With recent discussion of another possible TW convention, I decided to bring up an old gag I created a few years ago for TWCon2000 in Las Vegas. That year **Mana Knight** could not make it due to personal obligations even though he really wanted to go. So I took this **group picture** and inserted Mana Knight into it and this is **the result**, saying MK was cloaked the whole time and only recently did he have cloak failure, resulting in his appearance in the group pic. The gag had a lot of laughs. <img src="/static/img/twcongrp2.jpg" alt="twcongrp2.jpg" />

Two legends of Trade Wars made an appearance in **The Home Sector forums.** The Last Starfighter AKA Fooman and RawHead Rex each made a few posts in the forums inquiring about the happenings of TW today. What's funny is, Rex posted that he was surfing the net one day, thought about TW and popped into Eleq's site. LSF did the same thing a few minutes later. What are the odds of two legends deciding they got bored and decided to check out TW on the same day? About as much as winning the Powerball lottery I guess. Who knows, I would not be surprised if legends like Ripclaw, Darkhawk, Rolodex, Hellcat, Gaurdian, and most notably - Hosem all decide to make a return to TW in time for the BOTE. I would like to suggest a slot be reserved in the BOTE named "Hall of Fame" for the legends to represent. I would love to see how these legendary players stack up against today's players. The Black Knights were one of the most dominating teams in their time. It is too bad I have not had the opportunity to play in the same game with them much other than the first WTC. But Artemis, Lord Chaos, and Maverick were in a class all by themselves with their dominating play. Before I close out this post, I also want to mention one more legend - Cruncher. Her knowledge of the game was outstanding. Her beta testing helped make the TWGS what it is today. She is in a class all by herself and I am honored to have been part of her beta testing not long ago when we together helped run a beta server at Intergate. Forgive me if I leave out anyone. Any ommisions are not intentional. These were just off the top of my head. Best of luck to any legends who decide to return to today's game :)

Timberwolf was going to close down [](/category/TW_Gazette), now it appears he is not. [](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/<https://www.planettw.com>) now is suddenly closing down instead. If anyone should close down, it should be Boo! Inc. until Space Ghost stops offending my visual senses with his [](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html) and my audio senses with that opening [](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html), that never fails to catch me off guard at work. It's been a slow news week at The Home Sector. I guess I forgot to mention that the USO was [](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/<https://www.planettw.com/includes/frontpagenewsdetails.php?article=48>). Not that many [](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/<https://hardcoded.dnsalias.org:81/USO/USOTC.HTM>) [](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/<https://www.thestardock.com/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=GEN;action=display;num=1045676572>)

I'll be quick and to the point. I'm keeping this site online for a while longer. I'm not gonna be able to get my bowling site up in time as the season will be over in only a couple months, so I'm just gonna run my bowling site off a subdirectory of this site. I have not maintained either this site or my bowling site for some time now, but now i'm going to find the time. Meaning I'll keep the Trade Wars Gazette News online for a while longer. Let's start with the USO. Currently it has 6 teams entered and the scheduled start date is Feb 23rd at Hardcoded. Planet TW is taking a haitius from Trade Wars so the USO site's address is being moved to **[https://hardcoded.dnsalias.org:81\USO\USOTC.HTM](https://web.archive.org/web/20030331110545/https://hardcoded.dnsalias.org:81/)**. Silver Dragon had said that if there is not enough entrants in the game, he'll cancel it. I think 6 teams is a good start and many players are known for 11th hour entries to keep the competition guessing. So Silver Dragon need not fret whether or not he'll have enough players. So looks like the USO will be a go this year. EleqTrizi'T continues to keep the Home Sector website updated and looking nice. Check it out at **[The Home Sector website](https://web.archive.org/web/20030331110545/https://www.thestardock.com/)**. Fuseblown and Mana Knight also contributes to the site on an occasional basis. Speaking of MK, he has woken up from a long, long, long coma, dusted off his old Commodore 64, not knowing today we use blazing P4's at speeds of nearly 3 GHZ if that, and has updated his **[website](https://web.archive.org/web/20030331110545/https://www.tradewars.org/)**. He discussed TW:DM and its apparent demise. More info can be found on his well written article. Space Ghost came out of his trusty escape pod long enough to **[inform us](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html)** that John Pritchett has also resurfaced and possible updates to TWGS might be around the corner. Not often I can read an article where I have to scroll down the screen just to read the next sentence due to its large font :) Finally, I'll get this website fully operational within the next few days such as my MBBS-TWGS page, the ZOC scripts, and links page. I'm gonna send Macahan a payment today as I'm behind on them. Speaking of 'Ol Mac, he rebanged several games at Fament. Telnet bbs.fament.com to check them out. That's all for now. Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone.

