Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 7, 2013

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COLLOQUIAL MARSPORT SAYING ADOPTED BY SPYNET

by Hazed

When the Mars colony was first established, back before the discovery of hyperspace technology, those who chose to leave Earth and live on another planet wanted to shake off the shackles of the mother planet. Politically, that didn’t happen - Mars remained firmly under Earth’s sway - but the new Martians had more luck when it came to culture and language.

The invented their own folkways, myths and legends to replace the ones humans had used on Earth for millienia. Many of the new stories they told featured the original Martians, their ruins and their long-abandoned technology. Many is the child who was warned by an angry parent, “Behave or the Martians will get you!”

One of the things this reinvention involved was new versions of the old phrases and sayings in common use on Earth. For some years it was considered a point of pride to say, “Too many stevedores spoils the load”, “A spinning stone gains no mars sand”, and other similar reinventions of old clichés.

Over time, as other Sol planets were colonized and then humankind spread out over the Galaxy and the Martian feeling of specialness was diluted, the phrases fell out of fashion, only being kept up by the spaceport workers. Later, some of the asteroid miners also adopted them as a way to assert their own independence from the Galactic Administration, but most people in Fed DataSpace would never have heard of these alternative mottos.

Until now. Because, for reasons best known to themselves, SpyNet has picked up on one Martian phrase, and has started using it in its SpyNet Reports.

The phrase is, “Since before Diesel started selling her Old Peculiar ale!”. Its meaning has changed over time: originally it referred to anything that hasn’t happened for a long time, replacing the Earth original “in a month of Sundays” but its usage became more flexible, and then firmed up again to mean a shorter time period. Now it refers to something that hasn’t happened for at least three years.

That’s the way SpyNet are using it, anyway! The SpyNet Report will now say of players who haven’t been seen in Fed DataSpace for over three years that they haven’t been seen “since before Diesel started selling her Old Peculiar ale!”.

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