First off, here's the foundation for these predictions:

G G H H G H G G H H H G H/T

(G = Gods win a round. H = Humanity wins a round. T = Both combatants die, ending in a tie.)

This is how I believe every round of this tournament will play out, and I'm pretty damn well sure it's how it will.
I believe that the Win/Loss order should be as gripping yet erratic as possible, but also balanced. What I mean by that is that it should be gripping in the sense that each side gets a bit of momentum so it's not just back and forth every round, but it also needs to be a bit erratic and break that momentum so it retains interest and doesn't become too predictable either. At the end of the day though, it also needs to be balanced throughout the whole of the tournament so we do get to see every fight. After all, if the Gods win every match from this point on, then the tournament would end quite early. So to recap: We need to establish an order that allows for suspense by striking a balance of ever-changing wins that doesn't sway too much in either team's direction so that every fighter gets the opportunity to participate.
Now that we've gone over that, we're going to look at each remaining fight in-depth:

5. Shiva vs. ~~Raiden~~
- Since we're already knee-deep in this one, I'm just going to skip themes and volund and all that and just jump into how I think it'll go and why. First of all, at this point in time, Raiden is taking this fight extremely seriously. That's honestly a smart move as a combatant obviously, but really damn bad from a storytelling perspective. It means that though we've yet to see Raiden go all out and show every illegal move he's got tucked away, we haven't even seen Shiva reach that first step of taking this fight seriously.
So, following that train of thought, here's a simplified version of how I see this playing out: Raiden is going to beat the everliving shit out of Shiva using basic moves and a few illegal ones, Shiva's family is going to react to this, Shiva's going to snap out of his joking mood and start to take this shit seriously too once he realizes that this isn't just for fun - this is for his life. Now that they've both stopped fucking around, Raiden (who's already having issues with endurance if you noticed him having difficulty breathing) will pull out all his stops. Every ultimate move, every worst cheap banned and brutal martial art that he knows of, everything just to end this as quickly as possible. Then, once he's got Shiva on the ropes, that'll be it. That's when Raiden will die.
Two things will kill him essentially: Shiva's family, which may as well be plot armor (he has more to lose in this fight, giving him an edge in a plot mindset and greater motivation) and Raiden's low endurance, which is the price of his power.
TLDR: Raiden will lose once Shiva takes it seriously, which will only be after he's nearly killed in front of his family, and the final blow will be when Raiden's stamina runs out.

6. ~~Susano'o~~ vs. Okita
Volund: Hjörþrimul is likely to be his volund, considering she's referred to as "The Sword Warrioress" and Kojiro didn't use her. Alternatively though, he could also be paired with Kára since her name means "the wild, stormy one" hinting at his own personality as well as his opponent's overall aesthetic and how similar they are to one another.
- Now this one's pretty straightforward but it'll be badass nonetheless. Thematically this matchup seemed pretty obvious to me primarily because A. We only have one Japanese human swordsman left, and B. We only have one Japanese god swordsman left. It's certainly not the only reason and it's not as if there aren't other gods that use swords, but it's really the most prominent reason. It's incredibly likely that Okita is the last swordsman left on humanity's side and you're telling me that this manga series isn't going to take its last shot at a swordfight between gods and humanity? Sorry, but no.
Personality-wise, I'd imagine the author will make this a reflection rather than opposites like Kojiro and Poseidon. Many of us know what Okita will be like, he's essentially a young, rash, seemingly unstable prodigy with the blade. Then we have Susano'o... the God of Storms and the Sea, likely unstable in some ways as well considering many myths portray him as a wild, impetuous god. He's the younger brother of Amaterasu as well, so perhaps they'll age him down to mirror Okita even more. My reasoning for this being the next fight is obviously that Okita's been waiting in anticipation and he won't get cockblocked for both Raiden's fight AND the hypothetical different sixth fight, because that would be ridiculous and result in well over a year of waiting to see someone that really didn't need to be shown already impatiently waiting.
So yes, that being said, the winner will be Okita because he didn't exactly get to flourish during his life as he died at a young age (presumably before he ever hit his prime) due to TB. I imagine he's due for a W for all of the lost potential during his life, same as Kojiro, and it'd make for a nice little redemption after Raiden dies, since humanity will desperately need a pick-me-up for the next few fights.

7. Buddha vs. ~~Kintoki~~
Volund: Skeggöld is the axe Valkyrie. It just works™.
- Now, this one's a bit of a journey so follow closely: A lot of people envision Kintaro when they think of this character since his Wikipedia page is covered in art and folk stories of the legendary pampers-wearing badass that beat the shit out of demons when he was learning his ABC's and even sumo-wrestled a bear. Yeah, I can see why you'd want to see that kid fighting hipster-Buddha, but no. Perhaps they'll take elements from the folk version, that could be cool honestly, but we're not focusing on the legendary kid. We're focusing on the actual person, Kinoki, and for good reason. Let me explain why real quick and then I'll move onto the actual fight.
There's not a lot of information on Kintoki, the actual man, but what we do know about him is that he was a great warrior and that he served as a retainer for the samurai Minamoto no Yorimitsu. What's far more fascinating about the actual man that connects him to Buddha though, is that Kintoki studied martial arts and became renowned for his strength and martial prowess, eventually earning the title of chief of Yorimitsu's Shitennō. The Shitennō were an elite group consisting of four retainers that chose the moniker as a reference to the legendary Four Heavenly Kings from Buddhism. In essence, Kintoki was so badass at martial arts that he was eventually viewed in the same light as a Buddhist legend and now he's fighting Buddha himself. How perfect is that?
That being said, I'm sorry Kintoki, but you're totally going to die. First of all, you're really just screwed by the plot since Buddha was shown recently and we're definitely not going to get cockblocked that long for his fight either as I explained with Okita earlier. They're showing us these characters, so they have to fight relatively soon, and if I'm right about the Win/Loss order, then this is going to be an L for Humanity and sadly that means that Kintoki will have to die. I can easily see the author deciding that this will be a loss before really fleshing out the character and then leaning more toward the folk hero route to make us root for him. I also believe that as a writer that would really twist the knife in the audience's gut, since as a reader I'd totally want to root for a Japanese folk legend over hipster Buddha any day. I'd imagine that anyone going against Buddha would have a hard time, but I also think that being a legend in Buddhism is still pretty unfair when you're going against Buddha himself, so GG Kintoki.

8. Anubis vs. ~~Qin~~
Volund: Hildr has the power to revive the dead in battlefields and use it to maintain the everlasting battle between Hedin and Högni. Terracotta bois, wya?
- Let's be honest, this one didn't surprise anyone. God of Death (As well as mummification, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, etc) vs. Emperor that was obsessed with immortality and only feared death. In the twilight of his life, Qin Shi Huang had been absolutely obsessed with defying death as it was the only thing he hadn't conquered after being the first to unify China and invent the moniker of Emperor. Quite the badass, but pretty dumb as well considering he died after ingesting mercury in an attempt to create an immortality elixir. This isn't a history lesson though, I just wanted to show you how obsessed this man was with the exact thing that this god embodies.
Truth be told, I don't know a whole lot about Anubis but considering he's the god of tombs and Qin Shi quite literally constructed a mausoleum the size of a city and filled it with Terracotta soldiers, I don't consider it much of a reach that they'll come into play considering their sole purpose is to protect their Emperor in the afterlife.
Now that we've established that they're perfect for one another, let me tell you all of the ways that Anubis will wipe the floor with Qin Shi. Historically, Qin Shi got everything he wanted in life and we all know what happens to those that win while they're alive. They don't win in death, not often. That's why Lu Bu got destroyed by Thor and why I imagine at this point in time that Raiden will lose to Shiva. Winners in life become losers in Ragnarok and vice versa as proven by Kojiro. Sure, Qin Shi did lose to death in the end, but there's a reason why.
If it were anyone else, I'd give it to them, but Qin Shi is a bit too obsessed with conquering this one, leaving the storyteller in me to believe that it's a goal far too aligned with his personal motivation and the reader in me far too hopeful to see this one futile man trying to defy the scariest force of nature. I root for the mere concept of this man far too much, so he's undoubtedly going to fail in his ambitious endeavor, leaving us all feeling quite a bit less hopeful at the end of it all.

