer. Yet he gives no evidence for this "very early" claim. I think these are the points where he tries to support the argument, but both seem to be non sequiturs (fallacies):
At 31:30 the speaker argues against a straw man of the popular "telephone game" argument
It's a straw man because the telephone game argument is a description of how both transcription and translation errors accumulate in hand-copied texts over time -- however, the speaker presents it as if everybody who ever translated the bible had the same source material to translate or transcribe from. That's simply not true. It's been proven that differences exist in the earliest known copies of every book of the bible, and these differences grew over time. Medieval scribes didn't have the originals to copy or translate from: they were working from copies of copies of copies, etc. Indeed, Bart Ehrman says that the earliest scribes tended to make more errors than the later ones.
It's a non sequitur, because it was brought up in the context of trying to prove that the NT was authored "very early", and it actually has nothing to do with that, so it's probably a relevance fallacy of some type. The "telephone game" argument explains how copies of copies become less and less true to the originals. It does not comment on the date of the originals, yet that's what the speaker is trying to prove here.
At 34:54 the speaker claims that we have over 6000 manuscripts or fragments of the NT, which is more than we have for other ancient texts of similar age
This is a non sequitur for a number of reasons, at least one of them a relevance fallacy. First, the books cited by the speaker are generally quite a bit older than the books of the NT -- by many hundreds of years, in some cases. Second, the number of fragments has nothing to do with when the books were written, which is the point the speaker is trying to prove.
I feel that these two arguments actually distract the audience rather than supporting the speaker's claim. I don't know whether this was his intent, or a mistake, or I'm just being dumb -- mainly because I have no idea how he thinks these points support his claim. At the very least they distracted me, and after re-watching them multiple times I still couldn't make any better sense of these arguments than as non sequiturs based on straw men. If you think he's supported his "very early" NT authorship claim at all with these points, then please let me know how. But regardless of my poor understanding of this section of the video, or the speaker's lack of evidence, or whatever happened here, I don't think it even matters. Even if the NT books were written "very early", it would not mean that the lack of contemporaneous objections to the NT's claims constitutes evidence in favor of the NT's claims. Again, arguments from silence are not appropriate here, and I really do suspect that the speaker is being intellectually dishonest here, as discussed toward the beginning of this section.
Claim 4: "They report supernatural events that took place ..."
At 40:30 the speaker cites 2 Peter in support of this claim. Aside from the problems I already mentioned with 2 Peter, and how (in my opinion) the speaker's usage of that book diminishes his credibility -- Why would it matter that the authors claim that supernatural events happened? Should we just... believe them? It's one thing to say "I saw X". It's another entirely to say "I saw X, and I know that Y caused it". The first is a statement of one's own experience, whereas the second is an experience plus an inference. Why should we believe that these peoples' inferences about the supernatural are reliable, and that the reported events (assuming they actually occurred) were actually supernatural? Note that my objection isn't based on demeaning ancient peoples. I don't think this problem really gets any easier with more knowledge. Inferences about the supernatural should always be treated as speculation, until and unless we find some way to objectively investigate the supernatural. We don't have a way to do that now, so we should not believe the claims (yet). More support for this claim is given at 41:33, but it suffers from the same problem. The speaker should be treating these claims as what they are -- claims, which need to be substantiated before anybody should believe them. He's not doing that. I don't know if he just doesn't suspect that they could be wrong, or if he's turning a blind eye to a problem he's aware of. Either way, it's just very unsatisfying, and consciously or not I wonder whether his circular premise "there is no higher authority than the bible" has crept into this part of his analysis, too.
Claim 5: "... in fulfillment of specific prophesies ..."
The speaker supports this argument with Isaiah 53 at 43:02, and with Psalm 22 at 45:44. I read Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12, and to me it's not that impressive. It's not a specific prophesy, because it doesn't tell when the thing will happens, and many people (and even whole nations) of that area and timeframe probably fit that description. Jesus is just the guy that got super popular (though he was not the only one). I agree that Psalm 22 seems to describe somebody being crucified. Or it could be another method of torture that I don't know of, but let's just assume it's crucifixion for the sake of argument. However, it shares the same problems as Isaiah 53: it doesn't give any specifics, so it could be talking about literally anybody from that time and place who was crucified. Jesus quoting the first line while on the cross could easily have been a detail made up by the gospel authors (or the people who participated in the oral tradition), as a way to heighten the image of Jesus as the messiah. They wanted to tell a compelling story, and that would be a great way to make it more compelling to a Jewish audience. Anyway, the speaker says that at the time of writing Psalm 22, crucifixion had not yet been invented -- but he didn't cite any sources so I don't know if he's right or wrong. I looked it up quickly, and Wiki says "The psalms making up the first two-thirds of the psalter are predominantly pre-exilic and the last third predominantly post-exilic", I think referring to the Babylonian Exile from 586-539 BCE. Since I can't read Wiki's reference I don't know if Psalm 22 is in that pre-exile group, but I'd guess so, and that's the most generous assumption I can make so let's work with that. That gives us an early 6th Century BCE date as the latest possible date for Psalm 22 being written down... ... And here's a reference saying the Persians were crucifying people "systematically" in the 6th Century BCE, and that they probably got the idea from the Assyrians and Babylonians, so those countries may have been doing it earlier than that. So contrary to the speaker's bald assertion, there's some plausible overlap (as far as I can tell) between when Psalm 22 was first written down, and when crucifixions were performed in the region. Yes, I'm working off of the manuscript date rather than the actual date it was composed, but I think that's fine: Psalm 22 began as an oral tradition, and perhaps the crucifixion details were added into it before it was written down, once people became aware of the practice. I think that's far more likely than Psalm 22 being a prophesy, and since we can't reconstruct the original oral tradition we'll just have to wonder. Also, prophesy in general has a few big problems:
People who know of the prophesy can work to fulfill it
People retelling a story can alter the details of the story to make it seem like the prophesy was fulfilled
It's sometimes not clear whether something is a prophesy at all, or what is being prophesied
Both "fulfilled prophesies" cited by the speaker suffer from all these problems. The authors of the New Testament obviously knew the OT books well, and were motivated to make Jesus seem like the Hebrew messiah -- that's why they wrote the gospels in the first place. That would give them a strong incentive to either make up parts of the gospel stories wholesale to better match the prophesies, or to selectively interpret the things they heard or experienced in a way that makes the events fit the prophesy better. And even if there wasn't much embellishment, couldn't it be that Jesus and the apostles actively worked to fulfill as much of those "prophesies" as possible? A great quote from Matt Dillahunty: "If I go to a restaurant and order a steak medium rare, and the server gives me exactly that, is he fulfilling prophesy?" In my opinion, nope, he's merely following instructions, just like Jesus and the apostles may have merely been following a script. I understand that some people might still call this "fulfilling prophesy", but given the other 2 problems I think this idea of "fulfilled prophesies" is still on super thin ice. Finally, Isaiah 53 is often interpreted by Jews as a prophesy for the nation of Israel, not the messiah. And I think they believe Psalm 22 is just a poem or song, not a prophesy. You can claim they're prophesies, but it's not clear that they were intended to be, or what exactly they predict, so when they're "fulfilled" (especially as questionably as in this case) I'm not sure how much that really means. This isn't a great case for the "... in fulfillment of specific prophesies ..." claim. It looks like wishful thinking to me, again perhaps motivated by the speaker's premise that the bible is the ultimate authority. Or maybe I'm wrong and somebody here can do a better job supporting this position than the speaker did.
