With the recent Direct, it’s fair to say that Fire Emblem is in a very good position this year, having three games coming out, with news of a main title game arriving in the following year. But things were not always so successful for the Fire Emblem series. Back during it’s initial release, it was a Japan-exclusive series for the longest time until a little game called Super Smash Bros. Melee came out. The game introduced two Fire Emblem characters for the first time outside of the eastern seas. Marth, the Hero King, from the original Fire Emblem game (as well as the third title, Mystery of the Emblem) and Roy, the Pherae Noble, who, at the time, was the most recent main character in the series, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. With the introduction of these two characters, players questioned who these two guys were and with enough curiosity and intrigue, the first Fire Emblem game came overseas, that being the game we’re talking about today. Known simply as “Fire Emblem” in the U.S., the game is referred to as Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken, which roughly translates to The Blazing Sword. Though Fire Emblem would have several new games come out in the future, none of them would really become huge to the point that the latest Fire Emblem at the time, Awakening, was rumored to be the final Fire Emblem game to be made. But due to it’s huge success and popularity, Fire Emblem continues to live on strong. So in celebration of Fire Emblem‘s success, let’s go back to its U.S. roots with the first game released in the states. Come, join with me!

The Blazing Blade is unique in that it has two separate plots that loosely tie into each other. The first plot stars a young girl named Lyn. Orphaned at a young age, Lyn lives alone in the plains of Sacae where she grew up with her parents, who were murdered by bandits. One day, she stumbles upon a tactician (the player) who she decides to travel with, in the hopes of avenging her parent’s deaths. Soon after, she stumbles upon two cavalier knights of Caelin, Sain and Kent, who were sent to find her. Turns out Lyn is the granddaughter of the Marquess of Caelin, through her mother. Evidently, Lyn’s mother had a falling out with her father due to her being in a relationship with a member of the nomadic Lorca tribe, who the Marquess thought were savages. However, as the Marquess ages, he begins to see the error of his ways and hopes to welcome Lyn with open arms. Upon hearing this, Lyn decides to join Sain and Kent on a quest to travel back to Caelin to live her life as a noble. Meanwhile, the Marquess’s brother, Lundgren, does not wish to see Lyn return to Caelin as he has his sights to rule Caelin and does not wish his brother to have a successor in Lyn. Lundgren sends many mercenaries, bandits, and his own personal militia to put an end to Lyn’s life. In order to survive, Lyn meets several new allies along the way, such as the Pegasus Knight, Florina, the nomad Rath, and the young lord of Pharae, Eliwood (just to name a few) and challenges the corrupt Lundgren.

Lyn’s story is entirely meant to serve as the tutorial of the game. There are eleven chapters that teach many of the games mechanics such as the weapon triangle or the many strengths and weaknesses of the various allies recruited along the way. As a tutorial, it’s very thorough and goes into great depth to get it’s point across to the point that the game will force you to take certain actions. For that, I appreciate it, but for veterans who already know the games basics, it makes Lyn’s mode very slowly paced as a result. Luckily, the hard mode version of Lyn’s story cuts out all of the tutorials, making second playthroughs more bearable. However, you have to beat the game first before you can do so. As for intricate plot details, it’s passable. Lyn’s story isn’t really meant to have much depth to it solely because it focuses on teaching new players how to play. Lyn as a character is decent, though there are a lot of times where she seems like a Mary Sue at times. Mainly in the way that no one seems to dislike her. And the fact that she reappears in the actual main plot of the game for seemingly no reason… But more on that later.

