RE Fun Fact Friday #113 The Eckzahn Martial arts category “Follbana” is not one discipline, but is an overarching category of martial arts fighting styles used all the way from sports, to hand-to-hand combat that is trained in the military. It plays into wolves’ strengths to wear down their opponent, then a violent takedown and ultimately deliver a “killing” blow. Follbana takes many forms depending on the context. The most common is for sports, naturally there are several types and regional variations.Physical fitness is very important in eckzahn society. And wrestling, as well as other combat sports, plays an important role in that. Wrestling is a popular way to keep in shape, train and retain martial skills and culture, and competitive professional sport. Iþróttaskae, public complexes focusing on exercise and training, have open courtyards with place to run, play sports, wrestle, and weight train all open and free to the public. Here, all sorts go to practice, teach, and learn different Follbana disciplines. It is ironically very unorganized, no signup sheets or waivers to be taught. If you go there, experienced practitioners often teach impromptu classes. However more often it is a family doing this teaching. Typically these matches go through the following flow: A striking phase, A violent takedown, grappling for superior positions, a knockout or submission. Full closed fist punches are not as widely used, due to that a tight closed fist is not possible with the claws on wolves’ fingertips. So full reach punches are more to keep the enemy distracted, keep his guard up and wear him down. The powerful strikes come mostly from the elbows, where the bony protrusion helps transfer more force to a smaller area. As well as shin or knee kicks. Due to anthros’ digitigrade leg structure it is easier to target the weight distribution focused on the knee area. The ultimate goal of this is to get your opponent on the ground. The striking phase often gets stuck in holds, where the two participants control each other’s arms, as both look for openings to do a takedown. Getting your opponent on the ground is the primary focus of all forms of Follbana, grappling for a superior position, and finishing the fight. Fast and violent takedowns are the flashiest and most crucial part of any Follbana fight. Getting close up to your opponent and putting him on the ground. Wolves use their powerful leg muscles to move and lunge fast and control their opponent’s weight. Grappling once your opponent on the ground is a big part of Follbana, using your strength and weight to control your opponent is the biggest focus. Nuetralizing your opponent via chokeholds, armbars, leg locks, and joint locks to force your oppenent into submission is the most common way for a fight to end. Combat sports usually take the form of a singular round without a time limit. The match ends when one person submits, or is knocked out. Follbana is a test of endurance more than anything. Saving up your strength until the right time when your opponent puts his guard down. But Follbana is not just for sport. It is also deeply ingrained in Eckzahn society, and how people resolve conflict. Often when two people cannot resolve a conflict with words. they may initiate a wrestling duel or “einönga”. Officiated by one or two nuetral refferees, this type of dueling to resolve conflicts prevents further conflict by both sides respecting the outcome of it. Whoever wins gets to impose the condition preestablished and agreed upon before the duel. Going back on your word after you lost your duel will significantly impact your social life as you may not be trusted by people again. But honoring your deal will gain you praise. This idea of a wrestling duel has further incentivized physical fitness and violence of action in everyday Eckzahn life. Everyone from the young university student to politicians is expected to be not only in good physical health and sound of mind, but able to handle themselves in a fight. Women are welcome to learn and train, but are not expected to learn any follbana. Instead women are taught to bite any attacker if they are not trained. Follbana has a form taught as the hand to hand combat method in the military. In the present day, this physical strength and dealing with an opponent in close combat with bladed weapons is so rare. However, the Eckzahn still put a focus on this type of training to instill discipline, and the fighter’s mindset. Recruits are often taught to fight with knives or utility hatchets. Ironically the Eckzahn prefer, in hand to hand combat like this, to use a small precise weapon. Instead the focus is to control your opponent's weapon, and strike at vital areas when the opening arises. Wolves use their large mass and strength to take control of the fight by grabbing the opponent's weapon. Sometimes this actually manifests as purposefully getting the weapon stuck in a non-vital body part or grasping the blade. Then locking out your opponent's arm and stabbing the chest or slicing the neck. The discipline learned allows them to sacrifice something to deal the killing blow. They are taught to use a bladed weapon in this type of hand to hand combat, but if you can't get to it or your hand with the weapon is otherwise unable, they are taught to rip out the throat of their opponent with their powerful bite. Of course this was much more common in the past. There hasn't been any recorded uses of this method in many years.

