LINE NOISE
News from Chez Diesel
31 October 1998

 Following my blistering expose of the Alliance, it seems that members are resigning in 
droves. Even Snoopy, the founder and leader of the organisation, has been heard 
muttering about throwing in the towel!

The sorry state of the Alliance was shown on Saturday, when the only person to show 
up for their publicised meeting in Chez Diesel was Snoopy himself.

There seem to be several reasons for this mass exodus from the safety of Snoopy's 
care and protection. One is that they are unwilling to part with their hard-earned groats 
to pay the membership fees for a return of very little. The question has been asked, 
what is happening to this money? Is it just helping Snoopy make Merchant?

But the main reason is fear. Pegasus has declared open season on all Alliance 
members and despite Snoopy's claims that Pegasus will die very soon ("His death was 
discussed at an Alliance meeting a few weeks ago... we just haven't finalised our plans 
yet" said Snoopy) many members feel it would be safer to disassociate themselves 
from the group, rather than risk ending up on the wrong end of the meanest son-of-a-
bitch in the entire galaxy's twin-lasers.

Hawk is also fairly anti-Alliance at the moment after being wrongly accused of helping 
Pegasus to kill Docker. This is absolute nonsense, of course: not only is Hawk a fairly 
peaceful chap, who doesn't make a habit of plotting mayhem and violence (although he 
may be willing to make an exception now!) but everyone knows that Pegasus needs no 
help whatsoever in blowing up Poor People. Docker has now publicly apologised for his 
slur on Hawk's good character, so he is safe from revenge for the time being.

Even within the Alliance there is bickering and squabbling. Sevrina and Magius have 
been bitching at each other for weeks now (I don't know who actually started it and I 
don't really care). This soon escallated to the stage where Mags was blowing up 
Sevrina any time he caught her unawares. Not unnaturally, Sev was a getting a little 
peeved at this - as a Poor Person she didn't have much fire power so was powerless 
against the Trader's ship.

Until Pugwash, defender of the meek, everybody's friend, gave her the money for a 
well-armoured vessel! She scurried off to Jarrow to purchase her new ship, which she 
named 'Death' - very appropriate, although it runs against her usual trend of naming 
her ships after birds!

She knew she wouldn't be able to chase and catch Magius, so she taunted him until he 
came after her and proceeded to let fly with her shiny new twin-lasers until Old Red 
Eyes snuffed it, thus earning her graduation from the Pug and Peg School of Advanced 
Mayhem.

Magius was highly embarassed at having been slaughtered by a Poor Person; he 
blamed it on trouble with his f-keys but as my mother used to say, "only a bad workman 
blames his tool".

Our Illustrious Leader has finally put a stop to the buy-sell-store system of trading 
which allowed Traders to make 2 mega-groats an hour. The Exchanges now instantly 
consume half of anything you sell... so you very soon run out of Droids!

This caused panic and consternation among all those Traders who had never bothered 
to learn how legit trading actually worked. Comms units crackled with whinging and 
moaning... they obviously don't realise that it is possible to make a fair amount of 
money if you know what you're doing.

However, to make up for this a bug in the price fluctuation routines at the weekend had 
the exchanges doing some very peculiar things. Earth was buying goods at about 2000 
groats a ton - and Venus was selling for a negative amount, so you received money 
when you bought commodities. I've never seen so many Traders racing around so fast 
before! This should have been fixed today but it was a great way to make millions while 
it lasted.

The Commodore Show is fast approaching, and with it two events of great interest to 
everybody.

The Third Official Fed Meet will be held on Saturday 19 November. Meet in the Bar 
(where else?) at chucking-out time and then the assembled masses will move on to 
whatever restaurant is brave enough to allow us in! Watch this space for more details 
of the venue.

The Show will also see the publication of the Third Edition of the world-famous Idiot's 
Guide to Federtion. Much more comprehensive and up-to-date than the on-line version, 
and with the added bonus of pretty pictures by Hawk. Can you wait that long?   STOP 
PRESS

In the latest Alliance News, Snoopy says that the reason why Pegasus has not been 
put onto the Alliance Hit List is that none of the members are willing to fight him! Very 
sensible of them.

And Snoopy also claims that only one person has resigned from the Alliance. If this is 
true, why are so many so-called members at such pains to deny any association with 
the group when challenged by Pugwash or Pegasus? Are they all part-time members? I 
think we should be told!