Web Fed News Yearbooks - November 1999

THE MONTH IN BRIEF

Alan Lenton spoke at a conference about online games, and you can read the abstract of his talk at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/philosophy/community.html.

Moria brought back the once-popular event, Pubcrawl, where a gang of revellers swoop into someone's bar and terrorise the waitdroids.

The almost-universal pastime of arguing about when the millenium really was hit the Fed Chronicle, with angry pedants writing to point out that truth. But why let the facts get in the way of a good party?

Otherwise, it was yet another quiet month, and this is yet another small yearbook.

SOL EXPOSE: THE POLITICIAN

On Venus we find the Venus Freedom Party, with its politician mobile:

Party HQ
You are in the HQ of the Venus Freedom Party, a nearly illegal organization which is campaigning for Venusian independence.
The walls are covered with proclamations exhorting you to vote for the party's candidates in various elections. The exit is northeast.

A politician from the Freedom Party is haranguing all and sundry.
You pause a few moments to listen to the politician. He is extolling the virtues of his party's struggle for emancipation. He believes that Venus should have self-government.

I asked Our Illustrious Leader which particular political group or organization the Venus Freedom Party was based on, and he shrugged. No group in particular, he replied, although I probably had the People's Front of Judea in mind...

For those that haven't seen the film Monty Python's Life of Brian, the People's Front of Judea are a political group dedicated to the overthrow of the Roman oppressors, but even more than the Romans they hate rival groups such as the Judean People's Front and the Popular Judean Front. This was a very accurate and witty portrayal of the way revolutionary groups tend to splinter and split over matters of doctrine which to outsiders seem quite ludicrous. As the character of Brian points out in the film, if the rival groups cooperated they might actually achieve their goals, but instead they get into a huge fight and all end up being arrested.

One can well imagine that the members of the Venus Freedom Party hate with a passion the player organization, the Venus Liberation Army - even more than they hate Ming!

Buy Monty Python's Life of Brian from Amazon:
VHS
DVD

SOL EXPOSE: ALIEN ARTIFACTS

Two of the objects found in the Solar System are of alien origin: the sargeur and the vandier. Both of these seem to be connected with the Martians in some way. Little is known about their use and operation. All we have to go on are the descriptions:

A fine example of a Martian sargeur has been left here.
The sargeur seems to be in working order, but it lacks the proper power pack needed to fire it up. An expert would know how to fit one.

You recognize the strange-looking object on the ground as a vandier.
Looking closely at its curious structure of whorls and lines makes you feel very queasy...

Not very informative!

Our Illustrious Leader was equally useless. Apparently, she made up the names because they sounded suitably alien, and never really had a mental picture of what the objects looked like - let alone what their use might have been!

So as with much alien archeology, it's down to guesswork, and that's where we need your help. What do YOU think these two items really look like? If you have an idea then use a paint program to draw one or both of these alien objects, and send it to me. I'll publish the pics on the web site, and the one I judge the best will win 20 hours of time.

Send in your pictures as an attached file to an email, to Fi@ibgames.com. Use any common picture format (gif, jpeg, etc). Entries by the end of the month, please.

(Note: the results of this contest will be posted shortly.)