**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 90.12.30 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> THE LAST NEWS OF THE YEAR With this, our last News Bulletin of 1990, we would like to wish all our friends on Fed a very happy 1991. There was plenty of fun over Christmas in Fed Data Space. Apart from the organised events, most evenings saw Fedders celebrating the festive season with impromptu parties in Chez Diesel and the Starship Cantina. Much breath-baiting went on as greedy little girls and boys eagerly awaited the visits of Santa Claus. He popped into Fed Data Space several times a day during the run-up to Christmas, handing out presents of extremely large quantities of groats to those children lucky enough to find his hiding place. Some people did extremely well by being the first to find him on many occasions! Some of the places Santa chose to secrete himself were quite obscure, and the people with a good set of maps certainly came off better. You can imagine the chaos when he hid in the maze on Mars! Many people attempted to find him, but ended up totally lost themselves and had to be rescued. The Christmas Party included several treasure hunts and games of hide and seek, organised by Hazed. One Fedder was kind enough to hide an object for Hazed herself to find! The judges had a hard time decided who should receive the prize for the best costume. Narrowing the choice down to two contestants, Jim and Monique, they seemed to be deadlocked. The outfits in question were as follows: Monique is wearing one of those party dresses which are so low, so high, and so backless that there's nothing left! And a big smile. Jim is resplendent in his formal attire; black tuxedo with tails, diamond cufflinks, silk top hat, spats, and a beautiful red rose boutonniere. You can see why they had difficult making a decision! Eventually they tossed a coin to decide the outcome - but when it came down on its edge, they had no alternative but to award the prize jointly to Jim and Monique, who received 50,000 groats each. There was no problem at all in judging one of the other competitions. Hazed posed the question "How many Fedders does it take to change a lightbulb?" The answers were many and varied (they will be uploaded in the Fed BBS so you can all have a good loud groan) but the winner was Deety, with the answer: None - ask for the rules to be changed so it never burns out. The Fed Trivia Quiz was hotly contested, with the eventual winner - Piemur - receiving the magnificent sum of 1 groat. (Trivial quiz = trivial prize!) The outcome of the quiz depended on a bonus question: "How big is Bella's arse?" which Deety got right with the answer "It has yet to be measured". Judging by the hangovers the next day, it was a very successful party! **>> THE POOR PEOPLE ARE REVOLTING (The Rich People are pretty disgusting, too!) If anyone can shed any light on the mysterious goings-on between Leroy, Logan, Darth and Dreagon, we would be very grateful. The four of them have been ganging up on each other, changing alliances, swearing undying friendship and then falling out again until we are totally confused. All we know for sure is the Leroy is continuing to be somewhat of a nuisance, despite apologising to Hazed previously, so we assume that he is the brains (or lack of them) behind the disturbances. Jim shot him down two nights in a row because of his behaviour, but it doesn't seem to have done any good. Speaking of obnoxiousness, Fedders were forced to endure some incredibly tedious behaviour from a new player last week. His name was extremely long and un-spellable, but that didn't stop him being shot down by Cryptosporidium; nor did it prevent him ending up with a reward of well over 20K. Hopefully he won't return. **>> LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS Beware of making careless remarks - it can lead to your death! Perchik managed to get himself lost on the way to Chez Diesel, and despite everyone giving him directions from the Landing Pad he couldn't find the Social Centre of the Solar System. It transpired that he was looking on the wrong planet! Realising what a silly billy he was being, he broadcast a comm message saying "Someone shoot me now!" He should have known better. Ever ready to oblige, Cryptosporidium leapt (or rather, oozed) into her spaceship and blasted poor Perchik to oblivion. Luckily, he was insured, and just to show there were no hard feelings, Crypto compensated him with a large quantity of groats. So beware. Some people don't need to be asked twice! **>> WHAT'S BELLA BEEN UP TO RECENTLY? We're glad you asked that. Our Illustrious Leader has been hard at work on the planet editing tools to enable Explorers to write their very own planets. The first of the tools will be the Location Editor, where builders will input the text descriptions of the planets and specify the directions that link the different locations together. This should be available in a couple of weeks. Those jolly nice H-by-A people will, of course, add to the Planetary Construction document in the Fed BBS a full explanation of how to use the editor. **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS Congratulations to Aeron, who became the fourth GM last week. Occy was last seen working hard on the JP puzzle, but we're not sure how far she's got. More news on her attempt in next week's news. Dreamer made Trader recently, and is now trying to figure out the exchanges. In the sheer excitement of making Captain, Otoole managed to fly into the sun. We don't recommend this! If you would like your promotion mentioned in the news, send us mail using the FEEDBACK option on the Fed menu. **>> ABSOLUTELY NO NEWS ABOUT PIEMUR AT ALL We regret to announce that Piemur will not get mentioned in this News Bulletin since he has done nothing in the slightest bit newsworthy. **>> THE H-by-A TOUR OF AMERICA, 1991 You know how it is. You've had a few drinks, feeling relazed, rapping with a group of froody dudes, and the wierd and wonderful ideas start flowing. Such was the situation at the Fed Christmas Party. Cryptosporidium started reminiscing about Fed Meets - where Fedders met face-to-face for a meal and a drink (or three), and what a lot of fun they were, and then someone suggested that one should be held in America, and Hazed agreed it was a great idea, and... Well, in the cold, sober light of day it STILL looks like a great idea! But since Hazed and Crypto both live overseas, and plane tickets to America do not grow on trees, you lot are going to have to buy an awful lot of Idiot's Guides to finance the journey! So there's an incentive for you. If you haven't already bought your copy of the Guide, just type ORDER at any GEnie menu and do so. At once! If you have already bought a copy, go and buy ten more. Then maybe, just maybe, you'll get the chance to meet us in person. And buy our tour merchandise, of course... **>> ALL CHANGE IN THE FED BBS We've been making some changes to the Fed BBS, to make it easier for you to find the right place to post your questions and comments, or look for information. First, we're doing away with that huge, unwieldy topic about Problems. The messages in that are being moved into topics about the specific area of enquiry. Some of the messages from this topic have ended up in a new topic for gossip and scandal. Upload your suppositions here! The more scurrilous, the better. You are urged to upload some information about your Fed persona in a new topic, Biographies. We've kicked this off with some details about Bella and Pegasus (who used to be a player before he became a mobile). We want to hear about you! There will shortly be a topic where would-be planet builders can upload details of the history of your planet. This will give you a chance to obtain feedback on your ideas before you commit yourself. We're also starting a topic for Fed Jokes. To get you in the mood, we'll upload all the "lightbulb" jokes from the Fed party - but we are sure you can do better! If you want to post a message in the Fed BBS that doesn't seem to fit into any of the existing topics, feel free to start a new topic. **>> CONTACTS The following information will appear at the end of every News Bulletin, so you don't have to read it if you already know it. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed, Cryptosporidium, Bella or Clem in the game * leave a message in the game log * send mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation II by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. Federation II has a category in Scorpia's Games RT. To get there, type M805,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 29. The Scorpia RT also has a Federation II library in the files area, Library 22. **>> BULLETIN ENDS