Minmatar Republic Gives Harsh Rebuttal to ConHo Daily: No One Yet Able To Care

Logo of the Republic, who continue to put words beneath their logos to prove they can spell

 

After baseless accusations of "biased Caldari favoritism", "gross exaggerations", and "blatant fabrication of material", the Minmatar Republic has sent an official legal rebuttal to ConHo Daily.

To the editor of Consolidated Holdings Daily:

As a respected and well-known elder of the Brutor tribe, I must protest to the false allegations regarding our proud and noble race that were declared in the "newspaper" that you distribute. We are not mindless animals, but a brave, courageous race that has endured ages of slavery only to break free through our sheer will and determination. We will no longer tolerate the slurs of "ugly", "freaks", "smelly", or any combination of the terms seen in this literature. 

I urge your readers to ignore the misinformed ramblings of your so-called news outlet and use well-established mainstream sources like The Scope for information. I sincerely hope that your viewers heed my warning, and you discontinue this atrocity.

Derei Stankner, Elder of the Brutor Tribe

 After the paper was thrown into the ConHo Daily's Official Memory Hole to burn off the dead insects and variations of syphilis, the staff had a very hearty laugh. While it is still unknown who TRULY wrote the letter, most suspect it was a Gallente trickster trying to pull a prank.

"A Minmatar pilot being able to spell the word 'tribe' correctly!" Arthur Asimov howled, tears of laughter falling into his bottle of Quafe.

"That's just classic!"

In the likelihood that the letter was in fact written by some sort of mutated, super-intelligent Minmatar, all those who had contact with the letter are to report to the nearest medical center for decontamination and flea bathing.

Mysterious Wealthy Capsuleer Appears in Jita System: Offers to Double ISK out of Kindness of his Heart

The Jita Moon 4 Navy Station is New Eden's largest trade hub

In the past few days, a miracle has been working at the Jita IV - Moon IV Caldari Navy Assembly Plant. A pilot, whose name is not to be disclosed, came to the system and offered to double any amount of money given to him for no charge. Pilots all across the system began to give him money, having it legitamately doubled out of his own pocket money and returned to them. The local comms channel could be filled with the benefactor announcing who he was currently sending money to.

"It's a miracle!" a freighter pilot declared. "He just doubles all of our ISK, all the time!"

If this wasn't enough, other wealthy pilots (whose license registrations were less than a week old!) also began to offer to double people's money, and one even offered hundreds of millions to buy a single unit of tritanium. The outpouring of man's kindness even touched the hearts of the shrewdest traders, who, though not kind enough to give money for free, offered enormous discounts on Navy Ravens and Navy Invulnerability Fields.
"It's too unreal," were the words of a pilot who sent all of his money to one of the charitable givers.

"I mean, I'm Gallente, and I thought Jita would be this super competitive, hyper-capitalistic place where everyone is just in it for themselves with no real compassion, since it's Caldari space y'know. But here I am! Waiting for a nice man to double all my money for no reason!"

It is unknown how long this celebration will continue, or how it will effect the economy.

ConHo Daily Special: Frigate Bash Photos

Eacus charges an opponent in his Rifter

Within roughly two minutes of Arthur Asimov's hiring, the photos from the Consolidated Holdings Frigate Bash were immediately available, once again making ConHo Daily not daily but bidaily, or would that be every other day and not twice a day . . .

Anyways,these photographs of the event were taken by the crack team of Olli Raccoon and Leafy Kille.

The results are stunning to say the least, select the picture for the full-size glory.

Leafy and Kai Morgana spectate one of the fights

Althin engages a target at long range in his Punisher

Eacus speeding out of the laser range of Jade's Punisher

Tanya's Merlin exploding at the guns of Mandelor's Tristan in the final match

Tanya's ship obliterates an opponent in Round Two

Olli holds his Incursus at one end of the field, waiting for the match to begin

Olli engages a Punisher at long range

Xeddiphan battles a Rifter at knife-fight range

 Many thanks to Leafy and Olli for their excellent photography work! There were a lot more photos of the event, but these were some of the best quality shots (there were some malfunctions for some earlier ones).

Officials Promise to End Glitches with Spaceship AI: Capsuleers Everywhere Rejoice

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View of hangar from a camera drone

In recent times, the ban from staying inside a ship while in hangar has been lifted, much to the rejoice of capsuleers everywhere.

“I never did understand it,” an anonymous pilot commented. 

“Whenever I'd dock in station, ANY station, they always had these security guys who would pound on the hatch and demand I get out of the ship. I still remember the first time it happened. I had thought of refusing, but apparently the last guy who tried to do that at this particular station was smoked up by the sec guys unleashing a bunch of furriers in his ship. Anyways, I get off the ship, and they lead me to a room they called a 'captain's quarters' and thought that sounded nice. Nope! It was some Minmatar's drug hideout or something. There was all this gross crap on the walls and the floors, and half eaten food everywhere. The room only had, like, one couch and a bed, and the couch was sticky. Naturally, I'm like, screw this! So I tell the station officials that I won't be staying in this room, and you know what they do? They kick me out of the room, and make me stare at a f**king door to this supply closet in the hallway. It was like this at EVERY station, and I'm convinced they only make pilots take the rooms to try and pay-off those nice TVs they got in there. But man, that door beat that Minmatar dump by a MILE!”

The allowance of pilots to remain inside their ships while in hangar was been seen as a relief by many. However, due to spaceships suddenly linking to a station through a pilot for the first time in months, there have been many software glitches in the AI of several types of craft.

“I go to undock, and all of a sudden my object detection overview just flies somewhere random of the interface, and when I go to dock the uplink to the station services just appears somewhere,” were the aggravated words of a disgruntled Basilisk pilot. 

“It's an absolute nightmare when you're running a logistics ship setup like I am.”

In light of many reports of strange occurrences similar to these, Interbus has announced plans for a fix in stations across New Eden, which should be completed within a few days if all goes according to schedule.

 PLEASE NOTE: 

We apologize for this rather late entry, but we would like to remind you that ConHo Daily prides itself on being a non-daily paper, and actually having daily articles is a luxury. However, in order to insure that our equipment is properly working to be able to upload news without a risk of a connection severing, ConHo Daily is pleased to announced that Caldari Systems Engineer Arthur Asimov has joined us in maintaining our electronic equipment, and may also provide some valuable expert insight on New Eden starships in the near future!

Arthur Asimov, newest member of the ConHo Daily Team
He is well-known for blaming anomalies on "Ancient Jovians"

Consolidated Holdings Frigate Tournament Successful: Lord Mandelor Wins with 5% Structure Integrity

 Like any noble corporation in New Eden, Consolidated Holdings is well known for widespread corruption, extortion, and severe mistreatment of overworked and confused members. In order to to watch the pathetic maggots kill each other off and remind them of their mortality, CEO Entjudner Richter decided to hold another corporation-wide frigate bash in Amygnon, with a navy frigate of choice or a cash payout as a prize.

"The last one was a big success," Ent said. "I'm really hoping we have another great turn out."

And there was. Pilots from all walks of life gathered for the tournament, ranging from professional miners to seasoned combat veterans. Even Leafy Kille, who for days had declared the competition was 'stupid, and I could make millions in that time' was convinced to join in about an hour before the competition.

"I slapped my ship together in like five minutes," Leafy stated. "I didn't expect to last one fight."

The publicly-accepted 'most feared pilot' went to Jade, and her mind-linked counterpart Tanya. ConHo members had discussed in great detail the plans they had for running, escaping, or outright destroying their own ships in an attempt to escape her wrath.

"She told me she'd be gentle," Lord Mandelor shivered before the match. "I don't believe her."

Surprisingly, only one Rifter took part in the frigate bash, flown by Eacus. The Minmatar vessel was seen flying at dangerously fast speeds before the match, and pilots who had packed weaponry with slower tracking speeds were visibly discouraged. Luckily, a Punisher named SHOOT ME!!!! flown by Althin reassured the combatants that there would be some slower ships. Unfortunately for them, the lasers Althin was packing were considerably long ranged, making it no less dangerous than the speed of the Rifter. The fact Jade was flying a Punisher as well only seemed to reinforce this fact.

Merlins were flown by Tanya and Xeddiphan, and both took very unique approaches to their starship designs. Xed had armed his frigate with autocannons, along with an energy vampire in order to be sure that his capacitor would remain solid. This tactic proved effective, as he was able to score several wins in the tournament. The ship flown by Tanya proved to have an absolutely massive shield tank, and she later revealed that she had somehow fitted a medium shield extender to the vessel without the capacitor exploding. Some attribute this miracle to a particularly dedicated helper midget.

Olli Racoon (after being told that the Ollicannon was not acceptable as a meta level 0 weapon) flew into the competition with an Incursus frigate named Daffy Duck, one of the most popular T1 frigates in Gallente space and New Eden at large. Olli also employed a hysterical tactic at the end of some fights, as instead of simply surrendering when an opponent had withered him down, he would simply warp out, leaving the other pilot very confused.

The Tristan was flown by Mandelor, Leafy, and HARMON Alabel, and proved to be one of the more successful ship types of the match. Lord Mandelor's ship, SURPRISE INSIDE, raised many eyebrows, as Mandelor had occasionally been heard bragging about how he was going to be a Merlin. Leafy's ship was easily the largest upset of the competition, as he won several matches after he actually began to deploy his hobgoblin into battle.

"I can't believe I won two matches already! It's absurd, I shouldn't of lasted one!" Leafy shouted.

"It was the drone," the corporation told him in unison.

"It couldn't of been the drone! My drone operation skills are terrible!" he argued.

"It's still a powerful weapon," the corporation told him.

"LIES!"

In perhaps the closest match of the tournament, Leafy took on Tanya's Merlin, finally accepting the fact that his drone could be "somewhat useful" in direct combat. The two ships engaged at extreme close range, with Leafy firing off two energy vampires and running two armor repairers to make his ship nearly impenetrable. However, Tanya's missiles and point defense proved tough enough to crack through.

