title: Age of Apocalypse

text: X-Calibre is a team built around Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), who is sent by Magneto to locate Destiny (Irene Adler), a mutant capable of seeing into the future, so that she can verify Bishop's story. Nightcrawler must travel to Avalon, a secret refuge where mutants and humans live together in peace. Along his journey, he encounters John Proudstar (Thunderbird), the monk Cain, the pirate Callisto, and his mother Mystique (Raven Darkholme). The chief antagonists for Nightcrawler's journey consist of the Pale Riders, a trio of Apocalypse's servants made up of Moonstar (Danielle Moonstar), Damask (Emma Steed), Dead Man Wade (Wade Wilson) and the Shadow King (Amahl Farouk). Nightcrawler's team consists of Mystique, Switchback, and later Damask, who joins Nightcrawler after realizing the beauty Avalon has to offer. The "X-Calibre" series gets its name from an in-joke between Nightcrawler and his mother, Mystique, because of the caliber of bullets she uses, simply stamped with an "X". This title replaced "Excalibur".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Gambit (Remy LeBeau)'s X-Ternals consist of Sunspot (Roberto de Costa), Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), Strong Guy (Guido Carosella) and Lila Cheney. They are sent deep into space using Lila's teleportation in order to retrieve a shard of the M'Kraan Crystal, essential to the verification of Bishop's alternate reality. The X-Ternals are pursued by Rictor, a henchman of Apocalypse desperate to earn his master's praise by killing Gambit. Upon reaching Shi'ar space, the X-ternals fight the Imperial Guard in order to retrieve the crystal shard. Upon their return to Earth, Strong Guy betrays the team, not only stealing the M'Kraan Crystal, but also kidnapping Magneto's son, Charles. This title replaced "X-Force".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Generation Next consists of a young group of mutant students trained by the husband and wife team of Colossus (Piotr "Peter" Rasputin) and Shadowcat (Katherine Pryde-Rasputin). They consist of Chamber (Jonothan "Jono" Starsmore), Husk (Paige Guthrie), Mondo, Vincente Cimetta, and Skin (Angelo Espinoza). They are sent by Magneto into the Seattle Core to rescue Colossus' sister, Illyana Rasputin, who is the last surviving transdimensional teleporter. Illyana Rasputin is a slave of the Sugar Man, one of Apocalypse's prefects and ruler of the Seattle Core. Mondo finds Illyana Rasputin and hides her inside of his body, intending to smuggle her out at shift change. When Mondo is found out, the ensuing fight finds the Sugar Man killing Mondo with a blast from his tongue, exposing the rest of Generation Next. While fighting a near hopeless battle, Generation Next is left for dead by Colossus, who sacrifices them in order to save his sister. This title replaced "Generation X".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The Astonishing X-Men are led by Rogue (Anna Marie Lehnsherr, Magneto's wife) and consist of Sabretooth (Victor Creed), Blink (Clarice Ferguson), Wild Child (Kyle Gibney), Morph (Kevin Sydney) and Sunfire (Shiro Yoshida). They are sent by Magneto to stop the cullings, which are being undertaken by Holocaust, Apocalypse's son and one of his horsemen. While helping with the evacuation and protection of humans, Sabretooth asks Blink to teleport him to Holocaust's location, which she reluctantly does. Sabretooth and Holocaust fight a vicious duel but Sabretooth is defeated and seemingly killed, horrifying Blink. (Sabretooth had rescued Blink from Mr. Sinister and she had come to see him as her dearest friend and mentor.) The team then fights Holocaust and his Infinites, destroying his factory. However, Holocaust manages to escape and the team returns to Xavier's mansion, where Rogue learns that both her son and her husband have been captured. Sabretooth is revealed by Iceman to have survived the battle, to Blink's delight. This title replaced "The Uncanny X-Men".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The Amazing X-Men consist of team leader Quicksilver (Pietro Lehnsherr) and Storm (Ororo Munroe), Dazzler (Alison Blaire), Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Iceman (Robert "Bobby" Drake), and Exodus (Paris Bennet). The team is sent to Maine by Magneto to aid in the evacuation of humanity to Europe. During this mission, the team fights Apocalypse's Brotherhood of Chaos, as well as the Horseman Abyss, who is defeated (but not killed) by Quicksilver. During their absence from the Xavier Mansion, Magneto and Bishop are attacked by Apocalypse himself, who captures them both. Fulfilling their mission, Quicksilver splits up his team to help the other X-Men: sending Iceman to rendezvous with Rogue's team (the Astonishing X-Men) and Dazzler and Exodus to find Magneto's son, Charles. Finally, Quicksilver, Storm, and Banshee go to rescue Bishop, who is in the hands of the Madri, Apocalypse's priests. This title replaced "".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Weapon X (Logan) and his lover Jean Grey are depicted in this series carrying out missions for the Human High Council. Jean and Weapon X drift apart, as the Human High Council intends to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. as Jean is appalled by the loss of life it would cause. After Weapon X concludes a battle with Donald Pierce, Jean leaves to help evacuate the U.S., bidding a tearful farewell to Logan. Weapon X is then sent to recruit Gateway, whose teleportation ability is necessary to bring the fleet to America. As the fleet leaves, Weapon X decides to join them, if only to find Jean somewhere in America before the bombs are dropped. This title temporarily replaced "Wolverine".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Factor X consists of the Elite Mutant Force (EMF), who serve Apocalypse. They are split into five sibling groups: Cyclops and Havok (Scott Summers and Alex Summers), Emplate and the Twins (Marius, Nicole, and Claudette St. Croix), Cannonball and Amazon (Sam and Elizabeth Guthrie), the Bedlam Brothers (Jesse and Terrence Aaronson), and Aurora and Northstar (Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul Beaubier). The EMF is tasked with maintaining control of Apocalypse's breeding pens, where people are imprisoned, tortured, and experimented on by the Beast, also a member of the EMF. Havok, jealous of his brother's leadership role, discovers that Cyclops is a traitor who has been helping people escape the pens; and in one such escape attempt, both Aurora and Northstar are seriously injured. Havok then exposes Cyclops and attempts to kill him, but Cyclops escapes with the aid of Jean Grey, who has arrived to evacuate as many people as she can before the Human High Council's nuclear strike. The Bedlam Brothers also choose to side with Cyclops, and they successfully defeat both Amazon and Cannonball. Cyclops and Jean defeat Havok, and as they lead the freed prisoners out of the pens, Havok is determined to kill his brother. This title replaced "X-Factor".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The protagonist of "X-Man" is Nate Grey, a mutant born of Cyclops' and Jean Grey's DNA, and the most powerful telekinetic in the world. He lives under the guidance of his father figure Forge, who leads a group of outcasts consisting of Mastermind, Toad, Brute, and Sauron, who attack trains and factories of Apocalypse while masquerading as a theatre troupe. This title replaced "Cable".


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The only then-existing major mutant character missing in the original Age of Apocalypse is Psylocke. When the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline was revisited a decade later, she appeared in "X-Men: Age of Apocalypse" #4 in Asian form. Her origin remains unknown. There has been no explanation of what she was doing during the original Age of Apocalypse, other than the fact that she had some kind of past connection with Weapon X.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Besides the X-Men and its many offshoots, the Human High Council remains as the only other power opposing Apocalypse. Unlike the X-Men, however, the Human High Council considers the extermination of mutants as a viable option. Bolivar and Moira Trask, as well as Brian Braddock, are the major proponents for a mutant holocaust. Secretly, the Human High Council supports the Human Underground Resistance.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: "X-Universe" also reveals the fate of several other individuals. Peter Parker was executed because he was a potential contact for Gwen Stacy. T'Challa and Namor perished when Wakanda and Atlantis were attacked by Apocalypse. Frank Castle went missing following a mutant raid on a Buddhist temple where he had sought peace after the death of his family. Reed Richards and Johnny Storm sacrificed themselves in the evacuation of Manhattan Island.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Some characters escaped the Age of Apocalypse into the Earth-616 continuity. These include Dark Beast, Nate Grey (the Age of Apocalypse version of Cable), Holocaust and Sugar Man.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Before the tenth anniversary, the Age of Apocalypse was considered a dead reality that no longer existed—a fact that was frequently mentioned by timeline escapees, such as Sugar Man and Blink. However, there were quite a few prequels written that took place before its destruction.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: "By the Light" told the story of Blink transporting the X-Men to the moon where they faced Apocalypse's new horseman of Death, Maximus the Mad. "Sinister Bloodlines" followed the return of a Brood-infected Christopher Summers (Corsair) to Earth and his reunion, after escaping the experimentations of Sinister and Dark Beast, with Scott and Alex.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: "Blink" was a four issue miniseries intended to reintroduce the Age of Apocalypse version of Blink as a teaser to the "Exiles" ongoing series. This story takes place prior to the "Age of Apocalypse" main events, but is largely set in the Negative Zone. Blink becomes lost in the Negative Zone after attempting to incite Blastaar towards war with Apocalypse and instead joins a rebellion against Blastaar alongside her lover, who turns out to be a de-evolved version of Annihilus. The last four pages of the final issue show Blink during the destruction of the Age of Apocalypse and becoming unhinged from time.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: "X-Man", during its run, occasionally re-visited the Age of Apocalypse, both through time travel and flashbacks. "X-Man" #-1 shows Mr. Sinister releasing Nate from his growth vat as a child to check on his progress. In the 1996 "X-Man" Annual, Sugar Man uses a variation on a time machine powered by Nate's psionic force to return to the early years of Apocalypse's rule where he hopes to take control himself. Nate follows and meets up with Forge, Magneto, Morph, and Mastermind, and is surprised to discover that Forge knew that he would be there because an older Nate Grey had time traveled and told Forge about his memories of this event. On the orders of this older Nate Grey, Forge forces the younger Nate to re-power the machine and return himself and Sugar Man to Earth-616. This leads to a rift between Forge and Magneto, who believed they should have allowed Nate to stay so that he could help them fight Apocalypse. Later, in "X-Man" #53 and #54, Nate, Jean Grey, and Cyclops run across a temporal rift that brings an infinite processing plant to Earth-616.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: In 2005, Marvel published an "Age of Apocalypse" one-shot and miniseries to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the fan favorite event.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The one-shot features stories set before the events depicted in the original "Age of Apocalypse" event, similar in focus to the "Tales from the Age of Apocalypse" issues. The one-shot contains the story of how Colossus and Shadowcat left the X-Men to train Generation Next; how Sabretooth met Wild Child; the first appearance of the Silver Samurai; and how the world survived the Human High Council's nuclear attack.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The limited series, which takes place after the nuclear attack in "X-Men: Omega", introduced several characters who were not in the original storyline. Long time characters Cloak and Dagger, Psylocke, and the Morlocks (including Feral, Leech, Marrow, Skids, and Thornn), who were survivors of Mr. Sinister's experiments, are introduced. Newer characters Beak, Icarus, and X-23 are seen along with an alternate version of Xorn. Jean Grey is also revealed to have saved everyone from the nuclear attack by tapping into the Phoenix Force-level powers, and is revived from death by Sinister.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: In 2011, the Age of Apocalypse was featured in a storyline in the ongoing series "Uncanny X-Force" 11–18 by Rick Remender.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Seeking a Celestial 'Life Seed' in order to save Angel (Warren Worthington) from becoming the new Apocalypse, The Uncanny X-Force, under the guidance of Dark Beast, journey to the Age of Apocalypse. X-Force arrives ten years after the X-Men had defeated Mister Sinister, yet it seems the X-Men still face enormous challenges in this harsh setting. The world, which during the previous appearance had seemed to be on the road to recovery, has once again fallen on hard times, similar to when Apocalypse was ruling, with Sentinels now roaming the streets. As they follow Dark Beast to one of his labs, they are unknowingly followed by Wildchild and Sabretooth (Earth-295). Dark Beast finds the life seed but before he could hand it over to the X-Force members, Nightcrawler teleports in and swipes the seed away, figuring that Dark Beast was up to some evil plot after decades of absence. After a brief quarrel which ended with the life seed destroyed by Sunfire, Psylocke recognizes Sabretooth from her time on the Exiles and convinces Wolverine (Earth-616) that this version of Sabretooth isn't a bad guy, which ends their battle. With the life seed destroyed, Dark Beast sneaks over to the portal back to the 616 Marvel Universe and walks in, leaving X-Force stranded in the Age of Apocalypse world. Nightcrawler's team, realizing that the sentinels are descending on their position, evacuates along with X-Force, taking them to the X-Men's new base in Atlantis.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: It was soon revealed that a new "Heir of Apocalypse" has risen and that's the reason why the world as fallen once again into a Dark Age that resulted on the apparent extinction of the human race. Using a version of M.O.D.O.K., they discover the body of the slain Celestial which apparently still contains life seeds. However, as X-Force also learn that the only way to return to the main reality is to seek the help of Gateway who in turn is kept prisoner in the mysterious floating city known as The Sky, the Sentinels soon arrives at Atlantis forcing the group to abandon the complex. As Fantomex leads a small team to the place where the Celestial is, the rest of the team invades The Sky to retrieve Gateway, however they are confronted by the Black Legion consisting of Earth-295 Blob, Earth-295 Manphibian, Demon Ock (a demonic creature with mechanical tentacles), Beta-Red (a female counterpart of Omega Red), Grimm Chamber (a Thing/Chamber hybrid), Iron Ghost (a Ghost Rider/Iron Man hybrid), Orange Hulk (a solar-powered Hulk), White Cloak (a Cloak/Dagger hybrid), and Zombie Sentry (an undead version of Sentry). During the fight, X-Force and the Earth-295 X-Men run into the long thought deceased "Weapon X" (Logan/Wolverine Earth-295). He appears using Apocalypse armor and reveals himself to be the Heir of Apocalypse.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Meanwhile, unaware of the problems Wolverine and his team are facing in the fortress, Fantomex and his small crew dive into the heart of the deceased Celestial in order to get the life seed they need to free Warren. After battling some drones, they manage to find only one seed and flee with it, losing Gambit in the battle, while, back in the fortress, Wolverine and his crew try to battle Weapon X and the Black Legion. However, Weapon X proves too powerful, since he had been augmented by the Celestial technology, when the cosmic entities came to judge planet Earth, and while he had ascended in form and power, his mind had become so twisted to the point of creating genetic-powerful warriors to kill Charles Lehnsherr, the infant son of Magneto and Rogue. Weapon X easily manages to swat them all and take Jean Grey so he could transform her into Death, a horseman of Apocalypse. To perform the ritual he approaches Storm who was enslaved and transform into a blind seer made of living stone. After taking out the Black Legion and freeing Gateway, Wolverine ask Gateway to open a portal to bring forth Fantomex team. Using Fantomex, they manage to free Jean and open a gateway to their world. Wolverine wants Jean to come too but she refuses and forces them through the gateway with her powers. As X-Force returns to their world, they are greeted by Dark Beast, the Horsemen of Apocalypse, and Archangel, now wearing Apocalypse's armor.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: After a long fight, Fantomex retreats and gets Gateway to teleport the AOA X-Men to help X-Force, together they defeat Archangel, the AoA X-Men decide to go back to their timeline while Nightcrawler decides to stay in this timeline and vows to kill, Dark Beast, Iceman, Sugar Man, and any other villain that escaped the AOA timeline to this one.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: In the "Marvel Point One" one-shot, a new team of anti-mutant humans calling themselves the X-Terminated, pledged to combat the rule of the ascended Weapon X and his minions, after X-Force's attempt to stop the genocidal successor of Apocalypse. The group consisted of remaining members of the human race in the Age of Apocalypse who have been pushed to the edge of extinction by mutants. Members of that team were Prophet (William Stryker), Goodnight (a rebuilt Donald Pierce), Deadeye (Zora Risman), Fiend (Francesca Trask), and Horror Show (Graydon Creed).


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: As Jean Grey and Sabretooth returned from Earth-616, they meet the human coalition. It is also revealed that Jean had ordered much to Magneto's horror, the creation of clones of the Scarlet Witch, so they could use the spell Jean saw previously on Wolverine's mind that de-powered 99% of mutantkind. However Weapon X and his Black Legion attack the last human city where Weapon X himself slays both Magneto and Rogue, leaving Jean Grey and Sabretooth the last two X-Men alive (Sunfire had given his life to stop Archangel's plans on Earth-616, and Nightcrawler decided to stay on that reality to hunt down Dark Beast, Blob, Iceman and Sugar Man). Jean telepathically nudges clones of the Scarlet Witch to recreate the Decimation and remove all mutants' powers across the globe. However, this was only successful within a radius of 12 feet, so Jean Grey and Sabretooth are both left de-powered while Weapon X and his forces remained powered. The human coalition distracts Weapon X with a bomb long enough for the group to escape as the city explodes behind them.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: As the human coalition (X-Terminated Team, now including Jean Grey) continues to fight the forces of Weapon X, now renamed Weapon Omega, they find Harper Simmons, a human journalist from Earth-616 who was forced to come to the Age of Apocalypse while investigating the prison break of Sugar Man by Dark Beast on Earth-616. He creates a pamphlet that incites human and mutant riots against Weapon Omega, who is now bringing back deceased mutants like Emplate, Scott Summers and Alex Summers using energies siphoned from the celestial life seed. Harper Simons joins with the X-Terminated. Others who work with the X-Terminated are Doctor Moreau and Bolivar Trask.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: After discovering the resurrected Penance, he ordered his servants Azazel, Cyclops and Colossus to bring her into the fold. She initially refused and undid Colossus' brainwashing causing him to abandon Weapon Omega and serve Penance. A fight broke out but Azazel agreed to leave. He returned with Weapon Omega who demanded that Penance kneel before him which she did. Unbeknownst to Weapon Omega however Penance was also making deals with the Human Resistance.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: It has since been revealed that when the Celestials had come to Earth, they tried to resurrect Apocalypse by rewrite his genetic code to form a new body. After a small team of X-Men went investigate the ship they discovered that Apocalypse was already in the form of a child which Weapon X effectively kills despite Jean's pleas. With the death of the child, Weapon X took on the role of the Evolutionary Caretaker in an effort to spare his world from the Celestials wrath. Thus, he restarted the campaigns of extermination perpetrated by Apocalypse against the human race after being corrupted by the Seed.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The X-Terminated later travel to Latveria so they could get the information they need to defeat Weapon Omega, as Doom had apparently managed to create a device capable of storing the Death Seed's powers which they aptly referred to as the "Apocalypse Force" from its host body and empowering it within a new user, however they are approached by the Queen, actually Doom's wife and former member of the Human High Council, Emma Frost, who had her telepathic powers returned to her and was now in league with Weapon Omega. The X-Terminated eventually gained the information they needed by killing Doom and removed the intel literally from his head.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: With the information they gained, the X-Terminated build the device, however, Weapon Omega after being alerted that Jean Grey was hiding out in the city, resolved to hunt his wife down himself, and vowed that if her humanity could not be cured, he would kill her himself. Jean Grey was ultimately responsible for removing the power of the Death Seed within her former lover and were absorbed by Jean as the next host. Thanks to her history with the Phoenix Force, though, Jean was strong enough to reject the power of the Death Seed and displaced it. After everything died down, Weapon Omega emerged from the rubble as Logan once again, his mind now clear of the corrupting force of the Death Seed. Unknown to him or Jean, however, the energies of the seed had in fact been contained by Bolivar Trask in a giant machine under the Nevada Desert.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: In March 2013, the "X-Treme X-Men", "Age of Apocalypse", and "Astonishing X-Men" titles were part of the "X-Termination" crossover event, which focused on the AoA Nightcrawler's trip home. "Age of Apocalypse" #14, the final issue of the series, will be Part 3 of the event.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Following the completion of his quest, Nightcrawler decided it was time to return home. Even though this world was in a much better state, he still missed his own and he wanted to return to fight Weapon Omega. After managing to avoid Wolverine, who was hunting him down, Nightcrawler eventually tracked down another exile from his world: Dark Beast, however, unbeknownst to them, due to the dimension-hopping activities of various superheroes and villains, the walls in the netherspace have become weak and began to crack.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The rift first became known on Earth-TRN262 in the head of the Sphinx. Lord Xavier, the Witch King, Nazi Xavier, and Xavier Head began sacrificing civilians to an interdimensional rift to gain power. The X-treme X-Men, who had been trying to stop this from happening by killing ten evil Xaviers across various realities before they could use their powers to trigger the event, were able to rescue their Xavier and narrowly defeated Lord Xavier and Nazi Xavier. Unfortunately, the X-treme X-Men did not act quickly enough to save that world, and were forced to make an interdimensional jump, leaving that reality and all its citizens being consumed by the vortex. Unbeknownst to them, an army of monsters were waiting on the other side of the portal.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Using a pair of modified goggles, which Dark Beast explains will allow them to enter the Dreaming Celestial safely in a bid to return home. Kurt teleports them inside, where McCoy attempts to open a portal to their home reality. However, before the portal stabilizes, the machine he was using begins to malfunction. Before he can fix it, the X-Men arrive and the two have to flee, with Nightcrawler teleporting them through the portal. However, once they arrive in their homeworld, the portal doesn't close behind them, which worries the Dark Beast. The situation is complicated first by Wolverine's team, which comes through the portal to take Kurt back to their reality, and then by Dazzler and her team of X-treme X-Men, who seem keen to close the portal. As Xavier of the X-treme X-Men uses his powers to try and close the portal three huge monsters emerge from it. Xavier tries to tell them they mean no harm but one of the monsters kills him and dissolves his body to absorb its energy. As it does so, it grows slightly bigger.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: In response, Dazzler blasts one with her light beams, but it absorbs her energy and grows in size. After trying various methods of attack, the teams realize that the monsters are nearly invulnerable. Karma tries possessing one but it ends up possessing her. They find out that the monsters were trapped between dimensions by the Celestials and that the constant travelling between worlds has weakened the barriers and freed them. Karma is dying but Iceman freezes the monsters and saves Karma. As the teams regroup to try and figure out what to do, Sage picks up on some thought the monsters are projecting. She screams for someone to shut the portal down, but it's too late and one of the monsters walks through it to the 616 universe. As Howlett, Wolverine, Northstar and Hercules go after it, the second monster heads off into New Apocalypse, whilst the third starts to drain energy from the portal itself. Prophet says that they could use the power of Apocalypse to defeat them but Jean Grey isn't so keen. After some deliberation, the teams decide to split up with some staying on New Apocalypse and the other going to fight the creature through the portal. Sabretooth and Horror Show sacrifice themselves to provide a distraction whilst Kid Nightcrawler teleports a group of people through the portal. The remaining group in New Apocalypse heads off to formulate a plan of attack as the second monster tears through the city.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Northstar, Hercules, Howlett and Wolverine emerge in San Francisco of the 616 universe, where they find the monster draining the energy from the Dreaming Celestial's chest. In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Jean and her group travel to the Apocalypse power. Fiend radios through from New Apocalypse, where one of the monsters is attacking. After a short conversation, the radio goes silent and Jean realizes her friend is dead. They make their way through some caverns to the room the Apocalypse power is being kept in. Dark Beast slips away as the others look at the canister the power resides in. Jean has Kurt teleport them both away as she doesn't trust anyone else. In the 616 universe, Howlett and Wolverine try attacking the monster but it just continues attacking the Celestial. Northstar throws Hercules at it and the monster is finally ripped away from it. Wolverine and Howlett are severely injured, so Kid Nightcrawler starts to teleport them away as Hercules continues to fight the monster. The monster kills him before Kurt can get to him in time. The monster then advances on the Celestial again, which decides to leave. However, the monster uses a grappling hook to prevent it from doing so and, even though the rest of the team manages to separate the two, the monster begins to absorb the energy from the Celestial. The team can only watch as the monster kills the Dreaming Celestial and absorbs all of its energy, continuing to grow in size and power. In the AoA reality, Jean tells Kurt the plan is for her to use the Apocalypse power herself, as she managed to use the Phoenix Force and resist it. Before she can, though, Dark Beast snatches the canister off her just as one of the monsters finds them and attacks.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: As Howlett mourns the death of Hercules, the monster in 616 becomes stronger, due to the Celestial it just destroyed. Northstar creates a vortex around it to stop it being empowered by more energy, whilst Prophet tries to figure out how to kill it. He finds out that billions more monsters are headed to where this one is and, if they don't destroy this one, the whole world is doomed. In New Apocalypse on the other side of the portal, Jean is being chased by another monster. Dazzler and her team slow it down and Kurt teleports Prophet and Howlett through the portal. They see Dark Beast trying to take the power of the Apocalypse seed for himself. Nightcrawler and Jean try to take the seed off him but he fights back. Another monster enters and grabs the seed but is hurt by its touch. Dark Beast grabs the seed again and runs off with Jean and Nightcrawler chasing him. Prophet realizes that the monster was hurt by the seed. Kid Nightcrawler tells Dazzler her world is in danger too and Prophet says they have to close the portal and sacrifice one world. Dazzler refuses to do that and comes up with a plan. Whilst the others chase down Jean and the seed, Dazzler and Cyclops head to the portal. They use their powers to try and draw the monster through but it doesn't go for it. Kid Nightcrawler finds them and decides he can do it. He teleports to the monster and then teleports it through the portal. The strain of doing it was too much for him, though, and he dies in Dazzler's arms. Nightcrawler, Prophet, Howlett and Dark Beast teleport in. Dark Beast won't let go of the seed, so Dazzler confronts him, beats him up and takes the seed. She then hands it over to Jean Grey, so they can have her use it on the three monsters at the same time.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: Jean Grey has taken in the power of Apocalypse and has been transformed into an immensely powerful being. Though she still holds on to her personality, the death powers are already corrupting her. As the monsters feed off the energy from the portal, Jean engages them in combat, blasting them away and drawing their attention. Howlett mourns the death of Kid Nightcrawler, causing AoA Nightcrawler to face up to what he has done. Prophet tells him to stop pitying himself and says they need Sage and the Celestial black box from the other universe. Nightcrawler teleports through the portal and on his way he sees billions of other monsters descends upon the portal. In the 616 universe, Wolverine and Northstar are arguing about what to do. Sage manages to connect her mind to the black box and sees the origin of the monsters. The Celestials created life because they were lonely. They decided to create death as well, so they formed the monsters. However, the monsters turned against the Celestials who couldn't kill them so they separated the universe into the Multiverse and bond them in the walls that separated all realities. The constant traveling between universes weakened the walls and allowed the monsters to escape again. Suddenly, Nightcrawler appears and take Sage back with him. In New Apocalypse, Jean is fighting the monsters but more continue to come through the portal. Slowly, the death seed starts to take her over more and she begins to lose herself. As the carnage spreads, Sage and Nightcrawler appear and Sage tells Prophet she knows what to do. He already knows, though. The monsters need a prison and this universe is the best choice. Dazzler tries to tell him there must be another way but he says there isn't. They need to get everyone they can back to her world and then close off the portal. Nightcrawler says he can do both.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: As Jean continues to fight the monsters in New Apocalypse, Prophet orders everyone to evacuate to the 616 reality. Dazzler objects to leaving, but Prophet tells her sacrificing the AoA reality is the only way. Nightcrawler begins to teleport everyone back, first taking Harper Simmons and then Sage. However, when he goes to take Iceman, the Dark Beast breaks free of his shackles and goes with them. He is quickly knocked out by Gambit on the other side, but not before jamming a nugget of the Apocalypse seed within Iceman to keep it safe. As Nightcrawler next takes Howlett and Cyclops, Dazzler begs Prophet to come with her but he refuses, saying a captain goes down with the ship. However, the decision is made for him when Jean Grey knocks him out and instructs Dazzler to take him back to her world. Jean goes off to continue her fight as Nightcrawler teleports Dazzler and Prophet away. In the 616 reality, Nightcrawler realizes that if he grabs onto the black swirls in the portal, he can teleport the opening back in on itself. Sage confirms he could close the portal and, before anyone can stop him, he goes. He manages to close it at the cost of his own life. Afterwards, Howlett and Cyclops decide to travel to Greece to collect Hercules from the underworld. Wolverine offers Dazzler a job at the school but she declines, as she needs a bit of time to herself. A few weeks later, Harper meets Prophet on a beach, where they have a drink to remember their old team. Elsewhere, Dazzler creates a holographic image to make sure everyone remembers her fallen teammates.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: The Age of Apocalypse is featured as one of the many domains of Battleworld in "Secret Wars". It has its differences from the only


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: original storyline, with two of the main ones being the inclusion of Cypher as a prominent character and Magneto marrying Marvel Girl aka Emma Frost instead of Rogue. The Age of Apocalypse's location on Battleworld is known as the Domain of Apocalypse, the most ruthless domain of all.


title: Age of Apocalypse

text: During a battle with Nate Grey, Legion tries to send him back to his universe, however, things don't go as Legion planned and instead he ended banishing not only X-Man, but Armor, Pixie, Glob, Rockslide and himself to the Age of Apocalypse universe that exists on Legion's mindscape.


title: .224 Valkyrie

text: The .224 Valkyrie (5.6×41 mm) cartridge is a .22 caliber (5.6 mm) rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge, developed by Federal Premium Ammunition to rival the performance of the .22 Nosler, while still being compatible with modern sporting rifles (MSRs).


title: Scholz cabinet

text: The Scholz cabinet (German: "Kabinett Scholz", ) is the current cabinet of Germany, led by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The cabinet is composed of Scholz's Social Democratic Party, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party, an arrangement known as a "traffic light coalition" in Germany after the parties' traditional colours, respectively red, green and yellow, matching the colour sequence of a traffic light ("Ampel"). This traffic light coalition-government is the first of its kind at the federal level in the history of the German federal republic.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Following the 2021 German federal election, the three parties reached a coalition agreement on 24 November 2021. The SPD approved the coalition agreement by 98.8% (598 yes-votes to 7 no-votes and 3 abstentions) at the party's federal convention on 4 December 2021. The FDP approved the coalition agreement by 92.24% (535 yes-votes to 37 no-votes and 8 abstentions) at the party's federal convention on 5 December 2021. The Greens approved the agreement via a party-wide referendum, the results of which were declared on 6 December (61,174 yes-votes to 8,275 no-votes and 1,701 abstentions).


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Scholz was elected as Chancellor by the Bundestag on 8 December 2021. His cabinet, as determined by the coalition agreement, was formally appointed by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the same day.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: The cabinet consists of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and sixteen federal ministers. The SPD has eight positions, the Greens have five and the FDP has four.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Scholz government passed a gas rationing law, under the leadership of economy minister Robert Habeck (Greens). In August 2022, a major expansion of the BAföG system of government grants and loans for students and trainees was introduced, fulfilling a key FDP government program plank. The largest housing benefits reform since 1965 will come into effect on January 1st, 2023, with the number of households entitled to receive the benefits increasing from 600,000 in 2022 to over 2 million in 2023, and the allowances for heating and cooling more than doubling. The Traffic Light coalition also agreed on a major 200 billion Euro energy relief package in October 2022, to come into effect starting in January 2023 and running through mid-2024. The government announced a gas price capping scheme called Gaspreisbremse for 2023.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: In October 2022, the minimum wage was increased to 12 Euros per hour, fulfilling a key SPD election campaign promise. The Scholz government proposed a reform of unemployment payments, moving Germany from Hartz IV to a so-called Bürgergeld system.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: In its first year, the Scholz government introduced the 9-Euro-Ticket in summer 2022. The transport ministry, led by Volker Wissing (Free Democrats), failed to prepare an adequate plan to meet emissions reduction targets in the transport sector in summer 2022. However, in October 2022, the federal government and the states agreed to implement a nationwide 49 Euro per month public transport ticket, which will apply to all local and regional transit across the country and eliminate the previous maze of tariff zones starting in 2023.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Under health minister and medical professor Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrats), the vaccination ratio stagnated at 75% (as of August 2022).


title: Scholz cabinet

text: In June 2022, the SPD, Greens, FDP, and Die Linke voted to repeal Paragraph Section 219a of the Criminal Code ("Strafgesetzbuch"), which outlawed the so-called "advertisement" of abortion services (a legal term). The paragraph had prohibited doctors from specifying online which kinds of abortion services they provide, and under what circumstances.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Traffic Light coalition joined with the opposition CDU/CSU to pass a special 100 billion Euro package to finance a re-arming of the Bundeswehr, marking a radical break with the foreign policy of the past 70 years. The funds are to be used to purchase new fighter jets (including the F-35), armed drones, boats, submarines, combat vehicles, and personal equipment. 41 billion Euros are earmarked for the airforce, 19 billion for the navy, 17 billion for the ground forces, and 21 billion across all branches of the military for new communication technology and to counter the threat of cyberattacks.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Agriculture minister Cem Özdemir proposed a mandatory Animal Husbandry Label for animal products that are produced in Germany and also destined for sale in Germany.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: In the first year of the Scholz coalition, family minister Anne Spiegel resigned, under pressure for her handling of a 2021 flooding crisis in her former role as Rhineland-Palatinate environment minister. She was replaced by her fellow Green party member Lisa Paus.


title: Scholz cabinet

text: Chancellor Scholz was summoned by a panel investigating the Cum Ex affair, for his role in the city of Hamburg's decision not to prosecute a bank that had illicitly gained tax funds.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis IV (September 920 / September 921 – 10 September 954), called d'Outremer or Transmarinus (both meaning "from overseas"), reigned as King of West Francia from 936 to 954. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, he was the only son of king Charles the Simple and his second wife Eadgifu of Wessex, daughter of King Edward the Elder of Wessex. His reign is mostly known thanks to the Annals of Flodoard and the later "Historiae" of Richerus.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis was born to King Charles III and his 2nd wife Eadgifu, in the heartlands of West Francia's Carolingian lands between Laon and Reims in 920 or 921. He was descended both from Charlemagne and King Alfred the Great. From his father's first marriage with Frederuna (d. 917) he had six older half-sisters.


title: Louis IV of France

text: After the dethronement and capture of Charles the Simple in 923, following his defeat at the Battle of Soissons, queen Eadgifu and her infant son took refuge in Wessex (for this he received the nickname of "d'Outremer") at the court of her father King Edward, and after Edward's death, of her brother King Æthelstan. Young Louis was raised in the Anglo-Saxon court until his teens. During this time he enjoyed legendary stories about Edmund the Martyr (king of East Anglia), an ancestor of his maternal family who had heroically fought against the Vikings.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis became the heir to the western branch of the Carolingian dynasty after the death of his captive father in 929, and in 936, at the age of 15, was recalled from Wessex by the powerful Hugh the Great, margrave of Neustria, to succeed the Robertian King Rudolph who had died.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Once he took the throne, Louis wanted to free himself from the tutelage of Hugh the Great, who, with his title of duke of the Franks was the second most powerful man after the King.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In 939, the young monarch attempted to conquer Lotharingia; however, the expedition was a failure and his brother-in-law, King Otto I of East Francia counterattacked and besieged the city of Reims in 940. In 945, following the death of William I Longsword, duke of Normandy, Louis tried to conquer his lands, but was kidnapped by the men of Hugh the Great.


title: Louis IV of France

text: The Synod of Ingelheim in 948 allowed the excommunication of Hugh the Great and released Louis from his long tutelage. From 950 Louis gradually imposed his rule in the northeast of the kingdom, building many alliances (especially with the counts of Vermandois) and under the protection of the Ottonian kingdom of East Francia.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In spring of 936 Hugh the Great sent an embassy to Wessex inviting Louis to "come and take the head of the kingdom" (Flodoard). King Æthelstan, his uncle, after forcing the embassy to swear that the future king will have the homage of all his vassals, permitted him the return home with his mother Eadgifu, some bishops and faithful servants. After a few hours of sea journey, Louis received the homage of Hugh and some Frankish nobles on the beach of Boulogne, who kissed his hands. Chronicler Richerus gives us an anecdote about this first encounter:


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis and his court then began the trip to Laon where the coronation ceremony was to take place. Louis IV was crowned king by Archbishop Artald of Reims on Sunday, 19 June 936, probably at the Abbey of Notre-Dame and Saint-Jean in Laon, perhaps at the request of the King since it was a symbolic Carolingian town and he was probably born there.


title: Louis IV of France

text: During the ritual, Hugh the Great acted as squire bearing the King's arms. Almost nothing is known about the coronation ceremony of Louis IV. It seems certain that the King would wear the crown and sceptre of his predecessor. He must have promised before the bishops of France to respect the privileges of the Church. Maybe he received the ring (a religious symbol), the sword and the stick of Saint Remigius (referring to the baptism of Clovis I). Finally, the new King (perhaps like his ancestor Charles the Bald) used a blue silk coat called "Orbis Terrarum" with cosmic allusions (referring to the "Vulgate") and the purple robe with precious stones and gold incrustations also used by Odo in 888) and his own son Lothair during his coronation in 954.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Historians have wondered why the powerful Hugh the Great called the young Carolingian prince to throne instead of taking it himself, as his father had done fifteen years earlier. First, he had many rivals, especially Hugh, Duke of Burgundy (King Rudolph's brother) and Herbert II, Count of Vermandois who probably would have challenged his election. But above all, it seems that he was shocked by the early death of his father. Richerus explains that Hugh the Great remembered his father who had died for his "pretentions" and this was the cause of his short and turbulent reign. It was then that "the Gauls, anxious to appear free to elect their King, assembled under the leadership of Hugh to deliberate about the choice of a new King". According to Richerus, Hugh the Great delivered the following speech:


title: Louis IV of France

text: Hugh the Great knew that the Robertian dynasty had not achieved much; his uncle Odo had died after a few years of reign, abandoned by the nobles. Hugh's father, Robert I, was killed during the battle of Soissons after only months of reign and his brother-in-law Rudolph couldn't stop the troubles that multiplied in the Kingdom during his reign. Finally, Hugh didn't have a legitimate male heir: his first wife Judith (daughter of Count Roger of Maine and Princess Rothilde) died in 925 after eleven years of childless union; in 926 he married Princess Eadhild of Wessex, sister of Queen Eadgifu, who also didn't bear him any children. In addition, the marriage with Eadhild, actively promoted by Eadgifu, was made in order to sever an eventual dangerous link between families of Hugh and Count Heribert II of Vermandois.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Having arrived on the continent, Louis IV was a young man of fifteen, who spoke neither Latin nor Old French, but probably spoke Old English. He knew nothing about his new kingdom. Hugh the Great, after negotiating with the most powerful nobles of the Kingdom – (William I Longsword of Normandy, Herbert II of Vermandois and Arnulf of Flanders) – was appointed guardian of the new king.


title: Louis IV of France

text: The young king quickly became a puppet of Hugh the Great, who had reigned "de facto" since the death of his father Robert in 923. Territorially, Louis IV was quite helpless since he possessed few lands around the ancient Carolingian domains (Compiègne, Quierzy, Verberie, Ver-lès-Chartres and Ponthion), and some abbeys (Saint-Jean in Laon, Saint-Corneille in Compiègne, Corbie and Fleury-sur-Loire) and collected the revenues from the province of Reims. We know that king had the power to appoint the suffragants of the Archbishopric of Reims. During this time Laon became the centre of the small Carolingian heartland, compared with the possessions in the Loire Valley of the Robertians.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Hugh the Great's power came from the extraordinary title of "dux Francorum" (duke of the Franks) that Louis IV repeatedly confirmed in 936, 943 and 954; and his rule over the Marches of Neustria, where he reigned as "princeps" (territorial prince). This title was for the first time formalized by the Royal Chancery.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Thus the royal edicts of the second half of 936 confirm the pervasiveness of Hugh the Great: it is said that Duke of the Franks "in all but reigned over us".


title: Louis IV of France

text: Hugh also denied the rights to the principality of Burgundy that Hugh the Black thought he had acquired after the death of his brother King Rudolph.


title: Louis IV of France

text: From the beginning of 937 Louis IV, called by some "The King of the Duke" () tried to halt the virtual regency of the Duke of the Franks; in the contemporary charters, Hugh the Great appears only as "count" as if the ducal title was taken from him by the king. But Louis IV hesitated about this move, because the ducal title was already given to Hugh the Great by Charles the Simple in 914. But a serious misconduct probably took place at that time, because Louis IV removed the title from him. For his part, Hugh the Great continued to claim to be the duke of the Franks. In a letter from 938 the pope called him duke of the Franks, three years later (941) he presided a meeting in Paris during which he raised personally, in the manner of a king, his viscounts to the rank of counts. Finally, Hugh the Great had the decisive respect of the entire episcopate of France.