Claim 6: "... and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin."
At 51:20, the speaker cites 2 Peter 1 to support the claim that the bible authors claimed their writings are divine in origin. I've already noted my objections to using 2 Peter (a likely forgery) as evidence for anything that Peter the apostle experienced or thought -- But just as with claims for supernatural events, even if 2 Peter is not a forgery, why would it matter that the authors claim the bible is divine in origin? As discussed above I think it's very unlikely that Psalm 22 or Isaiah 52/53 are fulfilled prophesies, so now where are we? We're left without any supporting evidence for the claim. They said it, so should we just believe it? As with claim 4, this is just very unsatisfying, and I wonder whether the speaker's circular premise had something to do with it.
Final Bones to Pick
I wish I could address his points at 52:12 and 53:15, even though they're not directly related to the rest of the talk -- but I'm out of space. The first is an appeal to consequences built on an equivocation fallacy, and in the second he describes the questions one must ask in any historical investigation -- questions which he addressed poorly or not at all in this video. These two attempts to twist logic into a shape that supports his point -- well, they disgust me.
I've taught college-level investments classes, and I think a lot of you people would benefit from some of what we talk about in there. It's important for you to understand what exactly risk is, in the finance sense. Watch this video and think about how you would react in this scenario. The expected value (average value of all possible outcomes) of the case is $500,000.50. I have a feeling that if you sold that case on the market you'd find a market price below that; the difference between the expected value and the market price (assuming a fully liquid market) is the risk premium A central concept of finance and investments is this: the more risk you take, the more return you get. The safest thing you can do is convert your holdings to cash and stick it in your wallet, but you would get zero return (and lose purchasing power due to inflation over time). Technically, sticking money in a savings account is riskier, though interest rates on savings deposits is essentially zero these days and deposit insurance removes most of that risk. Any market play that gets you massive returns is putting a bunch of capital at risk (think about that WSB guy who put $700,000 into GME options; imagine what happens to the guy if the price doesn’t move). The reason the most common investment advice is to fire everything into low-cost index funds is because it’s low risk and low cost (active management of mutual funds rarely justifies the extra cost, but that’s a different discussion entirely). If you’re undertaking extra risk, you theoretically should be getting extra return to justify that risk. Think about a lottery ticket. If the jackpot is high enough, the expected value (the averaged return you get from all possible outcomes) of a lottery ticket is higher than the price you pay for it. However, given the limited set of outcomes that a lottery ticket gives you and the likelihood of the worst case scenario (you lose your entire investment), the risk is too high for most people to seriously invest in (and if you do “seriously” invest in the Powerball, you’re probably not having a good time). Another important consideration is liquidity. If you're selling a Stradivarius violin, you're going to have to spend a lot of time searching for a buyer who will pay full price OR you’ll have to sell it for less than it’s worth. In the market, this tends to be reflected in the bid/ask spread. We like to think about the market as a monolith, but in reality it’s just an aggregation of all the investors out there. That means liquidity isn’t a problem when it comes to most stocks on the NYSE and NASDAQ (eg. At the time of this writing the bid/ask spread on AAPL was $.01 for a price of $136.79), but when you head to OTC territory you might start seeing bid/ask spreads that can be up to 10% of the price for some of those real “no man’s land” stocks. That means that the price you pay (the ask price) and the price you can sell at (the bid price) can be wildly different. That also means that any “at current market price” order you send (especially in pre-market) may be filled at a price different than the price you think it’s going to be filled at. A third concept to think about is market efficiency. The central idea of market efficiency is that the price reflects all available information (different forms of efficiency consider private/public/historical info). A truly efficient market will react instantaneously and accurately to any new information that is created/released, eg. A firm releases earnings and beats expectations, therefore the price jumps up. If market efficiency is a product of investors discovering information and acting on it, that means your best opportunities are in places that are less visible to the aggregate investing public. That’s where pennystocks comes in. Do a search on most of the tickers listed here, and you’ll see a bunch of summary stock profiles and not much else. Do a search for any S&P 500 company and you’ll find an incredible amount of news, branding, and other information. If you’re looking for “good” penny stocks to buy up, you’re looking for an information advantage over the “average” investor. However, there is the hazard (that’s been around long before the internet) of bad or fake information. Remember that the market is an aggregate of all the investors out there, and those investors are subject to psychological biases, differences in personal attitude, and individual risk tolerance. That’s why you see some interesting reactions to events: remember when TSLA stock dropped because Elon Musk was smoking marijuana? There’s nothing about the CEO smoking marijuana that should change the fundamental value of the company, but investors collectively seemed to think this was a negative for the long term prospects of TSLA. A few common investor biases: • Losses are treated as more impactful than a gain. Think about if you buy into a stock and it immediately drops $.10. Compare this to how you react if you buy in and it immediately jumps $.10; the average investor is going to react more strongly to the former. • We all hate having made a “loser” trade. The effect is usually that investors hold on too long to a poorly performing stock in hopes that it will rebound. • Investors tend to anchor their perception of a stock’s performance based on their entry price. A $.10 drop in price hits worse if it takes you below your purchase price • Playing with “house money” (ie. your gains) is treated differently than your initial principal. In practice, this means that an investor that has done well recently is more risk-tolerant (and not always in a good way) • Investors are susceptible to "herding" behavior, where they follow what someone else is doing not because they know what that someone else is doing is good, but because they think that someone else knows something they don't. Stock prices are subject to the principles of supply and demand, ie. increased demand will raise the price, and people looking to sell more than buy will lower the price. This is especially important when it comes to momentum (the principle that an increasing stock price will continue to increase and a falling price will continue to fall). This is why you see overreactions to news items and a subsequent reversal; a news item creates a buying/selling frenzy that pushes the price until cooler heads walk in and say “maybe this price is wrong”. This is where swing traders try to profit: among other things, they look for stocks that have a drop that is unjustified in material info or in the degree of drop, buy up at “downward momentum” prices and sell after the reversal. Day traders also try to benefit by buying stocks with positive momentum and selling the second that momentum reverses. So what does this mean for us at pennystocks? A few considerations that are unique for penny stocks: 1) I already mentioned it, but liquidity is a big consideration: Bid/ask spreads may be larger than normal and many brokers either don’t let you trade below $.01 or make you pay a fee to do so. This also means that options covering penny stocks are either sparse or nonexistent. 2) Information coverage: information can be hard to find, and sifting through good and bad info can be a chore 3) Low market participation: The smaller number of traders means that it takes fewer people to influence the price in a material way. This is what makes penny stocks susceptible to pump and dump schemes: A bad actor just needs to convince a (relatively) small number to buy in to a stock to bump up the price, then the dump can crater the price leaving a bunch of bag holders in their wake. This also means that the price is subject to more psychological bias on the part of investors. 4) There are a lot of biotech firms in penny-stock land. The fortunes of these companies rest entirely on the outcomes of drug trials and/or acquisition by larger firms, which means you can see massive swings in price. This scene from The Wolf of Wall Street should be required viewing for anyone wanting to jump headfirst into penny stocks. The modernization of trading means that commissions are drastically reduced, but the lessons here still apply. I’m not saying “don’t invest” because there are some mighty gains to be had if you do it right. I’m saying “be cautious” and certainly don’t trade on emotion. Understand that what we’re doing here is speculation, and that many stocks with penny prices are trading at penny prices for a reason. Increased volatility in the penny stocks market is going to make you feel a lot of things, but it’s important to compartmentalize this emotion and trade logically. The moment you start treating it, consciously or unconsciously, like a casino, you’ll get casino-like returns (spoiler alert, the house always wins in the end) A few closing thoughts: • Like another recently popular post here said, don’t be afraid to walk away for a few days to cool off. • FOMO is the gains killer; there will always be a New Moon in terms of penny stocks. • Pay attention to the sector you’re buying in and understand how that might influence the volatility of the stock’s price. Be especially wary of anyone trying to sell you on a “sure thing” biotech firm. • MLFB to the moon! (Just kidding, don't rely on me to tell you what to buy) (EDIT: By Request 🚀🚀🚀) And finally • Do your own research! There are some legitimate DD threads on here, but you should do your own research and make sure they’re legit. Some threads here sound a lot like Jordan Belfort in the video above. Further reading: Wikipedia’s very long list of cognitive biases Efficient markets hypothesis Behavioral finance
r/SpaceX Türksat 5A Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread
Welcome to the SpaceX Türksat 5A Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!
