(NERV Game Site - Official DAtS Offline Forums)

　　Number5Alive, Golddigger, BurtBacharach, CrazyCelt, M.Mollen, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, l44tpally, SEA-TAC_Sweetie, Lord_Kickass, Requiesce-in-Pace, MacD, HaveGunsWillTravel, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Anonymous3, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, Dolcett, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen`s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, and DarkAngel are in the chat.

　　BurtBacharach: What the hell`s up with the Arena on Dimiya? They dropped the limit on total bets to 100K per Corporation, and slaves and indentures count towards their master`s limit! That`s not bets per bookie, but for the whole thing!

　　CrazyCelt: That`s for the OFFICIAL bookies. You can go bigger stakes if you find some of the underground ones.

　　ElfMama: It seems someone got REALLY lucky, and almost bankrupted the Arena. If a local businessman hadn`t stepped in with some cash, it would have been ugly.

　　Anonymous3: Businessman`. Sure. That`s the local Oyabun. Yaks now own 35% of the Arena, thanks to whatever went down.

　　Number5Alive: I heard that there was a Nomad who came in, challenged one of the Oyabun`s fighters, lost, and then suddenly everything happened like that.

　　MarcoPolo: Yeah, but they looked and the Nomad hadn`t placed any bets on themselves to lose, and the Oyabun only placed a small wager on the match, so what gives?

　　HaveGunsWillTravel: They only looked at the main bets for the match. You get past who will win or lose, there`s lots of side bets going down.

　　MacD: Huh. I`d noticed that they squashed a lot of those after the incident. What happened?

　　M.Mollen: You see, it was like this&

　　Dolcett: Oh my. What now?

　　Lord_Kickass: I am not surprised. Fucker is always ruining things for other people.

　　DarkAngel: What did you do?

　　M.Mollen: Well, the Yakuza and I have had some& difficulties in the past.

　　Guardian: Meaning we killed a bunch of their people, they killed some of ours, and we killed a whole lot more of theirs, before taking the local Oyabun`s family hostage as a bargaining chip.

　　M.Mollen: Of course, just dropping the bounty and handing over the prisoners would be a loss of face for them, so the match was arranged to cover the transfer when I lost, plus a small tribute to the local Oyabun. This allowed everyone to save face.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

　　ElfMama: And what does this have to do with the new restrictions?

　　GunKitty: The Captain had the brilliant idea to exploit the 300K limit per person to place 1800K in bets. He then fought the match in such a way that his bets paid off, to the tune of almost 44 Million credits.

　　l44tpally: 44 MILLION?

　　Anonymous3: Damn. But that still wouldn`t have bankrupted the Arena.

　　Guardian: Turns out the Oyabun noticed us placing bets on Master`s behalf. So he had his people place bets, too. And the 300K limit is removed for preferred customers`.

　　Dolcett: So he bet the same as M.Mollen, but with higher stakes?

　　M.Mollen: Yes, indeed. In fact, with stakes high enough that they were worth just about 35% of the Arena. Funny that.

　　DarkAngel: Why`d he risk so much on you?

　　M.Mollen: I didn`t collude with his fighter, if you`re asking about that. The match was a fair one, even if I held back to make it more showy. I simply did my best to control the battlefield, so she did half the work for me.

　　Lord_Kickass: I don`t believe this!

　　Guardian: Believe it. I was watching the whole time. And then we went back to the hotel to celebrate.

　　WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: So those rumors about you and the whole crew of his ship being his harem are true?

　　M.Mollen: The crew, yes. Passengers, no. GunKitty is more of a one-on-one kind of gal, and we respect that.

　　GunKitty: Because if you didn`t, I`d shoot your ship full of holes.

　　M.Mollen: That too.

　　Bennie has entered the chat.

　　Bennie: Is someone available for a discrete transport from Sol to ANYWHERE outside the Empire?

　　Guardian: What`s up?

　　Bennie: I`ve been in some trouble since just after game start, but I`ve managed to get clear, for now. But I need to get out of Sol or it will catch up to me again. And the Empire is going crazy!

　　M.Mollen: What is the news from the Empire?

　　Bennie: This isn`t going out of the newsnets, but a lot of top level people are suddenly getting crazy religious. You can tell them by their eyes.

　　MightMakesRight: And how did YOU get word of it if it isn`t on the nets?

　　Bennie: Because my former owner tried to do his protection` thing on a new admin here on Choson Ring. They almost killed eachother, before some more of them came and hauled him off.

　　Bennie: I might have escaped with the Admin`s gear while that was going on, and found a way to shield my collar so they can`t track me except at close range.

　　SEA-TAC_Sweetie: You said you can tell them by their eyes. What do you mean?

　　Bennie: The ones who`ve gone crazy have augments. Not always obvious, but you can tell by the eyes. They all have fake eyes. Greens do admin work. Blues are security, soldiers.

　　Chummer: Oh, frag.

　　Guardian: What is it, Chummer?

　　Chummer: Did any of you get a look at the Emperor`s recent address to the troops? His eyes are white now.

　　SEA-TAC_Sweetie: Oh. That`s not good.

　　M.Mollen: Bennie, just how much info do you have?

　　Bennie: Not a lot. But the whole group is going crazy, like those big tent revival preachers. Keep talking about something my translator is saying is a God from the Machine.

　　M.Mollen: Oh, that`s not good. That`s not good at all.

　　Bennie: Oh shit, they`re closing in. I gotta move!

　　Bennie has left the chat.

　　HaveGunsWillTravel: Who gets to tell the Princess about this?

　　Guardian: Not it!

　　GunKitty: Not it!

　　M.Mollen: Not-- *sigh* Damnit.

　　HaveGunsWillTravel: This is going to be& interesting.