#wts2

[moresims3productions]

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[moresims3productions]

Leech Animation Set #1 - Sims 3 Custom Animations

[gumpybear]

Watch the Skies 2 – A perspective from Wimpey Fergusson

 January, 2020

I step off the train in Cape Town and make my way to the Wimpey Fergusson HQ. I’ve recently been made the Head of PR for the corporation, recognition for years of dedicated service. Recently Wimpey Fergusson has come under new leadership, a tough new CEO whose been charged with turning our stocks around and proving that an African Corporation can make an impact on the world stage. I’m ushered into my first meeting with the board where I learn two things. The first is that we’ve developed a new state of the art interceptor. The Airshark can outmatch any conventional aircraft, granting air superiority to any power that purchased it. It was a technological marvel that would be at the core of our financial revival. The second thing was that the technologies behind its development may not have been entirely human. We’d found a precursor something beyond our comprehension, and I’m asked a simple question.

If there was something out there, would I necessarily stand against it?

New arrivals would mean new customers. There’s always money to be made.

April, 2020

I’ve recently got off the phone with “Human First”. To say they sound like a humanitarian organisation would probably be a redundant statement, but they seem to have simple goals. We help provide funds for their organisation, they levy what international power they can in helping to support the African nations of our choice. I don’t trust them one bit, but the words “Tax breaks” is enough for me to forward them to the CEO. They don’t ask for much and making friends is worth a bit of charity.  

Our board convenes to work out our pricing. There are more rumours of mysterious objects in the night sky every week and hazy footage on a mobile phone from a man in Tanzania. Earth will soon be hosting guests and our production facilities are working around the clock to equip our nations to give them a proper greeting. We agree that an Airshark can be sold for $6 Million, the same amount it costs to equip a countries entire militia with serviceable weapons. The first orders surprisingly come from Canada – I don’t know why they’ve reached out to an African corporation, but we happily oblige. Local national budgets struggle to accommodate our pricing, but there’s enough interest from abroad to allow to maintain production.

July 2020

Canada has ordered a satellite. We can build them for a million dollars, but they’re willing to spend $8 million for us to launch it as soon as possible. We don’t have any concrete information about what’s happening above the earth, but it seems to be starting to spook the major powers. We get word to our Russian facilities to prepare to launch. The South African government is being very accommodating to us, enjoying a direct line to our CEO in response. As more orders come in our production manager is able to crack the whip in our Vietnam construction facility to speed production. It costs us extra for speedier constructions, but the customers are happy to pick up the bill.

October 2020

We’re starting to establish strong trading agreements with nations around the globe. It’s as close as we get to owning territory with Sweden, South Africa, Morocco and Canada being among our favoured customers. Our relationship with Canada is especially strong and I see it as an opportunity to highlight the Airshark’s continued roll out to the general public. We hold a press release, with me shaking hands with a man who I believe to be their Minister of Defence. I make a statement.

“The Airshark is top of the line, better than any other aircraft in its field and able to shoot down any sort of Unidentified Flying Object without a problem.”

The journalists present shoot their hands into the air.

“What do you mean UFO? Does Wimpey Fergusson have any statement to make about recent rumours of alien activity?”

Crap. The National Governments haven’t actually announced that there’s anything officially going on. The CEO isn’t going to be happy about this.

“To clarify, the Airshark can shoot down any identifiable flying object. We don’t know anything about rumours of alien activity and would like the media to not drag us into idle speculation.”

I don’t think they bought it.

January 2021

The CEO wasn’t happy about it. Still, money was coming in. We’d recently built a new research facility in Spain to analyse the more interesting fragments we’d found. Our chief scientist is on the verge of a breakthrough in Alien communication technologies – We just need to have an Alien body to dissect to finish the research. A scientist from Angola has heard a rumour about where one can be found so we agree to support his research from our labs in exchange for a location. The Nigerians have recovered a body.

A quick phone call - they’re not selling. I get in touch with some people that corporations probably shouldn’t have dealings with and organise a covert raid of their research facilities. Our men hit the building we believe the body to be located in, but it seems like we’re acting on bad Intel. We manage to recover our agents before they’re discovered but they come back empty handed. It seems like our plan to sell humanity out for the highest price has been momentarily delayed. My phone goes off.

The Russians have announced the existence of Alien life.

A quick conference call with our board confirms what I already knew – Our military hardware had just got $2 Million more expensive to buy across the board. Nations were no longer just watching the skies, but those that had been slow to build up their forces would now have to pay a premium to catch up.

April 2021

There was an explosion at our Spanish research facility. A targeted attack, killing a number of personal and destroying one of the more priceless alien artefacts we’d acquired. Was it another corporation? We were currently battling LexCorp and AIM industries in the financial markets; it wasn’t unbelievable that one of them was taking more direct action. Our influence was spreading around the globe, with more and more nations signing exclusivity agreements. It seems that we’d been pushed out of Morocco, but we’d signed up around five more countries to replace it. AIM was based in Asia, LexCorp used to be based in Europe. A tax disagreement had forced them over the Atlantic to America, but it was still possible that they were defending their old turf. Our agents are dispatched to investigate the scene of the attack.

It seems like our scientific ambitions weren’t delayed long – We have the basic ability to communicate with the Aliens. However, earthly concerns were distracting us from our original goal of making contact with the visitors – I’ve heard that the CEO was offered a trip to the moon to discuss a potential deal with them, but he’s put that on hold. The board gathers.

Betray the Human race for a quick buck?