This is my final installment of the Trade Wars Gazette update. I wanted to cover a number of subjects before I bring down this website for good. First off, I'm happy to announce, as many of you already know, that Eleqtrizi'T has brought the Home Sector website back up online. It was only perhaps last year that he took down the BBS and handed over the website maintenance to Fuseblown. But Fuse himself ended up a little busy to take care of it, so it looked like the Home Sector was gonna die for good. Then Easy E put out a comment page on his website where people could post their thoughts on what he should do with the Home Sector and based on those comments, he has brought the Home Sector back online. I'm very happy about this. Trade Wars was never the same without E and when he left, he also left a big void in the community no one has not been able to fill. Say what you want about Hardcoded or Coastgames, two of the leading servers today, but no one could hold a candle to the Home Sector TWGS/Stardock BBS. Games like the Title Game along with his other trademark games like Massive, One Love, etc. were ultra competitive and classic battles. Eleq's edits were out of ths world and I hope the return of the [Home Sector website](https://web.archive.org/web/20030215053448/https://www.thestardock.com/) also is followed by the TWGS or BBS soon. Another subject I wanted to cover is the U S O. This year, for the first time in U S O history, Bad Girl is no longer the moderator and that in itself is a good thing. She has made way too many mistakes in the past which had a major effect on the games. I'm not gonna get into that now, but I just want to say I have 100% confidence this year's U S O should be one of the best tournaments of the year. Silver Dragon should do all right with it. Next involves the passing of two members of the community in the past year. As many of you know, Jackal lost a valiant battle to cancer early last year and late last year, Kitty Moon AKA Rave AKA Lisa Wilson-Cutler died in a car accident. My thoughts and prayers go out to the familes of these two individuals. River Rat will run Jackal's Lethal Lotto game at Alien Base and I trust he'll do a fine job with it. I also wanted to say this to each and everyone of you in the community: I wanted to let everyone know I have no beef whatsoever with anyone in the community. This includes Space Ghost, Kemper, Prestone, both Doctors, etc - all players that I have tangled with in the forums. Trade Wars is only a text based game that sometimes can get out of hand. Many people have lives that revolve around TW such as having a computer on 24/7 and running a bot to guard a home base and have an alarm go off to wake someone if he is being invaded. If you have to do that, then you know TW has control of your life. It should be the other way around. That's the nice thing about Cherokee's "I have a life" game where there is a 45 minute time limit. Unfortunateley, even I didn't have time to play that one though I wanted to. There's been a lot of bitching lately that everyone needs to lighten up and realize it is only a fricking game, not something in real life to bitch about in the forums. Trade Wars is simply a game, nothing to get worked up over. I think all the fights is why a lot of members like BG, Guardian, Eleq, Cruncher, etc have left at one time or another. To sum it up, debates are nice in that conflicts can get resolved, but when you have turds like Res Judicata come in the forums and start crap, that's another thing and we don't need that. Finally, this domain is going down for good very soon. I have until this fall to decide if I wanna let it go or renew it. Trade wars is addicting enough that I could very well bring the site back online later this year. Right now, I'm just not interested in Trade Wars to warrant maitaining the site though Eleq's return did inspire me to write this final article and perhaps even tempt me to bring TW Gazette back online for good, but common sense won out and I decided to write this one final article. Peace out - Timberwolf

With the exception of Liquid Chaos leaving TW and handing over Planet TW to Silver Dragon, the 3 rebangs at Home Sector, and Col. Sanders making an **(|_)** of himself in the forums, news has been slow of late, so I am gonna concentrate over the next couple days to getting my other websites online reflecting my interests in bowling, pro wrestling, and when I get a digital camera, nature photography. I may also put up a personal site. I have 30MB available to me here at **[Fament Webhosting Service](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://www.fament.com/webhosting/index.asp)** so I might as well make use of all my space. Fament is pretty cool. Check out the link I gave you if you are looking for a web host. Now let's get on with the news in the TW Biz. Liquid Chaos has left TW and handed over Planet TW to Silver Dragon and is working to get TW Links back online before he leaves. This link is **[LC's statement.](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://www.twgs.org/?program=messages&amp;command=read&amp;message=9667)** If Epicenter is known as the King of Smack, then Col. Sanders should be known as the Peasant of Smack. Take a look at this **[message](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://www.twgs.org/?program=messages&amp;command=read&amp;message=9697)** as an example and you can see what I mean. Wait until the HHT begins. I think Sanders will have nothing but a big fat bullseye on his ass through out the game - if he lasts the whole game :) And finally, Home Sector banged 3 games: One Love, Massive, and Ground Zero. Go to **[The Home Sector server](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/telnet://twgs.thestardock.com)** to play.