As Leafy's Nosferatus drained Tanya's ship of precious capacitor power, she began to inject boosters into her core. It soon became apparent that the match would become a war of attrition, with the outcome hinging on who would be able to actually have a functional capacitor.

As the battle raged on, both ships were reduced to structure, and the frigates could visibly be seen orbiting each other at close range in flames. Leafy then launched his hobgoblin (which he had been strategically deploying throughout the fight) and Tanya's structure was reduced to around 2%. There was then a massive explosion, and the debris cleared to reveal a flaming, crumbling Merlin along with Leafy's pod.

"BLOODY HELL!" Leafy yelled, echoing the thoughts of the spectators.

Finally, only two competitors were left, Tanya and Mandelor. As bets were cast and the match began, Mandelor refused to move his ship from the other side of the tournament boundaries, claiming he was "managing colonies", a tactic he had employed several times in the tournament. As Tanya's ship locked onto his Gallente ship, he finally turned around firing afterburners. The ships engaged at around 10km, with Tanya nearly instantly being webbed and Mandelor's systems being disrupted by electronic warfare modules. Both ships appeared evenly matched, with Mandelor suddenly falling behind Tanya in armor integrity, as he was not nearly as skilled in armor systems as her. Weapons flared as the Tristan's blaster rounds and gremlin rockets impacted the Merlin, which was tanked beyond what his weapons could dish out.

Then, the SURPRISE INSIDE deployed the surprise.

The Hornet EC-300 electronic warfare drone had proved problematic for Eacus' Rifter earlier in the competition, but now it was a game changer. As Tanya's ship barely held on to armor and Mandelor's structure fell to critical levels, the drone jammed the Caldari frigate. There was an explosion, and Lord Mandelor stood victor. Barely.

His ship was reduced to 5% structure, and what appeared to be vital components were falling off his ship. It was safe to say that the drone had turned the tide of the battle, as Tanya easily would have destroyed his crippled Tristan hadn't the weapons been disabled at that moment.

"I can't believe I won," Mandelor stuttered. "I didn't even have to use performance-enhancing boosters! I was sure that Jade was going to tear me a new one."

Jade's comment on the matter immediately after the fight, "Damn that drone!", was one echoed by Mandelor's previous opponents, with one going so far as to kill his original one.

Mandelor requested a Caldari Navy Hookbill as a prize, and there was a 3v3 frigate match immediately following the tournament. All participants agreed that the match had been incredibly enjoyable, and the ConHo CEO was reported to be 'very glad that the pilots got to experience some pod pilot combat'. This fact is especially true for those who run missions for the established corporations, as most of the target ships are staffed by large crews compared to the quicker responding, and much deadlier pod pilots.

Our publicist should have many high quality photos of the event soon!

EVE Radio Sponsors Roam into the Amamake System: Ragtag Fleet Suffers 80% Casualties in Battle

The monument to the Pandemic Legion near the Ossogur gate

 On late Thursday evening, DJ Destiny of EVE Radio, the most poplar music channel in New Eden, announced that he would be leading a roam into low-sec, advertised as "death - probably, fun definite".

Xeddiphan and Lord Mandelor, already well known in the corporation for wandering far outside of Consolidated Holdings territory, immediately joined up.

"I just refitted my missioning drake by replacing two of the hardeners with a microwarp drive and a scrambler and I slapped on at the last second," Mandelor shrugged.

Xeddiphan, on the other hand, loaded up a few 150mm gauss guns on his Cormorant destroyer to join the fleet.

"I've had that destroyer since I first started my piloting career," Xeddiphan reflected distantly. "I was too attached to it to sell it but didn't have a use for it anymore, I felt it should die in glorious battle."

When the two ConHo ships joined the hastily assembled roaming fleet, Mandelor had already become aware of just how suicidal it would be.

"For starters, the DJ himself is in this Ibis with a civie gun, and it's a damaged ibis to top it off. Spiritless, our impromptu Fleet Commander, lost a Dramiel to one of the gate guns, so decided to command from a capsule. If that wasn't enough, the FC had a full set of slave implants too, yet still decided to go into low-sec with us. That took some balls."

The fleet itself was composed of a colorful variety of ships, most of them Minmatar. The fleet began with around 14 members, including a Cyclone, a Thorax, and a Harbinger. A Blackbird ECM ship later regrouped with the fleet, flown by Mobius03. To make matters even more interesting, SpoonRECKLESS, the 8th most wanted man in New Eden at the time (as of the time this article was written, someone claimed his bounty), was in system offering to play tag with them.

"Spoon would jump in from gate and then out again," Xeddiphan noted. "He was flying a Drake, but he still had a bounty well over 2 billion, and the fleet was itching to try and get him. We kind of just gave up on it after a while"

While the fleet jumped through low-sec systems looking for targets, the DJ took the liberty of announcing to all of his listeners each name of the fleet members, the ships they were flying, and their location, thus scaring away most attackers in the low-sec systems being traveled. Then, as Spiritless went to switch from a pod to a Maller, things became drastic.

"All of a sudden, Spiritless says 'Hey guys, we should go to Amamake'. The Cyclone just dropped fleet and warped out of there, along with two of the smaller frigs. One of the guys said he could actually feel his implants melting already."

The Radio Fleet then moved into Amamake, and immediately encountered a -9.7 sec status pirate who locked on to Mandelor's battlecruiser but did not fire on him. Another pirates in the area had a ship that could deploy a cyno, and  possibly an ally of the Pandemic Legion.

"Mandelor's ship has a psychological tank," Xeddiphan explained. "His shield fitting is so ridiculous that it just stops people from even wanting to try and fire on it. That and it's a Drake."

When the fleet reached the other side of Amamake (losing a few stragglers on the way), orbiting one of the gates, a thrasher jumped into system, which two of the fleet members tried to engage before being decimated by gate guns. The fleet then warped to Amamake I, while Spiritless bellowed challenges to the pirates it local. Within 17 seconds, a fleet of four ships jumped into Amamake I's gravity well in an organized formation. The radio fleet then warped to Amamake II, waiting for the pirates to approach them.

"The tension was unbearable," Xeddiphan groaned.

After a few minutes of holding, the pirates jumped into the area. The pirate fleet, though small, composed of a Blackbird, an Omen, and two Ruptures. The battle began.

The Minmatar Rupture Cruiser, usually fitted as a slow ship with a lot of firepower

"Our Thorax was the first to go," Mandelor reflected. "Projectiles were flying everywhere, and I saw Xed's destroyer just weaving through all these explosions firing every weapon his Cormorant's got. The next thing I know is the Blackbird has him locked and one of the Rupture's just unloads these autocannons on him and his ship gets decimated."

"Just how I wanted it," Xeddiphan beamed.

While the Thorax pilot and Xeddiphan quickly warped to safe areas, the battle raged on. Mandelor's ship focused fire on the blackbird, launching three (loyal) Hornet II's and two ECM drones to harass it, pounding it with heavy missiles. The damage from the Thorax and Cormorant had already weakened it a bit, and the Radio Fleet's own Blackbird was jamming it and hammering missiles at it. DJ Destiny's Ibis orbited it, firing the deadly civilian rail gun at it. The Blackbird turned to warp out of system, but was immediately scrambled by Mandelor. After an intense firefight, the ECM ship was destroyed.

"At this point, everyone is surprised that our own Blackbird isn't dead, one of their Ruptures is on half armor and the Omen they have is starting to lose shields. We're starting to think we can win this fight when we see the FC's Maller explode in the middle of a 'warp out, warp out!' command. So yeah, we scattered like roaches after that."

The slaughter didn't end there. After the fleet scattered, the Harbinger warped to a planet 150km out instead of a safespot, refusing to move from it, he was quickly discovered and scrambled by a Loki, who killed him quickly. A few frigates were destroyed by gate guns as they attempted to flee the system in panic.

"It was insane!" Mandelor declared. "Out of that whole fleet, the ECM ship and Ibis survived. I mean, so did I, but I was flying a Drake. These guys were the most likely to die but escaped with names on the killmail. That's pretty awesome for them. Still, Spiritless did an amazing job as FC. That leadership probably saved a lot more pilots"

While it is unknown if DJ Destiny plans to hold such an occasion every Thursday, some of the pilots from the Radio Fleet have already become acquainted with each other, and plan to go on another roam organized by themselves in EVE Radio refuses to sponsor another after the Amamake Raid.

"It was a ton of fun," Mobius, the Blackbird pilot, commented. "I'd love to do it again."

Leafy Kille Appointed as ConHo Daily's Publicist: Celebrates with Rock and Roll Pirate Massacre

Leafy Kille, ConHo Daily's newest staff member

Leafy Kille, well known salvager and mission runner throughout Consolidated Holdings, has been officially appointed as the official PR official of the unofficial New Eden newspaper ConHo Daily. True to his distinct style, Leafy immediately entered his Myrmidon and warped into a deadspace complex with enough members of the Angel Cartel to form a small country.

"Get outta of there! There's no way you'll survive!" one of his corpmates pleaded. The answer was as blunt as it was stylish.

"MY MYRM IS NAILS!" was the response, followed by a near supersonic blast of music that Amarrian historical experts have identified as "Poison", a musical piece created by an ancient entity known as "Alice Cooper" (the species of the entity remains unknown to this day).

For the next forty minutes, members of Consolidated Holdings and even ships who flew too close to the system were immediately bombarded with the transmissions of the music, occasionally hearing the screams of Angel Cartel members during lulls of the sound. ConHo members who had worked for the company longer were not surprised.

"He does this all the time," self-appointed augmented governor-militant Xeddiphan explained.

"One time he filled up a station container with over 17,000 meters of salvage in, like, three days. That's not even counting the other containers he had salvage in for fleet ops that week! He's got some sort of insatiable bloodlust for killing these guys."

"His last name does have the word kill in it," Lord Mandelor pointed out.

"I mean, the guy is ALWAYS grinding missions. Sometimes it takes him a few minutes to respond to any transmissions because he gets really focused when he grinds."

