On the evening of 105.2.22, pilot Hrafn of The Fourth Tribe, was rescued by a small strike force organized by the Lions of Hamalzah, an Octavian revolutionary sect. Pilot Maus of the Lions of Hamalzah was able to gain access to the private station where Hrafn was being held, while the strike force waited outside to ensure he made it safely back to Quantar space.

Hrafn was kidnapped when he ventured into Octavian space towards the end of the Octavian operation to sabotage inventories of Cromforge, Inc. equipment.  This operation led by a pilot named Pulchra.  Hrafn was said to have credible information that Pulchra and the sabotage operation were linked directly with Octave Propulsion Labs (OPL).

While the Hrafn rescue operation did not go off without a few hitches  (largely due to Hrafn's poor physical condition and his patched-together ship) it was completely successful.  Upon return to Quantar Core, Hrafn was immediately put under close medical supervision.

Geneticorp Initiates Tests; Conflict Ensues

Geneticorp, which after a rather tumultuous beginning, had been silent for some time, but on 105.1.27 it came out with the following press release regarding its controversial genetic manipulation project suggesting that its experiments had been continuing and that it was prepared to initiate public testing:

Furthermore, a demonstration will be performed of the success of Dr. Nifirti's genetic manipulation that augments TRI's enhancements, allowing pilots to come and go planetside as they please. On Friday 02.04 and again on Monday 02.07, a shuttle will be flown up from Hypsos through one of the local jumpgates and back again to Hyperial station for public examination . . .

The initial demonstration was apparently successful, but Quantar pilots observing the test were engaged an destroyed by a Solrain contingent, that had been retained by Geneticorp for security purposes.  Fourth Tribe spokesman, Hrafn gave the following account:

Fourth Tribe made no aggressive claims regarding this shuttle, nor was my ship even armed. Claims made by GeNetiCorp need to be verified by sources outside Hyperial and Amber Fist, but as I suspected, the demonstration was nothing more than a fabrication and another excuse for wanton destruction at the hands of the Solrain highwaymen of DE, obviously hired by GeNetiCorp to act as their goon squad and eliminate anyone attempting to get a better look at the shuttle.

Upon petitioning President Rauder of Hyperial to punish DE for their brigandry and interference with the demonstration, he flatly stated he would not get involved in a "TRI pilot squabble”. In typical two-faced Hyp-speak, he then stated that he was angry with TRI for not getting involved with helping Hyperial rebuild facilities after a flux attack some months ago. I told him "TRI pilots don't get involved in petty Hyp squabbles"...

Quantar pilots took revenge during the next test when Shuttle01 was shot down before making it to the gate.  Before  being shot down by pilot GrimGriz, some of the shuttles contents were removed by Ambrosius of The Brotherhood.   The contents were subsequently delivered to Charlov of The Fourth Tribe.

The final flight of a repaired shuttle01 came on 105.2.13.   When a group working on behalf of The Fourth Tribe was able to disable the shuttle and retrieve it using a modified cargo tow.  Charlov of The Fourth Tribe reported:

"Quantar pilots assisting the Fourth Tribe were able to take multiple scans of shuttle01 and procure some of Nifirti's security technology from its cargo hold during the past week and a half. From careful analysis of this data, we were able to discover and exploit a weakness in several unique modifications in shuttle01, enabling our pilots to create modified repair beams that enabled them to disable the shuttle's drive system. A simple radar tweak in our operative's HUD replaced shuttle01's armor display with an indicator that reached 100% when the ship was fully disabled. A simple operation making use of the modular cargo pod aspect of the tow enabled a successful salvage of the shuttle."

Given this setback, it has been questioned whether Geneticorp will continue its testing schedule.  Attempts to contact Dr. Glasgow Nifirti have gone unanswered.

"Letifer" Virus
Claims First Victims

Initial reports have been received that the "Letifer" virus has now claimed as many as "several thousand" victims on the Quantar planet Perasca.  Tahir Penja Neamru said:

"We can attribute the deaths of several thousand citizens directly to this virus, and unfortunately, we believe the situation will only get worse, before it gets better."

The genetically-engineered virus was allegedly introduced onto Perasca by the terrorist Letifer, in response to the refusal of the Fa'hil Memta to negotiate the release of Septio, who had been detained for his involvement with the Courier conspiracy.

