Hey people! Another week and there's lots to do so listen up! This one's got to be extra long so I can cover the things my AED would have covered.

Promotions/Medals

None this week to report on within the house but FireFox did give out some high medals. Here is what he had to say:

First of all, one individual in the DB has been neglected some time ago and after carefully reviewing her case with Jac and some other people, I have decided to correct that mistake made long ago and I am immediately promoting Arania Lawakiro to the rank of Dark Jedi Master. Her accomplishments as Krath High Priestess fully warranted this promotion and I should have taken care of this earlier. For not correcting this mistake earlier, I apologize.

Also, it was deemed that the recent Grand Cross she received for accomplishments in Clan Satal Keto was inappropriate. So I am making it an Emerald Dagger instead. This reflects her efforts far more.

Finally, for the great quality of his work and the immense amount of efforts and energy he put into it, I am giving Telaris "Mav" Cantor a Silver Sash. Without him, I doubt we would have gotten alliances with the Star Vipers and the Rebel Squadrons this quickly.

Do me a favor and go congratulate them both! They certainly proved their worth to us all and they deserve our respect.

There were also some appointments and promotions given. They are as follows:

1. The roster currently stands at 1221 members. That is even from last week's count of 1221.

2. The following position appointments were made this past week:

JH Rekio Corsair (Sith)/QUA/Tridens of Tarentum

OBM Ziguarath (Obelisk)/PCON/Clan Tarentum

SW Crix "Uberman" Madine (Sith)/QUA/Archanis of Taldryan

DJK freshjive (Obelisk)/QUA/Dinaari of Taldryan

1. The following worthy promotions were made this past week:
   

KAP JaM3z Lucius Entar (Krath)/P:SCL-QUA/Qel-Droma of Arcona

DJK JKast (Sith)/QUA/Caliburnus of Scholae Palatinae

SBM Rexal Qel (Sith)/Archanis of Taldryan

DA ^CyberGuy^ Praseodymium Entar (Krath)/SCL/Dark Council

DJM Arania Lawakiro (Krath)/TET/Aleema of Satal Keto

Competitions

This one is a long one and includes a little thing I was told to forward from the KHP.

First of all there is the Independence Games going on. Make sure you participate and let me know what you have participated in. URL is   http://independence.starfleetacademy.net/games.html

Go have some fun!

KMT:

Krath story: 'Divided Loyalties'

You may write about current events if you wish, or interprete the topic in a completely different and innovative manner.

<4 pages 12pt TNR. Submit to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] by midnight 31st May.

Krath poem: 'Virtue'

Style - Free verse (ie poetry that doesn't have any specific structure or rhyme or anything).

Submit to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] by midnight 31st May. Just put in in the email or submit in .txt format.

Exodus Competition:

(Thanks to Arania for the following introduction...)

Exodus

In a future far, far away, Grand Master Pyralis, after returning from his retirement on an unknown planet, looked at the assembled students in the largest class room of the New Shadow Academy and took a deep breath.

"The universe is indifferent to the little struggles of mortal beings, their fear, their hopes, the successes and failures. Our lifetimes are nothing compared to the bigger picture, yet sometimes, some of us influence history in a way that at least a little part of the universe, our very own galaxy, will remember us. Not necessarily as individuals, but as a group. If this remembrance will be good or bad is always decided by our actions and the view of those who learn of us later."

The old men took a break and let his eyes wander to the electronic records in front of him. Memories, bitter and sweet, rushed back into his mind, some of which he would rather have forgotten. But they were nevertheless part of history.

"In our galaxy, in a part called the Outter Rim, a change happened that did influence stability and economics at a large scale, and in several regions at that. As most of you know, we were once a part of the now destroyed Emperor's Hammer. Yes, the Brotherhood was not an organisation by it's own right, but was ruled by a Dark Jedi called Ronin and his hand Astatine, another Dark Jedi who dreamed of ruling us all with less regard to each of our potentials.

I was there at the time. I have seen what can happen if control is overdone, if the rules are so strict that true development is impossible. I have seen it, and I was Headmaster in the end times of our stay with the Hammer. In fact, I was one of The Seven!"

A murmor went through the room. Probably most of the students had heard of the events and knew of the importance of The Seven. Pyralis was very sure that most of them knew his name before he mentioned the past, yet they must have had a hard time to belive that the fragile looking old man talking to them was one of the most feared and admired Jedi of the time of the Exodus. He smiled to himself. He was old, and maybe he wouldn't have much more time left. But he needed to bring the records to the new generation.

"We broke from Hammer control for several reasons. One of the main reasons was a planet we had discovered in uncharted areas, some distance away from Hammer territory. The planet, as you can guess, is Antei itself. Antei is special, as you all know. Yet, when we told ronin that we would like to settle there, most of us at least, the leader of the Hammer felt that his control over us might be lost if we were so far away. From his point, I guess it made sense to deny our request. But he had not paid attention to the strong feelings our Jedi had about this. No Force user on the quest for power and in his right mind would let a chance like this go. We prepared for the worst and let Ronin know that either he'd agree or we would leave the Hammer. Of course, he didn't agree.