Hi, I'm u/Shahar603, your host for the first SpaceX launch of 2021: Türksat 5A. SpaceX will launch the first of two next generation satellites on contract for Türksat. Türksat 5A is a Ku-band broadcast satellite built by Airbus Defense and Space and based on the Electric Orbit Raising version of the Eurostar E3000 platform. This spacecraft will be delivered into a transfer orbit and will then raise itself to its operational 31° East geostationary orbit to serve Turkey, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and South Africa. The booster for this mission will be recovered downrange.
Liftoff currently scheduled for
January 8, 02:15 UTC (Jan 7 9:15 p.m. local) 4 hour window
🥳 Launch threads are party threads, we relax the rules here. However, we remove low effort comments in other threads! 🔄 Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks! 💬 Please leave a comment if you discover any mistakes, or have any information. ✉️ Please send links in a private message; if you send them via a comment, there is a large chance we will miss them! ✅ Apply to host launch threads! Drop us (or u/hitura-nobad ) a modmail if you are interested. I need a launch off.
SpaceX will launch an undisclosed payload into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office aboard a Falcon 9. This launch was only recently confirmed by the NRO, and little is known about the mission except that the booster will return to land at Cape Canaveral.
Official mission overview
SpaceX is now targeting Saturday, December 19 for launch of the NROL-108 mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Saturday’s three-hour launch window opens at 9:00 a.m. EST, or 14:00 UTC, and closes at 12:00 p.m. EST, or 17:00 UTC. Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously supported launch of SpaceX’s 19th and 20th cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station, a Starlink mission, and the SAOCOM 1B mission. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9’s first stage on Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. ->Expected event timeline Source: SpaceX
This concludes our coverage too here at SpaceX. I was u/Nsooo, thank you for joining, have a nice day!
Confirmation from the GNC engineer that payload is on good orbit.
T+00:08:15
Falcon 9 has landed!
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Entry burn.
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Fairing deployment.
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Stage 1 boostback burn.
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Main engine cutoff (MECO). Stage separation. Second stage ignition.
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Max-Q, maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle.
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Nominal propulsion and trajectory.
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Liftoff! Falcon 9 has cleared the tower.
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Falcon 9 is in startup.
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TE is in 88.9 degrees.
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Engine chill.
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In case we get any info about the mission after the webcast ended, we will update the thread.
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Webcast will conclude after S1 landing, and no S2 views per customer request.
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Countdown proceeds smooth, SpaceX teams tracking no issues.
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♫♫ SpaceX FM has started ♫♫
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RP-1 and LOX loading has begun.
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LD is GO for propellant loading.
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SpaceX is GO for launch.
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Hi! Im u/Nsooo and I am going to host today's launch attempt of NROL-108 mission.
Payload's destination orbit
Which orbit could this secret satellite be potentially launching to? Based on hazard zones, it is likely that NROL-108 will be launching into an inclined orbit somewhere in the range of 52°. The orbital altitude is expected to be less than 1000 km, but it could potentially end up in a high elliptical orbit or something else too, as we have no idea what this payload will be doing.
Falcon 9 first stage's assigned place of landing
Location 📍
Downrange distance 📏
Coordinates 🌐
Sunrise 🌅
Sunset 🌇
Time Zone ⌚
LZ-1, CCSFS 🌍
~11 km
28 N 80 W
07:09
17:30
UTC-5
Lot of facts
☑️ This will be the 26th SpaceX launch this year. ☑️ This will be the 103rd Falcon 9 launch. ☑️ This will be the 5th journey to space of the Falcon 9 first stage B1058. ☑️ This will be the 1st national security payload flying on a reused booster.
🥳 Launch threads are party threads, we relax the rules here. However, we remove low effort comments in other threads! 🔄 Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks! 💬 Please leave a comment if you discover any mistakes, or have any information. ✉️ Please send links in a private message; if you send them via a comment, there is a large chance we will miss them! ✅ Apply to host launch threads! Drop us (or u/hitura-nobad) a modmail if you are interested. I need a launch off.
Nuclear power is often the subject of disinformation, spreading of FUD, and dismissed. This post addresses many of these points. Questions are welcome but civility required.
This post is about nuclear power. It is long. If you want to debate, that is welcome but please read this post first. It's likely I will have addressed your concern in it. There will be no tl;dr. I've seen a fair few posts on here, and other "green" sites doing their best to discredit and undermine the science of nuclear power in lieu of glorified pipe dreams. That the world can go 100% "renewable" (with plenty of caveats tacked on the end of course, half of them unfeasible). There are 4 main "arguments" against nuclear power. Danger, waste + storage, cost, and fuel availability. This post is to hopefully illustrate why all are red herrings designed to sew FUD and in actual fact keep us tied to a hydrocarbon-based grid.
