Who's in charge? - Kilrathi military and clans

Aginor

Vice Admiral
Hi there!
I'm also discussing that topic with the guys at WingCenter, but it might be interesting to hear you guys talking about it, especially since Quarto and I talked about something that might be related in Klavs' 3D thread. We also talked about some aspects of the question a while ago here in the CIC forums. But why not talk about it again. So here we go:

Do Kilrathi ships/fleets/troops belong to the clans, and do they crew their ships only with clan members, or are crews on Kilrathi ships more mixed? And why?

IMO reading the books and the fiction behind the games there are hints that both might be the case, depending on the situation.
In my mod (I still hope I can release it some day, both the artists that wanted to help me and the guys that offered to help me with my story remain silent, unfortunately, so I'm still stuck :( ) I explore that possibility and provide a possible answer.

Here's my theory on that:
Normally a ship belongs to a certain clan. The crew consists of members of that clan. And so does the crew of military installation. A star system is likely in the hands of one clan. That's because of the way the Kilrathi fealty system works I guess.
But maybe that's not always the case. I can imagine at least three situations that might happen (or that we even have seen happen):
- Big military actions that require lots of ships, more than a single clan could have. For example the Battle of Earth, or the McAuliffe Ambush. So they send their fleets, and the Imperial clan is in charge (Kiranka during the war)
- Religious stuff that prevents the Kilrathi from fighting each other, for example the Sivar Eshrad
- Mixed fleets or even mixed crews could happen for special purposes, but then there must be a special reason and also a rule that settles the problems with conflicts between clans as well as conflicting rules how to obey orders.

Social rank and military rank are not necessarily of equal importance, I think. Examples are provided by the books. When Hobbes is questioned at the beginning of Freedom Flight it becomes clear that his social rank is much higher than that of the questioner (which isn't even a noble) but he still has to obey, because he was told so.

But why could the Emperor (or someone else who has a high rank) decide to have mixed crews or mixed fleets?
Well, like in many cases with the Kilrathi a possible explanation is provided by the Japanese culture as well as some things that happened in Europe during the Middle Ages. The ruling dynasty forced either the leaders of clans (families, states, whatever you call them) or some of their relatives to stay near them (actually holding them captive), and/or they mixed their troops. Both were techniques to prevent uprisings of a single clan. They didn't trust each other since they had fought each other numerous times for centuries, just like our Kilrathi.

And of course we know that some of the clans are specialized a bit. If the Emperor or someone else who happens to be in charge wants to have a certain thing done he might want to build a fleet for that special purpose out of troops from several clans. A "pro bowl" or "best of" fleet. If I am not mistaken we can assume that such fleets exist because of the known Kilrathi names which appear in the games. So mixing fleets is not a problem I guess.
But we also see it the other way round, I think. Hobbes' crew on the ship he commands are all of his clan, aren't they? I also think that something like "ships of the XXXX clan" appears more than once in the books.
That would also be a possibility for the language stuff Quarto posted in the other thread. Mixed operations and stuff may be the reason for a unified language and glyphs system, and the other ones we see in the games (or the movie) might be rarely seen because they belong to a certain clan.

Ehmm... I guess this posting is a bit chaotic, I also think I missed some stuff I wanted to say. I was writing it while doing a bunch of other stuff. Sorry.

Anyway, discuss!
 
No idea as in terms of lore.

However, what you say about Feudal Japan and keeping family members etc hostage, this would make sense to me putting this on to the Kilrathi Clans. If a ship, manned (kittied?) with a clan fail a particular mission. Then all of them could be killed quite quickly or forced to commit some form of seppaku? Do the Kilrathi have that option, or does the Emperor get the privilege alone of vaporising those who fail him?

In WC2, Hobbes talks about not being able to see his clan or family again. So, how many Kilrathi are there in clans? Are clans just another word for "extended family" or is it more like their home town? Does the individual pay for the mistake or is it taken out on the whole clan. From WC2, Hobbes does not appear to be worried about the Emperor retaliating against his defection. You we do not know about Hobbes being a double spy until WC3, and his memories could have just been programmed to give ConFed a false picture of the Kilrathi empire. Though he does talk about the royal family having short life spans in a bid to gain the position of Emperor. This could be down to the technology limitations used to imprint the Hobbes personality or a mechanism to ensure that Hobbes does not blow his cover. Interestingly enough though, the cats had already nicknamed Blair "Heart of the Tiger" back in WC1SO2, the codename to destroy Hobbes and revert the original personality.

