The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: January 6, 2008

Inside Scoop page 1


MEETING OF ALT-AHOLICS ANONYMOUS

by Zardoz and Kalandra

The following is a reenactment of actual events. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some scenes may not be suitable to those who are overly sensitive. Reader discretion is advised.

>look
Boring Room
Around a grey nondescript room you see a group of chairs in a circle and a table to one side with a large pot of coffee and a pile of rather sad looking donuts.
Jason is here.
Oscar is here.

Oscar sits, nervously checking his watch, and waits.

Jason taps his foot impatiently.

Bursting through the door, Katie has just arrived.

Katie says, "Sorry guys, I had some jobs to haul off the board."

Oscar asks, "Some jobs to haul off the board? Isn't that the work of a lower ranked player? You're a PO aren't you?"

Katie exclaims, "Did I say jobs? I meant bays... yeah bays... from my exchange... yes that's it. I was hauling bays from my exchange. Honestly!"

Jason asks, "It's ok, that's why we're here. Should we get started?"

Oscar says, "Yes, let's start with the Serenity Prayer."

Katie, Oscar, and Jason speak in unison, "Demi-Goddess grant us the memory to remember which character is on, the bandwidth to connect after reset each day, the courage to face the jobs we must accept, and a roll to ensure our treasury always rises."

Oscar asks, "Okay, who goes first?"

Jason drawls, "Well, since someone neglected to start on time..."

Katie sighs "Alright, I'll go...

Katie takes a deep breath and says, "I'm Katie, and I'm an Alt-aholic."

Jason says, "Hello Katie,"

Oscar says, "Hello Katie,"

Katie starts, "Alt-aholism started off simply enough at first. I wanted a merchant to increase the exchanges, and then I needed some factories, so I promoted that alt. Then I needed an alt to replace the first merchant. At first the one or two was enough, but it soon got out of hand, before I knew it I was juggling multiple personalities and companies."

Katie cries, "The breaking point for me was when Altbot's company cycled without a divvy being issued for the first time ever causing an instant shareholders' rebellion. Talk about a rookie mistake after 36 cycles!"

Oscar interrupts, "Hey, Altbot is my character!"

Katie drawls, "I thought for sure he was mine...."

Oscar checks some papers and says, "Oh, my bad, Altdroid is mine. Sorry."

Katie shakes her head, and looks around the room at the other members and says, "I thought I could handle it but then it started handling me. I found that every time I saw a picture of an attractive model, a name, and character would occur to me, and I'd be drawn to the computer and was soon hauling jobs to promote the new character so I could submit the picture for FedTerm."

Jason asks, "Picture? What kind of picture?"

Oscar says, "You haven't seen them? WAZOW... I have three of her merchants set as my screen saver. One is my wallpaper. My blood pressure goes up every time I'm idle for five minutes."

Jason exclaims, "I must use FedTerm more often!"

Katie exclaims. "Guys! Can I get some respect here?" She glares at the other two players, and then takes another deep breath. "I soon found that I was running 14 characters at a time." She sobs, and says, "I can't take the pressure anymore." She cries quietly and takes her seat.

Jason stands and says, "Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm an Alt-aholic."

Katie says, "Hi Jason."

Oscar says, "Hi Jason."

Jason says, "It all started for me when I couldn't get my shares back. I got so upset with those financiers. Why should they get my dividends? I did all the work. So I decided to make my own financiers, and I buy all the shares of my own company. Then only MY financiers would get the dividends."

Katie asks, "Who would your financiers give the dividends to?"

Jason looks at Katie with a gleam in his eyes and says, "To each other. We'd all own each other's shares. And all our dividends would be just to us. Only us.

Jason laughs for a bit and catches his breath, "Then that led to more alts, and different characters. Soon I had a vampire, a barbarian, mobsters, and a Mok."

Oscar asks, "You have a Mok?"

Katie asks, "What is a Mok anyway?"

Oscar says, "I don't know, but he has one. Hey, I think I want a Mok too!"

Jason asks, "Guys, some empathy here?"

Jason sighs, and says, "It just snowballed. I have 20 characters now and own 145,000 shares. It takes me 3 hours to post my daily dividends to my portfolio spreadsheets. My graphs are now filled with so much data, they don't make any sense any more."

Jason shudders, and takes his seat.

Oscar finally stands and says, "Hi, I'm Oscar, and I'm and Alt-aholic."

Katie says, "Hi Oscar."

Jason says, "Hi Oscar."

Oscar begins, "My problem started with literature. I started creating characters from my favorite books. But soon, I was reading books that had more and more characters. I couldn't stop. I resolved to limit myself to only one book, and after that, no more. So I selected a book at random."

Oscar shudders. "And then the unthinkable happened. I selected the book of Numbers."

Oscar hides his face in his hands.

Jason asks, "The biblical genealogy?"

Oscar nods shamefully, "Yes, the horror. I have 25 characters now as it is. And how can I "tb Jehosophat?" I'm not sure if I can spell it?"

Jason says, "Hold on here. You have 25 characters?"

Oscar looks up sheepishly, "Well 30 if you count my groundhogs."

Jason then asks, "And Katie, you have 14?"

Katie sheepishly replies "Well, 20 if you count the ones that are sleeping."

Jason laughs.

Katie looks puzzled and asks, "Jason, what is it?"

Jason says "Well, I have 22 characters in the game right now."

Oscar looks up, "You said 20 before."

Jason glares at Oscar and looks back at Katie and says, "Don't you see?"

Katie and Oscar look at Jason with quizzical expressions. Jason says, "There were 72 characters signed on today."

Katie puts her hand to her mouth and says, "Oh my, you mean we're it? It's only us?"

Oscar sits back stunned and recounts, and says, "I don't believe it, but it must be."

Jason laughs quietly and says, "Yes, the three of us are Federation."


TO BE CONTINUED...?


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