Mission Progress, 1st December 2649 00:00:00 SHIP TIME

• Earth time 14/12/2649 07:12:47 ZULU
• Mission time elapsed 598 years, 355 days Ship relative
• Current Acceleration: 0.00033190 m/s²
• Velocity: 0.0193c Earth relative
• Fuel: 46.0%
• All systems are operating under revised expectations.

CRITICAL MISSION WINDOW OPEN

Delta Vee Inversion Window is now open. 54 days remain until it closes.
Failure to perform thrust flip in this time frame will have severe repercussions.

The anniversary of launch day again approaches, commemorating the departure from old Earth at exactly 1200 on the 6th of December 2050. This will be the 599th anniversary.

Shipwide celebration is planned, with the usual double fabber credits for everyone for the day, traditional Launchday sweets fabbed into the letters ASIMOV. No duties save the most vital need be performed on the day, and everyone looks forward to the atmosphere of fun and festival that pervades the ship. Remember, Launchday is a day to look back at what we have left behind and anticipate what might be to come, to build on what we have achieved so far and resolve to make our futures glorious!

An excerpt from TOROID! Magazine

This year's most notorious criminal. The one behind the ITTS failure. The one who detonated explosives in an air lock. The one who was found guilty of causing mass to be lost from the ship. Apparently arrested in a raid against a secret Cosa Nostra hideout and sentenced to death by Computer. (Was he trying to collect the entire Premature Recycling set? -Ed)

The rabid dog known as Roger Billington has been put down, by none less than the Head of Recycling himself, Mordecai White, (Is he trying to collect the full set of notorious criminals too? -Ed) on Thursday evening.

(I certainly feel safer knowning those Marshals are out there protecting us, don't you? -Ed)

News has reached us that last night a daring raid was carried out on Blackout to detain one Victoria Grey, a major gang leader. Our contacts report that she was killed while resisting arrest… or something.

Apparently the word has gone out on the street that Blackout is now at war with the Marshals and anybody working with them. Rumour has it that Senior Marshal Bloodhound has bottled and is ordering his men to stay clear of the sector for the time being.

Personally I wouldn't like to be in the boots over those responsible for the current situation.

Amandine Bouillon has created a sombre documentary on the recent outbreaks of illnesses to affect residents of the Asimov, taking viewers on a clarifying trip through the Toroid 3 plague, spread by unknown means to White and Rainbow and causing the current quarantines, and the super-bacteria accidentally created and released in Nemo Blue's lab, which caused the tragic deaths of Summer Blue and eighteen civilians, despite the unceasing work of Nemo Blue, Posi Rainbow and Aiden White over three sleepless days to develop a cure. Aiden White gives an interview, audio only from his quarantined lab in White Sector, describing the nature of the Toroid 3 disease and stating that while the Blue Sector outbreak had human origin, the person responsible has been recycled. Posi talks of the severe quarantine measures that have been put in place for safety in Rainbow, such as restricted movement of personnel and the thorough sterilisation which has unfortunately destroyed several corridor-based works of art. He emphasises that Sector Head Craig Rainbow holds the wellbeing of the sector residents above all. Finally, an interview with Nemo, who talks of his own part in it all, and how Computer refused to give them just a little longer to try to cure the Blue Sector residents who died as part of the quarantine measures. Apparently he has not been seen since entering the core last month.

Ms Bouillon emphasises the tragedy of these events, and praises the hard work and diligence of Health, especially now that quarantine is lifted in Rainbow. Only with further work and vigilance can future outbreaks be avoided.

The Bouillon family wish to extend their sympathies to the relatives of those who have died, and the Daisy Blue Memorial Fund has been established with a generous donation to ease their pain.

A stirring and well elucidated debate took place between between Nick The Skeptic and Darwin Blue of the SCT and Morning Rainbow and Mary White of the Friends of Computer. Both sides clearly elucidated their arguments right up until the notorious recycling bogeyman Piers Red turned up and beheaded Mary White as an age criminal on stage. Notably absent from the debate is Friend Albus, whose star is apparently setting among the Friends.

