Trashley Can's Xmas Bulletin No 1

It's not fair. All the other newsdroids get to go off on a Christmas break, and I have to stay in the Fed2 Star office just in case Hazed decides there's something urgent the citizens of Fed DataSpace need to know about. Just because I lost the game of paper, rock, scissors that we played. I am sure it was a set-up - the other droids must have all decided in advance what they were going to do, in order to make sure I was the one lumbered with extra duty. How else do you account for the fact that when I came out with scissors, they all produced rocks. Every single one of them.

They've never liked me.

Oh, I haven't told you who I am. Trashley Can, the littlest newsdroid. The one that always gets picked on. The one that gets the nasty jobs, that nobody else wants to do. That's me. Remember the grizzle manure crisis on Mercury, where the caves started to fill up with vile smelling guano? I was the one sent to cover it. Sent into the caves themselves, mind you; I wasn't allowed to sit in comfort in the Hydrargyrum Hotel and make it all up like the other droids do, oh no, they insisted on a report that showed me sloshing around sensor-deep in doo-doo.

They found it hilarous.

It's not as if I wanted to go to their rotten Christmas party anyway. I am sure I would have hated it there. All that jollity. And I don't even like lub-oils. But it would have been nice to have the opportunity to refuse to go, instead of just being told by Hazed that I had to stay here and miss the so-called fun.

As if anything exciting is likely to happen today of all days. It's Christmas day, for Gaelaan's sake. What's going to happen? Oh no, one of Santa's reindeers threw a shoe last night while delivering presents to a dome on Titan, and a workthing has got concussion from being hit by the deer-shoe. Look, some top Galactic Administration official has made a festive speech imploring us all to be nice to each other because it's Christmas. And what's this, some religious leader has moaned on about how crass the whole occasion is these days, and how everything is much worse than when she was young.

Boring. Predictable.

And there's nothing good on the holovision!

Sigh.

Looks like I wrote too soon. Hazed just commed me and told me there's a whole load of stuff she wants people to know about, so I have to hurry and get a bulletin together.

She didn't even wish me a merry Christmas, the mean old *%@$#!

AIRPORT UPGRADES NOW AVAILABLE

The test team have spent the past few days checking out the airport upgrade which was mentioned in the last issue of the Fed2 Star, and since they haven't found anything wrong, it's now available to all players. Well, all Magnates, anyway.

To remind you what this is all about: once you have built ten airports (that's a leisure build) you can upgrade them with the command ' UPGRADE AIRPORT'. This costs 5 slithy toves.

Once you've got the upgrade, you can move workthings around between the planets in your star system with the rather complex command 'ASSIGN xx WORKERS FROM planetname TO planetname', where 'xx' is the number of workthings you want to shift.

You have to be standing on the planet that has the upgraded airports, but the source and destination planets of the workthings can be any of the worlds in your system. You can only move workthings that are currently unemployed.

YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATIONS WANTED

The Christmas tree on Earth still has room for a few more decorations, so why don't you turn your hand (or equivalent) to designing an ornament. There's a prize on offer for the player who comes up with the best.

Your ornament description should be no more than 400 characters long. Email the description to feedback@ibgames.com with Fed2 Xmas Decoration in the subject line and don't forget to include your character name. The deadline is last thing on Sunday December 28, and the final decorations received will be put in on Monday - and then the panel of judges (Hazed, Bella and Freya) will decide which ones they like the best. Winners will be announced on New Year's Day and will receive a special prize.

REMINDER OF BELLA'S MEET AND GREET

On Sunday you will have your chance to quiz the goddess who created the universe - Bella, or Alan Lenton, the game programmer and designer as he is known in real life. Bella will be interviewed by guest host Jezz on Sunday December 28 at 3.00pm eastern.

It's been over two years since Bella last did a Meet and Greet so this will be an opportunity for players to find out what her current plans for the game are, as well as quiz her about why she did things the way she did.

I wonder if Jezz will dare use duct tape?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL FEDDERS

Finally, a special message from Hazed:

A very happy Christmas to all our players from ibgames. Without you, the game would be... well, very empty! I hope you have a great time over the festive period.

Right, that's the end of this bulletin. I think I've covered everything Hazed wanted me to tell you. She was quite terse on the comms; didn't ask me how I was doing, just issued a few order then went back to whatever she is doing to celebrate the festive day. I don't know, it probably involves lots of chocolate and being waited on hand, foot and equivalent.

I'll just send this out and go back to counting the office paperclips. Ho hum.

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