The Quarterly NOVA Newsletter
Since our founding, NOVA (formerly NOMAD) has become an AADA chapter, and has received much publicity. Unfortunately, the group has not benefitted from this publicity as much as we may want. NOVA meetings have consisted of a few AADA/NOVA members and several non-AADA regulars. NOVA has only 6 official members, and many many others who are going to become full members “Real Soon Now”. We, the administration of NOVA, cannot grow if we do not have members. Therefore, we are going to have to restrict the many “extras”, such as NOVA Ace buttons and the like, to paid members only. This newsletter is also a Members-Only “extra”. We are sorry to have to do this, but some incentive must be used to get more members. Well, enough membership news, on to the fun stuff.
Many of you may know of the (in)famous Cornhusker State Autoduelling Association. We lived under the shadow of this group, it seemed, when we first formed. They claimed all of Nebraska for their “region”, and obviously we did not exactly appreciated that. Since then, our group has grown tremendously in activity, while the Cornhuskers seem to be on the edge of extinction. We have challenged them twice, with the fight to be held at the Contretemps IV and Omacon V conventions. We were ready, but the Cornhuskers did not show. Cornhusker AADA seems to be undergoing a major reform in administration and activities. Hopefully, after the new administration is appointed, Cornhusker AADA will be more active, and maybe even accept our challenge.
Matt Bowerman, formerly a NOVA member, is splitting off and forming a new AADA chapter, called OMEN (Omaha Metropolitan Enforcer’s Network). Anyone interested in this new group should contact either NOVA president, Norman McMullen, or Matt Bowerman himself. No meeting place has been chosen as of this writing, but OMEN will start meeting in September. Hopefully, we can maintain a non-bloody rivalry with this new AADA chapter. A simulated (non- lethal) fight between OMEN and NOVA, sponsored by Star Realm, will be held as soon as OMEN is organized.
NOVA received a letter from Steve Jackson Games on July 15 that contained information regarding regional and national championships, or the lack thereof. NOVA, as of this writing, has no club championship, and could not attend the Midwestern Regional in Milwaukee. However, even if we did have a Club Champion, I doubt that person would have been able to attend the Midwestern Regional considering the lack of advance notice and the holiday that it was planned for. Steve Jackson Games is thinking about splitting up the regions a bit, to help those that live far away from the regional, and is considering “travel vouchers” to help the club champion pay the travel fee to get to Origins.
NOVA is going to have to hold the club championship for 2036 early this time, so we can report the club champion to Steve Jackson Games in time for Origins. This means EARLY because we all know how the postage system does not seem to agree with Steve Jackson Games...
Steve Jackson Games is desperate for input about our club, their magazine, and life in general. We need to shift into high gear and get some things done, like the Atlas entry. We will be sending them a copy of this newsletter from now on, and we will be accepting suggestions, comments, or editorials about ADQ and the AADA. This input will be your line to Steve Jackson Games. They are willing to listen; we need only to speak.
In February, we had the proud “honor” of being visited by the EDSELs, who were attempting to make New Omaha street legal. The ARFs entered New Omaha at the same time. This combination could only spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E, and it did. The ARFs are now our main enemy in the fight to keep Autoduelling respectable and honorable. Of course, the ARFs attacked the EDSELs, and guess who got the blame? NOVA, of course.
The EDSELs entered town in a convoy of buses, shoving the idea of street legal down the throat of New Omaha inhabitants with loud speakers and propaganda. They extolled the virtues of non-aggressive vehicular usage, even when fully warranted (revenge, of course). During the next few days, several duellists died in combat with unmarked cars. Our attempt to avenge our NOVA brothers was hindered by an EDSEL rally at the Central Park Mall. While cruising around the rally, both NOVA and EDSEL were attacked by the ARFs. NOVA intervened and stopped the ARFs, but the ARFs returned the next day in a stolen EDSEL bus and tried to destroy City Hall. The bus was stopped at the cost of local business that was destroyed when the bus crashed through the front window of the local One-Hour Martinizing store. NOVA helped pay for damage to the dry cleaning store, and helped rebuild the front wall of the store.
Several ARFs were captured after the bus was stopped and they were turned over the police, after revealing the location of the Boneyards base of the ARFs. NOVA took on the responsibility (and pleasure) of destroying the base. On the way to the hidden base, NOVA members were attacked by a berserk Piranha driver, and an ARF helicopter. Both were eventually stopped. Upon reaching the base, NOVA members found the ARFs preparing to abandon the base. NOVA members were attacked by another bus, four cars, a tread car, a wheel car, and two helicopters while the ARFs tried to escape. All were stopped due to the frantic ARFs confusion and attempts to escape alive. NOVA was welcomed back to New Omaha as heros and one of the local garages repaired the damages to the NOVA cars for no charge.