Wait, am I still on track here?
 
Well, there is one small problem with the words "clan" or "hrai" throughout the books. It is (especially by Lackey/Guon) used for different things. In the case you mentioned he seems to mean his close relatives, which really are dead. While his clan (the Hhallas-Clan) at least has one other member still alive, Bhuk 'Bloodmist' nar Hhallas (yeah, he was from WC3, so in Freedom Flight they didn't know).

I'll answer the rest later, gotta go.
 
A study of the Japanese feudal system probably would not be amiss here. I'd add more but I too must dash.
 
I don't actually have anywhere I need to be, but I'm feeling the peer pressure.

Later guys!
 
So, here I am again. Not exactly my usual definition of "later", but anyway:

centaurianmudpig, your first question is about forced seppuku (or Zu'kara as the Kilrathi would say). It is a common way of punishment, but the liege lord can also just kill the tenant. It's up to him and it also depends who the tenant in question is.
Obviously the Emperor can't hold the whole Caxki clan hostage, those are billions of Kilrathi. I therefore assume you mean the closer relatives.
In the following posts I'll use "hrai" for the closer part of the family (parents, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and so on) and "clan" for the bigger entity, like Hhallas, Caxki, Ki'ra, Kiranka and so on, which seems to be the way later Forstchen novels do that as well. I'm not saying it has to be that way, I'll just use it that way for clarity.

So back to your question: Yes, the Emperor might do that. Actually I think gathering the Barons of the big clans at the court on Kilrah is exactly that. You could kill the head of a clan for disobedience, although even the Emperor would not kill the Caxki Baron without a very good reason I guess. To simply fail some mission is probably not a reason to kill a tenant, but yeah, the Emperor and his hrai (not every Kiranka obviously) can do pretty much everything they want. For everyone except the Barons and perhaps the Sivar priests he is (almost) god-like. The Emperor even killed Gilkarg (his son!) for failing to protect the Sivar Dreadnought and nobody seemed to care.

As for the size of clans:
Well, we know some things, but some we can only guess. The big clans have whole sectors named after them, and they are called "great clans", they have their own governments and so on. We even know that some space ships are developed by certain clans (the Darket for example). Ok, so those are big.
But maybe that's not the only answer. If you think of Scottish clans, those have "sub-clans", so some clans are either descended from others, or have retained parts of their sovereignty despite being part of bigger clans. Some have just split from others.
It's the same with the Kilrathi. IIRC (must read that again) Ragitagha was split from Qarg (those two also have a feud running it seems), and Hhallas is part of Ragitagha. I don't know whether there are small clans that don't belong to one of the big ones, but given how the Kilrathi fight each other I think it is rather unlikely.
But maybe one thing about Hhallas is different. It could be that the "nar Hhallas" in the names of Bloodmist and Hobbes is not actually their clan, but their place of birth, and both are members of some other clan. I favor the sub-clans theory though. Every planet (or maybe star system) may be a sub-clan.

Your other question is whether only the individual is held responsible for his action, or also his clan. I think it is safe to assume that it is the latter, but not concerning everything. The Kilrathi even commit suicide without something being their fault, but the fault of their superiors. So it works from top down. I doubt the Caxki Baron would commit suicide because someone from his clan made a mistake though.
As for Hobbes: Well, "Hobbes" wasn't worried about his hrai because he thought they were dead (I don't know if we know for certain whether this was part of the cover or whether it really happened, I think they really died.)

Disclaimer: Some of the facts about the clans are taken direct from primary sources, such as the books. But I sometimes mix them up with some stuff from non-canon sources I read long ago (you know, sometimes something wrong sticks better if it sounds nice), or I remember something we discussed here. So feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (preferably with source :) ).
 
I think Gilkarg's execution was due more to the fact that he lost Vega Sector than Sivar, personally (both happened in fairly rapid succession, and Gilkarg was the cat in charge both times). And you have to wonder what kind of political machinations were going on to force the Emperor to kill his only son, being Cats notwithstanding.
 