Danger
This is a three-prong argument. The first usually invokes events such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, TMI, and other lesser incidents; the second invokes radiation safety; and the third mentions terrorism. Starting with nuclear events, of these three I mentioned---only one is actually at all relevant and that's TMI. But mentioning it in terms of safety is the equivalent of comparing a ford model-T to a modern family saloon. Additionally, it led to the raft of safety measures we now have thus preventing it from ever happening again. Chernobyl is a total red herring. While it wasn't a good event, it's pretty much the only event in nuclear power history that has led to any "significant" casualties, with the official death toll being 60 and numbers in the region of 6-20k cited from extended exposure. Whilst high for a single event, this makes up the vast majority of all nuclear incidents and in terms of death/TWh produced, still results in nuclear being the safest of all power sources. Plus, the RMBK reactor used on site wasn't designed for producing power, but for plutonium for nuclear bombs. As such, it was made deliberately unsafe so they could pop it open quickly to get the Pu out. It was this deliberate design choice that caused the failure. Obviously, this is not present in power-based reactors. It's also likely that the deaths are overestimated in this event due to the employment of the linear no-threshold model, which has repeatedly been shown to be flawed, and a hormetic model should instead be employed. This even gets ramped up to 11 in some countries that have radiation "spas" where you sit in a radon-filled basement in a bath-robe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24298226/ And Fukushima? Yes it wasn't ideal, but literally nothing has come of it. No increased cancers. No deaths. No change in the background radiation level. Those maps bandied about showing the "flow into the ocean"? Garbage designed to spread FUD. The site fundamentally failed because a tsunami was higher than the seawall and drowned the diesel generators that were below sea-level. If the reactor hadn't shut down, it's likely it wouldn't have failed at all. Fukushima is less anti-nuclear and more anti-diesel generator. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fukushima-emergency/ https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx The clean-up will cost money yes, but see the section later about why that's actually a good thing. Other events such as the Windscale fire were also caused by plutonium production. Now lets compare those deaths with another singular event: a damn bursting in China. 230k dead. More than 10x all the nuclear incidents ever yet I don't hear many here complaining about hydro-power. https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-that-china-kept-secret-for-years/91699/ In fact, comparing all the methods of power generation as deaths/terawatt-hour produced, nuclear is safest by about an order of magnitude (in other words, 10x more power can be produced for each person killed by that method of generation). How many people do you want to die to keep your lights on? https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html The second of these prongs is fear of radiation. While I briefly touched on it when discussing Chernobyl, the fear runs much deeper. The main problem here is lack of scientific education, and an overzealous media. The thing about radiation is we are very good at detecting it, even at very low levels, and some units need to use very large numbers, such as atomic decays/second (Bq). Thing is, there are a lot of atoms in a small volume of anything. Avogadro's constant tells us that there are 6.022x1023 atoms in one mole of the substance. And one mole is the atomic number of the element in grams. So 92g of Uranium has 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms (approx). And with the density of U being ~19.1g/cm3, that's 5 cubic centimetres of uranium. Or a double shot in a bar. This sort of numbering has led to the tongue in cheek unit "banana equivalent dose". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose Yes, that is the radiation dose you will get from eating a banana. In continuation, people will talk about waste being so hazardous, but without really understanding the numbers. So what are those numbers? Well, the granite worktop in your kitchen would be classed as nuclear waste under current legislation, thanks to radon in it. Terrorism is another danger often cited. And this may even be a valid one, if there had ever been a terrorist attack on any nuclear plant across the world in the history of the human race. They're also designed to withstand a direct impact from a train or a 747, so a 9/11 attack isn't a concern. On a related vein, many conflate nuclear power with nuclear weaponry. These two implementations are about as different as can be, with the only commonality is that they both use a radioactive source. It would be like decrying a coal plant because C4 explodes as both are carbon based. Nuclear weaponry and nuclear power are fundamentally different technologies and cannot be conflated.
Waste/Storage
People don't think of granite worktops or gloves or aprons being "nuclear waste" though, they think of leaking soft steel barrels full of green liquid seeping out into waterways and turning us all into three-armed monstrosities with cancers out the wazoo. Except, none of that is true. Including the fact it's waste at all. So from now on I will call them used fuel rods, as that is what they are, The way fuel rods are disposed of is in a water bath for heat control of any short-lived elements to decay away, and then they are stored in "dry cask storage", or large concrete barrels on the reactor site. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage "But these barrels are dangerous right? You will die if you get near them?" Well, yes. But only because the armed guards on site will shoot you as you run towards them. If you had proper clearance, you could sit and have lunch leaning up against one with negligible radiation dose. "But these drums are piling up with nowhere to store them, It's a catastrophe". Well... also no. As you may remember the numbers from the previous section, volumes are small. If you were to take the entire US stockpile of used fuel rods and group them together, you'd have a mass of 70k metric tonnes. Sounds a lot right? But remember the density of uranium, that gives a volume of about 3665 m3. For comparison, single football stadium (I've pulled up Samara Arena in Russia for convenience), it has a volume of 503,480 m3. So the entire volume of used nuclear fuel in the US wouldn't even fill a football stadium, and in fact wouldn't even come close. I'd say we've got room to breathe there. "But it lives for billions of years right and is super radioactive right?" Well, again, not quite. Think of anything, the hotter it burns, the shorter it lives. Same with nuclear fuel. The high-activity nuclides in the used fuel rods decay in days-weeks. What's left is inert filler with fresh uranium mixed through. In fact, after it's removed from the reactor, it's still about 95% fresh uranium. Which has a half life of billions of years, but consequently is also low activity. You could hold reactor rods in your hand and be fine. And in fact this is how they are installed into a reactor in the first place. Notice no lead aprons, no serious PPE. Just gloves and goggles. Fuel Rod Assembly: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy And yet in the US that's buried underground. Why? Blame President Carter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing In fact, that is the only main problem with storage of used fuel rods. The US gets a disproportionate amount of air-time across the world, and it also cannot reprocess its used fuel. It'd be like a car in which most of the petrol you put in trickled out the exhaust again. You'd either improve the design, or put it through again. And that's the purpose of either recycling the fuel rods, or using what is known as a breeder reactor. And in fact these breeder reactors are grid-proven and it's literally just lack of political will preventing them being rolled out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor If the US was the recycle all the fuel it had in storage, it wouldn't need to mine any more for the next century or so. Yes, century.
