Frontier News Issue 13

Frontier News Issue 31

  Last week, the Alliance president, Margaret Stonecipher, asked the Federation Unity Party for an explanation over Sam Redterk's remarks about the Federation annexing Phekda, should he be elected. Redterk, the Unity Party's presidential candidate for the November elections, has caused understandable worry amongst the Phekda and Alliance leadership.

  Redterk told President Stonecipher his views during a public address. He said, "The Alliance makes out that the Phekda crisis was caused by the Federation and Empire contriving an attack to justify a takeover of Phekda. The reality, however, is that the Alliance and the Empire used Phekda to launch an attack on important military installations at Eta Cassiopeia. Notice how the Empire slipped away when it became apparent that the Alliance could drive the half-hearted Federation attempt to supress the agression eminating from Phekda. The system rightfully belongs to the Federation."

  Stonecipher hotly denied Redterk's assertions, pointing to the evidence revealed back in April. The evidence was unearthed by an independent spy, and not somebody from the Alliance. It is also illogical that an organization with the aims of the Alliance would perform such an act.

  A spokesbeing for the Phekda government said, "The Unity party is showing itself as the loony fringe of the Federation. History - including the sad history of Phekda - is littered with people like Redterk who somehow drum up support by making outrageous statements. We sincerely hope that Redterk loses the election."

  Meanwhile, the AJN continues to monitor the situation. It appears that Redterk's political gamble has so far not paid off - the latest poll shows that Unity has slipped to third place, behind President Winters' Liberal Party. The Democratic Union currently have a 2% poll lead over the Liberals, and Unity, who were in second place, have slipped 6 points since Redterk's statement on Phekda. This still leaves support for the three parties remarkably close, and anything could happen between now and November, especially since the close poll results mean that a coalition government would have to be formed. Hopefully the poll results mean that most Federation citizens do not believe Redterk's antagonistic rhetoric.

  Aleksandr Primakov, the AJN's Press Liason also warned Redterk, "The Alliance will defend its members, and the Federation will sustain unacceptable losses if they attempt an invasion of Phekda".

Quest class

  The AJN this week announced that it and the New Rossyth shipyards have been quitely working away on a new, fast and manoeverable destroyer. The new ship was unveiled to the surprise of everybody. Usually, the AJN will at least give hints that a new ship is in the pipeline - however, this ship was kept a close secret.

  Cpt. Aleksandr Primakov told the News, "The AJN has been planning this for a while, since there was a big gap in combat ships - we basically had nothing between the Courier and the Victor/Valiant class battleships. We needed a fast destroyer or frigate to fill that gap in our defence."

  The new destroyer will be a Quest-class vessel, designated the Quest FGA.1. Many details are still top-secret, but the ship will be heavily armed for ship-to-ship combat. Instead of the ultra-long range class 4 drive, it will be fitted with an enhanced class 3 military drive based on Class 4 technologies. The space saved by using a smaller drive will be used for additional defensive and offensive equipment. The ship is expected to carry six assault missiles, and unlike the Quest KC end E variants, will have a large plasma accelerator plus turret-mounted beam lasers (the turrets being a new feature, existing Quest-class vessels lack turrets). In addition to space combat, the ships will be capable of surface bombardment.

  The AJN has not given details yet on how many are to be built, but the initial order will be for 75 ships, each costing CR 7million fully equipped.

  A spokesbeing for the Phekda government said, "This should make the Federation think twice if they are planning to attack us."

  In other ship news, the AJN has decided to start a comprehensive refurbishment of all Valiant-class battleships that are expected to be kept for the next 20 years. The AJN expects to keep 10 examples of the 16 remaining Valiants. The six that will be withdrawn are likely to be scrapped due to extensive fatigue cracking. The ships that will be refurbished will be refitted to the specifications of the AJN Rochester, which was returned to service in March with new-technology drives and equipment. The withdrawn ships will be replaced by new Victor-class battleships. It is expected that Vosper Thorneycroft of Titican will build the superstructures, with AAAI of Alioth retaining the propulsion contract. The AJN hasn't yet revealed which Valiant-class ships it plans to take out of service. The Frontier News however expects that the AJN will probably scrap the Liverpool, Beamont, Excalibur, Seamus, San Tropez and Repulse. Serious fatigue problems have already been discovered in the San Tropez during the pre-refit inspection, and repair work has stopped on this ship pending the AJN refurbishment programme decision. It is likely that (with the exception of the San Tropez), the ships will not be withdrawn until replacement Victors are built.