9. ~~Bishamonten~~ vs. Nostradamus
Volund: Skuld is the most fitting Valkyrie for Nostradamus considering her name essentially means "Debt" and is related to the English word "Should". Along with Urðr (Old Norse "Fate") and Verðandi (possibly "Happening" or "Present"), Skuld makes up a trio of Norns that are described as deciding the fates of people. Nostradamus' whole shtick was prophecy, therefore his best bet this fight is the power of prediction, and who better to help him than essentially one of the three Fates of Norse mythology? Alternatively, Svipul could be his volund as her name presumably refers to the changeable nature of fate.
- Considering Nostradamus' main deal was fate-related and that he'll surely be weaponizing his predictions, it seems fitting that his opponent will be one of the Seven Lucky Gods that'll definitely be utilizing his prowess in battle against Nostradamus as well. As an armor-clad god of war in Japan, Bishamonten will likely be a physically intimidating warrior, wielding a great spear that'll give him reach that Nostradamus won't have. Considering I couldn't find any formal training of martial arts or weapon expertise in his history and he wasn't exactly benching books in his free time, he'll likely have to primarily dodge for the vast majority of the fight and exploit the smallest of openings similar to what Jack did if he wants to deal any damage.
I'm not entirely sure what he'll use as a weapon during his fight, but I do think that his past as a physician will come into play somehow. Perhaps he'll be surgical in his methods, carefully setting the stage and leading Bishamonten into traps similar to what Jack did. Honestly, the more I think about this fight, the more I see it as a plaything for Nostradamus since I can't imagine him even stepping into the ring if he's destined to die. Aside from fitting into my W/L order, Nostradamus seems fated to win this because thematically it just makes sense that no amount of luck can outperform fate.

10. ~~Beelzebub~~ vs. Rasputin
Volund: Although Hildr was my first instinct for Rasputin since the guy was comically hard to fucking kill, Göndul seems like the most fitting for him since Qin Shi has already taken Hildr since she's most fitting for him as well and after reading up on Göndul, trust me... you'll be convinced too by the time I'm done. Her name means "wand-wielder", which could easily tie into Rasputin's mysticism. Alright then, that was easy. Oh yeah, she also hangs out with two Kings in one story, Hedinn of Serkland and Hogni of Denmark, seducing them both via a memory-altering drought. Alright, that's pretty Rasputin of her to bang royalty and manipulate them, ngl. Oh, and then she proceeds to watch over both of their kingdoms as they wage war until they're on civil terms and then proceeds to fuck them over one last time, resulting in their doom and making them regret they ever met her. That is literally Rasputin's life right there, folks.
- Now that we know how Rasputin will fight and how shitty of a person he is, I'd like to introduce you to Beelzebub. Beelzebub has a surprisingly amount of meanings attached to his character though not very many stories, so you could spend a long time finding different interpretations of this character but you'll never really know which one the author will choose... unless you look at every other god in this series and notice what's not there. Christianity doesn't play a part in this series at all and it doesn't take a genius to see why, it's controversial and this series just wants to have fun and be goddamn amazing, and I don't blame the author for it at all. That being said, if there's one character that I'm absolutely positive the author is itching to use, it's Satan. There's no real devil in this series, even Loki doesn't really embody that symbol of pure evil, he's just Loki and that's fine. But I find it incredibly likely that the author essentially wanted to have a devil without calling him Satan, Lucifer, or any other even minorly controversial moniker. I think that Beelzebub is the safest alias to use for this devil archetype and for that purpose, the author was smart to use it.
That being said, we've established who Beelzebub will embody: The Devil. He'll be evil, ugly, 1000% utilize his wings since Beelzebub can essentially be interpreted as "Lord of Flies", "Lord of Fliers", or even "Lord of High Place" so the sky's the limit. Since he'll be a typical aerial devil, I'd imagine that Rasputin will need something long-range like a wand to utilize his mysticism. As for the winner... well, I suppose I should mention the overall theme since I forgot to do that, but I'd imagine it's pretty obvious at this point. They're the shittiest people in existence and that's really it. Rasputin was allegedly an evil person, manipulating royals and wielding their hope against them and apparently capitalizing on recoveries done in pure luck, fueling his reputation and enjoying all of the benefits of that by seducing believers and royals alike, whether they were married or he was. He wasn't a great person at all and that much is clear, which is why we need someone either equally horrible or worse and that's why Beelzebub needs to be Satan in this series. So we feel conflicted whether the demon wins or well... if the other demon wins. If you're wondering why Rasputin will win though, you need not go any further than recalling Brun's quote during Jack's fight:
The only way in which men are superior to the gods is malice.

11. ~~Apollo~~ vs. Simo
Volund: A lot of people throw out Hlaðguðr Svanhvít's name due to the parallelism between Simo's nickname "The White Death" and her name's meaning of "Swan-white", but that's literally all there is to it. It's not bad, but it's not enough and it's not the best either. For a bit I moved on to other volunds, like Mist who could control, well, mist. Clouds make for great cover for a sniper, so it's possible that this could help camouflage Simo as well as suppress Apollo's light/heat/sun and all that, but even so, that's not the best volund for Simo in my eyes. What I settled on was Ölrún, or if you're going by Old High German, Ailrun. This is important, so keep it in mind. In Germanic mythology, Ailrun is the wife of Agilaz, the legendary archer, though he also goes by Egil. I know, but that's the end of the name-tracking, don't worry. Egil was a renowned archer who defended a keep together with his wife, Aliruna, against numerous attackers. If holing up with your husband and defending a keep with just a bow doesn't scream "I'm the sniper's volund" to you, then I don't really know what to say at this point. Considering Simo's got a kill count of over 500, it sounds like Ölrún's in good hands though.
- One of my favorite matchups in theory, this one was probably the easiest to see and the earliest that I knew I wanted to see. Apollo has a sword, but he's credited with the invention of archery as well as the god of archery. He's also the god of the sun, light, poetry, music and various other things, but I want to focus on what I've mentioned and how much Sim contrasts him in nearly every way possible except for one. Apollo embodies two things: Heat and Communication. He is essentially the sun, riding a chariot across the sky every day and bringing warmth to others through music and poetry and interacting with all of life. He's a bright guy and then... there's Simo. Simo is from Finland, where the cold can kill a man. He spent a great deal of time in the military as a sniper, which isn't a very social job, so to speak. A sniper is often isolated, alone, waiting patiently in the elements for the right time to strike. Simo was pretty creative when he sniped as well, choosing iron-sights over newer, easier scopes for practical reasons such as wishing not to reflect light and also putting dense amounts of snow in his mouth so his breath wouldn't alert enemy snipers of his position. He killed over 500 people in service to the Finnish military and yet hardly spoke a word of it for the rest of his life. Simo's entire character can be summarized as quiet, isolated and even cold in contrast to Apollo's vibrant, social, and warm demeanor. It's odd to see a human occupying this space in this particular series, but Simo really is the winter to Apollo's summer and it's a perfect contrast.
Except when we talk about weapons. Since Apollo is the god of archery, it seems pretty clear that he's going to have a bow. Simo is, of course, going to use his main weapon, a Mosin–Nagant Model 28-30 sniper rifle that he clocked in over 259 kills alone with, before doubling the count with his Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. It seems likely that the sniper rifle will be his volund initially, but there's also the real possibility that ammunition will be the real volund since the vast amount of enemies that both Simo and Ölrún dealt with were their biggest issue and it's possible that he'll run out eventually unless he has an infinite supply. It would make for a nice surprise as well, seeing Simo pull out his submachine gun at closer ranges and being able to utilize it without it being useless. Also, there's something that I haven't mentioned because most already know about it, but Simo was discharged from the military due to an injury that blew off basically half his face, due to an explosive round from an enemy sniper. Imagine the sneakiest, big-brain, high-IQ move of Simo shooting Apollo square in the face with nowhere to run, only to have him catch the seemingly harmless bullet before Simo shoots it with a normal one and blows it up, disfiguring Apollo as well. Personally, I'd love the shit out of that. Anyways, Simo's going to get this one both on account of A. The whole W/L order, B. Simo's sudden retirement and loss of a real drive in life, and C. His quiet demeanor and Apollo's sheer likability. I get the feeling that Simo's win will be incredibly big-brain since the real person always found a way to make it work in his favor through practicality and sheer patience. You got this Simo, we believe in you.

12. Loki vs. ~~Tesla~~
Volund: Brun, Brun, Brun... oh boy. Let me start by saying that this entire fight as well as the final fight up next are both going to go exactly like this exclusively because of the valkyries involved. That being said, let's dive into some etymology. In its various forms, Brunhild is derived from the equivalents of Old High German brunia (armor) and hiltia (conflict), thereby making a good ol' combo of war armor. Who needs war armor more than arguably anyone else on this list? The scrawny inventor is probably a good bet. Who's the smartest, most devious person on humanity's side? If you answered either Brun or Tesla, you're right, which is why they're the perfect duo. That being said, they're such a badass, big-brain duo that it seems fitting that they'd have to face off against the only opponent capable of outwitting them. Now, I have a strange theory about how she'll be Tesla's battle armor but I don't want to spoil the surprise, so read down below if you want to know one way that I think she'll help him.
- Here we are... the much-awaited fight between the ~~two~~ three biggest brains in this entire tournament. Following the previous fight, this one will definitely raise the stakes quite a bit by Brun being part of it. It won't feel like your average bout between a god and human that we've never seen before, it'll feel like the endgame since we've already become well-acquainted with the god and valkyrie by this point and only one of them is going to make it out alive. The themes are pretty damn easy to spot and numerous if you care to find them: Truth vs. Deception, Intellect vs. Deviousness, Science vs. Magic, there's a lot and more that I just haven't thought of in these last 10 seconds, but they're there. Now, this is definitely going to take place in Tesla's lab or some location of Tesla's choice because why wouldn't it? Now then, since it'll take place in a lab or technologically advanced setting, Tesla will definitely have a lot of tools at his disposal during this fight. Imagine Jack, except with a brilliant scientist/inventor.
Now, I have a theory of how this'll play out but it's more wishful thinking than anything. I imagine Loki in a lab, stumbling upon a contraption. Robot, mech, whatever you want to call it, it's basically iron man with Brun infused in it and Tesla piloting it. Loki will fight it, wrestle and tumble and struggle and be very deceptive as they hunt one another down in a lab setting with various chemicals, tools and technological wonders at Tesla's disposal. It'll be just as amazing as the sentence "Loki will fight a mech'd out Tesla in a laboratory" full of moments where Tesla nearly kills Loki with sheer technological firepower and ingenuity until... Loki finally destroys it. He kills Brun in the process, breaking the volund mech. Tesla too it seems, until it's revealed that Tesla was actually never in it. That Tesla was actually crafting a far more dangerous weapon from a safe distance, one that can kill Loki. Call it a death ray, if you will. He uses it as it's his last hope now that Brun is gone, but... before he can, Loki actually does kill him. This is obviously just how I envision it, but considering what the author's done so far, this wouldn't be too far out there and would feel in line with the way that they write and manage to do every character justice. So yeah, sadly deception would triumph, leaving Brun dead and Göll broken, yet also incredibly motivated right on time for the final match.

13. ~~Odin~~ vs. ~~Leonidas(?)~~
Volund: Geir, Göll, whatever the shit you want to call her. It's actually Göll, but translation errors caused many to call her Geir funnily enough, which I think was a stroke of luck since Geir is a root for multiple other valkyries' names and it means "Spear", which is the weapon that I actually believe Göll will be as a volund, but that's for later. Her name has up to three different meanings: "Noisy", "Loud cry", or "Battle cry". We've seen her be noisy quite a bit, as she's often whining and really not on top of any situation. But I think after the previous match and losing Brun, she'll finally have a reason to weep or "Loud cry" and during the intermission she'll find the courage to be the person that Brun wished her to be - the savior of Humanity. At this point, for this final battle, she'll probably still have a bit of nerves, but she'll be determined enough to go through with it and step into that "Battle cry" phase of her name. Maybe I'm looking into it too much and I could easily be wrong about the etymology's impact on her character development, but I really do think that thematically it would be nice to end her story with a massive growth like this and, sadly, Brun will need to die in order to achieve that growth in Göll. Anyways, yeah. She's going to be a spear, because Leonidas is all that's left and she's going to need some way to inflict damage. Leo primarily uses a sword, but considering he'll be going up against Odin who also wields a spear that never misses, I'd imagine Leonidas will have a spear volund too. Also, the Geir thing really does seem prophetic in a really weird meta way.
- Oh boy, we're at the end of it all... first up are themes and reasons. Themes are clearly Last Stands first and foremost. Who embodies humanity's last stand more from humanity's list than King Leonidas that died during a last stand against the Persians at Thermopylae? The guy's entire legendary life ended with a last stand, and that's enough for me but I'll keep going. Odin is clearly final boss level, and it seems fitting considering this is the Record of Ragnarok. The title itself is a clear reference to Norse mythology, and the whole point of it all is to rise against the gods, so it seems to fit pretty snuggly that the final boss is the patriarch of the Norse pantheon. He also has perfectly low-key final boss vibes from a storytelling perspective in the sense that he's been shown many, many, maaaany times though never given a spotlight, never spoken (himself, at least), and he's on the roster. It's perfect, establishing a villain early on but waiting till it's his turn to let him shine. He's the wisest of the gods, it makes sense as to why he'd go last since he'd probably want to predict who he'll go against and use that knowledge to increase his odds of winning. Oh yeah, they're also both wise Kings that led great warriors into battle. It's not very specific, but you wouldn't find that sort of mirror image between any other god and human aside from perhaps Qin Shi Huang and Bishamonten. Now that we're past all the ways that they're perfect for one another, let's move onto the final battle.
Let's get two things straight: I don't have a damn clue how the actual fight will go down, but I'm damn sure that Odin isn't winning*. That would just be wayyy too depressing of an ending to let humanity get this far and then have them lose. It doesn't matter how nice of a light you view that in, whether the gods are kind and merciful and go "Gee whiz, champ, you humans sure put up a good fight! Guess you can live," Nah. That takes away the entire point of this series and Shiva's entire rant about breaking free from the gods' shackles. We NEED to win. So I'm going to operate based upon the presumption that we WILL win. I'm going to assume that this will be a hopeful ending for humanity and that every fight, but more importantly every death, will not be in vain. That we can achieve this impossible goal if we work together, with humanity, with volunds, against fate itself and all that gooey shit. So that being said, it's likely that Leonidas with the help of Göll will defeat Odin and redeem himself for dying at Thermopylae, likely in a fashion that would do his character justice, such as dodging Gungnir (Odin's spear that never misses) and managing to hit Odin with Göll, as he couldn't do to Xerxes at Thermopylae. Humanity will win, the Valkyries will have accomplished their goal. All will be right again and it'll be deemed that humanity has earned their right to survive. Roll curtain, folks.

Author's Notes
At the end of the day, I tried to approach every fight from at least four different standpoints: A writer's standpoint, a reader's standpoint, a historian's standpoint, and at the end of it all, I asked myself if it just seemed right. If every little bit clicked together neatly and if that clicked with the author's style. If what I envision when I add it all together really is what I expect from this manga series, and after taking it all into consideration, I have to say... it makes perfect sense, honestly, every single bit of it.
I 1000% believe this will happen, but I also recognize that there's clearly a real possibility that the author may very well just go with even one different matchup*, leaving a vast majority of this to crumble really badly. That's alright, honestly, I do this for fun because I love the series so it's perfectly fine if I'm wrong because I know that no matter what the author will blow our goddamn minds and it'll be beautiful regardless.

* If I could add two notes at the end of this all, I'd allow myself the wiggle room of poooooossibly switching Kintoki and Nostradamus because Buddha, Bishamonten and Kintoki are all very closely tied to Buddhism, leaving open the very real possibility that Nostradamus could fight Buddha instead and Kintoki could fight Bishamonten. It wouldn't change a whole lot for Kintoki honestly, considering that Bishamonten seems quite similar to Buddha in nature anyways, being one of the Four Heavenly Kings within Buddhism. If anything, it would allow both fighters to have means of defending themselves and allow for a more action-oriented fight between a spear-wielding god and a martial arts legend of humanity, which arguably sounds pretty damn cool. It would also make for a pretty fitting matchup since Bishamonten is closely linked to monetary wealth and Kintoki is the Golden Boy and all that. That would also lead to Nostradamus vs. Buddha, which in itself could work quite well thematically since the basic tenets of Buddhism are that nothing is fixed or permanent, actions have consequences, and that change is possible. That would certainly make for quite the philosophical debate, if not physical spectacle against someone so fate-oriented and driven by prophecy and pre-ordained events. So yeah, now you know the one single little matchup that I'll allow wiggle room. Everything else is non-negotiable though, so don't worry, I'm not backtracking on anything.
My second note would be the possibility of a tie that I mentioned at the very start with my W/L order and the fact that I never addressed that. If I'm being honest, it's almost guaranteed that humanity WILL win, but on the off-chance that Odin and Leonidas kill each other at the very end, it would also make sense for many reasons. 1. Leonidas is very under-equipped for that matchup, so unless he has multiple volunds (which would be pretty goddamn amazing and I'd love to see that, ngl) then he'll probably struggle a LOT. 2. Odin's spear, Gungnir, literally never misses. Imagine trying to live against that, even with a shield. 3. Leonidas DID die at Themopylae, so although thematically it'd make more sense to let him redeem himself and live this time, perhaps it wouldn't be too sad if he died again as long as humanity got to survive. A double K.O. wouldn't be too bad in that event. And last but not least, 4. If there's one good lesson that I considered everyone taking away from this story in the event of a tie, it's partially that the gods aren't better than humanity, which, yeah, no shit. We all knew that the second that Kojiro murdered Poseidon and everyone lost their shit. But, the rest of the lesson is that humanity aren't better than the gods either. If I'm right about Rasputin vs. Beelzebub, or about Rasputin winning at all against anyone, then that proves that. Some of us are really shitty people, with great potential to be even shittier. So if there's one thing that a tie would tell us that a win wouldn't, it's that neither gods nor humans are better than one another. We're equal and maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. Maybe one side doesn't have to be better or stronger or faster or smarter than the other. Maybe we should be happy with just being. Maybe the real friends we made along the way were the Frog-sama memes.

In any case, thank you all for making it to the end and I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do.

Recently I received the following email from JQ. I invite y'all to comment on it.

So I'm creating the new language's names for countries, and for most countries it's pretty straightforward because the name is based on a native ethonymn or word/name in the language spoken by the inhabitants of that country. For example, Finns call their country Suomi which is Finnish for "Finland." Simple enough, then, to adapt the native name into the new language. Same for countries like Italy ('italya') or Ireland/Eire ('eryë').
For names like Kazakhstan or Pakistan, where the native name contains a morpheme meaning "land (of)", it's easy enough to delete this, since the name will be used in conjunction with Formal carrier stem 2, indicating a geographic locale. So Kazakhstan becomes 'sai'la kazax' and Pakistan becomes 'sai'la pak'.
Where I'm running into difficulties is what to do about country names like the Netherlands and especially New Zealand. For the former, the native name Nederland simply is Dutch for "lowland" and the Dutch people call themselves "nederlander" "lowlanders", the old native ethnonymn "diets" being completely archaic now. The point I'm making is that "nederland' is technically not a NAME but rather a word in that people's language. So should the new version of Ithkuil (TNIL as y'all like to call it) simply borrow the word as if it were a name "sai'la nederland"? Or go halfway and apply the rule that names containing morphemes meaning "land (of)" are not used so that the name is 'sai'la neder', or should I simply not use the carrier stem at all and translate the words "low land" into the new Ithkuil using Type-2 stem incorporation of the word for "low" into the word for "land"? Or should I "cheat" and resurrect the archaic ethnonymn "diets" and call the country "sai'la dic"?
The name New Zealand involves an even bigger problem. If we apply the usual rule to remove any morpheme referring to "land (of)" we are left with New Zea. The "new" obviously is a word in the inhabitant's language so that shouldn't be borrowed either, but rather simply turned into the Type-2 NEW/4 affix added to "sai'la" to give "sai'leuspa zi". The problem then is the fact that the name Zea does not in any way reflect any cultural identity or ethnonymn associated with the inhabitants. In other words, no one in the English-speaking world, especially New Zealanders themselves, thinks of "New Zealand" as being equivalent to "the new land where the Zea(s) live/come from". There is essentially no such thing as a "Zea" in terms of it identifying any sort of person or inhabitant or cultural identity. All I can think of is to cop out and treat "New Zealand" phonetically as a name and go with "sai'la nuziland." However, that violates the rule on dropping any morphemes like -stan meaning "land (of)". So if we stick to our rule, then I end up with "sai'la nuzi" which sounds ridiculous as a name for New Zealand. And if I take out the morpheme meaning "new" since it is transparent and turn it into an affix, we're back to the form "sai'leuspa zi" and our problem starts all over again. So what the blazes should the name for New Zealand be?
If you want to post the above for discussion on the reddit or discord or whatever, be my guest. I'd like some input.
--JQ

I can't translate the European map, because it not real ... but I can translate names of the concultures that are part of Rodna and adjacent lands. Also, no map. Can't be bothered, frankly, and I have the additional excuse of the cultures not being yet placed into the world in terms of exact location and span.
This post will deal with Daxuž Adjax and Sapak names for various human cultures present in the conworld. Some will be recognisable, more so from the DA names, since they are likelier to adopt and modify an endonym than the Sapak are. Also note that all Sapak proper nouns are pre-worded with "al'a" [hæ.ɾæ].
All names were originally just Slovenian, and made to sound like something that could reasonably be used for these faux-cultures. They are translated to English very non-officially.

1. Veiks
These are basically the Uralic family. There are three groups. The largest lives in the west, across a shallow sea, in what is basically Finland. The other two are in Rodna. The name itself is derived from Finnish "väki" people. Neither language has a general term for Veiks.

a) the Northmen In Daxuž Adjax, the name for the northmen as a whole is Davvi ['daw.ʋi], which originates from the Proto-Finnic word "talvi" winter. They are further subdivided into Somae, Mistae, and Samae. Sapak speakers call them all al'a Vak [ʋæk], which is borrowed from the "Slovenian" term for the whole family, "Vejki" ['ʋəj.ki]. DA names are all derived from endonyms. Somae are Zumi ['d͡zu.mi] (from Finnish "Suomi"), Mistae are Maremvaz ['ma.ɾam.ʋas] (from the oldest known Estonian endonym, "Maarahvas"), and Samae are Zjami ['ʑa.mi] (from the Sami endonym).

b) the Magyars Self-explanatory. The faux-Hungarians are predictably named by DA speakers as Madjarox ['ma.d͡ʑa.ɾʊx] (from Hungarian "magyarok"). Sapak speakers use the term al'a Hgamwašši [ɰɐ.m^wɐ:ʃ.ʃi] (from the root h-m-š meaning migration, to invade). The choice stems from the fact that they, like IRL Hungarians, came into the area later than nearby cultures.

c) the Mordvins With these I chose to pick a different strategy in naming. In Slovene and English, they get the overarching name for the group, while DA gets the name from specifically the Moksha endonym " Мокшет" => Maxzrez ['maɣ.ʐɛ^rʂ]. The Sapak name is al'a Appiklwa [ʔæp͡ɸ.pi:k.l^wɐ] (from the root p-k-l meaning difficulty, problem). Guess why.

2. Puns (yes, I went with that)
Basically the Semitic family, with Punic being the main culture. They live in the South of the map, and are traders and religious expansionists. Pretty familiar. There are three or two groups, depending on how you count them.
DA speakers call them djava anuzim ['d͡ʑa.ʋa 'ʔa.nu.ʑim] man south.MOD southmen.
Sapak speakers do something similar with al'a Kwalšaljak [k^wɐ:l.ʃæ.ʎɐk] (interestingly, the preestablished roots for the meanings south and human are inverse k-l-š and š-l-k).

a) Fenns The trader part. DA speakers do very little exchanging with them, but nothing else, so the etymology is still connected to trade. They call them Nrevani ['ɳa^r.ʋa.ɲi], which is related to "nreva", the third person pronoun for tradesmen. Sapak had no contact before learning about them by annoying DA speakers while conducting trade. They call them the closest they could get to the DA word, which is al'a Ňal'avani [ŋæ.ɾæ:.ʋæ.ɲi].

b) Desert people Two different nomadic cultures live in the deserts. Named them Arams and Amars, which is me just changing it a little. The Arabic endonyms likely originate from semitic B-R "move around", I just made the bilabial a nasal instead. Neither DA nor Sapak speakers draw a distinction between the two groups, but each uses a different order. DA use the first endonym to make Aroma ['ʔa.ɾa.ma], while Sapak use the second to get al'a Aml'a [hæ:m.ɾæ].

3. Isolates
These are some of the isolate cultures that exist in the setting. The live in varying places, mostly mountains though. It makes sense to put them there, and also to take inspiration from real cultures with similar characteristics.

a) Sakarians Based on the Georgian endonym "Sakartvelo". DA speakers frequently encounter them, and again, no surprise, use Sakartvelo as a base to derive from it Zagorviro ['za.ga^r,ʋi.ɾa]. As a refreshment, Sapak speakers also use the endonym as a base, yielding al'a Sakavila [sæ.kæ:.ʋy.læ].

b) Ayrans Based on the Armenian name for their language, "Hayeren". DA speakers predictably use Xajaren ['ɣa.ja.ɾɛn]. Sapak speakers, however, have a bit of a beef with them, since Ayrans are known for using earth magic a lot, and they don't like that. The name al'a Šwistimmyutwa [ʃ^wʉs.ti:m.m^ɥu.t^wɐ] originates from the roots s-t-m and š-s-n, rock and throw, with a fossilized agent role affix. Esseantially means "rock-throwers".

c) Shqips Based on the Albanian endonym "Shqiptarët". DA speakers deviate from the norm here significantly, using the word "luftëtar" warrior as a base to get Vuvdadre ['ʋuw.da.ɖa^r]. This is due to Shqips commonly being hired as mercenaries. The Sapak use al'a Š'iqka [t͡ʃ'i:ʔ.kæ]. Here, a bit of a kerfuffle happened, since Shqips are located in western Rodna, and the Sapak root for "west, evening, sunset" is š-q-k, so they hear what they want to hear instead of what is said.

d) Steppe people Sadly, no Scytian endonyms have been preserved as far as I could find. We don't know much about their language either. This prompts me to use more descriptive names. There are two groups of tribes that are technically separate peoples, but neither speakers care, much like with the desert nomads. In DA, they are called djaviň gunaxa ['d͡ʑa.ʋiŋ 'ɡ͡ɣu.na.ɣa] human-POSS horse humans of horses. In Sapak, the term is al'a Xannwimš'alwik [xæn.n^wʉ:m.t͡ʃ'æ.l^wʉk] (from x-n-m and š-l-k, grass and human).

e) Okonians Speakers of OTE, the very descendants of Ókon Doboz speakers, the progenitors of magic in the world, are so well isolated from the world on their little island that DA speakers have no idea they even exist. Sapak speakers are aware of them, but time has obscured their origins. Due to their location, they are called al'a Assyaqqu [hæs.s^ɥɐ:ʔ͡h.ʔɯ], which, if it is not a proper noun, just means "island".