title: Louis IV of France

text: The rivalries between the nobility appeared as the only hope for the Louis IV to free himself from the regency of Hugh the Great. In 937 Louis IV began to rely more on his Chancellor Artald, Archbishop of Reims, Hugh the Black and William I Longsword, all enemies of Hugh the Great. He also received the homage of other important nobles like Alan II, Duke of Brittany (who also spent part of his life in England) and Sunyer, Count of Barcelona. Nevertheless, the support for the young king was still limited, until the Pope clearly favored him after he forced the French nobles to renew their homage to the king in 942. The King's power in the south was symbolic since the death of the last Count of the Spanish March in 878.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Hugh the Great's response to the King's alliances approximating Herbert II of Vermandois, a very present ruler in minor France: it possessed a tower, called château Gaillot in the city of Laon. The following year, the King seized the tower but Herbert II conquered the fortresses of Reims. Flodoard related the events as follows:


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis IV then looked to the Lotharingia, the land of his ancestors and began attempts to conquer it. In 939 Gilbert, Duke of Lotharingia rebelled against King Otto I of East Francia and offered the crown to Louis IV, who received homage of the Lotharingian aristocracy in Verdun on his way to Aachen. On 2 October 939, Gilbert drowned in Rhine while escaping from the forces of Otto I after the defeat at the Battle of Andernach. Louis IV used this opportunity to strengthen his domain over Lotharingia by marrying Giselbert's widow, Gerberga of Saxony (end 939), without the consent of her brother King Otto I. The wedding did not stop Otto I who, after alliance with Hugh the Great, Herbert II of Vermandois and William I Longsword, resumed his invasion of Lotharingia and advanced towards Reims.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In 940 the East Frankish invaders finally conquered the city of Reims, where archbishop Artald was expelled and replaced by Hugh of Vermandois, younger son of Herbert II, who also seized the patrimony of Saint-Remi. About this, Flodoard wrote:


title: Louis IV of France

text: Flodoard also publishes at the end of his "Annals" the testimony of a girl from Reims (the "Visions of Flothilde") who predicted the expulsion of Artald from Reims. Flothilde mentioned that the saints are alarmed about the disloyalty of the nobles against the King. This testimony was widely believed, especially among the population of Reims, who believed that the internal order and peace come from the oaths of loyalty to the King, while Artald was blamed of having forsaken divine service. Contemporary Christian tradition affirmed that Saint Martin attended the coronation of 936. Now the two royal patron saints, Saint Remi and Saint Denis, seem to have turned back to the King's rule. To soften the anger of the saints, in the middle of the siege of Reims by Hugh the Great and William I Longsword, Louis IV went to Saint Remi Basilica and promised to the saint to pay him a pound of silver every year.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In the meanwhile, Hugh the Great and his vassals had sworn allegiance to Otto I, who moved to the Carolingian Palace of Attigny before his unsuccessful siege of Laon. In 941 the royal army, which tried to oppose Otto's invasion, was defeated and Artald was forced to submit to the rebels. Now Louis IV was surrendered in the only property that remained in his hands: the city of Laon. Otto I believed that the power Louis IV was sufficiently diminished and proposed a reconciliation with the Duke of the Franks and the Count of Vermandois. From that point on, Otto I was the new arbitrator in the West Francia.


title: Louis IV of France

text: On 17 December 942 William I Longsword was ambushed and killed by men of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders at Picquigny and on 23 February 943 Herbert II, Count of Vermandois died of natural causes. The heir of Duchy of Normandy was Richard I, the ten-year-old son of William born from his Breton concubine, while Herbert II left as heirs four adult sons.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis IV took advantage of the internal disorder in the Duchy of Normandy and entered Rouen, where he received the homage from part of the Norman aristocracy and offered his protection to the young Richard I with the help of Hugh the Great. The regency of Normandy was entrusted to the faithful Herluin, Count of Montreuil (who was also a vassal of Hugh the Great), while Richard I was imprisoned first in Laon and then in Château de Coucy. In Vermandois, the King also took measures to diminish the power of Herbert II's sons by dividing their lands between them: Eudes (as Count of Amiens), Herbert III (as Count of Château-Thierry), Robert (as Count of Meaux) and Albert (as Count of Saint-Quentin). Albert of Vermandois took the side of the King and paid homage to him, while the Abbey of Saint-Crépin in Soissons was finally given to Renaud of Roucy. In 943, during the homage given to the King, Hugh the Great recovered the "ducatus Franciae" (Duchy of France) title and the rule over Burgundy.


title: Louis IV of France

text: During the summer of 945 Louis IV went to Normandy after being called by his faithful Herluin, who was a victim of a serious revolt. While the two were riding, they were ambushed near Bayeux. Herluin was killed, but Louis IV managed to escape to Rouen; where he was finally captured by the Normans. The kidnappers demanded from Queen Gerberga that she send her two sons Lothair and Charles as hostages in exchange for the release of her husband. The Queen only sent her youngest son Charles, with Bishop Guy of Soissons taking the place of Lothair, the eldest son and heir. Like his father, Louis IV was kept in captivity, then sent to Hugh the Great. On his orders, the king was placed under the custody of Theobald I, Count of Blois for several months. The ambush and capture of the King were probably ordered by Hugh the Great, who wanted to permanently end his attempts of political independence. Ultimately, probably by the pressure of the Frankish nobles and Kings Otto I and Edmund I of England, Hugh the Great decided to release Louis IV.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Hugh was the only one who would decide if Louis IV could be restored or deposed. In return for the release of the King, he demanded the surrender of Laon, which was entrusted to his vassal Thibaud. The Carolingian kinship was in the abyss, because it no longer held or controlled anything.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In June 946, a royal charter called optimistically the "eleventh year of the reign of Louis when he had recovered the "Francia"". This charter is the first official text who identified only the Western Frankish kingdom (sometimes called West Francia by some historians). This statement is consistent with the fact that the title of King of the Franks, used since 911 by Charles the Simple was thereafter continuously claimed by the Kings of the Western Kingdom after the Treaty of Verdun, including the non-Carolingians ones. Among the Kings of the East, sometimes called Germanic Kings, this claim was occasional and disappeared completely after the 11th century.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Otto I was not satisfied with the growing power of Hugh the Great who, although not accepted by the whole kingdom, respected the division of powers. In 946 Otto I and Conrad I of Burgundy raised an army and tried to take Laon and then Senlis. They invaded Reims with a large army, according to Flodoard. Archbishop Hugh of Vermandois escaped and Artald was restored. "Robert, Archbishop of Trier and Frederick, Archbishop of Mainz take everyone by the hand" (Flodoard). A few months later, Louis IV joined the fight against Hugh the Great and his allies at the Battle of Rouen. In the spring of 947, Louis and his wife Gerberga spent the Easter holidays in Aachen at the court of Otto I, asking him for help in their war against Hugh the Great.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Between late 947 and late 948, four imperial synods were held by Otto I between Meuse and Rhine to settle the fate of the Archbishopric of Reims and Hugh the Great. In Synod of Ingelheim (June 948) participated the apostolic legate, thirty German and Burgundian bishops and finally Artald and his suffragants of Laon among the Frankish clerics. Louis IV presented his claims against Hugh the Great at the synod. The surviving final acts determined: "Anybody had the right to undermine the royal power or treacherously revolted against their King. We therefore decide that Hugh was the invasor and abductor of Louis, and he will be struck with the sword of the excommunication unless he presents himself and give a satisfaction to us for his perversity".


title: Louis IV of France

text: But the Duke of the Franks, not paying attention to the sentence, devastated Soissons, Reims and profaned dozens of churches. In the meanwhile, his vassal and relative Theobald I, Count of Blois (nicknamed "the Trickster") who had married Luitgarde of Vermandois, daughter of Herbert II of Vermandois and widow of William I Longsword, had built a fortress in Montaigu in Laon to humiliate the king, and seized the lordship of Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique in Reims. The Synod of Trier (September 948) decided to excommunicate him for his actions. Guy I, Count of Soissons, who ordained Hugh of Vermandois, must repent, while Thibaud of Amiens and Yves of Senlis, who both consecrated Hugh, were excommunicated. The King, with the help of Arnold, deposed Thibaud from the seat of Amiens and placed the faithful Raimbaud in his place (949).


title: Louis IV of France

text: The last step in the emancipation of Louis IV shows that his reign wasn't entirely negative. In 949 he entered Laon, where by command of Hugh the Great, Theobald I of Blois surrendered to him the fortress he had built a few months earlier. The King recovered, at the expense of Herbert II's vassals, the château of Corbeny which his father had given to Saint-Remi of Reims and also authorized archbishop Artald to mint coins in his city.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In 950 Louis IV and Hugh the Great finally reconciled. After the death of Hugh the Black in 952, Hugh the Great captured his half of Burgundy. Louis IV, now allied with Arnulf I of Flanders and Adalbert I, Count of Vermandois, exercised real authority only north of the river Loire. He also rewarded Liétald II of Mâcon and Charles Constantine of Vienne for their loyalty. For a long time Louis IV and his son Lothair were the last kings to venture south of the river Loire.


title: Louis IV of France

text: In 951 Louis IV fell seriously ill during a stay in Auvergne and decided to associate to the throne his eldest son and heir, the ten-year-old Lothair. During his stay, he received homage of Bishop Étienne II, brother of the viscount of Clermont. Louis IV recovered from his disease thanks to the care of his wife Gerberga, who during the reign of her husband had a key role. The royal couple had seven children, of whom only three survived infancy: Lothair, the eldest son and future King – that Flodoard cites not to be confused with the son of Louis the Pious: "Lotharius puer, filius Ludowici" (infant Lothair, son of Louis)–, Mathilde – who in 964 married King Conrad I of Burgundy – and Charles – who was invested as Duke of Lower Lorraine by his cousin Emperor Otto II in 977–.


