SEII : Newsletter Nov. From: vsim@xs4all.nl () Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 00:00:00 +0000 STAR EMPIRES II - NEWSLETTER November. Constributions from Anonymous Peter van Bragt Bryan Vakos Sam Williams The GM wishes to say thanks to those. Please feel free to send comments, messages, etc for the newsletter. I will put anything in here that seems appropriate. I will accept up to twenty lines at a time, anything longer please send on DOS disc(3.5) in ASCII format or upload it to our BBS [0180-418166] or you could even Email it to vsim@xs4all.nl To reply send note on seperate piece of paper/email addressed to Empire name. Rumours and news , slander or backstabbing quite welcome ! --== News ==-- E-mail players who have problems with sending their turns in can try the orders service offered at my web page. I have created a special mail form that can hold a sheet up to 200 lines and 75 coloms width. You can simply 'cut & paste' your orders in it. I try to process your turn within two days. If you don't get your results back in four days then feel free to ask for it. It seems that email sometimes get lost. Don't hesitate, just inform me. General Rumours The Zephrm Oracle can help you follow the Yellow Brick Road. A crew and her captain are astonished by the lack of respect those empires display towards the precious resource of water. The Captain seems to have been praying to a Higher Being, to send those empires a Godlike warning not to spoil anymore precious water or the will be struck by ligtning! Several eruptions on planets and even a remarkable number of new supernovae are recorded the last few days. Could this mean something? Player Messages Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggy" until you can find a rock. To All Empires: The Knight Hospitalers extend their hand to all. Correspondance is welcome at whatcher@hotmail.com Anyone wishing to contact the Republic of Dara (12) email at: ruffins@erols.com snail mail at: Bryan Vakos P.O. Box 24 Spotsylvania, VA USA USA GM message Its also possible to name your fleets. A few more options have been added to planet survey options for planet finds... Submitments for this newsletter are very welcome. The newsletter will be mailed to you with your production run. A copy of the newsletter can also be found at my HomePage at http://www.xs4all.nl/~vsim or at my BBS in area 2. Anyone sending in a payment of over Hfl. 50,- will get a bonus of 10% Every new player you enter into the game will get their set-up and two free turns, in addition to this you will also get two free turns. WATERGATE in SPACE. or the waterballoon affair. The fleet While surveying the planet a crew member puts a waterballoon in the airlock and opens the door. He push his neighbour and point at the dropping waterballoon. His neighbour said that he can do better and soon many waterballoon are rushing towards the planet surface. A compitition has started, who can drop the largest waterballon...... Until one gets the 'bright' idea to use the watercontainers on the outside of the ship. A huge waterballoon is dropped and the crew stared at it. What will the result of this impact.... One crew member is wisely enough to notify the Captain to leave this place in atleast hyperspeed... The planet It becomes quiet. No wind, no birds, no sound. The people looks up an wonder what's happening. A wishiling sound appears and it stops suddenly with a splashing noise. Water splash to all sides. The people notice that the water once was wrap in some sort of rubber that looked like a balloon. This strange rain continues and the strenght of the impacts increases. People starts to get afraid and run for shelter. Suddenly the ground shakes and everything looks like up side down. You can hear screaming and metal breaking. A huge wave of water flushes down the hill. Killing everyone and demolish everything. The reaction 1. REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD (and it's cold in space). Let's see who who wins the water balloon fight.... Fleet 49 in Movement order 20 and Build Order 14 is ordered to construct a giant balloon, descend to the planet's surface, fill the balloon with water, and return to orbit. Once in orbit the fleet is ordered to move above Knights Hospitaler fleet #49 and drop their payload. Let's see if the Flying Nurses can swim! The result Fleet 49 was ordered to collect a giant waterballoon from the surface of The Planet. Its a gigantic piece of work. The ship engines almost couldn't manage it to pull the waterballoon into orbit. This enormous task took several days to complete. In the meantime the offending Knight Hospitaler ship was held into position and boarded by a squad of marines. The marines secured the engines and left the ship again. But not alone. When they noticed that the alien crew member where very skilled nurses they brought them to the desaster area and where put to work. Thanks to the skilled nurses there was only 9 deads to burry. Many nurses where able to re-animate and stabilize wounded civilians. As they saw what they had done they felt very sorry and asked for forgiveness. All the nurses asked for asiel because they couldn't bare the thought of showing their face again on their homeworld. After several days the tugboat was in orbit and it was speeding of the giant waterballoon to give it enough speed for the impact. When the tugboat was above the fleet of the Knight Hospitalers the central command orders to drop the waterballoon. It was such a beautifull sign. The waterballoon moved away with a dazzle-ing speed towards the Sun. Because of weightlessness in space the waterballoon could not be 'dropped' from above. Now this gigantic waterballoon floats with an increasing speed towards the Sun. It will become an artificial comet. The first human made comet ever. And with X-mas nearing it became a truth symbol of something that still has to be declared. The empty hull of the Knight Hospitaler ship was taken apart and sold as scrap. It gave the Republic an profit of 500 credits. However new technology wasn't learned from such a basic design. Epilog The Captain of the Knights Hospitaler scout is to be incarcerated for a period of 40 years for each fatality. As it was his ship, it is his blame. While in prison, the Captain is assigned to the task of translating Hospitaler communications protocols to make them compatible with Republican equipment. If he thinks this isn't fair or dramatic enough for him, point out that it's his responsibility to make amends for the slaughter his ship visited upon us. FULL SPEED AHEAD. by Peter van Bragt. "Coordinates plotted in. Warp engine warmed up. Sensors pee- king. She's ready to go." The navigator turned his head and waited for the go-signal. "Let her go, Williams". Williams turned a a small blue switch and activated the power- ful warp-drives of the scouting vessel. A light tremble went through the hull as the ship cracked through the light bar- rier. A full screen display showed a computer graphic of the warp course. Five complete space-sectors would be searched by the ship, looking for new stars. The first sector was scanned, without result. The second sector was scanned, again nothing. Sensors were prepared to scan the third sector when suddenly the warp engine's hesitated. All power was lost and all computer systems went beserk. "Wat the f*ck is this", shouted the captain. "All officers report to bridge", he ordered. The scout now drifted helplessly through the reaches of space, without any power and without propulsion. Life-support systems were failing, air systems were about to shutdown. "We're losing her, sir." "Ten minutes before the forces of the time-space breache will tear the hull apart." "Powercells losing power quickly. Something is draining our energy." "Integrity loss in section 4. We need assistance" All decks reported some kind of emergency. Scout vessel "Ima- ginary" was about to be destroyed. "Prepare to evacuate, let's save the......... With a terrifying squeek the warpengine turned back on and lifted the scout back into normal space. Life support and computers were back on-line and sensors were searching the parameters. "Sir, you should look at this.". "What's that?" "It appears we have been catapulted to a unknown sector of space. My calculations say that we are now 40 sectors away from our last position. I think we travelled through a sponta- neous wormhole." The captain sat back in his chair and looked at the screens. Than he stood up and said. "So what, The Imaginary is supposed to scout, so let's scout. Williams, set new coordinates and a new searchpattern. Johnson, try to contact the Home World. STAR EMPIRES II NEWSLETTER Issue NOVEMBER 1996 Virtual Simulations Up