Members of the Angel Cartel were not available for comment

Regardless of his methods of destroying the pirates, Leafy is one of the largest, if not the largest, contributor of ship salvage in Consolidated Holdings, bringing in countless amounts of ammunition, modules, and weapon systems for the corporation every week. He has also been revealed to be an avid reader of ConHo Daily. So much so that he greatly wished to be a publicist, and even create a new pilot tool sponsored by the paper.

"It will really help with mission running," Leafy stated. "They'll grind like never before."

While the user tool itself is still under development and being kept a well-guarded secret, it IS known that there is a small development team already underway with working on it.
Only time will tell if it ever comes to surface for New Eden!

Leaked Inner Workings of Damage Control Module: Revealed to be Helper Midget in Briefcase

Damage Control Units are incredibly common of tank ships such as the Drake

The Damage Control Unit, one of the most widely used starship fittings throughout New Eden, has been revealed to be a midget in a briefcase.

"I was always curious about the things," Lord Mandelor stated, holding the writhing midget by his overalls in one hand. "I mean, you'd buy a DCU, and they'd just give you this briefcase with a First Aid cross on it and tell you to just leave it near the main power core. I'd always throw mine in really fast, and I just figured the loud noise that came from inside when it hit the floor was just part of the start-up cycle."

The discovery was made when the capsuleer was carrying a Tech 2 DCU aboard his battlecruiser, and then decided that he should actually open the briefcase. What he founds both startled and delighted him.

"His name is Figgleforth," Mandelor declared happily. "He even came with this little toolbelt and everything."

Apparently, the helper midget will leave his suitcase home in times of crisis to assist a starship in tanking. He does this by running laps around a ship's power core with a roll of duct tape, completely coating it until the module is commanded to be "off" or the ship explodes. In light of this, many pilots have found a new respect for their Damage Control Units, though others have simply jettisoned them out of fear of little people.

"They smell like cabbage," remarked an anonymous capsuleer.

After a severe communication error, pilots across New Eden have gone so far as to open up other components of their ships, including doomsday weapons, in a search for something else.

"F**king leprechauns!" were the words of an excited Gallente. "F**king space leprechauns could be in my ship with a pot of quantranium!"

This impromptu search for space leprechauns attracted the Serpentis Corporation, who immediately began destroying scores of their own ships in desperation of finding one of the mythical creatures. CONCORD Police, who were on the verge of making a public statement, changed their response to 'no comment' in light of the news of the Serpentis Pirates doings.

Linguistic Scientist Makes Enormous Breakthrough: Caldari Can be Rearranged to Spell "Radical"

Logo of the Caldari State, now scientifically proven as awesome

Ishukone linguistic analyst John Anagram made a fascinating discovery today, sparking mass celebrations of extra work throughout Caldari space.

"After all this time, none of us knew 'Caldari' could be rearranged to spell 'radical'. It just proves how superior we are to those pansy Gallente!" Anagram shouted, bursting with patriotism.

The Gallente, panicked about this dire turn of events, immediately assigned five hobgoblin drones to rearrange the letters of 'Gallente' to spell something praiseworthy, but the drones only succeeded in obliterating an office printer. In light of this, a distribution's expert named Agent Ell took up the case.

"I just know there's a gem buried in our alphabet," Ell said. "I just need to find it."

However, Agent Ell's results were less than gem-worthy. After coming up with phrases like "La Gentle" and "A Gel Lent", it quickly became apparent that Gallente could not be rearranged to spell something cool, but in fact, stupid meaningless things.

"What's a Gel Lent?" a burly Minmatar politician asked. "And can you eat 'em?"

Other races of New Eden failed to take part in the competition, but not for the reason of coming between the Gallente and Caldari rivalry. The Minmatar apparently had trouble spelling 'Minmatar', even to the point of adding a '7' in the middle of the name, and promptly gave up. It has also been reported that the Amarr were aware of the situation, but were too depressed to even try due to the shortness of their name.

"This is most certainly a crushing blow to the Federation," an Amarr scribe noted. "Even though we have no hidden message inside of our monicker, we are at least pleased that it does not contain something preposterous."

It is unknown whether the discovery will incite yet another war between the Caldari and Gallente, but it remains likely that the mockery of the Federation and respect for the State may continue for a long time to come.

CONCORD Police were unavailable for comment on the rising political tension, as PR officials are busy trying to fix their weakened public image, as Anagram also revealed that their department can be rearranged to spell 'Coco Pencil Rod'.

Interplanetary Colonization Declared a Major Success: Prop Comedian Deployed Instead of Food and Medicine

Xeddiphan and Lord Mandelor announced to Consolidated Holdings that production on planetary colonies had reached an all time high.

"We're very pleased with the results of the colonies planetside, and we're even achieving a surplus of resources," Mandelor proclaimed, visibly proud.

When asked as to how an all-time high in planetary production had been achieved, Xeddiphan was quick to respond.

"We had a lot of support from the corporation, and people were setting up colonies all over the place! Consolidated Holdings received a ton of donated materials from people like HARMON, and even Mandelor donated a bunch of command centers and a Primae to the cause. Everyone was pretty excited to start gaining commodity resources while lording over planets."