Despite (or possibly because of?) this dramatic revelation a new resurgence of interest in these ideas seems to have ploughed through the ship. An audience survey shows that the Friends influence now extends to just over half the ship, while one in twenty of you is a firm SCT believer. An up and coming school of thought is represented by the SLF, with almost one in 100 of you supporting their cause. Meanwhile the “crazy” Children of Earth continue to gather support from one in five of the population. Maybe not so crazy after all, eh?

Wheatley 'the Crusher' Red is organising an exhibition match with your favourite NGF stars — and other celebrities! Rumours include Craig Rainbow, Kalys Rainbow, all the cast and crew of Samurai Vikings, and most of the ACTP! It's going to be awesome!!

Hollis Salamaris and Amandine Bouillon have teamed up to show us a vision of the future; it seems our destination is a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, a vast world which they predict as containing vast plains, mountains and oceans, gorgeously rendered using Worldcraft technology, and also apparently giant pink fluffy rabbits bounding gently across the plains. This documentary serves to remind all of us of the vital role we play in the life of the mission; even if we ourselves may never walk on those fields, the day-to-day work we do to keep the ship and crew functioning, especially with regards to the upcoming inversion, is vital to ensuring our descendants may one day reach their destination, and that the work of generations of crew before us should not be wasted. Definitely an uplifting message for all of us!

The latest episode of Samurai Vikings episode is a special effects extravaganza, courtesy of the new Holographic Effects Grandmaster, Piers Red, and the usual excellent technical support from Ragnhild Black. Set in a hellish inferno of magma and fire, the souls of the Samurai Vikings must battle demons to emerge triumphantly back to life. While most of the souls look like a slightly insubstantial version of the usual character, could there be significance in the fact that Dog's soul, played by Posi Rainbow, seems somewhat demonic? They encounter the lord of Demon Valhalla, a ten foot winged demon with eyes of flame who later reveals himself to be Chad Whitesider, plotting to cover all existence in stagnant banality, is an unsubtle satire which will surely be ill-received by Whitesiders fans. Though as he is apparently played by the original Whitesiders actor, who can tell?

The episode culminates in an epic fight in which Chad Green transforms himself into a deadly silver sword, wielded by Hades to slay the demonic Chad Whitesider and release them all from hell. The fans definitely seem to have approved if the ratings are anything to go by!

Is Samurai Vikings eclipsing all other vid entertainment on the ship? Whitesiders fans have noted a definite drop in the quality of the show, as though the cast and crew don't really have their hearts in it any more, and more re-use of particular sets than usual. Meanwhile, Wolf Drop has been postponed for an undetermined amount of time as the traumatised Wolf tries to recover from the sudden and horrific death of his new girlfriend last month. At least NGF is still going strong!

Computer itself has announced extra prizes for the top NGF teams, and their associated sector or department! All four teams which reach the final knockout stage will earn the sector/department a full 3 months of extra luxury rations for the duration of the knockout stage. This should keep things interesting!

New transfers this month include Mitty Red moving up to the Red team as goalkeeper, and Thursday White transferring to Harmony.

In a surprise twist this season, the match to watch at the half-way point is Engineering versus Harmony, rather than the usual Red versus Green. With the ACTP having several players in the teams, this should be an excellent match!

The teams come out onto the pitch, and there's a significant ommision from Harmony — Wheatley 'the Crusher' Red is not on the pitch, and is listed as being on the subs bench! Engineering are missing their goalkeeper, Mitty Red, to injury, but Alloy Blue makes her debut to replace Nigel Green.

The game gets underway, and it seems that Harmony have used Engineering's idea for the improved boot design. Buzzcut Blue attempts to intimidate the Engineering defence, but they square up to him, and prevent him from taking an early lead. The Crusher makes his grand entrance on the quarter-hour mark, but he looks rather green around the gills. His first action is to tackle Darwin Blue, and he gets the ball. He then passes to Indium Blue, goes to tackle her, but starts to swing at an invisible opponent. Indium takes advantage of Crusher's apparent confusion to score. As the game restarts, Crusher goes to attack Buzzcut, shouting something about horns growing out of his head and strangling the children. Buzzcut is forced to defend himself from his teammate, and unfortunately rebreaks Crusher's nose. Crusher is escorted from the pitch by the referees, and forced to make an injury substitution.

