THREE DAYS IN FED THROUGH THE EYES OF A MONKEY
Being a Euro-monkey has its ups and downs. On the upside, I get 35 days paid holiday every year, which means that I can get out and about. A couple of weeks in Meta for the summer and ten days in Ice for a spot of banana sledging and I still have three weeks left over for the annual banana harvest on Acuminata. There is a downside, however. Being on GMT means that I only really get to experience Fed at a time of day when many of you are asleep (in the game in some cases!). It made me wonder what I miss out on when I'm sleeping. There are some things that I yearn to experience. Will I ever get to go to one of Lynnea and Asterix's parties? Will I ever have the opportunity to play Feddergories, Word Scramble or Fedpardy? Will I ever brush a rose down my cheek or cradle a laughing child? All of these things, they vex me greatly.
Likewise, many of you who live on the wrong side of the Atlantic don't get to experience EuroFed. So I thought I would try to give you guys a little flavour of what happens in Fed during my watch. First thing in the morning (9.00am GMT) there are usually only four of us who actively participate in discourse on the comms. Myself, Gwaptiva and perhaps a couple of severely over-tired representatives from North America. So, without further ado, I give you "three days in Fed through the eyes of a Monkey".
Saturday the 10th June:
The day starts off with a bit of English-bashing on the comms from Gwaptiva. It's important that us colonial masters allow the minions to "have their day" every now and again so I let it go. In fact, when you consider that he lives in quite possibly the grimmest place in all of Scotland, directly opposite a ruddy-great nuclear power station, it's amazing that he is quite so well adjusted. Then follows a brief discussion of Lynnea's scarecrow hair and Occy logs in to tell us all that his planet is almost finished. As the morning draws to a close, Hazed logs in. A few hours later she logs out "to bask in the sun". We then enter the "dark of the matinee" where aside from a few technical questions and a flurry of "good morning Fed"s I have only the Spynet Notices and T,C&B reports to keep me company.
Sunday the 11th June:
I log in to the middle of a conversation where MentallyHayzed is explaining his rationale behind hunting purple dinosaurs. Not sure what prompted this conversation but I think it may have had something to do with a song on Freakster Radio. I find it fascinating exactly which conversations have "legs" in Fed and which die out very quickly. For some reason this theme of killing purple dinosaurs captures the imagination of those awake and on the comms. First we had Gwaptiva, Lynnea and Earp musing on the possibility that the song was directly responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. After a little while someone voiced the worry that discussing the assassination of a fictional character might put you on an FBI intelligence list. It was at this point that Hazed headed out to "bask in the sun"... again! I kid you not. Now given that we were just discussing extinct reptilians, I quickly attempted to add two and two and came up with what I think may be four. Now, we all know Hazed to be a demi-goddess but is she, in fact, also a lizard? Investigations are underway...
Anyway, back to the conversation on the comms... A discussion of Lynnea's party brought up the information that someone may have been scalped. MentallyHayzed opined that you should never take a scalp that you are not willing to wear. Well, at least that leaves Lynnea with very little chance of getting scalped; unless there's a market for scarecrow wigs. The conversation then jumps sideways somewhat:
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Mentallyhayzed, "If there is a man on the moon... what's the chic look like ?
I should point out that alarming sideways jumps in topic frequently occur when MH is about. I did briefly attempt to "out-weird" him when I first met him but failed miserably. He is like a geyser with a leaky valve (geologically speaking I know geysers don't have valves but the relative strength of the crust and backward pressure produced by the walls of the aperture serve the same purpose – that sounded totally convincing, didn't it!). Beneath the MH geyser is a torrential pressure of random thoughts the like of which the world has never seen. Every so often the pressure build-up exceeds the tolerance threshold of the valve and a snippet of randomness issues forth onto the comms. Anyway, the answer to this particular question is obvious. The lady on the moon is clearly the very beautiful Selena of the Spaceways.
The comms fell quiet for a little while, until the young (and dare I say plucky?) captain, Sylvadin entered Fed to proclaim that she was not talking to Gwaptiva. Something about him bad-mouthing hurricanes. I tried hard to find some empathy with a dangerous manifestation of the weather and failed. I mean what exactly had Gwaptiva said about hurricanes that had upset her so much? That they don't blow as hard as a tropical storm?
Shortly afterward, Sylvadin promoted to Adventuress and Gwaptiva, nice guy that he is, was the first to offer his congratulations.
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Sylvadin, "Yea Thanks and I'm still not speaking to you :P This is really just your imagination thanking you"
This is close to the truth because, as I said earlier, during the graveyard shift in Fed, usually there are only a few other people talking, two of whom are Gwaptiva. Silence falls over Fed for a while until this, which makes me chuckle:
SPYNET REPORT: Groundhog Florian has entered Federation DataSpace.
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Florian, "does anyone hear me?"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Rick, "hi there florian, and yes ;)"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Dupree, "Was there a question?"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Gwaptiva, "Yeah. Welcome to Federation 2 Florian"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Florian, "is space combat in here too?"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Fancy, "Not yet"
SPYNET REPORT: Groundhog Florian has left Federation DataSpace.
I have a particular fondness for what can only be described as fleeting visits by groundhogs. There are few things as deflating as giving a groundhog a big welcome only to get caught in the face by their trailing Spynet Report as they run for the exit. It did make me wonder about fighting though. Fed is clearly inhabited by people who do not rate fighting as their primary motivation for online gaming. I have a sneaking suspicion that when it does come in, we'll all be too polite to actually shoot at each other. I hope you have all been reading Freya's excellent series on archvillains. Even if you do not create a 100% villain persona I would urge you all to take something from the series. I am going to make it my mission to put missiles up anyone who is "too nice for their own good". I am a philanthropist at heart, you know.
Monday the 13th June:
It turns out that the hurricanes that Sylvadin was referring to yesterday and that Gwaptiva had apparently bad-mouthed were a hockey team. Conversation then gets a little confused though, as for a few minutes, Hazed is picturing field hockey whilst Sylvadin is explaining the art of grievous bodily harm on ice. I make one little comment about the correlation between ice hockey, mullets and monster trucks and this is enough to get me blacklisted by Sylvadin:
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Sylvadin, "Okay I'm now refusing to speak to you monkey."
Something tells me that she may be a little high-maintenance. Anyway, she continued to give us a run-down of the previous night's game,
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Sylvadin, "Cam Ward was absolutely unreal last night. His glove moved like a snake."
Now I only bring this up because it seemed to pique Hazed's interest. Was it the reference to a reptile that got her attention? Hmmm.... I said nothing for a while as I tried hard to superimpose the image of a man doing "techno" dancing in the middle of a game of hockey. You know, where you interlace your fingers and them move your arms like, well... a snake. What else could she have meant?
So there you have it. Three days in Fed at what may be an odd time of day for many of you. I fully expect a flood of log-ins at this time, all eager to experience the wanton craziness that is GMT Fed. We are, however, like Schroedinger's cat. If you step into the box you will completely change the reality therein. Feel free to try, however.
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