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Or rather no privacy....EVERYTHING was being laid out for everybody to see and hear...

That would be pretty boring. I'm about to watch a World Premiere on SciFi! "Ghost in the Shell - Solid State Society". I hope others can enjoy it too!

Network Omni Newsflash
Dateline: 06/103131/462354425

Fishing War Escalates on Watery Paradise!
----Maloa-Ri XI, Salathes System, Garadec Sector, Golgan Republik, Anvil Galaxy. The peace of Maloa-Ri XI, once nominated the Most Beautiful World of the Outer Republik Zone, continues to be shattered by armed conflict in a war that locals are afraid is only escalating.
The conflict arose eight months ago with the imminent sea-gourd harvesting season, and accusations by one of the major agri-corporations, Gezzel Agronic, against its competitor, Hulesone Foods, of illegal harvesting beyond the strict limits of sea-gourds imposed by Maloa-Rian ecologists. Such violations fly in the face of limits on harvesting imposed after concerns of over-exploitation of the sea-gourd kelp-beds and a decline in the health of the kelp-bed ecosystems. Maloa-Rian Sea-Gourd is the primary ingrediant in Rian Blue-Rum, one of the sector's most expensive exports, and much in demand across the Three Galaxies. Only Gezzel Agronic and Hulesone Foods are licensed to mass-harvest the gourds and process them, leading to increasing competition in the marketplace, and, unfortunately, in the harvest beds. Hulesone denied that it was taking above qouta, and has repeatedly accused Gezzel of doing the same, only using smaller, supposedly independent, harvesters to infiltrate and poach on beds granted to Hulesone. It was an attack by Hulesone security forces on a Gezzel-licensed factory ship that Hulesone claimed was acting as a mothership for gourd-rustlers that ignited the current escalating maritime war between the two companies, despite attempts by local police security forces to stem the violence.
(Video imagery of several schooner-like ships sailing on a wine-purple ocean between great sargassum-like clumps of orange seaweed....then sailing past each other and exchanging vollies of weapons fire...Several sailcraft burst into flames and begin to sink...)
Both companies are known to have brought in mercenaries both to protect their harvesting fleets and to attack their rival's shipping, but violence has also spread to the floating fishing communities and main ports as each company seeks to sabotage the other's weapons supplies and logistical support...
(More images of a dock-mounted landing pad exploding into flying debris just as a heavy cargo lifter is landing on it....Scenes of a fishing village on a rocky island, locals running in panic, as a tank farm/distillery in the background explodes into flames, tanks popping with bright blue flames...Smoke pours over houses and flaming debris comes raining down)
Golgan Republik officials have yet to respond to the crisis on the formerly peaceful water-planet, but locals have opined that if something is not done to reign in the two rival agrocorps in their private war, it will fuel further dissent and lend to a growing independence movement that wants Maloa-Ri to secede from the Republik. These dissidents claim that the reason the Republik hasn't intervened already is due to the considerable political clout possessed by both corporations in the Republik.
On a wider front, the war has already led to a spike in the cost of Rian Blue-Rum, with embibers already paying as much as fifty percent more for their favorite rum-tipple. This has led to grumbles as far away as Phaseworld and the Altess homeworlds about the conflict, and may lead to pressure on the Republik to act, and act soon.

Nice news story! Good one Taa;ismn!

Thanks....I thought about Moonshine Wars and awar fought for something other than political or ethnic reasons...As well as a hotspot for mercenary adventures with possibly large, but not necessarily huge, payoffs( though what if Thraxus takes it into his mind to bankroll an end to the whole rotten little conflict that's drying up his liquor supply in his desktop decanter?)...and how are the Golgans going to put an end to this war between two corporations that are powerful lobbies in their government? And what about the reports of the decline of the precious gourd-kelp?

That makes total sense!

PLus a watery environment will make for some interesting skill challenges...who, in a high-tech, galactic campaign, takes Pilot: Sailboat as a skill, for instance?

