Authorities Say The Danger Is Ongoing
By Carol Tanakas for News Now
September 2, 1932
Last night, as fans around the country enjoyed the debut of a new professional sport on their Crystalline Casting screens, the revelry was abruptly cut short with no explanation. Details have emerged about the kidnapping plot that led to the sudden broadcast cessation and its relation to the new Uplantic Professional Football Federation.
The suspects are a group of religious extremists that call themselves “Back to Light”. At approximately noon crater time, a team of six armed men stormed the home of Trevor and Anne Lydon in south Tiny Sea and abducted the couple, along with their two children, Nicole (age 8) and Marc (age 5). Trevor is the son of the new football league’s founder, Giles Lydon. Simultaneously, a planted agent inside the central control hub for Crystalline Casting’s football coverage sabotaged the broadcast machinery, halting the outgoing signal. We have learned that this agent, who was employed by Crystalline Casting, but whose name has not been released, intended to broadcast a message from the terror group, but instead sabotaged the feed irreparably at the last moment and fled the building when a coworker became suspicious. This terror agent was apprehended overnight and is in custody of Tiny Sea Police.
“Back to Light” have taken responsibility for the terror action in a statement delivered to the News Now offices overnight. In light of the threats made in the statement, we feel we have no choice but to publish it here:
We are Back to Light. We follow the true word of Lysander Lilywhite.
We have the family of Giles Lydon. They are unharmed.
Your game disgraces our ancestors. You seek to erase us and our proud traditions, without which the lesser races that you shamelessly hold above your own would not be here today. This “football” game celebrates the barbarism of these primitive peoples and is the latest encroachment on the true Treven way of life in Harmony and across Uplantica. Today, we have stopped your transmission of this disgusting game.
We are willing to exchange our captives on the following conditions:
1. Deliver Giles Lydon to us. Instructions for the police are included in this package.
2. Dismantle the “UPFF” and the so-called “Salvation Brothers” team.
3. This statement is to be printed in the morning edition of your publication on September 2.
Please understand that we are serious. We will begin to cut pieces from these children, inheritors of your disgrace, if these demands are not met within the time frame of the instructions provided. We will also injure them if this “football” continues to be broadcast in our country.
Harmony, Always!
In a joint statement to the press, Tiny Sea Police Department and the Uplantic Bureau of Crime have revealed that the agent apprehended overnight is cooperating with authorities. Spokespeople for the TSPD and UBC were scant with details, as the situation remains dire, but they believe this terror group to be limited to the people directly involved with this incident. However, the UBC does caution that several religious fundamentalist groups like this one exist across the nation. The authorities also stated that they believe the group is holed up somewhere in the wilderness of southern Harmony, but with some access to a Crystalline Casting broadcast receiver and a telephone line. The UBC did not reveal the deadline for the demanded hostage exchange.
Giles Lydon, founder of the new pro football league, has been taken under the protection of the UBC at this time. The specifics of the terror group’s demands have led experts to speculate that there may be a personal facet to this kidnapping. While similar Treven supremacist voices have railed against the inclusive culture of pro sports and the Salvation Brothers specifically, “Back to Light” focused entirely on pro football in their statement, and on just one of the two founders of the league (Lydon founded the UPFF along with longtime colleague Catherine Pennington). Giles Lydon has long been an outspoken opponent of Harmonyc Brotherhood religious supremacy, and has gained renown for his secular position since the founding of the USU as a nation in 1902. While anger directed at inclusive USU cultural exchanges have long been a Treven supremacist stance, this violent action directed explicitly toward this new football league could indicate that this small terror group, or perhaps its leadership, has a more personal vendetta against Lydon.
We await an official decision from Lydon, Pennington, and the UPFF about whether play will continue as scheduled for next week’s football games, and whether the games will be broadcast on Crystalline Casting. Lydon and Pennington have supported radical action in the face of religious extremism in the past, but with so many other hundreds of lives intertwined with this pro league, and with the safety of Giles Lydon’s own grandchildren at stake, there are clearly a lot of factors involved.
News Now will continue to work around the clock to publish the latest on this frightening situation.
Uplantic Sports Today 
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