For me that's definitely a possibility, since Kilrathi - and the Imperial Family specifically - are not exactly known to be really nice to each other. IIRC the Academy TV Series bible tells us Thrakhath murdered lots of people to get where he is, including members of his own family. It is not unlikely that Gilkarg did also plot to kill the Emperor. The cutscene text says he was executed for his failure though.
 
"Do Kilrathi ships/fleets/troops belong to the clans, and do they crew their ships only with clan members, or are crews on Kilrathi ships more mixed? And why?"

If I'm remembering correctly, Action Stations and Fleet Action have the most information on this type of stuff.

My short answers:

Ships: Yes, although they might operate under another clan's (most likely the emperor's or his appointed commander) in wartime.

Fleets: Home Fleet/1st Fleet of the Claw clearly belongs to the Kiranka clan. We need to go back and check the novels to see if they mention anything about the other fleets. I don't recall, but I'd guess they were under the control of the Kiranka clan in the general war effort.

Troops: Yes, during Vukar Tag Confed nailed four Imperial Legions. It's mentioned how they are all related to the emperor or his clan.

Crews: I think there are mixed crews.

I need to go back and check but if I'm remembering correctly, Kilrah belongs to the Kiranka clan because they won the last civil war before the Utai/Shata (I'm blanking the spellings) showed up and gave the Kilrathi jump technology. The Kiranka kept Kilrah while the other clans began to claim their own spheres of influence. In order to do this they needed ships. So they built them and began expanding.

Fleet Action talks about the Home Fleet being specifically created to protect the emperor and his clan from enemies, both foreign and domestic. It was not regularly used in combat even though the pilots on its carriers, and I think we have to expect they'd have some kind of basic level of "worthiness" for other officers and crew, were hardened combat veterans. (I forget the number of kills a pilot had to have to serve on the Home Fleet. 8?) The pilots were from all the clans if I'm remembering it right. I don't recall it saying they were only from one clan. That makes sense if you are also trying to use the Home Fleet as a political tool. What Hrai wouldn't want to brag about having the top pilots in the Home Fleet?, etc.
 
An excellent thread, Aginor. Looking forward to having time to read it in detail and comment. Just one quick remark in the meantime, on the subject of Prince Gilkarg - it's definitely worth looking at the broader context of the universe. Gilkarg's execution was triggered by the loss of the Sivar. But if you think about it, this was the third major setback the Kilrathi had suffered within the space of a year: the others being the loss of the Vega sector in WC1, and the wiping out of an entire Kilrathi fleet in the movie. We actually suggested in Standoff a connection between those two events - that it was the losses incurred during the events of the movie that weakened the Kilrathi sufficiently to give Confed a chance to push the Kilrathi out of Vega, though this is obviously a retcon in the sense that no one in 1990 could have envisaged the story of the WC movie. But think about the greater implications - Gilkarg fails in Sol, then loses Vega, and when the Emperor inevitably calls him in to hear what he's going to do about the defeats, he finds out that Gilkarg is putting all his faith in a single wildcard. Given the way we see the Emperor shoot down Thrakhath's boasting about stealth fighters a year later ("speak of your plans, not of your toys!"), I can't imagine the Emperor being impressed by Gilkarg counting on his toy to turn the tide - and I can only guess that it was at this point he told Gilkarg straight up, like he'd later tell Thrakhath, that if he fails, he will be replaced.
 
Quarto's post made something pop into my own mind.

How exactly does the role of supreme commander (Joor'rad during the Varni War, Gilkarg at the start of the TK War, Thrakhath in the final decade) work?

I can't recall if AS talks about this when reflecting on the Varni War. Part of me wants to say they mention that was Joor'rad's war and now the Confederation is for Gilkarg.

Anyways, I ask because Emperor Joor'rad, while clearly part of the military command structure, doesn't led from the front during the TK War. For the most part, I don't think he leaves Kilrah very much. The attempted assassination in FA by Jukaga was one of the few times we hear about Joor'rad traveling.

If Thrakhath is replaced, I think, we descend into lesser cousins to take his place. That's just the type of window Jukaga was looking for to make his own move to replace Joor'rad and return his clan to the imperial throne.
 