Every Tuesday, I'll be doing editorials with my opinions covering a variety of subjects, whether it is Trade Wars related or not. Today's topic is the departures of many long time TW players such as EleqTrizi'T, Cruncher, Bad Girl, Guardian, and Hekate. Let's start with EleqTrizi'T. This man was a legend in the TW community and is still a legend. He provided a kick ass game server along with an awesome website. Eleq was never satisfied with his machines hosting the TWGS, always upgrading them so that it provides fast and reliable connections for his players. Let me tell ya, I have heard very few reports of lag except at maybe tournament time and even then lags were minor. If there was a problem, Eleq was quick to respond. Eleq also was a very intelligent man and the only thing matching his intelligence was his ego :) Eleq would write all sorts of programs inluding dupe catchers as well as an entire BBS and teleconference chat and many other small programs. Eleq probably is the only man who could match Res Judicata in artistic ability on a computer, though I have to admit Eleq's images can be sometimes disturbing :) Eleq was also the owner/moderator of the World Trade Wars Championships, the only tournament that had practically no rules - anything goes. But late last year, Eleq had enough of the pissing and moaning by ungrateful players and shut down the Home Sector and Stardock BBS (both later taken over by Fuseblown) and left the community. Last I heard of Eleq, rumor has it he bought a house and I believe this is the same man who once told Cruncher he would never buy a house. I guess having an ever growing family can change a guy's mind. My best goes out to Eleq and his growing family and wish them well. I still hold out hope that one day he returns with a vegeance and some new fresh ideas. Speaking of Cruncher, she is still around, talking to a few select people in the community. She is just not as active as she used to be. She still has her [website online](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://tradewars.fament.com/cruncher) that contains photos of many individuals in the TW Community. If you want to update a photo on the site, simply send her an updated photo. Best of luck to Cruncher..especially when tax time rolls around :) As for Bad Girl and Gaurdian, both left after USO '02 for the same reasons Eleq did. This [page](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://tradewars.fament.com/guardian/uso02news.htm) explains the reasons for their departure. Both Bad Girl and Guardian will be missed for one main reason: their work with newbies. They were always willing to let a newbie play with them and show them the ropes. Best of luck to Bad Girl and Guardian. And finally, Hekate. I was unable to find out why she left. If anyone knows, contact me. For the time being, Liquid Chaos has the twlinks site and is currently waiting to get a hold of Hekate for DNS transfer so he can put it on a new server. Best of luck to Hekate. To sum it up, I want to commend the community for stepping up and taking over many of the responsibilities of the individuals I mentioned above. Fuseblown runs the Home Sector website and TWGS. Rave is working on the Beta team in Cruncher's place. Silver Dragon now owns the USO and should do a very good job of it from what I heard of how he hosted USO '02. And Liquid Chaos has taken over TW Links site. As the saying goes, the show must go on.

HHT is coming soon, BOTE is over, and there's been a new baby by a former sysop of the TW community. Get a coffee, sit back, and read on. * **BOTE is over - Hardcoded wins in 47 days-** Team Hardcoded won the BOTE in 47 days. *47 days???* When you consider this is the BOTE, a tournament with marathon games the last two years, 47 days is a blink of an eye. I believe only the first HHT was a faster tournament with the Black Knights destroying the entire field in about 34 days or so. And I'm not counting that **US**-Fiasc**O** a few years ago in which Eleq's team won in 30 days on his own server in which the game op called the game despite protests from Kavanagh and his team. From what I heard about Team Hardcoded, they showed fine team effort and worked well together. They got kudos from the rest of the field on their play. Silver Dragon commended Macahan for hosting the game on a fine server. Silver Dragon relucantly agreed to host the BOTE next year. I was kinda disappointed about this as the BOTE at Fament was starting to become a tradition. But I also know the prize of the BOTE was the winning server to host it themselves, so I could not blame Silver Dragon wanting to host the BOTE 2003. He did a fine job with the USO '02 from what I heard so he'll do just as well with BOTE '03. Silver Dragon's full BOTE statement can be found [here.](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://www.twgs.org/?program=messages&amp;command=read&amp;message=8938) Full BOTE news and info can be found at the official BOTE 2002 site at **[https://tradewars.fament.com/bote2002/](https://web.archive.org/web/20020930090914/https://tradewars.fament.com/bote2002/).** * **HHT announced on Friday the 13th! -** What better day for Space Ghost to announce the Haunted Halloween Tournament than Friday the 13th! You can read more details about the HHT at [The Boo Inc. website.](/files/Site%20Caps/BooInc/news.html) One major thing has changed which is corp size. You will have to bring a team of 5 to the tournament. Kemper was upset about this, but you gotta do what you gotta do to drop someone from the team of 6. Knowing Space Ghost, who is usually very innovative with his edits, I expect this year's HHT to be one heck of a boo-tiful experience anyone will have in a tournament :) * **Aitvo has a girl! Born Sept 12th!-** Congrats go out to Aitvo AKA Andrew Wyatt for having a baby girl born Sept 12. The proud papa announced she weighed 7'4" and was 19" long. Congratulations, Aitvo!

