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[PKMN OPEN] [T] Pokemon In The Information Era

25
Posts
5
Years
Pokémon In The Information Era
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Introduction
Code:
Dear sir/madam,

We are happy to inform you that your application to the S1 Regional League of 2065 has been accepted.
Your trainer card will become active on Thursday, January 1st, 2065.
The opening ceremony of the League Tournament will take place on Sunday, June 14th, 2065.
Please be advised that only trainers that have gathered eight gym badges by Sunday, May 31st, 2065 will qualify for the League Tournament.

To register for gym battles, and for any other information you may want about the League, please see the association website […].

We wish you good fortune and look forward for your success,

Regional Pokemon Trainer Association ([URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Tennis_Professionals"]PTA[/URL]) Administration

Reads the e-mail you just received into your lmail inbox. Well obviously. The only conditions for being accepted is having a pulse, and 200#, entry fee. But now comes the hard part, gathering eight gym badges by May 31st… This looks like a lot of time, but you know that out of the many people who apply to the regional league every year, only so few actually make it to the tournament… Well, looks like you have your work cut out for you.

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About The Game
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The most important thing to bear in mind before continue reading is the following: this is an attempt at realizing the good stuff from the Pokemon world that we like, inside a modern world that is similar to ours.

This is an open-world-sandbox type game of Pokemon. The game will take place in the five first regions of the Pokemon world (Kanto, Johto, Hoen, Sinoh, and Unova), which are assumed to be modernized, so that they resemble our world, in terms of technology, public transportation, social media, and such.
You will begin in one of the regions, in any of the cities of that region, but you can travel to the other ones easily, if necessary. Your goal, as the mail described, is to collect eight gym badges by May 31st. You may collect them in any order. If you manage to do so, you will qualify for the League Tournament of this region, which is the ultimate goal everyone aims at.

Traveling from a city to a city is a trivial matter in this world, and walking by foot for days is most certainly an unnecessary task (which you obviously can still do, if you wish. For example, to get from Cerulean to Pewter you can just take a bus and get there in an hour or two. No need to go through Moon Mountain. However, you can go trek Moon Mountains for fun, if you wish, or if you try to find a Clefairy, for example). Pokemons are divided according to regions, so you will not find Unova Pokemon in Kanto (There are some exceptions: if some Pokemon exists in a region, then all of its forms also exist in that region. Also, both Gen 1 and Gen 2 Pokemon can be found in both Kanto and Johto). In the cities, you will only find urban Pokemon, mostly the likes of Pidgey and Rattata. Once you leave the urban areas, you will find Pokemon that correspond to the environment. The common Pokemon can be caught freely. Rarer Pokemon are found only in special reserves, which are more difficult to get to, and their capture is more regulated (i.e. Relicant can only be found in deep underwater seas so it requires a diving expedition of sorts. Some pokemons live in mountainous areas, or deep in the forests, which could be considered natural reserves, where the use of pokeballs is monitored.). Anyway, since search engines are a thing, you can easily look up in Loolge (the world's leading search engine) where some Pokemon can be found, and decide if you are willing to do what it takes to capture it. Be advised that it is very much possible that some Pokémon (e.g., fossils) simply cannot be found anywhere! Consult Loolge to be wiser about it.

You have five full months to get eight gym badges. That is more than enough time. You should take the time to chat with random people. They might give you "side"-quests (the word "side" is in quotation marks because there is no main plot relative to which those quests would be "on the side"). It is advisable to interact with the people of the world (I will already apologize in advance for not describing well the appearances of people you encounter. I cannot be bothered to actually imagine the looks of these people). You can also take the time and do leisurely activities: go take a vacation in Undella town, or cruise through the Sevii islands – whatever, all options are open to you. Just watch your money!.. Alternatively, you can look for local tournaments and test your strength. Ranking high in a tournament is a nice way to get money. Please note however, that training and battling all the time is not recommended since Pokemon also need rest, and time to relax. So you should mix training and resting. You may assume that any landmark from any of the Pokemon games exists in this universe. You may want to refer to Pokearth on Serebii.net, and see what landmarks might interest you (although you should ignore all spinoff games locations). If anything interests you in particular, feel free to Loolge it, to see how it is implemented in game.



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Gyms
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Since you can start in any city, the concept of having a specific order to the gyms is defied. You can visit the gyms in an arbitrary order. How is it balanced, then? Each gym has three tiers of battle. A tier for trainers with two badges or less, a tier for trainers with three to five badges, and a tier for trainers with six or seven badges. It is impossible to "lie" about it, and say you have less gym badges to get easier fights. This is because you need to register for the gym battle in the association website, so the gym has complete access to your trainer data, and in particular, to the number of badges you have earned.

Gym leaders have their own personal Pokemon that they use for their own needs, which are not the Pokemon they use during the battles. The Pokemons the gym leaders use in battles are not region-locked.

In addition, gyms only function for battle during specific days of the week. During other days, the gym will hold some activities, related to the specific gym. For example, a fire gym will hold workshops and lessons regarding fire Pokemons. It is most advisable to participate in such activities if you want to improve a specific Pokemon.

The types of the gyms are the same as in the games. The leaders – not necessarily. In Unova there are 11 gyms (assuming a combination of BW and BW2 maps). Therefore, three gyms can be skipped.

Gym battles are recorded, and you can view battles of other people in any gym you want in the ThemBar channel of the Pokemon Trainer Association.



Twenty Six Important General Remarks

Please read this section very attentively and carefully
. Many of the game philosophies will be explained in this section. Some of it might sound trivial to you, and that's okay, but I really hate being misunderstood, so please bear with me.

1. In this game, more attention is given to it being A GAME, rather than cooperative story writing activity. As such, I kindly ask you to keep your posts short, and operative. In your posts you describe a set of actions you wish to perform (it is advisable to write in future tense), and I will respond with their immediate consequences (in past and present tenses). You should not assume the results of any action, and you should not assume control over any other character that is not you. Feel free to include in your post your thoughts and emotions, this is fine (if only to give me a better insight into your character). However, remember that your posts usually pertain to the immediate seconds or minutes, and so you are advised to keep them succinct, functional, and operative. Some examples of player posts which I will be totally okay with are to be presented below.
2. There is room for five players, one in each region, on a first come, first served basis.
3. For you convenience, the calendar of 2065 is attached here (by the way, the year itself bears no significant meaning, it was an arbitrary choice).
4. In Pokemon battles, please give more "strategic" orders to your Pokemons, rather than the play-by-play type of orders that is in the Gameboy games. A fight between Pokemons is fast, and trying to give a play-by-play order is simply too slow. Give your pokemon a plan, see how it unfolds, and adjust properly. Also, Pokemons will not idle while you trash talk your opponent during a fight, as is a common practice in the anime.
Example:
The player has a Wurmple, and tries to attack a Tailow sitting on a tree in a forest area, where Tailow at first is not aware of Wurmple. The player was already informed of his surroundings.
Player: I will let Wurmple out, some distance away from the Tailow. "Wurmple, use string shot on Tailow's leg to keep him pinned to the tree. While his movement is limited, attack him with poison sting. If you see that he attempts to free himself, shot another string at its legs to keep it immobilized." I will explain to Wurmple.
Me: Wurmple does as requested, and shots a string at Tailow the unsuspecting. His leg is glued to the tree, and he tries to peck the string off. Meanwhile, Wurmple shots poison sting that hits the immobilized Tailow. Tailow seems to be close to cutting the string off, but then Wurmple hits again with string shot. Tailow tries to peck his way again, and Wurmple uses another string shot, but Tailow now expects it, and uses gust to blow the string away, buying him enough time to free himself. Now Wurmple tries to attack with poision sting, but Tailow flies, and avoids the attack, and attacks Wurmple with peck. Wurmple is struggling both to defend himself, and to attack.
Player: I quickly look sideways to try to find any advantage that might assist my Wurmple. "Wurmple, use the terrain to your advantage. Use string shot to pull yourself onto one of the tree branches. Use the trunk of the tree as cover, and shot from behind it poison sting on Tailow. If he tries to flank you, use string shot to move to another cover!" I will explain to it.
Me: Wurmple grapples away with the string shot, and starts firing poison sting on Tailow. Tailow tries to use gust, but Wurmple is protected behind the tree trunk. Tailow tries attacking from close range, and charges with peck. As per your orders, Wurmple grapples to another tree, away from Tailow, and continues to fire at it. Tailow, being hit by the poison sting, looking weary, takes cover behind one of the other trunks, and disappears from your field of view, and apparently also Wurmple's, as he stops firing. A few seconds later, both you and Wurmple spot him, and Wurmple tries to renew his attack. However, Tailow is quicker, and uses gust which knocks Wurmple off the tree to the ground.

As you can see, in each player post, the player prepares a plan for his Pokemon to follow. I will resolve the plan, and show how it unfolds. If it is a good plan, it will work for some time, but eventually an opponent (especially human opponent, as oppose to wild pokemon) will adapt to your plan, and try to counter it. Unless your plan is truly amazing, and I can't find a counter to it. In this case: Congrats! You are awesome! So don't hold back. Throw at me your best strategy, I don't mind at all.
5. I have kept track of the Pokemon franchise only up to gen 5. For this reason, gens 6,7, mega evolution, and fairy types are abominations that do not exist in this world. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause.
6. Legendary Pokemons, may, or may not exist in this world. After all, these are legends, and all legends are based on some truth. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. However, there might be fanatics and conspiracy theorists out there that truly believe they can track the whereabouts of legendary Pokemons. Being able to capture a legendary Pokemon will obviously be a great power boost, but it can also be a great waste of time. Is it worth collaborating with those fanatics? Or maybe they are simply charlatans? I leave this decision up to you.
7. Pokemons will know automatically all moves that they learn at level which is smaller or equal to 7 x (number of badges + 1), in the BW pokedex (I will look on the lists on serebii.net. Obviously, Bulbapedia works just fine, I'm a serebii fan). No moves are lost upon evolution, and no four moves limitation exists. Feel free to create variations of existing moves to create unique techniques. Moves that are learned through TMs and move tutors can be taught in a gym of the corresponding type.
8. The six pokemon in party rule is defied, and you can carry as many pokemons as you see fit. Keeping a pokemon outside of the party requires you to pay for storage service.
9. Some moves that exist in Pokemon games will not be implemented here. For example, all moves that cause sleep will not be present. Some moves will be adjusted to have more realistic presentation (i.e. surf seems like an unrealistic move – where is all that water coming from?). If there is any move you wonder about – ask me.
10. You have the option to capture already evolved Pokemon. There is a trade-off between capturing already a strong, evolved, wild Pokemon, and training from scratch a newly hatched Pokemon. Pokemons that were wild for a while tend to be stronger, but lack finesse, and technique. They will tend to find it more difficult to execute complicated strategies. It can be somewhat mitigated with enough training, but Pokemons that are newly hatched will always be better learners. In addition, Pokemons that are natural loners will find it more difficult to work in a team as oppose to Pokemons that travel in packs, and so on. It might make sense to breed them to have newly hatched Pokemons that can be trained from scratch. But this process is time consuming, and makes more sense earlier into the game. Just something to think about. Consult with a professional breeder.
11. The battles in this game will be mostly double battles. This is because it is easier to be creative in such battles, both for you, and for me. In double battles it is easier to create interesting tactics. Sometimes there will be triple battles, and there might even be "gang battles" (each sides just sends all of their Pokemons at the same time). But the standard will be doubles. If you arrange a friendly match against a random person, you may suggest of course a single 1v1 match.
12. In official double matches, each side will have a number of "strikes" they are allowed to take. Each time a Pokemon is deemed unable to fight, the respective side receives a "strike", and must change the pair that fights. The trainer is allowed to swap only the Pokemon that was deemed unable to fight, or both. If both are switched, the trainer is allowed to recall the second Pokemon at a later time. This way, having only one OP Pokemon will be no good – the other team will target the weak one, and will get strikes that way. Some depth is required in the team. Mid-battle swaps will usually be prohibited. As such, moves that cause mid-battle swaps, will also be absent from the game (i.e. Roar, Teleport, etc…).
13. Evolution stones exist in the game, and they may be used to evolve all Pokemon of the corresponding type. Dusk stone affects all Dark Pokemon, and Dawn stone affects all psychic Pokemon. In any case, all Pokemon can evolve with experience, but if you want to speed it up, Evolution stone is the way to go. Be advised that they are rather rare and expensive.
14. Simple damage that Pokemons received is healed over time and does not require a specific action of the player. More serious injuries require treatment in the Pokemon Center, and might even have lingering effects, which you might need professional assistance with, to help the Pokemon to overcome the injury.