@Quarto:
Thanks! That topic has been on my mind for a long time, since I have to deal with such situations in the story of my mod, and since I'm stuck with the story at the moment I thought it would be possible to get some ideas out of this. Also I have fun discussing the Kilrathi obviously. :D
As for Gilkarg: I think I like your explanation. The Emperor surely wouldn't kill his son without a good reason. And one failure isn't a good reason IMO. So yeah, Gilkarg has not only failed once but lost three major operations in a row. That sounds more severe and I can see how it might make good ol' Joor'rad angry enough to kill him. Especially since he has alternatives now (Thrakhath) he probably didn't have a few years ago.

@Dundradal: Interesting points! Here are my thoughts about that:
IIRC Action Stations doesn't tell us too much about that at all. We just know that Joor'rad fought the Varni and was quite successful doing that. Whether supreme commander is something special or whether it is just the highest military rank, given to the Emperor or his heir, we can only speculate about that, I guess.
I don't think the war with either the Varni or the Terrans is of so much personal interest for any of the Kilrathi (except Thrakhath perhaps, he seems to be quite fanatic). The Kilrathi know how quickly death can strike during battle, and their commanders usually fight on the front (which is how Joor'rad lost his eye in the first place and also how others of the family died). So I think I wouldn't say Varni were "predestined" for Joor'rad and Terrans for Gilkarg in the way I think you mean.
But of course the best way to become famous and powerful in the Kilrathi culture is to win a war. Gilkarg hadn't won one yet so he was eager to show off what he can do and risked much. He knew Joor'rad was already very old (he would have died in the next few years anyway I guess, I think I remember people talking about him being too old) and he was a great war hero, so he wanted that, too, he wanted to be an Emperor the other Clans respect because he won the war against the Terrans.

Also an interesting point about Jukaga. He hopes that Joor'rad's hrai will die out, to seize the opportunity and get control.

Speaking of age:
What are your assumptions about the Kilrathi characters ages? I always wondered about that since we know that Kilrathi mature quickly (based on some facts from the books, especially Hobbes' age and what we know about Thrakhath, who was too young to fight at McAuliffe)
I once crafted a similar theory over at WingCenter, maybe you'll also find it interesting:

Facts:
- Joor'rad fought as supreme commander in the Varni war
- McAuliffe was 2634
- Joor'rad is old for a Kilrathi
- Thrakhath and Ratha are Gilkarg's children, Joor'rad's grandsons
- Gilkarg had at least two children in 2634
- Gilkarg died in 2655
- Thrakhath was too young to fight at McAuliffe, Ratha wasn't
- Thrakhath is not considered old yet at the time of his death in 2669
- Hobbes was born in 2641 and was already in military service when his hrai died in 2650, at the age of 9
- The Terran-Kilrathi war lasted from 2634 to 2669, 35 years.

Assumptions:
- The Varni war did not end right before the Terran war started, there was a short period of peace between those events. At least 5-10 years I guess, maybe longer.
- Gilkarg didn't fight in the Varni war, that's why in Action Stations he is very eager to fight. He wants to prove himself, like his father did. I assume he was too young to fight in it, everything else wouldn't make sense for Kilrathi IMO. We know they send their young ones to war as soon as they are able to. Ratha and Hobbes for example.

Deductions and theories:
- Thrakhath was over 35 when he died
- Since Gilkarg's son Ratha is (although he is still very young) old enough to fight in 2634. So he has to be at least as old as his son's age+the years Kilrathi need to be able to reproduce (see below).
- Kilrathi are able to fight in a war and produce offspring at a young age, under ten. They can also have children at that age. I'll take the age of 8 and use that for calculations, and see what happens.

So let's do some math (results are minimum ages, given my assumptions above. All of them may be older):
Thrakhath's birth: 2634-(something between 1 and 8) = 2626-2633
Ratha's birth: 2634-(at least 8) = before 2626

If we take that age and assume Gilkarg had children as young as possible that gives us the following number for his birth date:
Gilkarg's birth: 2626-(at least 8) = before 2618
Gilkarg's age at the time of his death: 2655-2618= 37

Then we assume the same for Joor'rad, and get:
Joor'rad's birth: 2618-(at least 8) = before 2610
Joor'rad's age at the time of his death: 2669-2610 = 59

So if we assume that Kilrathi can father children at the age of 8, Joor'rad was at least around 60.

Now there's at least one possible flaw in my calculations:
I assume that someone who can do military service as an officer is also old enough to father children. Looking at our own history that assumption may be wrong. If you know the movie "Master and Commander", there is a boy, Lord Blakeney, who is midshipman (a commissioned officer) and that boy is aged 12 perhaps. This is considered realistic, Horatio Nelson was 12 when he joined the Royal Navy.
So maybe I'm guessing a bit low with our Kilrathi. What do you think?
 
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ah, I just remember I omitted another interesting thing:
Kirha is younger than Ralgha, in fact he is young enough that Ralgha calls him "little cubling" and such things. Still he was old enough to already be in the military and miss the "accident" in which Ralgha's hrai died. So maybe Kil join the military even earlier, possibly by the age of six or something.

As for how it might be possible that Kilrahi generations are longer than I assumed above: Perhaps there are social reasons to not reproduce as early as possible, for example that children are forbidden to reproduce as long as their parents are still able to. Such things are common on earth as well, for example if you look at packs of lions.
So maybe you could replace the "8" I wrote above by "12" and do the math again. That would also push the date for the Varni war further back.
 
I had to do some calculations of age for WCRPG to jive with events; most of the events are based on the timeline in Star*Soldier though there is an equal amount of supposition involved. I had the Varni war occurring in 2594, with Joor'rad ascending to the throne of Kilrah in 2632. So like Gilkarg - he was the Crown Prince at the time of the Varni War awaiting ascension to the throne, he was injured but was still capable of taking over when his father died. Had he died of his injuries, he had an heir apparent in Gilkarg (just as Gilkarg had heir apparents in Ratha and Thrakhath).

Here are the birthdates I came up with for the Imperial Family at the time of the war's start; bear in mind that this is my own supposition:

Joor'rad (this name for the last Kilrathi emperor is also a supposition, incidentally): 2566.162
Gilkarg: 2590.318
Ratha: 2611.172
Zukara: 2621.009
Thrakhath: 2624.259

Then Ralgha and Kirha...
Ralgha: 2614.096
Kirha: 2631.146

Checking, it looks like I had the Cats reaching adolescence at eight years of age and adulthood at 22, so there may be some kind of coming of age thing going on. I just know that 14 years of puberty would suck nard...probably should've thought that one through before I put it in ink.

Anyways, there's my take on it. It reinforces the notion that Joor'rad was a very old cat when Kilrah was destroyed; IIRC when I rolled his character out I had it where he would've died of natural causes anyway in 2670.

As for Zukara......well, I've got a plot point involving her planned for Elegy. I intend to keep the details under wraps for now.
 
Yeah, puberty that long sucks. :D
I'd like to know the thoughts behind your numbers, though. Especially why you did assume that adulthood happens that late. Do we have any sources pointing to that?

As for Joor'rad's name: The guy who wrote it said it was intended, so even if he feels bad about it now, it is there. So I guess that's canon.
https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/8920
 
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You're right: it has been canonized - Star*Soldier page 15, old Slorthy there "from '67 to '69 served as personal torturer for Emperor Joor'rad". Canon. That's what I get for not checking my sources before I write.

Thoughts behind the numbers - first, that bit is supposition. Worse yet, unless I'm mistaken it's random. I'll have to go back through my notes to verify that.

EDIT: Apparently I have no notes from that part of WCRPG's development cycle. Log shows I worked on that from 2/27-29 in 2012; I'll see if there are notes for those dates on the wiki itself.

EDIT EDIT: Bingo. Yep. Random. Based on the procedure in Chapter 10.2.7, but still based on die rolls. As for the line of thought behind the system, I'd have to go even further back, into the SFRPG days, and my problem there is that its development wiki has vanished.

Heh. The wiki kept the record of all my die rolls for the Kilrathi - the 15:53, February 28, 2012 revision of the page.


Anyway, I used those numbers because they made sense to me at the time. The Kilrathi are a sapient race, after all, and intelligence has a tendency to vastly expand a creature's lifespan (as does technology). So I figured they could be long-lived, it's just that their society is so violent that many of them don't live that long. I also figured that one war per generation would give their society time to consolidate their gains from the previous war, take slaves, gain resources and generally satiate their desire for blood until the next generation came along and needed fresh opponents to fight.
 
