**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.12.13 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> WIN A GIFT OF TIME How would you like to win a $50 Gift of Time to help with your next GEnie bill? That's the prize that was on offer at last night's Amiga Starship party in Fed. Kimos's new planet, Starship, brought members of the Amiga area to Fed Data Space, along with the very wonderful Journeywoman Lady. The $50 Gift of Time will go to the first person to solve the puzzle of the missing disk on the Starship. No-one found the disk last night, so the prize is still up for grabs. To get you started, the background on the Starship and its problem is in a file in the Amiga library on page 555. The file is no. 17762. Many thanks to the Starship crew for bringing their ship to Fed Data Space, and offering this fabulous prize. **>> FEDTERM IS IMMINENT Bella has been working flat-out to finish the programming of Fedterm, the graphic front-end for Fed. The program will be available for the PC and Amiga. It is in its final testing stage at the moment, and if all goes smoothly it will be ready by Christmas. There will be a special library on the main Fed page containing the program, and you will be able to upload your own graphics and sound attachments for other players to use. We'll give you full details of all Fedterm's features in next week's news. **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Starship is the latest planet to grace the heavens. Owned by Kimos, the giant spaceship arrived in Fed Data Space courtesy of the Amiga Starship area on GEnie (see report above). Vitro has advanced to Tech level, and Ocean to Leisure. There has been little change to the make-up of the duchies. Oppiz, which had been offline for a while, came back and immediately seceded from Zippy to become an Independent planet. Starship has taken no decisions yet about which duchy to join. **>> YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW As promised we despatched a newsdroid to Oasis, Topper's new planet. It narrowly escaped being drafted because Oasis is a military base. It's an R&R planet for the Imperial Marines, but for some reason they welcome visitors, both to explore and trade. Hazed is considering waging war against the planet because they seem to have stolen part of her original planet, Deep! Apart from this wanton theft, interesting features of Oasis include a cliff, enticingly called Lover's Leap, and a rifle range, where the unwary can have parts of their flesh singed by lasers. As one would expect from a world run by the military, everything is very clean and tidy - there's not a blade of grass out of place. One knows that one's spacecraft will be quite safe on the landing pad; no risk of vandals here! **>> ADVERTISEMENT CORNER This week we have been asked by Khan to publish the following statement: It has come to the attention of Neutarus management that the space locations were extremely confusing. We did some investigation and it turns out that a malfunction in the circuits of the interstellar link was causing severe sensor malfunctions. We are currently getting the link repaired to solve this problem and our lawyers are checking into the possibility of a multi-giga-groat lawsuit. You'll know when we get the link repaired because the sensor readings at the link location will actually begin to make sense! **>> UNCONVENTION THE SECOND Talk has flared up again considering the possibility of organising a second UnConvention. This time the players are considering travelling to the west coast, to hold the event in Las Vegas, some time in April. The discussion is in Category 14, Topic 33 of the MPGames BBS. If you're interested, join in the discussion. If you do attend, you'll get to meet the demi-goddess Hazed in the flesh! **>> THE NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED Zagmar is having to re-think the whole concept for his planet. He wanted to call it Avalon, until someone told him that Aeron's planet had been called Avalon. Now, this planet hasn't been in the game for many months but there's no guarantee that Aeron won't put in another appearance in the future, so Bella has asked Zagmar not to use the same name. Bella suggested that the planet be called Avalonne, to avoid confusion. Frankly we think this is likely to cause more confusion, having two planets with such similar names. Whatever name he chooses, Zagmar is faced with the tedious task of editing his location description to bring them in line with the new name. **>> THE VERY REVEREND OXCART? Following the collapse of the subversive group The Dark Side, Oxcart has been at something of a loose end. In order to fill the gaps in his life, he has decided to start a new religion. The Holy Church of the True Faith of the Sacred Chicken has declared a crusade against all unbelievers. Religious zealots will be searching ships on landing pads, and if they do not have an icon of the Blessed Saint Reginald displayed prominently in the control cabin, the heretics will be sacrificed in all kinds of unpleasant (and probably very newsworthy) ways. You have been warned! **>> ANOTHER NEWSDROID BITES THE DUST We're going to have to start giving hazard pay to our newsdroids if they keep on running into danger. We sent a droid nosing around Mars looking for smut earlier this week, and it (very sensibly) decided to concentrate its spybeam on Chez Diesel. Unfortunately, what it saw taking place in the seedy bar caused it to blow a gasket! By asking innocent bystanders what they saw, we've managed to piece together what we think happened. Unfortunately, we cannot possibly report just what it was that Marcia was doing, nor can we give any details of the many Poor People who were involved. If we did, it would melt your monitor screens! **>> SPYNET REVIEW There's been an influx of new players this week, so we've got a number of new Captains and Adventurers. Welcome to you all! Owlet, Naughty, Frub, Polarbear, Reno and Velvet were all promoted to Captain. Polgara, Frub, Attilad and Crystalline are the week's new Adventurers. Tyiex made it to Merchant. Hawkman solved the fiendish GM puzzle - and by the look of the SpyNet Review, he died an extraordinary number of times while attempting it! Kimos is now a Squire, Freya was promoted to Technocrat, and Niun to Baron. **>>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 or Bella in the game * leave a message in the game log * a message to Hazed or Bella * send GEnie mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. (New edition will be available shortly!) Federation has several categories in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 13 (for information, instructions, questions and answers) or 14 (for general chat and discussions). The Federation Leader in the bulletin board is Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). There are also private categories for Explorers, run by Krell, and for the Conclave run by Oddball (Mail ID: D.STALZLE). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS