Moon Lights Up

by Alden Cordell

Astronomers found themselves a head scratching scientific mystery this week when a flare of light from the moon surprised scientists and sky watchers the world over. It is unknown what the cause of the event was, though it was confirmed by a number of reputable labs.

A number of areas, including The Enclave, which was experiencing night at the time of the event, were able to see the light anomaly as a pale and brief glow with bare eyes. Examinations of the event found the light came from an unmodified area of the moon, one that is, as of yet, unvisited by any nation's space programs.

The Spin consulted with a number of moon experts, including one past astronaut from the now defunct Space Force program. None of them could say what might have caused the strange light and all confirmed that they knew of no tech emplaced at that location.

When we pushed on possible speculation only a few were willing to put their early ideas on the record, but there were some early ideas.

"This sort of light flare could be the interaction of a solor flare at the right position to reflect off the moon and towards Earth, it would only become more visible with this month's low air quality," said Professor Amy Monroe, astrometry chair at Enclave University.

Considering Upper Core projectionist shenanigans a number of experts referred us to HC, speculating that this was not a scientific phenomenon but a complex viral stunt. But it's hard to see how such an act would be legal.

"Any technology, mission or act that interferes with lunar concerns outside of a transparent and publicly-listed mission would be a severe violation of the Artemis Accords," sent Yusuf Mathis, Milliary Liaison for the Northeast Floodplain Regions and Floats via OffChan VM. "The entire region saw this event, whatever it was, and it would mean severe consequences for whomever was responsible."

"HC does not have a marketing campaign on the moon." - HC Spokesperson Cu Graves

Is this a violation of the Artemis Accords? What do the Accords even mean when Upper Earth Orbit has been the limit of space missions for the last twenty years and almost half of the signatories no longer exist as states?

Read the rest of our in-depth report in our Virtual Space…

HC EX-CHIEF STEPS UP TO LATE CAMPAIGN

Tools for your Citizen Reporting Kit

Our corporate overlords are apparently not happy enough to be looming over us in their enormous tower, or running our lives via control of The Virtual. This week marked a late entrant into the long running electoral process with a long pedigree in Hermitage Corp.

Tuck Braedy stepped down as HC CFO three months ago and there were rumors that he'd formed an exploratory committee with part of his multi-billion retirement parachute. It seems like these rumors were true. Yesterday he announced his candidacy for the Law and Order party and that he was bringing along a multimillion dollar warchest.

Braedy spent years carefully avoiding public scrutiny as he amassed trillions for HC and billions for himself. His announcement as the fourth billionare in the race was met with much derision and his Vcast was overwhelmed by protesting comments.

We gathered a number of on-the-ground reactions to the announcement that you can find in our Virtual Space. If you'd like to join them, we have the tools here!

You should already have a profile registered with the authorities. Once that's done and you've got the initial work under the belt, you'll likely have to register your new higher level of experience! You'll have to register the new stats that come with joining our great adventure of reporting on morons every day for the next two years.

Here's how it works:

Add +1 to a rating : You can mark permanent changes to a specific rating, though your profile should note a limit beyond which you can't go. Consider what each rating can do for your character and choose carefully. You can't go beyond your registered limit.

Take another Move from those available on your profile : Everyone's profile has a variety of moves you can make. If you're going up a level you can take one of the moves that you haven't already marked as having.

Take a Move from those available on another profile : All the profiles we've supplied show what they can do under the Moves section. You can learn something new and unusual though! If you do you can take a Move that describes your new skill from any of the other profiles below, just check their Full Descriptions to think about what you'd like to do.

Gain an Ally/Gain a Team : You can gain some support staff that will be registered as working with you! You may already have some people you know that you're picking out, or just putting it out there that you're recruiting and getting some folks to show up. Allies and teams work similarly, they both are organized around a single motivation, even if a team comprises of 2 to 6 people. However, members of your team may have their own motivations outside of the team's requirements.

The motivations you can register for your new Ally/Team:

• Subordinate (motivation: to follow your exact instructions)
• Lieutenant (motivation: to execute the spirit of your instructions)
• Friend (motivation: to provide emotional support)
• Bodyguard (motivation: to intercept danger)
• Confidante (motivation: to give you advice and perspective)
• Backup (motivation: to stand with you)

Ally/team members should have names registered along with what their background is too, how they look, and any special skills they bring.

Register a Haven Feature : Have you got a serious home base to operate out from? Are you intending to improve it? Then you need to add that information to your profile! Select a new haven option from the list in the Expert profile. You have added this facility to your haven.

Don’t bother trying to register a new feature if you don’t already have a haven!

HYPE FIVE

The five top stories we are keeping pinned this week

Flares Spread to SoWestWa | Flares, incidents of strange malfunctions from The Vert impinging on real life, continue to spread. The phenomenon appears to have spread from South Central, moving west and now reportedly impacting the South West Wall neighborhood. Ad Sims have been having strange impacts on the area around them, causing abnormal winds and cold, and wallscreens have been lighting up at all hours. Notably neither region has seen the issue spread up the z-axis above the wall line to the Mids or Uppers.

Amusement Park Barge Fights Pirates | The Disney Barge is supposed to float around the country to make itself easily available to all the major walled cities like our own. However, it has been unexpectedly been delayed after docking in Thunder Bay, where it was scheduled to take on new cast crew and a brand new grav-bubble coaster. Floods, unseasonal tornados, and unpredictable currents all conspired to keep it in the Great North far longer than expected. It departed on a slow cruise out of the bay last week, but the delays caused its course to intersect with the seasonal maple syrup pirates who took the opportunity to mount a raid. Much to their surprise, DisneyAmmuse apparently trains staff to not just stay in character, but use heavy weapons.

Keys Fall in SoCentWa | Things have escalated in SoCentWa as protesters continue to wreck havoc on city property and HC technology. After burning through many of the HC wallscreens and digiboards in their own region, rioting citizens--sick of Flares with no help from HC or Enclave City Services--have begun raids on South Central Mid, trying to get some help by hoping to impact people with enough money to have their complaints heard. EPD has routed additional forces to the region. HC Sec has brought in Free Battalion mercenaries to try and protect valuable property on the Mid levels. The Pigs are finding things difficult as the end of last week saw a literal rain of keycards from an unknown source, allowing TeamRyotGurrls and protest groups to get past security in a number of locations and break through the normally tolled passages to the Mids.

Rolla Rolla | The Spin's own Wrad Marge is on assignment this week to cover the Battle Rolla Derby competition between teams in the Wall and LowerCore league. Mods, grafts, shoving, and ladies on wheels abound in her early reports, which are sitting in front of our very lazy and slow editor right this minute. No one knows this game better than Marge, who won the city-wide cup in her youth.

Core Reps Ousted on Corruption Charges | City Core region representatives to the borough council have been ousted by court order. It turns out they were stealing money from the pool intended to spread fast-travel-trains through their region. This embezzling was apparently being helped by a number of their constituents who didn't want to see the new transit service pass into their region and potentially bring in "Wall-y riff-raff".