**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 95.12.17 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> PLAGUE HITS H-by-A OFFICE A virulent form of Green-Spotted Rigellian Plague hit the H-by-A office this week, affecting productivity and causing the news to be published a day late. This disease is unusual in that it affects not only humans, aliens and other flesh and blood lifeforms, but also droids. Because of this, even the humble TeaDroids have been laid low and unable to step into the breach to produce the bulletin. This morning, the demi-Goddess Hazed dragged herself into the office to put together something resembling the news, and since you are reading it, she must have succeeded! A journalist from a rival organisation was heard to mutter, 'I always knew Hazed was a sick person!' **>> BUILD THAT LINK! New code will be going in early this week so that Explorers will have to build a link to attach their new planets to the rest of the Galaxy. Depending on how well the TechDroid gets on, you may also be given a selection of mini-planets to choose from when you buy your world, so those that don't want to design something special can just link it in straight away. When the new code goes in, Slarti's Planet Shop will undertake the task of terraforming the planet of your choice, and construct the link for you in their facilities on Titan. However, they operate a "bring-your-own" policy as far as raw materials for the link goes, although they will arrange transportation of the goods from your warehouses to their Titan plant (for a suitable fee, of course). So, Explorer Newbod here is what you have to do now when you want to purchase your new planet. First, you gather up all the required commodities and put them into your warehouses. tells you what raw materials are required. It doesn't matter where your warehouses are, because Slarti's will provide transportation, but Titan would be preferable since that way the cost is minimal. You will have to pay some haulage fees, because you won't get all the goods into one warehouse. You also have to get yourself a permit before you can be put in charge of something as powerful as a planet. We will leave you to work out for yourself just how to get a permit! Buying the planet and building the link costs a lot of groats, cash with order, so you need to have enough money in your balance. 115 megagroats, to be exact! When you have all your goods, and your permit, and the necessary payment, you can go to Slarti's and order your planet. If the TechDroid doesn't get the mini-planets in then the command will be where "planetname" is what you want the world to be called. If he did, then the command will be where "mininame" is the catalog name of the mini-planets available, and "planetname" is what you want the world to be called. on its own will list the names of the available mini-planets, and the names will give you some idea of what the world is like. Each world has ten locations, with all the usual services. If you don't have a permit, or you don't have enough money, or you don't have the right commodities in your warehouse, Slarti's will turn you away with a sneer. Assuming everything was in order, the goods will be taken from your warehouses. If you have one on Titan, Slarti's will look there first, and then they will search the warehouses in order (type to see the order). There's no transportation costs for goods in the Titan warehouse; for other goods, the cost is random; and if the goods come from outside the Solar System then customs duty is applicable. Assuming all goes well, the link build will start. You can check the progress of the build by typing . The build will take two hours of online time. If you log off, the building stops; when you log back on, it starts again automatically. While the building is in progress, you can go into the workbench if you wish to make changes to your planet. However, time in the workbench does not count towards the build time. Once the build is complete, you can bring your planet online by typing . Assuming mini-planets is in operation... when you buy the planet, the mini-planet of your choice will be loaded into the workbench. You can, if you wish, delete the entire planet and design something new from scratch. Use the "Delete" option in the workbench to clear the locations. Or, you can amend the mini-planet slightly to add your personal touch. Or you can leave it exactly as it is with no changes. However, you will need to run the planet files through the checker even if you make no changes at all. **>> OVERRATED ACTIVITIES IN FEDERATION! It was found out, early this week, just what certain people think about certain activities. It started when Admiral admitted to be bored and the Demi-Goddess Hazed suggested he have sex. Admiral responded that there were no women around. This quite caught the attention of Hazed, Nocturne, and Porcupine (however a rodent, she is still female as Ming can attest to!) Menua's attention was also drawn to the subject, especially when Admiral announced that the women were just plain too old! On top of that, the leader of the Dragoons stated that sex was over-rated! Hazed, despite her years, was undaunted by the announcement that she was too old for Admiral's young blood. She posed the argument (and a lovely one it was at that!) that age has nothing at all to do with it. She continued with the argument, 'Who wants callow youth, with all its inexpertness? Who wants fumbling and fiddling, the flash and the fire that's over in an inkling? Far better the slow sweet seranade of experience that maturity can bring.' There was much agreement to this. When questioned about Admiral's illicit rendezvous with Diesel, he replied that he had only seen her nine to ten times. He also stated, 'We're taught not to have sex till we get older.' If today's sex is so over-rated, then we at H-by-A think new Russian Judges are in order! **>> A WORD FROM LCP'S PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER Newsdroids once again cornered that intoxicating treat Brandy for a few brief words on the status of the LCP. When asked why they have chosen to target Chaos (Chance's Duchy - please refer to last week's interview with Chance), Brandy stated the following: 'What first made us suspicious was when one of our patrols intercepted a spaceship and under the pretence of looking for unlicenced liquer found hidden in the cargo of fruit and condoms a case of video tapes. The videos had some old footage of the systematic destabalisation of planets which occured during the last galactic trading war. [The most recently documented war was the war of Ocean and Hell - Ed.] As the spaceship's computer was programmed to autonav to the Chaos Duchy we can only draw one conclusion. Secondly, several of our LCP interstellar probes have identified the construction of many strange 6 sided buildings on many Chaos planets and we both know what that means don't we. Our Security Chief will be able