How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by SolCannibal »

As in, the alien bad guys from Macross II and the Pantheon of Sumer, as presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse. The name of their race, along with at least one of their people being named Ishtar would seem to imply at least some connection but as i haven't read the books on Macross II for possibly more than a decade, must admit i have no idea if the relation was ever adressed, be it on "were the gods astronauts" vague terms or more crossover involved terms.

There's also something of a complication in that Macross II occupies a peculiar place in terms of setting as, while published by Palladium, it was never a part of the "Robotech continuum" per se AFAIK (can't remember the sourcebook adressing this), and, in a bizarre twist of fate, not of Macross continuum's either, as the timeline seems to have gone into different directions from Macross 7 onwards.

So i'm scratching my head a bit when it comes to how would - or if it even should - this stuff fit into the Megaverse after all and from these rambling thoughts and doubts came this topic, wanting to look for input (and share the misery :twisted:).

Feel free to throw your thoughts, opinions or any relevant book references if you can think of i might have forgotten about, it'll be most appreciated.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

Macross II was the sorta sequel to Macross Do You Remember Love. macross II and DYRL exist as movies within the SDF:macross&sequels setting, with DYRl as a fictionalized alternate retelling of the events of the 1st space war, and macross II being basically a alt-reality flick.

As far as the possible connections.. well, in the macross II setting, it is likely the idea was that the race that created all of the different groups (who created the zentran and meltran to fight each other, and who fled that genocidal war to settle earth and create humanity) were also the ancestors/creators of the Marduk, and that names like marduk, ishtar, gilgamesh, etc were stuff from the language of the common ancestor, and that on earth evolved into the babylonian mythology.

if you are porting it over to other PB lines, or want to bring the DB2 deities into macross II, you could presume that the babylonian pantheon had some contact with the ancestors of the Marduk, imparting some language and culture that shaped their later development. this could actually open up some interesting ideas.. since it could let you use the marduk as minions of one or more of the babylonian gods in megaversal games. though their lack of magic or psionics would pose some issues in some settings. (assuming the GM does not just give them access to something suitably thematic)

another option, in a megaversal game, would be to invoke Atlantis.. we know that True Atlantians before the fall had connections to several pantheons (notably the greek one), and the true atlantean diaspora would allow for even more contact. it would not take much to imagine a true atlantean tribe finding their way somewhere and evolving into something new culturally and/or physically (much the way the inhabitants of Seeron did), and then developing space travel, finding Zentran and Metran, reverse engineering their tech, etc. the babylonian connection could have occured in such a scenario at any point in their early history.. before the fall, during the diaspora, after the settling of whatever world they chose..


personally i have rather liked the idea of using the Macross II factions as parts of phase world.. the Un Spacy could be a small star nation in one of the three galaxies (perhaps one of the many "earths" settled by humans mentioned in DB2), with the marduk and various zentran and meltran fleets as nomadic 'tribal' factions roaming the galaxy. technology wise their stuff is comparable to the lower end three galaxies gear, and would make for interesting alternatives to "contragravity, shields, and antimatter" all the time.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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glitterboy2098 wrote:Macross II was the sorta sequel to Macross Do You Remember Love. macross II and DYRL exist as movies within the SDF:macross&sequels setting, with DYRl as a fictionalized alternate retelling of the events of the 1st space war, and macross II being basically a alt-reality flick.


Yes, that was as DYRL and Macross II were put as being "out of canon/continuity" in Macross 7, ressetting the timeline from them onwards, so to speak.

glitterboy2098 wrote:As far as the possible connections.. well, in the macross II setting, it is likely the idea was that the race that created all of the different groups (who created the zentran and meltran to fight each other, and who fled that genocidal war to settle earth and create humanity) were also the ancestors/creators of the Marduk, and that names like marduk, ishtar, gilgamesh, etc were stuff from the language of the common ancestor, and that on earth evolved into the babylonian mythology.

if you are porting it over to other PB lines, or want to bring the DB2 deities into macross II, you could presume that the babylonian pantheon had some contact with the ancestors of the Marduk, imparting some language and culture that shaped their later development. this could actually open up some interesting ideas.. since it could let you use the marduk as minions of one or more of the babylonian gods in megaversal games. though their lack of magic or psionics would pose some issues in some settings. (assuming the GM does not just give them access to something suitably thematic)


There are bits in each setting to allow room for either of those two takes - Lord Emperor Ingues of the Marduk was implied to be a millenia-old being, what might indicate a godling and the Emulators seemed to have empathic/mental abilities related to their songs that while not mechanically worked as such in the book, that might be simply an artifact of the lack of a psionics/magic system in Robotech.