Frontierverse

Ironfrost Elite Network

  It seems that cooler heads have prevailed in the escalations that looked like were leading to a vicious, but extremely short war. Fighting between Lord Ironfrost of the Empire and Cdr. Sharrock's Frontierverse almost looked inevitable as Ironfrost accused Sharrock of being the hoaxer in the fake Ironfrost site-move. Sharrock's retaliation spoke of libel and hinted at horrible consequences. In fact, for several hours last week, the Frontierverse was offline, and we feared the worst: that the fighting had broken out and their GIN router was destroyed. However, this turned out to be a temporary network outage unrelated to any kind of fighting.

  Lord Ironfrost told the Frontier News, "Someone registered the address www.ironfrost.co.uk. I thought it was Cdr. Sharrock because I had a bit of a falling out with him. However, it turned out not to be Cdr. Sharrock, but a Cdr. Alex Briggs, who has very little to do with the Elite scene. I apologise for any offence I may have caused to Cdr. Robin Sharrock"

  Cdr. Robin Sharrock was unavailable for comment by the time our news publishing deadline arrived, but due to the lack of blood on the carpets, we can only assume that the apology was accepted.

  With the addition of chapter 14 of "Deceit, Harmony and Pleasure" (see Around the Web, below), AliothNet has reached a new milestone. According to the Atomz search engine that indexes the site, AliothNet has just passed the 200,000 word mark.

  The webmaster told the News, "That's a lot of content. In fact, to be precise, we've now got 200,895 words of content at AliothNet. That's a lot of viewing pleasure for anybody who visits the site, and more is added every week".

  The content is spread across several major areas: the fiction section probably contains the lion's share. The guidebooks, AJN and Frontier News sections contain a lot of interesting information which makes up the bulk of the rest of the text on the site. The word count does not include the EBBS or its predecessor, nor does it count any part of the site not related to the Elite series.

  The Atomz search engine can be accessed from the Frontier News and main index so you can find what you're after amongst this veritable collection.

Aftermath

Deceit, Harmony & Pleasure

Eta Cassiopiea (Raqoon)

Ironfrost ELITE Network

EYWTKATICAWATA

EBBS

FE:2 Pilot's Lounge

  Part 18 of "Aftermath" is now online. What happened to the Constrictor? And what happened to the alien vessel? These questions, and more are answered by the latest part of Simon Challands' excellent story following the fate of the Constrictor when it was a new and unique design.

  Chapter 14 of Cdr. Winston's saga, "Deceit, Harmony and Pleasure" is now online. Titled "The Micro War", Winston, Albright and Copeland now find themselves fighting for survival. Albright discovers that warfare is personal, brutal and horrific, not clean and heroic as the Jameson flicks always made out. Not for the faint at heart! Who will survive this battle? Find out in this latest episode that leaves the survivors shocked and weary.

  It looks like there's some moving going on. Phil Raqoon, the Federal webmaster in charge of Eta Cassiopiea's website announced that he was in the process of enhancing the Eta Cass. website and at the same time, changing network providers. This ultimately means that Eta Cassiopeia is going to be offline for a while. Raqoon didn't state how long this would be, just "telling us to be patient".

  Also, the Ironfrost Elite Network has REALLY moved this time to ironfrost.net. Unlike the hoax shennanigans that have been going on recently, this move includes not only a new URL, but a new layout, plus a new feature called FIDO. This feature includes a directory of systems. It's an interesting historical record, too, since it represents the galaxy in 3200. Compare this to the 3296 Alliance Atlas at AliothNet to see some of the changes that have happened in this time (including Oltiqu being renamed Gateway and becoming an Alliance founding member).

  Cdr. Thanase also announced that a new and improved EYWTKATICAWATA (Everything You Wanted To Know About The Imperial Courier And Were Afraid To Ask) is on the horizon. The site at the moment is just a "Coming soon" page, but keep a lookout. The last site was good quality - hopefully this one will be even better. That's if Carstein doesn't get to Cdr. Thanase first of course! (See the EBBS).

  Finally...Mic Healey has started a new feature on the Frontier Pilot's Lounge called "Frontier Films". We've not had time to check them out yet, but it looks interesting! Go to his site and download the viewer, and the two films currently online for your viewing pleasure.