15. Professors are very busy people whose schedule is filled with activities that will eventually help humanity. As such, they have no time for trainers, and you will be in no contact with any Pokemon professor. You will begin the game with starting Pokemons, and all standard contact with a Pokemon professor will be avoided. However, you might want to get in touch with some researcher that deals with Pokemon, and have them on your side as a kind of a "sports scientist" that will be able to give you some scientifically proven advise.
16. In many cities battle clubs a-la Don George are present. These also function as trainer hubs of sorts. It is a good idea to go there to find random people, whether to fight them, or just to chat. In some places there might even be fight clubs, but we do not talk about them.
17. It is possible that characters in game will share names with characters from the Pokémon universe, or with some real life famous people. Unless stated otherwise, they will just share the name, and not the personality or anything else.
18. You live in an apartment of your own in one of the cities in the region you started in. Your family, may, or may not, exist, and be in the same region, or in a different region. This is up to you. If you wish to contact your family, and visit them often – then you are most welcome to do so. I am sure they will be happy. Or not. It is up to you to decide. They are your family after all, not mine.
19. In addition, you are welcome to create on the fly any reasonable character your character should be familiar with. By "reasonable" I mean the following: suppose that someone asks you to get him something, and then you create an old friend of yours that just happens to be dealing with this stuff, and he can help you get it. If you do that, I will ask you to replay. So if you want to contact someone you should be familiar with, you can do so very easily, just text them with HowRThings app, or call them.
Example:
Player: "Following the incident where that wild Tentacruel poisoned half my party, I will decide that it might be a good idea to take a crash course in treating injured Pokemon. I remember that my class mate, John Doe once volunteered in a Pokemon center. Maybe he can give me some nice advise. I'll get my phone, and text John on HowRThings: 'Hey John, how are you? I remember you once volunteered in a pokemon center, right? Could you perhaps […]'"
By the way, in the above example, searching "Crash course on treating injured Pokemon" in Loolge will also be a very good means to the same end.
20. You will have finite amount of money in this game. As was hinted earlier, traveling to different places costs money. Some methods of travel are more expensive than others (i.e. a flight from Safron to Goldenrod will be more expensive than the train ride, but will be faster). If you want to stay some period of time in a different region, then you will have to rent an apartment, or be in a hotel, or a hostel, or the likes, or have a good friend that will let you stay with them (for example, someone you helped in some side quest earlier). Money can be earned in local tournaments. Selling Pokemon for money is illegal (trading Pokemons for other Pokemons is a fair game, though). Some people might pay you for different tasks, in side quests.
21. As mentioned earlier, the world in this game has a highly functional public transportation system. Traveling inside a region is a trivial matter, while traveling between regions is slightly more expensive, but still rather straightforward. To find the most efficient way to get from point A, and point B, you can simply look it up in LoolgeMaps. Transportation on top of Pokemons (i.e. Surf, and fly) is impossible (although you may encounter people whose Pokemon were specifically trained to be able to do that. But such Pokemon are extremely rare).
22. Technology is also assumed to be similar to that of the real world. Your phone will also be your pokedex and trainer card. You will be able to easily contact other people you have met using the HowRThings app in your phone, or post nice pictures and stories on your VisageJournal page. You can access a lot of information in KiwiPedia. You could also visit online forums that deal with your beloved fictive sports, tennis, and participate in role play games about it. Have I gone too meta here? Anyway, you are cordially invited to be creative with this stuff.
23. Five months is a lot of time. Sometimes, you may want to wait while focusing on doing something very specific, and not much else. For example, you attend the Celadon gym for two weeks so that your grass Pokemon can develop some skill, which you think would be necessary in an upcoming gym battle. In that case, you can just ask for time to be passed, and I will progress time by that much. After two weeks, the Pokemon will develop this skill, and you can keep going on.
24. Activities such as eating, and charging your phone, are assumed implicitly, and are not required to be performed explicitly by the player. Obviously, if for example you go to eat with someone for the sake of the social interaction, then this situation will be played. All I'm saying is that there is no need for awkward "I stop to eat" posts, you will not die because of that.
25. Different players will have independent games, and it will be impossible to meet with other people playing this game.
26. Regardless of everything else, please remember that this is a game, and you should enjoy it!..


