**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 95.03.10 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> LAST MONDAY'S OUTAGE Many apologies for not giving you advance warning of the unavailability of Fed during the day last Monday. The TechDroid was doing some work on the computer the game runs on, and we clean forgot to put a notice in the news the day before. Sorry! **>> LABYRINTHINE EASTER PLANET! Look out for our special Easter planet, a giant labyrinth of a place with a puzzle to solve. More details next week on this, and on the traditional visit to Fed of the Easter Bunny. **>> DIS-POSSESSED You will recall from earlier news bulletins that Merchant Bryan had been possessed by the God Dis, worshipped by Menua. Having discovered he had access to some of Dis' awesome powers even when the God was not activating his body, Bryan was trying to fight back against the puppet-master. Last Wednesday, Bryan travelled to Stonehenge, accompanied by Ishmael and Budwarp, to make one final attempt to rid the Merchant of his unwelcome guest. They went to a secret place on the planet, where the magic was strongest, and prepared to undertake a sacred ritual. The preparations involved all kinds of strange things, such as washing of the body parts in the juice from an oak tree, and weaving branches of willow into hair, and so on. (Researchers have long speculated that these preparations are not essential to rituals; rather, the rituals are used as an excuse to engage in all manner of sexual fetishes and perversions and lend some carryings-on a semblance of respectability. But we digress). Bryan called upon Dis to show itself in its true form - which it did! He obviously used the magic words (pretty please with sugar on top). Once the God revealed itself, Bryan fired his laser at it and a shootout took place between the mortal and the deity. Exactly what happened, we don't know, but at the end Dis was gone and Bryan was left God-free, although severely injured. His friends took him to hospital to be put back together again while Budwarp took steps to ensure that Dis can never trouble mere mortals again. Bryan's final words, before lapsing into unconsciousness in the arms of a very capable nurse, were "It is all over!" **>> QUARANTINE THROWN AROUND H-by-A OFFICE Shock news! Our droids are unable to carry out their normal news gathering functions because they are suspected of carrying disease! It all started when we decided to check out the rumours we'd been hearing of plague in the duchy of Chaos. We'd been told that whole planets were becoming depopulated by a virulent disease that killed within days, without fail, and that the entire Galaxy had set up a quarantine around the duchy to prevent the disease from travelling to other duchies. No ships were being allowed to leave the duchy; and those that tried to jump to Chaos were being warned that it would be a one-way trip. A little thing like a quarantine is not enough to stop our intrepid newsdroids, of course! And being made of metal not flesh, we all assumed we'd be safe from the plague. So several of us slipped through the quarantine blockade and visited several of the planets to see what conditions were like. We were shocked by what we found. The rumour hadn't covered half the devastation... this disease made the Black Death seem like a mild cold. It was absolutely fatal, there was no cure, no vaccination; victims developed severe head pains within hours of coming into contact with the infection, then the skin on their heads broke out into bright green spots, and finally after less than a day, their heads would explode with a loud bang, which of course killed them. Every planet we visited was just littered with headless corpses; we found not a single soul alive. Shaken, we slipped back through the cordons, unnoticed, and made our way back to the H-by-A office to write up our report. Imagine our horror when a few hours later, one of our droids started complaining that his memory diodes were causing him pain. Picture our distress as his casing started to develop swollen green patches. Envision our fear as his casing suddenly exploded, showering the entire office in shards of metal, burnt-out electrodes and fried chips. This plague affected droids, too! Hazed immediately ran from the office screaming, and barricaded herself in her ship, leaving us droids to cope as best we could. We decided for the sake of the rest of the Galaxy to impose a quarantine on the office, and not let anyone in or out. So here we sit, composing what may be our last news bulletin, while around us can be heard the sound of exploding newsdroids. Oh, the horror, the horror! **>> HUMANS MADE ME PREGNANT! A special story from another Galaxy News has reached us of an alarming occurrence, in which a poor innocent being was put through a terrible ordeal. Miss Arglebag Xookrim, a 17-year-old Kreeeel from Plantagenanus VII, is in a state of shock and is being treated by medics on her home planet. Our newsdroid spoke to Miss Xookrim (a beautiful greenette, with vital statistics a very pleasing 12-67-145). Arglebag said that she had been walking home down a quiet country lane late one night, when she had seen two bright lights in the sky, coming towards her very fast. The lights had circled around her, then hovered for a while, before descending to ground level. The lights had dimmed, revealing a craft of some kind. A door opened in the side of the craft and too frightening creatures appeared. "They were horrible - tall and skinny, with a nasty pink skin, balanced on two stilt-things that bent in the middle, and they had these two unpleasant appendages near the top that waved around, and were split into five tentacles at the ends." The poor Kreeeel broke down and wept as she remember how the horrifying creatures had herded her into their craft, strapped her down on a table and performed embarrassing medical experiments on her. She refused to describe exactly what had been done to her, but showed our droid some of the scars. We wanted to find out just who had abducted sweet little Arglebag. We asked her to describe, in detail, the appearance of the creatures and their ship, while our artist sketched. When she agreed that our drawing was exactly what she had seen, we took the sketch to the archives and tried to match it against all known races. And there we found them - from a neighbouring Galaxy, these dreadful beings were called Humans, and originated from Sol III. But poor Arglebag's ordeal was not over. Medics examining her after her abduction by humans discovered that she was pregnant, and due to give birth to some terrifying human baby in approximately 7 months (human babies apparently mature at a far quicker rate than the normal 4 years). Watch this space for further details of how Arglebag Xookrim was forced to give birth to a human! **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to the winners of the Tungsten Tourist Trap Trophy: Bliss (twice), Cove (four times), Musica, Libra, Mist and Shelter. Alas, poor Adventureuse Random, who snuffed it in the Morpher system. RIP! Congratulations to all those who achieved promotion during the week. The new Captains were Tzlwmp, Ishmael, Gus, Shiara and Magus. Ishmael, Random and Fawn reached Adventurer and Adventureuse. The Traders Guild admitted Ishmael, Fawn and Ceasar to its ranks. Ceasar, Ishmael went on to make Merchant. Shandi become Squire of Fractal. **>> 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 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. **>> BULLETIN ENDS ??