THE DARKSPACE DISPATCH

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aa chronicle of the Jumpgate^tm US game server published periodically by jgcentral.net
Volume I, No. 1	104.7.24.09.49

Geneticorp Unveiled

Hyperial geneticist Dr. Glasgow Nifirti proclaimed he had achieved a breakthrough enabling jump pilots to return planetside. Then, insecure communications exposed two Hyperial warring splinter groups: Amber Fist and Fourth Tribe.

The Amber Fist (of which Nifirti is a member) was accused of being the modern remnant of the ?bloody heathens? of pre-Great Collapse Hyperial who broke away from traditional Quantar religion and embraced human mutilation/sacrifice resulting in a near genocidal war won by the Quantar forces led by Roh and his instrument of wrath, Orus the Lion. The Amber Fist denied that any impropriety exists in their modern organization.

The Fourth Tribe is a modern day pro-Quantar Hyperial group claiming to have an unbroken heritage back the days when Hyperial was literally colonized by a fourth Quantar expedition (TriPoint and Corridor being the first two with the third being lost in deep space forever) and claiming to have stayed loyal to Quantar through the bloody times and the Great Collapse to the present.

The discovery of and the ultimate destruction of Nifirti?s hidden genetics laboratory station was the openly stated goal of the Quantars who rallied to the Fourth Tribe?s aide. They believe Nifirti?s work to be an abomination against humanity, and are convinced they will discover evidence to prove it.

Guarding the secrecy of the station, supplying it with construction materials for its upgrade from a research laboratory to a full scale production facility, and protecting it from the Quants have kept the Solrains who work for Nifirti busy. Each side has many agents always trying to infiltrate and tap the communications of the other, so Sol and Quant forces have clashed many times over the course of the past several weeks in the name of the Hyperials they represent.

Datalink 1. Nifirti proclaims a genetic breakthrough enabling jump pilots to return planetside. Insecure comms expose the Hyperial groups Amber Fist and Fourth Tribe.
Datalink 2. Nifirti places a 1mil cr. bounty on Sentient Conflux in Hyperial/GVB.
Datalink 3. Amber Fist forces defeat the Fourth Tribe’s cargo mission. It is believed a small follow-up cargo mission was unopposed.
Datalink 4. Nifirti seeks investors, claiming he can be operational by the end of July.
Datalink 5. Amber Fist forces blockade Hyperial against Quants. Is it over beacons?
Datalink 6. Amber Fist hinders Fourth Tribe efforts to locate Nifirti’s lab through beacon telemetry, but some data was collected anyway.
Datalink 7. Fourth Tribe rangers evade Amber Fist fighters in a manual search for Nifirti’s lab.

blight.jpg (5940 bytes) BLIGHT ON CINATUS
LEADS TO VILOLENCE

On 104.5.26, the Octavian Agricultural Ministry announced that the grain harvest on the Octavian planet Cinatus was found to be infected with a blight virus. Riots broker out shortly thereafter and the Cinatus militia was called in to establish control.

Octavtian Emperor Cineon made a bold plea for the end of politicking, calling for Octavians and their allies to start doing something about the impending shortage. Emperor Clements IV formally asked TRI to make grain and food imports a priority in its mission computer queue.

The Solrain STCC made a conitional offer of help, but as TRI pilots from all factions began hauling grain to the Octavians, fighting broke out as the pro-Solrain group Solicidal vowed to disrupt the effort by commandeering or destroying any ships found to be carrying grain to the Octavians.

MORE DETAILS HERE

Weekend of War
Highlight Reels Released

Pilot Brutus of the squad Camera Man has made the following highligh reels of the last "Weekend of War" available to the public.

VIDEO 1
VIDEO 2
VIDEO 3
VIDEO 4

"Filming WoW was Da BOMB," said Brutus. Witnesses say he was seen running and jumping out a window shortly after making that statement.

I Hope You Don't Mind . . .

In fact, I hope you'll look forward to receiving The DarkSpace Dispatch. I also hope I have enough time to send one out frequently enough for it to matter.

I have often thought that NetDevil(tm) has missed the boat by not comunicating more with its current and former customers. I've suggested an email newsletter in the JOSSH FORUMS before, but got shouted-down about the evils of email spam. So of you REALLY hate getting this, let me know and I'll stop sending it.

My purpose here is to get regular players involved in the storyline, get occasional players to play more, and to get former player to stay in touch and (perhaps) give Jumpgate another try.

Darkspace Dispatch will focus on providing information on the current major storylines, significant squad/player news and economic issues in an in-characted fashion. That will all appear on the dark blue background. It will also provide updates on game developments and announcement as well. Out-of-Character news will be on the blue-grey background.

I hope you enjoy our effort, and I'll look forward to receiving your feedback at darkspace@jgcentral.net.

-- Ambros.

GAME DEVELOPMENTS.

On June 29, 2004, one of the most long-awaited patches in recent memory was released. Although not as sweeping in scope as the release on "Eposode 2", patch 1.0090 was probably the most ambitious move to solidify the core of the game's playability to date.

This patch focused almost entirely on economic issues, making almost all basic commodities "mined-only" and "tweaking" certain cargo ships to somewhat limit the ability of a single player to affect the economy in a significant way.

Many "production recipes" were changed, base pricing was changed, and production locations for many components were changed.

The patch was received with near-unanimous approval. Although some of the econimic chages will take a while to truly feel (baecause of the current glut of inventory), it is expected that changes will help re-ignite interest for miners, haulers and "econimic PvPers."

DETAILS HERE

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