Frontier News Issue 5

  The Alliance Science council yesterday announced the winners of the contract to build their new deep space exploration craft. The new ships, which will be used to take on exploration missions that were in the past barely available to deep space probes, will be about 50% larger than a Panther Clipper, and will be powered by a new generation hydrogen drive, allowing refuelling by means of a fuel scoop. Previous deep space designs depended on military fuel, limiting their range.

  Vosper Thorneycroft of Titican won the superstructure contract, and AAAI of Alioth won the propulsion contract. Additionally, the ASC will order on an as-needed basis, the Mamba II landing craft, which is a ship already being produced by the Zorgon Petterson Group of Zaonce. The Vosper-designed "Obsidian" class starship, a clean-sheet design, won the award by a clear margin, whilst AAAI has got the drive market sewn up tight at the moment with its groundbreaking propulsion technologies.

  The contract is worth some 40M credits to Vospers, and a further 20M to AAAI. The order for the Mamba II is likely to be for about sixty of the small ships, or about 6M credits.

  A Vosper Thorneycroft representitive told the News, "This is great news for us, and will help leave the bad memories of the recent shipbuilding depression behind. This contract, plus the already in-progress AJN contract puts us back on a sound financial footing".

  Shares in Vospers rose by five points today, and AAAI shares were up by three, investors showing increasing confidence in the shipbuilding industry.

  The history of humanity's relationships with the sentient machines it created has always been fraught, and was at the centre of a recent controversy between the Federal Times and a historian from Sohoa named Keith Dodds. At the heart of the controversy was the outright destruction of a sentient machine colony on Eta Cassiopeia in the late 28th Century. The notorious "Feynmann Holocaust" has long been regarded as the darkest hour of human relations with sentient machines. Humanity at that point had not given sentient machines any legal protections or recognition. The Federal Navy at the time had been testing new weapons systems against the mechanoid population.

  Dodds had sued the Federal Times after its article, "Denying the Feynmann Holocaust: An assault on truth and History" had accused the author of being one of the most dangerous "holocaust deniers", a person who falsified and distorted history. Dodds denied the allegations, claiming that they had caused him to be subject to a wave of hatred by cyborgs from around the galaxy. He said that he didn't deny the holocaust occurred, rather the number of destroyed mechanoids, and whether the mechanoids in question fell under the rules of the 2856 Recognition of Sentience Act passed by the Federal Government. However, two days ago, in the Federal Supreme Court in Olympus Village, Mars, Sol (0,0) delivered its verdict, finding in favour of the Federal Times.

  Mr Justice Jackson, of the Federal Supreme Court delivered his verdict to a packed court of humans and cyborgs (many indistinguishable from their human counterparts). Justice Jackson told the court, "We have found that Dodds has deliberately manipulated and distorted the facts for his own ideological reasons - he is an active Holocaust denier and is actively speciesist towards sentient machines".

  A Federal Times spokesbeing said, "We feel totally vindicated by the judges findings. The fact that Dodds is facing financial ruin is a problem of his own making".

Frontier News: Issue 10

Frontier News: Issue 4

Disappearance of the AJN Lion

  The ASC science ship, the Excelsior, has now been on its mission to investigate the Liazeda Radio Anomoly 2 (LRA-2) for some ten weeks. The probes that have been examining the LRA-2 have returned many petabytes of data to the ASC research labs at the Ackwaze Space Science Institute.

  It looks like the gathering of data has come to an abrupt end. The probes were programmed to continue sending signals to the LRA-2, which has been replying on a frequency of 243 MHz. However, two days ago, the enigmatic object suddenly disappeared, taking about thirty robotic probes with it. The disappearance was identical to the reported conditions of the first LRA's disappearance. However, this time, more distant probes were recording information in a hope to discover more about what happens when the objects disappear.

  It is thought that the LRA is some kind of transport device, although the mechanisms employed are not known. The probes will attempt to build a starmap at their destination, and will try and return home. Some of the probes are programmed to explore the destination. However, it could be many decades before the probes return, shedding light on the fate of the AJN Lion.

  Vic Dobbins, the ASC's Chief Scientific Officer told the News, "It will probably be years before we find out where the probes went - if we find out at all. The data we've collected on the LRA-2 will be very helpful, but it may be years before we even know what it means".

  The Excelsior will return to Ackwaze, and the science team will be preparing a full report on the mysterious object.

The Demon's Gate

Frontier News Issue 13

  It appears that the Vebein system hasn't been invaded by the Federation, despite Federation efforts to make it that way. The leader of the notorious pirate group, Reaper, personally delivered a statement to the Frontier News after last week's story speculating about the invasion and removal of the Demons from the Vebein system.

  Reaper told the News, "The Demons Gate is far from down and out. The Feds have not invaded. We are extremely busy at the moment with some major work being done to the gate. Until we've finished, the info stream has been cut. End of story".

  There is still a feeling that there is more to this than initially meets the eyes. Although the Demons are obviously still alive and well, it does seem a little unusual that they would cut the feed. Jill Michaels, the Titican Galactic Information Network system maintainer told the News, "Most GIN sites update offline so as to only spend an hour or so down for maintenance whilst the new site is put in place. Of course, it's possible that the Demons don't have the equipment to edit their system offline"

  In the meantime, the Frontier News will be watching developments around Vebein with great interest.

Commander Winston's journals

Frontierverse Fiction

Aftermath

Frontier Broadcasting System

The fiendishly difficult ELITE quiz

  This week sees some more journal updates. The seventh chapter of Commander James Winston's story, "Deceit, Harmony and Pleasure" is now available at AliothNet. Winston plans to punish those who would send him on an assasination mission that hie doesn't believe in. Will he succeed? Will he be double-crossed? Also, the Frontierverse has Chapter 25 of "Why did the groigan dance?" by Brad "Wolfsheart" Chacos. This latest installment sees Sinclair and Redfield in a situation they wished they were rather not in. Or should we say, Comrade Redfield? Simon Challands has also been busy with "Aftermath". Go to his Acorn Elite website to read the story, as the hunt for the Constrictor's constituent parts continues...

  There is also a new Elite 4 speculation site out there. Krzysztof Kania has created a new Elite 4 site. He explained that it is "almost empty" at the moment, but then again, it's always been a bit of a challenge speculating about a game that doesn't yet exist! Frontier Developments...take note. There are a lot of eager Elite fans out there, and Elite 4 will do very well. Kris's new site will track the development of the new Elite sequel, and is called "The Frontier News Broadcasting System". Not to be confused with the "Frontier News" of course!

  Finally, since nobody has got even close to getting the Frontier News' Fiendishly Difficult Elite Quiz question this month, a clue has been posted. So far, all the guesses have been quite a long way off the mark. Take a look at the Quiz page and see if the clue sets you on the right track. Even with the clue, it's still fiendishly difficult!