And then there's the fact Pantheons of the Megaverse presents us with Erghoul-Katet, a Sowki witch that acted as satrap/overlord for Abzu in millenia past in some unamed alien world, or Gilgamesh experimenting with cloning and weird ritual magics serving as a pointed examples of the mesopotamian gods playing in the interestelar/transdimensional & technological fields when convenient. So it might be said to be something of a "either/or" case.

glitterboy2098 wrote:another option, in a megaversal game, would be to invoke Atlantis.. we know that True Atlantians before the fall had connections to several pantheons (notably the greek one), and the true atlantean diaspora would allow for even more contact. it would not take much to imagine a true atlantean tribe finding their way somewhere and evolving into something new culturally and/or physically (much the way the inhabitants of Seeron did), and then developing space travel, finding Zentran and Metran, reverse engineering their tech, etc. the babylonian connection could have occured in such a scenario at any point in their early history.. before the fall, during the diaspora, after the settling of whatever world they chose..


For the True Atlanteans i'm not certain it does quite work as while mentioned Abzu and his ilk did have a present in Rifts Earth at the Atlanteans' "time of glory", it also points out to an active avoidance of them by the mesopotamians while establishing their local power base, implying either no contact in the period or antagonistic ones at most. But that speaking of Rifts Earth Atlantis - now, the popularity of cananite/mesopotamian names between the Nightlords & associates would seem to tell us about "Nightlantis" a whole different story... Damn, maybe the Dark is slumbering Abzu. :wink:

glitterboy2098 wrote:personally i have rather liked the idea of using the Macross II factions as parts of phase world.. the Un Spacy could be a small star nation in one of the three galaxies (perhaps one of the many "earths" settled by humans mentioned in DB2), with the marduk and various zentran and meltran fleets as nomadic 'tribal' factions roaming the galaxy. technology wise their stuff is comparable to the lower end three galaxies gear, and would make for interesting alternatives to "contragravity, shields, and antimatter" all the time.


That is certainly doable - UN Spacy as one of the many constituent states of the CCW would certainly work, specially in Thundercloud, where the resulting certain degree of isolation/distance could go a long way toward explaining the slight techonological gap in relation to 3 Galaxies mainstream.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

another option in a megaversal setting would be the Marduk are a bunch of Impersonators, using elements of the Babylonian mythology in order to pretend to be deities.. Stargate style.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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glitterboy2098 wrote:another option in a megaversal setting would be the Marduk are a bunch of Impersonators, using elements of the Babylonian mythology in order to pretend to be deities.. Stargate style.


The Goa'uld themselves seen to fill a niche all their own between impersonator and "we inspired the legends" but a society of starfaring conmen playing gods or demons to awe and swindle the natives of less advanced civilizations could certainly make for an interesting group and i think the Shissans from Aliens Unlimited play at least a bit at that.

For the Marduk themselves it might take some reworking of the group as given, as they are presented as genocidal expansionists more than manipulative conquerors or anything else, but each game is its own thing and the Marduk ain't canon in their own source continuity anyway. :lol:
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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When in doubt, blame the Atlanteans.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:When in doubt, blame the Atlanteans.


Because no one expects the Lemurians... :wink:
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by eliakon »

SolCannibal wrote:
glitterboy2098 wrote:another option in a megaversal setting would be the Marduk are a bunch of Impersonators, using elements of the Babylonian mythology in order to pretend to be deities.. Stargate style.


The Goa'uld themselves seen to fill a niche all their own between impersonator and "we inspired the legends" but a society of starfaring conmen playing gods or demons to awe and swindle the natives of less advanced civilizations could certainly make for an interesting group and i think the Shissans from Aliens Unlimited.

