[fiction] GZGVerse News In Brief

		      Interstellar News Today!

		       Sunday, August 16, 2178

			  **Top Stories**

	    13 Killed in Military Shuttlecraft Accident

New Albion - A military shuttle crashed Thursday during a routine
aerospace
interface flight, killing all 13 people aboard, including Brigadier
General
Sean Graver, reported the base commander. The accident occurred at
6:50am local
time near the woodland village of Jonstown, 30 kilometers east of the
New
London. Officials state that the Cosgrove-7 shuttle reported a
mechanical
problem moments before it disappeared from the sensor net. The
Cosgrove-7 is
one of a dozen military passenger shuttles that are permenantly
stationed at
the Sir Toughlee Base just outside of New London. All other Cosgrove-7
shuttles
have been grounded pending the results of the investigation.

	       Coup Leader Arrested by PAU Military

New Lusaka - Rebel leader Sum Dhrugs and several of his advisors were
arrested
Wednesday by PanAfrican Union military forces, a PAU holovid news
broadcast
reported. Initial reports have Dhrugs and his legal advisor and
spokesman being
held at a detention center in the capital city of New Lusaka. Dhrugs and
all
his supporters were previously granted amnesty as part of a deal that
saw the
release of the last of his hostages seized when Dhrugs and a gang of
gunmen
stormed the Legislation Building, claiming it was on the behalf of
oppressed
Gabon peasants. But reports Wednesday say that the army is holding
Dhrugs
responsible for crimes still being committed by his supporters. The
PAU's
military has bolstered its presence on New Lusaka in order to counter
any new
violence.

	 Lawsuits Allege Faulty Landing Gears Caused Deaths

Fliescher II - Two families have sued Boing-Martin and the Kansai
Korporation,
alleging that the Kansai-produced landing gears on the Boing-Martin
"Athena"
aerospace personal shuttles fracture and break, causing fatal accidents. 

The lawsuits filed Tuesday follow the deaths in North Bradley of
22-year-old
Sal Manilla in November and 37-year-old holo-vid personality Strep T.
Caucaus
in March, and accuse the gear-maker and the aerospace shuttle company of
negligence. 

"We are pursuing this because we do not believe the mega-corporations
really
care about the safety of the consumer. We've lost our son; we don't want
someone else to go through the same, horrid tragedy," cried Mrs Manilla. 

Dozens of similar accidents have prompted the Royal Traffic Safety
investigators to open an investigation into possible defects with the
Kansai
Korporation AFG, AFG II, and the Prime Loader landing gears. 

"The problem becomes deadly on the newer "Athena" class ships because of
the
higher concentration of mass in the nose of the spacecraft," stated
attorney
Samual Finback. "This places undue stress on the forward gear mechanism
upon
landing." 

"The higher concentrated mass in the front of the "Athenas" was a safety
design
consideration to protect the control and passenger cabin during any
accidental
collisions by the shuttle," responded Boing-Martin representative Jane
Smartly
during a press conference on Wednesday. "We have full confidence in the
materials and manufacturing of all parts on the "Athena"." 

The Kansai Korporation did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. 
about its gears. Almost 57 millions of these gears have been
manufactured to
date. 

	   Nitric Acid Spill Evacuates Part of New Moskva

New Moskva - Dozens of familes were evacuated from their homes
Wednesday,
and thousands of commuters were stranded because of a leak of nitric
acid
at a nearby factory. Decontamination teams were called in to the Korell
Laboratories For The People early in the morning upon the discovery of
nitric
acid leaking from a tank. The acid formed an orange cloud that hung over
that part of the city for several hours. Four Andrenovich Commuter
trains
were stopped on the tracks for more than an hour, preventing several
thousand
workers from reaching their assigned duty stations in a timely manner.

	  Sinasures Makes Slow Progress Under Law's Protection

Lancelot - New Anglian biologists are disheartened at the rate in which
the
population of the sinasure is recovering, despite measures taken over
the years
to ensure the animal's survival. While Royal Biologist Tom Femos
overseas the
program that limits resource exploitations in the extensive Davey
Forest, in an
effort to restore the depleted sinasure population, others are fighting
against
him. 

"Knowing [the sinasures] can be here is very important to me," says
Femos, who
has only seen one sinasure in his 20 years of working in the forest. "I
have a
4-year old daughter; I want her to have the opportunity to see a
sinasure when
she grows up."

Sinasures are natural predators of the burrowing tuskite, a destructive
rodent-like creature which has no other predators. The numbers of
tuskites,
fortunately, has remained in control over the years, but that is
changing, say
biologists. 

"Tuskites love to eat tree roots and undermine building foundations,"
says
noted arborist Tim Dailey. "Without natural predation to keep their
numbers in
check, whole forests will disappear. Look at what has happened to the
McClellan
Woods in the Distil Province over the past 10 years." 

While no one's kept good numbers, biologists say there were as few as
200
sinasures on the continent in 2153. Today there are only about 1,400,
about
half which can be found in the Davey Forest. That's still far from the
estimated 65,000 sinasures that used to roam the planet 100 years ago. 

Sinasures are a distant cousin to the ursoids of Earth. Standing upwards
of 3
meters tall, weighing in at nearly 1000 kg, these creatures are armed
with
long, curving claws generally used for digging out burrowing creatures,
but can
be deadly weapons threatened. Not typically aggressive without a reason,
sinasures have been known to attack and kill humans. 

After the succesful re-introduction of loracles, an animal similar in
nature to
wolves, ranchers and other rural residents worry about bringing
sinasures back
to the area. 

"You've got an animal that a lot of people tell us they don't want
back," says
Council Representative Stan Crappo. "Loracles don't eat people;
sinasures eat
people." 

Crappo and other lawmakers have forstalled the government's attempts to
reintroduce the sinasures until there is a scientific review. 

	Federal Stats Europa Offer Limited Autonomy to New French
		   Republic in Bid for Peace

Compville - A deal to cede unprecedented powers to the New French
Republic
raised the chances of peace on the troubled continent but risked
provoking
demands for special treatment from other FSE regions seeking autonomy,
commentators say. 

FSE Prime Minister Anre Bach reached agreement with the New French
Republic
authorities Thursday in a breakthrough after months of talks to end
nearly a
decade of violence in the region. 

But he did so only after offering to amend the constitution to allow the
region's assembly to adapt FSE national laws. 

Bach's proposals envision a phased transfer of power, pushing the thorny
issue
of constitutional change back to 2184 - at arm's length from the
presidential
campaign period. 

Bach made it a condition that there must be a lasting peace before
voting
on the constitutional amendment, which would allow the region's assembly
to
adapt national laws. 

	    Hollywood Accused of Inconsistent Details

Earth - An upcry has arisen recently over inconsistent details shown in
some of
Hollywood's holovid series. Viewers have expressed displeasure over how
holovid
stories have unexplanable changes between episodes.

"This is outrageous," lamented Donald Rindel, a fan of science fiction
works.
"In one episode of "Galactic Mercenaries"they'll show the "Vanguard" as
having
4 fighter squadrons of 7 fighters each, then in another episode you can
count
nearly 20 fighters in the same squadrons. And this after they have
stated in
yet another episode that the ship can only carry _3_ fighter squadrons!"

It is inconsistencies like that which seem to pervade many holovids, not
limiting themselves to just science fiction series.

"We don't really care" replied Stan Berger, a producer of several
holovid
series, including "Galactic Mercenaries". "We do what we do for the
story, not
to maintain some sort of hypothized technical consistency. This is
fiction.
You're not supposed to think!"

But some fans are not happy with not thinking. For some, thinking about
the
possibilities is the key to the holovids.

"It is very difficult for us to recreate on a simulation gaming table
events
which happen from vid to vid when the technical aspects of the ships and
equipment changes from vid to vid," said Mark Hossford. "You can't have
a ship
carrying 3 fighter squadrons one week suddenly carry 6 squadrons the
next week.
It just doesn't work!"

"It's as bad as it was in the late 20th Century," noted historian Jerry
Davis.
"The more things change, the more things stay the same."

Yet the cries seem to fall on deaf ears in Hollywood.

"We don't understand what all the hoopalah is about. No one worries
about when
characters change. Why should they worry about when there are technical
differences? That's not the point of the holovid. The point of the vids
are to
tell stories," continued Berger. "In one vid it will take the "Vanguard"
3 days
going at FTL-4 to cover 17 parsecs, and in another vid it will take the
same
ship going the same speed 3 weeks to cover the same distance. It's not
about
technical accuracy. It's about the story. That's all there is to it." 

Fans have started to circulate a petition requiring the studios adhere
to
technical consistency.

	      Apartment Building Explodes in Nouvea Paname

Nouvea Paname - An explosion tore through a downtown apartment building
in New
Paris about 2:30pm local time Tuesday, engulfing the building in a
plasma fire
and severing power to a large section of the city. 31 of the buildings
32
residents were accounted for, officials said. Several residents were 
treated
at the scene for various injuries sustained in the blast. The
whereabouts of
the missing resident are not known, and it is feared that the resident
may have
been at the origin of the explosion, which appears to have been due to a
faulty
plasma power generator. It will be several days before firefighters and
investigators will be able to sift through the rubble to determine if
there are
any trace evidence of the missing resident within.

		   Commission Affirms Memorial Site

Winchester - Consistent with the objectives of the
McNeal-Fusaki-Geniffer
Plan for New Brisbane's Royal Park design, the memorial provides an
important
visual and symbolic focal point in the historic timeline of the Park as
the
only 21st-century event honored with a location within the Park's
boundaries.
As noted in Friday's hearing, any lesser site would have diminished the
importance of Second Solar War that so affected this colony.

In order to retain the open and parklike setting of New Brisbane's Royal
Park,
three-quarters of the memorial's 17.7 acres remain grass, trees, and
water. The
design is open and transparent and preserves the dramatic vista between
the
Highland Mountains, bordered by the Carrollton Ocean, and the city of
New
Brisbane.