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Issue 5 - Turn 716 |
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The Editorial Tired of the status quo?
contact the Pirate
Alliance at
pirate_alliance@ Are you a budding
Mack the Hack or Nigel
Villiers-Smythe? Writers
needed. Contact us at
thetbgtribune@ Contact us to advertise in this space. E-mail address in the Editorial Section. |
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IMPERIAL TAX REBATES? Since the collapse of the shattered Betelgeuse Empire there is growing concern amongst some taxpayers as to the whereabouts of their advanced tax payments. The funds raised through Imperial taxation were supposed to be used to help small ships but with the collapse of the Imperial infrastructure the distribution of what remains of these funds is now being called into question. Despite past claims from the now defunct Empire that there had been "no payment of taxes since the agreement of the new tax protocols" the Tribune can exclusively reveal that this is not the case. One Captain, who wishes to remain anonymous, said "In good faith I made an advance tax payment to the Empire shortly after the new tax rates were negotiated by our President, then a few turns later the Empire folds! Since I made this payment I’ve not travelled through Imperial space and I've heard nothing as to the whereabouts of my funds. I have my receipt and I want a rebate!". There are rumours that these sentiments are echoed by other tax payers who now feel cheated out of their hard earned cash. Starwreck, the former Imperial Finance Officer, was invited to comment on the issue of tax rebates, but has so far failed to respond, adding fuel to the economic fire burning amongst the rubble that was The Betelgeuse Empire. STATUS OF SIR AND THE SN? by Nigel Villiers-Smythe This report was meant to have been an equally weighted report on the status of the Smugglers Net and SIR, however, due to the reply received from the Smugglers Net, this is not the case. I will start wit SIR. So far, I have had very little response from SIR, although I have been told by Brave Sir Robin of the Genesis that SIR appear to be good at chaining Dybuk, and many of them offer protection from Dybuk. The following statistics show that 3 times in the last 100 turns, SIR ships have banished evil. Heart of Gold - Turn 628 That's all we have from SIR. Now, for the Smugglers Net. We received this reply: Dear TBG Tribune, We at the Smuggler's Net would like to thank you for your interest in our alliance. We understand that being secretive, very few of our member's identities are known and very little is known about who we are and what we do. Since we all like the TBG Tribune so darn much, we arehappy to give you an exclusive look inside the day to day operations of the SN. First off, it is notable that all of our members sleep on the right side of their bed and promptly belch upon awakening........ Our member's daily habits range from complaining about aliens, to quoting Monty Python, to speaking slanderous remarks about each others nations of birth, leading to a rich and diverse amount of chaos, agreeable to all in tow, with the exception of those of us that are particularly sleepy. The sleepy members, rather than agreeing, tend to nod off in mid-conversation. This leads to rather interesting discussions, in that many arguments erupt over what a certain member was going to write when passed out mid-sentence and fell on the keyboard, causing his unfinished e-mail to send. In recent events, we've had something of a competition... We call it the Officer Olympics. Firstly, the weaponry officers arm-wrestle. The second event involves engineers - they design devices for the rapid consumption of alcohol; the creator of the device with the greatest speed and efficiency generally wins. The science officers take turns writing complex encryption schemes, which the others try to crack. During all of this, the medical officers (all of whom are female) rub hot, soothing lotions all over each others' bodies. This tends to be distracting, as by this time the Captains are roaring drunk and attempting to throw darts at their unsuspecting Science officers. Unfortunately, this inevitably leads to one Captain hitting another causing a bout of profanities to spew forth just before they lapse into an alchohol induced coma. On special request by our members who prefer it, we have hired some new male medics that make sure they feel alright in this orgy of lust and booze (and get their own share of pleasure). SN factoids: 1) There are no ships in the SN who's shipname
begins with X. and the number 10 factoid...... 10) We all love to have fun in TBG. One of our most recent successes was the explanation of the Yellow Ball principle. Put simply, the yellowball system goes as follows : Why did whiteball vote for that ship? And who is whiteball anyway? I didn't whiteball whiteball. Given the chance, I probably would have blackballed whiteball on the yellowball principle. What? you don't know what the yellowball principle is? That's where you never whiteball whiteball because if you greyball whiteball, then blackball is the only logical outcome. If you get a greyball and a whiteball, then the whitball is discoloured, and the blackball is left out, meaning that the whiteball now becomes a yellowball. Therefore, this is the yellowball principle because the whiteball whiteball and the greyball whiteball combine to become the blackball whiteball blackball. Understand? Good. ---------- Yes, well, I don't think I need to add any more to that. |
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MSHB HAS LEFT THE BUILDING For all those of you who missed True Blue's recent posting to The Sub Space Times, Maher Shalal Hash Baz has left the game. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? That is not for me to decide. However, what I can do is a potted history of the MSHB from it's very early days in the turns around 430-460 and it's final "glory?" on turn 712 at Markab with his final fight against Rosalind. Maher Shalal Hash Baz started life off as a small ship, and was soon a member of the IRS alliance - now called SIR. He was one of the more promenant members of the alliance, and among his many deeds whilst at SIR was the writing of the Rougher Guide to the Galaxy, said by some to be a blatant rip off of the FSP Rough Guide to the Galaxy. MSHB defended his position on the Alioth Orbiting Oasis, and after then went on to forge his way as an opinionated person who was not afraid to stand up for himself. Soon after the "Guide Wars", MSHB left SIR, along with the then captain of the Anaconda, to start FIST. This caused even more outrage, as Tiny of SIR accused him of stealing 20 turns worth of data with which to set up the FIST database. He then carried on the FIST ethos of promoting more player interaction, and FIST grew to it's current size, and can now boast the player with the largest information source in President Constitution. Among the very notable things that MSHB has done, his biggest work for the good of the galaxy at large was the ousting of the Unholy Trinity and the infamous popcorn list. It is said that the captain of the Paradox never forgave him for the apparent back stabbing, but this episode did wonders for the reputation of the MSHB. Towards the end, he began to show what many believed was his true nature, that of an extortionist. He was widely held to be too self confident for his own good, and many people thought he was arrogant and cocky. Indeed, the Tribune has exclusively obtained a quote from a player who wished to remain anonymous: "MSHB is far too cocky. He's probably a salesman in real life. He always seemed to be extremely knowledgable in everything, despite not having a clue half the time. I think his departure is good for the game." I would add that this is one view point, but it was held by more than a few players. It would seem that his good works in ousting the UT are now distant memories, and his reputation as one of the pirates took over in the end. His final piece of good work came with the dismantling of Plague Bearer at Alnitak, but soon after that, in a fight with Rosalind, things may not have gone to plan, and the Maher Shalal Hash Baz dropped out from the game. THE EDITORIAL Well, there are not many stories in this edition, but that is deliberate so that we can bring you a new feature : Letters to the Editor. Rambling Randal has created quite a storm in his recent columns, and the mail has been flooding in to the TBG Tribune, some of it agreeing with Randal, some of it dis-agreeing with Randal. Below is the Letters section. There is no Randal this week as he is ill. We all wish Randal the best so that he can overcome the illness soon. There is an interview with the Fierce Prophet however, so do read on to find out more about him. As always, we are looking for more writers here at the Tribune, so please do contact us at thetbgtribune@yahoo.co.uk if you want to be a reporter like Mack the Hack or Nigel Villiers-Smythe. It isn't arduous, and we will only be looking for one, maybe two stories per 5 turns. The TBG Tribune Editorial Team
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