Been searching around places to find archival screenshots of these Tourist garden stations. I found a post on 3 April 2015 with some decent shots of the gardens.
Leonard Nimoy Station and the Imgur gallery linked there.
System: LHS 3006 -> Vulcan
Station type: Orbis
As you can see these are simpler designs - more 'plaza-like' and not overly symbolic.

Commenters around that time period also mention garden stations:
M.Gorbachev, Abe Lincoln, Li Qing Jao Stations - Sol
Galileo Station - Sol
Mars High - Sol
Gareth Edwards Park / Vonarburg Co-operative Station / Bokeili Station - Wyrd (whichever the "main station" there is)
Benlivia Station - Futhorc
Barker's Horizon Station - Futhark
Irkutsk Station - Alioth

[[Music Warning]] - timestamped video shows the full interior of M.Gorbachev Station at Earth. Video was posted 22 December 2014.

These 'palm tree' type garden stations like MGorbachev have definitely been covered over in more recent iterations.

Screenshot_2.png

Could this indicate FDev steering us to specific tourist stations, so players don't get sidetracked with these plainer wealthy stations. The systemic nature of their spawn conditions in the game - system type, population, economy etc, points to their locations being irrelevant to any "mystery" they may be pointing to. This would narrow it down to the Milton garden being a more generic clue.

Six station interior types for Coriolis, Ocellus, and Orbis stations are:
  • Standard / Industrial,
  • Wealthy / Service, - formerly a garden type with simple lawn + lake designs
  • Tourism, - the Milton garden type
  • Refinery / Extraction,
  • High Tech, and
  • Agriculture.
 
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I know what you mean, but then I was just logging in to the game when I took notice of this on the splash sequence:

View attachment 386744

And now I'm remembering how early Guardian ruins where found by matching the stars/planetary view in game from Horizons promo images or something like that.

I know it's a long shot, but could the similarity in the Odyssey title splash sequence between the plenetary symbol and the space station gardens be an indicator that we are supposed to look at them as a clue to planets? The squence has other details - I'm away to record it and see what else I can see [breaks out new roll of tinfoil] - then gives way to a brief image of a space station orbiting a planet.

It could all just be coincidence, pareidolia, old news that everyone has been over a dozen times before and I'm just behind the curve.



Maybe someone FDev cold be like "C'mon CMDR's, it's been nearly 10 years, Imma throw you a bone..."


EDIT: for ubiqitous typo's!
Ah. Good spot, never spotted that Odyssey vid symbol screen before. So, might be a clue, but with FD who knows what it might be a clue to...?
 
Been searching around places to find archival screenshots of these Tourist garden stations. I found a post on 3 April 2015 with some decent shots of the gardens.
Leonard Nimoy Station and the Imgur gallery linked there.
System: LHS 3006 -> Vulcan
Station type: Orbis
As you can see these are simpler designs - more 'plaza-like' and not overly symbolic.

Commenters around that time period also mention garden stations:
M.Gorbachev, Abe Lincoln, Li Qing Jao Stations - Sol
Galileo Station - Sol
Mars High - Sol
Gareth Edwards Park / Vonarburg Co-operative Station / Bokeili Station - Wyrd (whichever the "main station" there is)
Benlivia Station - Futhorc
Barker's Horizon Station - Futhark
Irkutsk Station - Alioth

[[Music Warning]] - timestamped video shows the full interior of M.Gorbachev Station at Earth. Video was posted 22 December 2014.

These 'palm tree' type garden stations like MGorbachev have definitely been covered over in more recent iterations.


Could this indicate FDev steering us to specific tourist stations, so players don't get sidetracked with these plainer wealthy stations. The systemic nature of their spawn conditions in the game - system type, population, economy etc, points to their locations being irrelevant to any "mystery" they may be pointing to. This would narrow it down to the Milton garden being a more generic clue.

Six station interior types for Coriolis, Ocellus, and Orbis stations are:
  • Standard / Industrial,
  • Wealthy / Service, - formerly a garden type with simple lawn + lake designs
  • Tourism, - the Milton garden type
  • Refinery / Extraction,
  • High Tech, and
  • Agriculture.
So we might be able to establish from @selbie findings, and my own; that ‘palm tree stations’ existed circa 2015, but what this garden design?

