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Anti-Piracy Story

Something stupid I made when the Anti-Piracy meme was going around.

By Jeremiah EllisonPublished 2 years ago 7 min read
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Anti-Piracy Story
Photo by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

Finally! It’s here. It took freaking forever to save up enough money for this thing, but it will be worth it. With this original model Nintendo Switch, that took forever for me to find, I’ll finally be able to play any game I want for the system. However, I don’t exactly want to spend the money on the games, which is precisely why I hunted down this specific model. Luckily, everything else that I’ll need was easy to find and ill-expensive. First of all, I better make sure this thing works. After all, I don’t want to get everything ready, and have it turn out that I bought a pile of junk.

I boot up the Nintendo Switch, and sure enough there’s the logo. Now I’m greeted by the logo again, but this time in color? Now we have the language select. Ok, so they factory reset this Switch before sending it. Good, I can work with that. I spend several minutes setting up the Nintendo Switch, creating an account for it, and making sure my settings are all good. After I get done with all that, I make it to the menu screen, which is empty except for the bottom icons. As to be expected. Now, I need to set it up. Before I get myself banned from the eShop, I go on it and log in to my new account. Now, I’ll need to download two things from it. One game and one application, or app for short. Who doesn’t know that in this day and age? Upon logging in, I’m greeted with the Switch eShop’s minimalistic GUI. There’s not a free section? I select search and then select filter by price range. Sure enough, after scrolling down, I find the free section. You think they would at least put it on the side bar instead of two pages after search? I put my hand in my face baffled by Nintendo’s decisions. For my purposes, I decide to download Crunchyroll, YouTube, Coloring Book, Brawlhalla, and Deltarune Chapter 1. Why download five things when I only needed two? I wanted to cover my bases. Now I wait.

A few hours later, I check back and sure enough, my downloads are completed. Now it’s time to begin. I turn off the Switch and insert my SD card into the computer. I make sure that its file system is compatible with the hack, in this case, FAT32. Luckily, while I was waiting on those games and apps to download, I downloaded everything I needed onto my computer and even organized them ahead of time. It actually took way less time to do that than to actually download the games and apps on the Switch. I reinserted my SD card with Hekate and Atmosphere ready to go back into my Switch and now I got to boot this thing into recovery mode.

I pull out a jig I ordered online, which is just something made specifically to hit specific pins to short-circuit the Switch. At least, that what it says on the guide. I’m actually using an online guide for this, so I know what the heck I’m doing. I take the Joy-Con out of the Switch and insert the jig in its place. Then, I boot it up and bingo, recovery mode! Now, I go back to my computer and run a program called TegraRcmGUI in order to send the payload over to the Switch via USB connection. Bingo! Now I guess I’ll make a backup. I don’t want to wait another few hours, but better safe than sorry.

I wait for a couple of hours until my Switch is fully backed up and ready to go. Afterwards, I boot it up with Atmosphere and wa-la! One Nintendo Switch successfully hacked. Man, that took forever, and I have to do this every time I want to play. Maybe there’s an easier way I can try in the future, or I could just never turn my Switch off. Now, next up I need to actually download the games. Let’s look up how to do that. Hmm…Tinfoil. That looks promising. I go ahead and download the app and put it on my Switch. Upon booting it up, I am greeted with a list of games to choose from. I decide to download Sonic Mania, Super Mario Odyssey, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to start with along with a few other games.

Once those finish downloading, I boot up Super Mario Odyssey. However, once I get past the title screen and opening cutscene, the game freaks out and throws me an error message making this horrendous noise. Suddenly, it shuts off and shows me a screen with Mario behind bars saying, “Piracy is a serious crime. Please keep your Switch powered on as we track it down.”

Did it just say track it down? I suddenly hear my window shatter and sees ninjas jumping in with a Nintendo logo on their uniform. The Nintendo ninjas are real? One pulls out a couple of NES controllers and uses them like nunchunks. Another pulls out a Wii Sports Resort sword accessory? I get off my chair and start running towards the backdoor. Another ninja tossed SNES controllers at my feet and they coil around me knocking me to my feet. They surround me and one tries to hit me with the NES controllers. I roll out of the way, but the impact sounded heavier than I expected. I untangle the cords and sweep two of the ninjas knocking them down. I get up and run back towards my front door. One of them pulls out an NES Zapper and shoots me in the back knocking me out, but I swore I saw the Duck Hunt dog laughing at me when it happened.

I wake up and find myself in a courtroom. The judge says, “Defendant, you have been accused of video game piracy. How do you plead?”

I rub my aching head and ask, “How did I get here?”

“You were arrested shortly after the crime was committed. How do you plea?”

I shake my aching head holding it and say, “Can I have a few minutes to get my bearings?”

“Very well. We shall have a 15-minute recess.”

The judge hits his gavel on the desk and I walk outside the courtroom to think about what happened. Luckily, I’m able to think clearly after ten minutes. Weirdly enough, I did not have a lawyer. Where is my lawyer? I have a right to attorney. Court resumes and the judge asks me once more, “You have been accused of video game piracy? How do you plead?”

“First, I would like to ask where my lawyer is? I have a right to attorney!” I say to the judge.

Suddenly, I hear heavy footsteps and the door opens revealing Bowser in a business suit. Clearly, I am hallucinating. That, or I’m dreaming. Bowser walks over to the prosecution stand. He says, “According to the new laws of the Business Supremacy Act, anyone suspected of going against the wishes of any company is not entitled to any form of legal defense what-so-ever regardless of plea.”

What the frick? Not only are you telling me that a turtle-dragon thing that shouldn’t exist is real, but he also has a degree in law? Not to mention, I know this country is kind of crazy at this time, but that is ridiculous.

“What the prosecution says is the truth. Under this act, your right to attorney was revoked and you must now defend yourself in this trial,” confirms the judge.

Well crap. I better hit full force then. “I plea guilty on the crime of video game piracy, but I accuse Nintendo of illegal IP tracking, breach of privacy, and full-on assault.”

Bowser says, “I would like to remind the court, also under the Business Supremacy Act, that a company is allowed to take any measures they deem necessary to stop any infringement on their IP short of death.”

“Objection sustained. As the prosecution states, all actions taken by Nintendo were within the confines of the law and therefore non-prosecutable. Since you admit to the crime of piracy, I hereby declare the defendant guilty of all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment.”

The judge hits the gavel on his desk and I was rushed off to prison all because I wanted to play video games for free. And seriously, what’s with this new Business Supremacy Act? I knew that the government were already corrupt, but this takes the cake. They take my fingerprints, my mug shots, and toss me in a cell. A very buff guy with several tattoos in the same cell asks me, “What are you in for?”

“Illegally downloading a video game.”

He looks at me in disgust and backs away. I have no clue how to respond to that. And that’s how I spent the rest of my days. Rotting away in prison.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Jeremiah Ellison

Hello, my name is Jeremiah Ellison and I'm here to post content that I hope you will like. I mainly specialize in Sci-fi, action, and apparently psychological horror as of recently. I hope you enjoy my content.

Linktree: linktr.ee/Pokemiah

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