title: Louis IV of France

text: During the 950s, the royal power network was entrenched by construction of several palaces in the towns that were recovered by the King. Under Louis IV (and also during the reign of his son), there is a geographical tightening of royal lands around Compiègne, Laon and Reims which eventually gave Laon an incontestable primacy. Thus, through the charters issued by the Royal Chancery, can be followed the stays of Louis IV. The King spent mostly of his time in the palaces of Reims (21% of the charters), Laon (15%), Compiègne and Soissons (2% for each of them).


title: Louis IV of France

text: Flodoard records in 951 that Queen Eadgifu ("Ottogeba regina mater Ludowici regis"), who since her return with her son to France retired to the Abbey of Notre Dame in Laon ("abbatiam sanctæ Mariæ...Lauduni"), where she became the Abbess, was abducted from there by Herbert III of Vermandois, Count of Château-Thierry ("Heriberti...Adalberti fratris"), who married her shortly after; the King, furious about this ("rex Ludowicus iratus") confiscated the Abbey of Notre Dame from his mother and donated it to his wife Gerberga ("Gerbergæ uxori suæ").


title: Louis IV of France

text: In the early 950s, Queen Gerberga developed an increased eschatological fear, and began to consult Adso of Montier-en-Der; being highly educated, she commissioned to him the "De ortu et tempore antichristi" (The birth and era of the Antichrist). Adso reassured the Queen that the arrival of the Antichrist would not take place before the end of the Kingdoms of France and Germany, the two "Imperia" fundamentals of the universe. In consequence, the Frankish King could continue his reign without fear, because Heaven was the door of legitimacy.


title: Louis IV of France

text: At the end of the summer of 954, Louis IV went riding with his companions on the road from Laon to Reims. As he crossed the forest of Voas (near to his palace in Corbeny), he saw a wolf and attempted to capture it. Flodoard, from whom these details are known, said that the King fell from his horse. Urgently carried to Reims, he eventually died from his injuries on 10 September. For the Reims canons, the wolf whom the king tried to hunt wasn't an animal but a fantastic creature, a divine supernatural intervention.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Flodoard recalled indeed that in 938 Louis IV had captured Corbeny in extreme brutality and without respecting the donations to the monks made by his father. Thus God could punish the King and his descendants with the curse of the wolf as a "plague". The later events are disturbing. According to Flodoard Louis reportedly died from tuberculosis (then called "pesta elephantis"); in 986 his son Lothair died by a "plague" after he besieged Verdun, and finally his grandson Louis V died in 987 from injuries received when falling from his horse while hunting, a few months after he besieged Reims for the trial of archbishop Adalberon.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Gerberga, a dynamic and devoted wife, supported the burial of her late husband at the Abbey of Saint-Remi. Unusually for the Carolingians, she took care of the dynastic memorial ("mémoire dynastique") of Louis IV. The Queen, from Ottonian descent, was constantly at the side of her husband, supporting him and being active in the defence of Laon (941) and of Reims (946), accompanied him on the military expeditions to Aquitaine (944) and Burgundy (949), and was also active during his period of imprisonment in 945-946. By France and Germany, the role of queens was different: the memorial mostly was a task of males. Written shortly after 956, perhaps by Adso of Montier-en-Der (according to Karl Ferdinand Werner) the "Life of Clotilde" proposes to Queen Gerberga to build a church destined to be burial place of members of the Carolingian dynasty: the Abbey of Saint-Remi; moreover in a charter dated 955, King Lothair, following the desires of his mother, confirmed the immunity of Saint-Remi as the place of coronations and royal necropolis.


title: Louis IV of France

text: The tomb of Louis IV was later destroyed during the French Revolution. At that time, the two tombs of Louis IV and his son Lothair were in the centre of the Abbey, the side of the Epistle reserved to Louis IV and the side of the gospel to Lothair. Both remains were moved in the middle of the 18th century and transported to the right and left of the mausoleum of Carloman I first under the first arch of the collateral nave towards the sacristy of Saint-Remi Abbey. The statues placed on the original graves were left there. Both statues were painted and the golden Fleur-de-lis on each of the Kings' capes was easily visible. A graphic description of the tombs was made by Bernard de Montfaucon. Louis IV was shown seated on a throne with a double-dossier. He was depicted as full-bearded, wearing a bonnet and dressed with a chlamys and also was holding a sceptre who ended with a pine cone. The throne of Louis IV was similar to a bench placed on a pedestal of the same material. The seat had a back that was above the royal head he was home with a gable roof, three arches decorated the underside of the roof. The base on which rested his feet was decorated at the corners with figures of children or lions.


title: Louis IV of France

text: Immediately after Louis IV died, his widow Gerberga was forced to obtain the approval of Hugh the Great for the coronation of her son Lothair, which took place on 12 November 954 at the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims.


title: Louis IV of France

text: The regency of the Kingdom was held firstly by Hugh the Great, and after his death in 956 by Gerberga's brother Bruno the Great, Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia until 965, marking the Ottonian influence over France during all the second half of the 10th century. Thus, the end of Louis IV's reign and the beginning of the rule of Lothair, wasn't the ""dark century of iron and lead" [...] "but rather" [...] "the last century of the Carolingian Europe"".


title: Louis IV of France

text: Louis IV's youngest surviving son Charles, known as "Charles of Lower Lorraine", settled on an island in the Zenne river in the primitive "pagus" of Brabant, where he erected a castrum in the town called "Bruoc Sella" or "Broek Zele", which later became Brussels.


title: Dogū

text: The National Museum of Japanese History estimates that the total number of dogū is approximately 15,000, with The Japan Times placing the figure at approximately 18,000. "Dogū" were made across all of Japan, except Okinawa. Most of the "dogū" have been found in eastern Japan and it is rare to find one in western Japan. The purpose of the "dogū" remains unknown and should not be confused with the clay haniwa funerary objects of the Kofun period (250 – 538 C.E.).


title: Dogū

text: Some scholars theorize the "dogū" acted as effigies of people, that manifested some kind of sympathetic magic. For example, it may have been believed that illnesses could be transferred into the "dogū", which were then destroyed, clearing the illness, or any other misfortune.


title: Dogū

text: "Dogū" are made of clay and are small, typically 10 to 30 cm high. Most of the figurines appear to be modeled as female, and have big eyes, small waists, and wide hips. They are considered by many to be representative of goddesses. Many have large abdomens associated with pregnancy, suggesting that the Jomon considered them mother goddesses. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these figurines "suggest an association with fertility and shamanistic rites".


title: Dogū

text: The "dogū" tend to have large faces, small arms and hands and compact bodies. Some appear to wear goggles or have "heart-shaped" faces. Most have marks on the face, chest and shoulders, that suggest tattooing and probable incision with bamboo.


title: Dogū

text: The , or "goggle-eyed "dogū", were created in the Jōmon era, and are so well known that when most Japanese hear the term "dogū", this is the image that comes to mind. The name "shakōki" (literally "light-blocking device") comes from the resemblance of the figures' eyes to traditional Inuit snow goggles. Another distinguishing feature of the objects are the exaggerated, female buttocks, chest and thighs. Furthermore, the abdomen is covered with patterns, many of which seem to have been painted with vermilion. The larger figures are hollow.


title: Dogū

text: Unbroken figures are rare, and most are missing an arm, leg or other body part. In many cases, the parts have been cut off.


title: Dogū

text: These types of "dogū" have been found in the Kamegaoka Site in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture; the Teshiromori Site in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture; the Ebisuda Site in Tajiri, Miyagi Prefecture; and the Izumisawa Kaizuka Site in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. All the sites listed have been designated as Important Cultural Properties.


title: Dogū

text: Dogū are a staple of Japanese pop culture, with numerous toys based on them being available in the country, as well as depictions in manga, anime, video games, and live action television series. Notable examples include Baltoy, Claydol, Elgyem, and Beheeyem, from the "Pokémon" franchise, Shakkoumon from the "Digimon" franchise, and Arahabaki from the "Megami Tensei" franchise. The tokusatsu "The Ancient Dogoo Girl" has several of its main main features based on dogū.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Everett Kenneth Ross is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Primarily an ally of superhero Black Panther, the character exists within Marvel's main shared universe, known as the Marvel Universe.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Martin Freeman portrays the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "" (2016), "Black Panther" (2018), "" (2022) and the upcoming Disney+ series "Secret Invasion" (2023).


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Everett Ross debuted in "Ka-Zar" Vol. 3, #17, and was created by Christopher Priest and Kenny Martinez. Afterward, Ross went on to be a major character in "Black Panther" Vol. 3, #1-32, #34-35, #38-49, #57-58, and #62. Ross subsequently appeared in issues #1-2, #4-6, #16, #19, #21-24, #26, and #37 of "Black Panther" Vol. 4, and issue #7 of "Black Panther" Vol. 5. Outside of "Black Panther", Ross had a guest role in "The Uncanny X-Men" Vol. 1, #387.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: According to creator Christopher Priest, Ross's personality was based on that of Chandler Bing, a character from the television series "Friends", while the name was inspired by the "Family Ties" character Alex P. Keaton. After introducing Ross in "Ka-Zar", Priest chose to bring the character back in "Black Panther" for use as an audience surrogate who "saw Panther the way Panther had ultimately come to be seen by Marvel: Just Some Guy who was routinely overshadowed by heroes in which they were more invested".


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Priest further elaborated, "Comics are traditionally created by white males for white males. I figured, and I believe rightly, that for "Black Panther" to succeed, it needed a white male at the center, and that white male had to give voice to the audience's misgivings or apprehensions or assumptions about this character and this book. Ross needed to be un-PC to the point of being borderline racist"; and clarified, "I don't think Ross was racist at all. I just think that his stream-of-conscious narrative is a window into things I imagine many whites say or at least think when no blacks are around; myths about black culture and behavior. I was also introducing a paradigm shift to the way Panther was to be portrayed; somebody had to give voice to the expectation of a dull and colorless character who always got his butt kicked or who was overshadowed by Thor and Iron Man suddenly knocking out Mephisto with one punch".