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Rules
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Again, some of it might be absolutely trivial. But I'd rather state the obvious than be misunderstood.
1. Please abide to the general community rules and the Role Play Theater rules.
2. The game is rated T. Not because I plan on doing a lot of mature stuff, but because the world is a harsh place, and I do not want to need to deal with this question when I post. Then again, I'm a mild person myself, so I don't expect myself to post very harsh stuff. So that should be fine.
3. Be civil, and reasonable. Some game mechanics here are also new to me. You might disagree with some of the mechanics. Talk to me about it. While some mechanics are the core of this game and will not change, I might be flexible with others. Just PM me and bring up any claims you might have, and we might reach some sort of compromise.
4. In your posts, refrain from acting on behalf of other characters. What you can do, is condition a part of your post on the behavior of someone, or on some event, if you assume that some result is probably most likely, and would like to save real-life time. An exception is controlling characters that do not exist. You can control the behavior of characters in your post, if they did not exist previously, and in this post you describe their interaction with you (e.g.: you call someone your character knows, and was never mentioned before this post. You may assume, for example, that you are afraid he might be angry with you about some noodle incident)

Example:
Player: "I will go to heal my Pokemons in Pokemon center, and assuming I encounter no problems, I'll go to the bus stop where the bus to New Bark stops."

This saves us an awkward post where the player would only go to heal, and since I have no surprises planned, the healing will go as expected, and this will be just a waste of real-life time.

Example:
Player: "The Pokemon Safari sounds like a good idea!" I will agree with John Doe, and then me and Jane Doe will go to the Pokemon Safari.

This is a bad example. There is no guarantee that Jane Doe will also like to go to the Safari, and this post assumes an action of a character that is not the player. Changing Jane Doe to John Doe there would be completely fine, though, as presumably John Doe brought up the idea himself, and presumably will want to go there. Still, no need to mention an action of another character in the game.

Example:
Player: "The Pokemon Safari sounds like a good idea, don't you think, Jane?" I will agree with John Doe, and ask Jane Doe whether she would come. If she does, we'll go there.

This is a correct execution. If she does want to go, then this saves the time of actually wasting a post on asking her, and then in a different post declare the intention to go to the Safari. If she refuses, the player will be given back control, and might want to ask her why she does not want to go, or go there regardless. If that was the player's intention from the get-go, the following alternative is better:

Example:
Player: "The Pokemon Safari sounds like a good idea! I'll go there." I will agree with John Doe, and whether Jane Doe wants to go or not, I will go to the Pokemon Safari regardless.

This way, the player's action is determined independently of Jane's behavior. This obviously might make Jane angry later, but that is irrelevant for the matter of this example (assuming that Jane was accompanying the player earlier, so it is somewhat expected she will continue to accompany him).

5. It is very important to read everything in the opening posts, and any updates to these posts that will be posted in the future. Please contact me and ask me about any part that is unclear. I urge you not to register until you feel you have a good grasp of the game mechanics.
6. Since each post advances time only by a little bit, I would ask you to keep up a relatively good frequency of posts. Now, I myself do not have infinite amount of time, but 1-2 posts every day should be decent. Remember that the posts should not be too long, and mostly informative, succinct, and operative.
7. I will attempt to keep the game in the realistic side of things, and expect the same from the players. However, sometimes there will be simplifications for gameplay's sake.
8. Again, this is a game, so please have fun.



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Registration Form
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Please fill this form to register. I remind you that there will be five players, one in each region, on a first come first serve basis.

Character Name:
Age: (18+, since adult people have so much more options open to them, and this game really is about freedom)
Region: (Kanto, Johto, Hoen, Sinoh, Unova)
City: (Any city that is in this region. It can also be "far away", like Sevii islands for Kanto, or Battle Frontier island for Hoen. Bear in mind that commuting to and from such faraway places will be time comsuming and expensive, though. Also exclude the legendary islands like Naval Rock and such. It's not like there is anything in those places to begin with.)
Starting Pokemons: (Select two base-form Pokemons that belong strictly to the region where you started. You will start the game with both of these Pokemons already in your possession. You start with two Pokemons, since this game will have mostly double battles)
Gender: (I will take the liberal side here and not limit you to male or female)
Appearance: (An avatar, or a verbal descriptions, or nothing at all works just fine. I don't really care about this, but I know some people really like this part, so if you do, go nuts.)
Keywords: (List of some words which you will be "subscribed" to. This means that you will get to your in-game lmail box weekly mails with news and info about these words. You may subscribe and unsubscribe to new keywords freely throughout the game)
Buddies: (Insert here some quick and brief and free-text description of at most two characters that will be your good acquaintances. You may contact them freely throughout the game, and suggest to do stuff together. They may be trainers who also wish to get to the league, but they do not have to be. What I care about the most here is that you describe their interactions with you, so I can act according to that. Feel free to tell me I'm playing them wrong. Still, try to keep this succinct and informative. Also, think of contacting them as contacting me in universe. If you are unsure about what to do in some stage of the game, feel free to call them and rant about your problems, and they might give you useful advise.)
Comments, Remarks, Requests:

Acknowledgements and Disclaimer
I would like to express my gratitude to gimmepie, who answered my inquiries efficiently and patiently.
I would also like to thank Google and Wikipedia for the links and inspiration for so many game mechanics. I also thank Google for all the images I might take. In particular, the civilization wikia for the background for the logo.

The events of this game are entirely fictional, and all reference to real life events in people is humoristic and satiric, and/or bears no significance what-so-ever.

Playing role-play games and driving is dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs.


You are most cordially invited to sign up, and play!..
 
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1,658
Posts
13
Years
Character Name: Tarset "Tracy" Bailey

Age: 21

Region: Johto

City: Mahogany Town

Starting Pokemons: Natu, Houndour

Gender: Female

Appearance: Kind of thin, and shorter than average at 5' 1", with light brown skin, dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and bright blue eyes. Usually wears blues and whites, preferring comfortable shirts and skirts. She also has a purple top hat and short cape, along with a yellow bowtie, that she wears when performing.

Keywords: magic, moon, tricks, Pokemon strategies, mysteries, simple foods

Buddies: Robin: Tracy's best friend and an aspiring Sky Trainer. Robin loves birds, clouds, kites, and anything else that can fly, and wishes she could fly herself. Robin uses stronger Pokemon than Tracy, but her style is all attack, no strategy. The two both want to leave their quiet town and see the world, but Robin isn't interested in the league or being famous like Tracy is. Robin tends to take charge of most situations, and encourages Tracy to be more direct and proactive. Tracy suggests Robin slow down a bit, and not be so reckless.

Barry: Robin's boyfriend, who spends most of his time reading. Barry knows a little bit about a lot of things, and Tracy usually comes to him for advice. Barry is usually happy to help, but he doesn't like going outside and doing things. He's quiet and agreeable, but isn't afraid to tell people when they have a bad idea. Although he's doubtful of Tracy's chances at winning badges, he'll always offer her advice if she needs it.
 
25
Posts
5
Years
Sign up form looks great, you are in! Welcome aboard.
We will begin as soon as I get the stage thread running.
Also, you might want to clarify, in PM for example, what kind of news articles you expect to get about "simple foods" because this kind of doesn't make sense to me ^^...
 
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