The calm on the Louis -vs- Smart front turned out not to last long. Only at the end of January were the peace advocates claiming success at preventing war between Louis JM or Mizar, and Derek Smart of Alcor, and again the accusations are flying in what must be the longest running flame war in history.
Over the last week, the war of words has once again broken out. This time, Louis accused Smart of running an employment scam. Not surprisingly, Smart didn't take too kindly to this. This tactic seemed to cost Louis a great deal of support he used to have, and he now stands fairly isolated. It didn't help that Louis alledgedly doctored an IRC log from the #alt.fan.elite channel on VapoNet, which nearly cost Paul Johnstone his job for things he didn't actually say.
This time, Smart claims to have got the Federation involved. We'll have to wait and see about what comes of this - since Louis has only made a verbal attack on Smart in a public forum, it would be a surprise if the Federation took any significant interest. Sadly, Smart refused the advice to simply ignore Louis. Many people feel that if only Smart would do this, the whole situation would blow over pretty quickly. The whole Ursa Major area is getting thoroughly sick and tired of the whole mess (but it does however provide a good soap opera!)
The Empire continues to try and negotiate with the VLA, the
hijackers of the ITS Spaceline flagship, the Duval Dynasty. So far, no progress
has been made. The VLA has demanded that the ship be refueled, and it is
certain that they are making plans for moving the hijacked ship to another
system. Meanwhile, there are signs that the Empire is beginning to lose
patience with the hijackers, and a large force has arrived in the Vequess
system.
In the past, typically the Empire has issued an ultimatum in these situations. It is likely that the force's arrival in Vequess is leading to an ultimatum being issued to the VLA hijackers. Additionally, an armed Imperial force has arrived in Liabefa, and has ordered the Liabefan authorities not to allow any refuelling of the liner. This has not impressed the Liabefans, since the system is independent, and they don't particularly like being ordered around by the Empire even if one of its ships is hijacked in the system.
An anonymous VLA spokesbeing contacted the News, saying "The Empire ought to watch its step - we are prepared to destroy the Duval Dynasty if they attempt to either arrest anyone in Vequess or intefere with the spaceliner".
In the past, the Empire has just allowed hijackers to perish with the hijacked spacecraft, and they usually make sure this happens within a week. However, it is apparent that the VLA were very careful in choosing which ship to hijack, ensuring personal friends of the Emperor were on board. It also proves the old saying about the Empire - everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others.
Over the course of the last week, several traders and bounty hunters have been reporting an odd phenomena whilst travelling through the independent system of Watibe (-4,4). The reports have been consistently about a Constrictor racing in to attack, and overshooting. When the Constrictor does manage to stay in the general area of the other ship, the other ship finds that they do not take damage from missile or laser attacks from the ship, nor can they damage the Constrictor. Most craft encountering this ship have had to put up with endless "attacks" from this ship all the way to the spaceport.
Tom Johnson, a bounty hunter who regularly trawls the anarchy of Watibe for pirates told the News, "It was very strange. I locked the autopilot onto the ship after it zipped by the first time. After about two hours, our speeds were finally matched and I could get close. I managed to stay within 1km of the ship. I could not damage it, and it couldn't damage me. I even tried ramming the ship, but it was to no avail. There also appeared to be a ghost image of the ship that kept flicking around, seemingly at random."
Scanner logs show that although radar mappers lock onto the ship and show it as a Constrictor, the scanner itself shows no return. An AJN patrol went to investigate the phenomena, and found it. Military scanners showed a minute object centered where the ship should be. An AJN Saker managed to capture the object, which is undergoing analysis by the ASC. It is thought to be a highly advanced holo-bot projection unit. Nothing of this type is available commercially. While currently available holo-bots can show images of ships and simulate attacks, they cannot cause the radar mapper to show anything meaningful, nor do they have the endurance to last long enough to harrass a ship for 9 AU like this particular unit has.
The commander of the Turner Space Combat Academy, James Winston, was arrested by Titican police last week whilst attempting to dock at Argent. He was stopped in his personal Asp after inadvertently firing his front laser. He was also fined for breaking the speed limit in the terminal area and rebuked for the lack of a front license plate. He ended up spending several hours in a sqalid Titican State holding cell at the Argent police station.
"It's very embarrassing", Winston told the News. "I didn't mean to fire my laser, but I had forgotten to set the safety. I reached over for an approach chart and inadvertently hit the trigger. It didn't help when I asked the officer who stopped me why he wasn't out catching real criminals instead of harassing innocent pilots"
Winston was only travelling at 20 km/h over the prescribed speed limit of 500 km/h in the terminal area. The arresting officer, Joe Martinique, told the News, "I don't care whether it's Commander James Winston or Emperor Duval on a diplomatic visit. If they break the law, it's up to me to ensure that they are charged. Let this be an example to everyone that they cannot get away with lawbreaking in an Alliance system".
Winston was fined CR 2,000 for the three offences, and released the same day. He admitted that perhaps he should have shown the officer more respect. "I've since apologised to the officer, and complemented him on doing a good job". The AJN has said that Admiral Westley had given James Winston a "sharp rebuke". The AJN also said it would take no further action against Winston, stating that the embarrasment he caused himself was punishment enough, as it was a genuine mistake and no harm was done to persons or property.
The IRC channel, #alt.fan.elite, on VapoNet has proven popular with commanders so far. However, it looks like trouble is looming on the horizon. The peasants are apparently revolting.
Matt Williams (better known as just MattW) is somewhat in charge of the channel. However, it looks like several denizens of #alt.fan.elite aren't impressed with some aspects of his leadership style. The bone of contention currently is the channel's topic. On the Usenet group of the same name, the group of rebels (currently comprising of Commanders Paul Roberts, Dave Bett, Urthworm, Xama, Mark and Adam Burrows) are intensely irritated by MattW's action to change the topic to what they describe as "a selfish and egotistical action of placing his Valuepay referral as the topic, and hypocritically denying a similar method of advertising for others".
In the meantime, the aforementioned commanders have formed a breakaway channel, called #afe, in competition to #alt.fan.elite. Whether this will last remains to be seen - the contentious title has already been removed from #alt.fan.elite.
A new release of the work-in-progress "Elite - The New Kind" has been released by Christian Pinder. The New Kind is a project to take the original BBC Micro disk version, and re-engineer it in C. This will result in a portable version of the definitive classic version.
The new version uses the portable Allegro library for graphics and I/O. You can go to the New Kind site and download the source. Also, precompiled executables are available for Windows 95/98/NT using Allegro and DirectX. The New Kind offers enhancements over the classic version from which it was derived, such as filled in rather than wireframe graphics. Since the New Kind uses Allegro, one thing the Frontier News staff would like to see is a Linux/SVGAlib or Linux/X version of the game.
Christian would like your feedback, so go to his site, download, and let him know what you think.
Additionally, new freeware game, called "Fly to the Frontier" is also under development, by Mirko Reimers. So far, it is only in its earliest stages. It is being developed in Germany (Earth, Sol (0,0) ). Not much information exists at this time as to how the game will develop, but you can download their latest beta verson in any case by following the link to the left. It helps if you understand German, since that's the language used by most of the documentation. This game is modelled on FFE rather than classic Elite.
Alioth.Net's own James Winston has finished another chapter in his story, "Deceit, Harmony and Pleasure". In Chapter 5, Winston finds himself ending up in a bit of drunken mischief, and thus missing out on a vital piece of information. Then he finally gets to meet Rafael Vincent. Did Vincent really drag James Winston all the way from Tionisla for a nice mug of tea? Not likely!
At the Frontierverse, two new chapters of Commander Brad "Wolfsheart" Chacos' epic adventure, "Why did the groigan dance?" is now online. This chapter sees our hero commanding a battle formation...but will it all go to plan? Find out in Chapters 22 and 23.
If you know of any other stories from the Frontier in progress, please let the 'News' know. If you're writing one yourself, but have nowhere to put it, Alioth.Net will be pleased to host it.