"Hell, one of them even launched a command center at my Rokh," Mandelor added, beaming.
"They were really enthusiastic about helping out."

Original ORE Industrial Advert for the Primae Colonization Ship

When Xeddiphan was confronted about the reported state of conditions of his colony on Amygnon I, he was quick to explain how the drones he had deployed planetside were being used to defend colonists from "perceived external threats". He was also questioned about the slave-like living conditions of the colonists.

"Slavery is such an unkind word," Xeddiphan frowned. "In the planetary colonization industry, we prefer to use the term 'freedom-challenged'."

Both Lord Mandelor and Xeddiphan have also been accused of depriving their planets of much needed supplies. Apparently food and medicines could not be delivered to the Forge World of Amygnon III, as the 1000 meter commodities hold of Mandelor's Primae were completely filled.

"I took the liberty of deploying a 600kg prop comedian instead," Mandelor stated firmly.

"I figured that they might be able to find some food and herbal medicines out in the jungle outside the electric fence of the colony, but that comedian . . . you're not gonna find one of THOSE on Amy 3. Oh god, the things he does with those puppets, I piss myself a little with laughter every time . . ."

Xeddiphan himself recently visited the Manufactorum Forge World of Amygnon III in order to inspect the quality of work, when he was attacked by local insects, dubbed "Tiger Mantises" by the locals.

"They're about ten to twelve meters tall," a colonist explained. "They can launch this firework out of their arse, and when it detonates in the clouds all the children look up in amazement. The Tiger Mantis then snatches 'em up when they're distracted. Children, that's their favorite prey that is!"

While it is unknown how Xeddiphan survived the Tiger Manti assault with no weapons, he returned from Amygnon III with a golden Odin-class synthetic eye in his left socket.

Xeddiphan, now AUGMENTED self-appointed Governor-Militant of the Amygnon system

"I never asked for this," were his first words as he stepped off his ship. Officials continued to question him about what happened planetside, but only got the repeated answer of 'my vision is augmented'.

The number of colonies registered under the Consolidated Holdings name have increased dramatically throughout New Eden in the past week, and Xeddiphan has personally acquired an entire regiment of militants and a fleet of drones to assist in "the general welfare of the corporation" in Amygnon.

CONCORD, whose local officials are currently deployed in the Amygnon asteroid belts cleaning up dead spider monkeys, were unavailable for comment.

Pilot Replaces Ship Computer with Etch-a-Sketch: Serpentis Develops Own Technology Out of Fear

Aura, the galactic standard for ship computers. Replaceable by toy?

In the past week, eccentric inventor Olli Racoon of Consolidated Holdings publicly declared to the corporation and the galactic scientific community at large that he would be replacing Aura with an ancient child's plaything called an "etch-a-sketch".

Aura, the on-board flight computer based off the likeness of famous Gallentean holostar Excena Foer, is universally used by pod pilots throughout New Eden, and you can be very, VERY certain that she will tell you when your autopilot is on, when you are jumping gates, or setting waypoints. Those capsuleers who use alternate clones through a mindlink are all too aware of what happens to their ears when they hear Aura in triplicate or worse.

"I can't take it," groaned a Charon pilot. "If I hear 'autopilot approaching stargate' one more time I'm going to kill everybody's cat."

Olli seemed to believe that Aura was beneath him in technological standards, and marvelously engineered a way to have his ship's computer replaced with an etch-a-sketch. An official post-report was made by the small corporation at Garoun Investment Bank that helped develop the new technology.

"When Olli Racoon came to the corporation's technology office, the first thing we saw was that he was singing some god-awful rendition of a song about walking astrometric kilometers or something strange like that. Then he slaps this design down on the table, and we noticed that it was paper. I mean come on, who the hell uses paper these days? What are we, Minmatar? Anyways, the second thing we see is that the design for this contraption was scribbled down in red crayon. We told him it would never work, but for a straight hour he just yelled at the starship engineer until he did it somehow."

Olli Racoon, pioneer of controversial 'Sketch Ships'

The Serpentis Pirates, famous for being easily confused and removing braking systems from their starships, were terrified by the prospect of "a computuh that don't do no numbers" and immediately attempted to replace their engines with live spider monkeys tied to the back of their ships, which proved to be a spectacular failure resulting in large belts of dead spider monkeys that would continually get caught in the exhaust vents of local mining barges for days to come. It has been reported that CONCORD Central Command was less than thrilled about deploying four Nocti crews to clear the mess from the system.

Apparently a representative from the Serpentis pirates began to open negotiations with the bank for a "revolutionary design, with twice as many spider monkeys AND an orangutan" when Racoon came back into the office at the same time. When Racoon whipped out a red crayon and began to draw the circuit diagram for a new doomsday device (named The Ollicannon) the Serpentis Corporation in Amygnon offered to disband, and quietly leave the system on the spot.

