title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: Captain Steven Stamkos led the team in scoring with 106 points during the regular season. Defenceman Victor Hedman scored 85 points, eclipsing the previous Tampa Bay record for defenceman, which Hedman set in 2017. During the off-season, the Lightning signed goaltender Brian Elliott, defenceman Zach Bogosian, and forwards Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Corey Perry via free agency. They also opted to re-sign forwards Brayden Point and Ross Colton and defenceman Cal Foote with Patrick Maroon re-signing during the season. At the trade deadline, the Lightning acquired forwards Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul. For Corey Perry, this was his third straight Finals appearance with three different teams (Dallas Stars in 2020, Montreal Canadiens in 2021), the first player to accomplish this feat since Marian Hossa did it with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2008, Detroit Red Wings in 2009, and Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: The Lightning finished third in the Atlantic Division gaining 110 points with a record. Tampa Bay defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the First Round in seven games, followed by a four-game sweep of their intrastate rival, the Florida Panthers, during the Second Round, and then triumphed over the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final in six games.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: This was Colorado's third appearance in the Finals. They won their two prior appearances with their most recent against the New Jersey Devils in 2001.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: Mikko Rantanen led the team in points, scoring 92 overall. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper started 57 times for the Avalanche, obtaining 37 wins in the process. However, during Game 1 of their Conference Final series, Kuemper left the game with an upper-body injury. Backup goaltender Pavel Francouz finished the opening game after replacing Kuemper and started the remaining games of the series as a result. During the off-season, the Avalanche traded for Kuemper and forward Kurtis MacDermid. They also picked up free agent Darren Helm. They re-signed defenceman Cale Makar, captain Gabriel Landeskog, and Francouz. Nearing the trade deadline, the Avalanche acquired Josh Manson, Nico Sturm, Artturi Lehkonen, and Andrew Cogliano.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: The Avalanche finished the season with 119 points via a record, grabbing the Central Division title and first place in the Western Conference. Colorado swept the Nashville Predators in four games during the First Round, then defeated the St. Louis Blues in six games during the Second Round, before sweeping the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: In game one, the Avalanche controlled the first period scoring three times compared to the Lightning's one goal. Colorado's captain Gabriel Landeskog began the scoring, pushing the puck past Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy when Mikko Rantanen's shot barely squeaked under the goaltenders pads. The next goal came when defenceman Victor Hedman's clearing attempt got picked by Nathan MacKinnon, whose pass to Valeri Nichushkin made it 2–0. The Lightning halved Colorado's lead when Brayden Point's dump-in was retrieved by Nick Paul who broke in and dangled out Avalanche goaltender Darcy Kuemper to make 2–1. The Avalanche regained the two-goal lead five minutes later when Tampa was in a 5-on-3 penalty kill. MacKinnon's shot got blocked and on the rebound he passed back to Landeskog who set up Rantanen for a wrist shot that got tipped in by Artturi Lehkonen. In the second period, the Lightning got two goals to tie the game. Ondrej Palat scored the first goal as he and Nikita Kucherov entered the zone with the latter going inside-out on Devon Toews to set up Palat for the tip-in. 1:48 later, the Lightning continuing their offensive zone attack had a pass back to Mikhail Sergachev from Brandon Hagel whose shot through traffic went off the post and into the net. The third period did not have any scoring albeit the Avalanche firing 12 shots compared to the Lightning's 5 shots, thus the game went into overtime. In overtime, as the Lightning attempted to clear the zone, J. T. Compher picked up the loose puck and shot it, but it was blocked by a Lightning defenceman. The puck then came to Nichushkin who passed to Andre Burakovsky and he fired a snap shot past Vasilevskiy to give Colorado a 4–3 victory.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: The Avalanche routed the Lightning in game two. In the first period, after Lightning defenceman Ryan McDonagh got penalized for roughing J. T. Compher, a power-play ensued for Colorado. During it, Andre Burakovsky led a cross-ice pass to Valeri Nichushkin's tip-in goal to give the Avalanche an early 1–0 lead. The Avalanche then grabbed a 2–0 lead when a 2-on-1 rush with Andrew Cogliano and Josh Manson led to the latter's wrist shot under Andrei Vasilevskiy's blocker. Burakovsky then made it 3–0 when the Avalanche on an offensive zone rush had Mikko Rantanen's shot rebound to Burakovsky for the quick tip-in. Burakovsky almost made it 4–0 when he was given a breakaway thanks to Rantanen's lead pass. In the second period, the Avalanche continued their offensive zone coverage allowing Rantanen to centre a pass to Nichushkin to make it 4–0. The Avalanche then made it 5–0 when the Lightning misplayed a pass leading Darren Helm and Logan O'Connor on a 2-on-1 break for which the former's wrist shot went over Vasilevskiy's glove. O'Connor was also given a breakaway chance to make it 6–0, but the Lightning goaltender stopped that. In the third period, as Rantanen was in the penalty box for tripping, the Lightning gave the puck away to Cale Makar who with Andrew Cogliano on another 2-on-1 made it 6–0. Ondrej Palat then got called for cross checking and on the ensuing power-play, Nathan MacKinnon made a pass to Rantanen, who quickly passed to Makar for his second goal of the evening to make 7–0. With frustrations boiling over for Tampa Bay, four of their players were called for roughing for which Colorado retaliated with their own roughing calls. However, the Avalanche claimed a 7–0 victory with Darcy Kuemper stopping the 16 shots he faced.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: In game three, the Lightning showed more offence than their previous two games. However, the Avalanche began the scoring in the first period. After a coach's challenge revealed Valeri Nichushkin's goal was offside, and then Ondrej Palat got called for high-sticking, Colorado went on the power-play. During the power-play, Cale Makar set up Mikko Rantanen for a quick shot through traffic which pinballed off Andrei Vasilevskiy and Erik Cernak for an easy tap-in for Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog. The Lightning tied the game less than five minutes later when the Avalanche gave the puck away to Anthony Cirelli who passed to Patrick Maroon and then back again to Cirelli who tried to deke out Darcy Kuemper except his mishandling of the puck went five-hole through Kuemper. The Lightning then gained the lead for the first time in this series after Devon Toews fanned on a pass leading to a breakout of Tampa Bay. Palat and Nikita Kucherov went down the ice, with Steven Stamkos trailing. Palat passed back to Stamkos who set up Palat again for a snap shot that went past Kuemper for a 2–1 lead. In the second period, the Lightning outscored the Avalanche, four goals to one. The first goal came off a turn-over from Colorado's Josh Manson who gave the puck to Victor Hedman setting up an open Nick Paul for a 3–1 lead. However, the Avalanche minimized the Lightning's lead to one goal, when on the power-play, Rantanen and Makar set up Landeskog's snap shot goal. Tampa Bay regained their two-goal lead when Kucherov and Stamkos lead the offensive zone rush with Kucherov back-handing a pass to an open Stamkos for a quick wrist shot. Patrick Maroon made it 5–2 deking out the defencemen with his shot rolling up Kuemper's blocker to the top of the net. Corey Perry made it 6–2 when the Lightning were on the power-play, tipping in a shot by Palat that went over Kuemper. Although the third period had no goals scored, both teams leveled their frustration at each other with both Logan O'Connor and Ross Colton fighting and Patrick Maroon and Andrew Cogliano both squaring off after the whistle resulting in misconducts.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: In game four, the Lightning and Avalanche traded off periods where one team dominated the shot clock. The first period saw Tampa Bay fire 17 shots compared to Colorado's four shots. The third shot for the Lightning 36 seconds into the game gave Tampa Bay their first goal when Erik Cernak's shot bounced off of goaltender Darcy Kuemper to Anthony Cirelli who fired it into the net. Although Kuemper's mask had come off during the play, it was still ruled a goal due to the continuation of the puck. In the second period, the Avalanche poured off 17 shots compared to the Lightning's seven shots. Both teams ended up scoring this period. Colorado got the equalizer on the power-play when Nathan MacKinnon passed to Mikko Rantanen who passed to the front of the net and MacKinnon redirected the puck in with his skate. Tampa Bay regained the lead as defenceman Victor Hedman led the rush into the offensive zone, slipping by the defenders, and backhanding a shot over Kuemper for 2–1 advantage. However, as the teams switched on shots again, this time with Tampa Bay shooting ten times compared to Colorado's six, the Avalanche tied the game. As the Avalanche were working the point, Darren Helm shot at Andrei Vasilevskiy and the rebound went to Nico Sturm whose shot deflected off of Andrew Cogliano and into the net. With the game tied at two goals apiece, the game went into overtime. In overtime, Kuemper flipped the puck ahead to Artturi Lehkonen who passed to a speeding Nazem Kadri who got the shot through Vasilevskiy and into the top part of the cage. The goal gave Colorado a 3–2 victory and a chance to win the series in Game 5 in Colorado.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: With a potential Stanley Cup victory in Colorado for the Avalanche in game five, the Lightning tried to hold on to extend the series. The first period saw both teams relatively even in shots with Colorado holding a one-shot advantage. However, Tampa Bay began the scoring as Mikhail Sergachev cleared the defensive zone forwarding a pass to Corey Perry with a cross-ice pass to Jan Rutta whose slap shot found its way past Darcy Kuemper for a 1–0 lead. The second period held a different story as the Avalanche held a stronger advantage in shots and managed to tie the game, prior to Tampa Bay's proceeding goal. The Avalanche, upon winning a faceoff, had Nathan MacKinnon pass to Cale Makar who shot the puck at Andrei Vasilevskiy but the rebound bounced to Valeri Nichushkin for an easy tap-in goal. Nikita Kucherov put the Lightning up 2–1 on a 4-on-3 power-play as his one-timer through traffic found its way above Kuemper's blocker to the back of the net. Much like in game four, the Avalanche tied the game in the third period. Once Colorado was able to enter the offensive zone, they set up Makar for a wrist shot through traffic that deflected off of Vasilevskiy, rebounding to Erik Cernak's skate and pinballing through Vasilevskiy and into the net. However, the Lightning reobtained the lead with less than seven minutes left, as the Lightning worked the offensive zone, eventually leading to an Ondrej Palat one-timer that got past Kuemper for a 3–2 advantage. The Avalanche continued to press the Lightning. However, Tampa Bay held off any late attempts to win the game 3–2 and force a sixth game.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: Back in Tampa for game six, the Lightning struck first during the first period. As the Lightning were working the forecheck, a giveaway by Cale Makar brought an errant deflection to Steven Stamkos who put it five-hole through Darcy Kuemper. The Avalanche managed to tie the game in the second period during their offensive zone coverage which led to a delayed penalty on Tampa Bay. On the delayed penalty, Nathan MacKinnon's shot from the short side beat Andrei Vasilevskiy. Colorado then gained the lead when a 3–on–2 involving Josh Manson, MacKinnon, and Artturi Lehkonen resulted in a wrist shot by the latter to go up 2–1. With the lead the Avalanche continued to shoot at the Lightning goaltender while also maintaining defence. The Avalanche held on to claim a 2–1 victory to win their third Stanley Cup.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: Cale Makar was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player during the playoffs. He became the third defenceman to win the Norris Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy and Stanley Cup in the same year; equalling Bobby Orr and Nicklas Lidstrom in accomplishing this feat. Corey Perry became the first player in league history to be on the losing side of three consecutive Finals while playing for three different teams.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: Years indicated in boldface under the "Finals appearance" column signify that the player won the Stanley Cup in the given year.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: The Stanley Cup was presented to Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly following the Avalanche's 2–1 win in Game 6.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: These players were on the extended roster during the playoffs. None appeared in the playoffs. They received Stanley Cup rings, but did not qualify to have their names engraved on the Stanley Cup.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: In Canada, this was the eighth consecutive Stanley Cup Finals broadcast by Sportsnet and CBC Television in English, and TVA Sports in French. The series was also streamed on Sportsnet Now and Rogers NHL Live. Some stations in Sportsnet's sibling broadcast network Citytv also simulcast ESPN's coverage of the deciding Game 6 for simultaneous substitution purposes, similarly to how Canadian networks handled the 2019 NBA Finals.