Fuel Availability
"But it'll all run out eventually? In fact, a lot of estimates put it at only ~200 years availability? Why bother when the sun and wind are essentially limitless?" Again, not quite. This figure comes from single-pass fuel use then storage. As I've just shown, that's incredibly inefficient and frankly a stupid way to handle it. In fact, if you combine breeder reactors, and fuel reprocessing, we have enough fissile fuel to keep our reactors happy for the next few hundred thousand years. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
Cost
"But it's really expensive to build nuclear plants and takes too long." It is expensive to build the nuclear plants yes, but the time taken to build them is largely based in legislation which itself is based in flawed science (as I mentioned earlier with the LNT statements). But when investigate it as a levelised cost of energy (LCOE), nuclear is pretty much front of the queue. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx Plus, I'm going to take a little detour out of science here and start talking about economics. Things being expensive for a government is not the same as things being expensive for a person/business. The fundamental difference is that the latter is a user of currency, whilst the former is the issuer of currency. A common way of thinking is the out-dated gold standard, in which currency is finite and tied to gold/tax receipts/stocks/bonds. This, and consequential statements such as "we are generating debt our children must pay" hasn't been true since 1971. The government, being able to issue its own currency can never go bankrupt as it can always pay its debts. This also does not lead to inflation as it used to. If this has you scratching your head in disbelief, that's understandable. I suggest the book "The Deficit Myth" by Prof. Stephanie Kelton. Additionally, she does a really good seminar on it here and is definitely worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1SMjeuyF-Y So fundamentally, if the government wish to build nuclear, they have both means and motive to do so, with no detriment to the economy (unless you count people in work being a detriment). A few conspicuous sites are also mentioned in nuclear costs. These are typically Hanford in the US, and Sellafield in the UK. Both of these sites are scheduled to take decades to clean up, and cost hundreds of billions of $/£ to do so. This sounds ominous, but it isn't. Both of these sites were built in the 40s/50s as research sites and plutonium production facilities. Neither of these are actually relevant to modern power production and are simply a legacy from a time we didn't understand nuclear materials. When discussing US decommissioning costs, Hanford makes up 80% of this budget in the US, and Sellafield making up 75% in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cost-taxpayers-clean-nuclear-waste-jumps-100-billion-year-n963586 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy
Discussion
So why am I so bothered? Why bother making this post at all? I am a scientist and it bothers me to see disinformation and anti-science get spread so freely. There is also an extremely bad-faith argument from a lot of people in this regard, as they do not discuss the waste generated in the production of renewables, nor the full LCOE and instead cherry pick good days and state it as an average. This disingenuity has led to some of the most expensive power in the US for Californians, and Germany needing to fire its coal stations back up as well as import power from nuclear powered France. Furthermore, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) performed an interesting study, in which it collates the opinions of those educated in science versus the general public. It can be seen that when formally trained in science, the approval rating nuclear is much higher. Surely we want our path to saving the planet rooted in science instead of hubris? https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/07/23/an-elaboration-of-aaas-scientists-views/ Also as I showed with the burst-dam, there are statements made about nuclear that are not made about renewables. So if I repeat the process, the waste produced for solar and wind is not discussed often enough. Both wind and solar produce huge volumes of toxic and radioactive waste. But as they are not as similarly constrained as the nuclear industry, this is both unaccounted, and just drained to the environment. https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste-problem/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/ https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks Neither can the panels or blades be recycled so they go to landfill, to leech out toxic elements into the soil and groundwater. https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/10/lingering-legacy-millions-of-toxic-solar-panels-that-cant-be-recycled-destined-for-landfills/ https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills And if nuclear fuel availability is mentioned, then so should availability of the minerals required to produce renewables. Many of the minerals used have available supplies of less than a year, and as is in the name, they are rare to begin with. https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/10/chinas-monopoly-on-rare-earth-elements-and-why-we-should-care/ And to address a few points unique to renewables, the first is that by their method of operation, they harness a diffuse source. As such, they need to be big. Really big. Hundreds to thousands of hectares big. To produce an amount of power that could be generated by a reactor a fraction of the size. Now some people may find vast fields of solar panels or turbines beautiful, but I'd rather see vast woodlands, prairies, swamplands. I'd rather see our land returned to nature to actually capture some of the carbon that's ready to drive our extinction. It would also have the additional benefit that it would actually give back to the environment, and allow the bugs, birds, reptiles, critters, grazers, and hunters to thrive again. They don't thrive under windmills or solar panels. https://www.strata.org/footprints/ https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18270734.14m-trees-cut-scotland-make-way-wind-farms/ https://theconversation.com/wind-farms-built-on-carbon-rich-peat-bogs-lose-their-ability-to-fight-climate-change-143551 "But it's cheap!" Exactly, and that's why renewables still have a place as is shown by the "energy pyramid" attached. Every rooftop should be lined with solar panels. Domestic windmills should be used to feed back into the grid. The land is already used, so make the most of it. But don't destroy nature to build renewables, as this is often exactly what happens. The Energy Pyramid [Eric G. Meyer, Generation Atomic] There are further issues faced by renewables but not faced by nuclear. These are called "capacity factor" and "insertion factor", and neither permit for exponential power demands that we as a race face. The former is a simple one, wind doesn't blow all the time. Sun doesn't shine all the time. There needs to be a backup, that right now is natural gas. Super batteries will not fix this issue, and are actually more likely to render renewables obsolete as our demands will grow with our capacity. The second, insertion factor, relates to how once the "good spots" are taken, we must use less good spots, and as such need larger installations to make up for the shortfall in production. With nuclear, both of these do not apply. But why nuclear at all? Well, fundamentally, there is just so much uranium, and it is so energy dense, that it is silly to not use it. But when I talk about energy density compared to other fuels, it is hard to envision, so this wonderful presentation gives us more of a clue. https://youtu.be/tpUtrDvya1w So what does that energy density look like? Well, in a nuclear fuel assembly (shown earlier), there are hundreds of fuel pellets such as shown below. Each single one of those pellets are 7g of the ceramic uranium oxide, and can power a typical household for ~4 months. Fuel pellets in a fuel rod [nuclear.duke-energy.com] So why would you not want to use the cleanest, safest, arguably cheapest power source on earth?
Conclusion
This post hopefully illustrates some of the common and unfortunately pervasive myths around nuclear power. And if for a moment we assume the problems are all real and genuine, we have less than 10 years to fix our planet before it starts trying, and likely succeeding, to kill us. This is not the time to be advocating anti-science or wanting to look like you care whilst doing nothing. If the waste issue was true, that gives us hundreds to thousands of years to find a problem. If the terrorism issue was true, we'd have high employment in the military to keep the sites safe. If the fuel availability issue was true, we could use it until we perfect fusion. But fundamentally, if you are about to be hit by an out-of-control bus, you do not worry about the grazed knee you get by jumping out the way. Edit 1: S/P Edit 2: Included the AAAS survey in the "Discussion" section. Edit 3: Added Hanford and Sellafield to the "Costs" section. Edit 4: Added additional references to "Discussion" section. Edit 5: Updated data on Chernobyl death toll. Edit 6: Added fuel rod assembly image.
(Probably) FINAL UPDATE 1/3I have hit my wall, and so have others. This event IS. NOT. BEATABLE. Details in Updates. I will still answer questions throughout the event if anyone still needs help! Table of Contents (To easily find what you want)
Updates
Introduction
Important Points and major differences
What Hazard level to go for? (With in-depth details)
If you have set your sights on getting the LVN, look no more! Cause... it won't happen. Literally. Here is a vid of a guy downing 400,000 SC on BP packs to star up the LVN for Burning Pursuit VII. Notice there aren't individual BP even for sale. Honestly, it is painful to watch.
