Milliways

From Astro Wars

Contents 1 Objectives 2 Foundation 3 History 3.1 Beta 8 3.2 Beta 9 3.3 Beta 10 3.4 Gold 1 3.5 Gold 2 3.6 Gold 3 3.7 Gold 4

[edit] Objectives First goal of Milliways is to have fun and to do some nice teamwork. You can visit our restaurant here: Milliways Inc. Just take a look and visit our little infobot in our guest area.

Foundation

Milliways (the restaurant at the end of the galaxy) was founded in Beta/Gamma region while beta 8 was running. It started when riven and I trusted each other and promised to help each other. Later we asked some players around if they would like to join.

I had the idea of running a restaurant where we serve our enemies as meals on our menu and most of us liked it. Milliways was born. I liked this name not only because of the novel written by Douglas Adams, but also because of the TAG which is [MILL], and we all know that you may use a mill to grind anything you want.

In case you played ranker or single player in the past, why not take a seat and try to hunt down some rankers together with us? We welcome all active players who know how to survive but also be able to lend a hand in times of need.

On behalf of Milliways:

Oin
Chairman of Milliways Inc.

History

Beta 8

Most of us were noobs playing their first beta and only few had some experience from former betas. Nearly from the beginning of beta 8 we had a battle which grow into a full scale war for the whole beta against GS and we learned a lot from them. (now I know they learned also something from us thanks Solutodka) Today most of the former GS members are friends as far as I can tell and I´m happy about it.

As everyone can imagine we had no time for global play while fighting against GS who also brought SAF into the battle and together they gave us a rough time but when SAF focused to other objectives we had it much easier.

Even in this hard times I tried to get some support from other alliances and I had been promised help from the other side of the galaxy. A new alliance with mostly battleproven players from beta 6 and beta 7 thought of some cowork after I contacted them. Unfortunately this was not possible so we decided to work together in beta 9.

Beta 9

In beta 9 we tried to focus on global battles and to kill some rankers but was a "little" bit unlucky with our starting positions. Not all of us could start at the given time and even those were spread that much that we had two sections of our alliance even we had only about 10 players at that moment.

ES/ADES/TZAR were around one section and gave us a hard time there but we fought back and tried to survive even it was helpless. We nearly lost two players before anybody else could even go into their systems. All in all we were surrounded by those three alliances and faced a battle with 20/1 players or even worse.

Second section was in a safe harbour near RAGE and tried to help the other but as written above we had no success and all systems went down. Later when the countdown was started by ES it was obvious we would join RAGE to go there and kill some populations and we did.

Beta 10

We started again (like in Beta 9) with only very few members (ca. 5) and started to recruit some of the active neighbours around us. We noticed some bigger alliances further to the southwest (XR, SF) and southeast (HNU, ELIS) but had our local region for early hunting. Some NAP were done to secure the area and some battles too until all systems were full up.

In the meantime one of our members who was a little bit far away from us (ca. BIO 50) collided with several members of CoRE and FEAR and other single players who were friends of them or at least fought on their side. As soon as we got BIO 23 we joined this battle while some of us still found some few systems in our home area to fight. We conquered some systems but THOR also sent help so it wasn´t that easy and needed some time.

We agreed to RAGE who were also placed in that area that THOR asked for a visit with interfering into the food hunt and so some of both alliances killed some points of THOR in a night rush whereas two slower fleets were caught by there nice defense.

THOR lost most of their rankers that day and used their fleets to give RAGE and some of our planets a visit in return. All in all a lot of CV and pop was crushed that time but it was funny anyway. We nearly made it into top 50 but our member who was ranked first lost 2 planets one or two days before AF .. uhm sorry .. SatanicBoy won so we lost some few ranks. But we´re no rankers, so what?

Gold 1

As usual we started with a small bunch of members (this time about 10) and recruited those who looked to be ok in development. We landed in an area together with LBA, WAR and BoE with THOR, XR, kk and others in medium range.