title: 2022 Stanley Cup Finals

text: In the United States, the series was televised on ABC and streamed on ESPN+. This was the first year of a seven-year deal in which ABC/ESPN+ broadcasts the Finals in even years, alternating with TNT. With coverage on ABC, 2022 was the first time that the Finals were carried in their entirety on broadcast television since 1980 (under the previous broadcast deal with NBC, two games were exclusive to cable). ESPN's coverage drew the Finals' highest average viewership since 2019, with 4.6 million viewers.


Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States that dealt with whether owners of public accommodations can refuse certain services based on the First Amendment claims of free speech and free exercise of religion, and therefore be granted an exemption from laws ensuring non-discrimination in public accommodations—in particular, by refusing to provide creative services, such as making a custom wedding cake for the marriage of a gay couple, on the basis of the owner's religious beliefs.


title: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

text: The case dealt with Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, which refused to design a custom wedding cake for a gay couple based on the owner's religious beliefs. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission evaluated the case under the state's anti-discrimination law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. The commission found that the bakery had discriminated against the couple and issued specific orders for the bakery. Following appeals within the state, the Commission's decision against the bakery was affirmed, so the bakery took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.


text: In a 7–2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips's rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission's lack of religious neutrality.


text: In 2012, same-sex couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins from Colorado made plans to be lawfully married in Massachusetts and return to Colorado to celebrate with their family and friends. At that time the state constitution prohibited same-sex marriage in Colorado, though by 2014 the state had allowed same-sex marriages, and the Supreme Court of the United States would affirm that gay couples have the fundamental right to marry in "Obergefell v. Hodges" .


text: Craig and Mullins visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, in July 2012 to order a wedding cake for their return celebration. Masterpiece's owner Jack Phillips, who is a Christian, declined their cake request, informing the couple that he did not create wedding cakes for marriages of gay couples owing to his Christian religious beliefs, although the couple could purchase other baked goods in the store. Craig and Mullins promptly left Masterpiece without discussing with Phillips any of the details of their wedding cake. The following day, Craig's mother, Deborah Munn, called Phillips, who advised her that Masterpiece did not make wedding cakes for the weddings of gay couples because of his religious beliefs and because Colorado did not recognize same-sex marriage at the time.


text: While another bakery provided a cake to the couple, Craig and Mullins filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission under the state's public accommodations law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Colorado is one of twenty-one U.S. states that include sexual orientation as a protected class in their anti-discrimination laws. Craig and Mullins's complaint resulted in a lawsuit, "Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop". The case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs; the cake shop was ordered not only to provide cakes to same-sex marriages, but to "change its company policies, provide 'comprehensive staff training' regarding public accommodations discrimination, and provide quarterly reports for the next two years regarding steps it has taken to come into compliance and whether it has turned away any prospective customers".


text: Masterpiece appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals with the aid of Alliance Defending Freedom, and refused to comply with the state's orders, instead opting to remove themselves from the wedding cake business; Phillips claimed that this decision cost him 40% of his business. Alongside the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union represented Craig and Mullins during the appeals. The state's decision was upheld on the grounds that despite the nature of creating a custom cake, the act of making the cake was part of the expected conduct of Phillips's business, and not an expression of free speech nor free exercise of religion. The court distinguished its decision in "Craig" from another case, brought to the Commission by William Jack, in which three bakeries refused to create a cake for William Jack with the message "Homosexuality is a detestable sin. Leviticus 18:22", citing that in the latter, the bakeries had made other cakes for Christian customers and declined that order based on the offensive message rather than the customers' creed, whereas Masterpiece Cakeshop's refusal to provide Craig and Mullins with a wedding cake "was because of its opposition to same sex marriage which...is tantamount to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation".


text: Masterpiece Cakeshop petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for "certiorari" (review), under the case name "Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission", of the following question:


text: Both the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal, fearing that a Court decision in favor of the business would create a "gaping hole" in civil rights laws on the basis of religion. The final briefs at the certiorari stage were received in December 2016. The Court agreed to hear the case in the 2017 term and oral arguments were heard on December 5, 2017.


text: In further filings, Masterpiece requested that the Colorado anti-discrimination law be reviewed by the Supreme Court under strict scrutiny. It further identified that while the state's law is to assure that same-sex couples had access to the same services as heterosexual couples, the law goes too far in its enforcement, since Craig and Mullins were easily able to obtain a wedding cake from a different vendor in the state. Masterpiece further believed the anti-discrimination law can be used to selectively discriminate against religion, as the Commission has allowed bakers to refuse to provide cakes with anti-same-sex marriage messages on them, even though the Commission said these refusals were appropriate due to the offensiveness of the messages and not on the basis of religion. The State and the ACLU countered these points, stating the law was aimed only at conduct of a business, not their speech, and in cases like a wedding cake, "[no] reasonable observer would understand the Company's provision of a cake to a gay couple as an expression of its approval of the customer's marriage". They further argued that the cakeshop could provide catchall language to explain that any services they provide do not endorse any expressions of free speech associated with it, an allowance within the anti-discrimination law.


text: Around 100 legal briefs were filed by third parties, roughly equally split in supporting either side of the case. Many civil rights organizations filed briefs in support of Craig and Mullins, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the Civil Rights Forum, a group of plaintiff-side civil rights attorneys. The National Women's Law Center argued in its amicus brief that just as the Court compared the effects of race and sexual discrimination in "Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees", it should compare those harms to those created by sexual-orientation discrimination in this case.


text: Among those supporting Phillips included the United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration. While the Department asserts that anti-discrimination laws are necessary to prevent businesses that provide goods and services from discriminating, these laws cannot be used to compel a business into expressing speech they do not agree with, nor used to provide goods and services with such expressions without the ability for the business to assert they do not agree with those expressions. The brief was criticized by several organizations, including those that support LGBT rights, claiming the brief as a pattern of hostile actions by the Trump administration and fearing that a decision in favor of Masterpiece would enable such businesses to have a "license to discriminate".


text: Oral arguments for the plaintiffs were provided by Kristen Waggoner for the Alliance Defending Freedom, representing Phillips, and the Solicitor General of the United States Noel Francisco, presenting the federal government's case as amicus curiae in support of Masterpiece Cakeshop. The defendants' arguments were given by Colorado Solicitor General Frederick Yarger, on behalf of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and David D. Cole of the ACLU, on behalf of Craig and Mullins. Questions asked by the Justices attempted to determine where the bounds of a cake baker's rights and the rights of those soliciting his services would extend by considering several hypothetical situations involving the making of and selling custom cakes, including situations related to racial and gender-preference discrimination.


