**>> SPYNET BULLETIN
 **>> EARTHDATE 95.03.05
 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE

 **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids
 **>> <SEND HAZED> your news and gossip and get paid good groats!


 **>> LETTER FROM BELLA

Hi folx,

I wanted to take up a bit of space in this week's news to talk about
some of the problems you may have found getting into Fed recently.

With a set-up as complex as the one that brings Fed to you, inevitably
things can go wrong. There are many components that can develop
individual faults.

For example, the game itself can develop problems which make it crash.
If a crash happens, anyone who is on the game may lose their recent
work, but since everything is saved out each hour losses shouldn't be
huge. A quick word with Hazed or a Game Host should see you reimbursed
with lost groats. The game should always bring itself straight back up
again within five minutes of a crash, so you can carry on playing.

One cause of problems recently has been faults with the link between
your host system (whichever it is) and the Kesmai/Aries machine that
runs Fed. These problems are called routing failures - the host system
cannot "find" the Fed computer. If nothing happens when you select the
option from your host system to enter the Chez Diesel game switchboard,
or you get an error message, it means there's a routing problem. In this
case, you should contact Customer Services on your host system and ask
them to look into the problem. You should also drop a line to Hazed so
we can keep a record of when routing problems occur.

If you can get into the Chez Diesel game switchboard, you should be able
to proceed from there to the game menu. If you cannot, that means the
problem is with the game - and we definitely need to know about that!

From the game menu, you should be able to play Fed. If you can't, wait
five minutes in case the game is resetting, and try again. If you still
can't, then we need to know because there's a problem. You will probably
get a message saying something like "MCI error".

Whenever you tell us about problems, either getting to the game, or in
the game itself, please tell us the date and time the problem occurred.
That makes tracking down the cause much easier. And a reminder that if
your problem is with something that happens in the game, it's very
useful if you can send us a capture of the problem.

Thanks,

     Bella


 **>> MARDI GRAS - BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!

This weekend, the Mardi Gras planet (which should have been available
last week) finally made it into the game. You can explore the planet and
join the Universe's biggest party! Every location is a bar, and every
location has wierd and wonderful characters in amazing costumes, dancing
about and enjoying the celebration. It's such a fun place, you have to
go take a look!


 **>> A LITTLE BIT OF IRISH

March 17 is St. Patrick's Day, and as expected the large Irish clan in
Fed will be celebrating in style. We'll have a special planet for you to
explore, with a puzzle to solve.

A Celtic festival is never a half-hearted affair and the Irish will use
any excuse for serious partying. When the pretext for that celebration
is St. Patrick's Day then prepare to be overwhelmed wth Gaelic
exuberance as music and dancing spill out of every shop and pub into the
streets of Anamford, a quaint little village on the planet Eirinn. From
the St. Paddy's Day parade marching down Main Street to the cuisine
offered by sidewalk cafes and traditional music sessions bursting from
the pubs, the visitor will be immersed in Irish culture.

Yet, amidst the gaiety of the celebration a lonesome lad pines for his
lost love. She has been spirited away by the King of the Fairy Folk and
only you can help rescue the fair damsel and reunite her with her true
love. Your adventure begins in Anamford and weaves its way through an
enchanted tale as you encounter events and people from Irish mythology.
Decipher the riddles and puzzles to save our lovers and to find your
very own "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.


 **>> PLANET-CHECKING FOR THE AMIGA

Hot on the heels of Plantking's planet checking program for the PC,
comes Kainaw's version for the Amiga. File #4948 in the MPGames library
on GEnie (page 1045) lets you check your planet offline, using a capture
of the workbench output. Here's what Kainaw says about it:

"This program allows you to take whatever you've entered into the
Explorer's Workbench and check it for errors. You have to have a capture
of the workbench file lists, of course. You may check your planet by
means of listing each file entry, one by one, or taking a simulated tour
of your planet. Some added commands make this better than the real
thing, including GOTO which takes you to the location of your choice,
MOVE which shows all the available movement directions, OBJECTS which
shows information on all the objects on the planet, and EVENTON/OFF
which signals you every time an event is checked (even if you don't set
it off). This version does not allow space battle, but every other
aspect needed to check your planet for errors is implemented. -Kainaw"

Another very useful program!