I have updated the Spreadsheet all the way through Burning Pursuit VI. I have yet to see anyone get any further. Use the spreadsheet to get the best ratio of SC you can, and upgrade the cars you like, because the LVN is out of range. Sorry guys :/
Updated the last parts in Burning Pursuit.
I will still answer any questions I can! Feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything! :)
(12/29)
Updated some of the spreadsheet, thanks to u/brorius.
Gotta be honest, I have worked so much on the pinned missions on Burning Pursuit, frequently getting zero. I don't have much left I can get, so I personally will be at a wall soon.
(12/26)
Added SC given in each of the pinned missions, to help you decide if you want to keep going (thanks to u/Thr0w_away_20!)
About increased cost to Epics: I can't figure out a pattern to the cost of epics. Epicsdocost more each time, but as for the rate, I am a bit lost... For example the first Apex epic costs 69,444 SC, andu/Didelididelidooconfirmed that the next one is about 79,000 SC, a 13% increase. . Then u/Eddles999 mentioned that the 4th is 90,276 SC and the 5th is 97,220, a 7.7% increase. So, as a general rule, think roughly 10% give or take. Think of that as you want to think what you want to upgrade. (Update 12/27)u/HuzzahA9 confirmed that the cost each time for the Apex increased 6944 SC each time. Thanks to you guys!
I have been trying to reply to all comments asking for help, and there have been quite a few, so if you didn't get an answer, comment again cause I might have missed it!
(12/24)
CONFIRMED! A ridiculous 216,000 SC is needed to upgrade the Bugatti LVN in order to finish Twilight Getaway. This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. This also needs three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, equaling 216,000. A TOTAL OF 26400 SC, just to move on to the next stage. That is a HUGE jump, so keep this in mind. In all honesty, if I wasn't making this guide, I would stop here, and buy the epics for the APEX, and get that sucker golden.
IMPORTANT STRATEGY I HIGHLY recommend using the spreadsheet to do the races with better ratios, even intentionally losing the races with bad ratios. Especially if you don't have previous cars fully starred. SC requirements are a b****.
Big point about LVN requirements, decision making. The end of Twilight Getaway requires 3 import parts in addition to meet the required rank. In this screenshot you can see the requirements. See updates for more details.
Removed strong suggestion to have fully starred cars
Added Twilight Getaway (ongoing)complete
Added Required Rank for each part of each stage, starting from Twilight Getaway (sorry, I don't remember before that point)
Added a shortcut to the spreadsheet in Table of Contents
Added more races/ratios to the spreadsheet. Will do every stage.
GOT TO STRESS: The upgrades are EXPENSIVE! Keep doing the daily credit event in daily events for credits! This will be my biggest barrier moving forward in completing the guide.
Helpful hint for "Hunted" races: In parts where you have to go through barriers, using touchdrive made is significantly easier, though you have to swipe quickly sometimes.
2. Introduction
Once again, I am making this guide from my own experience. I will do my best to post as much as I can, but I can't promise everything. I will update as much as possible. I will put a strike through anything that I originally say but turns out to be different. I will post an update and when in bold. That said, I will do my best. If you are looking for the Rimac DS event on Switch, I made a guide for it last year, and it should be the same. Here is the linkIMPORTANT POINT: According to other players on Switch, the event isNOTthe same as my previous guide. It appears to be more P2W. So, use it more as a guideline rather than completely accurate. Sorry :/
3. First off, key differences and other key points (Important)(Updated 12/22)!
Unlike DS2, there is only one option at a time until Lightspeed Chase II. From there, you should always go for the higher level.
The Legend Pass is NOT needed! (at least it doesn't seem like it will be needed)
(Update 12/22)FOUR STAR CARS ARE REQUIREDunlike last year. Keep this in mind. Not true!
(Update 12/22) In order to get the best ratio of Syndicate Coins (SC) to Syndicate Points (SP), you should ALWAYS do the level three runs. I am not even going to mention level one and two, because the reward is not worth it. We have found that in the long run, it is better not to fully upgrade the car, just 2* below the max level. For this reason, I will be mentioning at some points.
It looks like there are cars that have been used before (Arrinera Hussarya 33, Apex Ap-0, and Porche 911GT3 RS), so there may not be a need to strategize as much. Update: still strategy is needed, but it will be easier if you already have these unlocked/starred.
THE PRICE OF INDIVIDUAL BP GOES UP AFTER EACH PURCHASE! For example, the first buyable BP for the BMW I8 Roadster is 1000 SC, the next being 1100, then 1200, 1300, 1400, etc.
The reward BP are only once, so you don't have to worry about planning rewarded BP.
The recharge time for Hazard Level is 15min for 1 slot
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAILY CREDIT (YELLOW COIN) EVENTS (The ones that are in daily events)! This special event will need a lot of cars to be upgraded, which takes a LOT of credits. Make sure you do these every day to keep up with the upgrades.
There doesn't seem to be a limit in number of ads you can watch to refill the Hazard Level bar. I did over 50 the first night to write this walkthrough. Update: This is confirmed on Android for me, but Windows does seem to have a limit. (Thanks to u/RON8579!)
4. Should I always aim for Hazard Level 3? Or is level 2/1 okay?
Easy tl;dr: For cars you don't already have, keeping it two stars BELOW MAX is the most effecient!ALWAYS do the level 3 races if you already have it pretty high. (At least for cars so far). THIS IS ASSUMING THESE CARS WON'T NEED TO BE FULLY STARRED LATER ON. Slightly more detailed tl;dr: Depends on your end goal/what you have. If you already have a lot of BP for many cars, do the level 3 races only. And if you get lucky on the rolls. If you don't think you can fully staupgrade your car, you can do the lower ones, but will get significantly less SC. If you already have the car fully starred, or close to fully starred, definitely do the level 3 ones. Otherwise, star it to two stars below max. Now the math. Basically, the ratio for level 3 is roughly 2:1. For level 2, about 5-6:1. For level 1, about 6-7:1. So if you double the number of races at level 2 rather than level 3, reaching the same amount of SP, you will still have less SC. Here is a spreadsheet of all the details One extra thing, u/LordMadPunt made a decent point: "You can eke out a few extra SPs with this rule (also from the previous DS): Always use the highest hazard level that does not complete the mission. If completing the mission is unavoidable, use the highest hazard level for that." This is a good point to get just a little extra from the missions. However, if the SP will be the same (as seen in the last line of my spreadsheet), level 3 is still best.
But what if you don't want to/can't upgrade your car all the way?