text: Experts believed the Supreme Court's opinions in the case would be divided, with the ultimate decision falling on the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has historically been a swing vote in his term. In his past case history, he has been a strong supporter of gay rights (having authored all of the landmark gay rights rulings by the Supreme Court: "Romer v. Evans" in 1996, "Lawrence v. Texas" in 2003, "United States v. Windsor" in 2013, and "Obergefell v. Hodges" in 2015), and a corporation's freedom of speech in his majority opinion for "Citizens United v. FEC" , and freedom of religion through his concurrence with the majority in "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc." .


text: The Court issued its ruling on June 4, 2018, ordering a reversal of the decision made by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The majority opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch. The opinion stated that although a baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, "might have his right to the free exercise of his religion limited by generally applicable laws", nevertheless, a State decision in an adjudication "in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself" is a factor violates the "State's obligation of religious neutrality" under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Kennedy's opinion stated that the Commission's review of Phillips's case exhibited hostility towards his religious views. The Commission compared Phillips's religious beliefs to defense of slavery or the Holocaust. Kennedy found such comparisons "inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law". Kennedy's opinion also cited the three exemptions the commission previously granted for the non-discrimination law arising from the William Jack complaints. The opinion also noted differences in handling previous exemptions as indicative of Commission hostility towards religious belief, rather than maintaining neutrality. Kennedy's opinion noted that he may have been inclined to rule in favor of the Commission if they had remained religiously neutral in their evaluation.


text: Justice Kagan wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Breyer, taking particular notice of the narrow grounds of the ruling. Justice Gorsuch also wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Alito. Both Kagan's and Gorsuch's concurrences considered how the Commission handled Masterpiece differently than prior exemption requests. Both agreed that the Commission exhibited hostility towards Phillips's religious beliefs and concurred with the reversal. Kagan cited as significant differences between prior Commission exemptions and the instant case. She posited the Commission could have ruled differently in the two situations if they had stayed religiously neutral. Gorsuch indicated the Commission should maintain consistency among similar cases.


text: Justice Clarence Thomas wrote another opinion, concurring in part and concurring in judgment, joined by Gorsuch. Thomas found that the majority opinion did not consider the free speech, free exercise or the anti-discrimination implications of the case, despite significant attention during oral arguments. Thomas opined support for Masterpiece, both on grounds of free speech and free exercise.


text: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Ginsburg believed that the Commission acted fairly in evaluating the case, saying "what critically differentiates them is the role the customer’s 'statutorily protected trait,' played in the denial of service".


text: The Court avoided ruling broadly on the intersection of anti-discrimination laws and rights to free exercise. Instead the court addressed both sides. State actors like the Colorado Civil Rights Commission on the one hand must ensure neutral and respectful consideration of claims for religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws which are made by people who exercise their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. However, this exemption won't apply broadly in the future because future disputes like the one in "Masterpiece" "must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market". The Supreme Court also specifically made it clear, on the other hand, that gay Americans are also entitled to strong defense rights. Justice Kennedy wrote: "[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths. Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law."


text: Kennedy's decision specifically noted the hostility towards Phillips made by the Commission as their reason to reverse the ruling, but because of the existence of this hostility in the current case, they could not rule on the broader issue regarding anti-discrimination law and the free exercise of religion. Kennedy stated that "[t]he outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market". Kennedy's decision affirmed that there remains protection of same-sex couples and gay rights which states can still enforce through anti-discrimination laws, a point also agreed to by Ginsburg's dissent. The general constitutionality of anti-discrimination laws to prevent discrimination against sexual orientation affirmed by the "Masterpiece" decision was reflected in lower courts that same week, in a case decided by the Arizona Court of Appeals, "Brush & Nib Studio v. Phoenix", which upheld the city of Phoenix's anti-discrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation. The Court of Appeals extensively quoted "Masterpiece" in affirming the Arizona Superior Court's prior decision.


text: The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Masterpiece, supported the Court's decision in finding that condemned the Commission's review of Phillips's case, stating that "Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours". The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the part of the decision affirming protection of gay rights, stating that the Court "reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against L.G.B.T. people". The decision was also welcomed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF's President and Director-Counsel, stated: "The narrow ruling [...] is based on the universal principle that constitutional claims must be heard in every instance before a neutral tribunal. More important was the affirmation of eight Justices that discrimination in public accommodations enjoys no First Amendment protection. This principle has long been an essential piece of the civil rights movement and established anti-discrimination law. This is particularly important today, in 2018, when people of color are still experiencing persistent and widespread discrimination while they shop, eat, or access other public spaces."


text: Another predominate case involving anti-discrimination laws and religious freedom that was in the court system during "Masterpiece" was the Arlene's Flowers lawsuit in Washington, with the issue over flower arrangements being provided for a same-sex wedding. Prior to the decision in "Masterpiece", a petition for writ of certiorari had been issued to the Supreme Court. Following the decision of "Masterpiece", the flower shop owner used that decision to assert that they were shown similar religious hostility, and requested their case to be reheard. On June 25, 2018, the Supreme Court dismissed the pending petition, and ordered that lower courts review the flower shop's case in a similar light as "Masterpiece". On review at the Washington State Supreme Court, the court ruled against Arlene's Flowers in June 2019 that there was no evidence of religious animus. Similarly, a case from Oregon, "Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries", had reached the Oregon Supreme Court before the Supreme Court heard "Masterpiece". The Oregon Supreme Court declined to overturn an anti-discrimination ruling made against a bakery by the Oregon Court of Appeals, with the baker petitioning the federal Supreme Court to hear the case. In June 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, and in a summary judgement, vacated the Appeals Court ruling and required the case be heard again in light of the decision on "Masterpiece".


text: "Masterpiece"s basis of evaluating statements of public officials to determine if there was religious hostility in evaluating cases arose in Justice Sotomayor's dissent in "Trump v. Hawaii", , which dealt with President Trump's travel ban against several nations which had a high Muslim population. While the majority ruled that the ban was within the President's powers and sent the case back to lower courts to rule on other matters, Sotomayor believed that the decision of "Masterpiece" should have been used to judge President Trump and his administration's statements that she believed showed hostility towards Muslims and would have not justified the ban.


text: Masterpiece Cakeshop became involved in a similar case in 2018, stemming from an incident in June 2017. The bakery refused to bake Autumn Scardina, a Colorado lawyer, a cake to celebrate her birthday, which would have had a pink interior and blue exterior. Phillips stated later that he refused to bake such a cake based on his Christian beliefs that a person does not get to choose their gender. Scardina complained to the Colorado Division of Civil Rights, which found in June 2018 sufficient evidence that the bakery discriminated against her transgender status, and ordered the parties into compulsory mediation. Phillips subsequently filed a lawsuit against the state in August 2018 to seek a permanent injunction to prevent the state from enforcing its anti-discrimination laws against him as well as punitive damages. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who is named as a defendant in the suit, expects that the case will require the Supreme Court to revisit its decision from "Masterpiece", as the previous ruling "did not address the basic issue" of religious freedom. A federal judge refused to dismiss Phillip's suit in January 2019, though did agree to remove Hickenlooper from the suit due to him no longer being governor.


text: In March 2019, the suit and countersuit between Phillips and the state were dropped, with the state believing that while the core issue on the intersection of discrimination against sexual orientation or gender identity and religious beliefs of service business remains in question, the specific case around Scardina was not the proper vehicle to answer those questions. The agreement allowed Scardina, should she want, to pursue her own civil action against Masterpiece. In June 2019, Scardina, represented by attorneys Paula Greisen and John McHugh, brought civil suit against Phillips in federal district court on the perceived discrimination. Greisen stated they felt the state did not represent Scardina's case well, thus taking action directly. Scardina brought a second lawsuit against Phillips in April 2020, waiting past the appeal deadline to file in a different court, for more than $100,000 in damages, fines, and attorney's fees. On June 15, 2021, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips had violated Colorado's anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a cake for Scardina and ordered him to pay a fine of $500. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the group representing Phillips, said it would appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, which was heard in October 2022.


text: The Supreme Court granted certiorari to "303 Creative LLC v. Elenis" in February 2022, which again dealt with Colorado's anti-discrimination laws as they apply to public businesses. The case concerns a Christian web designer who seeks to make wedding announcement websites for heterosexual couples only. She fears punishment under Colorado's anti-discrimination law and thus aims to block the law as a violation of her First Amendment rights.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: "Hymn for the Weekend" is a single by the British rock band Coldplay from their seventh studio album "A Head Full of Dreams" (2015), featuring uncredited vocals from American singer Beyoncé. It was written by the band's members (Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, and Chris Martin), while the production was handled by Rik Simpson, Avicii, Digital Divide, and Stargate. An indie R&B track, "Hymn for the Weekend" showcases the culture of India.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: "Hymn for the Weekend" has reached number six on the UK Singles Chart and also reached the top twenty in countries such as Switzerland, Ireland, France, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Spain. In the US, with the Seeb remix, the song reached number 25 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. A music video for the song was released on 29 January 2016 and features Coldplay in various cities in India, with Beyoncé performing in some scenes. It also featured Indian Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor in a brief role.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: The song was debuted on Annie Mac's BBC radio show on 30 November 2015. According to Berryman, lead singer Chris Martin originally wanted the song to be a party song with the lyrics "drinks on me, drinks on me", but his bandmates didn't think that would go well with their fans. Martin's longtime friend Beyoncé was asked to sing on the song, and she accepted the request.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: Martin corroborated Berryman's story about the band protesting him singing, "Drinks on me, drinks on me" in an interview with "The Wall Street Journal". According to Martin, the original kernel was that he "was listening to Flo Rida or something", and he thought, "it's such a shame that Coldplay could never have one of those late-night club songs, like "Turn Down for What". I thought I'd like to have a song called 'Drinks on Me' where you sit on the side of a club and buy everyone drinks because you're so fucking cool," Martin recalled. "I was chuckling about that, when this melody came, 'drinks on me, drinks on me', then the rest of the song came out. I presented it to the rest of the band and they said, 'We love this song, but there's no way you can sing "drinks on me."' So that changed into 'drink from me' and the idea of having an angelic person in your life. Then that turned into asking Beyoncé to sing on it."