The Human race is a quick buck. I don’t know if there is an intergalactic stock market, but selling out our planet probably won’t do well for our image there. Our CEO cancels the moon trip as we begin work developing ever more advanced weaponry. We’ve cast our lot strongly behind humanity, let’s hope it comes out on top.

July 2021

Our men in Spain have recovered charred security footage. It was the Italians who attacked our facility.

The Italians?

We’ve never spoken to the Italians. I put a phone call to them; they deny all knowledge of it. I want to follow it up, but there’s a greater priority. The British are looking to upgrade some of their air fleet – We happily oblige. Our Airsharks now come equipped with lasers and we bring in some British jets to bring them up to spec. I check my map to see that they’ve signed exclusivity with LexCorp, but we agree to give their planes priority to sign up with us instead. We deliver our first plane only to discover that it was AIM industries they’d signed up with – Seems like we’d only had a LexCorp production facility on our map. No matter, the deal is still signed.

News Corp gets in touch – Our attempt to leak Alien Communications to them has gone a bit wrong and the technology is about to hit the internet. I didn’t even know we were supposed to be leaking Alien Communications to them. We quickly set up a press release – We’ve releasing the tech out to every nation free of charge. No actual difference, but it convinces the investors that we’re in control of the situation.

Instability in Africa has lead to an outright exchange of blows. The stocks take a hit as tanks roll across the continent, but our production manager has worked hard to diversify all our facilities across the globe. We quickly stabilise the situation before checking our accounts – We’ve got nearly $70 Million in reserves. Things are going very well.

October 2021

We’ve presented our evidence of the Italian attack to the Spanish government. Many Spanish nationals died in the original bombing and they’re all too happy to express their displeasure with the Italian government. They agree to extradite the agents responsible in exchange for national immunity. We send some of our own to actually pick up the Agents and drop them off in Spain for trial – I don’t think those men will ever see the light of day again. As we consolidate our accounts we note a few of our customers haven’t been paying their dues, notable Vietnam. I get on a plane for Hanoi to have a word. I’m greeted by members of their government who aren’t exactly keen to pay up, even though they’ve been getting a bit of personal spending money to maintain the relationship. I meet a man from AIM there and happily tell him how we’ve moved into the UK. He isn’t happy.

I’m called to London to meet with the British Prime Minister. Seems they had a bit of an internal mix up – He wants our contract torn up. Not something I’m keen to do, but an extra $5 Million is enough to send me on my way. AIM keep the UK, but we’ve gained Spain and made an extra profit on top. I wonder why the UK Prime Minister is so adamant to maintain his relationship, but we’ve got other concerns. One of our expeditions in Antarctica has found an Alien mining facility. We don’t do anything with that information. Something more important has come up.

Tokyo has been obliterated.

It might have been on the other side of the world, but it’s still one of humanities greatest cities. The scale of the devastation is shocking. It seems that the Aliens were finally getting serious, the full extent of their power now shown. I don’t think an Airshark would do much against whatever fired the shot. I chat to the CEO.

Were we still happy to support Humanity?

He shows me exactly how large our reserves were. Support Humanity? With the resources we had, we could rebuild the city within a couple of years. There is no better time to show human resilience alongside Wimpey Fergusson wealth and he signs out an initial investment that makes me break out in a cold sweat. We get on a plane to Japan.

They refuse to give us an audience. We take a quick look at the local whales and head home, our production manager could probably use the money to build some really cool tanks.

January 2022

Our CEO has just come back from updating the investors – He’s just paid out $35 Million in dividends. It doesn’t make a dent on our operating budget. Everything is looking peachy for us until my phone goes off.

Corporate security has caught some men below our headquarters with a truck filled with enough explosives to level a small city. We break a few legs, they tell us they’re from AIM. We pass them along to the South African government, and they tell them that they’re from AIM. The South Africans aren’t happy. We drag them before the press and start to get the word out there.

It seems major corporate terrorist attacks are frowned upon. We start contacting AIM’s most favoured customers. Nigeria is considering breaking away from them, the British are stumbling, and Poland pretty much instantly signs with us. Ireland joins them. Major infrastructure projects that we started in 2020 were being concluded, advancing much of Africa to technological levels far beyond the richest nation in 2019. The Vatican, now apparently in Brazil, ask for a couple of million to help cure cancer. We pay it over while our scientists wrap up their own cure. The latest stock markets are in, Wimpey Fergusson narrowly beating out LexCorp to be the greatest mega corporation the earth has ever known. AIM stocks are taking a beating. We hear that peace has broken out across much of the planet even as Alien battleships descend from the sky. It seems that we’ve got to do a bit more then watch the skies now, but our latest Airsharks rocket out of their hangers. I don’t know if we’ll survive the next few years, but I know we’ll be disgustingly rich if we do.

[badmeeple]

Over 300 players at the biggest mega-game ever, Watch The Skies 2, London. We were the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. #megagame #boardgames #boardgamegeek #wts2

[badmeeple]

Just returned from my first mega-game: Watch the skies 2. The moment when the aliens entered central region airspace in the year 2020. They were swiftly repelled and unfortunately barely returned for the rest of the game. The mega-game was a fun and unique experience and I would do it again. #megagame #watchtheskies #wts2 #boardgames #boardgamegeek #shutupandsitdown

[snortso-blog]

not mine, but funny, from fanpop

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26300000/New-Wow-Mist-of-Pandaria-world-of-warcraft-26362364-1191-670.png