Significant controversy has arisen over the aid offered by Samsun Universal to find a cure for the deadly virus.  Hyperial is currently sponsoring a faction mission to upgrade the Samsun labs.  While Quantar officially has welcomed the aid offer, some Quantar refuse to to trust anything related to Hyperial, and have vowed to protest and disrupt the aid Samsun's lab expansion.  This skepticism and mistrust is reinforced by TRI's report on Samsun that says:

"With only a couple of items on the market, Samsun is at the end of a period of restructuring and down-sizing. The goal of the company now is to re-establish their "rightful place" as a manufacturing and production giant in all areas of industry."

Darkspace Dispatch has received unconfirmed reports that Samsun is preparing to allow some level of independent monitoring of the ongoing construction of the facilities to develop a cure for the 'Letifer' virus, in order to counter the lack of trust shown by TRI pilots.

TRI Pilots Party All Night for WileE's Final Broadcast

Pilot/DJ WileE's final JPR broadcast on 105.1.28 turned into one of the biggest party nights ever in TRI space.   WileE was instrumental in putting JPR "on the map", as well as being the promoter for the very-popular Weekend of War (WoW) events.

The final show, broadcast from the "Fabulous Cabana Room" at the Great Pillars Spa and Resort, featured live updates of the Race of the Pilgrims, a "Beer Wars" event and an ongoing fire sale of Cabana Room artifacts.

WileE's show went off with its usual polish, and included enough toasts to create some serious havoc in the spacelanes.   There were reports that the typically-glib DJ's voice was cracking a bit as "good-byes" were said and the show wound down in the wee morning hours.

The Cabana Room was filled with well-wishers and bargain shopper and had to have several Oct Lite rush-orders hauled in to quench the notably-thirsty crowd.  Although most were melancholy after the end of the show/party, all a greed it was the part of all parties for the DJ or all DJs.

DSD exclusive feature!
ISTVAN'S UPDATE
Patch 1.099: Bounties, Insurance and N00bships . . . Oh My!

As Jumpgate begins to suffer the changes needed to support factional warfare, several areas of the game are seeing preliminary love in patch 1.0099. The bounty system has been completely retooled, with the twofold objective of raising the formerly unimpressive payouts and making it much easier to work with when I tie in the effects of a war situation on a kill. Additionally, I've taken action to reduce the pejorative nature of a bounty by creation of a new, separate framework for an actual enforcement system. When someday your faction may be doing something like bountying every member of an opposing faction during a war, it becomes important for the game to distinguish more clearly between "an opponent for fun" and a grief player. Perhaps idealistically, I am hopeful that if there are more fun, consensual occasions for combat, incidents of what have been called "grief play" in Jumpgate will be less frequent.

One of the most overt changes happening right now affects insurance, though this is only the vanguard of more serious changes that I can't do until other pieces are ready. From now on, insurance should not be thought of as "coming from TRI". Instead, it is factional. For the time being, a pilot will only lose insurance if he possesses a negative PR with his home faction. Further insurance changes to expect with the warfare system will be even more profound: I intend to distinguish between a faction's Military and Civilian pilots. Military pilots will operate with full insurance as long as they obey their rules of engagement. Civilian pilots will pay for insurance, and can choose to save money by going without if they consider it safe to do so. The objective with this systemic change is to reduce losses incurred by PvP pilots, while simultaneously providing the Civilian pilots with a new "fiddle-factor" in the form of a risk vs. reward decision that they personally control. . . .

(Read More . . .)

Darkspace Dispatch Revives Some of Jumpgate's Best . . .
We've decided that it's time to revive some of "Jumpgate's Best" with the re-publishing of the comic Evil Asteroid and the novella Betrayal.  Both of these harken from Jumpgate's past, and both represent some of the best work by the JG community.   We hope you enjoy both as much as we do.

=StormRaiders= Sponsor "Race of the Pilgrims"

A multi-stage, multi-day "Race of the Pilgrims", sponsored by Elpirata and the =Storm Raiders= was run over three nights beginning 105.1.28.  Final standings and times are shown below:

1st - Spork (106.21)
2nd - GrimGriz (123.37)
3rd - GreenDrazi (133.30)
4th - Elmdor (135.54)
5th - Baius (152.09)
6th - LuckyStar (177.36)

The top three finishers also received monetary awards and medals:  Spork received 50 Mc, Medal of Hermod, All Nations medal and Keval's Thanks;  GrimGriz received 25 Mc, All Nations medal and Keval's Thanks; and GreenDrazi received 10 Mc and Keval's Thanks.