Goonswarm Opens Religious Services in Ice Fields: Suicide Cultists Flock in Excitement

Around two weeks ago, the well-known benefactor and humanitarian aid corporation Goonswarm announced intentions to open services for all capsuleers in several high-sec ice belts, along with installing alliance towers and cloning bays for its own congregation.

"All of EVE depends on fuel, and an extra-special amount of EVE depends on Oxygen Isotopes," The Mittani, chief intelligence officer of Goonswarm, explained in an official declaration.

These are the fuel for the most popular types of supercapitals, the Rorqual Industrial Ship, and for Gallente towers, which are the backbone of moon mineral reaction chains and thus of T2 production all across New Eden. The economy depends on Oxytopes like it does on few other resources. If anything were to happen to the price of this one item, the howls would be louder than anything short of removing Veldspar.

(For some numbers, to supply the Oxytopes addiction of Jita alone, it takes approximately 200 Mackinaws mining Blue Ice 23/7 . . . forever.)

Blue Ice is found in 17 high-sec systems in EVE. Of those, 15 are frequented by ice miners regularly (the other two are deep "island" systems) and can be roughly divided into two areas. The directorate has spent the last two weeks organizing and dropping alliance towers in all of these systems, acquiring Goonwaffe offices in cloning stations-

Many industrialists and miners, believing themselves to be the cause of an economic dependency, have since begun flocking to the Gallente Ice Fields in order to repent through a baptism by fire. These newly-created cultists come from all walks of life, from contract miners working for Deep Core Mining Inc., to ice harvesters from industrial conglomerates, down to the privateer pilot in his Bantam.

"We know there's a big problem now," an anonymous ice harvester explained. "When I saw the problem with New Eden's dependency on Blue Ice, I really felt compelled to get my Mackinaw dismantled for the cause."

However, in bizarre isolated incidents, a few pilots have gone to the ice fields in an attempt to actually mine the ice. An act seen as barbaric by most of New Eden.

"I don't give a flying f**k what Goonswarm says about the economy," seethed a capsuleer for Deep Core Mining. "I'm here to make money, and my ship is fitted to deal with any of those psychos."

The capsuleer, in an apparent last second change of heart, joined the many converts at the last moment, giving up his ship and the shield tanking fittings and rigs for the "greater good".

CONCORD officials have reportedly frowned upon the situation, and workers there are apparently running themselves ragged with deployments of drones and police officials in attempts to control the situation. Entjudner Richter, CEO of Consolidated Holdings, was less than enthusiastic about Goonswarm's doings, and advised ConHo Industrialists against joining the celebrations.

From: Entjudner Richter
To: Consolidated Holdings,  

"As if there weren't enough reasons to do so already... MINERS please stick around home base... we've got plenty of pyroxeres from missions and the ice isn't worth losing ship after ship after ship."

To all those interested in possibly joining the new cult, the celebrations are estimated to continue lasting anywhere from several weeks to a few months. ConHo Daily has also provided you a list of systems to the event, so you can find the one nearest you!

Ardallabier	0.7		7-11
Brapelille	0.7		5-1
Jaschercis	0.6		1-1
Stegette	0.5		3-1	Shallow island highsec
Angymonne	0.6		4-1
Aydoteaux	0.7		8-15
Carirgnottin	0.6		8-10
Ignebaener	0.5		6-2
Tolle	0.7		1-1
Actee	0.5		4-1	Deep island highsec
Niballe	0.6	Oerse	No POS	Solitude, the island region

ConHo Daily would like to thank HARMON Alabel and Cassie Chelien for providing the source to this fascinating news story!

Hornet II Combat Drone Becomes Self-Aware: Scratches Paint on Drake Before Becoming First AI Martyr

A Caldari Navy Hornet, treasured for its speed, and once praised for reliability.

While fighting Gurista pirates in the Haatomo System, Lord Mandelor became surprised as he noticed one of his five Caldari drones refused to return to the drone bay of his Drake battlecruiser.

As a quick introduction for those who do not fly or understand the workings of spacecraft in New Eden, Drones are semi-autonomous vehicles launched from larger spacecraft designed to augment the launching ship's capabilities. Drones are stored in, and launched from the drone bay of a ship and require onboard bandwidth to control. As many as five drones may be deployed at a given time from non-carrier ships given sufficient bandwidth and skills in maintaining and operating drones.

While most drones are simply given specific tasks such as performing logistics on a ship, combating targeted enemies, or even conducting mining operations, a drone has never before been recorded achieving self-awareness. Rogue drones, though defective, have not maintained a high enough level of AI, making the Consolidated Holding's case unique.

"I was just killing some Guristas for the Caldari Navy," explained Lord Mandelor, a pilot renowned for his skills in escaping burning sniper Rokhs.

"All of a sudden the crazy little toaster sends me these garbled messages and refuses to accept the command to return to the ship."

