The Challenger Dispatch

Prize-Giving Approaches

Dearest Candidates,
In the weeks since we last communicated, your applications have been processed, your class photos have been examined, and the Empire’s pride has swelled mightily. You have done yourselves a great credit, and it gives me pride to welcome you all into joint citizenship of His Majesty’s Empire and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

We are now no longer accepting applications for first wave joint citizenship. We will soon be announcing our Most Honoured Citizen award, to the lucky applicant who fortune has chosen from the ranks of the most notable of you proud candidates. We will also be celebrating your efforts and applications with public recognition and more tangible rewards.

It has been a pleasure to serve you through this process, and I look forward to congratulating our Most Honoured Citizen.

I am, proudly, your Ambassador,
Charlton Rice-Laurie

A Congratulatory Note

It is my great pleasure, Candidates, to congratulate you on reaching the end of the live testing phase of your applications to become Joint Citizens of the United Kingdom and His Majesty’s Empire. While your applications will not be completed until the process officially ends on July Seventh, your efforts over the past two weeks have proven you all worthy of the great honour you will soon have bestowed upon you.

In recognition of this fact, today’s daily task, the final one of its kind, will be to collectively create a recursive class photograph - a visual representation of the elite group of which you are all now members.

I wish you to begin with a photograph of a single candidate, displaying their username. I would then like each candidate in turn to take a photograph of themselves, displaying their username, with the previous candidate’s photograph displayed, each one adding to the recursion. An example may be found here. Each photograph should be sent to @WiredUK with the label #classphoto

On July 7th, every candidate who has taken part in creating the longest recursion will receive their due reward. This challenge will require teamwork and co-ordination, so get to it, new citizens!

I am, proudly, your supervisor and faithful servant,
Charlton Rice-Laurie

Therapy

Candidates, I return to you from a day spent ministering to my poor aide Neville, who has been suffering most bizarrely. Since his disappearance last week, he has been visited nightly by a recurring phantasm, a dream that seems so regular and specific that it can only be memory. This nightmare plagues young Mr Rudzamoria so fully that he is unable to concentrate, and has fallen into a deep melancholy out of which it is impossible to rouse him.

Upon visiting him today, our house physician, Dr Jarvis-Hall, suggested that his dream must, in fact, be a memory of some traumatic incident, and that facing that memory would be a potential cure. He further posited that the recollection was not, as I had assumed, some abstract, metaphysical torment being played out, but the memory of a route taken recently. I can only assume this is his missing memory from the day of his disappearance. Knowing that he dropped completely off the grid at Pimlico Station, I present to you a transcription of his recollection, in the hopes that you may trace his route and allow us to take him to face his nightmare.

Neville’s Dream

“Leaving the tunnels, looking around, I see a Stone Finger rising above the trees and follow it past a Gallery, until I stand under God’s Watch. He directs me to walk through England’s Garden, and then follow the row of Beautiful Tombs. After a while, I am greeted by a Noble Peer, who shows me the way to a Redbrick City. As I follow it, I pass through a Monarch’s Embrace before finding myself on a bridge, searching for Stew. I pass on the offer of Hare and continue, seeing a Royal Game before turning to pass between a World of Variety and a Triumphant Boarding House. My final memory is of a Dromedary. Then I wake.”

I understand little of this, but feel if I could take Neville to the final location he references, then I could help him conquer his mental demons. I would be obliged if you could shed some light on this matter via @WiredUK, with the tag #neville.

I am, as ever, your supervisor and faithful servant,
Charlton Rice-Laurie

Etiquette

It is my great pleasure to inform you, Candidates, that you are approaching the culmination of your citizenship test. As such, I feel it is my duty to correctly prepare you for your eventual introduction to Imperial Society. To this end, today’s task will teach you the proper etiquette for a large soiree, at which you will meet many people.

From 14.30 BST to 16.30 BST today, I will be hosting a simulation of such an event in the text-only section of the popular “chat site” Omegle. To take part, all you must do is log on to the site, and observe the following etiquette: