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Grandpa Q reports black skies ahead

Oldest surviving Seeker sends sixth report from interstellar space.

Foundation’s monthly statistics:  still rising

Oversight body hails latest figures as evidence that an Encounter is just around the corner.

I’m going down, says Seeker veteran

Glorban Asquant says next trip will be deep into the planet’s core.

Foundation’s new computer system still offline

Chief Executive defends decision to source from the military and claims activation ‘imminent’.

Faces round the Outreach Foundation’s boardroom table continue to get redder as yet another deadline for activation of its much-hyped new computer system passes without the system having performed a single calculation.

Chief Executive Tranter Deviskus issued a brief statement noting the deadline’s passing and saying, ‘I fully understand the public’s disappointment and frustration - indeed I share those feelings.  But we can’t risk turning the system on until we’re completely sure it will work without causing the planet to disintegrate.  So far the military haven’t been able to assure us that that’s the case.  But we hope to have the system up and running very soon, when I predict we’ll very quickly see some exciting results.’

The new system, known by the acronym ZAPE (Zap Alignment Probability Engine), has been a source of controversy since it was first announced, principally due to the Foundation’s decision to commission the hardware and programming from the military, longstanding sceptics on the matter of Seeking.  The Foundation’s considerable resources have been stretched by delays and escalating costs of the project, and the position of the Chief Executive - and indeed the whole board - will start to look shaky if it doesn’t deliver results soon.

The Foundation’s critics were quick to comment.  Kart Priant, acting chair of public comment group Cynical About Everything, decried the entire ZAPE project as pseudoscience.  ‘What the Foundation don’t seem to realise,’ he said, ‘is that it doesn’t matter how much computing power you have, or how sophisticated it is.  If all that processing power is directed at finding nonexistent entities using made-up parameters, it’s going to come up with the same result the Foundation and its deluded Seekers have been coming up with since this whole stupid business started:  nothing.’

Foundation’s new computer system still offline