Do we have a waterworld campaign about to begin?

Or maybe a spate of advertizements for inflatable dinghies and lifevests....

Network Omni Newsflash:
Dateline 06/1456666/11237123125325

Atlantean World Cancels Time Control Program
---Achea IV, Theddis System, Greyon Sector, Thundercloud Galaxy. Confidential sources in the Luminousity of Millei have revealed details about the imposition of a quarantine zone placed around the outer world of Achea IX eighteen years ago, with the recent lifting of the quarantine.
Luminousity officials are now privately admitting that the declaration of a 'no approach' zone around the outmost world of the Atlantean-held system was due to an accident at a research facility involved in temporal research, that resulted in the facility going into a full-scale lockdown, and the activation of defenses that destroyed two supply vessels before a warning perimeter could be declared. THough later efforts managed to neutralize the technological defenses, rescuers had to contend with an impenetrable temporal-gravitic sheer zone that prevented communication and scanning of the interior of the facility. That is, until two weeks ago, when units of the Luminousity's First Fleet, equipped with specialized dimensional drive battlecruisers and recently-acquired Firestorm galactic research craft, managed to safely enter the zone and dissipate the temporal storm from within. Fleet personnel were then able to rescue surviving research staff.
Details are sketchy, but accounts as to the nature of the disaster seem to indicate that the temporal research being conducted involved the creation of virtual universes used to test out various decisional situations....creating 'snapshots' of the universe, altering them to reflect certain situations, then allowing them to run as, in effect, real-time simulations of events. The trouble began when researchers got 'locked' into an involved simulation/pocket universe that took on a life of its own and essentially absorbed its occupants...into a run that lasted 100,000 years of virtual time.
"The scenario warped the participants' memories...or else found ways to accommodate them for the long haul...recreating and rewriting laws of physics, granting them magically enhanced lifespans, virtual immortality, or periodic reincarnation...but they FELT those 100,000 years...." explained a Luminousity official after the dramatic rescue, "BY the time our Fleet troopers got in there the people had almost completely forgotten who they were.....What's really tragic is that for people outside the zone, only eighteen years passed....the people inside didn't remember they had whole real lives, loved ones, family, anxiously waiting...and there were a number of 'virtual' deaths....For a simulation, this got really messy."
NON sources have confirmed that a number of persons removed from the research facility have been hospitalized for severe psychological trauma, most likely from the temporal flow discrepancies and mental shock. NON has also confirmed that the Luminousity has ordered that all subsequent work on the facility's temporal research has been indefinitely suspended, and the facility itself dismantled and destroyed.

Excellent news story Taalismn!

Thank you...

Imagine trying to treat 30-50 year old people whose mental experience is that they've LIVED the rise and fall of entire civilizations...but have now been told it was all a very real alternate-universe/timescape simulation....most of them simply believe that the 'real' world is an alein plot, or a delusion...making it all the tougher for their families to both understand and to get through to them....

Of course, as wordof 'temporal research' leaks out, there are sure to be people interested in acquiring it, either misunderstanding what it really was, or seeing the chance to apply it in some other manner...
That Fleet is going to be needed again to deal with the aftermath of the failed experiment...

Sounds like an interesting idea.


Taalismn,

I don't know if your follow certain news stories. Did you see the one about the Bowhead whale in Alaska that the eskimoes were allowed to harvest? They found a piece of a harpoon that hit it 100 years before, making the whale about 115 to 130 years old. They figure the harpoon that hit it 100 years ago hit it in a place which didn't even faze it. And according to the article the oldest whale have been known to live almost 200 years. Hopefully this will help with another newstory.

Not that particular story, but here'a one of similar interest...Konga Gumi, a family-owned construction company that built Buddhist temples and remained a family-run business for over 1,400 years went out of business last year, absorbed as a subsidiary of a larger corporation, after both a disasterous foray into real estate speculation and declining revenues(and interest) in Bhuddism(and hence new temple construction)....It was the oldest continually run company in history....

Konga Gumi...I love that name...I'll have to incorporate it into something....

WOW that is sad. Poor people. All of that history lost to some silly greedy thought.

Changing times...and they had some good strategies for combining tradition and situational flexibility that kept them going...at the time they finally closed their doors, they employed 100 people(I don't know if they were ever any larger) but they had 40 generations under the same management....

It still stinks for the history alone.

That's hiostory for you...

Of course, the secret organizations that really run human history have been around longer than that...but we'll never learn of them....

LOL you're right there!

"Imminent Reality Disclosure in Quadrant 4-0-36-48...Shall I warm up the orbital mind control laser""
"Negative....just idle speculation...nothing serious...we don't call out the big guns for small fry..."

I've known about those sort of things for awhile. As a matter of fact I was asked to join one of those organizations. I'm still thinking about it. I've been weighing my decision on joining it.

Secret societies, hmmmm?
"Get me one of our secret society investigation teams...yes, a field interrogation team....I have have a lead worth following up on..."

They have places everywhere. You've heard of their name mentioned in your own town. At least you should have!

The Meat Market Board(*ed note:aka "the employment boards")
Dateline: 06/20400/424424324

MegaCare, megaversal healthcare management specialists, are seeking staff members interested in interspecies medicine and the exciting field of hospital care in multi-dimensional health facilities, including rennovation and improvement of existing facilities in impoverished/crisis-classified regions! We're seeking a broad spectrum of worker classifications, from management and direct care(doctors, nurses, therapists, paramedics, psychiatrists, etc...) to custodial and security. Multilingual skills a must, and at least basic medical training(equiv. 'first aid', by the PSIndex)necessary! Magic and Psionic abilities a plus. Knowledge of non-lethal combat techniques(for dealing with psychiatric patients, irrate families, ambulance chasers, and insane staff-members) required. Familiarity with weapons and/or basic military training/experience a plus(especially when dealing with xeno parasitic organisms, invading aliens, clashing planetary tribes, and medical supply-seeking gangs). Equipment provided, but feel free to bring your own(*subject to Board of Health approval). Excellent wage scale, housing, good experiences, and high-rated recommendations for altruistic service.
Enter the exciting world of Megaversal Health Care today!

LOL That's one I"ve never heard of!

MegaCare...it's sorta like the World Health Organization, only with fewer scruples about using force, and a far larger talent pool...

LOL

What about those people who go to 3rd world to help build school. That sort of equilient organization in Phase World. ( I don't remember its name at this time.

Well, there's a new one, and it ain't just limited to the Three Galaxies...

My 'Dream Team' Megaversal Hospital staff(sort of 'Palladium Meets ER') would have the following(from canonical sources)"
Iborians(Rifts: Anvil Galaxy) as Hospital Administrators and department heads
Shaydor Spherians (Atlantis) as ward doctors and diagnosticians
Yhabbayar(Psycscape/DBoNA) in charge of Pediatrics
Amana(DBoNA) in charge of the ER
Posluznik(DBoNA) in charge of the Transplant program and morgue...
Noro(PW) as staff psychiatrists.
Squilb(DBoNA) as interns, Bonded to team/department heads, since they can be Body Fixers and are real 'team players'...great for security..

Priests, with healing magic and artifacts, assisting spiritually and magically(think Father MaKayee(sp?) from *M*A*S*H*).

Druids/Mystic Herbalists in the pharmacy...

Paramedic Teams would consist of DogBoys, Full Conversion Rescue Cyborgs, Shifters(ideally linked to benign entities), and a Dragon or two(like the Shifters, they can perform magic, and can teleport...no more waiting for the weather to clear for medical helicopters)

What about a 3 Galaxies Peace Corp?

They'd either be stretched thin or start fighting among themselves...

They'd also get in some all-out arguments over who gets to qualify...can a CosmoKnight whose modus operandi is to beat up local warlords really be considered 'peaceful'...yet, if total pacificism and non-confrontationalism are what's required, well, congrats, you just shipped some highly skilled free slaves to a backwards world, just waiting to be snapped up...

Got to admit it would be interesting to see what sort of organization the 3G's peace corp might be like. Maybe they would actually drafty people like the army. And they would do it from small backwater worlds.

Low-priority criminals conditioned for public and community service...Juvie delinqs shipped offworld to learn a trade....Surplus population from 'Soylent' worlds where overpopulation is threatening eco-collapse(this would make the T'Zee possible candidates for GPC draft...but they aren't, leading to cries of double-standarding...)
Basically, if your planet is receiving more public assistance over a prolonged amount of time than it's paying back(or has paid already), you can expect the Galactic Peace Corps to come calling, asking for recruits...
Though it's something of a two-faced situation...The GPC ASKS for recruits and contributions, but the regular galactic law enforcement agencies accompanying them make it clear what you can expect if you don't cooperate....Some say the higher ups in the GPC can't be THAT dumb not to know what's going on, but maintain the pretense of not knowing, while others claim that's EXACTLY the case...Either way the GPC gets its volunteers, and hopefully, in the long run, everybody comes off the better...

Very good. Great job at putting it down in a very cool was talking about.

"Welcome, maggots, you've enlisted in the Galactic Peace Corps....Before you were useless; now you're marginally useFUL...now go out there and make those poor sods happy to live in a universe where wonderful giving folk like you exist to help them out!"

He sounds like a USMC DI. Good one too. The GPC DI trying to get his cadets ready for the roughest times outside of the military.

In the military, CCW or TGE, at least you get to shoot back at trouble(however futile it may be), but in the Peace Corps, you have to smile and hope the bad guys consider the PC PCs to be so pathetic they ain't worth holding hostage or shooting(provided the problem is of the sort that might be reasoned with).....

You mean like the UN troops!

UN Troops are either undersung heroes (as in former Yugoslavia where you had Canadian troops politely informing Serbian roadblocks that they had anti-tank missiles and were itching to use them on the roadblock if it was still there in five minutes) or serve to redistribute arms to the hostiles(as in Sierra Leone where UN troops frequently up and ran, abandoning their gear).

The ones in Sierre Leone are the ones I'm referring too! Not those tough Canadians! Those guys are great! Too bad a lot of the other UN troops don't use them as their heros and examples!

Network Omni Newsflash
Dateline: 06/269970/42354456326

Fourth Corporate Slaughter Has Authorities Baffled
----Tenzee XXIV, Mamadon System, Urgac Sector, Consortium of Civilized Worlds, Thundercloud Galaxy. Authorities are investigating the destruction of an industrial property previously unknown to have been a possession of the embattled MORO Corporation. Details are scant, but apaprently the complex, in a relatively deserted quadrant of Tenzee XXIV, was almost completely gutted by internal explosions, and the bodies of at least twenty individuals associated with the complex have been found, violently dead. Investigators are ruling the incident an attack combined with apparent sabotage, by parties unknown.
This makes the fourth such attack on properties now known to belong to MORO Corp. in the last year. The attacks began nine months ago, following the destruction of MORO Chemical's North Sandor facility on Bira II, which brought in CCW investigators on rumors of illegal and inhuman genetic research being conducted in a secret lab within the chemical refinery. Investigations are still ongoing on the research charges, but NON has learned that less than two months ago, a warehouse fire occured on Merro III, in the adjacent Harallam Sector...A fire that claimed eighteen lives, and revealed a previously unknown and unlicensed biologicals hazmat storage area belonging to a subsidiary of MORO Corp. Then just two months ago, first responders to an explosion on Hecatar X discovered the aftermath of a fuel-air detonation that completely incinerated a basement office complex at at least ten people. It might have been ruled an accident had not the eviscerated body of a known MORO Corp. executive officer been found in a hovercar several blocks away. MORO Corporation was not KNOWN at the time to have had any interests on Hecatar X, but NON has recently learned that one of the properties in the demolished area was leased by Abacal Pharmeauticals, a holding company affiliate of MORO.
Intelligence sources in the TVIA have not responded to NON's inquiries, but have admitted that the incidents are 'of interest'. MORO Corp. officials have been similarly mute on the subject, citing the 'ongoing investigations into the spurious allegations levelled against us'. However, NON reporters have noticed a markedly stepped up security presence around MORO facilities and executives.
NON will report future developments as they are bound to happen.