I did the math on that for in both Lightspeed Chase and Among Skyscrapers. Whatever you do, you will need BMW I8 Roadster at at least 2*, fully upgraded. To get to 4*, you will need 75 BP. The drop rate for the packs is 20%. Using just this, lets say it would take about 32 rolls, or 160,000 SC, then buy all 10 of the individual BP (much cheaper), for 14,500 SC. Total, 174,500. But that is a pretty crappy situation, because it doesn't take into account the guaranteed drops. I found that I got on average about 2.7 per roll. 75 BP - 10 individual BP = 65 BP / 2.7 = about 24 rolls. 24x5000 = 120,000 + 14,500 for the individual BP, 134,500 SC. Still a lot. But again, it depends on your luck. What do you get by fully starring? For 3*, 10000 SC in pinned missions, and for 4* 20000 SC. Then take into mind the losses in not doing the hazard level 3 and then 2. I didn't calculate this when I originally did it, but from my own guesses from my other calculations. Let's say even liberally, (can someone confirm?) another 20000 SC lost. In total, this is 50,000 SC you can get from having a fully starred. This is no where close to the amount spent. Even from my more realistic, better chance roll, that is still 134,500 - 50,000 = 84,500 extra you will have to pay. In short, you will get to keep more SC by only starring up BMW I8 Roadster to 2\. Even if my math is off a bit, still a much better deal! I 4\ it all the way, and I personally really like it, but it seems like it is not needed. What about the Arrinera Hussarya 33? Whatever you do, you will need Arrinera Hussarya 33 at at least 3*, fully upgraded. To get to 5*, you will need 63 BP. Using the above rate, you will need to roll 20 times for 53 BP, (150,000 SC) plus all 10 individual BP (22,000ish?), which is 172,000. What do you miss? 50,000 in pinned missions, and to my calculations, about another 50,000 in Hazard 3 missions. 172,000 - 100,000 = 72,000extra needed to fully star. Key point! This is assuming you have no BP of the Arrinera Hussarya 33 at the beginning of the event. Fewer BP are needed obviously, so it costs less to fully star. I had the Arrinera Hussarya 33 already fully starred, so it makes sense to fully star and do the level 3 races if you have it already or are close. Conclusion? If you don't start with the car fully starred or close to it, don't spend the SC to do it unless you get lucky with a higher drop rate or luck with jackpots. Unless of course you like that car and want to fully star it :P Even if my estimations for SC earned from level 3 races is way off, it still isn't worth itif you start from zero on that car*.*
5. Should I buy SC with tokens in the shop?
Easy answer, yes, at least the first 2 or 3. I personally bought the first two (totaling 50,000SC) at the beginning, as that was what I needed last year. Once I needed to star up the I8 Roadster, I didn't quite have enough SC to star it up without buying any. You might get lucky, but it is Gameloft. Then, when I got to Lightspeed Chase III, I needed more, so the first purchase was definitely needed. When I started Lightspeed IV, I had no choice but to buy the third pack (50,000)
6. About "PINNED MISSIONS" for extra SC
These are very easy to pass. They are all Money Run, and the only to know is if you get fewer coins, you will need to run them more. But because they are easy to beat, this is the only place I will mention them.
The police are actually good to have here! Each knockdown is +125. And if you get another within a couple seconds, it is +325.
The goal is NOT to win. Drift, slow down, get chances to knock down the other races.
Jumping through the air and Shockwaving stops your SC from decreasing.
Update: It is actually easier to get more SC when your car matches the recommended (required) rank. When your car is much faster than the others, they fall behind easily, and therefor can't knock them down to get more SC. This doesn't affect the total you will get, but saves grinding/sanity time.
Update 12/26 added Pinned Missions amounts to each race.
7. Tricks for getting more Syndicate coins
There are a few little tricks to get the most Syndicate coins as possible. u/dragom7 made a great page with details you can find here. I have tested it myself, and it works! Especially the intentional losing of a match (thanks also u/neverchurningbutter!). Go for the lowest ratio in this spreadsheet, and thanks to u/dragom7's suggestion, I highlighted the races with the best and worse ratios (starting from Twilight Getaway). Just be careful, the way I wrote ratios and the way he did are different! Also, as mentioned in other areas, if Syndicate Coins is a priority, be sure to NOT upgrade your cars all the way. (Update 12/24) Also also, some level 2 hazard races have a ratio worse than some level 1s, so check out this spreadsheet to find out what has the best ratios are. (Update 12/24) If you are REALLY pushing to get the most SC (and you have the time to watch extra ads), intentionally lose frequently if the ratio isn't good. In theory, you could get a lot more if you only played the ones with good ratios. It would just take a long time....
8. Desert Disaster
This one is very straight forward. It does not take any Hazard Level during the whole thing, most (all?) are just "Finish the race" goals. You get to used a maxed Rimac for free, and all the races are on the new Nevada track. It is pretty easy to get first if you are used to the track from A8 back in the day. New players may have a little trouble because THIS CAR IS FAAAASST. So heads up. But all in all, all four of these are pretty easy (including a special little surprise for the story at the end...) *30 BP for the I8 Roadster is given as a reward at the end, unlocking it.* You can get 10,000 SC from pinned missions.
9. Lightspeed Chase
The main races are done in San Francisco. For the BMW I8 Roadster: 2* 23BP 3* 33BP 4* 42BP (Yes, 4* is needed this time aroundin order to get the Hazard Level 3 races as well as the pinned missions) Total Credit cost was more than 1,500,000. A lot. Do the Daily credit events. I will try to record exactly how much for other cars. One pack is 500 SC, (10-pack 5000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1000 SC, then 1100 SC, 1200 BP, etc., up to 10 BP. Epic Card for BMW I8 Roadster: 27,778 SC (one also available from Milestones from MP 12/18-12/24) (Update, event over). Each additional epic costs 10% more (2778(?) more) each time you buy one. In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Lightspeed Chase II, two levels appear. At Lightspeed Chase III, three levels appear. DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONESif you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio. See #2 above for why this is no longer true. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the BMW I8 Roadster, do so before unlocking Among Skyscrapers, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. This means not finishing Lightspeed Chase V. In Lightspeed Chase V, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 1 (Yes, just stage one). HOWEVER this requires 4,600 SC for each of all four parts, a total of 17,400 SC. Keep this in mind while you play Lightspeed Chase. The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:49 to beat. Note that this is the first race with a time goal. You won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. The time itself, without any big mistakes, is not a big challange. *30 BP for the Arrinera Hussarya 33 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 35 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Lightspeed V is completed. At the end of Lightspeed Chase, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens) to get going on Among Skyscrapers. Pinned Missions SC given: Lightspeed Chase I: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase II: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase III: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase IV: 20,000
10. Among Skyscrapers
The main races are done in New York. For the Arrinera Hussarya 33 (the wiki page): 1* 35BP (Yes, you will need 5 more BP than what is given as a reward) 2* 15BP 3* 21BP 4* 28BP 5* 35BP (Fully upgraded, but epic parts not needed) One pack is 750 SC, (10-pack 7500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it! Epic Card for Arrinera Hussaryar 33: 41,667 SC. Each additional epic costs 10% more (4167 more) each time you buy one. In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Among Skyscrapers II, two levels appear. At Among Skyscrapers III, three levels appear. DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES if you have it at a high level already. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONESif you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio. See 2.Should I always aim for hazard level 3? Or are level 1/2 okay? above for details as to why. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Arrinera Hussaryar 33, do so before finishing Among Skyscrapers VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. In Among Skyscrapers VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 2 . This requires 7,500 SC each for all four parts, a total of 30,000 SC. The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:47 to beat. You won't be able to beat the other racer (I freakin 360 spinned him and he crashed at82% of the course, and he still won!), as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. *30 BP for the Apex AP-0 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 45 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Among Skyscrapers VI is completed. On a bit of a strange note, I had the absolute worse luck on the pinned missions in Among Skyscrapers III. The starting amount was always low and it took me FOREVER to get it maxed. At the end of Among Skyscrapers, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens), to get going on Among Skyscrapers. But, I already had the Hussarya 33 fully starred. This seems pointless to point out since everyone will be at a different points/SC amounts depending on what cars they already have unlocked as well as what path they choose. Pinned Missions SC given: Among Skyscrapers I: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers II: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers III: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers IV: 20,000.Among Skyscrapers V: 30,000.