LBA agreed to a NAP, same did BoE but there were some (severe) problems regarding negotiations to WAR. Short story is, we never came to that point to sign the NAP officially so we always keps some fleets home so we were not totally undefended (especially as they attacked several planets earlier).

After securing most of the systems we met a member of STG and he gave us a nice time of battles together with some of his mates. He made it to BIO 25 and escaped into their own territory later on after he lost his two systems to us.

Now WAR were placed very high with their ranker so NP decided to hunt him down. Unfortunately they used one of our planets while we planned to do a long range attack against one of STG home systems. The ranker fell as we had noone on night watch (we are no rankers so why should a ranker hunter visit us?) and our planet was misused as an airport.

We complained at NP about this attack but were ok with the message that it was no attack against us. Later on we saw that WAR lost some pop too on the rankers planet. Well we launched our attack against that STG member and some hours later we had several incomings by WAR. They blamed us for their rankers fall.

Well we tried to call our fleets back as soon as possible but it was too late for most of us and .. well .. they had farmed very well and had nice fleets. (2-3k CR guided by some hundreds DS and BS) Some friends in kk and RAGE helped us a little bit but they were too far to be of any serious help after all and we ended up at rank 66 also due to some recruitment in Epsilon zone.

Gold 2

Gold 3

Sunday the 12th early in the morning, the daily meeting of the Milliways staff started with an announcement of the management:

Oin: Mates we have a serious problem here on our midrange scanners. Some of the busdrivers went crazy out there and now they are heading with their busses for the button which will shut down this spawning version of the universe this may not happen now. So does anybody has an idea how to stop those drivers? Yes chef?

2die4: We could put some salt into their soup. In fact some tons of salt.

Oin: yes that would be a good idea, I think my miners could be able to dig a tunnel into their region but we could need some magic assistance too .. uhm ... I think someone is missing here ... you, there .. rub that golden lamp over there, will ya?

An unknown worker promptly rubbed the mentioned lamp, but nothing happened.

Oin: *sigh* use cloth with it and not your dirty fingers, ok?

Worker: Sir, yes sir!

He tried again and the lamp started to glow until ... *pouf*

MadDjinn: *yaaaawnnnn* huh? Why do you wake me up again at this time?

Oin: Sorry it´s hard to calculate the time of your magical dimension properly. We need your help.

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes.

MadDjinn: ok

2die4: We want to put some tons of salt into the soup of the bus drivers so they will spit it out, doing a mess while driving their busses so they miss the button which would close this time pocket.

MadDjinn: You ... what? *scratch* For what reason again? I think I´m going to be mad if you wake me up again for such a reason.

Oin: You already are mad MadDjinn.

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes

MadDjinn: ok

Oin: So can you help with your magics to move some salt over there into their soup?

MadDjinn: Sure I can, how much?

Oin: As much as you can. OK I think we can handle this, with the management for now, all others cleanse the tables and dishes of the TUGA party we had lately.

Most waiters and dishwashers just went to work, some were mumbling something about "useless meetings as always" but went to work too. The Chairmen came back to the Djinn.

Endor: Could you tell us more about that region?

MadDjinn: Can I?

Oin: Yes

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes

MadDjinn: ok

The Djinn concentrated on that area and focused his mind on it. Then after some minutes he gave his first report of his magical investigations.

MadDjinn: There are loads of LOGs lying in that area blocking all ways into that specific region.

der_ric: well then we have to move this wood out of our way.

Oin: Right .. then just ACT on it.

The Djinn vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Oin: Huh? Where did he go now?

Endor and der_ric just looked at each other shrugging.

Oin: Well I will ask my miners if they could hack some wood too but I guess they will not be very happy to use their axes this way. Work went on as usual at the restaurant and the bank account went bigger again.

Next day the Djinn appeared again in a white cloud, hovering above the ground.

MadDjinn: Master? I think this could be interesting for you.

Oin looked up from his paperwork and raised an eyebrow but then smiled when the Djinn held out a crystal bowl. (As a dwarf he always was attracted to shiny beautiful things and most likely ever will be)

Oin: What a beautiful bowl, thank you. I will put it into my jewelry collection.

MadDjinn: Master, this is no jewellery this is to communicate. It´s called a palantir and it was not that easy to find two of them but I managed it somehow. The other one is now in the possession of one of our neighbours.

The palantir started to glow and produced a small picture of a man inside then it focused on his face and zoomed until the bowl was filled with the whole head of the white magician Salazar also known as GreyFox19.

Salazar: I think we could help each other. I heard about you searching a way through the dense forest to your northern area. I could put the trees down and show you a path if you just remove the LOGs afterwards.

Oin: Well this might be possible as we have a good sawmill. A good mine needs good wooden structure to not crumble. I will inform my miners about it.

Salazar: That would be fine because those LOGs are ruining my view to the center of the galaxy when I look our of my castle.

Oin: view to the galaxy? but ... they are in a 90 degree direction away from the center ... uhm

MadDjinn: It´s ok master, you don´t have to understand the ways of magic as long as they work as you want them to

Salazar: Right. So do we have a deal?

Oin: Yes, it´s a deal. You show us a way and remove the trees and we will remove the fallen LOGs afterwards.

Salazar: Deal, I will ACT soon.

The light in the palantir faded away and looked like a normal crystal orb again.

Oin: nice piece you found here. May I keep it?

MadDjinn: Yes master but why?

Oin: I think I can improve it so I can talk to other people too.

MadDjinn: but ...

Oin: You don´t have to understand dwarven craftsmanship as long as it serves your purposes.

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes.

MadDjinn: ok.

Oin: By the way, did you tell him about the bus drivers and our intentions?

MadDjin: No master, should I have done so?

Oin smiled and said: No, not at all.

Oin: Did you lie to him?

MadDjinn: No master, should I have done so?

Oin smiled even bigger and said: No, not at all

And so it happened, while the crew cleansed up the rest of the TUGA party which lasted several weeks the miners prepared to remove some LOGs and put them to the sawmill of the main mine. The Djinn disappeared again.

Then some days later the miners completed a tunnel to that area, guided by some information from the white magician and started to remove some LOGs when at about the same time the Djinn reappeared again and moved some LOGs with a snip of his fingers. They hovered through the wood straight into the sawmill.

Now the time came for the workers to improve the tunnel and help to remove more LOGs but it seemed that most of them thought about weekend means no work anymore and sleeping more than usual. Fact was that noone showed up and the Djinn had to do all the work himself with a little bit help from his master who directed his dwarfen folk to the proper places right in time.

Slowly one after the other employees arrived at the area but were still tired from sleeping so long. Several questions came from the sleepy crowd: Where shall I go? Is this the proper direction? What is a LOG? Where do I have to move it to?

Oin used his palantir and finally reaches his friend Solutodka who was a member of THE horde.

Solutodka: Oui? (he had a weird accent sometimes and mixed normal language with some of his own)

Oin: errm yes, hello.

Solutodka: How may I help you?

Oin: Well, I wondered if you could help us to stop some buses?

Solutodka: You mean they are heading for the button again?

Oin: Unfortunately yes my friend.

Solutodka: OK I will ask the horde, we will try to help you with it but we don´t know the way.

Oin: This should be no problem as we already digged a tunnel over there.

Solutodka smiled a demoniac smile and bared his teeth, nodded and the palantir went silent again.

Oin nodded partly satisfied as he had managed to let the palantir work without having the need to give another one to the people. But he still was not completely satisfied as he wanted to have it perfect. Then after some adjustments on the dwarven aparature around the palantir it began to glow and produced a picture of a former employee.

Oin: Oh hi telemak, how do you do?

Telemak: Fine, I just thought about you and then the air before my face went blurry and you appeared inside and now I can even talk to you.

Oin: Yes, my newest invention, based on an artifact provided by our Djinn.

Telemak: Oh yes I think I understand. Nice tool. But well, maybe I should tell you what I was thinking about a few moments ago?

Oin: Yes, sure, go on.

Telemak: I asked myself if you might know how to find a way to the busses or to be more precise a way to the Short Bus Riders themselves.

Oin: Yes we already have a tunnel available, so you want to use it?

Telemak smiled happily and tried to hug Oin but only hugged the air in front of himself.

Telemak: Glad you can help, but we have to pack some things before we can use that tunnel.

Oin: fine, we will try to keep it intact until then. Maybe we will be able to build some more so we can speed up the whole process. You know, we try to put some tons of salt into the drivers soups so they spit it out to the windscreen and don´t see where they are driving anymore.

Telemak: Nice idea, I bet the Chef had that idea. He always is so mad if someone misreads a receipe and put too much salt into the food

Oin: Right you are So, we will try to keep the tunnels intact until you´re ready.

Telemak: Thank you very much.

Oin: You´re welcome at the restaurant, you should have known that before

The Palantir faded again and Oin just built a box for the whole device so he could hide it when he no longer wanted to use it. Then a messenger arrived.

Messenger: Sir, one of the buses has a radar on top and I guess he just noticed our attempts.

Oin rubbed the lamp himself this time as he was in a hurry.

MadDjinn: Yes master?

Oin explained the situation to the Djinn.

MadDjinn: Sorry, master but I cannot hide us now, you should have asked me before and I could have done a magic shield. Now the only thing we can do is hurry up.

Oin: OK, then we better do this. But there are still not enough people around. Also some of the others went away again.

MadDjinn: Master, I just noticed there is a bus heading to us check the scanners.

The chairman of Milliways looked at his device and went silent when the scanning device showed him the buses guiding fleet.

16:59:55 - Mar 18

Attention !!! We have evidence of an incoming fleet around that time.

21 Transports

5539 Destroyer

1130 Cruiser

150 Battleship

going to attack Alpha Alrai [1198] 4!

We suppose its the Fleet of FarmerBob.

Wasn´t this farmer supposed to be on his acre or milking a cow? Why does he fly around in the galaxy? These were the thoughts that came right into to that brave dwarven mind. The restaurant had many harvesters but none was designed to grind a fleet of that size. Thus the chairman ordered all people away from that tunnel where the farmer would land with his minions. He landed but did not fill the tunnel completely, he only closed the entrance with 9 of his guarding destroyers then he went to the next tunnel.

18:38:22 - Mar 18

(MadDjinn) Attention !!! We have evidence of an incoming fleet around that time.

19 Transports

5530 Destroyer

1130 Cruiser

150 Battleship

going to attack Alpha Alrai [1198] 1!

We suppose its the Fleet of FarmerBob.

Oin looked at the scanner again and then turned to the Djinn.

Oin: You better order your little fellas else so they can avoid that fleet.

MadDjinn: Already did this .. I sent my 2000 DS and the other ships to a save position.

Oin: 2000 destroyer?

MadDjinn: yes

Oin: You had 3000 alltogether

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes.

MadDjinn: ok.

Oin: Say, where did you leave your lamp with it´s guarding fleet the last time?

MadDjinn: I guess in the tunnel 1198#1 master. Why do you ... oh ...

Oin: right .. that tunnel was were matk was going to ... and I guess his ships got more than just some scratches on it.

MadDjinn: Sorry master, I know I should have taken my lamp with me.

Oin: *sigh* can´t work this way!

MadDjinn: Yes master, sorry master

The bus drivers sent another bus with it´s guarding fleet and some of their robo-busses (also called BOTS) over there to the area where Milliways members tried to remove the LOGs to cleanse the way. It went on for hours and hours. The dwarves and the other employees of the restaurant opened other tunnel, the Djinn did the same but the bus drivers sent bigger and bigger fleets without hitting more than the tunnels.

Then a messenger came silent to the dwarf holding the message out with a pale face.

Messenger: Sir, one of our harvester is crashed to the ground. BlackSnow cannot harvest LOGs anymore and is also unable to free the farmers cows.

Oin read the message and took a deep breath as he read.