 **>> BACK FROM THE DEAD

Poor old Budwarp. One minute, master of all he surveys, Duke of Epini,
ruler of a bunch of underling planets. Next minute, a lowly GroundHog
courtesy of a rogue macro. Yes, he went dead-dead, much to his horror
and embarrassment, and to the grief and shame of his wife Dierdre. (Can
you imagine her shame at suddenly being married to a Poor Person?)

Bud is swiftly climbing back up the ranks, and has already made it to
Thane in less than a week. He told us he couldn't have done it without
the help of all his friends, and would like to say thank you to them, in
particular to Dierdre, China, Barberousse, Aja, Tantras, Talisan and
Mira.

Budwarp and Dierdre will be renewing their marriage vows as soon as he
makes it back to Duke. Obviously, we can't give you a date and time for
this, because we don't know in advance exactly when he will regain his
rightful place! But if we can, we'll make sure a newsdroid is there
collecting the gossip.


 *>> LETTER FROM EIRE

Citizens of Federation,

Eire would like to reaffirm its policy of being friendly to all the
citizens of Federation. We have striven to normalize relations with all
duchies, and made attempts to heal old rifts. Our goal is a peaceful and
prosperous federation under the current administration, and under the
rule of all future Emperors. Federation works best when there is a
spirit of co-operation between all the citizens, as exhibited during
Budwarp's rebuilding from his unfortunate dead-dead accident. If I had
been told a couple months back that the planet owner that has
Nightstalker's base would be instrumental in helping Budwarp rebuild, I
would not have believed it. Since I have gotten to know a couple of
planet owners in Nightfall recently, I am not surprised by China's
assistance.

In this spirit, I have removed my embassy from Cove, since it has caused
Dee and Budwarp distress. I hope that upon the rebirth of Epini, this
will lay the groundwork for a resumption of the spirit of cooperation
that existed between Budwarp and myself before we became dukes. Eire
considers itself at peace with all duchies.

Faith and Hope,

  Sean Dougherty,
  Duke of Eire


 **>> LETTER FROM ORB

Ever wish you had a place to call your own in FED? A place that suits
you, and your unique lifestyle? It's a long hard road from Groundhog to
Squire, and waking up in some seedy pub every day makes for sore bones,
bad breath and usually bad hair, take it from me.

Now you too, can wake up in comfort in your own room on Orb, and it's
EASY. All rooms are fully equipped with a wet bar and Alfresco
Unlimited's patented SERVOTRONIC MEALMASTER MUNCHIE MACHINES. Full
laundry service is also included with each room.

What's the catch, you ask? It's simple and painless. All you have to do
to qualify for your own room is buy a ship on Orb and keep it flagged
and the room is yours. You can write the description or just tell me how
you want it and I'll write it for you. That's all there is to it. If
interested, please contact Squire Alfresco of Orb for more details.

Happy Trading,

     Alfresco Di Al Dente


 **>> POWERS OF FED

This summoning of power was caught by a newsdroid who happened to be in
the right space at the wrong time. The resulting surge of power that
follow afterwards rendered the droid worthless, except for the VidTape.

     Dear Great Demi-Goddess that IS

     I sacrifice this leaf in offering to you. <Burns a leaf and lets
     the smoke rise into the heavens> I do this not for myself, but for
     a Poor Person asking me to evoke Bella's Powers of Planetary
     Existence.

     This would be Budwarp.

     CaTerPillar, SenaTor of Mushrooms

Shortly after this, the bug was found prone on its mushroom, not able to
move a leg. This proved to be far more than the tiny invertebrate could
handle and it slumped there, lethargically. Do we ever see it
otherwise??


 **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES

The duchies are in a bit of a turmoil this week, because of Duke
Budwarp's unexpected death. This left his planets duchy-less. Most of
them have joined up with Aja's Sphinx for the interim period; presumably
they'll go back to Epini once the duchy reappears.