4. Rodnians
The Balto-Slavic branch replacement, and branches similarly to it. The "Balto" part I change because it is a toponym for a feature that is not present in Rodna. The two Baltic languages therefore get the name "Sekalsic", derived from the Latvian "sekls" shallow, in reference to the shallow sea west of Rodna. Think of them as the Netherlands of Rodna. The "Slavic" part does not change, and remains derived from the word for "word".

a) Sekalsins Contains faux-Latvians and faux-Lithuanians. The endonyms IRL are likely from rivers, which is also topological, and thus useless, because I'm sure as hell not naming every little stream in Rodna. I chose to retain the slightly modified names "Latts" and "Litts". DA speakers use the terms Ladu ['aˡ.d͡zu] and Lidu ['iˡ.d͡zu]. Sapak speakers have a common term al'a Yattgalu [ɥɐ:t͡s.t^ɰɐ.lɯ] (from root t-t-l fish, owing to their fishing skills).

b) Slavs
The main actors of my stories, because of course. This also means there's more of them, but not every one. I'd lose track of that many.
DA calls the entire group Zlavi [ɮaˡ.ʋi]. Sapak has the term al'a Swanšjaqqu [s^wɐ:n.ɕɐʔ͡h.ʔɯ] (root n-š-q tall, height).
i) Northern Volgans (Russians) and Desnans (Ukrainians). They are named after two major rivers in northern Rodna. These are inspired by straight up real-life rivers Volga and Desna, with the latter's name meaning "right (direction)", and it being the right hand side tributary of Volga (in Rodna ... IRL, it flows into Dnieper).
The names in DA are derived from endonyms and are Vlugan ['ʋlu.gan] and Diznan ['d͡ʑiz.nan]. Sapak uses the term al'a Šilkattis [ʃi:l.kæt͡s.tis] (roots š-l-k and t-t-s, human and water, river) for both.
ii) Central Poles and Czechs. They occupy the area northwest of the central lake of Rodna (still unnamed), just south of the northern Slavs.
DA changes endonyms "polacy" and "češi" into Bujadi ['bu.ja.d͡ʑi] and Zrež [ʐɛ^rʂ]. Sapak loans from DA, but the change with Poles is significant: al'a Pjaš [p^jɐʃ]; the similarity with the Czechs (al'a Šjaš [ɕɐʃ]) is partly due to phonological constraints and partly due to analogy.
iii) Southern Due to Serbo-Croatian being a dialect continuum, the naming of them is mostly political. In fact, neither of the cultures even realizes Slovenians are sufficiently separate from SC to qualify as such. I have broken up the dialects into smaller kindoms in a South Slavic empire (unnamed yet). Note that these are the only ones (no Macedonian, Bulgarian, ...) The important fact here is that most of these are located on the banks of the aforementioned central lake of Rodna, and nearby.
DA calls them djaviň ňinli regrenu ['d͡ʑa.ʋiŋ 'ŋi.ni 'ɺɪ.gɛ^r.ɳu] human.POSS many.MOD lake men of the lake Sapak call them al'a Tawatiswiwik [tæ.wɐ.ti:.s^wʉ.wʉk], which ultimately comes from a shortening of a term meaning lake-men.

Phew!

Finnish (suomi, or suomen kieli [ˈsuomen ˈkieli]) is a Finnic language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a dialect of Finnish, is spoken in Northern Norway by a minority group of Finnish descent.

Linguistics

Classification
Finnish's full classification (using an agnostic approach that assumes all branches are distinct, since Finno-Urgic having been challenged and abandoned by Ethnologue) is as follows:
Uralic (Proto-Uralic) > Finnic (Proto-Finnic) > Finnish
Phonology and Phonotactics
Standard Finnish has 8 vowels and 18 diphthongs. Vowels are contrasted based on length, with both long and short vowels existing. These contrasts occur in both stressed and unstressed syllables, though long vowels tend to be more common in short syllables. There is almost no allophony between among the Finnish vowels.
Finnish has 13 consonant sounds, and, like the vowels, these too can be short or long (gemination), with these being phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, because of a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi from Swedish struts, meaning "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward.
The main stress is always on the first syllable. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable.
Finnish has several morphophonological processes that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation.
Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [±back] for the initial syllable. For example, from the stem tuote ("product") one derives tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'ä') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'ä' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts.
Consonant gradation is a partly nonproductive lenition process for P, T and K in inherited vocabulary, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique stem tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K in suffixes. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta → Va, e.g. *tarkka+ta → tarkkaa.
Finnish syllable structure can be classified as (C)V(S)(C) where (S) stands for 'segment', either a consonant or a phoneme. There are some rare syllables that break these general rules, but the basic syllable type given above constitute well over 90% of the words.
Grammar
Finnish is an agglutinative language. Finnish word order is fairly free, though a general tendency towards subject-verb-object does exist. However, this is often overridden by the fact that the topic of the conversation comes first (if talking about a man that was bitten by a dog, the word for man would come first).
Neither Finnish nouns nor pronouns decline for gender. There is also no article in the language. However, Finnish does distinguish 15 (16 in some dialects) noun cases. There are four grammatical cases (nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive), six locative cases (inessive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, allative), two (three in some dialects) essive cases (essive and translative) and three 'marginal cases' (instructive, abessive and comitative).
Finnish has 7 pronouns, distinguishing three persons and two numbers (singular and plural), but no gender distinction in the third person. The seventh pronoun is a formal 2nd person. While the first and second person pronouns are generally dropped in Standard Finnish, they are common in colloquial speech; third person is required in both standard and colloquial Finnish. The third person pronouns, hän and he are often replaced with se and ne (singular and plural, respectively) in colloquial speech.
Finnish adjectives share the inflection paradigms of Finnish nouns and must agree with the noun in both number and case. Adverbs are generally formed by adding the suffix -sti to the inflecting form of the corresponding adjectives. Outside of this derivational process, they are not inflected.
Being a case rich language, Finnish has few post- or prepositions. However, what few it has tend to be postpositions. When the postposition governs a noun, the noun takes the genitive case. Likewise, a postposition can take a possessive suffix to express persons. Prepositions tend to take nouns in the partitive case.
Finnish has six conjugation classes; even though each class takes the same personal endings, the stems take different suffixes and change slightly when the verb is conjugated. Finnish has very few irregular verbs, and even some of those are irregular only in certain persons, moods, tenses, etc.
Finnish verbs can conjugate for four tenses: non-past, historically called the present, which can express the present or the future; preterite, historically called the imperfect, which covers English past simple and past continuous; perfect, which corresponds to the English present perfect; plusperfect, which corresponds to the English past perfect.
Finnish verbs can also conjugate for two voices, the active and the passive. The Finnish passive is unipersonal, that is, it only appears in one form regardless of who is understood to be performing the action. In that respect, it could be described as a "fourth person", since there is no (standard) way of connecting the action performed with a particular agent.
Finnish verbs conjugate for five different moods. These are the indicative, the conditional, the imperative (split into several types), the optative and the potential. A sixth mood, the eventitive, is no longer used in Finnish, but is the mood used in the Finnish epic poem Kalevala.
Finnish infinitives can come in four, sometimes analyzed as five, different groups. The first one is the citation form of the infinitive and corresponds to the English 'to X' infinitive use. The second infinitive is used to express aspects of actions relating to the time when an action takes place or the manner in which an action happens. In equivalent English phrases these time aspects can often be expressed using 'when', 'while' or 'whilst' and the manner aspects using the word 'by' or else the gerund, which is formed by adding "ing" to English verb to express manner. The third infinitive corresponds to the English gerund while the fourth and the fifth, both of which are rare in Finnish today, mark obligation and 'just about to...' respectively.
Miscellany

Finnish, with 15/16 cases, has more cases than its ancestor Proto-Uralic, which is typically reconstructed with six; so, unlike most Indo-European languages, Finnish gained cases over time.
The exessive case is the essive case found only in some dialects
Finnish has borrowed extensively, with some linguists positing that only 300 Proto-Uralic words can be found in Finnish; however, due to the radical differences between Finnish and its Indo-European neighbors, borrowings quickly get nativized.
Some Finnish loan words do not seem to have come from Indo-European languages or have cognates in other Uralic languages. It is possible that these are borrowings from whatever languages were spoken in Europe before the spread of Indo-European languages.
Finnish orthography is highly phonemic, and, barring distinctions between colloquial and standard forms, one can often "write as you read, read as you write".
The language's orthography is often easily-recognizable because of its lack of b, c, f, q, w, x, z and å.

Samples

Spoken sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFCixLn9qRw (Lullaby)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejIdIKidqcc (folk song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCEw4uH2a8I&list=PLL92dfFL9ZdJBbTpg-h9AMnZfxNlHwrbh (Playlist of songs popular in Finland currently)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYH1JH73pw (Finnish newscast on Bitcoin)
Written sample:
Vaka vanha Väinämöinen itse tuon sanoiksi virkki: "Näistäpä toki tulisi kalanluinen kanteloinen, kun oisi osoajata, soiton luisen laatijata." Kun ei toista tullutkana, ei ollut osoajata, soiton luisen laatijata, vaka vanha Väinämöinen itse loihe laatijaksi, tekijäksi teentelihe.
(Verses 221-232 of song 40 of the Kalevala) Audio here
Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Sources

Previous LotWs

SICK SAD WORLD
By Antti Luode
It started as a impossibility. A joke.
Then it became a distant possibility if everyone went insane.
Then, it got on the populist agenda and soon it became a sad possibility.
Then, slowly, it corrupted even the most goodhearted and poisoned the public bloodstream, until we were not who we used to be.
2073, VANTAA FINLAND. MORNING
I woke up as usual. Feeling like I had not slept a wink.
There was this distinct feeling that I was not sure if I wanted to wake up.
But alas, I had no choice. This was Monday.
As soon as I woke up, I felt the news begin to stream into my consciousness through my direct cranial transplant that I had no choice to decline. A transplant that I hated, but I could not turn off.
"The brown party is victorious", the news declared, with the leader of the brown party beaming at the steps of the house of representatives in the capital of Finland, Helsinki.
"Today the people have spoken and we will fill all their demands of us", the party leader Erik Koski was declaring, surrounded by his fellow party members.
As soon as I saw the video end, I began seeing a litany of new party promises that would happen this year.
They were the usual. "99.999 percent majority, Sick people will be terminated more humanely, the last immigrants hiding among us will be hunted down and dealt with and so on.", there were also the more cheerful, "The brown party leader from the United States is coming for a visit to Helsinki.".
Unable to turn off the feed, I stumbled to the coffee maker in my concrete bunker of a home and waited for the coffee to brew. Automatically of-course, this was 2073 after all. What would the future have been without automatic coffee maker I thought sarcastically, had my cup of coffee and walked downstairs.
There, a plastic bubble appeared on the front of my old fashioned commie block. I could see there was a old lady holding a handbag and a overweight man in his thirties watching like all hope was lost out of the foggy window and as I sat down I could smell the faint scent of a fart.
"Good morning", I said and crammed myself next to the man. Soon the bubble began rolling in the snow towards our respective work places.
"Erik Koski had such a good speech.", the overweight man said, without emotion.
"Yes, I agree.", I said, knowing our every word was being recorded. Just going through the motions.
"I had a really good toast this morning.", the old lady was saying. I could see her hands were shaking a little bit.
"Oh, that is nice.", I said with a flat voice. Wondering if she had beginning stages to Parkinson's or just natural tremors. Knowing that if it was Parkinson's, she would be dealt with soon and I would not see her again.
"I had a nice cup of coffee.", I said. Talking because there was a distinct pressure to speak, to appear normal. Else we might have been directed to the government agency where we would have been automatically processed for suspicious silence. Which could indicate mental sickness.
AGENCY FOR COUNTER COUNTER SPYING
Yes, I worked as a counter counter spy. How I got here, I can not tell. Having worked in a low position of a drill sergeant in the Finnish military. I guess I was good at not questioning my orders. Once the brown party came to power. I just did what I was told.
And here I was. A counter, counter spy.
When I arrived to ACCS, I knew all hell was let loose. People were pacing on the floor in a way that indicated something was not normal. Also, once inside the building, I was able to tap into the ACCS crypted communications which were not allowed to be transmitted outside the building.
"Red alert", was blinking in the upper left corner of my vision.
"What is it.", I said, trying to avoid sounding worried or manic as I arrived in my cubicle surrounded by men and women in brown suits with shoulder toppings.
A aryan looking blonde with a name tag, "Tiina Vilho", came to my cubicle and began to break it down for me. "So, we have been following this counter spy of ours called Mikko Lempinen who was assigned to spy on a suspected female agent from North Korea.", Tiina said and changed her position to indicate this is going to be a long chat.
"Go on", I said and waved her to go on. "Well, there was a suspicious media blackout to his cranial communicator, something we have never seen before. He went for a walk with her in the Helsinki central park and suddenly we lost all communications with his implant."
"Interesting", I said, and looked out of my cubicle at the agents rushing back and forth on the floor to report on spies who had been planted in the Finnish population.
"So you began to track him immediately with the drones I guess.", I asked, knowing they would follow the logical steps.
"Yes, we did! A drone immediately began to track them from 1.2 kilometers away. But something curious happened.", she said. Excited.
"Yes?", I said very shortly like a Finn I was.
"We could not. Not visually, not audio wise.", it was as if they had been surrounded by some kind of electronic bubble shielding them from any peering eyes.", she concluded, looking at me for a plan of action.
I was quiet, thinking about what I was taught.
"Where is this Mikko now, I assume we have interrogated him, has he been tortured yet?", I asked not believing what I was saying, yet saying it completely calmly. I had not been the same person as I was after the cranial communicator was implanted in me.
"Mikko has disappeared.". She said.
"Where is this, North Korean female spy?", I asked.
"She has disappeared too.", she continued.
"That is impossible. We can see what is happening out there down to a millimeter!", I said a little bit upset at the impossibility that someone could slip away from the constant surveillance that was reality in Finland in 2073.
"We have a meeting at 10 a clock where we will gather a team to track them down", Tiina said.
"I think since you were in the army, you might be a top choice to lead the intelligence team.", she continued.
As soon as she said that. I knew my carefully planned steps to stay invincible, were leading me to places I did not want to walk.
How could I walk the fine line between being a good citizen and risk knowing too much.
Only time would tell.
50 KM NORTH OF HELSINKI, IN A FOREST
The forest was quiet, expect for a few birds doing their spring calls. A lone squirrel in a tree, looking for spruce tree cones and weird ball like visual distortion floating above the ground near walking speed, slowing down as it came to a entrance to a cave. As it entered the cave it slowed down even more.
Then suddenly the visual distortion disappeared and where there had been nothing, there was two people sitting in a bubble like hovering vehicle, emitting a slight electric hum, that was extending landing legs on the cave floor.
Inside, we could see a man and a woman, kissing each other.
INSIDE THE BALL.
"I love you Yumi", the dark haired man said to the Asian looking woman.
"I love you too.", she said to Mikko, the counter spy.
"What a sad world we live in.", Mikko said. Crying..
"Cry my dear, that is just a sign the implant is no longer working and dulling your emotions.", Yuni said, looking at the single tear drop rolling down the cheek of Mikko.
Mikko shook his head.
"I can not believe I have lived without emotions for so long. You would think you would know what is wrong when they implanted me.", he said. touching the metallic disc in his head, now exposed due to his hair having been freshly shaved around it.
"It is a incredible piece of technology", Yuni said, shaking her head.
"Thank God our tyrants did not have such a technology.", Yuni said.
"That is why we resisted the nationalism once we gained our freedom.", she continued. "We knew we had to fight to stay truly free.", she paused. Looking Mikko with loving eyes. "You had been free for so long, you could not recognize when your countries fell victim to it. Step by step! One by one! You thought you were protecting your countries. And once you were implanted, you became just.." , Yuni said..
"Mindless zombies.", Mikko continued.
"Sadly yes.", Yuni said. Staring at the cave wall..
"North Korea, the last bastion of freedom.", she laughed dryly.
"Who would have believed.", Mikko said, shook his head and Kissed Yuni deeply.
"God I love my emotions.", he said. And began to smile again.
HUNTING PARTY ALPHA BRAVO CHARLIE
It was ten a clock on the dot.
The auditorium of ACCS was full of men and women watching forward, no one saying a word. All accessing a common feed for the hunt, until a man in his sixties in a brown suit and tie opened a door and closed it with a loud bang.
"MEN, WOMEN.", he said.
"ATTENTION.", a guard standing on the door said loudly.
All the men and women in the auditorium rose like they had gotten a sudden electric jolt.
I, standing in the front row had all my implants suddenly lose their feed expect for a red blinking light that said, ALL IMPLANTS OFF, DUE TO PRESENCE OF MATTI TUOMI, THE HEAD OF NATIONAL SECURITY.
Matti walked with a brisk walk to the front of the auditorium and took a place in the center stage, "You may sit.", he said loudly and began watching at us intently.
"What I am about to tell you, you will not remember once the hunt is over.", he said.
We had been taught that it was possibility in cases of extreme national security, but as far as I knew, I had never been through such a case.
"We have a loose North Korean operative somewhere in the Finnish wilderness accompanied by one of our counter spies.", Matti declared loudly.
"They have access to technology that is not openly talked about, nor does it publicly exist. Normal citizens who hear about this technology are subject to termination. So be extremely careful at what you talk about during this whole hunt.", he continued.
"They are most likely using a North Korean hovercraft that is equipped with a electro visual stealth technology, indeed we think that they may also possess a device that can turn off cranial implants and may be headed towards the arctic ocean where they will be picked up by a North Korean vessel.", he said and continued. "Do you have any questions?"
We were looking at him in dismay, yet tranquil.
I was feeling slightly shocked, I had never heard of such technologies, at least that I knew.
"Sir, we have never heard of these technologies, how do we track them down?", I said, rising my hand sheepishly.
"We are going to use the military and close off Finland from its most narrow point.", Matti said. "Next?"
"What if they get through?", Tiina Vilho asked, twirling her hair.
"Then we are going to catch them at the Norwegian border.", Matti said, certain of himself.
"What if they are not planning on going that route.", nameless man in the crowd offered.
"Whole of Russia, the whole Europe, all of the world is governed by the brown party. Where else would they go? Their only hope of escape is on a submarine at the arctic sea.", Matti said and continued, pointing at the man. "You will go to processing.", at that time, the man fell to the ground like electricity had been turned off from his brain.
OPERATION FALLEN SATELLITE
Finland at its narrowest most point from the coastal town of Oulu to its eastern most point is only two hundred kilometers wide.
Today, that whole area was under large hunt for a fallen satellite.
All of the official news networks were broadcasting about the possible radioactive contamination of a old soviet era ZEBRA 3 spy satellite that had crashed somewhere in the Finnish countryside.
There, in the snowy forests, thirty five thousand men were standing in line fifteen meters between them. All keenly observing the frozen swamps, standing in commandeered farm buildings, listening to cows desperately mooing in barns. Waiting. Assault rifles full of live bullets, ready to kill anything that seemed suspicious, carrying devices with something akin to radar antenna, turning around, scanning, looking for something.
OPERATION FALLEN SATELLITE HEADQUARTERS - OULU - NIGHT
Standing around the table I was looking at the electronic map. Tiina was twirling her hair, a high ranking military official was talking endlessly, giving commands to the troops on the ground.
I was observing my implant data feeding in, the line of soldiers cutting Finland in two halves portrayed in green.
"Nothing", I said.
"We can wait all year. The army has a infinite budget.", the military commander with colonel stripes and a name tag "Risto Suomi.", said.
"No way have they gotten through yet. Not even with their visual electro stealth device, it is good but it is not that good.", he said.
"Are you allowed to know about this kind of technology without memory wipe.", I asked from Risto.
"Yes, anyone with a rank of colonel or above is allowed to memories of these devices, how else could we prepare for them.", he said. "You should not ask such questions by the way.", he continued.
"I am sorry sir.", I said and shifted my gaze back on the electronic screen.
"So not even one distortion in the line.", I asked.
"Not one!", Risto said.
"The devices the soldiers are carrying should see such a distortion up to hundred meters.", he said.
"What about the Russian border?", I asked.
"Russian border is full of soldiers, there is no way they can go through there.", Risto said, like a man of action he was.
"So what now.", I asked.
"We wait. We wait all year if we need to.", Risto said.
"Wont people get suspicious", Tiina asked.
"And risk termination?", Risto laughed.
"The people will do as we tell them, they will give their all to the troops, you know that!", Risto said. In a way I had not heard in a long time.
I thought about it briefly. The high ranking people seemed different. I wondered why.
But I just could not comprehend how.
EDGE OF A FIELD, MIDDLE OF FINLAND, NIGHT
A visual distortion field was moving parallel to line of soldiers roughly a kilometer away.
Inside of it Mikko and Yuni were talking to each other in the hover vehicle.
"No way are we getting through that.", Mikko said.
"Well. Not through it.", Yuni said.
"But?", Mikko asked.
"We can fly high above it.", Yuni said and pulled back the steering wheel she was holding, which coincided with the vehicle taking flight. Higher and higher. Until they reached the clouds. Breaking through them. Mikko was looking down, he could see the lit line of soldiers far below, stars shining above.
"How?", he said.
"Anti gravity.", "Our scientists were finally able to discover how to beat gravity.", Yuni said, looking at Mikko.", wide loving smile on her face, turning to something more passionate. Mikko recognized the gaze. And kissed Yuni.
After the long kiss, Yuni began to lower the vehicle far on the other side of the line.
"Why can not we fly the whole way?", he asked.
"It literally takes half a megawatt to just do this small hop.", she said.
"After this.", "We are out of electricity soon.", she said.
"And then?", Mikko asked.
"We walk.", Yuni said.
OPERATION FALLEN SATELLITE HEADQUARTERS
I found myself from a small puddle of drool as I was jolted awake to a blaring siren broadcasting RED ALERT.
I looked at the map and saw one of the green dots on the map turn to a slightly lesser green dot.
"What does that mean.", I said as colonel Risto hurried to the room.
"It means that one of our surveillance devices in that location detected a faint echo of speculated North Korean anti gravity device.", he said.
"Anti Gravity?", I said.
"Yes". Risto said, looking, what I faintly remembered being a look on the faces of people who were, what was called, "pissed."
"What now?", I said.
"We are going to mobilize twenty thousand more troops to that location to sweep the area from there towards the arctic ocean.", Risto said, wiping his hands on his uniform from some greasy substance that he had been digesting just seconds before in his temporary office.
"You will all follow your orders.", he said.
VILLAGE OF VIINIKOSKI EARLY MORNING
The first armored personnel carrier was followed by endless convoy of military vehicles, around the forest on to its both directions, tanks driving through the forest, trees falling down like matches, helicopters buzzing through the air above. Fighter jets flying in patterns above the ground like they were sweeping it for something.
People had gotten out of their homes. Looking at the soldiers proudly. Accessing the official news-feed according to which the radio active contaminants from the zebra satellite had been stolen by terrorists who were planning on building a dirty bomb.
The little children were saluting the tanks with smiles, their parents standing behind them. Pointing at the soldiers with food at hand, just in case if anyone needed a bite.
But soon after doing that, serious looking men in long leather coats came to detain the adults.
"You will come with us.", they were told and directed to black vans, which quickly disappeared to the the night as the children began to cry.
ABOVE
I was in a attack helicopter with Tiina Vilho, accessing the constant feed of sensor sweeps on the ground below. It all looked green.
"So what if they have gone to a cave?", I asked.
"The soldiers will be checking all the caves along the way.", Tiina said.
I shook my head.
"I am all out of ideas.", I confessed.
"We will find them.", Tiina said and put her hand on my knee.
It felt good.
10 KILOMETERS NORTH
"So what now.", Mikko said.
"Do you know why I am doing this Mikko?", Yuni asked.
"Because you love me.", Mikko said, thinking it was the truth.
"Well, I do love you. But there is something you do not know.", Yuni said.
Mikko got a unreal feeling. Like things suddenly took a turn for the worse.
"Yes.", Mikko said as a question.
"You do not remember this.", Yuni said.
"Yes?", Mikko said even more curious.
"You designed the cranial implant.", Yuni continued.
"Me?", Mikko said, pointing at himself.
"Yes, you.", Yuni said and continued. "You are a very smart man.", she said.
"Me?", Mikko laughed out loud, "Me? A lowly grunt working as a counter spy in Helsinki and living in a commie block from nineteen sixties?", He said.
"I studied you in the school you know.", Yuni said.
"Studied me?", Mikko said.
"Yes, you were the Einstein of cyber-logy. Not only are you handsome, but you are a genius, you just do not know it.", she said.
"Lets say that I was..", Mikko started, "What would that have to do with anything.", he said.
"Well, lets just put it this way. You could free the world from the tyranny that you accidentally started and furthermore.. ", Yuni said.
"Yes?", Mikko said, shaking his head.
"We have a infinite budget.", she said.
"How would that apply here?", Mikko said.
"Ever heard of multiverse theory.", she continued.
"Yes.", Mikko said as behind them a fleet of fighter planes was approaching quickly.
"Lets go to one.", she said, took a red button from her pocket, armed it and pressed a button.
2073 ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE
As soon as she pressed it the hovercraft fell to the ground. Lifeless. Dead.
Mikko was looking around them as the sunlight began to glimmer in the horizon.
The sun was shining on their faces. Wind was blowing quietly through the trees.
A bird began singing.
It was eerily quiet.
They got off the hovercraft.
"Take your backpack with you.", Yuni said.
"And back off from the hovercraft.", she continued.
Mikko did as he was told.
Yuni took off a blue button from her pocket, armed it and pressed a button.
The hovercraft disappeared like a picture on a old cathode ray tv screen.
"What happened.", Mikko asked. Looking scared. The fighter planes had disappeared.
"We are now in a alternative universe.", she said.
"But we must be careful. Else we may change it.", she said.
"What is this world like.", Mikko asked. Looking all around.
