## 3 Discussion and Conclusions  
The primary objective of this research was to achieve a deeper understanding and enhance the potential predictability of seismic activities through simulations executed via an algorithm grounded in a suitable modeling approach of the sources responsible for major earthquakes. The capacity of the simulation algorithm in this respect was tested through its application to two completely different seismotectonic contexts. The core principle upon which the simulator is constructed is fundamentally based on the stress-rebound theory initially proposed by [PERSON] (1910) ([PERSON], 1910) ([PERSON], 1910). In recent advancements in earthquake simulation technology, this theory has been extended and adapted to apply more in general to ruptures of varying magnitudes, as elaborated through the last decade by our research team ([PERSON] et al., 2022 ([PERSON] et al., 2022), and references therein). The expected time variations of the stress on the seismogenic structures are consistent with the elastic-rebound model and are clearly visible in Figure 2 for both geodynamic contexts. Other significant features are put in evidence by the stacking procedure applied to the number of events preceding and following the pivot events on a long-term scale (Figure 3). We explored these features more in detail, letting the magnitude of pivot events change from 5.0 to 6.8 in the analysis concerning the CNAFS and from 6.5 to 8.3 for the NMTFS. Figure 5 (notice the number of events in the logarithmic scale) confirms the slow increase in the seismic activity before the pivot event and the oscillations with a decrease in the final precursory stage. The duration of these variations does not depend on \(\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{pivot}}\). Instead, the sudden drop in the seismic activity at the time of the pivot event has a size increase with increasing \(\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{pivot}}\) for the CNAFS but not so evident for the NMTFS. Moreover, both in the CNAFS and the NMTFS, the duration of the quiescence period after the pivot events has a clear trend to increase with increasing \(\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{pivot}}\). It can be noted that, in the CNAFS, this quiescence can last up to 400 years for pivot events of magnitude 6.8, which is approximately the magnitude of the main earthquakes historically recorded in this area (Table 1). The length of time to recover the standby values of occurrence rates after the transients preceding and following the pivot events increases with increasing \(\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{pivot}}\), as shown in Figure 5.  
For a better understanding of the stacking procedure, we show in Video S1 in the Supplementary Materials an animation of the results obtained for the CNAFS with \(\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{pivot}}=6.2\). Lastly, our analysis has shown that the seismicity obtained from the simulator, for both the CNAFS and the NMTFS, is characterized by an evident increase in the b-value in the long-term preparation phase of the pivot events, ending just before the pivot event occurrence. This anomalously high b-value is then recovered in a period of the same order of magnitude as the anomaly duration. The decrease in the b-value in the very last bin of the total time interval considered before the pivot event is worth a further investigation, and an in-depth study is underway on this peculiar feature. As a matter of fact, an anomalous low b-value prior to mainshocks has already been regarded as a potential short-term earthquake precursor in the literature (e.g., [PERSON] et al., 2016 ([PERSON] et al., 2016); [PERSON] et al., 2018 ([PERSON] et al., 2018)). In a sequence with multiple large events, [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2019) ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2019) noted the b-value of the aftershocks to be about 10% lower than the background b-value after the first large event of the sequence and recovered its background b-value only after the last large event of the sequence.