LINE NOISE
News from Chez Diesel
27 April, 1989


OBSOLETE ISSUE

This is the issue of Line Noise covering events effected by the strange time-slip.

News is slowly coming to light as to what exactly happened to cause the phenomenon 
which pushed a whole week of Fed Data Space onto an alternate time-line - it appears 
that a prominent Fedder, whose name is often linked with controversy, may have been 
responsible. More news as it comes to light.
 
Bit of a duff issue, this - not much to report at all, except boring hings like births, deaths 
and promotions. Still, I suppose I must 
make an effort...

First, the death. Xaviour is no more! After repeated threats to top himself, he finally did 
it.

He originally muttered about suicide a few weeks ago, but said he wanted to solve the 
GM puzzle first to prove it hadn't beaten him.

Famous last words! After repeated failures, he suffered a fit of depression and 
announced that he was about to do himself in. 

Concerned Fedders flocked to dissuade him (accompanied by ghouls hoping to be 
named in his will), and managed to convince him not to do it.

He decided to resume his attempts at the puzzle, but came very close to ending up 
dead-dead against his will. He wasn't insured but had a go anyway - very foolish 
because even if you know exactly what to do, there are plenty of chances to make silly 
mistakes. But just as he was about to stake his life on his attempt, the net crashed.

When the game was rebooted, there he was, stuck on the asteroid - with no spaceship, 
none of the objects he needed to complete the puzzle, no way off except dying - and no 
insurance! Well, that's what you get if you try to play chicken against one of Our 
Illustrious Leader's horrible puzzles.

Fortunately, Omi had his annual brainwave and came up with a method to rescue Xav. 
But the experience shocked the hapless JP so much that he felt he couldn't go on any 
longer. The puzzle had beaten him.

He gave his groats to the deserving poor and flew his ship into the sun.

However, unlike other much-missed suiciders (Linebacker, Toranaga and Pegasus to 
name the most famous), Xaviour is not resting in peace. He has returned, as a Poor 
Person, and is running about having a great time nicking the jobs from the other 
players.

On to the promotions. Yes, I know it is tedious reporting every single promotion, even if 
I do restrict it to the top ranks, but if I didn't the Fedders involved would get all upset 
and cry into their beer - and I will not have people watering down Diesel's Old Peculiar.

So, congratulations to Omi who is now the Junior Explorer. This was quite an 
expensive promotion for him - having had youths never learn!

And well done Spacehound for solving the GM puzzle at last - what took 
you so long?

This leaves Zugger still struggling. His method for working out the answer seems to be 
to pester everyone who has solved it until they get so fed up they reveal the secret just 
to make him go away, but so far this hasn't worked. The GMs and Explorers quite 
rightly feel that if they managed to work it out - and had to die many times while doing 
so - Zugger should suffer as well.

Zugger is being chased by Magius, who thought he had the correct stats to attempt the 
puzzle but found to his dismay that his strength wasn't up to it. What a wimp!

And the birth... Magius is embroiled in controversy yet again. Following his participation 
in a shock three-in-a-bed sex-orgy with an as-yet-unnamed prominent female Fedder 
and her protege, Naias, he has been accused of being the father of Naias' child 
(expected to be born some time in the next week).

Predictably, he denied any involvement whatsoever, claiming he has never even 
spoken to Naias, let alone been 'intimate' with her.

Naias however claims that she has incontravertible proof that Magius is the father. Not 
only does the genetic finger-printing match, but a scan of the foetus shows that it has 
red eyes!

Magius then changed his tune and claimed that someone must have put something in 
his drink, making him incapable of resisting the advances of Naias and her secret 
accomplice. (Just a minute... that story sounds a little familiar...)

Naias and Magius are locked in bitter dispute over the matter, and if (as seems likely at 
the moment the way they are hurling insults at each other) they are unable to come to a 
private settlement, the matter will have to go to court.

There have been a few changes to the game.

Firstly, the news and the review have been split from each other, with the old option 
READ just giving the current births, deaths and promotions, and NEWS giving 
messages from Our Illustrious Leader about the game. (Incidentally, you only have to 
type the first letter of the word to select your option.)

The reward you can put on a player's head has been increased from 250 groats to 
1000, but it now costs you more, depending on the difference between your rank and 
that of the victim.

Giving away your hard-eanred groats is now easier... or not, as the case may be

The tax thresholds have been changed, again dependent on your rank. You can now 
give away, tax-free, up to 3000 groats multiplied by the rank of the recipient, and if tax 
is incurred you are told how much. However, the hash (repeat) key no longer works 
with any numerical commands, so everyone who had worked out exactly how many 
hash/returns to put on a f-key, and how many key-presses make 1 meg, is feeling 
disgruntled.

The Location Editor is now available, but since that is only of interest to the three 
Explorers I won't bother to mention it.

It has been said that Fed is one big in-joke, and that any news reports - Line Noise, 
TWF, SpyNet Sport, or specials done for Netfax or ICC News - are totally 
incomprehensible to non-players. 

In order to explain to the bemused masses just what Fed is all about, Hazed-by-Alcohol 
(publishers of the most amazingly successful book in the entire Universe, The Idiot's 
Guide to Federation II, mbx me for details) have written a short piece explaining just 
what the game is about, and why it inspires such devotion in the players.

This was originally uploaded by FEEDBACK in NETFAX, but by now has probably been 
re-uploaded all over the net, in the hope that it encourages more people to give the 
game a go. If it works, expect an influx of curious GroundHogs.

Don't forget the Oxford Meet on Sunday and Monday. Final details have been uploaded 
in SpyNet.

See you there!