For the Marduk themselves it might take some reworking of the group as given, as they are presented as genocidal expansionists more than manipulative conquerors or anything else, but each game is its own thing and the Marduk ain't canon in their own source continuity anyway. :lol:

Which hilariously makes the Marduk canon only in the non-canon game that is no longer canon for the setting it is written for...
Talk about no respect. :badbad:
Why its enough to make a race go xenocidal and go off on a rampage of conquest. :x
Oh wait... :eek:
And now you know why the Marduk do what they do. Its a catastrophic 4th wall failure.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

well, In Macross II they were not blindly xenocidal.. they operated kinda like the aliens in Independence Day. they'd show up, exploit a system till it ran out of resources, and move on. we don't really know how they would have have treated humanity, because humanity immediately attacked them (thinking they were one of the various nomadic Zentraedi splinter fleets), precipitating a war. the Marduk only seem to have gotten really aggressive when humanity didn't fall rapidly, which went against their leader's meglomania and the quasi-religious nature of his control. (basically a "we are stronger, therefor we are the superior race" angle.. humanity not falling immediately called that superiority into question)

it is possible, even probable that the Marduk would have just enslaved humanity and integrated them into their social structure in some way, had humanity fallen quickly. the way the Marduk enslaved the Zentran and Meltran. since the universe they were in did not have any non-human races evident** we don't know how they would react to non-human races.

**the zentran and metran being soldiers based on 'ancient humans", and earth humanity being the descendants of the ancient humans.. the marduk being another "descended from ancient humans" group. with fleets of Zentran and Meltran roaming around fighting their ancient war, odds are there owuldn't be many chances for other life to set much of a start before the war swept through their system and saw it wiped out. (which is what happened to earth in DYRL.)
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:
taalismn wrote:When in doubt, blame the Atlanteans.


Because no one expects the Lemurians... :wink:


Well, maybe the Sunaj, but they suspect EVERYBODY.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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well i brought up Atlanteans because the ancient city that Misa and Hikaru found in DYRL was very clearly meant to be part of a version of the Atlantis mythos, and it was created by whatever pre-terran human species* that had also created the Zentran and Meltran, and probably the Marduk as well.. in a megaversal setting where they exist in other universes with no link to DYRL, using PB's version of ancient atlantis would let you preserve an aspect of that backstory while slotting them into whatever setting you pick.



(in DYRL and the original macross, they are called "the protoculture", with 'proto' meaning 'original'.. but since that term means something else in robotech, i have been avoiding it to reduce confusion)
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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glitterboy2098 wrote:well i brought up Atlanteans because the ancient city that Misa and Hikaru found in DYRL was very clearly meant to be part of a version of the Atlantis mythos, and it was created by whatever pre-terran human species* that had also created the Zentran and Meltran, and probably the Marduk as well.. in a megaversal setting where they exist in other universes with no link to DYRL, using PB's version of ancient atlantis would let you preserve an aspect of that backstory while slotting them into whatever setting you pick.



(in DYRL and the original macross, they are called "the protoculture", with 'proto' meaning 'original'.. but since that term means something else in robotech, i have been avoiding it to reduce confusion)


Actually, the term in Macross was "deculture" - protoculture came to be, i think, as adaptation in translation, that in itself would inspire Harmony Gold to come with its own take, playing on culture/cultivation instead, leading to the Flower of Life among other stuff.

But yeah, the "original lost civilization" makes for a valid hook/connection of sorts to Atlantis or other such legendary primeval lost lands.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

Palladium's megaverse has more than a few such options..
Atlantis, Lemuria, wherever the psionic immortals like the Dreamer came from.

Atlantis is probably the go-to choice though because it is much more 'general'.. Lemuria when introduced as very aquatic focused, and we now know to be very focused on magic and biotech. the Psionic immportals have almost no details given, but their nature makes them hard to use as a basis for much else.
Atlantis though was inhabited by basically slightly different versions of regular humans, and because of the continent's vanishing, you had a lot of Atlanteans spread throughout the megaverse.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

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SolCannibal wrote:There's also something of a complication in that Macross II occupies a peculiar place in terms of setting as, while published by Palladium, it was never a part of the "Robotech continuum" per se AFAIK (can't remember the sourcebook adressing this), and, in a bizarre twist of fate, not of Macross continuum's either, as the timeline seems to have gone into different directions from Macross 7 onwards.