I have just performed an image based search and found these images which identify a temporal lineage.

Below was via Twitter for November 2019, the garden design is encircled.

IMG_9608.jpeg


A Reddit post states an earlier date of seven years ago (2017), the garden design is encircled twice.

IMG_9609.jpeg


And this article from Polygon is date stamped earlier at June 2017, the design is encircled.

IMG_9610.jpeg

By the looks of these, some are likely FD approved images?

This puts the garden theory well within a temporal window prior to the Codex’s introduction, which was later in 2018; this raises the likelihood of the garden hypothesis being to a strong ‘maybe’!

It’s evident that if the theory were to be correct, then surely logically FD ought to have only seeded said design not arbitrarily but intentionally as @selbie correctly points out, to bring them to our attention.

We’ve proven outright their temporal lineage; now what would a spacial orientation reveal?

@CMDRCorrMorningstarFelian you do have I recall an extensive list, specifically of these garden systems. How many do you believe to exist and where could they all be situated?

Again we need to understand where this particular garden spawns.

IMG_9606.jpeg


I propose that if their proliferation in game is believed to be excessive, say in the thousands, it might not be a reliable concept to follow, but if the number were within a manageable range it might.

As to whether there is any spacial correlation is yet to be ascertained, it might not have been a conscious decision of FD to consider this, but it might help reduce or increase the likelihood of this concepts reliability.

Remember that on their own, the in game areas such as: The Lost Realms; Yggdrasil; The pantheon of deities etc on their own make little sense, but collectively establish a coherent shape and orientation - yet whose systems number in the thousands.

I would like to think FD thought to build this element into the hypothetical garden concept. If a list can be established I don’t mind mapping it and comparing it with various maps Ive constructed in this quest.
 
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So, might be a clue, but with FD who knows what it might be a clue to...?
Indeed.

Spoiler tags deployed in the following tinfoil nonsense to condense images for your forum scrolling convenience ;)

In the context of this discussion about the 'Garden Stations' I wonder if it could be the signal that the leftmost 'symbol' in the Garden is an ELW.

GardenELW.jpg

The base image is borrowed from one of @Rochester 's posts.

Why an ELW? The symbol in the splash sequence appears over an ELW.

Speaking of the Odyssey splash sequence - in my previous post here I wondered if we might be supposed to decipher a location from the presented sequnce, as CMDR xdeath did in the way back to find the first Guardian Ruins - as this Inara logbook entry from CMDR Eeka recalls (with footnote links for all your tinfoil/nostalgia/both needs).

From the Odyssey splash sequence then, I have identified three possible locarion clues.

First there is the main launcher image:

splash1.jpg

This image shows 3 CMDR's on foot on a rocky world/moon, with a Cobra III, an Anaconda, and most helpful in indicating a location, a ringed planet, possibly a Gas Giant of some sort, and a meagre smattering of stars.

I also believe that this image shows what is going on behind the CMDR (who is not one of the CMDR's in the launcher image - different/stowed loadout) in the next part of the sequence - the animated Odyssey title, where the Frontier logo appears, neatly framing the ELW as a CMDR looks on and a Cobra MKIII (for my money, the one shown in the previous image, providing the link between the two images to show they depict the same location).

Second - a still from the animated title sequence:

splash2.jpg

Note the Cobra MKIII performing a roll over the 'R' of Frontier, clearly marking this as a clue to finding Raxxla :cool:;)o_O🤪😀😆😂🤣

And here's a still from just before the logo appears, to more clearly show the ELW, and the stars occluded by the CMDR in the foreground:

splash3.jpg

The final part of the potential clue comes after the splash sequence, and after the compiling of shaders and whatnot, but before you are dumped into the game session selection screen.

This shows a planet, possibly an ELW, so possibly the one from splash sequence, with a Coriolis Station in close orbit in the righthand foreground, a star emerging from behind the planet, a small world or moon in the mid distance (the rocky body the CMDR's in the previous images stand on?), and possibly a far companion star in the background, and then a stary backdrop.

Final 'clue' image:

splash4.jpg

Ok, so that's a lot of tinfoil just to get logged in to the game!

And I am aware that it is, at this point, all tinfoil until/unless proven otherwise. It depends on a lot of 'ifs'.

But it might possibly a clue. Either to a location, or at the very least to point out the link between ELW's, the planetary symbol (it turns up in the UI in various places/slightly modified form) and the Station Garden 'map'.

I don't know if that's enough stars/planets to narrow down to one location, but it might be.

If it does at least reveal that the Station Garden is a map, then frequency of that map occuring may not be relevant - it could just be in a lot of places to get as many eyes on it as possible, until a CMDR, or group of CMDR's cracks it.

EDIT: to add link back to my prev post.

EDIT THE SECOND: Forgot to add that I'm also aware that I'm behind the curve (been out of game for a while) and this might be well trodden ground I've missed the discussion on, if so sorry about dredging it up!
 
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My saved link to patch notes now seems to point to News and Bulletins, but going back to around page 44 seems to bring up patch notes...haven't got the stamina to wade through these so passing the baton!

edit
24June2014 the Orbis rings had gardens
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2nGIvbiVI

edit 2
Reddit post from around 2017 showing other garden designs
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/5f6wl6/new_stations_interiors_in_high_resolution_theyre/


edit 3
"So, 2.2 brought with it new interiors for the Refinery, High Tech, Agriculture, and Tourism economies."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XYuBBJm6A
 
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Indeed.

Spoiler tags deployed in the following tinfoil nonsense to condense images for your forum scrolling convenience ;)

In the context of this discussion about the 'Garden Stations' I wonder if it could be the signal that the leftmost 'symbol' in the Garden is an ELW.

View attachment 386896
The base image is borrowed from one of @Rochester 's posts.

Why an ELW? The symbol in the splash sequence appears over an ELW.

Speaking of the Odyssey splash sequence - in my previous post here I wondered if we might be supposed to decipher a location from the presented sequnce, as CMDR xdeath did in the way back to find the first Guardian Ruins - as this Inara logbook entry from CMDR Eeka recalls (with footnote links for all your tinfoil/nostalgia/both needs).

From the Odyssey splash sequence then, I have identified three possible locarion clues.

First there is the main launcher image:


This image shows 3 CMDR's on foot on a rocky world/moon, with a Cobra III, an Anaconda, and most helpful in indicating a location, a ringed planet, possibly a Gas Giant of some sort, and a meagre smattering of stars.

I also believe that this image shows what is going on behind the CMDR (who is not one of the CMDR's in the launcher image - different/stowed loadout) in the next part of the sequence - the animated Odyssey title, where the Frontier logo appears, neatly framing the ELW as a CMDR looks on and a Cobra MKIII (for my money, the one shown in the previous image, providing the link between the two images to show they depict the same location).

Second - a still from the animated title sequence:

View attachment 386900
Note the Cobra MKIII performing a roll over the 'R' of Frontier, clearly marking this as a clue to finding Raxxla :cool:;)o_O🤪😀😆😂🤣

And here's a still from just before the logo appears, to more clearly show the ELW, and the stars occluded by the CMDR in the foreground:


The final part of the potential clue comes after the splash sequence, and after the compiling of shaders and whatnot, but before you are dumped into the game session selection screen.

This shows a planet, possibly an ELW, so possibly the one from splash sequence, with a Coriolis Station in close orbit in the righthand foreground, a star emerging from behind the planet, a small world or moon in the mid distance (the rocky body the CMDR's in the previous images stand on?), and possibly a far companion star in the background, and then a stary backdrop.

Final 'clue' image:


Ok, so that's a lot of tinfoil just to get logged in to the game!

And I am aware that it is, at this point, all tinfoil until/unless proven otherwise. It depends on a lot of 'ifs'.

But it might possibly a clue. Either to a location, or at the very least to point out the link between ELW's, the planetary symbol (it turns up in the UI in various places/slightly modified form) and the Station Garden 'map'.

I don't know if that's enough stars/planets to narrow down to one location, but it might be.