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Everett Ross was a US State Department employee, whose job was to escort foreign diplomats on American soil. As a child, Ross was not well adjusted. Obese and unloved by his mother, he was constantly bullied with his most embarrassing memory being beaten up by a girl named Natalie McPhail. He eventually left home and turned his life around by working for the government. His world changed forever when he was assigned to T'Challa, the Black Panther and ruler of Wakanda.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Everett and T'Challa faced multiple threats to Wakanda's sovereignty. Ross assists him in many of these threats. In gratitude, the Panther often risks much for Ross in return. The first threat he and Ross encounter is 'Xcon', an alliance of rogue intelligence agents backing a coup led by the Reverend Achebe.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: As an expert on Wakanda, Ross worked as an adviser alongside government officials and the National Security Agency. He was part of a meeting at the White House about Wakanda.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Ross subsequently acts as a liaison for Shuri, the younger sister of Black Panther, during Shuri's first goodwill visit to the United States. When their convoy is attacked by assassins, Shuri saves Ross's life.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: The World Security Council later selects Ross to prosecute the tribunal of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Maria Hill.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: In an alternate future seen in the "Black Panther" storyline "The Once and Future King", an elderly Ross is abducted by a cabal of villains assembled by T'Charra, who intends to use Ross as the bait in his plan to kill and usurp Black Panther. Ross is rescued by Black Panther, who he in turn saves when Black Panther suffers a heart attack, resuscitating the hero while screaming, "Your majesty—come back—blast you, T'Challa—we've been through too much!!"


title: Everett K. Ross

text: During the "Rising Storm!" story-arc of the series "X-Men Forever", a version of Ross appears on Earth-161. After Storm is outed as a murderer and an ally of a criminal organization called the Consortium, she flees to and is given sanctuary by Wakanda, to the consternation of Ross. Ross subsequently appears on behalf of the President of the United States at both the United Nations (where he warns the other representatives about the threat posed by Storm's takeover of Wakanda) and a meeting with the heads of Genosha and S.H.I.E.L.D.


title: Everett K. Ross

text: Martin Freeman portrays Everett Ross in live-action media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This version was a member of the United States Air Force before joining the CIA and is the ex-husband of the latter's director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Tallulah is a 2016 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Sian Heder (in her feature directorial debut) and starring Elliot Page, Allison Janney, and Tammy Blanchard. The film revolves around a young woman who unexpectedly takes a baby from her irresponsible mother and pretends the child is her own. Without a place to stay, the woman asks for help from her ex-boyfriend's mother, telling her the baby is her granddaughter.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: "Tallulah" had its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2016 and was released on Netflix on July 29, 2016. The film was praised for the performances of Page, Janney and Blanchard. It also marked the third collaboration between Page and Janney, having last worked together in "Juno" (2007) and "Touchy Feely" (2013).


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Living in her rundown van while travelling around America, homeless teenager Tallulah and her boyfriend Nico survive the streets by stealing credit cards.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: When Nico decides it is time to go home to his mother, Tallulah expresses her dismay and argues with Nico about how she will not change her lifestyle. Tallulah is devastated to discover the next morning that Nico has left without saying goodbye.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Desperate to be with him again, Tallulah drives to New York City, where Nico's mother Margo lives, and finds her at her apartment. After informing Tallulah that she has not seen Nico in two years, Margo tells Tallulah to leave.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: With nowhere else to go, Tallulah steals from guests at a nearby hotel, only for strange natured and intoxicated mother, Carolyn, to mistake Tallulah as housekeeping staff. To Tallulah's confusion, Carolyn lets her child wander around naked and play with dangerous objects and admits that she is not invested in being a mother. Carolyn leaves her toddler, Maddy, in Tallulah's care, while she goes on a date with a man who is not her husband. Tallulah bonds with the young Maddy, bathing her and playing games before a devastated Carolyn arrives back at the hotel, distraught that the man did not want her.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: After Carolyn drunkenly passes out, Tallulah prepares to leave but impulsively decides to take a crying Maddy back to her van to spend the night until further notice. When Tallulah returns to the hotel with Maddy, she flees upon seeing the police, summoned by a panicked Carolyn, and goes to Margo's apartment. After Tallulah claims that the child is Nico's and that she is Margo's granddaughter, "Maggie," Margo reluctantly agrees to let them stay for one night.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Unknown to Tallulah, Margo is struggling with her own marital problems after her ex-husband Stephen has left her for a man, Andreas, and is pressing Margo to finalize their divorce. While Tallulah and Maddy stay with Margo, the three of them bond; Tallulah reveals her fears of forming relationships and Margo admits to having trouble letting go. However, Tallulah becomes increasingly aware that the authorities are looking for her and Maddy.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Meanwhile, a distressed Carolyn is questioned by a social worker who notes that Carolyn has only expressed concern for herself so far instead of her missing child. Frustrated with their questioning, Carolyn leaves the hotel to distract herself and discovers that her husband has cancelled all her credit cards, much to her fury.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: During a lunch with Stephen and Andreas, Margo defends Tallulah when Stephen begins to aggressively question Tallulah's relationships with Nico and Maddy. Margo lashes out at Stephen about their marriage and the deceit involved, pointing out that when all their friends supported Stephen, Margo had been left alone to reconcile the changes in her life and losing the family she loved.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: On their way back to Margo's apartment, Tallulah and Carolyn notice one another as the latter goes by in a cab. Just before Carolyn catches up to them, Tallulah narrowly escapes with Maddy and Margo via the subway.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: When Margo demands to know why Tallulah ran, an argument ensues and Tallulah runs off with a feverish Maddy to a pier that Nico had once told Tallulah was his favorite place. Nico arrives, having finally returned to his mother in New York City.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Taking Maddy to the hospital, Nico devises a plan to allow Tallulah to escape. At Margo's apartment, Carolyn and the police arrive after a tip from Stephen and Andreas, who recognized Lu from a newspaper article reporting Maddy's abduction.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Carolyn admits to Margo that she did not want to be a mother and feels no maternal instinct, despite loving her daughter; Margo comforts her. At a subway station, Tallulah calls Margo to apologize for involving her and the police trace the call. Tallulah tries to get on the subway in order to flee, but instead returns to Maddy and Nico at the hospital. The police, Carolyn, and Margo arrive at the hospital, where an emotional Tallulah accuses Carolyn of not wanting Maddy.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: After a tearful Carolyn tells her that she does want her child, Tallulah reluctantly hands Maddy back to her and is arrested by the police. As Tallulah is taken away, Margo promises to help her however she can. When Detective Richards facetiously asks Tallulah if she has a habit of taking children into protective custody, Tallulah says nothing and smiles ruefully.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Some time later, Margo wanders through Central Park before lying in the grass, recalling her conversation with Tallulah about letting go. Margo starts floating away happily, but realizes the connections she's made and chooses instead to stay.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: "Tallulah" was written and directed by Sian Heder as a spin-off of her 2006 short film "Mother", about a homeless woman who is forced to babysit a toddler with an irresponsible mother at a hotel. By the time that "Mother" was released in May 2006, Heder had completed the feature-length screenplay for "Tallulah", based on her perception of women who "probably know they shouldn't have kids, but then they do it anyway".


title: Tallulah (film)

text: The story was inspired by her experience of working as a babysitter for hotel guests in Los Angeles, when she was once required to babysit a toddler whose neglectful mother had come to a Beverly Hills hotel in order to have an extramarital affair. She said that, after the incident, "I left the hotel, got in my car and cried the whole way home, and I thought, I should have taken that kid."


title: Tallulah (film)

text: In May 2015, it was announced that Elliot Page and Allison Janney would star in the film's lead roles, after working together previously on "Juno" (2007) and "Touchy Feely" (2013). Filming began in June 2015 in New York City, primarily in the borough of Manhattan. The film was produced by Heather Rae, Russell Levine, Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus and Todd Traina, and financed by Route One Entertainment and Ocean Blue Entertainment.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Michael Lloyd and Cutting Edge Group produced the soundtrack of songs inspired by the film's screenplay. Michael Brook composed the film's score.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: "Tallulah" had its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2016. Prior to the film's premiere at the festival, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released on July 29, 2016.


title: Tallulah (film)

text: "Tallulah" received positive reviews from critics, who praised the two lead performances. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 84%, based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Tallulah"s narrative insight, thoughtfully written characters, and talented cast add up to an absorbing family drama that transcends genre tropes and capably overcomes its flirtations with melodrama." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 63 out of 100, based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Tallulah (film)

text: Nigel M. Smith of "The Guardian" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, wrote that "Yes, the story has the makings of a Lifetime movie; what grounds it are the terrific performances and Heder's rich direction and screenplay", and he praised Page's and Janney's performances. Geoff Berkshire of "Variety" also praised the two leads and stated "Heder's script likely won't please those who prefer their indie dramas naturalistic and event-free. But the freewheeling storytelling enacted here has an excellent anchor in the grounded work of the ensemble cast."