Welcome to the newly redesigned Trade Wars Gazette. The redesign not only includes this new look, but also the format of the site. This website is all about information, not looks, so I decided to go with this basic design. Perhaps I'll change my mind in the near future. But for now, this is the direction I want to go. Also, I'm making an attempt to pretty much code this website by hand, using an HTML editor to do what I cannot figure out by hand and simply copy the code from that into this site. I will also copy parts of the code from the old TW Gazette to save me a little bit of time into getting this site back online. This will do two things. One, it will help me know HTML better and two, I won't have to deal with the extra coding crap left by editors like Microsoft Frontpage. :D Two things are eliminated. I have decided to 86 the ZOC scripts as there are much better script writers out there than I am such as the Reverend or SupG to name a few. The second thing eliminated is the archives. Old news are just that - old news. I do keep my archives on file so if anyone wants a news event looked up from the past, I can see if I wrote about it and send it to them. Perhaps in the near future, I'll put up the most requested articles. You will also find the side content table containing the links, affiliates, servers, and tournaments to be gone. I'll have all the links,servers, forums, helpers and tournaments all on the **[Links page](/category/TW_Gazette)**. This will allow me to only update the links only on one page instead of several pages. Read on for news such as the upcoming Haunted Halloween Tournament, the conclusion of BOTE 2002 and many other recent events. Feel free to [**e-mail me**](/category/TW_Gazette) your comments on this new look site.

Stardock Alpha Prime, owned by Abraxus, is to close its doors due to a number of reasons. Follows is a statement made by Abraxus on his website. Well, it's been a long time coming and, unfortunately, the time has finally arrived. It's time to close the docking bays at Stardock Alpha-Prime. There are many reasons behind the closing, but I will give you a few of the biggest. First, my PC is dying. I get an average of 3 BSOD's per day. Something is going on in my PC that isn't quite right and I don't know how to fix it. In addition, my poor PC simply can't keep up with the super-beast PC's out there. It's only a 533mhz and it's quite slow most of the time. It doesn't help that this is my only PC. When the kids (or I) want to play a game, this is the one they (or I) play it on. That just slows down both the game they (or I) play and TW. Secondly, I'm moving. I currently have a great ISP, [Everest](https://web.archive.org/web/20020523024009/https://www.everestkc.com/), but they don't service where I am moving. That makes my only real options Southwestern Bell DSL or dial-up. Neither one is a good option for running a TW game server. Third, I can no longer afford it. $40/month isn't too bad for a good cable connection, but I'm not getting $40 worth of value out of it and I don't really have that $40 to spare. Finances are getting tight in my household, and the needs come before the wants. I want to run a TW games server. I need to feed my family. In addition, I don't have $1,000 for a new PC to bring it up to par. Finally, the maker of the game server, John Pritchett as EIS, has basically handed over control of customer service to a moron. Gypsy has the customer service skills of a yak. To him, there are 2 ways something can be done: His way or the wrong way. He has shown that he has no regard for the customer or their opinions and doesn't care that most of what he says is full of inconsistencies and half-truths. I don't have the desire to deal with that type of idiot during my free time. It would be wrong of me not to thank a few people, however. There are many good people in the TW universe. There are players, SysOps, webmasters, and more that give freely, and ask for nothing in return. I would like to publicly thank some of those people who have helped me make Stardock Alpha-Prime a great place to play: * Aitvo * Eleq * Timberwolf * Traveler * Bonz * Vid Kid * Stonewall * Fuseblown * Elric If there are any I've forgotten, please forgive me. If I ever decide to bring Stardock Alpha-Prime back to life, I'll make it known and would invite anyone to come visit a while. It's been an interesting experience, and I thank you for your contributions to making it so! The games will remain up until 5/1/2002, as will the website. Thank you, Morgan Erickson - Abraxus BSOD = Blue Screen Of Death Abraxus is a good man and his absence will be felt. I wish Abraxus the best of luck and agree with him on many of his points including this one: Gypsy is a moron, all right :)