Sometimes it gets hot

RE Fun Fact Friday #118 In Resonant Evolution farming has been mastered for a long time. Combines, collection vehicles, and processing facilities are all automated. This has exponentially increased production and lowered in amount of labor needed in food production Individual farming families, households, or communities are able to export vastly more product than if done by manually operated machines. There can be several automated combines and collection vehicles operating at once, doing the job quicker and more precisely than an experienced farmer. Some farms are single families selling just enough to get by, others may look like small towns themselves with many facilities and amenities for the community. Specific crop storing and selling processes of course depend on the planet you are on and what country or faction controls the planet but it normally follows this general guide: farmers either take their crop to a shared processing location like in ____ and Wolf cultures, or process their own using automated milling and or shucking processer (depending on the crop of course. Then the process crop is transported by automated transport vehicles to local storage facilities in town where grain towers and other facilities are located in, and are sold. Livestock and the products they make are a bit trickier to scale up, they can be a little more involved. Depending on the animal, drones may be used to transfer feed, automated facilities may have to groom or milk them, and automated vehicles and machines can corral them. But inevitably as unpredictable as they some manual correction may have to happen. Similar to crops livestock are transported to centralized processing facilities and slaughtered when the time is right. Typically, these farming communities and any towns that export their products in agricultural areas are pretty isolated. They need vast amounts of land to grow on. Towns that collect the processed crops may have local food manufacturing which takes the local processed crops and makes All of this automation and all of these vehicles, facilities and drones need to be maintained. Which is where most of the manual labor will be done. Drones are often used for tracking and surveillance, to network automated vehicles, and for bigger farms can even be used for security and pest control. Pictured here, Untxia Rabbits of the Commonwealth form self contained centralized communities, which support the process of food production. Oftentimes this community is one big extended family, the size and growth of which is enabled by the sheer amount of children commonly produced by any couple. The larger centralized communities of course process more crop and typically have more amenities for the family. Since rabbits are herbivores (not exclusively though) they have a much less focus on livestock. Wolves have a similar farming structure, only the large singular family, is replaced by a “commune” of several families all specializing in one aspect of the process or support of that process. One family might be technicians for the vehicles, another might be construction experts, and others might specialize in the processing of livestock. Since wolves are (mostly) carnivores, and eat a lot of meat, there is more focus on livestock and meat processing. Of course the livestock have to be fed, so most crops grown by wolves are to be fed to their livestock.

RE Fun Fact Friday #97 Right after the invasion of Earth, and even before it ended, the Eckzahn Union provided aid to the people of earth. During the invasion the Eckzahn Union did not descend from the sky and slaughter every human on sight. They struck military and major infrastructure sights, avoiding unnecessary casualties where possible, they intentionally avoided urban centers and other areas where no strategic value existed. Their operations were hastily formed but intentional in their goal to only fight the militaries of the primitive planet, not the whole population. The Eckzahn are not ruthless killers that slaughter their enemies women and children alike, they have a strict moral code. They have a long military tradition dating back thousands of years. What is and isn't moral isn't even a question to them. Wolves cut a very distinct line in who you can and cannot mess with during a conflict. They selfishly think that everyone despite species and affiliation will also think like them. That everyone will voluntarily fight and die whole heartily and without pause for their own cause. So, they treat enemy components the same way they wish to be treated. All official enemy forces will be free game up until they surrender, upon which they will be treated well, as surrendering is recognition that you and your ideas have been defeated. Of course this also means that many Eckzahn soldiers are very committed to their roles as soldiers, and as believers in the Union and what it stands for, are willing to die for any gain to the Union. Surrendering to them is shameful, but never not an option, they can and will surrender when opposed to complete domination of an enemy. Their surrenderees however, will be treated very well. They’d be given ample quarters and amenities. Civilians are very explicitly left out of conflict. They would see attacks upon civilians as a total war, upon an entire civilization, which they would see as only justifiable if under the same pressure themselves, which hardly ever occurs. They don't see civilians as their enemy in a war, they see them as the prize, something to be protected. The Eckzahn provided aid in the form of food and water, but also basic amenities like electricity and waste disposal, to the people of Earth where they needed it. They do not wish to starve the people they conquer, they want to be paternal to them. They want to be the ones people go to, they want to be chosen. They want people to voluntarily submit to them. They’re going to help people that need it in the chaos they cause. After the invasion of Earth, the Eckzahn shipped in supplies to alleviate any gap in production of local food and other amenities, and distributed them at distribution points all over Earth. They made sure the primitives distributed these resources fairly and did not savageally attack each other over them. This often resulted in the Eckzahn resolving conflicts through force, like breaking up a fight between two teenagers by throwing a few punches in yourself. Soldiers in Eckzahn culture are treated as a tier above regular citizens. Their service to the Union not only grants them more rights like a higher voting weight and the right to bear arms, but the respect and honorance they get is much higher than we might today. However, they are judged at a higher standard, they are expected to be model citizens, to treat everyone with due respect and know their own place. This standard is applied to when soldiers of the Union are interacting with an enemy too, you are not going to see Union soldiers burning and pillaging (or worse) an enemy. They believe their way is the right way, and what they say goes. They impose this onto their own citizens through societal and social pressure, and onto those they rule over through non-lethal punishment. The Eckzahn employ labor camps and corporal punishment retally. Breaking the law involves you surrendering yourself to the government which can result in many things. Small infractions may just get you a literal slap on the wrist (or bosom), while larger crimes might get you sent to a labor camp to repay the crime you committed with labor for a proportional amount of time. They see it as you are literally indebted to the Eckzahn government for going outside the law and have to repay them.