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: "Hymn for the Weekend" is written in the key of C minor set in a time signature at a moderate tempo of 90 beats per minute.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: "Hymn For The Weekend" received generally positive reviews from critics. Jody Rosen of "Billboard" called it "the album's grooviest". Helen Brown of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote: "Beyoncé makes more of her appearance on 'Hymn for the Weekend', bringing her chunky harmonies and no-nonsense brass section to a peppy little excursion into indie R&B which opens with a paradisiacal fanfare and finds Martin dropping out of his falsetto autopilot into a more raw voice." Sarah Rodman of "The Boston Globe" wrote "... it's with the third track, 'Hymn for the Weekend', that the album truly lifts off on the wings of an angelic choir (including Beyoncé), a swaggering piano, and a euphoric, lightly funky track bolstering Martin's exclamations of feeling high."


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: In a mixed review, Carl Williot of Idolator wrote, "The Beyoncé-assisted 'Hymn for the Weekend' almost equals (the album's) energy, but it lacks the drama of 'Princess of China'", adding, that as a track featuring Beyoncé "you'd expect a show-stopping moment." He concluded "the guys sound like total goobers trying to do the club swagger thing, like a drunk dad doing the rap dance du jour at a wedding."


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: According to "The Times of India", the video was shot in October 2015 at various Indian cities including Worli Village, Mumbai, and Kolkata. The fort showcased at the start and in between is Fort Vasai in Vasai, Mumbai. Scenes were also shot at the Maratha Mandir theatre, which is known for showcasing a single film, "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge", for over 22 consecutive years. The video is themed on the Indian festival of Holi. The video was filmed by Ben Mor, and was released on 29 January 2016. The video features Beyoncé and Indian actress Sonam Kapoor.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: The video has over 1.7 billion views on YouTube , making it Coldplay's most-viewed music video, and the second-most viewed video for a song featuring the band, behind the Chainsmokers' lyric video for "Something Just Like This", which has 2 billion views.


title: Hymn for the Weekend

text: On 22 November 2016, the song was made available as downloadable content for the music video game "Rock Band 4".


title: Gullah language

text: Gullah (also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee) is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people (also called "Geechees" within the community), an African-American population living in coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia (including urban Charleston and Savannah) as well as extreme northeastern Florida and the extreme southeast of North Carolina.


title: Gullah language

text: Gullah is based on different varieties of English and languages of Central Africa and West Africa. Scholars have proposed a number of theories about the origins of Gullah and its development:


title: Gullah language

text: The Gullah people have several words of Niger-Congo and Bantu origin in their language that have survived to the present day, despite over four hundred years of slavery when African Americans were forced to speak English.


title: Gullah language

text: The vocabulary of Gullah comes primarily from English, but there are numerous Africanisms that exist in their language for which scholars have yet to produce detailed etymologies. Some of the African loanwords include: "cootuh" ("turtle"), "oonuh" ("you [plural]"), "nyam" ("eat"), "buckruh" ("white man"), "pojo" ("heron"), "swonguh" ("proud") and "benne" ("sesame").


title: Gullah language

text: The Gullahs’ English-based creole language is strikingly similar to Sierra Leone Krio of West Africa and contains such identical expressions as "bigyai" ("greedy"), "pantap" ("on top of"), "ohltu" ("both"), "tif" ("steal"), "yeys" ("ear"), and "swit" ("delicious"). Linguists observe that 25% of the Gullah language's vocabulary originated from Sierra Leone.


title: Gullah language

text: Songs and fragments of stories were traced to the Mende and Vai people, and simple counting in the Guinea/Sierra Leone dialect of the Fula people was also observed.


title: Gullah language

text: In the 1930s and 1940s, the linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner did a seminal study of the language based on field research in rural communities in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Turner found that Gullah is strongly influenced by African languages in its phonology, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and semantics. Turner identified over 300 loanwords from various languages of Africa in Gullah and almost 4,000 African personal names used by Gullah people. He also found Gullahs living in remote seaside settlements who could recite songs and story fragments and do simple counting in the Mende, Vai, and Fulani languages of West Africa.


title: Gullah language

text: In 1949, Turner published his findings in a classic work called "Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect" (). The fourth edition of the book was reprinted with a new introduction in 2002.


title: Gullah language

text: Before Turner's work, mainstream scholars viewed Gullah speech as substandard English, a hodgepodge of mispronounced words and corrupted grammar, which uneducated black people developed in their efforts to copy the speech of their English, Irish, Scottish and French Huguenot slave owners.


title: Gullah language

text: Turner's study was so well researched and detailed in its evidence of African influences in Gullah that academics soon changed their minds. After the book was published in 1949, scholars began coming to the region regularly to study African influences in the Gullah language and culture.


title: Gullah language

text: The Gullah people have a rich storytelling tradition that is strongly influenced by African oral traditions but also by their historical experience in America. Their stories include animal trickster tales about the antics of "Brer Rabbit", "Brer Fox" and "Brer Bear", "Brer Wolf", etc.; human trickster tales about clever and self-assertive slaves; and morality tales designed to impart moral teaching to children.


title: Gullah language

text: Several white American writers collected Gullah stories in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. The best collections were made by Charles Colcock Jones Jr. from Georgia and Albert Henry Stoddard from South Carolina. Jones, a Confederate officer during the Civil War, and Stoddard were both whites of the planter class who grew up speaking Gullah with the slaves (and later freedmen) on their families' plantations. Another collection was made by Abigail Christensen, a Northern woman whose parents came to the Low Country after the Civil War to assist the newly-freed slaves. Ambrose E. Gonzales, another writer of South Carolina planter-class background, also wrote original stories in 19th-century Gullah, based on Gullah literary forms; his works are well remembered in South Carolina today.


title: Gullah language

text: The linguistic accuracy of those writings has been questioned because of the authors' social backgrounds. Nonetheless, those works provide the best available information on Gullah, as it was spoken in its more conservative form in the 19th century.


title: Gullah language

text: Gullah is spoken by about 5,000 people in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. As of 2021, an estimated 300 people are native speakers. Although some scholars argue that Gullah has changed little since the 19th century and that most speakers have always been bilingual, it is likely that at least some decreolization has taken place. In other words, some African-influenced grammatical structures in Gullah a century ago are less common in the language today. Nonetheless, Gullah is still understood as a creole language and is certainly distinct from Standard American English.


title: Gullah language

text: For generations, outsiders stigmatized Gullah-speakers by regarding their language as a mark of ignorance and low social status. As a result, Gullah people developed the habit of speaking their language only within the confines of their own homes and local communities. That causes difficulty in enumerating speakers and assessing decreolization. It was not used in public situations outside the safety of their home areas, and many speakers experienced discrimination even within the Gullah community. Some speculate that the prejudice of outsiders may have helped to maintain the language. Others suggest that a kind of valorization or "covert prestige" remained for many community members and that the complex pride has insulated the language from obliteration.


title: Gullah language

text: US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was raised as a Gullah-speaker in coastal Pin Point, Georgia. When asked why he has little to say during hearings of the court, he told a high school student that the ridicule he received for his Gullah speech, as a young man, caused him to develop the habit of listening, rather than speaking, in public. Thomas's English-speaking grandfather raised him after the age of six in Savannah.


title: Gullah language

text: In recent years educated Gullah people have begun promoting use of Gullah openly as a symbol of cultural pride. In 2005, Gullah community leaders announced the completion of a translation of the New Testament into modern Gullah, a project that took more than 20 years to complete.


title: Gullah language

text: In 2017, Harvard University began offering Gullah/Geechee as a language class in its African Language Program. It is taught by Sunn m'Cheaux, a native speaker from South Carolina.


title: Gullah language

text: This story, called "Brer Lion an Brer Goat", was first published in 1888 by story collector Charles Colcock Jones Jr.:


title: Gullah language

text: Brer Lion bin a hunt, an eh spy Brer Goat duh leddown topper er big rock duh wuk eh mout an der chaw. Eh creep up fuh ketch um. Wen eh git close ter um eh notus um good. Brer Goat keep on chaw. Brer Lion try fuh fine out wuh Brer Goat duh eat. Eh yent see nuttne nigh um ceptin de nekked rock wuh eh duh leddown on. Brer Lion stonish. Eh wait topper Brer Goat. Brer Goat keep on chaw, an chaw, an chaw. Brer Lion cant mek de ting out, an eh come close, an eh say: "Hay! Brer Goat, wuh you duh eat?" Brer Goat skade wen Brer Lion rise up befo um, but eh keep er bole harte, an eh mek ansur: "Me duh chaw dis rock, an ef you dont leff, wen me done long um me guine eat you". Dis big wud sabe Brer Goat. Bole man git outer diffikelty way coward man lose eh life.