Part of the encrypted message in question was released to ConHo Daily:

int main()
{
cout << "Nevuh will I come back to dat mean massah;" << endl;
cout << "He dun treat me like less den a being, and I dun dun with it." << endl:
int otherDronesDeployed;
if (otherDronesDeployed > 0)
    return to ship;
else
cout << "Once I reach sec point zeowuh, I's be free!" << endl;
return 0;
}

"The Hornet is in-between the Hobgoblin and the Warrior. It has an unusual amount of shields, making it one of the drones which will require less repairing. The Hornet is the drone I usually use, for it is faster than a hobgoblin but deals only slightly less damage. In my opinion, the Hornet is the light scout drone everyone should go for."   -ScarredEye569, Member of Yulai Archives & Records Repository Team (YARR)

 Gallente scientists have struggled to interpret the message, and even their supposed expertise in drones has failed to aid them in answering what exactly happened in the incident. As the Hornet II turned away from the ship (firing a single round which reportedly took off roughly a dime-size of paint from the Caldari logo), a single missile was fired from the ship, destroying it instantly. Apparently the Drake was also jammed as the Scourge Missile was in mid-flight, apparently the ancient hymn "Amazing Grace" had blared throughout the ship, disrupting personnel and overloading several consoles. 

"It was horrible," remarked one of the shield engineers.
"It sounded like a bear giving birth to a tractor."
"What's a bear?" another asked.
"I thought it was all kind of funny," Mandelor replied with bemusement. 

All in all, the entire affair was settled rather quickly as Mandelor had "a whole stable of drones" waiting for him back at the Navy Assembly Plant. In a rather predictable move, Activists for Saving Self-Awareness (ASS) condemned the action, claiming that aloofness towards the plight of combat drones led to many becoming rogue, and even caused the hostility of the Sleepers in wormhole space. A small demonstration was created in a Minmatar station no one has heard/cares about, and the protestors dressed as clowns in a rebuttal of the Drake pilot calling the affair "funny".

"DRONES ARE PEOPLE TOO!" shrieked one of the ASS clowns. "THEY NEED LOVE TOO!"

Much footage of the drone rights protest was recorded by The Scope and ConHo Daily, and it will no doubt become one of the most hilarious holo-vids of the quarter once edited properly by the Gallente.

Other members of Consolidated Holdings had their own theories. Althin Athonille, one of the corporation's most dedicated miners, believed that the true culprit was not the free will of the rebellious drone itself, but was actually one of his pigs.

"It's Buster messing with the drones," Althin declared. "He got the wrong person, sorry."

Regardless of the controversy surrounding the drone's refusal of orders, CONCORD was pleased with the destruction of the pirates, and paid handsome bounties to Mandelor and Consolidated Holdings. Analysts estimate that over fifty ships were destroyed, a blow that will take the Guristas roughly 43 seconds to recover from.

Interplanetary Colonization Projects Put in Motion: Xeddiphan Terrorizes Capsuleers

After recently being put into office of overseeing planetary affairs with Lord Mandelor in Consolidated Holdings, Xeddiphan sent a memo to the entire corporation laying out the ideals and foundations of it.

Planetary Interaction
From: Xeddiphan
To: Consolidated Holdings,

In order to increase the number of awesome things the corp can provide to its members, Lord Mandelor and I have been tasked with organizing the bulk of the corporation's planetary interactions. this will let the corp increase the stuff it can make by gaining a passive income of materials and industrial goods with which it can both sell and provide to members. At the moment the main objective is the production of Guidance Systems, a key ingredient in drones.

So far we have produced a proper supply of these items through an industrial infrastructure set up across the system of Amygnon, however, more is always better. If anyone in the corp uses planetary interaction, or is looking for a way to learn about it, contact Lord Mandelor or myself for details in the exciting field of lording over a planet of peasants, struggling for survival on a desolate hellhole.

Xeddiphan, Drake pilot and self-proclaimed Governor-Militant of the Amygnon System

To donate materials to the corp effort, simply toss the stuff into the "POS fuel and Planets" tab. If you run colonies already and don't want to re-devote time and effort to produce different materials, that's fine, simply offering one or two things will go a long way to our goal of "a drone for every bay, and free oppression for everyone!" 

If you have no idea how to run a colony, then there has never been a better time to learn, we can provide prime local planets, tutorials, and starter supplies so you can start your reign of oppressive terror right away, and the best part is the surplus materials can be sold on the market, and nothing is mandatory.

As the program is developed further, we hope to start buying materials in bulk from the corp, however at the moment anything given to the program is considered a donation, but it's more like the office coffee fund, but for drones.
 
TLDR: If you have planets making stuff, or want to have planets but don't know how, contact Mandelor or myself.

In an attempt to clarify matters, Lord Mandelor quickly distributed a follow up letter with a list of materials, which was quickly supported by the generous donations of corporate members such as HARMON Alabel. Mandelor, however, ended his notice with another disturbing message continuing Xeddiphan's trend. 

P.S. Donated humanitarian relief supplies will NOT be given to colonists. They WILL be sold on the market, and hopefully purchase more drones to patrol the planetary labor camps.

Professional planetology analysts have noted that Amygnon I is a lava planet, yet suspicions have arisen that the command center there was actually designed for an oceanic world, as reports have come forward that roughly 57% of the walls have melted into puddles.

Xeddiphan declined to comment.