For the second half of the game, Eliwood, noble of Pharae and the future father of Roy, becomes the main character. Eliwood’s father, Elbert, goes missing and Eliwood takes it upon himself to go and search for him. Joining with him is Eliwood’s life long friend, Lord Hector of Ostia, the deuteragonist of the game. As Eliwood and Hector traverse the land of Lycia, they discover that Eliwood’s father is kidnapped by an evil druid named Nergal. Nergal wishes to acquire what he refers to as “quintessence” or essentially, another human being’s life force. In doing so, he can call upon the fabled dragons of yore to do his bidding in an attempt to take over the world and become the most powerful being in existence. Allied with the mercenary guild, The Black Fang, Nergal wishes to cause chaos in the form of war so that he may steal people’s quintessence. Eliwood and Hector gather many powerful allies to fight against Nergal, including the previously mentioned Lyn.

While Lyn’s mode is more on a smaller scale in terms plot, Eliwood’s story delves into a “save the world” type classic. The dialogue can be pretty witty at times, but for the most part, it is just sort of standard. Eliwood isn’t really that interesting of a character, being your typical “goody two shoes” type of character, a wholesome and righteous hero. His companion Hector, on the otherhand, is actually a far more interesting character to follow. Hector is somewhat rebellious for a character of his status, and he constantly bickers with many of the other characters over their ideals. Luckily, there is a Hector mode in this game that places Hector in the spotlight, but it shares many of Eliwood’s maps and even it’s story. If anything, it just sorta gives more detail on Hector’s thoughts in Eliwood’s route. Nergal as a villain is kind of boring as well. He’s just your typical “MWAHAHA! I’M EVIL!” villain. There was actually a chance to give him a little more intrigue as it is lightly hinted that he may have been the father of two other plot important characters, but for some reason, only the Japan version of The Blazing Blade takes advantage of this opportunity, sadly. Overall, the plot isn’t exactly terrible by any means, but the characters you follow throughout aren’t the most entertaining.

Fire Emblem is a strategy RPG which can require a great deal of thought in order to prevail in the game. Players will take control of a set amount of units with a variety of classes in an overhead view of a map. Each unit recruited can have a variety of classes with their own strengths and weaknesses, such as the sword wielding Mercenary or the magic using Mage. Fire Emblem is unique in introducing a system known as the “Weapon Triangle” which essentially functions as Rock-Paper-Scissors. Three main weapon types are used in the game: Swords, Lances, and Axes. Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, and Lances beat Swords. Players have to use this knowledge against the enemy in order to get a boost in accuracy and power. However, the enemy can also use this against the player. The game also introduces other mechanics to give a various classes huge strengths and weaknesses. For instance, the Archer’s bow can do up to double damage to flying classed units, but the archer cannot actually hit enemies at close range, only being able to attack foes at two range. The Pegasus Knight, a flying unit, has very high mobility and can traverse the landscape freely, however, as previously mentioned, Archer’s can do double damage to them, which can stop them from progressing too far on the map. Features like these are what make Fire Emblem really fun, since you have to put a lot of thought into how you play or you’ll end up risking losing on your units, as Fire Emblem has permanent death. If a unit dies, you cannot bring them back unless you reset the game. This gives you a great reason to try and keep your favorite units alive and well because otherwise, it would make the game a heck of a lot tougher without them.

Most of the game has you traversing a map with various objectives. The most common one is to “seize the throne” where a boss enemy will be way on the other side of the map sitting on top of a throne or gate that needs to be taken in order to progress to the next area. Other objectives include surviving for a set amount of turns with a relentless amount of enemies charging their way towards you. There are a few levels that introduce interesting and gimmicky objectives, such as a side map where you have to sneak past a set amount of tough enemies and get to the other side without provoking the enemy. Other maps have a “Fog of War” gimmick that makes certain enemies appear invisible until they appear in your view range, forcing the player to play defensively. All of these features are what make Fire Emblem a really fun and engaging game.

The graphics for their time are actually pretty decent. I actually really enjoy the GBA style for the Fire Emblem games a lot and really love the animations used for most of the classes. Some of them may look a bit cartoony compared to the older Fire Emblem games, which had a more realistic touch to it, but I think it’s fine. The score is actually pretty good as well. Definitely not as good as the previous entry in the series, The Binding Blade, but still great in it’s own ways. “Softly With Grace” is a really catchy boss theme.

Fire Emblem is a really good series of games. They may not always be the strongest when it comes to plot, but they usually do excel in terms of gameplay. I’ve never felt so addicted to a game, especially one where you need to take a lot of thought in every move you make. Other games that fall into the same category of games can feel very similar to each other in terms of gameplay, but I feel that’s just not the case for Fire Emblem. I truly feel that it offers it’s own separate and unique experience compared to other strategy games and I find that absolutely amazing. If you haven’t played Fire Emblem yet, then I urge to go do so. Definitely start with The Blazing Blade, as I believe it has the best tutorial for newer players to start with.

Final verdict: Play it. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is a unique and thought provoking title, while also being accessible to new players.

The Granville Street Bridge is an eight lane bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia. It spans False Creek and is 27.4 metres above Granville Island. It is part of Highway 99.

The original bridge was completed in 1889. It was a 732-metre long low timber trestle. The navigation span, near the north end, was a trussed timber swing span, tied with wire ropes to a central wooden tower. It was largely designed by the CPR, and cost $16,000. In 1891 the bridge was widened on both sides for streetcar tracks, except where the tracks converged for the swing span.

The second bridge was completed in 1909. It was a longer, medium-level steel bridge with a through truss swing span.

On February 4, 1954, the current Granville Street Bridge, costing $16.5 million, opened. A million cars would cross over the bridge in its first month. The city of Vancouver funded the bridge itself as Mayor Frederick Hume said “no formal assistance given by any other government body.”

The eight-lane structure was constructed on the same alignment as the first bridge while steel plate girders salvaged from the second bridge made barges for constructing the foundations of the Oak Street Bridge.

The first “civilian” to drive over the 1954 bridge was the same woman who was first to drive over the second bridge in 1909. She had been widowed between the two openings, and so had a different name. Both times she was at the wheel of a brand-new Cadillac.

Recent improvements to the bridge include increasing its earthquake resistance, and installing higher curbs and median barriers.

Je vous recommande de regarder cette vidéo avec des écouteurs ou un casque audio pour en profiter au maximum.

Exploring Soviet cybernetics as an alternative narrative of the future.

While it is common today to view computer technologies as a product of capitalism created with the backing of the Pentagon, back in the USSR of the 1960s some scientists and engineers saw computers as “machines of communism” and put forth their own vision of a global information network.

In her sci-fi video project After Scarcity, Iranian artist Bahar Noorizadeh tracks Soviet cyberneticians of the 1950s–1980s in their attempt to build a fully automated planned economy. Presenting this as an alternative history, she looks at the economic potential of socialist cybernetic experiments and their power to challenge contemporary financial worldview.

In search of alternative narratives of the future, more and more artists, speculative designers, and researchers from around the world are turning their eyes to the history of Soviet cybernetics. “How might we use computation to get us out of our current state of digital feudalism and towards new possible utopias?” she asks in her film.

On one hand, this allows us to think about how this alternative internet could have changed the course of history. What would the Communist Party and the Soviet military have used the new technology for? Would the Soviet internet have created digital tyranny? Having its own internet, how would the USSR have responded to the drop in oil prices, Perestroika, and Glasnost? And how would the USSR have looked at the turn of 1991? How would the Cold War have unfolded if the internet as we know it had been rivaled by a Soviet alternative since the 1960s?

On the other hand, exploring this legacy allows us to envision what impact the ideas of this unrealized digital socialism could have on our contemporary lives. Noorizadeh’s work makes us think what would Vladimir Lenin’s famous formula “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country” sound in a world of blockchain and the Internet of Things?

The USSR wasn’t the only country experimenting with cyber-socialism. In 1970, under Salvador Allende, the Chilean government commissioned British cybernetician Stafford Beer to develop a computer system known as Project Cybersyn. However, the vision was abandoned due to the violent military coup led by Agusto Pinochet, and the project was deliberately dismantled.