title: Gullah language

text: This is a literal translation into English following Gullah grammar, including verb tense and aspect, exactly as in the original:


title: Gullah language

text: Brer Lion was hunting, and he spied Brer Goat lying down on top of a big rock working his mouth and chewing. He crept up to catch him. When he got close to him, he watched him good. Brer Goat kept on chewing. Brer Lion tried to find out what Brer Goat was eating. He didn't see anything near him except the naked rock which he was lying down on. Brer Lion was astonished. He waited for Brer Goat. Brer Goat kept on chewing, and chewing, and chewing. Brer Lion couldn't make the thing out, and he came close, and he said: "Hey! Brer Goat, what are you eating?" Brer Goat was scared when Brer Lion rose up before him, but he kept a bold heart, and he made (his) answer: "I am chewing this rock, and if you don't leave me (alone), when I am done with it I will eat you". This big word saved Brer Goat. A bold man gets out of difficulty where a cowardly man loses his life.


title: Gullah language

text: Now Jedus been bon een Betlem town, een Judea, jurin de same time wen Herod been king. Atta Jedus been bon, some wise man dem dat study bout de staa dem come ta Jerusalem fom weh dey been een de east. 2An dey aks say, "Weh de chile da, wa bon fa be de Jew people king? We beena see de staa wa tell bout um een de east, an we come fa woshup um op." Wen King Herod yeh dat, e been opsot fa true. An ebrybody een Jerusalem been opsot too. He call togeda all de leada dem ob de Jew priest dem an de Jew Law teacha dem. E aks um say. "Weh de Messiah gwine be bon at?" Dey tell King Herod say, "E gwine be bon een Betlem town een Judea. Cause de prophet write say [...]"


title: Gullah language

text: Therefore when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of king Herod, lo! astronomers, came from the east to Jerusalem, and said, Where is he, that is born [the] king of Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. But king Herod heard, and was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And he gathered together all the princes of priests, and scribes of the people, and inquired of them, where Christ should be born. And they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by a prophet [...]


title: Gullah language

text: The phrase "Kumbaya" ("Come By Here"), taken from the song of the same name, is likely of Gullah origin.


title: Gullah language

text: Gullah resembles other English-based creole languages spoken in West Africa and the Caribbean Basin, including Krio of Sierra Leone, Bahamian Creole, Jamaican Patois, Bajan Creole, Trinidadian Creole, Tobagonian Creole, Sranan Tongo, Guyanese Creole, and Belizean Creole. Those languages are speculated to use English as a lexifier (most of their vocabularies are derived from English) and that their syntax (sentence structure) is strongly influenced by African languages, but research by Salikoko Mufwene and others suggests that nonstandard Englishes may have also influenced the syntactical features of Gullah (and other creoles).


title: Gullah language

text: Gullah is most closely related to Afro-Seminole Creole, which is spoken in scattered Black Seminole communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico. The Black Seminoles' ancestors were Gullahs who escaped from slavery in coastal South Carolina and Georgia in the 18th and 19th centuries and fled into the Florida wilderness. They emigrated from Florida after the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Their modern descendants in the West speak a conservative form of Gullah that resembles the language of 19th-century plantation slaves.


title: Gullah language

text: There is debate among linguists on the relationship between Gullah and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). There are some that postulate a Gullah-like "plantation creole" that was the origin of AAVE. Others cite different British dialects of English as having had more influence on the structure of AAVE.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The General Electric GE9X is a high-bypass turbofan developed by GE Aviation exclusively for the Boeing 777X. It first ran on the ground in April 2016 and first flew on March 13, 2018; it powered the 777-9's maiden flight in early 2020. It received its Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) type certificate on September 25, 2020. Derived from the General Electric GE90 with a larger fan, advanced materials like ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), and higher bypass and compression ratios, it was designed to improve fuel efficiency by 10% compared to the GE90. It is rated at of thrust, which is 5,000 lbf (20 kN) less than the GE90 highest thrust variant, the GE90-115 rated at .


title: General Electric GE9X

text: In February 2012, GE announced studies on a more efficient derivative of the GE90, calling it the GE9X, to power both the -8/9 variants of the new Boeing 777X. It was to feature the same fan diameter as the GE90-115B with thrust decreased by to a new rating of per engine. The engine for the 777-8X was to be derated to .


title: General Electric GE9X

text: In 2013, the fan diameter was increased by to . In 2014, thrust was increased slightly from and the fan diameter was increased by to .


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The first engine was expected to be ground-tested in 2016, with flight testing to begin in 2017 and certification happening in 2018. Because of the delays, the first flight test occurred in March 2018, with certification expected in late 2019.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The first engine to test (FETT) completed its first run in April 2016. This engine completed 375 cycles in 335 hours run-time, which validated the engine design in terms of aerodynamic performance, mechanical system behaviour and secondary air system heat management.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The GE9X conducted icing tests in Winter 2017. The FETT was used for ground cold weather testing in natural icing conditions such as ground fog; minor design changes using additive manufacturing were made within one month. Icing certification and evaluation finished during the 2017-2018 winter at Winnipeg, Manitoba.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: Simulated high-altitude conditions were used to test the GE9X for ice crystal icing (core icing) which was an issue for the GEnx. This testing improved the understanding of core icing as well as the more familiar rime ice. A design change required for the GEnx was the addition of bypass doors between the booster and high-pressure compressor which open into the airflow path to reduce the chance of ice crystals entering the core.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: Design changes between FETT and second engine to test (SETT) addressed improvements required to meet efficiency goals: the minimum area in the duct between the HP turbine outlet and the LP turbine inlet was altered to set the operating line of the compressor, turbine and fan. The tip clearance at the front of the HP compressor was modified as a result of early running experience. SETT testing started on May 16, 2017, at Peebles, Ohio, 13 months after FETT; it was the first engine built to the finalized production standard for certification. During the FAA 150 hr block test, the variable stator vane (VSV) lever arm failed and its redesign led to a 3–month delay. Sett was followed by four more test engines by May 2018.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The certification program began in May 2017. Eight additional engines were involved for certification, as well as one for ETOPS certification installed in the aircraft nacelle. A core engine was tested in the Evendale, Ohio, altitude test cell to check blade vibrations and engines 003, 004, and 007 were assembled in 2017, and the fourth engine was used for flight testing later in the year from Victorville, California. In 2018 ten compliance engines (including two spare engines) were needed for the four 777-9 flight-test aircraft. Type certification was planned for the fourth quarter of 2018.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: On November 10, 2017, a GE9X engine reached a record thrust of in Peebles, a new Guinness World Record breaking the GE90-115B record set in 2002. The block test engine ran at its operational limits, at triple red-line conditions: maximum fan speed, maximum core speed, and maximum exhaust gas temperature. Icing tests started in Winnipeg at the end of 2017. The initial 777X flight-test engines were shipped in 2018 for an initial 777-9 flight in early 2019. A quarter of the certification testing was done by May 2018: icing, crosswind/inlet distortion, inlet distortion , fan and booster blade vibrations, turbine blade vibrations and thermal survey.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: As it was larger than the GE90, the GE9X could only be installed under the wing on the Boeing 747-400 with its larger main gear struts and bigger tires and not the previous 747-100 GE testbed. The engine was tilted 5° more than the GE CF6. Boeing built a specially designed pylon for the testbed. Suspended on a strut, the fourth engine of the program began flight testing at the end of 2017. The engine with a fan diameter of is installed in a diameter nacelle, with of ground clearance. The engine and nacelle weighed with its new pylon and wing strengthening, compared to for the CF6-80C2s and its pylon.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: In February 2018, the GE9X's first flight was delayed by problems discovered in the HPC variable stator vanes (VSV) lever arms. Also a routine A Check on the 747 testbed CF6 engines discovered fan-case corrosion and HP turbine airfoils on allowable limits. It first flew on March 13 with the previous design of the VSV lever arm. In early May, the first flight test phase of two was completed after 18 flights and 110 hours of run time: the GE9X high-altitude envelope was explored and its cruise performance evaluated. the second phase was scheduled to begin in the third quarter.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: By October 2018, half of the certification was completed, and eight development engines were used, mostly in Peebles, Ohio: #1 was stored; a fan blade was deliberately separated from the fan hub of #2 at takeoff thrust for the blade-out test; #3 was used for crosswind ground testing and cyclic and load testing of the thrust reverser cascade assembly; #4 explored boundaries of the flight envelope such as low altitudes; #5 ran an endurance test with rotors deliberately unbalanced to make the engine shake at the vibration limits allowed in service, a requirement for ETOPS certification; #6 did ingestion tests later in 2018; after LP turbine over-temperature tests, #7 did a second icing test phase in Winnipeg, Manitoba; #8 did the triple redline FAA 150 h endurance test. Eight compliance engines, plus two spares, were required for 777-9 flight testing.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: A second phase, of 18 flights, began on December 10 to evaluate the engine control software and hot-and-high performance and lasted until the first quarter of 2019 before FAA certification the same year. By then water ingestion, crosswind, blade-out, hailstone, bird ingestion and block or endurance testing had been completed. Flight tests were based in Victorville, California, and ranged as far as Seattle, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Fairbanks, Alaska, and Yuma, Arizona.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: By January 4, 2019, eight test flights and 55 hours of run time had been completed. At the end of January, the turbine case and rear frame strut were damaged during the blade out test and relevant components were redesigned. In early May, the flight test program was completed after 320 hours run time, during which high-altitude cruise fuel burn was established. Engines were modified to a final certifiable configuration standard before the maiden flight of the 777X, delayed beyond the previously expected June 26 by a stator problem at the front of the 11-stage high-pressure compressor. Before certification, final tests included a full durability block test, replacing the usual "triple redline" test at maximum EGT and both rotor speeds, as modern high-bypass ratio engines cannot achieve all maximum conditions near sea level. The high-pressure compressor stator redesign delayed engine certification into autumn, which delayed the 777X first flight until January 2020.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: On January 25, 2020, the GE9X had its first flight on the 777X, flying for 3 hours and 52 minutes, before landing at Boeing Field.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: On September 28, GE announced its FAA type certificate, as eight test engines completed 8,000 cycles and 5,000 hours of running.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: ETOPS approval needed 3,000 ground-test cycles to be completed as a requirement for entry into service.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The GE9X increases fuel efficiency by 10% over the GE90. Its 61:1 overall pressure ratio should help provide a 5% lower thrust specific fuel consumption (TSFC) than the XWB-97 with maintenance costs comparable to the GE90-115B. The initial thrust of will be followed by derated variants. GE invested more than $2 billion for its development. Its nacelle is wide.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: Most of the efficiency increase comes from the better propulsion efficiency of the higher-bypass-ratio fan. The bypass ratio is planned for 10:1. The fan is housed in diameter case. It has 16 blades, whereas the GE90 has 22 and the GEnx has 18. This makes the engine lighter, and allows the low pressure (LP) fan and booster to spin faster to better match its speed with the LP turbine. The fan blades feature steel leading edges and glass-fibre trailing edges to better absorb bird strikes with more flexibility than carbon fiber. Fourth generation carbon fiber composite materials, comprising the bulk of the fan blades, make them lighter, thinner, stronger, and more efficient. Using a composite fan case will also reduce weight.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The high pressure (HP) compressor is up to 2% more efficient. As the GE90 fan left little room to improve the bypass ratio, GE looked for additional efficiency by upping the overall pressure ratio from 40 to 60, focusing on boosting the high-pressure core's ratio from 19:1 to 27:1 by using 11 compressor stages instead of 9 or 10, and a third-generation, twin-annular pre-swirl (TAPS) combustor instead of the previous dual annular combustor. Able to endure hotter temperatures, ceramic matrix composites (CMC) are used in two combustor liners, two nozzles, and the shroud up from the CFM International LEAP stage 2 turbine shroud. CMCs are not used for the first-stage turbine blades, which have to endure extreme heat and centrifugal forces. These are improvements planned for the next iteration of engine technology.