Elpirata gave Darkspace Dispatch some background on how he came up with the unique race idea:

The idea for this race came from both personal JG experiences with teammates and the movie Wing Commander, as well as Rally Racing. SKS made a lot of references on how he did found artifacts in sector (which honestly I didn't understand much) while following a pattern search. He was also one of our 'go-to' guys whenever we wanted to make sure a pattern had good coverage and sometimes we even had him in charge or custom making patterns for the squad. Later, while I was arti hunting myself, I came to understand what he meant, and basically we had a way to roll our ships so that the gates and other in-space objects were away from the spawning points of artifacts.

For more background on the genesis of the "Race of the Pilgrims" as well as detailed race-leg results, CLICK HERE.

Weekend of War V

The fifth official Jumpgate "Weekend of War" (WoW) ran from Thursday evening, 2/17 through the early morning of Monday, 2/21.  As with the last few WoWs, there were three teams, each based as an unregulated station:  Evenings End (Leader: Radi), Klatsches Hold (Leader:Mcbrmx) and Lothars Landing (Leader: Mike21).

The final scores (kills minus deaths) were:

Lothars Landing      +72
Klatsches Hold        -51
Evenings End       -149

The following medals were awarded to WoW participants:

All participating pilots from squad LL have been awarded Fight Club, for their decisive win. Additionally, everyone who participated in WoW V has been awarded Keval's Thanks, for being good sports.

Pilots Hadur, AlGore and Bish0p picked up Sarath's Wit for achieving the best kill ratio for their respective teams, while Amberjinx, RavenTriem and Shadrach have been awarded Sarath's Laughter for the lowest kill ratios.

For achieving the most rips by an Octavian pilot, Filzi_ has been awarded Night's Blade.

For achieving the most rips by a Solrain pilot, Garak has been awarded Golden Heart.

For achieving the most rips by a Quantar pilot, Radi has been awarded The Mane of Hamalzah.

For organizing WoW V, Garak has been awarded Echoes of Hope, along with Mike21, mcbrmx and Radi for accepting the unenviable task of being team captains.

For his tireless efforts to document WoW V by taking pictures of everyone and everything, mordikar has been awarded TRINN Star. mordikar was also awarded Keval's Thanks for one specific image.

A 'Kill The Flag' event was scheduled during WoW V, which was won by team KH. For their efforts, they have earned Cormonra's Commendation, Sarath's Pride and Keval's Thanks. Team LL, who came second were awarded Sarath's Pride and Keval's Thanks, while team EE picked up Keval's Thanks.

Following WoW V, Regan hosted a small free for all combat party in the open space simulator, which was won by leonard, who has been awarded Fight Club. For hosting this event, Regan has been awarded Echoes of Hope, while mordikar earned himself Sarath's Laughter.

If you either WANT to receive  Darkspace Dispatch by email or WANT TO BE REMOVED from the mailing list simply email us:
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Click here for more . . .

Betrayal
a Jumpgate Novella by Fellblade
(reprinted with permission)

- Part I -

The shield generator was pretty much mangled.. it had been cheap, true, and it had seen him through a fair number of skirmishes, but it was now pretty much dead. He was going to have to have Words with the dealer he had bought it off at Eveningīs End, it was meant to have anti-backblast protection... evidently it didnīt. Once a life-saver, now a slightly charred and smoking lump with a small melted hole where the power consumption readout was meant to be and a faint smell of burning cheese from an old sandwich that he had left inside it the last time he had opened it up.

(Click here for the complete text of Part I)

Darkspace Dispatch Back-Issues

Vol.   I, No 1 (104.7.24)           Vol. I, No. 2 (104.8.12)           Vol.   I, No. 3 (104.10.2)          Vol.   I, No. 4 (104.10.2)

Vol. I, No. 5 (104.12.7)       Vol. I,No.6 (104.12.28)     Vol. II,No.1 (105.1.25)

 
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