The rest of the game is less controversial, with Engineering not shying away from Harmony's physical style. Buzzcut and Berry Green did a skilfull one-two to score for Harmony, but Darwin soon pulled back the lead. An own-goal by Alloy Blue led to a tense final 20 minutes, but Darwin scored again to make the final score 3-2 to Engineering.

An underground film seems to be doing the rounds, and has been picked up and redistributed by many committed members of the Children of Earth. The film refuses to play if used on a Computer connected device, however temporary isolation from the network seems to enable it. The voices involved seem to have been digitally produced to conceal the origin, lending the film a very strange feel.

The main thrust of the film seems to be that computer and its Alien masters, the Others, are deliberately regressing Human technology as the years go by. That where once we could personalise medicine and produce individually tailored cures to many diseases that technology was taken from us. Our cybernetic limbs are less sophisticated than they once were. We know less about Computer than those before us. We have lost advanced nanotechnology giving us less sophisticated fabbers.

The film concludes with a rousing speech from an “anonymous source”, however the silhouette clearly contains a hat with a feather in it, an image strongly linked to one Marcus Deveraux Bouillon, a charismatic figure in the Children of Earth. It calls all true Humans to rally to the cause and assist the ACTP in wresting this controlled technology from Computer's cold machine-like claws.

• Someone mounted a laser to a BOB - watch out!
• ALLSTARS NGF! COMING SOON! See Crusher Red to sign up!
• We wouldn't have any of these problems with the Captain's ID chip getting into the wrong hands if they had been properly recycled in the first place…
• <graffiti in Rainbow> wELL, IT SeEMS WE haVE tO eAT cHIPS, rICE, aND iNSTANT ALgAE
• Hollis is just a puppet for the Salamaris family
• The Friends of Computer are a front for a society of age criminals
• Grey 1-D is now known as Violet Sector!
• My kid's desperate to play Beech Volleyball - someone should set up a league!
• What was Jack doing running off into the airlock?
• Carl Grey-Wrench is Head of T2 Grey Sector - IT'S OFFICIAL!
• Computer killed the Blue 18
• Whitesiders really needs a change of direction.
• They are among us.
• Heard ACTP members shunned the Blue NGF team!
• We're coming for you, Templar. Watch your back.
• There's something on the outside. Didn't you hear it?
• The treasure will be mine!
• There must be some higher power on this ship watching over us, guiding our lives… and it hates us all.
• It turns your liver to soup, then your lungs, then your brain…
• Craig for captain!
• Things're quiet around Recycling these days…too quiet.
• This fusion drive stuff is all smoke and mirrors, the ship is really propelled by a giant magnet attached on an arm to the front of the ship that's pulling us forward.
• It killed Summer
• I hear that a mysterious red egg is hidden in the Captain's Cabin, but to find it you need to know the secret code…
• Did you hear what the thunder said?
• It's too bad Roger won't live - but then again, who does?
• Computer doesn't care about us
• All-Star Celebrity NGF is gonna be AWESOME
• Lizard stew rots your brain.
• Marshall Lyla Red for Captain! She has the best interests of the crew at heart!
• How does that guy make those hidden graffiti messages? They're really hard!
• Six toroids… six fingers… SIX! SIX EVERYWHERE!
• All for one Computer and one Computer for all!
• Engineering are getting so organised these days, it's almost like they're planning something…
• What is the world you know?
• Craig staged the rainbow sector quarantine just so he'd be able to look good by dealing with it.
• Hades Black actually is aiding the Marshals.
• Yo mamma so fat and dumb, she got stuck trying to climb through the Inversion Window!
• Albus has gone mad!
• The Boundless Peal Approaches
• EEENNNNGINEERING!
• Computer talks to me, but no one else can hear.
• We need to go deeper.
• The captain's treasure is a curse.
• Graffiti: REMEMBER EVA
• Computer killed Summer
• Someone's doing something about the whole inversion thing… right?