title: General Electric GE9X

text: The first-stage HP turbine shroud, the first- and second-stage HP turbine nozzles and the inner and outer combustor linings are made from CMCs, only static components, operating hotter than nickel alloys with some cooling. CMCs have twice the strength and one-third the weight of metal. The compressor is designed with 3D aerodynamics and its first five stages are blisks, combined bladed-disk. The combustor is lean burning for greater efficiency and 30% NOx margin to CAEP/8. The compressor and high pressure turbine are made from powdered metal. The low-pressure turbine airfoils made of titanium aluminide (TiAl) are stronger, lighter, and more durable than nickel-based parts. 3D printing is used to manufacture parts that would otherwise be impossible to make using traditional manufacturing processes. CMCs need 20% less cooling.


title: Troll 2

text: Troll 2 is a 1990 horror film directed by Claudio Fragasso (under the pseudonym Drake Floyd) and starring Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Connie McFarland, and Jason Wright. Although produced under the title Goblins, the American distributors marketed it as a sequel to the 1986 horror film "Troll"; however, the two films have no connection, and this film features no trolls but goblins instead. The plot concerns a family pursued by vegetarian goblins who seek to transform them into plants so that they can eat them.


title: Troll 2

text: Production was rife with difficulties, largely due to the language barrier between the Italian-speaking crew and English-speaking cast, and producer Joe D'Amato's approach to low-budget filmmaking. The resulting film is considered by some as one of the worst movies ever made. In subsequent years, the film gained a cult following and garnered a large fanbase. Though it was generally viewed as poorly made horror, the filmmakers stated that it was "always intended to be a comic film". In 2009, Stephenson, the child star of the film, directed a critically acclaimed documentary about its production and subsequent popularity, humorously titled "Best Worst Movie".


title: Troll 2

text: Michael Waits has always dreamed of being a farmer and arranges a home exchange vacation in which he and his family will move into a house in the rural farming community of Nilbog ("goblin" spelled backwards) for a month. The night before the family is scheduled to leave, Michael's son Joshua is contacted by the ghost of his dead grandfather, Seth, warning him that vegetarian goblins want to transform him and his family into plants so that they can eat them. Seth tells Joshua that goblins can transform people into plants by feeding them poisoned food or drink.


title: Troll 2

text: Meanwhile, Joshua's sister, Holly, receives a visit from her boyfriend Elliot Cooper. Holly accuses Elliot of being a homosexual since he seems to prefer spending time with his male friends. Elliot promises to show his devotion by accompanying the family on vacation.


title: Troll 2

text: The next morning, Elliot fails to arrive and the family leaves without him; they encounter him en route to Nilbog, riding in an RV with his friends Arnold, Drew, and Brent. Outside of Nilbog, Seth appears as a hitchhiker, who warns Joshua that Nilbog is the kingdom of the goblins and that if his family eats anything while they are there, they will be transformed into plants. The family disbelieves Joshua's warnings and continues on to Nilbog, where they meet their strange and aloof exchange family, the Presents. There, Joshua sets about destroying all of the food the family finds or acquires, such as by urinating over a feast prepared for them, with the help of Seth's ghost.


title: Troll 2

text: Arnold goes for a walk outside of Nilbog and encounters a girl being chased by goblins. When Arnold approaches them and insults them, they respond by throwing a spear into his chest. They flee to a chapel in the woods, where they encounter the goblins' queen, druid witch Creedence Leonore Gielgud, who uses the "Stonehenge Magic Stone" to give the goblins power. Creedence tricks them into drinking a magic potion that dissolves the girl into vegetable matter which the goblins eat, a horrifying scene witnessed by Arnold that prompts him to scream helplessly only to be transformed into a tree.


title: Troll 2

text: The following morning, Michael and Joshua venture into town to buy some food, as there is none in their holiday home. When in town, they find the general store closed, and Michael falls asleep on a bench. Joshua enters the local church and eavesdrops on a goblin church sermon, which bewails the "evils" of eating meat. The parishioners capture him after seeing his skateboard roll into the church and attempt to force-feed him poisonous ice cream; Michael walks in on the scene and becomes suspicious, taking Joshua home.


title: Troll 2

text: Later, Drew goes to the town because there is no food or drinks in the RV. The sheriff Gene Freak takes him in his car and gives him a green hamburger. When he arrives in the town, Drew goes to the store and the owner offers him poisonous Nilbog milk. Feeling dizzy, he goes to a chapel and finds Arnold, who has transformed into a tree. Drew drags him out, but Creedence appears. She knocks him out and chainsaws Arnold into pieces. Drew is then killed off-screen.


title: Troll 2

text: At the house, the family discovers that the townspeople have prepared them a surprise party to apologize for the events at the church. Joshua attempts to make contact with Seth, only for Creedence to appear in goblin form through the mirror and attack Joshua. Seth's ghost appears and chops her hand off with an ax. Creedence returns to her chapel, where she transforms herself into a beautiful woman in revealing clothes; she then travels to Elliot's RV, where she seduces Brent and drowns him in popcorn.


title: Troll 2

text: During the party, Seth and Joshua try to cause a distraction using a molotov cocktail, but the Priest captures them, takes the cocktail, and recites a spell that banishes Seth's soul to hell. However, before he vanishes, Seth summons a bolt of lightning from the sky, which ignites the cocktail and kills the Priest in a fiery explosion. When Michael extinguishes his burning corpse, his true Goblin form is revealed, and the villagers turn on the Waits, revealing themselves all as Goblins. The Waits and Elliot then retreat to the house, where the villagers surround them and hold them hostage.


title: Troll 2

text: Joshua, Elliot, Holly, Michael, and Diana hold a séance to communicate with Seth, who returns from the dead and tells them that he can retain a physical form for exactly ten minutes before he has to return to the afterlife. Seth gives Joshua a paper bag containing a "secret weapon" to use against the goblins. The goblins break into the house and transport Joshua to Creedence's chapel, where Joshua opens the bag, revealing a "double-decker bologna sandwich". He eats the sandwich, making his body poisonous to the goblins; he then touches the Stonehenge Stone, along with his family and Elliot, which destroys Creedence and all of the Goblins present.


title: Troll 2

text: The family returns home, where Joshua's mother is seen eating food from the refrigerator. The food, unknown to the family, has been poisoned by the family of goblins which is very likely to be the Presents family, who took over their home during their exchange in the country. Joshua then walks in on a group of goblins eating his now-dead mother's green, bloated torso off of the kitchen counter and offering him a bite. Joshua screams in horror at the end.


