Join us for another in a series of interviews with winners of awards from our 2024 Awards Ceremony. Our goal is to give you insight into how our fleet’s best simmers write, and imagine their characters as well as their out of character contributions and achievements.
This month we’re interviewing the writer behind Lieutenant Christopher Caldwell playing a Human male Helm Officer assigned to the USS Astraeus. He won the Pilot’s Sextant: “Awarded to Helm officers who have proven themselves to be the best of the best, dedicating themselves to improving their specialization. From finding a safe route home to flying an emergency atmospheric landing, pilots who have earned this award know the importance of staying focused on their task at hand, and place their ability to make spectacular maneuvers at the service of their ship and its mission.”
Harford: Tell us a little about the writer behind the character — where in the world do you hail from?
Caldwell: I’m from Hertfordshire in England. I’m in my late 30s, I currently work in human resources but I’m seconded from a security function and have a background in retail management including running a number of branches of a national video game retailer.
I’m not an especially exciting person really, the geography probably is the most interesting thing about me. I’m honestly still expecting for you to realise you’ve got the wrong person for an interview.
Do you have a personal history with Star Trek? What attracted you to joining SB118 in particular?
There’s extremely little of my childhood that I really remember but one thing that I definitely do remember from my childhood was sitting down for dinner with Star Trek on the television (BBC Two), that was when The Next Generation was new but they also showed reruns of The Original Series. The delay between new episodes releasing in the US and airing in the UK was sometimes a little confusing, I’d seen Generations before season 7 had finished, caught the end of an episode of Voyager whilst in the US before I’d even heard of the show and similarly saw that DS9 adopted the First Contact uniforms whilst on holiday.
My mum used to watch Star Trek with me and I still try to find time to show her the new shows. I was fortunate that she got me lots of Star Trek toys when I was younger. I had some of the Playmates 5-inch action figures and playsets, a few of the ships, almost all of the ‘Innerspace’ range of ships and playsets and most of the Star Trek Micro Machines. In fact I’ve probably still got a lot of them in the attic, sadly none would be in original packaging, every weekend I would get out my Star Trek toys to play with.
I’ve watched every episode, played almost every game, and read so many books. I’ve always been a fan and I feel that Star Trek has always been a constant in my life and it’s been a source of inspiration and help both personally and professionally.
As for joining SB118, I was keen for a fun and engaging Star Trek experience, so I spent some time doing my research and ended up here and I’m all the happier for it.
What do you consider to be your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a writer? Where do you draw your inspiration?
Those are great questions and I’m not really sure how well I’ll be able to answer them. I think all the exposure to Star Trek over the years has really helped with my lore knowledge which really helps with the technical detail, sometimes that can be a curse as much as a blessing though, often when I’m watching some of the newer Star Trek I can’t help but spot what I see as opportunities for achieving the same result but without some of the suspensions of disbelief or with keeping things more in keeping with canon.
I think my weaknesses tend to be with my spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. I had real issues as a child for a variety of reasons and I’m absolutely still playing catch up. I also have difficulty trying to explain what’s in my mind, in my head I can form really clear ideas about what I want to say or do but actually translating that into a way others understand can be a real challenge, it’s one of the reasons I’m an absolutely terrible artist, I can’t create what I can visualise and it’s incredibly frustrating.
Your sims are massively detailed and have strong elements of humor, tell us about your processes when writing and how do you get those aspects across so well?
Firstly that’s really lovely feedback to get so thank you for that, it’s something I try to do but you’re never quite sure how much of it works as you intend. Star Trek has always been a constant in my life from as far back as I can remember, I can remember so many obscure references in Star Trek then I can often recall key moments in my life. That really helps with the detail and I like to include little easter eggs or references as my own little tributes. With the humor, I’ve always enjoyed comedy anyway but I think everyone has so much going on in their lives, everyone has issues and sources of stress so if I can give someone a little giggle I feel like I’m doing a little bit to try and help out with that.
With new players coming in every week, what advice would you give to help a fresh Ensign settle into the SB118 community and as a writer on their starship or starbase?
I still consider myself to be quite new so I’m not too sure how much wisdom I can impart. I’d say pace yourself, don’t put yourself under pressure to run before you can walk and don’t let reading and writing feel like an obligation, this is meant to be fun and if you do have any issues, know that there’s plenty of support available.
Finally, give us some insight. Is there anywhere you’d like to see yourself contributing on an OOC basis within the community? Also, where do you see Lieutenant Caldwell going in the future?
I genuinely wish I had more time and also more energy to allow me to contribute more, I’ve played prominent roles in online communities before because I’m always driven to put in more than I take out. Sadly I don’t know that I’m in a position where I could contribute in the ways I’d ideally like to so I try to offset that by donating financially and hopefully giving my crew mates some entertainment on Discord. As for Lieutenant Caldwell, he’s got plenty of life goals some of which include getting himself some decent private quarters, achieving the rank of ‘Super Captain’ and having a ship class named after him, whether he will attain any of those remains to be seen.
Thanks for your time, Lieutenant Caldwell!
You can read more about Lt. Christopher Caldwell on the Wiki, here.
