Well, I think Hank Johnson​​​ is being quite gracious in not broadcasting "I told you so!" to anyone who will...

Well, I think Hank Johnson​​​ is being quite gracious in not broadcasting "I told you so!" to anyone who will listen. Is Hank Johnson​​​ implicitly confirming that the Obsidian shield works by drawing on xm and cm?

It certainly seems that he believes the shield was always intended to be directed indiscriminately against both the Shapers and the N'Zeer. Perhaps Pliny the Elder, now confirmed as the leader of the Vesuvian Magnus began to fear that both sides needed to be locked out of human affairs. Alternatively, perhaps he felt that, with the Shapers and N'eer locked out, he would be free to wield the power of xm unhindered by outside guidance.

Interesting Questions going forward:
flint dille​​​ referred to the Vesuvian Magnus as "A super MAGNUS". Could Flint know about, or suspect, the existence of other super magnuses (magni?) throughout history? In some ways it would be surprising if Vesuvius was the only cross-factional hybrid grouping. No doubt history is littered with off-shoots, schisms, and breakaway sects of both MAGNUS and AntiMagnus alike. To see these groups as a monolithic, uniform binary is a mistake.

Second, what of Titus? If Pliny is the leader of the Vesuvian MAGNUS, then was Titus a mere member or something else? It was recorded that, on his deathbed, Titus said, "I have made but one mistake." Historians have never been able to identify what he was referring to. Was it just the feverish rantings of a dying man, or was he referring to a greater regret: his betrayal of Obsidius perhaps?

Third, from where will salvation come? Will Stein Lightman​​​ be able to alleviate some of the pain by providing a glyph command sequence to request additional power cubes? Will Oliver Lynton-Wolfe​​​be able to engineer an entirely new xm construct? Perhaps hope lies with some new theoretical breakthrough from the mind that understands exotic matter better than anyone, that of Victor Kureze. I believe that our very own Edgar Allan Wright​​ has some insights he hasn't yet shared with us yet. Perhaps we need to help jog his memory and connect a few more dots for him.

Only time will tell. Until then, please report back anything you saw or overheard at the anomaly or an after party, no matter how trivial it may seem. We will need everyone sharing their ideas and insights in order to take Essex through uncharted waters.

Originally shared by Hank Johnson

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Hank Johnson. I’ve studied and experienced anomalies throughout my career as a scholar, a special operator and have investigated them extensively on my Nomad (https://youtu.be/Q46_58xAr8s) TV show.

In retrospect, we should have known that the Obsidian Shield was not what was represented to both 13MAGNUS and Anti-Magnus (http://investigate.ingress.com/persons-of-interest/persons-of-interest-organizations-and-forces/), but hindsight is always twenty-twenty, high-def and 3D.

When the Vesuvian Magnus attempted to build the shield, they threatened both the Shapers and the N’zeer, two forces that exert gravity on our species and have for a very long time… we don’t know what they look like, where they are, what their true intentions are and what role we play in this quantum chess game, but we do know that the Vesuvian Magnus was destroyed in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The truth is, we couldn’t have known what would happen when the shield was deployed. Nobody knew except the leader of the Vesuvian Magnus, who I believe to be Pliny the Elder, and even he only knew in his dying breaths on a beach near Pompeii. Perhaps that is the reason some believe he ordered his own murder. Perhaps, like Jahan, the Acolyte, in our day, he was deceived by the Shapers or the N’zeer or both.

Those of you who have followed my career know that I have seen the destruction that a mixture of XM and Chaotic Matter (Dark XM) can do, (http://investigate.ingress.com/digging-deeper/#AlignmentIngress) at the Luizi crater in Africa, and via the ‘spooky’ powers of a 13MAGNUS nest in Afghanistan as well as other encounters documented in NOMAD.

But even I didn’t see the XM drought coming. I might have suspected it as my compromised discussion with Wright shows, but I didn’t know it.

In deceiving us, the Shapers and N’zeer revealed a great deal about themselves. We must learn from it. We must not make the same mistake again. Nor can we accept defeat. A shield that can be activated can be deactivated.

At this moment some of the greatest minds in XM science are working on it: Dr. Oliver Lynton-Wolfe, Stein Lightman and Dr. Edgar Allan Wright are well known experts. Many are Ingress Agents whose knowledge is equal to ours. Together, we can emerge victorious.

This drought, too, will pass and I believe we will emerge better and stronger if we do not shrink from the challenges ahead of us.

Until next time, keep digging.

Hank Johnson