If it does at least reveal that the Station Garden is a map, then frequency of that map occuring may not be relevant - it could just be in a lot of places to get as many eyes on it as possible, until a CMDR, or group of CMDR's cracks it.

EDIT: to add link back to my prev post.

EDIT THE SECOND: Forgot to add that I'm also aware that I'm behind the curve (been out of game for a while) and this might be well trodden ground I've missed the discussion on, if so sorry about dredging it up!

In all of those images there is a whole bunch of background stars, hundreds in fact.

To visualise these all you need do is mess with the brightness, gamma and saturation levels to show an extensive background field.

I’m no cartographer so I couldn’t do a triangulation off these images, much like that Cmdr who found the Guardians. But the data is there, except I can’t see any galactic landmarks as with that launch trailer.

It’s not outside the realms of possibility.
 
Ive long thought that the later garden designs might have been introduced to obfuscate the earlier one that might be an actual clue!

I'm starting to think the opposite - if the current Garden designs date from 2016 and the interview where MB says, in regards to Raxxla - 'no clues, but you have to make something a tiny bit obvious' is also 2016, could the current Gardens be the 'something a tiny bit obvious'?

The only thing that gives me pause is that, as far as I can tell, the Codex was introduced in December 2018.
 
He was talking about what existed at the time, so he had already provided some "clues"!

I think the Codex was "later clues" since the "Raxxla storyline in-game " had been mauled/removed

Quote from @Calaban 2Dec2015 "
Back in Beta (when we were all trapped in the "beta bubble"), the only station like that was the one in Wyrd. I think everybody had a little "oh WOW" moment the first time we whooshed through the entry port. The trees, the industrial areas converted into domed parks and gardens.
Its nice to see newer players still being surprised/amazed by it.
If you have the Sol system Permit, there are several in Sol- Gorbachev, Galileo, Mars High
"
 
I'm starting to think the opposite - if the current Garden designs date from 2016 and the interview where MB says, in regards to Raxxla - 'no clues, but you have to make something a tiny bit obvious' is also 2016, could the current Gardens be the 'something a tiny bit obvious'?

The only thing that gives me pause is that, as far as I can tell, the Codex was introduced in December 2018.

But remember the PF/DW missions - which did reflect upon Raxxla indirectly, by referring to the DW novella quotation. Also utilised Miltonian language. Then importantly, they were removed.

The Codex came afterwards.

We don’t know what the narrative nor resolution those missions could have evolved into.

FD much later, and only upon being pressed, admitted them gone ‘that story’ was removed. So if these gardens are related, they pre-date the codex.

They could have been a Miltonian reference linked originally to some unknown Miltonian pattern within the DW missions matrix / narrative.

FD has hinted that ‘environmental storytelling’ exists in game. These like the Trinkets are I believe at most, examples or archaeological information, ironically which we’ve been ignorant of for years.

Again if true it could give us a basic template to rule out certain systems, given my assessment that Raxxla is likely ‘upon the outer rim’ of the zone of Chaos, in a North Westerly local around Shamash or thereabouts.
 
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Mmm, I think this interpretation is sketchy. Why is the circle on the right a WW whereas the middle is a blue GG and the leftmost area of blue is ignored or it's Hell?
=> This is artistic and symbolic imagery but also a garden place. So the blue stone is simply being used where ever it best was fitted by a mason but helps the garden look uniform. It's not meant to get all gaudy and try to paint a realistic picture. That would be just ugly and not make for a nice clean garden place. This is called artistic license. Plus, if it's clue giving that is going on it would be meant to be subtle and require some imagination.

and the leftmost area of blue is ignored or it's Hell?
=> Again this is symbolic and artistic imagery. The big left main circle I said "I see" as an earth-like world. An earth-like world has both water and land. The blue on the left is symbolic for water while the rest of the circle contains grass, bushes and very realistic trees. This to me is imagery symbolic of an ELW. It's a bit surprising to me that you did not understand that.

I do think the bows of cement path-work arching through the ELW may represent sunrise bands indicating that this ELW is specifically NOT tidal-locked. Now why would one bother to indicate this? The answer is because it makes this ELW more rare and unique. It will turn out that only by having enough unique or rare aspects of a system will that system then become more identifiably unique in the huge counts of solar systems in the galaxy or huge Bubble space. If the solar system contains a clue to be found, you need to make sure it does not get confused with 10,000 other similar solar systems. Of course, the ELW being the first planet, and both tidal-locked and having a terriformable world moon compounds it's uniqueness. But there are also other rare-ish things I have pointed out that does make this solar system (if that's what it is) even more unique.


Why are those moons terraformable?
=> Again this is symbolic and artistic imagery. I'm simply saying that I see the rocket shaped pines or cedars as life objects and perhaps they are being used symbolically to indicate the terraformable potential of that moon or planet.

Why earth-like? This interpretation to me seems inconsistent to the point of wild conjecture and pareidolia.
=> I addressed this above but if you can't see that then I really, really can't give you an answer. Pareidolia? That's beyond a stretch that insults me seeing as I have actaully used data driven factual identifiers.

What do the short straight "paths" mean?
They are above and below two of the circles and also one connecting "path", and are too short to be proper garden paths , they start and end nowhere so cannot be walked properly so ought to carry some meaning but this interpretation ignores them...I don't have a thought on their meaning as yet but I can't see how they can be arbitrarily ignored.
=> This is a park area and remember you are looking down on this park from a considerable height. Those short narrow lines are simply benches to rest on and are irrelevant to the intended imagery and, of course you don't walk on park benches they are not intended for that. The varied wide stonework paths assemble the order of the solar system and give it artistic beauty.

This pattern is supposed to represent a garden layout with pools of water, so IMHO the colour blue is likely meaningless.
=> Oh gosh no. That is not water in that park. That is stone work or some kind of blue gravel pavement. Water would not look like what is in that image. It's clearly stone-like.
 
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This pattern is supposed to represent a garden layout with pools of water, so IMHO the colour blue is likely meaningless.

=> Oh gosh no. That is not water in that park. That is stone work or some kind of blue gravel pavement. Water would not look like what is in that image. It's clearly stone-like.

I believe you are both correct, in as much it looks like they are meant to represent pools of water, with blue/green tilling/paving at the bottom.

Looking at the gardens in game, the blue/green texture moves in one direction (different in each 'pool') with a speckled white texture pattern overlaid on it, moving in a different direction to the blue/green.

Why is the water moving? No idea, I'm sure we can think up lots of lore/in world physics/in engine physics/creative reasons for that, but I'm going with 'a quick visual shorthand using as few gpu/cpu/memopry resources as possible' :cool:
 
1710712749930.png

Bingo.

But, on second look, I do think that the WW on the right doesn't depict a moon. I noticed that no part of it is overlapping the WW planet. For the ELW and Gas planet that is always the case (within or at least overlapping). So, I would think that the last white stone work circle farthest to the right may simply be a a small icy planet typical of so many systems we see. If this is a solar system its contains a lot of uniqueness which is intrguing to me. Just the fact that it is a system of limited numer of main planets alone makes it interesting.

I really wish folks (not you) wouldn't attack me for just making a personal observation and suggestion. I simply said when I look at this garder "I see..." I never said anything was a hard fact - sheesh. If people get attacked for trying to throw out some ideas then no ones going to want to share.

I do think that the Miltonian interpretation is fantastic and, in fact, is not a conflicting suggestion. Remember, the Miltonian identifiers could be depicted in many, many forms both geometriclly and textually. But the reality is it could have all been intended to be imbedded into solar system imagery for a reason. In a sense, the system I described could be the "miltionian solar system" to be found.

I will just say that in retospect, if we all step back and realize that the game we are playing is a space game; its a game of a galaxy filled with solar systems - many and varied.
So when I look at this garden I simply see the obvious (to me). The odds that all of the unique items I see that fit so perfectly into a solar system description - like one we could see any day of the week out in the black, I find it highly improbable that it was just a coincindence. But that's just my honest opinion.
 
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I really wish folks (not you) wouldn't attack me for just making a personal observation and suggestion. I simply said when I look at this garder "I see..." I never said anything was a hard fact - sheesh. If people get attacked for trying to throw out some ideas then no ones going to want to share.

I'm not seeing anyone attack you in this thread - I do curate a pretty robust ignore list on here though, so they could be hidden from me!

