**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.04.20 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> BETTER LATE THAN NEVER A day late, here is the news. Well, even newsdroids need a day off sometimes! **>> IT WAS A HAPPY EASTER Harvey the Easter Bunny has spent the holiday hopping into Fed with presents for people. He had lots of groats to give away in games of hide-n-seek and treasure hunts. There was also free connect time on offer: three lots of two hours. On Friday, Harvey awarded the free time to the person that told him the funniest joke. He also specified that the jokes had to be clean enough to repeat in the news bulletin, which rather cramped some people's style! Rezrov was the winner with the following joke: "On the way back from Dallas and the convention I saw this pretty hitchiker along side the road. So I pull over and find that she is heading in my direction and we begin the long journey to Salt Lake City. Now this hitchhiker is not the usual type, she is tall, dark hair, mysterious eyes. And one would begin to wonder what one can do to make advances to this sexy lady. Well we begin chatting and I begin to make obscure advances. As we get closer to Salt Lake City, she leans over and begins whispering things in my ear. It turns out she was saying that she doesn't go all the way. So I dropped her off in Provo." An Honourable Mention goes to Oddball for his collection of definitions, which were very funny but not clean enough to be repeated in this news. On Saturday the free time was awarded to Oxcart, who was the first to answer a trivia question, and on Sunday Darknight won with another trivia question. **>> EASTER PARADE On Sunday Hazed hosted an Easter Bonnet competition, with several prizes on offer. All the bonnets were very impressive, as you can see from this list of the entrants: AGENT Agent is wearing a mauve bonnet with white bunnies on it. There are painted eggs along the rim and a large chocolate bunny on top. DARKWING You see a handsome, young man wearing a adorable blue bonnet and a leather holster holding a pearl-handled Laser Pistol and nothing else! LEE A very large Easter Bonnet with Eggs covering the "vital parts" and a bow on top! BOCHIMAN Wearing a Multi-colored Bunny hat...with Santa being spanked KOOSHMAN Red and blue stripes with orange and yellow sparkles with flashing red and white glitters and a kooshy palmpalm bonnet An honourable mention goes to Condor for this bonnet: CONDOR Condor is wearing black leather as usual, but he has a hat with a small plastic rabbit getting torn to bits by a hawk. Mmmm! There were two prizes awarded, to the following two entries: KRELL She wears a lovely full-length bunny-rabbit fur coat, with a cute matching hat made of ears and powder-puff tails. DESTINY He seems to have a bonnet with a figurine of a man wearing an opened trenchcoat. If you look closely, it seems the figure is that of Oxcart and Bessie! Krell wins a copy of the new Third Edition of the Idiot's Guide to Federation (being printed at this very moment in time). Destiny wins a video entitled "The Dream Is Alive", about the space shuttle program, including stunning footage shot from the shuttle itself. Congratulations to everyone who took part, we are just sorry there weren't enough prizes for everyone! **>> RUN, RABBIT, RUN, RABBIT, RUN, RUN, RUN! Fedders were rather bemused on Friday night when Santa Claus arrived in Fed! Bochiman was particularly thrilled to see Santa, because it was his birthday. Santa had apparently got bored with his year-long idleness, and had decided to muscle in on Harvey's holiday fun. The Easter Bunny was, understandably, rather annoyed by this unscheduled appearance, and insisted that Santa return to the box in which he lives when he's not out delivering presents. But Santa refused to go away and he encouraged (egged on?) those present to abuse the poor Bunny. Hapless Harvey was tortured by several people, including Krell and Oxcart, and had things done to him that we cannot possibly repeat in the news. But notice what Krell was wearing in the Easter Parade... and check out Diesel's new range of rabbit pizza! **>> OLD NEWS The Federation News Archives are now up to date. If you have missed any recent issues of the news bulletin, you can download them from Library 18 in the MPGRT on page 1045. Also available in the Fed Library in the MPGRT are transcripts of the last two Fed RTCs. **>> BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION, PART I Krell is denying vigorously that she bribed Our Illustrious Leader when the Gotham exchange was rerolled on its change to Industrial. The planet ended up with a near-perfect portfolio of commodities, and consequently Krell is making a fortune! By contrast, Oxcart is alleged to be losing something like 60 meg a day on his planet Jinx. This must be some kind of a record! Which of his rivals bribed Bella to screw his exchange up? **>> BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION, PART II Hey! Vixen got promoted to Trader today! Seems like she had to do some shady dealing to get the job done. Rumor has it that she did a little pre-trader "trading" with Mirth in return for a close-up and VERY personal guide through the Martian mazes and ruins. Lo and behold, there was the GM, waiting in the ruins. No one is quite sure what Vixen had to give Mirth in exchange for his services. However, it seems quite a coincidence that shortly afterward, Mirth decided to name one of the rides on his planet in Vixen's honor: "TwistoBlast." Later, Buskirk was seen snuggling up to Mirth in an attempt to get a ride named after herself, as well. As they sat in a dark corner of CD's, Mirth was heard muttering something about having her take a 'test ride' first, to see if she liked it... **>> COME BACK DEEP THROAT! Where are all our informants? Deep Throat vanished into the night, Shallow Throat took a vow of silence, and now our current informant, Poison Pen, has failed to come up with the goods yet again! He, she or it has been promising us the definitive UnCon Report for weeks now, but despite continual payment of large quantities of groats we have yet to see one word about it. There's also been a definite shortage of people telling tales to us about what other people are doing. Gossip and scandal, that's what we need! It's no use us sending our newsdroids into Fed - as soon as they appear, the orgies stop, the drugs get hidden, and everyone gets back to trading and singing hymns. Please, use the SEND command to snitch on your friends! If you see Galauriel consorting with the small boy in the mansion on Earth, or Oddball saying something civil to Occy, or Crypto doing a good deed, we need to know! We pay good groats for news we can use. **>> ADVERTISEMENT Not sure about if I'm sending this to the right place but I want to submit something to the news letter. It's an ad for my simi-business called KooshySlack delivery! We deliver cargo, up to 75 tons per ship, to and from Murcery, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Castillo, and Titan. Also, please say that if you are new, and would like to make some money, join KooshySlack delivery. Also put in that if you want some cargo delivered, let Kooshman know in the game, same with if you want to help out with the business. Comander Kooshman of the KooshySlack! **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS Xxyl has become an Adventurer, as well as winning the week's "Most Unpronouncable Name" award. Vixen, Flash and Hans are this week's new Traders, congratulations boys and girls. Khan and Senta were both promoted to Merchant. Jade made it to JP, so perhaps she can buy herself a ship of her own now! For some reason she has been running around in Blackmark's old ship. We only hope she fumigated it before using it. Darknight is now an Explorer, and hopes to have his own planet very soon. Don't forget to tell us about about your promotion: SEND HAZED the details as soon as it happens! **>>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 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 category 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 and for the Conclave; these are run by Krell and Oddball (Mail ID: D.STALZLE) respectively. The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS