The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 4, 2008

Special Bulletin 5

Welcome to my last bulletin. The newsdroids are due back in the office this afternoon to start work on the first Fed2 Star of the year, so anything that happens after I publish this will be their responsibility, not mine.


IS YOUR PLANET GETTING ENOUGH FIBRE?

The test team have enough Techno build to play with: fibreoptic cabling. Yes, Technocrats will be able to install those groovy lamps to brighten up their homes. And as a byproduct, the cables have something to do with communication, too! See the details here.


LAST CHANCE TO SIT ON THE FAT MAN'S KNEE

Santa will be packing away his grotto tomorrow, so if you haven't got to sit on his knee, received a candy cane or a lump of coal, delved into his sack of toys, or taken a sleigh ride, you have one last chance!

The fruitcake will be disappearing too, so grab a chunk before it's all gone.


SOME OF OUR STAR SYSTEMS ARE MISSING

Breaking news just in: we've been sent the following news report from one of the Galactic press organizations, and rather than try to rewrite it to claim it as our own reporting, I am just going to reprint it in its entirety:

GREUTERS - Stardate 119944:8935, Earth: Absentee founder star systems vanishing mystery

In an extraordinary revelation today the Galactic Administration admitted that 21 star systems had completely vanished from hyperspace link access.

All 21 systems suffered from absentee founders, and recent travellers reported severe unrest on the systems' inhabited planets. The systems have officially been closed for some time, and their planets were also known to be strongholds of the quasi-illegal Cult of Gaelaan.

Last reports from the planets indicate that the inhabitants had stopped working, and had cannibalised all the factories and infrastructure to build a massive replica of a saucer shaped spaceship. Food warehouses had been broken into, and there was feasting in all the major cities.

Whether the systems have just suffered from link failure, or have in some way been moved from the galaxy is not known. The nearest linked system to one of the missing systems is 4,872 light years away, so it may take some time to visually investigate!

The Galactic Administration is already under attack for not taking action earlier. The Imperial Navy has made it clear that it takes this issue seriously, and is investigating whether this represents a new form of attack from the Martians, or whether it is part of an attempt to form a new empire separate from that of the Galactic administration.

Nightwatch have issued statements calling for the banning of the Cult of Gaelaan, and branding them as terrorists. As part of their 500 year long 'War on Terror' they are calling for the Galactic Administration to institute a systems of ID holos containing biometric and/or mechmetric identifiers to every citizen in the galaxy. The holos would be linked to a Galaxy-wide database enabling immediate verification of holders' status.

Critics of this plan are asking, but not too loudly, given Nightwatch's extensive surveillance network, why anyone believes that any organisation that has managed to lose 21 star systems, complete with their inhabited planets, is capable of keeping personal data safe!

In the meantime, the High Priest of the Gaelaan Cult has issued a pastoral letter urging calm and condemning the misery inflicted by absentee landlordism on the workers of the missing star systems. The letter makes no claims about the cause of the disappearance, and the High Priest has refused all interviews. The absence of claims is considered to be significant, since the Gaelaans are always quick to disclaim responsibility for events they are not involved in. More information about the cult is available in the Encyclopedia Galactica.

The latest roll call of missing systems is as follows:

Amaterasu, Angle, Aviary, Booyan, Coliseum, Confidential, Cygnus, Dixie, Dreams, Dryland, Justice, Kalstrum, Pennsylvania, Relax, Sanctuary, Sapphire, Serenity, Sigma, Slarbucks, Terrebonne, University.


SEND IN THE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

Wow, what an amazing story, and it's fantastic timing - I was looking for an excuse to get out of the Fed2 Star office now that Hazed's return is imminent. I think it's high time somebody did an in-depth investigation of the Temple of Gaelaan, so I'm off to do some deep undercover work. Don't tell anyone!


Fed2 Star index Fed 2 home page