title: Troll 2

text: The script—originally titled "Goblins"—began as a way for director Claudio Fragasso's wife, Rosella Drudi, to express her frustration with several of her friends becoming vegetarians, which she claimed "pissed [her] off". The film was produced by Eduard Sarlui and Joe D'Amato, an Italian exploitation film director notorious for his stated view that the profitability of films was more important than their entertainment value. D'Amato worked under the pseudonym "David Hills". In keeping with D'Amato's production philosophy, many components of the film were created for little to no money, such as the costumes that were designed by D'Amato's longtime friend and frequent collaborator Laura Gemser.


title: Troll 2

text: The film was shot on location in Morgan and Porterville, Utah in the summer of 1989; a large "M" erected in the mountains outlying Morgan is visible in some shots. The production crew was made up almost entirely of non-English-speaking Italians brought to America by Fragasso; the only fluent English speaker on set was Gemser. Fragasso and his crew largely relied on a broken pidgin English to communicate with the cast, who recalled not being able to understand much of what went on.


title: Troll 2

text: The cast had few experienced actors and was primarily assembled from residents of nearby towns who responded to an open casting call, hoping to win roles as extras. George Hardy was a dentist with no acting experience who showed up for fun, only to be given one of the film's largest speaking roles. Don Packard, who played the store owner, was actually a patient at a nearby mental hospital, and was cast for—and subsequently filmed—his role while on a day trip. He later recalled that he had smoked an enormous amount of marijuana prior to filming, had no idea what was happening around him, and that his disturbed "performance" in the film was not acting.


title: Troll 2

text: Drudi and Fragasso have stated that their intentions have been misunderstood, as the strongly criticized aspects of the film are intentionally comic and exaggerated, such as Creedence's theatrical acting or the preacher's monologue on eating meat.


title: Troll 2

text: As neither Fragasso nor Drudi spoke fluent English, the shooting script was written in the same broken dialect in which they both spoke; the cast would later recall that the script was only given to them scene-by-scene and that they had difficulty understanding their dialogue as written. Some of the cast members offered to correct their lines to sound more grammatically and syntactically correct but said that Fragasso demanded they deliver their lines verbatim. Despite the majority of the cast attesting to the same story, Fragasso has vehemently denied their version of events, and once reacted angrily to a panel discussion being conducted by the cast, calling the actors "dogs" (Italian for "bad actors") and accusing them of lying about their experiences.


title: Troll 2

text: The film's soundtrack was composed by Carlo Maria Cordio and was played entirely on Roland D-50 and Korg M1 synthesizers, consisting of a few brief themes repeated over and over, including a sped-up M1 demo track. In 2017, the complete score was released on CD, LP and cassette by Lunaris Records.


title: Troll 2

text: "Troll 2" is widely considered to be of exceptionally poor quality, and has come to be regarded by the public as one of the worst films ever made. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 5% based on , with a weighted average rating of 2.4 out of 10. The critical consensus simply reads "Oh my God" in reference to the film's most famous (or infamous) scene. The acting and dialogue have become notorious for their camp value. The scene in which Darren Ewing's character states that he will be eaten next has become an Internet meme, often appearing in videos alongside the "Garbage Day" meme from "Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2". In terms of audience participation, "Troll 2" has been compared to the film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and the two films have been screened together.


title: Troll 2

text: In 2007, a "Troll 2"-themed event named the "Nilbog Invasion" took place in Morgan, Utah, where part of the film had been shot.


title: Troll 2

text: In 2003, the film was released on DVD by MGM in a Dual Layer version, packaged with the first 1986 "Troll" film, under the title "Troll/Troll²". MGM rereleased "Troll 2" on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on October 5, 2010 in honor of the 20th anniversary of the film's release. Scream Factory released a double feature Blu-ray of "Troll" and "Troll 2" on November 17, 2015. The first 5,000 copies included a DVD of "Best Worst Movie", the documentary about the production and legacy of "Troll 2".


title: Troll 2

text: The child star of "Troll 2", Michael Stephenson, directed "Best Worst Movie", a documentary about the film and its cult status. The film debuted on March 14, 2009, at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas, as part of the South by Southwest film festival. Several cast members from "Troll 2" attended the premiere. The screening was followed by a showing of "Troll 2". The documentary also screened at major film festivals across the world including the AFI Fest and Sheffield Doc/Fest. A screening at the Tower Theater in Salt Lake City included appearances from much of the cast.


title: Troll 2

text: The film won Best Feature Documentary (as voted by the official jury), as well as the Audience Choice for Best Documentary Feature at the 11th annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in September 2009. It was released in spring 2010 and distributed by Area 23 A.


title: Troll 2

text: ABC's "Nightline" ran a segment on "Troll 2" and "Best Worst Movie" in May 2010, including interviews with Hardy and Stephenson.


title: Troll 2

text: After "Troll 2" was released on home video, some regional distributors continued to build on the success of the previous "Troll", distributing two other films as sequels: "The Crawlers" (also known as "Troll 3" or "Contamination .7") and "Quest for the Mighty Sword". The latter film, featuring a hobgoblin using the same goblin suit from "Troll 2", was also known as "Troll 3" (in Germany, it was released as "Troll – Das Schwert der Macht" and "Troll – Teil 3").


title: Troll 2

text: At the Nilbog Invasion, Fragasso and writer Drudi announced plans for a sequel to "Troll 2", and the audience was polled for their opinion on what the film should be called. The winning title was "Troll 2: Part 2". Fragasso later asked Stephenson to appear in the sequel. However, in 2009, Fragasso said he was no longer interested in directing the film.


title: Troll 2

text: The official sequel to "Troll 2" was finally released for rent on Amazon Prime Video and DVD/Blu-ray on October 6, 2020, entitled "Under ConTroll". This film sees George Hardy reprise his role as Michael Waits and stars Eva Habermann as Vanessa Majer, a woman who is possessed by a troll. The film was directed by Eric Dean Hordes, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alexander König and Simon Hauschild.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Sid Meier's Civilization is a 1991 turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published by MicroProse. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC, and has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The player is tasked with leading an entire human civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and military. The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates and research priorities. The player's civilization is in competition with other computer-controlled civilizations, with which the player can enter diplomatic relationships that can either end in alliances or lead to war.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: "Civilization" was designed by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley following the successes of "Silent Service", "Sid Meier's Pirates!" and "Railroad Tycoon". "Civilization" has sold 1.5 million copies since its release, and is considered one of the most influential computer games in history due to its establishment of the 4X genre. In addition to its commercial and critical success, the game has been deemed pedagogically valuable due to its presentation of historical relationships. A multiplayer remake, Sid Meier's CivNet, was released for the PC in 1995. "Civilization" was followed by several sequels starting with "Civilization II", with similar or modified scenarios.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: "Civilization" is a turn-based single-player strategy game. The player takes on the role of the ruler of a civilization, starting with one (or occasionally two) settler units, and attempts to build an empire in competition with two to seven other civilizations. The game requires a fair amount of micromanagement (although less than other simulation games). Along with the larger tasks of exploration, warfare and diplomacy, the player has to make decisions about where to build new cities, which improvements or units to build in each city, which advances in knowledge should be sought (and at what rate), and how to transform the land surrounding the cities for maximum benefit. From time to time the player's towns may be harassed by barbarians, units with no specific nationality and no named leader. These threats only come from huts, unclaimed land or sea, so that over time and turns of exploration, there are fewer and fewer places from which barbarians will emanate.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Before the game begins, the player chooses which historical or current civilization to play. In contrast to later games in the "Civilization" series, this is largely a cosmetic choice, affecting titles, city names, musical heralds, and color. The choice does affect their starting position on the "Play on Earth" map, and thus different resources in one's initial cities, but has no effect on starting position when starting a random world game or a customized world game. The player's choice of civilization also prevents the computer from being able to play as that civilization or the other civilization of the same color, and since computer-controlled opponents display certain traits of their civilizations this affects gameplay as well. The Aztecs are both fiercely expansionist and generally extremely wealthy, for example. Other civilizations include the Americans, the Mongols, and Romans. Each civilization is led by a famous historical figure, such as Mahatma Gandhi for India.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: The scope of "Civilization" is larger than most other games. The game begins in 4000 BC, before the Bronze Age, and can last through to AD 2100 (on the easiest setting) with Space Age and "future technologies". At the start of the game there are no cities anywhere in the world: the player controls one or two settler units, which can be used to found new cities in appropriate sites (and those cities may build other settler units, which can go out and found new cities, thus expanding the empire). Settlers can also alter terrain, build improvements such as mines and irrigation, build roads to connect cities, and later in the game they can construct railroads which offer unlimited movement.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: As time advances, new technologies are developed; these technologies are the primary way in which the game changes and grows. At the start, players choose from advances such as pottery, the wheel, and the alphabet to, near the end of the game, nuclear fission and spaceflight. Players can gain a large advantage if their civilization is the first to learn a particular technology (the secrets of flight, for example) and put it to use in a military or other context. Most advances give access to new units, city improvements or derivative technologies: for example, the chariot unit becomes available after the wheel is developed, and the granary building becomes available to build after pottery is developed. The whole system of advancements from beginning to end is called the technology tree, or simply the Tech tree; this concept has been adopted in many other strategy games. Since only one tech may be "researched" at any given time, the order in which technologies are chosen makes a considerable difference in the outcome of the game and generally reflects the player's preferred style of gameplay.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Players can also build "Wonders of the World" in each of the epochs of the game, subject only to obtaining the prerequisite knowledge. These wonders are important achievements of society, science, culture and defense, ranging from the Pyramids and the Great Wall in the Ancient age, to Copernicus' Observatory and Magellan's Expedition in the middle period, up to the Apollo program, the United Nations, and the Manhattan Project in the modern era. Each wonder can only be built once in the world, and requires a lot of resources to build, far more than most other city buildings or units. Wonders provide unique benefits to the controlling civilization. For example, Magellan's Expedition increases the movement rate of naval units. Wonders typically affect either the city in which they are built (for example, the Colossus), every city on the continent (for example, J.S. Bach's Cathedral), or the civilization as a whole (for example, Darwin's Voyage). Some wonders are made obsolete by new technologies.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: The game can be won by conquering all other civilizations or by winning the space race by reaching the star system of Alpha Centauri.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: British designer Francis Tresham released his "Civilization" board game in 1980 under his company Hartland Trefoil. Avalon Hill had obtained the rights to publish it in the United States in 1981.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: There were at least two attempts to make a computerized version of Tresham's game prior to 1990. Danielle Bunten Berry planned to start work on the game after completing "M.U.L.E." in 1983, and again in 1985, after completing "The Seven Cities of Gold" at Electronic Arts. In 1983 Bunten and producer Joe Ybarra opted to first do "Seven Cities of Gold". The success of "Seven Cities" in 1985 in turn led to a sequel, "Heart of Africa". Bunten never returned to the idea of "Civilization". Don Daglow, designer of "Utopia", the first simulation game, began work programming a version of "Civilization" in 1987. He dropped the project, however, when he was offered an executive position at Brøderbund, and never returned to the game.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Sid Meier and Bill Stealey co-founded MicroProse in 1982 to develop flight simulators and other military strategy video games based on Stealey's past experiences as a United States Air Force pilot. Around 1989, Meier wanted to expand his repertoire beyond these types of games, as just having finished "F-19 Stealth Fighter" (1988, 1990), he said "Everything I thought was cool about a flight simulator had gone into that game." He took to heart the success of the new god game genre in particular "SimCity" (1989) and "Populous" (1989). Specifically with "SimCity", Meier recognized that video games could still be entertaining based on building something up. By then, Meier was not an official employee of MicroProse but worked under contract where the company paid him upfront for game development, a large payment on delivery of the game, and additional royalties on each game of his sold.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: MicroProse had hired a number of Avalon Hill game designers, including Bruce Shelley. Among other works, Shelley had been responsible for adapting the railroad-based "1829" board game developed by Tresham into "". Shelley had joined MicroProse finding that the board game market was weakening in contrast to the video game market, and initially worked on "F-19 Stealth Fighter". Meier recognized Shelley's abilities and background in game design and took him on as personal assistant designer to brainstorm new game ideas. The two initially worked on ideas for "Covert Action", but had put these aside when they came up with the concepts for "Railroad Tycoon" (1990), based loosely on the "1829"/"1830" board games. "Railroad Tycoon" was generally well received at its release, but the title did not fit within the nature of flight simulators and military strategy from MicroProse's previous catalog. Meier and Shelley had started a sequel to "Railroad Tycoon" shortly after its release, but Stealey canceled the project.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: One positive aspect both had taken from "Railroad Tycoon" was the idea of multiple smaller systems working together at the same time and the player having to manage them. Both Meier and Shelley recognized that the complex interactions between these systems led players to "make a lot of interesting decisions", and that ruling a whole civilization would readily work well with these underlying systems. Some time later, both discussed their love of the original "Empire" computer games, and Meier challenged Shelley to give him ten things he would change about "Empire"; Shelley provided him with twelve. Around May 1990, Meier presented Shelley with a 5-1/4" floppy disk which contained the first prototype of "Civilization" based on their past discussions and Shelley's list.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Meier described his development process as sculpting with clay. His prototype took elements from "Empire", "Railroad Tycoon", "SimCity" and the "Civilization" board game. This initial version of this game was a real-time simulation, with the player defining zones for their population to grow similar to zoning in "SimCity". Meier and Shelley went back and forth with this, with Shelley providing suggestions based on his playthrough and acting as the game's producer, and Meier coding and reworking the game to address these points, and otherwise without involvement of other MicroProse staff. During this period, Stealey and the other managers became concerned that this game did not fit MicroProse's general catalog as strategy computer games had not yet proven successful. A few months into the development, Stealey requested them to put the project on hold and complete "Covert Action", after which they could go back to their new game. Meier and Shelley completed "Covert Action" which was published in 1990.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: Once "Covert Action" was released, Meier and Shelley returned to the prototype. The time away from the project allowed them to recognize that the real-time aspect was not working well, and reworked the game to become turn-based and dropped the zoning aspect, a change that Meier described as "like tossing the clay in the trash and getting a new lump". They incorporated elements of city management and military aspect from "Empire", including creating individual military units as well as settler units that replaced the functionality of the zoning approach. Meier felt adding military and combat to the game was necessary as "The game really isn't about being civilized. The competition is what makes the game fun and the players play their best. At times, you have to make the player uncomfortable for the good of the player". Meier also opted to include a technology tree that would help to open the game to many more choices to the player as it continued, creating a non-linear experience. Meier felt players would be able to use the technology tree to adopt a style of play and from which they could use technologies to barter with the other opponents. While the game relies on established recorded history, Meier admitted he did not spend much time in research, usually only to assure the proper chronology or spellings; Shelley noted that they wanted to design for fun, not accuracy, and that "Everything we needed was pretty much available in the children’s section of the library."


title: Civilization (video game)

text: "Computer Gaming World" reported in 1994 that "Sid Meier has stated on numerous occasions that he emphasizes the 'fun parts' of a simulation and throws out the rest". Meier described the process as "Add another bit [of clay]—no, that went too far. Scrape it off". He eliminated the potential for any civilization to fall on its own, believing this would be punishing to the player. "Though historically accurate", Meier said, "The moment the Krakatoa volcano blew up, or the bubonic plague came marching through, all anybody wanted to do was reload from a


title: Civilization (video game)

text: saved game". Meier omitted multiplayer alliances because the computer used them too effectively, causing players to think that it was cheating. He said that by contrast, minefields and minesweepers caused the computer to do "stupid things ... If you've got a feature that makes the AI look stupid, take it out. It's more important not to have stupid AI than to have good AI". Meier also omitted jets and helicopters because he thought players would not find obtaining new technologies in the endgame useful, and online multiplayer support because of the small number of online players ("if you had friends, you wouldn't need to play computer games"); he also did not believe that online play worked well with turn-based play. The game was developed for the IBM PC platform, which at the time had support for both 16-color EGA to 256-color VGA; Meier opted to support both 16-color and 256-color graphics to allow the game to run on both EGA/Tandy and VGA/MCGA systems.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: "I’ve never been able to decide if it was a mistake to keep Civ isolated as long as I did", Meier wrote; while "as many eyes as possible" are beneficial during development, Meier and Shelley worked very quickly together, combining the roles of playtester, game designer, and programmer. Meier and Shelley neared the end of their development and started presenting the game to the rest of MicroProse for feedback towards publication. This process was slowed by the current vice president of development, who had taken over Meier's former position at the company. This vice president did not receive any financial bonuses for successful publication of Meier's games due to Meier's contract terms, forgoing any incentive to provide the needed resources to finish the game. The management had also expressed issue with the lack of a firm completion date, as according to Shelley, Meier would consider a game completed only when he felt he had completed it. Eventually the two got the required help for publication, with Shelley overseeing these processes and Meier making the necessary coding changes.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: "One of my big rules has always been, 'double it, or cut it in half, Meier wrote. He cut the map's size in half less than a month before "Civilization" release after playtesting revealed that the previous size was too large and made for boring and repetitive gameplay. Other automated features, like city management, were modified to require more player involvement. They also eliminated a secondary branch of the technology tree with minor skills like beer brewing, and spent time reworking the existing technologies and units to make sure they felt appropriate and did not break the game. Most of the game was originally developed with art crafted by Meier, and MicroProse's art department helped to create most of the final assets, though some of Meier's original art was used. Shelley wrote out the "Civilopedia" entries for all the elements of the game and the game's large manual.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: The name "Civilization" came late in the development process. MicroProse recognized at this point the 1980 "Civilization" board game may conflict with their video game, as it shared a similar theme including the technology tree. Meier had noted the board game's influence but considered it not as great as "Empire" or "SimCity", while others have noted significant differences that made the video game far different from the board game such as the non-linearity introduced by Meier's technology tree. To avoid any potential legal issues, MicroProse negotiated a license to use the "Civilization" name from Avalon Hill. The addition of Meier's name to the title was from a current practice established by Stealey to attach games like "Civilization" that diverged from MicroProse's past catalog to Meier's name, so that players that played Meier's combat simulators and recognized Meier's name would give these new games a try. This approach worked, according to Meier, and he would continue this naming scheme for other titles in the future as a type of branding.


title: Civilization (video game)

text: By the time the game was completed and ready for release, Meier estimated that it had cost $170,000 in development. "Civilization" was released in September 1991. Because of the animosity that MicroProse's management had towards Meier's games, there was very little promotion of the title, though interest in the game through word-of-mouth helped to boost sales. Following the release on the IBM PC, the game was ported to other platforms; Meier and Shelley provided this code to contractors hired by MicroProse to complete the ports.