How we got to Antei is for another lesson. Today, I will show you the records of us leaving the grip of Ronin and his consorts. They didn't like us leaving. They tried all things possible to make it hard for us. But we prevailed. "

The old man lifted up the records in front of him.

"Here are the records of those who left. Some of them are long dead, many are still alive. All of them had a unique perspective on the happenings. I want you to read through them, study them carefully. When you are done, you will know more about what had truly passed than our somewhat imprecise official records could tell you. Each of you grab a copy. We will discuss this further in one week time. For now, I need a place to rest..."

Your task: Write one of those records describing the Exodus. Tell us what your character(s) and/or others went through during the flight from Hammer territory. The story should start with leaving or just having left your clan's home and end with arriving in the unknown territories without mentioning any new systems you might end up in!

Your writing can be in first person format if you like, but it does not have to be. It also does not need to center around your character only, because the record could be written by anyone else but you (aka, you can write about things that happen someplace where your character isn't present). You can also write together with someone else if you want to. Try to stick largely to writing about your own clan so that stories from the different clans don't contradict tooooo much.

The closing date is about 6 weeks away, so that hopefully every clan will have designed new home planet systems by the time the winning stories are announced.

Minimum length is 2 pages Arial 12 pt. No maximum length.

Closing date: June 21st. Send your entries to [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Make sure to include ID line(s). If you have clones, you can send in a submission for each clone, of course.

Good luck!!

Game Designers are wanted!

Hey Graphics designers, the DB needs you! Currently, we're suffering a severe lack of banner graphics that other people can link to our site with. Because of that, I'm putting out a call for banners to be submitted. Basically, I'm looking for an image, between 400 and 500 pixels wide and 40 and 100 pixels high. It should say "The Dark Brotherhood" on it, but anything else is up to you. Keep in mind these banners will be used in large part by other organizations as ways to link to our website. I'll be judging the banners I receive. We'll be awarding crescents in the following manner: Diamond Star (Cr-1D) for first, Ruby Star (Cr-1R) for second, and Amethyst Star (Cr-1A) for third.

Submissions are due by the 17th, and should be sent to me at [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Warlord Telaris "Mav" Cantor

Lord Chamberlain

DB News

The Chamber of Justice is now officially sitting on its first session since it's recreation. First of all, I would like to introduce my two Hands of Justice. The first is position based, and will remain a constant member of the Chamber of Justice. The second is a rotating position of whom the Hand is selected from the Dark Council.

The First Hand of Justice is that of the Emissary, whose job it is to represent the views of the Clans within the Brotherhood's Judiciary.

The Second Hand of Justice is Deputy Grand Master Jac Ae-Sequira Cotelin. Jac was selected by me to be the first member of the Dark Council to sit in the rotating seat, his duty is to represent the Dark Council's view within the Brotherhood's Judiciary.

As Justicar, my position within the Chamber of Justice is to represent the law. I am to be completely unbiased towards those who I am to judge. The Chamber of Justice is not answerable to the Dark Council, nor does the Grand Master have the power to Order me to do anything that the law does not already command me to do.

The Chamber of Justice is currently working on making the Official Rules and Regulations of the Dark Brotherhood, and will hopefully release them soon.

I would like to caution everyone in advance however, just because we have no official rules in place to date, do not think you can act lawlessly and have it go unaccounted for. In the times when we do not have officially released rules, we must let reason act as our sovereign, and a mutual respect for everyone else act as our law.

In Service,

DA Keirdagh Cantor (Sith)/JST/Chamber of Justice

DS/SB/GC/(SC-SoI)/(SE-WG)/DC-KC-O-CS-D/(GNB)/(SN)/(BNG)(BNB)/CF/(LSG)(LSP)/DSS/SoLx4

{SA: K:CORE-O:CORE-S:CORE-S:ISET-S:ESET-S:TAC}

“Project: Dark Fury” has been started to give new, high quality training to the Brotherhood of Dark Jedi. The coding now has been fully implemented and has been activated.

This specific part of “Project: Dark Fury” was made to completely redo the way Apprentices complete training and join clans. It is hoped that it will increase the number of apprentices joining clans. Specifically, we want to communicate with Apprentices more and give them a mentor to help them join clans quicker and easier.

The Society of Envoys has been redefined to become important and necessary in making the change in helping Apprentices become a success. Clans will have one primary envoy who will direct the other house envoys. The primary clan envoys are Knight Class Envoys (KCE). The House envoys are Companion Class Envoys (CCE). The HM and P:HM will have the final say in all envoy appointments.

New Apprentices in the Brotherhood of the Dark Jedi will be assigned to a Companion Class Envoy. They will be assigned by rotation by the order they belong to so that Clans get an even amount of new members of each Order. A slight priority will be given to small houses. On the new welcome letter, the Apprentice, KCE, CCE, HM, Order Leader, and P:HM will receive the letter.