11. Twilight Getaway
The main races are done in Rome. For the Apex AP-0 (the wiki page): 1* 45BP 2* 17BP 3* 23BP 4* 32BP 5* 45BP Twilight Getaway I: Hazard 3 2626 (1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway II: Hazard 3 2926 (2*) Hazard 2 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway III: Hazard 3 3189 (3*) Hazard 2 2926 (2*) Hazard 1 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway IV: Hazard 3 3547 (4*) Hazard 2 3189 (3*) Hazard 1 2926(2*) Pinned Missions: 30,000 SC Twilight Getaway V: Hazard 3 3810 (5*) Hazard 2 3547 (4*) Hazard 1 3189(3*) Pinned Missions: 45,000 SC Twilight Getaway VI: Hazard 3 3980 (1*) LVN (INCLUDING IMPORT PARTS!) One pack is 1250 SC, (10-pack 12500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 2500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it! Epic Card for Apex Ap-0 : 69,444 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (6944 more) each time you buy one. The difficulty has stepped up in this set, at least for me it felt that way. Be sure to play only Hazard level 3 missions through Twilight Getaway III if you can, as 3* Apex is REQUIRED to move on. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Apex AP-0, do so before finishing Twilight Getaway VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. In Twilight Getaway VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 3 . This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. Thisneeds three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, for a total of 216,000!! (CONFIRMED 12/24) The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:46 to beat. You (probably) won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. *30 BP for the Porsche 911 GT RS is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 55 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Twilight Getaway VI is completed.
12. Burning Pursuit
The main races are done in Cairo. *NOTE: This is the first section of the event that needs a 4* car to advance. Also, thanks a bunch to broius for info of parts beyond what I could get! Proof For the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (the wiki page): 1* 55BP 2* 18BP 3* 24BP 4* 32BP 5* 47BP 6* 47BP Burning Pursuit I: Hazard 3 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit II: Hazard 3 2458 (2*) Hazard 2 2109(1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit III: Hazard 3 2806 (3*) Hazard 2 2458 (2*) Hazard 1 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit IV: Hazard 3 3285 (4*) Hazard 2 2806 (3*) Hazard 1 2458 (2*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit V: Hazard 3 3677 (5*) Hazard 2 3285 (4*) Hazard 1 2806 (3*) Pinned Missions: 60,000 SC Burning Pursuit VI: Hazard 3 3893 (6*) Hazard 2 3677 (5*) Hazard 1 3285 (4*) Pinned Missions: 100,000 SC Burning Pursuit VII: Hazard 3 UNKNOWN.4007 (2*) YUP YOU READ THAT RIGHT! YOU GOTTA STAR UP THIS THING!45,000 SCfor 10-pack, so probably around 900,000+ SC if you are lucky! Not to mention the upgrades themselves. I have yet to see a single person actually do it. Here is a vidof a dude with 400,000 SC spending on the packs. Spoiler, he didn't get it. One pack is 2000 SC, (10-pack 20000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 4000 SC. Epic Card for Porsche 911 GT3 RS : 111,111 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (11,111 more) each time you buy one. As stated above,if your goal is to fully upgrade the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, do so before finishing Burning Pursuit VII, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available(Update 1/3)If you are reading this, you won't be able to progress further, so take your time getting the epics if that is your goal. (to be continued [edited] as I clear more/more becomes available if someone can actually get farther) I really hope I can get all the way through the DS even :/Won't happen, sadly...
The document is an archive of the pharms wiki page. The Hazardous Waste Pharmaceuticals Wikispaces website was an informational website sponsored by EPA with the goal of facilitating collaboration among healthcare professionals and stakeholders in determining whether specific pharmaceuticals meet the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) definition of hazardous waste when discarded. File:(8k Sub Special) Youtube Poop Spingebill's Hazardous Camping Episode File:(Another collab entry) The Scoutimaniacs Hijack Einsteineer's Sentry File:(Collab Entry) Count Fapula is Allergic to His Own Body Fluids Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 - Designing Buildings Wiki - Share your construction industry knowledge. The Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990 is a UK Act of Parliament which implements a system of consents for sites that contain certain quantities of hazardous substances. A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make exceptionally close approaches to the Earth and large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact.. Most of these objects are potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), defined as having a minimum orbital intersection distance with Earth of less than ... Jordi Maxim van den Bussche(born:June 1, 1995 (1995-06-01) [age 25]), better known online as Kwebbelkop, is a Dutch YouTuber known for his gaming videos. He uploads a video every single day. He usually plays with Tiger and Hero. 1 Personal Life 2 YouTube career 2.1 Early career 2.2 Robust 2.3 After leaving Robust 3 Other projects 4 Relationships 5 Quotes 5.1 Subscriber Milestones 5.2 Video ... Spingebill's Hazardous Camping Episode is a Youtube Poop by Trudermark. It was uploaded on July 30, 2013. This poop commemorates Trudermark reaching 8,000 subscribers and has since recieved over 5 million views, making it Trudermark's second most popular poop. Erik (born: September 6, 1997 [age 23]), better known online as Hazardous, is a Swedish YouTuber and music/remix producer (under the pseudonym HAZRD) primarily known for playing video games such as Grand Theft Auto V and Fortnite, among others. I'm very excited to announce the brand new Hazardous Tales Youtube channel! Watch, learn, subscribe! I hope to have a video post up every week or so. History and drawing! Here is the first video, and there are already a few more. I hope you like them! Posted by Nathan at 11:52 AM. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest. Older Posts Home. Subscribe to: Posts ... Express - Aktuelle Nachrichten aus Köln, der Welt sowie Neues vom Sport und der Welt der Promis. Where there's smoke, they pinch back. 1 2004 2 2007 3 2008 4 2009 5 2010 6 2011 7 2012 8 2013 9 2014 10 2015 11 2016 12 2017 13 2018 14 2019 15 2020 The Adventures of Super Mario 3 Remixed Red Sonic Sez bad things Red Sonic Sez more bad things The Sky Had A Weegee! Red Sonic sez EVEN more bad things SpongeBob and Patrick Sell Poop Gumball and Darwin Time Travel Spingebill Embarks On A Panty ...
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