News is just emerging of a flare-up in hostilities between the Federation and the Empire. On the night of the 24th January, a small Federation force launched a savage attack on a suspected Imperial weapons base on Olcanze (1,-3). A Federation spokesbeing said after the attack, "We had a great deal of evidence that the Empire was amassing weapons of mass destruction in preparation to launching a pre-emptive strike against Federation systems".
The Empire of course denies this was ever the case, and the Emperor was reported to be seething. Sources close to the Emperor told the news "The Federal Navy did not attack any kind of weapons facility. They attacked a civilian science installation". The Empire is claiming that 155 civilians were killed and a further fifty were seriously injured during the raid.
Reports from traders in the system show that the Imperial intelligence division and the defence forces in Olcanze were asleep at the wheel. The Federation fighters arrived without warning and opened fire. The local defence force was quickly overwhelmed by the attack, and the fighters hyperspaced out long before reinforcements arrived. This seems to indicate that maybe the Emperor is not lying about the base being a civilian installation. If this is the case, the consequences may be dire.
This attack seems to have brought to a close the relative calm that has existed between the Empire and Federation for the last thirty years. During the Cold War, the Federation and Empire alike would make hit-and-run attacks on each other's front-line bases, in a very similar style to this latest incident. The Emperor will almost certainly take this incident as an act of war (especially if it turns out that it really was a civilian base). The Federation have always been somewhat "gung ho" in protecting their territory from any percieved Imperial threat, and it seems that their itchy triggerfinger has still not calmed. The Empire, on the other hand, has historically been rather more subtle, usually hitting the Federation where they least expect it.
Kim Tang, the MP for Ethwain region 3 told the News "It's always sad when the two forces start attacking each other, but looking on the bright side, at least if the Federation and Empire fight amongst themselves, they might stop molesting the Alliance and other independent systems".
Last week's mystery of the hyperspace troubles departing the
Endlia system seem to have been solved - or at least their cause has been
discovered. Researchers at AAAI had been carefully analysing FDR outputs
from people who had experienced this phenomenon, and had their suspicions.
However, they didn't expect the mystery to be resolved in just one week.
They were about to start more detailed investigation...with the aid of
the Gateway and Titican police departments, when much to their suprise,
they were unexpectedly met by a member of the notorious piracy group,
the Demons. Reaper of the Demons apparently was getting a little antsy
about what the police might do if they didn't come clean, so they did.
The Demons had discovered an alien device, which AAAI research scientists have positively identified as an early Thargoid device, probably salvaged from a Thargoid mothership wreck back during humankind's disasterous first contact with the Thargoid race. It turns out that the Demons had scooped up a canister of Alien Items about a year ago which contained the device. They had managed to work out how the device was powered and programmed to a large extent, and were experimenting with witch space interecepts, with moderate success. However, they were having a great deal of difficulty in actually hitting a target or actually interrupting the ship in witch-space Thargoid style.
The Demons have agreed not to attempt to use the device in the pursuit of piracy. Meanwhile, AAAI scientists continue to look at what the Demons found out about operating and powering the device.
Joshua Mensk, lead R&D scientist for AAAI said to the News, "We're just glad it wasn't INRA. However, the Demons ought to watch out because INRA will surely come looking for them now".
News continues to filter in on the forthcoming Elite Club.
Commander Fozza of Olwain
put the question to Andrew Gillett, the webmaster of the
club, "What timescale are we talking about?"
In response, the following facts were revealed by Gillett, who resides in the Sol system at Frontier Developments, based near Cambridge on the planet Earth:
- The Elite Club should become reality within approximately one month (although this is workload permitting).
- The two tiers of membership are now named: Cadets can join for free, and have access to download Frontier and FFE. Squadron members pay a membership fee, expected to be around CR 10, and get access to the source code.
- There may be a possibility of some Elite club members getting to beta test Elite IV, but it depends on numbers.
Alioth.Net announced a new experimental system. Called LinksDir, it allows webmasters to add links to Alioth.Net without all that dangerous mucking about with email. Plans call for a display-by-category type of links listing, where the user can filter out or search Elite websites by specifying what kind of Elite version they are interested in, what allegiance, and what sort of content is contained on the site.
Alioth's webmaster said "This is a brand new service that we're offering, and hopefully it will turn out to be very useful. But be warned it's strictly experimental at the moment and kind of rough around the edges".
The News encourages you to go and take a look at the service by selecting the link to the left.