That is correct that Macross II was never part of Robotech. Contunity wise, as I understand it, its part of a Macross AU for all practical purposes (DYRL and M2 being a single AU, and other examples being part of the same line).

SolCannibal wrote:As in, the alien bad guys from Macross II and the Pantheon of Sumer, as presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse. The name of their race, along with at least one of their people being named Ishtar would seem to imply at least some connection but as i haven't read the books on Macross II for possibly more than a decade, must admit i have no idea if the relation was ever adressed, be it on "were the gods astronauts" vague terms or more crossover involved terms.

To add even more "Megaversal" angle you also have the Amaki in WB9:SA2 that essentially are aliens (and advanced aliens) who also by coincidence appear to resemble beings from Babalyonian legend (IINM, plus their Terretoriy on Rifts Earth speaks Babalyonian). Though they say they haven't visited Earth prior to Rifts period (no reason that a dimension/time jump can't work).

They could be an Atlantean splinter group (ex Mechanoids are IIRC supposed to have their origin in such a group, and IIRC PW has another evolutionary offshoot) megaversally speaking. But I think that angle is over done.

Having a Pantheon connection is possible I suppose, but in terms of galactic armies how many Pantheons have been successful in raising such a force? You'd almost have to explain that eventually.

Personally I treat it as one big coincidence in naming, but in M2 at least the Zentran/Meltran are a faction(s) that was "defeated" by another race (like some are at Earth, but unlike at Earth...). Another possibility is the Marduk are an offshoot of the original creators (using the Star Gate analogy, they are like the "ori" in how they relate to the "Ancients").
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

perhaps instead of being offshoot atlanteans or the minions of the Babylonian pantheon, they could just be the descendants of a group of babylonians that got stranded on a world somewhere in the megaverse? either as the result of some dimensional accident, or perhaps as a colony of believers relocated by the babylonian pantheon for some reason, then lost/abandoned later. resulting in a world where the babylonian elements stuck around in terms of language and names, but the religion itself died out (or evolved into something totally different) as their culture grew and changed over millennia, becoming technological and eventually space faring?
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by eliakon »

glitterboy2098 wrote:well, In Macross II they were not blindly xenocidal.. they operated kinda like the aliens in Independence Day. they'd show up, exploit a system till it ran out of resources, and move on. we don't really know how they would have have treated humanity, because humanity immediately attacked them (thinking they were one of the various nomadic Zentraedi splinter fleets), precipitating a war. the Marduk only seem to have gotten really aggressive when humanity didn't fall rapidly, which went against their leader's meglomania and the quasi-religious nature of his control. (basically a "we are stronger, therefor we are the superior race" angle.. humanity not falling immediately called that superiority into question)

it is possible, even probable that the Marduk would have just enslaved humanity and integrated them into their social structure in some way, had humanity fallen quickly. the way the Marduk enslaved the Zentran and Meltran. since the universe they were in did not have any non-human races evident** we don't know how they would react to non-human races.

**the zentran and metran being soldiers based on 'ancient humans", and earth humanity being the descendants of the ancient humans.. the marduk being another "descended from ancient humans" group. with fleets of Zentran and Meltran roaming around fighting their ancient war, odds are there owuldn't be many chances for other life to set much of a start before the war swept through their system and saw it wiped out. (which is what happened to earth in DYRL.)

I dunno...
I'm not sure that "enslave any other life form and then plunder their system of all resources"
and the fact that the war seems to, as you say, wipe out everyone...
That sounds pretty much xenocidal right there.

In fact it is pretty much a text book case of cultural genocide with a side order of genocide by military massacre.
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

except that we don't get the whole "destroy everyone" and song of destruction stuff until the 5th and 6th episode of the OVA.. which is several weeks (if not months) into the war, and after the UN Spacy had given the Marduk a couple of bloody nose's (even if they were rather phyrric) in episodes 1, 2, and 3, and after Ishtar had conducted a bit of culture corruption in ep4 (by singing earth melodies while being examined back aboard a marduk ship.)