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: HMS "Ark Royal" was a light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Royal Navy. She was the third and final vessel of . She was built by Swan Hunter on the River Tyne and launched by them in 1981. "Ark Royal" was christened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She followed sister ships and into service in 1985.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: Affectionately known as "The Mighty Ark", she is the fifth Royal Navy ship to have borne the name of the 1587 flagship that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. Originally intended to be named to match the rest of the class, this was changed due to the public reaction to the loss of the "Ark Royal" name after the scrapping of the previous "Ark Royal" in 1980, after 30 years' service.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: Slightly larger than her sister ships, and with a steeper ski-jump ramp, "Ark Royal" carried the STOVL (short take off and vertical landing) Harrier jump jet aircraft, as well as various helicopters. With a crew complement of over 1,000 sailors and aviators, she saw active service in the 1990s Bosnian War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: Originally due to be retired in 2016, "Ark Royal" was instead decommissioned on 11 March 2011, as part of the Navy restructuring portion of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. After "Ark Royal"s decommissioning, replaced her as the Royal Navy flagship. "Ark Royal" was sold for scrap to the Turkish company Leyal Ship Recycling and left Portsmouth in May 2013.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: The aircraft carrier's keel was laid by Swan Hunter at Wallsend on 7 December 1978. She was launched on 2 June 1981 sponsored by The Queen Mother and commissioned on 1 November 1985. Originally intended as in line with her sister ships and , public resentment at the scrapping of the previous (the UK's last large aircraft carrier up to that date) in 1980 led the Royal Navy to announce that the name would be revived on the new ship. The unfinished "Ark Royal" was reportedly offered for sale to the Royal Australian Navy in 1981. HMS "Invincible" was later offered for sale instead.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: "Ark Royal" was deployed in 1993 to the Adriatic Sea during the Bosnian War under the command of Captain Terry Loughran RN (later rear admiral). In May 1999, she was put into Rosyth for refitting, which included the removal of the Sea Dart surface-to-air missiles and covering over of the foredeck to allow for an enlarged deck park for aircraft.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: She was recommissioned on 22 November 2001 by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She sailed to the Persian Gulf for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. She was commanded by Captain Alan Massey (later Vice Admiral and Second Sea Lord) and sailed with a complement consisting of helicopters alone rather than her usual mix of helicopters and Harrier aircraft. During one of the operations in the war, two Westland Sea King helicopters from 849 Naval Air Squadron collided with each other in mid-air, resulting in the loss of six British and one American. Her deployment to the gulf was filmed throughout by Shine TV for a Channel 5 documentary entitled 'Ark Royal'.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: In April 2004, "Ark Royal" entered into extended readiness, following which she entered refit with the "Illustrious" returning to service. Once her refit was completed, she received a new captain (Captain Mike Mansergh) in August 2006. "Ark Royal" then returned to Portsmouth to rejoin the fleet on 28 October 2006, where she underwent ten weeks of training and sea trials before being utilised as a landing platform helicopter, replacing while she underwent a refit. On 16 November 2006, a British Army WAH-64 Apache attack helicopter landed on "Ark Royal" for the first time marking an increase in the carrier's capability.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: On 22 March 2007, "Ark Royal" was returned to the Royal Navy Fleet after a two-year refit worth £18 million. In May 2007, she once again became the Fleet Flagship, reclaiming the title from her sister ship, "Illustrious", which had been flagship since the end of her refit in 2005. On 31 July 2008, Mansergh was relieved as captain by Captain John Clink. In October 2008, "Ark Royal" was a participant in Exercise Joint Warrior 08-2. In January 2009, "Ark Royal" visited Liverpool and then the River Tyne, where she was built. Her voyage from Portsmouth to Liverpool was made with 108 Cadets from the Sea Cadet Corps and the Combined Cadet Force embarked.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: During the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, assigned "Ark Royal" and "Ocean" to rescue stranded travellers across the English Channel in Operation Cunningham. In June 2010, "Ark Royal" was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take part in the Royal Canadian Navy Centennial Celebrations, where she was visited by Prime Minister David Cameron on his way to the G20 summit in Toronto. During this time, an V-22 Osprey visited the ship, again increasing its capabilities.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: On 19 October 2010, BBC News reported that the ship was to be decommissioned and scrapped earlier than expected, as part of the coalition government's spending review, and that an 8% cut to the British defence budget was expected to be announced later that week, only to be replaced in the long run with . A campaign was begun in November 2010 to retain the name "Ark Royal" for one of the new carriers. On 3 December 2010, the amphibious warfare ship was announced as "Ark Royal"s successor as the Royal Navy's flagship. In recognition of the ship's decommissioning, Portsmouth F.C. added the ship's motto to its 2011/12 season kit.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: On the evening of 19 October, the ship arrived at Portsmouth ready to be decommissioned and laid up. On 5 November she was visited by Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth before sailing to Loch Long for the removal of all her munitions. She then left the River Clyde on 17 November on her final voyage before decommissioning, visiting North Shields on 18–22 November and Hamburg for five days from 25 November. The latter was her last overseas visit, repeating a previous one in 2007. During the voyage, she launched four Harrier GR9s for the last time in the North Sea on 24 November.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: The ship then sailed from Hamburg back into Portsmouth, arriving at 9.40 am on 3 December 2010 flying a decommissioning pennant. A Harrier flypast to mark the occasion was planned, but was postponed due to bad weather. A farewell parade by her captain and crew was held in Guildhall Square in Portsmouth on 22 January 2011 and another in Leeds, the latter being a Freedom of the City parade. Her formal decommissioning occurred at Portsmouth on 11 March 2011. She was then to have sailed to Rosyth or Govan, but was instead de-stored at Portsmouth in late March after her decommissioning, with her last crew members leaving her by 25 May.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: A Ministry of Defence spokesperson stated on 1 December 2010 that, "All options are being considered in terms of what happens to the "Ark Royal" after it is decommissioned. We might also look at scrapping it, selling it or recycling it." Other options explored were to moor her as a hotel, casino, museum ship or visitor attraction at the Royal Docks in east London or at Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, along the lines of or . The annual cost of running the ship as a museum was estimated at £1 million. Another option explored was to moor her as a floating helipad in London's Royal Albert Dock, though that would have been against the London Plan to create no new helipads in London. Another option considered was to turn "Ark Royal" into a hospital ship with the ability to respond to humanitarian disasters. The possibility of scuttling "Ark Royal" off the Devonshire coast as an artificial reef was also discussed.


title: HMS Ark Royal (R07)

text: On 28 March 2011, the Ministry of Defence placed the decommissioned "Ark Royal" up for sale by auction, with 6 July as the final date for tenders. In June 2012, the MoD confirmed it had not reached a decision on the sale of the ship, following the submission of bids nearly a year previously. In September 2012, the announcement was made that the ship had been sold to Leyal Ship Recycling in Turkey for scrapping, for the sum of £2.9m. "Ark Royal" left Portsmouth on 20 May 2013 to be taken to Leyal Ship Recycling. The ship was towed to scrapyard on 10 June 2013 in Aliağa.


title: Apatheism

text: Apatheism (; a portmanteau of "apathy" and "theism") is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash, theology professor at Mercer University, in 2001.


title: Apatheism

text: An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist. The existence of a god or gods is not rejected, but may be designated irrelevant. One of the first recorded apatheists was arguably Denis Diderot (1713–1784), who wrote: "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all."


title: Apatheism

text: Philosopher Trevor Hedberg has called apatheism "uncharted territory in the philosophy of religion". Political theorist and constitutional law scholar, Adam Scott Kunz, has further defined apatheism as "the philosophical attitude of indifference, both public and private, to (1) the question of the existence of a deity, (2) the metaphysical and practical value of loyalty to that deity, and/or (3) the interaction of that deity with the natural world".


title: Apatheism

text: Apatheism considers the question of the existence or nonexistence of deities to be fundamentally irrelevant in every way that matters. This position should not be understood as a skeptical position in a manner similar to that of, for example, atheists or agnostics who question the existence of deities or whether we can know anything about them.


title: Apatheism

text: Adam Scott Kunz has argued that apatheism's opposite is zeal, just as atheism's opposite is theism. Instead of viewing apatheism as a different form of belief, Kunz argues that apatheism and zeal can interact with atheism and theism on a two-dimensional spectrum similar to a political spectrum. A person can be a theist, while at the same time have an attitude of apatheism (such beliefs are common in deism) or zeal toward questions of existence, loyalty, or involvement of deity. Likewise, an atheist can be either apatheistic or zealous.


title: Apatheism

text: Apatheists may feel that even if there are gods/deities and the existence and legitimacy of them were proven, it would not make a difference to them for one reason or another; therefore, which one(s), if any, are real does not matter and any discussion about it is meaningless. This approach is similar to that of practical atheism.


title: Apatheism

text: This apatheistic argument states that morals do not come from God and that if a god exists, there would be no changes with regards to morality; therefore, a god's existence or non-existence is irrelevant.


title: Apatheism

text: A view related to apatheism, apathetic agnosticism claims that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans; therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs. This view has also been called "Pragmatic Agnosticism."


title: Apatheism

text: The view that one should live their life with disregard towards a god or gods. Practical atheism does not see the god questions as irrelevant, in contrast to apatheism.


title: Apatheism

text: Thus: "practical atheism is disregard for the answers to [God questions], not a disregard for [God questions] "per se". Unlike atheism proper, the practical atheist acts as if God does not exist and has no authority over his life despite his belief in God. Hence, "practical" atheism and not "actual" atheism."


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: Chernobyl Diaries is a 2012 American disaster horror film co-written and produced by Oren Peli and directed by Brad Parker, in his directorial debut. The film stars Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Devin Kelley, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Nathan Phillips, and Dimitri Diatchenko, and was shot on locations in Pripyat, Ukraine, as well as Hungary, and Serbia.


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: Chris, his girlfriend Natalie, and their mutual friend Amanda are traveling across Europe. They stop in Kyiv, Ukraine, to visit Chris' brother, Paul, before heading on to Moscow, Russia, where Chris intends to propose to Natalie.


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: Paul suggests they go for an extreme tour of Pripyat, an abandoned town which sits in the shadow of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Chris is against going on the tour and would rather stay on the original plan of going to Moscow, but Paul insists. They meet tour guide Yuri and are joined by a backpacking couple, Norwegian Zoe and Australian Michael. Yuri drives them through Ukraine, before they arrive at a Chernobyl Exclusion Zone checkpoint, where they are refused entry by the Ukrainian military. He then takes them to an alternate entry he discovered years ago.


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: The group stops at a river where Yuri points out a large, mutated fish apparently able to live on land; while returning to their van several other mutant fish are seen. The group is worried about radiation poisoning, but Yuri assures their safety with a Geiger counter. After spending a few hours exploring, Yuri takes them to the upper floor of an apartment building and shows them the Chernobyl nuclear plant on the near horizon. After hearing noises at the other end of the apartment, it is found to be a bear which runs through the hallway past them, but not harming them.


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: The group prepares to leave Pripyat, but Yuri finds the wires in his van have been chewed through. He tries to radio for help, to no avail. As night falls, the group decides on whether to hike to a nearby checkpoint which is 20 km (12 miles) away, or to stay put and wait for help. Suddenly, strange noises come from outside, where Yuri goes out to investigate and Chris follows. Shots are heard and Paul runs out to investigate, returning with Chris, whose leg has been severely mauled, and claiming that Yuri has been taken. While they decide to stay the night in their locked vehicle, they are attacked by dogs.


title: Chernobyl Diaries

text: The next day, Paul, Michael, and Amanda go out to look for Yuri. They follow a trail of blood to an abandoned cafeteria and find Yuri's mutilated body. They take his gun and are chased by a creature through the building before returning to the van. Amanda checks her camera and one of the pictures shows a humanoid creature inside one of the apartment buildings. Natalie stays with the wounded Chris while the others begin the hike to the checkpoint.