Roman's Brittany advanced to become an Industrial planet, and Brawn's
Outpost is now a Leisure world.

There were no new player-planets this week, but we sent our newsdroid to
take a look at some of the recently-linked worlds that haven't yet had
a review. However, we didn't review all of them: Alfresco asked our
droid to stay away from his planet, Orb, because he's not happy with
large parts of it.

We had a brief look at Thomas' Haven but he asked us to hold off
reviewing until he'd sorted out some problems. We look forward to
reviewing the planet properly, because it looked as if it will be very
good indeed.

Incidentally, old players may remember that this isn't the first Haven
to appear in Fed. The very first planet to be linked in was also called
Haven, and it belonged to Russ. We've also had two Polarises (Polari?)
in the game. Once a player-planet is no longer in the game, either
because the player has gone d-d or because they've vanished for a long
time, the name can be reused.


 **>> NEW AND OLD

Kainaw's Tisnar is not a new planet as such, because it's been re-linked
since he went d-d. However, much of the planet has been re-written so it
was worth taking another look.

Tisnar has an innovative way of showing you the layout of the locations.
Rather than a text description of the exits, Kainaw has drawn a map of
the location and its exits. Here's an example:

     >Road

                   Main Road
                       :
                       :
     Courthouse--You Are Here--Emergency Room
                       :
                       :
                   Main Road

You might think this would make for a dull planet, but Kainaw's only
used this device on the "linking" locations - those north-south roads
with exits leading east to the exchange, and so on. It makes it
remarkably easy to move around on Tisnar.

Where the locations are important, they have "real" text descriptions,
and Kainaw's use of language is very good. All his locations are well-
written. But even more impressive is his use of events and objects, to
move you through some of his locations in order to tell a story.

Kainaw courts controvery in one of his areas, the University, by giving
hints to one of Fed's puzzles. But the hints he gives are only cryptic
clues - the kind of hints a mentor might give a puzzle-solver if they
were stuck; no major secrets are given away, so there's no point lower-
ranking players rushing there to find out all the answers. But it may be
of help to those who can't quite work out what to do.

Overall, Tisnar is one of the most impressive planets we have seen for
a long time, and as such we have no hesitation in awarding Kainaw the
coveted Walrus of Merit.


 **>> A SHADOWY WORLD

Fastjack's planet is a large naval base, full of guards checking your
every move. A handy teleport link leads from the Landing Pad to the
Exchange, and back, so Traders can be in and out quickly. But the
streets have many one-way systems feeding you in directions you may not
have wanted to go! The streets have sinister names... like Shark Street.
All in all, a very unwelcoming atmosphere. This is a planet that doesn't
want visitors!

It's been well put together and is a competent piece of work.


 **>> SPYNET REVIEW

Congratulations to everyone who was promoted this week, and
commiserations to those who died.

The new Captains were Satori, Atreides, Nicole, Budwarp (back from the
dead) Impulse, Darkfalcon, Alandra, Durran, Xavier, Hardcore, Mike,
Galaxy, Pinky and Dana.

Pantraid, Budwarp, Impulse, Stratton, Xavier and Mike were promoted to
Adventurer.

The Traders Guild has five new members: Admiral, Budwarp, Durran,
Samantha and Xavier.

Ukla, Clovis and Budwarp made it to Merchant.

The awesome JP puzzle was cracked by Asrianna, Chicago and Budwarp.

Gabriel and (guess who?) Budwarp solved the fiendish GM puzzle.

Benson and Budwarp were promoted to Explorer.

Budwarp became a Squire as his planet was re-linked, then a Thane as he
advanced the planet.

Romana is now an Industrialist, and Brawn became a Baron, as their
economies were upgraded.

It was a week for high-level deaths. Merchant Mike, Explorer Winter,
Squire Shadow and Duke Budwarp all went dead-dead. Maybe there's
something in the water.


 **>> 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: Mira, Redqueen, Caterpillar,
Lyrynna, Gazoo and Grannie. 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

 * <SEND> 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