19:17:23 - Mar 18 Your attacking fleet was defeated by I3ooI3oo at Alpha Demon Star 9. You killed about 10%.

Oin: Send someone over there to see if you can find BlackSnow somehow.

The messenger did so and after a while they found him and send him to sickbay. So there was another one who could no longer help freeing those farmers cows.

Again the struggle for that area continued and many tunnels were heavily damaged while being stuffed with some destroyers and being reopened by some charges of explosives. The bus drivers tried to remove all presence from that area with big broad bombardements but they failed as there always was a rock or tree to hide. In the morning the horde arrived and crushed one of the robo-busses in surprise but then just built a little fortress as they had another work to do first.

In the meantime the brave dwarven troops tried to keep the tunnels open for all others who would like to help stopping the buses. The crystal bowl came alive again.

Oin: Telemak nice to see you again

Telemak: Hi, this is strange, everytime I think of you the air in front of me is changing into your picture and I can talk to you.

Oin: Yes, my new device, you know?

Telemak: Anyway, do you still own some tunnels?

Oin: Of course, or do you think they can pry a dwarf away from a rock? And what else is a planet if not a big rock? You can use one of the tunnels so I will transmit the map so you do not use the wrong way down there

Telemak: Thanks a lot, is it ok if I bring some friends with me?

Oin: You´re welcome. Milliways has room for all friendly guests as you know.

Telemak: Fine I am on my way then and my friends join in later

Oin: Great, see ya then.

After all it seemed that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Literally spoken.

The next days other hunters came by and used the clearing freed from the LOGs to visit the bus drivers home. Some put salt or pepper in overdoses into their soups, others even tried to burn their home but the fire never lasted for very long as the bus drivers used to buy flame proof furnitures and also had their roBOTS around to warn them about fire and also helped killing the fire. Milliways crew destroyed some BOTS in the meantime and annoyed some more bus drivers.

Then one day the universe was shaken by a massive intergalactic impact in some galaxies named the XXX cluster where a lot of good people died when they had no place to cover before the magnetic storms and ray bombardements that resulted from this collisions.

Thus 2 days later the universe started to go back where it came from. In Milliways all the guests out of all time zones came by and enjoyed the nice view at the end of the universe when the galaxy came to an end of existance in a big and furious firework sponsored by nature.

The management came together and prepared for the next time jump.

Oin: OK folks, someone hit the button, do you know who did it? I thought we had distracted SBR enough not to do it.

BlackSnow knocked on the door and lurked inside: Sorry boss but we found out who hit the big button.

Oin: Well then come in, close the door and take a seat. Then tell us about it.

BlackSnow entered the room carefully and took place in one of the luxerious arm chairs of the managers office.

BlackSnow: Sir, we found out that pirx hit the button after all.

Oin: But he was never supposed to reach it. It was too obvious that he headed for it! Why has noone done anything?

BlackSnow: Maybe the people were afraid of the big defense?

Oin: Nope I rather guess it was because so many people just went into paralysis when they found out that everyone could have cloned himself and they might have met themselves by chance. Anyway, the galaxy is collapsing, no we have some work to do again. Thanks Blacksnow for your report so far.

BlackSnow left the room and Oin looked for his comanagers.

Oin: Now tell me, are all time projectors are ready to go back in front of the collapse of the universe again?

der_ric: Yes they are

Oin: then wait until we passed the collapse and all guests left the building then let´s return to the time 3 month in front of the collapse again.

Endor: I will take care of this. May I unmask now?

Oin: Yes, it is no longer needed to wear another mans robe. We have a lot of work to do, let´s do it.

All chairmen left the room to prepare the restaurant for another period of three month of pre-collapsing time to serve the guests and enjoy the big moment when all of the universe returned from where it came.

Gold 4

A long time ago in a time zone not that far away several colonists who are employed by the well known restaurant at the end of the universe landed and deploy their ships to construct the first bases of the hunting ground.

Soon after the command centers were constructed the leaders of those landing parties took command over their planets and started to scan the area for food and vegetables to harvest. Now let´s go back in time to see what happened then.