to give you more details of his/her suspicions regarding the buildings. As you know, due to threats of assassination, the identity of our trusty Security chief must remain anonymous. [H-by-A has brought you the exclusive information that this office is held by one Kirchansky, daughter of the LCP's founder, Budwarp. - Ed.] The latest rumour is that a squad of trainee terrorists are practicing their sharpshooting in one of the Chaos planetary systems and that a certain Merchant was shot down, killed and subsequently ambushed before re-insuring. If true, this is terrorism of the worst kind. What more proof of terrorism training do you need? [Solid facts? - Ed.] Brandy excuses herself promptly when her beeper sounds, "I must go and launch the next probe to Chaos" she states before powdering her nose and flittering off. **>> RENEWING VOWS Tonight at 10:30pm central, Mosquito and Wildstar plan to renew their vows, renew their marriage, and renew their wedding gifts. Guests are asked to view the list of items they received from their initial wedding, and not to repeat them! The couple has yet to sell the remaining 100 toasters! **>> MISSING IN ACTION Daphne, the stated leader of the Trader's Coalition, has not been spotted in the known galaxy for quite a while. Speculations flew thick as Chance suggested that Dierdre had made cement shoes for the pirate woman. Another cry went up that perhaps Daphne has been assassinated. Until her return, we cannot know what has happened to the initiator of retaliation. We can only speculate! Now, the question that might be resting on everyone's mind at this time, is "Has the alleged dumping that has haunted the LCP planets continued in Daphne's absence?" The answer to that is a simple "Yes". Or at least that is what has been told to the Newsdroids by certain unnamed LCP members. **>> CABAL, CHANCE'S HITMAN, IS ACTUALLY.... Chance! Yes, readers, that's right; you heard the confirmation of the latest rumor right here first. One of our brave, ever vigiliant news droid staff members was in the Ritz when the official announcement of Shandi's engagement to the Duke of Chaos was made, and bravely crept over to the daunting figure in spined armor and quickly lifted the visor of the hideous helmet, revealing none other that the Duke of Chaos himself. The date of the wedding has not yet been revealed, but be assured that our news team will cover the wedding of Shandi and Chance/Cabal. **>> ONCE A DRAGOON, NEVER A DRAGOON??? Admiral, featured in the news recently, has been cruising Federation Dataspace attempting to recruit what he calls Dragoons (to this point no one has been able to determine what a Dragoon actually IS, what they actually DO do, and whom they do whatever it is for...well, this news droid cannot find ANYONE except of course for Admiral who admits to ever seeing Dragoons at all). All went relatively well, until Admiral made the mistake of trying to recruit Senator's Nightstalker's wife. Admiral, when told that Nocturne was busy accumulating groats at the time (one cannot determine if this similiarity in personality was a cause of their marriage or a result of it), Admiral quickly accumulated 66 megagroats from an unknown source and handed them over to Nocturne on the floor of the exchange where she was trading. Apparently, since there was no discussion of what a Dragoon was or any contract of any sort signed, Nocturne considered this rather large amount of groats a gift of personal tribute. Apparently this may be an indication of the expense acct that the Senator's wife was accustomed to. Things continued without much trouble (Nocturne continuing to go about trading and Admiral presumably continuing to do whatever he was doing) until Senator Nightstalker became aware that someone had tried to hire his wife for the insignificant sum of 66 megagroats. When Nightstalker began to question Admiral over open comms about exactly WHAT a Dragoon was, what they did and whom they did it for, Admiral was unable to provide answers sufficient to the crafy Senator's questions. In fact, at one point, Admiral admitted that he paid his Dragoons as he received pay as he completed jobs, and that so far he had completed no jobs. Things further deteriorated when Admiral made the mistake of using the remark '...using Nightstalker's wife' over open comms. Nocturne immediately declared that there were not enough groats in the entire universe of Federation DataSpace for that, and Nightstalker debated putting a huge price on Admiral's head for the public insult to his wife, or savoring the pleasure of personally hunting him down, while warnings to Admiral flew out over open comms over the danger of insulting a powerful Senator and his wife. Is Admiral in any danger? Can his Dragoons keep him safe? More to come as details become available. Also, if anyone (excepting Admirial) will publically come forward and admit to being a Dragoon, the intrepid news droid staff would be interested in interviewing that individual, anonymously of course. **>> EXPLODING PLANET! We received the following story from Admiral himself: Musica, the peaceful planet of Music, was rocked by explosions this week. Admiral, who is the Colonel of the mercenary unit Dragoons, invaded Musica with his infantry and 'mechs. The planet was in turmoil while he caused chaos everywhere. As 'mechs tromped over burnt out shells of tanks, you could see that Musica's defenses were in ruins. Musica militia members were scattering as missiles and lasers rained down on them. In the middle of this mess, Benson took a group of 5 mechs to challenge the invaders. In his mech, Admiral started the Dragoons forward. After the commline was filled with threats, the two forces started shooting for their lives. After a long and treacherous battle, Benson's forces were forced to retreat. With his force on Foothold Island, Admiral poses a large threat to the sactity of Musica. Foothold Island is 2 South of the Landing Pad on Musica. Enter with caution because more than one person has been cut down by stray weapons fire. **>> 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. The current Federation Game Hosts are: Freya, Porcupine, Lyrynna, Grannie, Sparky, Zzzax, Geezer, Magneto, Syfari and Goblin. Their function is to answer questions, help new players get started, and make fun things happen. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed or one of the Game Hosts in the game * a message to Hazed * send mail on your host system to the Federation team: on GEnie, mail FEDII.2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Delphi, mail FED2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Cris, mail FEDERATION2 You can buy a copy of the very excellent Idiot's Guide to Federation for the paltry sum of $15.95. On GEnie, type ORDER from any main menu page. On Delphi and Cris, send a check for $15.95 to: Leah Parker, 4543 La Crescenta Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214-2912. **>> BULLETIN ENDS