It was the economic boom in the early 1960s USSR that led to the rise of the idea of Soviet communism with a cybernetic face. The ever-growing economy was now more difficult to manage, the massive amounts of data it generated were hard to process, and industry branches were almost impossible to synchronize. It became clear that public administration tasks needed to be facilitated with the computers and industrial control systems (ICS) that had already been widely used by the defense industry.

After Scarcity is focused on the figure of Victor Glushkov, a visionary mathematician and director of the Cybernetics Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, led Soviet efforts to deal with the looming economic stagnation. Thanks to him, the country saw the emergence of new specialized institutes and departments within major universities, all of which shared one goal—training new computer and ICS specialists.

“While the Stalinists opposed cybernetics, thinking it bourgeois pseudoscience, cyberneticists like Victor Glushkov rose to prominence in the 1960s as increasing bureaucratic demands of the centrally planned economy threatened to turn the Union into an absurdist administrative state,” Noorizadeh says in her film.

One of Glushkov’s greatest practical goals was the creation of the National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing (OGAS). He believed that in the face of impending economic stagnation it was the only lifeline for the country’s further development. Glushkov envisioned thousands of local computers connected to one another through a regional server. The mainframe network was supposed to be synchronized nationwide and connected to the main computing center in Moscow. The main idea behind the project was to make managerial decision-making less biased and dramatically improve industry and transport efficiency.

Glushkov’s project wasn’t the only failed attempt to create the Soviet internet. In 1959, Engineer Colonel Anatoly Kitov proposed the creation of a “unified automated management system” for the national economy that would link together large networks of computers installed at large factories and government agencies. The project, however, never received the support of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

The political reasons behind OGAS’ failure and the complex relationship between information and power are explored by science historian Slava Gerovich in his article InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network. “Cyberneticians aspired to reform the Soviet government with a technological tool whose uses the government itself defined. This resulted, quite naturally, in the transformation of the tool itself—from a vehicle of reform into a pillar of the status quo,” he writes.

An obituary published in the United States described Glushkov as the “King of Soviet cybernetics.” In his book Fundamentals of Paperless Informatics, published a few months after his death, he wrote a visionary prediction: “Soon enough paper books, newspapers, and magazines will be no more. Every person will have an electronic notebook—a combination of a flat screen and a mini radio transmitter. No matter where you are in the world, if you key a specific code in the notebook, you will be able to summon texts and images from giant remote databases. This will forever replace not only books, newspapers, and magazines, but also television.”

Despite being written for a mathematically oriented audience, it became popular with people who had nothing to do with computer science. Glushkov also speculated about computational technologies in everyday life: future TV sets and television, multifunctional telephones, programmed washing machines, paperless documents and correspondence, computer games, language-based programming (a prototype of personal assistants like Siri or Alexa), electronic newspapers and magazines, and even electronic money (a Soviet e-currency project was proposed by Glushkov’s team in 1962).

For a New Year’s Eve party, the employees of Glushkov’s institute came up with “Cybertonia”—a virtual country ruled by a council of robots. Cybertonia enthusiasts organized regular activities in Kyiv and Lviv including conferences and children’s parties, published brochures, issued its own currency. It even drafted the Cybertonia Constitution, with Cybertonia becoming a speculative design project that imagined a Soviet cybernetic future that never saw the light of day.

In his 2016 book How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet, media scholar Benjamin Peters clearly shows that bureaucracy was to blame for the failure of the Soviet internet project. Instead of creating a collaborative research environment, different self-interested agencies and bureaucrats diligently stood up only for their own agenda. The Soviet Union was unable to build its own internet—not because it lacked technologies or the institution of private property, but because it was impossible to get a project of this scale approved by all of the necessary agencies, whose interests it sometimes contradicted.

“The first global civilian computer networks were developed among cooperative capitalists, not among competitive socialists. The capitalists behaved like socialists, while the socialists behaved like capitalists,” writes Peters.