POWER ON

TIME GENERATOR ACTIVE

SYNCHRONIZING TIME TABLE

TIMELINE ACTIVATED

*wwwwhhhhuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*

TIMEGATE ESTABLISHED TO Apr 02 2006

*whhhoooop*

TIME CAPSULE MOVED

POWERING DOWN

TIMEGATE DEACTIVATED

POWER OFF

Oin summoned his officers.

Oin: Officers report!

CosmicBonsai: Safe landing sir but we are a little bit away from the rest like always/

Oin: Whom do you mean by "we"?

CosmicBonsai: As usual, Smiliehooch and I are far from the main section, this time far south. Carnelian would have done the same I bet but he is still at home in the headquarters to take a nap.

Oin: OK, what about the others?

DoktorGbla: Same here, Sarge is even further away north than me.

Oin: Well, should be not too bad as long as we can save our borders, right?

Milliways employees started to spread in the given area and contacted some friendly life forms around to recruit or to deal with while building up the bases. One sunny day, Oin was sitting inside his beautiful sparkling caverns MadDjinn arrived in a cloud of smoke and Oin focused his eyes slowly to him.

Oin: Yes?

MadDjinn: Master we got contact to some worm hole specialists who ask for some cowork.

Oin: Well, go and get that contract, I might visit them soon too. Worm hole specialists could be useful around here as I noticed a lot of those worm holes. So if we want to move safely we should ask them for some maps or other help to navigate inbetween. Also I have some friends in a surfer club who planned to try out worm holes a while ago,

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes

MadDjinn: OK

The Djinn vanished and Oin focused again to his daily paperwork when his palantir started to glow and show a picture of a guy he knew for a long time but never really had contact to. That guy came from a strange area whose names are not made for normal tongues so he was just called Holi87 instead.

Holi87: Hi Oin, how comes that I see your face in front of me?

Oin: Well, I just made some dwarven tech additions to my magical palantir I got from my Djinn.

Holi87: Which means?

Oin: Well, whenever someone is thinking about me and that he or she might have to talk to me this palantir establishes a connection

Holi87: very usefull

Oin: Indeed! So, what can I do for you?

Holi87: I wanted to ask if we could do a contract between the Drunken Horses Squad and your food hunters. Could we agree not to attack each other while being in this sector?

Oin: Well we could, drunken horses are no good food anyway

Holi87 Beamed at this and his picture faded away in the Palantir so Oin could concentrate on the boring paperwork again.

Several weeks later while more and more neighbours asked for good relations or just ignored attempts of contact or even worse attacked outposts the menu of this time loop was written and it said French Fries with a SPEcial sauce. Some other guys were on it too but not for very long, the one or the other way.

However, while on both extreme areas Milliways harvesters were under heavy pressure by huge fleets of invaders (too big to handle easily) and help from others was prevented due to other contracts among the neighbours Milliways staff had to handle the fries alone but got some few help later to create the SPEcial sauce.

Another few weeks later the production of the SPEcial sauce was guaranteed, only the French Fries made some problems as despite of their name they didn´t want to be fried but destroyed several harvesters on their way to the Milliways headquarters but were too afraid to attack it directly.

A little kitten shaped potato warrior proved to be very active and intercepted a lot of probes and scoutships on their way to once harvested regions that now lay wild and untamed with big fields of potato plants where the fries breed the next generation of potato warriors.

As more and more big potatoes were around Oin had to think about asking for some help and activated his palantir.

Oin: mOin mOin Dalmon

Dalmon: huh? aaaaargh you frightened me again, can´t I sleep a while in my command center?

Oin noticed several servants around Dalmon who looked worried and tried to calm their leader down. It seems they feared some wicked reactions from him like beating or kicking one of them in pure fun. Some whispering words like "please calm down your majesty" "please your highness think of your blood pressure" were to be heard out of the palantir but Oin decided this was the matter of his friends underlings.

Oin: long time not seen my friend say, could you lend us some of your high powered new ships?

You know, those with the brand new hyper drive propulsion.

Dalmon was stunned and turned around on his throne while all his underlings bowed deep not to be mentioned and to avoid any anger or punishment for something that others had done.

Dalmon: How do you know that I own such ships? They were meant to remain secret until the time

has come to hunt some pawns who grew too big.

Oin: You know that I have some magical items to gather information, no? Also you should know best that I would never give those info away without your allowance my friend

Dalmon: Well, true, but I know someone will suffer for this for sure.

A demonic grin came to him and turned into a maniac laughter after a while while all of his servants in the background shuddered and turned pale.

Dalmon: So how may I help you with my ships?

Oin: Well, we try to control some potato plantages but in some way they were manipulated and mutated a lot too fast so they now are out of control and destroyed some of our harvesters already. What I wanted you to do is to come by and put some herbycides on one of the fields.

Dalmon: Well, I could do so, maybe I will bring a friend with me too. When do you need this to be done?

Oin: as soon as possible, coordinates already transmitted to your flight officers by now. I will be happy to see you soon in our hunting grounds.

Dalmon: At your service, I only am sorry not to be able to send the big stomper to you to munch the big nasty potatos.

Oin: Right, but well, we try to keep them under control until the universe will collapse. Also I will ask some other friends. So see you soon friend.

Dalmon nodded and while his picture faded in the palantir one could see him rising from his throne and turning to his underlings with a look on his face that was not that funny for all who were not on his favour.

Oin smiled happy and relieved as he would see his friend on one of his own outposts after a long time and also knew the potatos would be stopped in growing for a while. But he also knew this would not be enough so he activated his palantir again.

Solutodka: Oui mon frere? Oh sorry, I forgot you do not speak orkish. Hello, how can I help you?

Oin: Ah what a relieve to see you my friend. I am searching for someone who is able to help us control some mutant potato fields where more and more French Fries are coming from in too big groups for us to tame them all into the pan to be served.

Solutodka: Well, The Horde Empire is always hungry, let me see if I can send some help.

He turned aside and after a while the picture in the palantir was parted into two. On one side Solutodka was still seen in the same quality while the other half was now filled by a beautiful butterfly whose colours were shimmering in the palantirs surface. His wings were signed by the sign of eternity but standing upwards to form the number 88.

Butterfly88: Hi Oin, Soluutodka told me you could need some help.

Oin: Yes we do, could you help us to keep some FrenchFries under control?

Butterfly88: With pleasure, you only have to guide us to the place where you need us.

Oin: Wow, thanks a lot.

Oin transmitted the first data and he saw the colours of the butterfly flickering slightly.

Butterfly88: Uhm, sorry but this one would be too big to handle even for our stunt men in the studios where we do our movies. But the other ones we would tame with pleasure. Pictures already sent to you.

Oin: Pictures? How could pictures help here?

Butterfly88: Well, a lot of pictures will unite into a FILM and a FILM is able to affect reality more than you could imagine. Trust me on this. Our Pictures will do what they are supposed to.

Oin: Well, Solutodka trusts you, so do I. I will be happy to watch your movies coming to us.

The palantir turned pale again and Oin went to bed with a good feeling the first time since weeks.

The day after Dalmon came by and spent a lot of time to talk to Oin on his outpost which was handed over for a while to Dalmon and his friend Tonne who followed him. Tonne was an ace in his light fighter so it was no surprise to Oin that this guy got the nickname acetonne after all.

Dalmon and acetonne went to the designated planets after a nice banket and put a lot of herbycides to the fields to prevent the potatos from growing that fast. At the same time the dwarven scouts invaded several planets in a nearby system and wrecked a lot of buildings from the mutated potatos. This would keep the fries busy too for some days.

Oin was very please when he saw Dalmon and his friend acetonne return to the headquarters of RAGE after they did their job quite well, even they were not able to put the stuff on all fields they were assigned to. He went to bed with a good feeling anyway.