Envoys should be responsible leaders who have enough time to dedicate to gaining their clans new members when Apprentices are assigned to them. They should act as a friendly contact who will become a friend and help the Apprentice through his training. Envoys will express the ideas of their clan and help them understand what the Brotherhood of Dark Jedi is. Envoys will be energetic and motivated wanting the best for their Clan and making every effort to gain new Novices for it.

Once envoys succeed in graduating the APP from the Shadow Academy, the newly promoted Novice will join the clan of the envoy, and probably the House of the envoy to continue training together. In the end, membership to the clans will increase as a result of directed training through the Society of Envoys.

Regards,

^CyberGuy^

=========================

Dark Adept ^CyberGuy^ Praseodymium Entar

Seneschal of the Dark Brotherhood

GC/(SC-SoA)/(SE-LS)/DC-KC-O-CS-D/Cr-2E-2S-2A/CF/(LSS)/DSS

Just a blurb about our new clan systems.

Each Clan should hold a competition about a new home system and planet. If you want to, you might have up to 3 home systems, one for each House, although that reduces your defensive bonus in some games. You can have everyone on one planet or on different planets.

All submissions from your members should be zipped up and sent to the RPG group ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]) for review, including the winning submission. Stuff not used as homeworld will be most likely implemented in other ways. All such implemented systems and planets will be RPG wise refered to as being found by the respective Clan, which might give you additional bonuses in future competitions. Thus, a lot of subs is good. Note for Tarentum - even if your situation is different, it would still be beneficial for you to design some systems :o)

Most likely, what you pick as home will be ok, that is if you stay within the very few guidelines Betja Jun sent out to the Consuls a few days ago. The main thing is that there won't be any civilisation in your new home above the tech level RL earth has right now.

If you have already designed your home system, that's cool. In this case, just send in the zip file.

Competitions should all be done by end of May so the basic systems manual can be set up by middle of June.

~Jac

Its my pleasure to announce that the Dark Brotherhood and Rebel Squadrons have signed an alliance agreement. For more details, check out http://www.chaoslogic.com/db/message_board/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=278

&

Hey folks! Just received word from Sector Admiral Phoen|x Berkana, Fleet Commander of the Star Vipers(http://www.starvipers.org), that they have accepted our alliance proposal... This alliance benefits both our clubs, allowing for a strong future of gaming and cooperation between our two organizations! :)

Warlord Telaris "Mav" Cantor

Lord Chamberlain

Lots more stuff to read on the DB news page so get over there and keep up to date on things :D

Clan/House News

We have a new PCON!!! OBM Ziguarath is our new PCON. Now is the time for his hazing >:)

He's also already given out a report. Make sure you give him a yell and tell him how much you hate seeing him in that postition. Just kidding :) At least make an effort to say hi and perhaps even get to know him a little. He has some really great ideas for our growth I'm sure and getting to know what's going on inside his head would help.

Our AED is now officially gone from us. I will not follow him but have decided to remain in the ranks and after my rather long LoA, I'll return to active duty and get my butt into gear and start working on other things.

If you feel you have what it takes to be the next QUA, I'm open now for your applications. I'll review what I get and give my recommendation to Ciara.

We have also lost Desann to the EHDB but that was expected. Some would probably expect to see Demerzel leave too but he's INTEL. Talk to him if you can to know what he has to say. Best to hear it from the horses mouth I say :)

For all you would be Trial Masters! Now's your chance to prove you got what it takes. Attached is a story I got a long time ago that needs fixing. Whoever is interested in being TM (note this is not an official position) and can handle working with me and Ciara then you should download the story and fix it. The one who can fix it completely and in the shortest amount of time will take over the Trials for me. This is open to everyone who feels they can handle such an easy job. Well it'll be easy once you get Ciara and me off your back >:D You have until this time next week, no exceptions. Subject is TM test and do please send it back in .doc format.

Your opinion matters! Should we stay in our current home or go find a new place? The choice is up to you! Swing by the Tarentum Message Board and tell us what you think!

Telona's Funnies

Yes the best part has arrived!

Jet Ski Spree

2001 Darwin Award Nominee

Confirmed True by Darwin

(26 July 2001, Nevada) Sometimes fate has perfect vision. Two men found dead at Lake Tahoe were presumed to be homicide victims -- one disfigured by severe facial wounds and the other apparently shot -- until investigators discovered that they were actually victims of their own larcenous tendencies. The men had stolen a jet ski from a marina but, unfamiliar with the lay of the land and piloting in pitch darkness, they crashed at high speed into a nearby dock. One man died instantly from a broken neck; the other crawled to shore where he, too, expired. DarwinAwards.com © 1994-2003

Submitted by: S.A. Sprague

Reference: TheKCRAChannel.com and Associated Press.

That's all I got for this week. Just one more report to sit through and then you get to sit through someone elses! Everyone have a safe and fun week!