If you're taling about @Jorki Rasalas 's and @Rochester 's discussion following your posting your garden interpretation, it reads to me like they're asking where you derived your interpretation, and robustly discussing the relative merits of the general relevance (or otherwise) of looking for hidden meaning in the Garden layout in general.

As for the Miltonian angle, honestly all of that goes over my head. I have a basic - like Wikipedia Summary basic - knowledge of the subject, and sometimes feel I should rectify that by learning more.

But I'm also basically lazy, so I default to remaining ignorant on the matter, and kidding myself my blind fumblings might help by providing a 'control check' for those better informed on such matters :cool:
 
It’s evident that your interpretation is your conceptualisation, given the visual cues available to you. And that’s valid, no one here is attempting to discard that. Every concept here is justified. I think what we are asking for is not for you to justify it, but to provide context, so it can be compared and assessed.

Different people see things differently.

For instance, when I see the first circle I see this image. But I maybe wrong?

IMG_9627.jpeg


Speculating upon the left hand circle some more, abstractly, the blue zones could simply be artistic license, or it could be intentional.

Either way the blue in the garden certainly depicts water in my opinion; that graphic element is used throughout the garden designs and is an obvious representation of some universal water effect/feature, the mosaic effect on closer inspection is obviously a graphical representation in game of a holo-screen. So holographic water, makes sense.

Could this hold any context outside of being ‘just water’ or being ‘just blue’?

Death by Water by Christine Mohanty

Watery themes run throughout Milton’s text, and if pressed to represent hell in a garden motif, a body of water might suit?

Within the Miltonian cosmological construct in game, there is a band of systems named after water deities close to the top of the underworld zone. This hypothetically marries with Celtic/Saxon concepts of the Otherworld, of which the Greek Underworld was a reflection of, not an actual ‘hell’ in the sense of being ‘punitive’. That was a Christian concept that evolved over time.

In the concept of the Otherworld, water was seen as a barrier/doorway into those ‘realms’.

Potentially there is a discrepancy in that first garden circle, because in Paradise Lost there was the ‘waters above’ aka the Jasper Sea. Although there is contention in the Milton’s fiction, that said waters were actually part of the Crystalline Sphere, or were ethereal elements of Chaos.

The water theme may also tie back to the Epic of Gilgamesh references in game, linked to the Lost Realms of Robert Holdstock.

Within my cosmological construct hypothesis, the systems associated with Gilgamesh may sit upon a boundary of systems named after mountains, I feel this mountain range segments the upper and lower realms, but what else is important about this representation is that in game there are systems named after deities associated with the ‘waters above’ and the ‘waters below’.

In Robert Holdstock’s book Ragthorn, Gilgamesh must dive to the bottom of the primordial / flood waters to find his Ragthorn, the ‘thorny branch’.

Or it’s just a pool of water because it’s a garden.
 
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I'm not seeing anyone attack you in this thread - I do curate a pretty robust ignore list on here though, so they could be hidden from me!

If you're taling about @Jorki Rasalas 's and @Rochester 's discussion following your posting your garden interpretation, it reads to me like they're asking where you derived your interpretation, and robustly discussing the relative merits of the general relevance (or otherwise) of looking for hidden meaning in the Garden layout in general.

As for the Miltonian angle, honestly all of that goes over my head. I have a basic - like Wikipedia Summary basic - knowledge of the subject, and sometimes feel I should rectify that by learning more.

But I'm also basically lazy, so I default to remaining ignorant on the matter, and kidding myself my blind fumblings might help by providing a 'control check' for those better informed on such matters :cool:

Its usually not so much what a person says in the facts and matters, but how they say it, or they nature in the way they express it that is disparaging.

Yeah, I'm all done. I will never post here again. Too bad because I am in fact one of the very top commanders in this entire game's history by accomplishment and have a lot of things I've never revealed about the Dark Wheel that I know. It's sensitive matter and I would never just share it with anybody. These forums clearly are not that place for me.

Ill leave with this advice (that no one cares for). Do not hunt only for Raxxla, you have to unravel the mystery of the Dark Wheel first.
 
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