Next morning he could see what the butterfly meant when he said many pictures could influence reality. The sky on two of his planets were filled with pictures of big fleets who seemed to be so real that you could touch them if you were close enough.

Soon after they departed on their hunt for the potato warriors and a lot of them were caught in the picture flood while some others were harvested by Milliways own staff members. The dwarven army of Oin still sent probes and scoutships and was now more lucky as the fries were distracted now by the pictures of FILM.

Milliways fast scouts went into deeper potato areas and created outposts from where they began to spread to several planets and reduced fresh potato plants. Some were hindered by a yaaks who herded in the same region but after all it went much better than the time before.

Then one cloudy day a messenger came to Oin to inform him about someone heading to the big button already. Oin stunned in surprise looked closer and knew for sure this guy would be stopped for sure but he also saw some fries growing their potato plants into the direction of the button too right aside of his friends from RAGE. Looking closer he noticed it was a different sort of French Fries who were reaching for the button than those they tried to push back to their potato fields for months now.

As expected the lone guy who wanted to reach the button which turnes the universe to collapse was clapped on his hand short before he could touch it. Shortly after the palantir turned on again and Oin answered it.

Oin: Yes?

Dalmon: Oh, well, I just thought of you and if you could send some help to us maybe.

Oin: I´m sorry, you know we still have that potato problem. But I know you have one too now.

Dalmon: Right, and as our forces are busy on our own region to keep the crazy people away they still grow with their tentacles reaching out for the button.

Oin: Yes, I´m sorry to hear this. Well, I wish you all the best and if you should not succeed in turning this universe into a better place where a warrior could live proudly among all those farmer then let´s just hope for the future universes as I´m sure there are more to come.

Dalmon: Thanks for your wishes, see you soon.

The palantir again faded but not for long as many other people reported the results of the race for the big button all evening long until it was clear that the plants used some fertiliser to grow even faster and faster and finally the Fries made it to touch the button first.

Oin checked the data base and saw they did a nice job in keeping the fries back but as they were too many and also in a different area with a fertilised species they grew too fast to be stopped completely. But this was not the problem of Milliways.

Milliways served several thousand meals of FrenchFries with the SPEcial sauce in the time loop named The golden for Milliways.

POWER ON

TIME GENERATOR ACTIVE

SYNCHRONIZING TIME TABLE

TIMELINE ACTIVATED

*wwwwhhhhuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*

TIMEGATE ESTABLISHED TO Jun 30 2006

*whhhoooop*

TIME CAPSULE MOVED

POWERING DOWN

TIMEGATE DEACTIVATED

POWER OFF

Oin gathered his staff and beamed at them filled of proud for all what they achieved after all even they were driven away from some of their outposts and lost some harvesters too.

Oin: OK boys and girls you´ve done an amazing job so let´s clean up and prepare the restaurant

for the next time loop as the universe will be recreated soon.

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes

MadDjinn: OK

BlackSnow: CosmicBonsai I´m really impressed how you and Smiliehooch managed to survive again being so far from the rest of us.

CosmicBonsai: Yes, it was a nice firework but nothing compared to what the northern group had to face so congrats to the survivers up there too

DoktorGbla: yes, but don´t forget the fallen members. Let´s give them a minute to honour them.

All went silent for a minute and though of those harvesters who did not make it after all. It was a long time ago that Milliways had to mourn about harvesters destroyed while fulfilling their duty. Filip, Bibbonar, Malk, Signe, Pipen, Jaimico.

While some of them died of boredom, others died because the control unit went down and there was no way to reactivate the harvesters by some sort of remote control. Only NightAngel could be taken over so he survived and Pipen could be reached for a short time too but not long enough to keep him alive.

The remaining staff members came back to life and hurried to prepare the next time loop of the multiverse.

Oin: All hands on deck, prepare the time generators for the next loop.

CosmicBonsai: Yes Sir I already sent some employees to do their jobs don´t worry.

MadDjinn: Did I miss something?

Oin: No, you can return to your magical lamp for a while.

MadDjinn: Yes?

Oin: Yes.

MadDjinn: OK.