"I do not know. But it is bound to be better than the one we were in.", Yuni said.
"Can we go back?", Mikko asked.
"We must, we can only stay here briefly and we have a lot of distance to cover, we must head towards the Arctic ocean.", Yuni said.
"I have so many questions!", Mikko pleaded.
"I am certain you do.", Yuni said.
"What happened here?", Mikko asked.
"We have no idea. Something is a little bit different here.", Yuni said.
"I want to know what!", Mikko said as they were walking down the field.
"I do not think we have time to find out.", Yuni said as she was walking towards the farm house.
"How can we walk this freely here.", Mikko asked.
"Do you know about the Finnish history.", Yuni asked.
"Yes, I was taught that at school.", Mikko said.
"Then you know about the every mans right, how people have freedom to walk on any land as long as they respect immediate privacy of homes.", Yuni said.
"This Finland is most likely more like that old Finland.", she said and continued, "what happened in our universe was one in billions. If you had not been born, if the brown party had not had such astronomical luck.Our universe would have been a much better place.", she said.
Mikko got quiet. He seemed insulted as he followed Yuni.
"If I had not been born..", he began to say..
"Yes, you, lovely you. You accidentally unleashed a technology that has been used for evil, but it is not your fault! You could not help your genius and your curiosity.", she said as they came close towards edge of a road.
As they got there a old electric tractor came around the bend. Sitting on the tractor was a black farmer with a wide smile on his face. As he got closer he began slowing down the tractor and opened the door.
Both Yuni and Mikko seemed scared.
"Hello strangers, welcome to my farm, I want to offer you a breakfast!", he said with a inviting gesture.
"Where are you from.", he asked.
"I am from Helsinki and she is from..", "Korea", Yuni interrupted Mikko..
Mikko looked at him confused why she interrupted him.
INSIDE THE FARM
The farmer was making them a breakfast as his half black half white kids were running around. On the wall there was a Finnish flag and what seemed to be African artwork.
"Finland has been so good to us immigrants.", he said.
"I never regret coming here.", he continued.
"It is nice to see you like it here.", Mikko said.
"So you got yourself a Korean lady.", the farmer pointed at Mikko with a wink.
"Yes, we are very much in love.", Mikko said and looked at Yuni with a smile.
15 MINUTES LATER
"Oh this is so good.", Mikko was saying as he was eating the food.
"Yes, it is a mix of Finnish and African traditional foods.", the farmer said.
"So where are you going?", he asked and pointed at their back bags.
"Towards Norway.", Yuni offered.
"Well, since I am going to Oulu today, I could take you to the hyperloop station there. From there you could travel to Hammerfest in Norway.
"We do not have any money.", Yuni said.
"Money?", the farmer said.
"That is a good one!", he laughed.
"Hey Liisa?", Come here he called..
A petite white woman in her thirties appeared from the next room.
"Yes, what is it dear?", she said, smiling at Mikko and Yuni.
"Yuni said she does not have any money!", the farmer said..
Liisa began to laugh like she had just heard the best joke.
"That is a really god one Yuni!", she said.
"Like we still used money!", she laughed out loud.
"Hyperloop?", Mikko whispered quietly to Yuni's ear as they were laughing.
"I guess Elon Musk did not die in this universe.", Yuni whispered to his ear.
"I guess he did not go to Mars then.", Mikko said.
"Elon? In Mars?", the farmer said, having caught the last words in their discussion.
"Everyone knows Elon went to Venus, in fact we are planning a trip there this September, for our anniversary.", the farmer said.
"You guys.", he continued, shaking his head. Still laughing.
"We'll leave in 15 minutes..", he said. "I have to use the facilities", he continued.
"I guess some things are the same here too.", Mikko said after he left
"Too bad we can not stay.", Yuni said. "I am beginning to love this place."
THAT SAME DAY NEAR OULU
The air was zipping with flying vehicles, with different makes and models stating antigrav this and antigrav that. Oulu center was proudly displaying half a mile tall skyscrapers, and far below them was a dome like structure with holographic words HYPERLOOP STATION hanging above it.
"It was really nice to see you guys, please do send us your contact info once you get that all sorted out.", the farmer said as his Volvo antigrav 10 XE began to descend towards landing pad that had a constant stream of antigrav vehicles landing and taking off.
"We will!", Mikko promised, looking a bit forlorn because he knew that this would be the first and last time he would ever see these people.
These wonderful nice people he thought.
LATER THAT SAME DAY
The hyperloop train was zipping in a transparent pipe over the Finnish Lapland at what seemed supersonic speeds, every now and then diving to a tunnel that pierced through the shallow hills.
On the wall there was a display that was showing coming stops and time estimations when the train would be there.
The speed indicator said 1600 km/h.
Yuni and Mikko were nodding on each other in comfortable seats.
"So what is the plan?", Mikko said.
"The plan is to get as close to the arctic ocean as we can. Then the rest of the way we walk towards the coastal wall.", she said.
"Lets say we get to the submarine. What then?", Mikko said. "What guarantees do we have that they wont kill us.", Mikko said.
"They wont find us once we are in the submarine.", Yuni said. "It is equipped with the same stealth technology as our hovercraft, but better and it has near infinite power supply.", she said.
"God it is beautiful in this world.", Mikko said.
Shaking his head.
"How did we mess up our own world so bad.", he asked.
Yuni rubbed her cheek on his. "It is just as beautiful my love, it is just that, we have to fix it.", she paused, "It is the only one we got.", she paused, "We can not stay here.", she ended.
"But God I wish we could.", Mikko said.
ATTACK HELICOPTER OVER FINNISH LAPLAND
"What do you mean they disappeared?", colonel Risto Suomi was screaming on the screen, piped through my implant, his face red.
I had not seen a man so angry after cranial implants were given to all. I did not even know it was possible to be so angry on them.
"The fighter planes saw them. Then the next moment they were not there any more. ", I said. Calmly.
"What did you do?", Risto continued shaking his head.
"We had troops come from all sides. Walking hand in hand in a circle.", I paused. "And there was nothing.", I said.
"Did you dig?", he asked.
"Yes we did. We brought in bulldozers until we hit granite", I said.
"What about antigrav signals.", Risto asked.
"None.", I said.
"Ill be dad-gummed.", Risto said, shaking his head furiously and continued, "If those bastards did not have hydrogen bombs..", he screamed.
"There is nothing we can do sir.", I said.
"Well. That is that then.", he said.
"It is up to the Norwegians now.", he continued.
AFTER MEMORY WIPE
I was in a helicopter. Last I remembered I had been walking towards the auditorium for a top secret meeting. I knew my memory had been wiped. I knew not to ask questions.
I looked around me.
Everyone else had that look about them.
"Situation normal. Return home", my implants were telling me.
"Well, that was that.", I said.
"Lets go home.", Tiina said and put her hand on my knee.
I liked the way it felt.
"Lets.", I said and put mine on hers.
NORTHERN WALL
The coast of Norway is 28 000 kilometers long due to its endless fjords and is nearly impossible to police. But the brown party headquarters made a decision a long time ago to build a wall around it, like it has done all around the world.
No expense was saved building the wall.
But due to the length, 28 000 kilometers, large proportions of it have fallen to disrepair since it was built 30 years ago.
In reality the wall was never needed due to the cranial implants, and brown party taking over most of the world, but still it stood.
Due to its length, and nigh impossibility to secure, the Norwegian brown party had the soldiers standing in guard on the Finnish Norwegian border instead of the wall. Thinking that the terrorists coming their way would be easier to capture that way.
Little did they know that Yuni and Mikko were not travelling in this universe.
ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE LATE NIGHT
Mikko and Yuni had gotten off the hyperloop train in Hammerfest and were walking towards the coast on the side of the road.
The snow blanketed coastline was full of moonlit fishing cottages. Above them antigrav vehicles were flying, stars blinking above them.
Old fish drying racks were standing in silence like a throwback from past. But still being taken care of, implying they were still in use.
Fishing boats were anchored offshore. Children were sledding towards the arctic sea. Their boisterous laughter echoing all around.
Yuni was checking her watch.
"We are here.", she said. Sad look on her face.
They both took a deep sigh.
Suddenly the scene was replaced by a ugly concrete wall blocking the view to the sea.
"Do not approach", signs paced every 200 meters.
There was no fishing cottages.
There were no fish drying racks.
You could not see the sea.
There were no people.
Watching at the wall, Mikko asked.
"How do we get over that?"
Yuni walked to the side of the road and took off a camouflaged tarp covering a shiny, brand new telescoping ladder.
"We use this.", she said.
THE END

BBC - Travel - The mysterious origins of Finland’s true name

what does the finnish word suomi mean

what does the finnish word suomi mean - win

Every Matchup, Every Winner, All Of It.

G G H H G H G G H H H G H/T

INPUT NEEDEED: Names of Countries

Translating The Cultures of Rodna: The Map of Europe Bandwagon Chase

Terve - This week's language of the week: Finnish!

Linguistics

Samples

Sources

Previous LotWs

Sick Sad World - ( Scifi/Action, 12 pgs)

Sick Sad World [SF] 12 pages

Scifi tarina tulevaisuuden Suomesta englanniksi.

what does the finnish word suomi mean video

what does the finnish word suomi mean top

Holy Spirit - YouTube