Very nice News Story! Good job Taalismn!

Thank you...MORO Corp. is clearly worried about someone, ...or someTHING....

That might need a follow up story about Moro and who might be causing them trouble.

Aramanthus wrote:That might need a follow up story about Moro and who might be causing them trouble.

Got a number of suspects, including one big one...but that last will require some major revision before it can be cross-thread posted....

Very interesting. I'm looking forward to reading about that one!

Network Omni Newsflash
Dateline: 06/296771/2123162683

Barzah SuperNova Wavefront to Hit Dalazis System Today
-Delazis VIII, Delamon System, Soma Sector, United Worlds of Warlock, Anvil Galaxy. The radiation front from the Barzah Supernova, 58 light years distant, is expected to pass through the system within the next 22 hours, causing disruption of planetary communications, electronics, and possible minor ecological damage.
Radiation levels are expected to remain within non-lethal tolerable levels planetside during the initial 48 hours of the wavefront pass, but all ships and orbital facilities are advised of a Level III nuclear particle hazard(3x greater particle flux than regular sunspot/solar stprm activity) so at least Level 3 radiation shielding is mandated...Ships not equipped with equivalent protection are advised to leave the system immediately, or inter their vessels within radiation-hardened shelter(the Delaziz system government is making available eight deep-rock hangar shelters for the duration of the crisis. Personnel in facilities not protected by equivalent value protection are to evacuate within the next eight hours to designated shelter areas. Anyone found after the alert curfew will be considered in violation of civil ordnance and crisis law, and prosecuted accordingly.
Planetary surface reisdents are advised, despite the low increase in overall radiation levels expected during the wavefront passing, to remain indoors during the hours of 8:00 AM Local Standard to 12 PM, when the exposed planetary facing will have rotated away from the wave cone. Local civic authorities have designated emergency radiation shelters for visitors, and have arranged the use of several deep mines converted for habitation for adiation-senstive beings. Power ultilities advise that rolling black-outs can be expecetd during the wavefront's passing, and that citizens should complete charging up their emergency batteries within the next 12 hours.
Other advisories include warnings that wireless communications will certainly be disrupted, as well as hardline communications grids and older-technology unshield computer systems.
Local biologists and planetary ecologists are currently evaluating possible ecological danage, advising that there may be fuctuations in the local weather patterns and possible long range genetic damage to local wildlife as a result of radiatin wave.
COncern has also been raised about teh possible efefcts of the wavefront on the planet's three dimensional gates and local ley line system. UWW transit shifters have seen a spike in outgoing travel in the last 72 hours, and intend to keep the gates open for the next 12 hours, but will be instituting a full lockdown of the rift-gates and activation of leyline storm dampers before the wavefront hits, just in case.
NON Local will keep you advised of any further developments and announcements as the situation evolves...

Nice HLS!!! Its a great News Story!

And what if communications do NOT resume?
mwhahahahahahaahahahhahhahahha....

True enough! Although with a system like that there will be ships from the UWW entering the system to make contact with the planet after things have settled down. Especially if there is no contact after a certain duration.


Maybe you could do a news story about a vessel doing just such an operation. You know you have an inbedded reporter going in after that sort of natural disaster. What do you think of that one Taalismn?