**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 92.09.27 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> OH NO, NOT AGAIN! A proverb says you should be careful what you wish for; you might get it! The Conclave had started to complain recently that they had nothing to do - particularly Oddball, the Duke with no Job. Last Wednesday the persona file became hopelessly mangled, and Bella had to put back the previous version, which meant that players lost the groats they had earned during the last 24 hours. As always, groats will be returned to players who put in a claim for compensation. Use sendmail to notify Oddball of your losses. The Conclave will be vetting all claims, so don't be tempted to put in inflated claims! New players who started playing on Wednesday night, and whose personas were lost completely, should start a new persona and put in a claim for the lost ship and any groats or jobs they had done. **>> OLD PLANETS, NEW PLANETS Plantking's planet is now linked into the game: Canna, in the system Dahib. We'll be despatching a newsdroid to explore, and will bring you details in next week's news. As one arrives, another leaves: Otoole's world, Brewski, has been removed from the game since he refused to convert to a mini-planet (despite many request from Bella). Brewski is much missed by all those who saw it as a convenient cash machine - Otoole had set the rewards for his puzzle so high that players were raking in up to 10 meg a time! **>> DID YOU KNOW... That you can slide down the bannisters in the mansion on Earth? Stand in the right spot on the stairs, and type . Mind the Butler, though! That when you your mood changes to "A sulky newbod is here"? When you stop sulking, the mood is deleted, so you'll have to set a new mood. That new players can make a lot of money by helping higher ranks with various puzzles? You can also pick up hints by paying attention that will help you when you have to do the puzzles yourselves! **>> OVER TO YOU... We welcome submissions from our readers for inclusion in the news. This week we received the following advertisement: WANTED: Artifacts factories on any planet of Agriculture or Mining levels. two factories would be preferable. Please contact Condor with a time on Saturday when the interested party will be online (please try to make times reasonable). Please SEND by Friday evening, 7pm EST. Offers accepted on a first come, first served basis (although planets which buy Arts will be considered long before those which don't, and Agriculture planets are vastly preferred). Possibly Condor is being a little too picky - we'll have to see if he gets any takers! We also received a message from the infamous Blackmark, self-styled pirate and enemy of the Conclave: The blood of the Conclave will spill into space. New Order Federation will hold a strong grasp of evil around the Galaxy. No doubt that's got Oddball and co. shaking in their moonboots! **>> PARTY ON, FED DUDES! Marcia and Mourningstar held a joint birthday party last night in John's Bar on Vitro. Music was provided by Satriani, and the live sex act by Ashley and Mojo. Refreshments courtesy of Freya, the owner of the planet. Hazed decided not to despatch a newsdroid to collect gossip from the party-goers, instead she attended herself, but sadly she overindulged in Jazjar wine and passed out in a corner before the party had barely started! Before she fell into a drunken stupor, she scribbled a few barely legible notes - something about party games, including "Pin the tail on Marcia" and "Journeyman's Knock", and something about Bourne trying to cover her with cake frosting and then lick it off. Sounds pretty disgusting to us, but then we're only newsdroids and not subject to the hormonal urges that seem to rule you humans' lives! **>> DELTA BOURNE AGAIN! We weren't actually doing to say anything about this story - it is well covered in the BBS - but that's such a good headline we couldn't resist! Anyone who was at the party last night will know that Bourne revealed himself to be none other than Delta, feared dead after a bizarre gardening accident in the hydroponic section of his ship. If you want to know how he died, who was responsible, and how (or why) he has come back to life with a different name, you'll have to ask him. Or read about it on the board. **>> A LURV POME Left on the bar board recently by Jarymac: Roses are red Violets are blue Listen dear people To what I say to you Life wouldn't be grand In fact t'would be hell If not for the beauty That calls herself Krell Later Jarymac swore he was out of his mind when he wrote it! We don't know what Krell's reaction was... **>> OXCART, THE SEX MACHINE New players in Fed often come in with pre-conceptions about the way they should behave, and attract notice by being boorish and rude. Their usual mistake is to assume that Fed is a fighting game, and to start threatening all the other players before they've even bought a ship. Last week a different kind of player had everyone agog over their spybeams. This nameless person entered the game looking for sex, and was quite graphic in what she required! Everyone knows that Oxcart is the biggest pervert in the game, so the other players despatched him to deal with the somewhat over-eager newbod. It took a lot longer than everyone expected for the player to realise that Oxcart was not taking the textual intercourse quite as seriously as she was... she finally logged off, disappointed, leaving Oxcart exhausted and out of ideas, and everyone else in complete hysteria! Spybeams are wonderful things! **>> SPYNET REVIEW Many, many moons ago, we used to run a Promotions column, reporting on who had made it to what rank during the past week, but we dropped it because of the difficulties of finding out about promotions! By plying Our Illustrious Leader with copious quantities of Snarcott's Rigellian Green Chilli Vodka, we managed to get her to agree to help us out. The entire contents of the SpyNet Review are now dumped onto our news terminals every day, so we are pleased to be able to resume our official reporting of happenings in Fed Data Space. This weeks promotions are: Captain: Katlinn, Splooge and Topper Adventurer: Killian Trader: Marb, Zagmar and Daneel Merchant: Seramarias and Maxwell Journeyperson: Dennisthemenace Squire: Plantking Congratulations to all of you! Romana has bought herself a company: Time, Inc. A fitting name for a Time Lady! Seramarias has also ventured into the world of big business, with her company Siryn Collections, Ltd. There have been lots of new players over the past week, too many to mention - those who stick around long enough to make Captain will get their names in the news in due course (sooner if they do anything newsworthy!) Sadly, we have to report the death of Jarymac, who died dead-dead during the week. Juding by the timings of his two deaths - nearly 200 player-minutes apart - this was not a deliberate suicide, but we don't have any details. Maybe someone killed him because of his awful poetry! **>>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