AG> so i've replaced my at-login email newscan with MQ, and it works
 AG> perfectly to bo th show new emails and echomail for the user in a nice
 AG> way.
 AG> 
 AG> my only problem is it seems to display every scan area and then back up
 AG> and over write each one, before finally getting to my "read your stuff?"
 AG> prompt. (or if t here's no messages, just a pause prompt). not really a

You could blank out the prompt but there are lots of other options built in to change the way the MQ command works.  Here's a paste from http://wiki.mysticbbs.com/doku.php?id=menu_commands#message_bases.  If your case maybe /NOSCAN will do the trick for you.

Data: None /CURRENT /GROUP /LIST /NEW /YOU /NOFOOT /NOSCAN /NOFROM /NOREAD

Performs a scan of all message bases, listing message statistics similar to those
found in the index reader.  By default scanning will be done to all bases in all
groups.

If /CURRENT is supplied, scanning will be done only to the current message base

If /GROUP is supplied, scanning will be done only to bases in the current group

If /LIST is supplied, the scan will also list messages found which can be combined
with other options to limit what is listed.

If /NEW is supplied only bases with new messages will be shown.

If /YOU is supplied only bases with message to/from you will be shown.

If /NOFROM is supplied Mystic will exclude messages posted by you.

If /NOREAD is supplied Mystic will exlucde messages to the user that have already
been read.

If /NOSCAN is supplied, Mystic will not show the "scanning" prompt when calculating

If /NOFOOT is supplied, Mystic will not show the "footer" prompt

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/04/08 (Windows/64)