Soon afterwards, the ConTretempts IV Autoduelling Tournament was held in the Aksarben Autoduelling Arena. Because of a controversy, there were four finalists instead of three in the final round of the tournament. The battle was somewhat predictable in that no one seemed to want the trophy that much. Aksarben authorities, understandably annoyed, began firing at the duellists to “encourage” them to liven things up a bit. After the encouragement one duellist crashed into another on the overpass, losing one wheel due to miscellaneous fire. He rolled backwards and fell off of the overpass, landing roof down and the base of the overpass. This duellist was not down for the count, however. He sat patiently in his Copperhead until another duellist came within his rear firing arc. Unfortunately, because he had trouble aiming while upside-down, his heavy rocket missed. Ben Scott, the driver, finally accepted defeat and abandoned his vehicle in a sportsman-like manner.
A period of cease-fire followed this incident. Shortly afterwards another “encouragement” was made. Unfortunately, this got out of hand as one of the arena employees went off the deep end and flew a Suppressor chopper into the arena. The crowd loved it; the management did not. The chopper was quickly disabled by a lucky shot from a partially disabled car on the ground. The chopper grounded hard after losing its rotor blades. The pilot continued to fire his turreted vulcan until an armored tractor arrived and towed the chopper out of the arena. The pilot is now at the local funny farm, where grass is green, and life is never dull. At last notice, he has joined the National Guard.
The duellists, regaining their sanity, finally went after each other with a purpose: winning. Chris Kusel’s car lost a pair of wheels (yes folks, the rear axle got blown away) near the entrance of one of the two tunnels. Another duellist was in the tunnel, just entering as Chris skidded past. Chris dropped several mines as he went by, getting at least some usefulness out of his new-style armored platform, and slid to a halt.
The duellist in the tunnel, David McKinnan, stopped in the middle. He had another duellist to worry about: Cliff Christansen. Cliff was basically unscathed after the initial rounds of the battle and was an understandable threat to David.
Chris Kusel and his gunner abandoned their vehicle and headed toward the tunnel on foot, toting a couple of grenades and machine guns. They ran after David, who was stopped inside the tunnel.
Meanwhile the brother of the crazed Suppressor pilot arrived at the arena in a confiscated modified Plunge chopper. The audience went wild and the management gave up and just thanked Fangio for the great publicity they were getting. The duellists were too busy to notice the chopper until it was hovering 100 feet above them. It dropped 50 feet and blared Wagner through it’s HyperSound system. The crowd, already ecstatic, went totally crazy, cheering and yelling. David McKinnan, was trying to pull away from the vicious pedestrians chasing him through the tunnel when the HyperSound system went off. Chris Kusel leaped aboard McKinnan’s car as it passed by. His gunner was knocked unconscious (he was still in the tunnel), but Kusel was miraculously unaffected.
McKinnan’s turret laser imploded soon afterwards as he fired it at Cliff Christansen. Chris was clinging onto David’s roof, banging on the windshield. The windows shattered at the same time that the laser imploded, and Kusel dropped into the lap of a rather surprised David. Cliff slowed down and broke out his suddenly shattered windshield.
Inside David’s car Kusel managed to draw his SMG and kill the driver, taking damage to his body armor from the driver’s light pistol. David’s gunner, amazed by the sudden turn of events, sat dazed as Chris tried to take over the car. Coming to his senses, David’s gunner and Chris shot each other with SMGs. Both died, and the car slammed into an obstacle.
Cliff Christiansen won the battle, taking insignificant damage to his van, and fired little ammo. The crowd, cheering madly because of the Kusel/McKinnan combat, overlooked the fact that Cliff did little to earn the winner’s trophy and prize. They didn’t seem to care much after that wild fight...
Well, ConTretemps was, well... different. In the near future you will hear about walkers, tanks, and robots. In the weapons department you can expect information on Harpoons, Rolling Mines, One-Shot Micro Missile Launchers, and the EMP Missile (Electro-Magnetic Pulse).
Also, we’ll be hearing about the destruction of City Hall, and the greatly mourned loss of Uncle Albert’s Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop here in New Omaha. We would also like to bid farewell to Matt Bowerman, and wish him good luck with OMEN.
All this and more craziness next issue, so until then...
Norman McMullen, President
David Caplinger, Secretary
CREDITS
Re-editing of Starburst Vol. 1, No 1 completed on 10/12/96 by Donald Jacques.
Issue reentered as a WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows document, turned into a HTML document by KEYview 5.0, and edited again in Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0.