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A species with a long life span could have a long puberty; you're talking about a decade all in all for humans until they finally stop growing and become fully mature.
 
I don't think the war with either the Varni or the Terrans is of so much personal interest for any of the Kilrathi (except Thrakhath perhaps, he seems to be quite fanatic). The Kilrathi know how quickly death can strike during battle, and their commanders usually fight on the front (which is how Joor'rad lost his eye in the first place and also how others of the family died). So I think I wouldn't say Varni were "predestined" for Joor'rad and Terrans for Gilkarg in the way I think you mean.

But of course the best way to become famous and powerful in the Kilrathi culture is to win a war. Gilkarg hadn't won one yet so he was eager to show off what he can do and risked much. He knew Joor'rad was already very old (he would have died in the next few years anyway I guess, I think I remember people talking about him being too old) and he was a great war hero, so he wanted that, too, he wanted to be an Emperor the other Clans respect because he won the war against the Terrans.

It's not that it's personal. Joor'rad proved his mettle by conquering the Varni. His position was secure because he had conquered such a powerful foe. His injuries stem from Varni suicide pilot. I wouldn't necessarily say he was leading from the front as much as leading his fleet.

And exactly, Gilkarg needed to show his prowess to the other clan leaders so that there would not be another civil war vying for total power. Defeating Confed would have gone a long way to securing Gilkarg. I

Assumptions:
- The Varni war did not end right before the Terran war started, there was a short period of peace between those events. At least 5-10 years I guess, maybe longer.

I want to say it was 20 years between them.

So maybe I'm guessing a bit low with our Kilrathi. What do you think?

Math is not my forte. :p
 
The age at which a Kil is ready for service would also depend a lot on how much training/education is needed. For infantry enlisted/drafted from the commoners, they may not need to know much more than basic reading/writing/arithmetic and history/indoctrination before enlisting (i.e. equivalent to elementary school), and then only a few months of military training. Officers on the other hand may need a couple of years of officer's school/training above what the low-level grunts get. It becomes implausible if we are forced to assume that Kilrathi can get equivalent knowledge/training in less than about half of the time that it would take for humans, so I would wager that at least four years of a Kil's childhood are spent getting the general education, and at least 2 years to get the advanced training needed for an officer (and pilot). Eight years (assuming Kilrath years are close enough in length to Earth years) is about the minimum age plausible for an officer even assuming that Kilrathi mature physically quickly enough to start learning to read at age two and reach puberty before age eight.
 
Great thread indeed, something that interests me as well!

Sadly it's quite late here so I will just be throwing out some thoughts that I think I recall but I'm not checking any sources. Maybe we can polish the details in the further discussion.

I think ships belong to clans, I think I remember some kind of novel or manual/handbook sying that ships with the markings of the so-and-so clan have been sighted. On the other hand, I'm also pretty sure that there are mixed crews. The Ras Nik'ra seems to have a mixed crew. At least they don't seem to belong to Ralgha's clan for the most part, especially not Drakj(?). Also, I think WCATV says something about this but again, I'm not sure.

Ralgha is 28 in 2669 according to VS. In 2654, at age 13 he is a Khantahr (Read Admiral) and is depicted as a veteran even aged, I think. Isn't even a mentioning of his fur getting grey? And he seems to already have had a relationship with Hassa some time ago. Many years ago, we already had a thread about Kilrathi ageing and I think the results were that Kilrathi are more or less adult at age 4 and that Emperor Joor'rad was about 80 in WC3. Also, it seems that the Hhallas is not one of the eight ruling clans (Kiranka, Ki'ra, Caxki, Ragitagha, Qarg, Sutaghi, Kur'u'tak and Sihkag) but is somehow a subbranch/part of the Kiranka clan (because Thrakhath says in WC2 that Ralgha is one of the few relatives who didn't try to kill him. He may have lied of course).

Another example of Joor'rad travelling: in WC2 and its add-ons he was in the K'tith'rak Mang system and in the Kabla Meth system in the M'Shrak sector (?)...and wasn't he somewhere in the Deneb sector as well?
 
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