note that when the genocidal aspect of the marduk shows up, it was at the direct order of (a rather irate) Inges, who not long afterwards was destroying his own forces when they started questioning why they were continuing to attack a world that had already been defeated. if they were completely xenocidal by nature they wouldn't have been asking in the first place, and they wouldn't have been holding back the bulk of their fleet (including the mobile base ship and its massive cannon) from the weeks of fighting beforehand. they might have held it back from the initial battles in ep1 but they would have steamrollered the UN Spacy from there. instead they were cautiously probing for more information about the world they had encountered, which suggests they were trying to decide how to handle it. (especially the music attack they met. they still won and their emulators were clearly more potent than the UN Spacy's minmei attack.. so they were not really in major danger from it. it just suprised them and punctured their ego a bit that someone else had music based warfare)
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

glitterboy2098 wrote:perhaps instead of being offshoot atlanteans or the minions of the Babylonian pantheon, they could just be the descendants of a group of babylonians that got stranded on a world somewhere in the megaverse? either as the result of some dimensional accident, or perhaps as a colony of believers relocated by the babylonian pantheon for some reason, then lost/abandoned later. resulting in a world where the babylonian elements stuck around in terms of language and names, but the religion itself died out (or evolved into something totally different) as their culture grew and changed over millennia, becoming technological and eventually space faring?

Something to consider. Aside from a few names, is there anything else to really connect them to Babylon? Or even a hypothetical 4000+ alternative evolution?

glitterboy2098 wrote: it just suprised them and punctured their ego a bit that someone else had music based warfare

Which to me at least suggests that the Marduk are not the creators of the Zentran/Meltran (originally), or if they are they are a splinter group (ex Ori/Ancients OR Gau'ld/Tokra in Star Gate, or Vulcan/Romulan in Star Trek). Given that the Zentran/Meltran where defeated at Earth, it would stand to reason that other "defeats" could have occurred previously at other worlds (which might integrate them differently than Earth did).
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by taalismn »

ShadowLogan wrote:[
Which to me at least suggests that the Marduk are not the creators of the Zentran/Meltran (originally), or if they are they are a splinter group (ex Ori/Ancients OR Gau'ld/Tokra in Star Gate, or Vulcan/Romulan in Star Trek). Given that the Zentran/Meltran where defeated at Earth, it would stand to reason that other "defeats" could have occurred previously at other worlds (which might integrate them differently than Earth did).


Indeed; if the Zentran/Meltran can have their minds warped/turned by Terran culture, other societies may have hit upon similar strategies, and not everybody believes in ;making love, not war'(though some other society may have taken THAT to a greater extreme than Earth...imagine a triumphant culture who immediately inducted their defeated Zentran/Meltran into planet-wide orgies and carousing to celebrate!). :P
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by SolCannibal »

taalismn wrote:
ShadowLogan wrote:[
Which to me at least suggests that the Marduk are not the creators of the Zentran/Meltran (originally), or if they are they are a splinter group (ex Ori/Ancients OR Gau'ld/Tokra in Star Gate, or Vulcan/Romulan in Star Trek). Given that the Zentran/Meltran where defeated at Earth, it would stand to reason that other "defeats" could have occurred previously at other worlds (which might integrate them differently than Earth did).


Indeed; if the Zentran/Meltran can have their minds warped/turned by Terran culture, other societies may have hit upon similar strategies, and not everybody believes in ;making love, not war'(though some other society may have taken THAT to a greater extreme than Earth...imagine a triumphant culture who immediately inducted their defeated Zentran/Meltran into planet-wide orgies and carousing to celebrate!). :P


So, Planet Woodstock? A Summer of Love Written by the Stars? 8-)
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taalismn
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by taalismn »

SolCannibal wrote:[
So, Planet Woodstock? A Summer of Love Written by the Stars? 8-)


Bongworld....where thermal springs and volcanoes erupt through lush forests of vegetation rich in psychoactive phytochemicals....any human taking an unfiltered breath of air rolls versus nonlethal poison and oh look at the pretty colors!
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Re: How would the Marduk relate to the Babylonian Gods?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

taalismn wrote:
SolCannibal wrote:[
So, Planet Woodstock? A Summer of Love Written by the Stars? 8-)


Bongworld....where thermal springs and volcanoes erupt through lush forests of vegetation rich in psychoactive phytochemicals....any human taking an unfiltered breath of air rolls versus nonlethal poison and oh look at the pretty colors!

So Garuda from the Sentinels? :D
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