Join us for another in a series of interviews with winners of awards from our 2401 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 Commander Kirsty Lee Carpenter playing a female Human Chief of Security/Tactical Officer assigned to the USS Ronin. She won the Shaxs Star: “Awarded to dual posting Security/Tactical officers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in protecting and preserving the lives of their crewmates. Not only do they show cunning and bravery in combat, these officers know how to safeguard lives without firing a phaser, using their knowledge and experience to prevent violence and stay true to Federation ideals. This award is only available to those fulfilling the dual role of Security/Tactical, and not the individual duty posts.“
SALKATH: For those who do not have the pleasure of knowing the writer behind the character, would you mind telling us all a little about yourself?
CARPENTER: Of course! My name is Justin and I hail from North Texas. In my day-to-day life, I’m a writer and critic, focusing mainly on genre storytelling and analysis alongside a collective of other writers and editors. We review and discuss mainly horror films, books, comics, and basically anything that piques our interests. But around 2018, after experiencing some hardcore burnout with my day job, I started looking around for a more creative outlet and lo, and behold, the 118!
In your award presentation, Capt Karrod Niac drew attention to the difficulty in portraying a new character once you’re an established player, and how well you did so to the benefit of your ship and the fleet. Could you tell us more about your experiences with that?
Absolutely. So, when I joined up initially, I had trained and established myself as a Science based character, Quentin Collins III. Playing Quentin for as long as I did, naturally, you become crazy attached to the character and the connections they’ve made throughout their career. And Quentin had really taken me to some amazing places and forged some outstanding connections with fellow PCs and writers, across basically every aspect of the fleet overall. And as a writer, I had been able to make some incredible narrative progress with him too. Rising up to Chief Science Officer, launching the U.S.S. Juneau, as well as rediscovering the U.S.S. Arrow. I was genuinely so honored to have contributed as much as I had with him and the wonderful crews around me.
However, as it happens sometimes, you hit a point with a character where you feel like you’ve done as much as you can with them. Quentin had this storied career and this massive backstory, but I had started to somewhat let down the crew around me with a decrease in progress and a lack of direction that was harming the whole experience of simming for me. Thankfully, without knowing, Captain Niac had a suggestion on how to fix that.
As the U.S.S. Ronin was gearing up for launch, he and Captain Shayne had apparently had some discussions about who from the Arrow might want to transfer and supplement the incoming staff of the relaunch. It seemed my name came up and Captain Niac, something I will always be grateful for, suggested to me a pretty bold idea. I could transfer into a position they still needed, which happened to be Tactical/Security Chief, at the rank I had already earned. The catch being, I would need to work up an entirely new character.
At first I thought “no way”! Quentin was how I made my bones! I couldn’t imagine playing anyone else. But the more I talked OOC with Niac and Shayne, and finally realizing just how amazing of an opportunity this could be for everyone (me chief, heh, of all), I jumped in with both feet and I’ve been having a blast again ever since.
The security and tactical roles are complimentary, but still definitely different duty posts. Can you describe how you manage to both differentiate them and tie them together in your writing?
That’s an outstanding question. Thankfully, in my Science days, I got to see a wide range of Tactical, Marine, and Security characters throughout multiple postings. Seeing how they specifically contribute to the narratives aside from the “protector” elements of the stories really helped me establish how I thought Kirsty would operate as a new head of a department.
A lot of that started with what sort of officer I wanted to “open” as. Quentin was a very cerebral, heart-on-his-sleeve sort of character. So Kirsty needed to be active above all and I baked elements into her backstory to allow her to be slightly more closed off to new contacts. Making her a Marine seemed like the best pathway to start from and from there, I just started to find her (with the invaluable help of the Ronin crew at large).
It was also very important to me that I didn’t “pull focus” either, making her this hypercapable, always alert super-soldier. So that’s also been a very fun thing to explore in the sims. How she is adjusting to being a Chief after being a career underling. How she’s operating on a starship after spending most of her career in a based unit in the Sol System. Adding all these wrinkles and foibles to her just adds so much spice to the everyday simming and narrative operation of the ship. It’s truly been so re-invigorating as a player. And certainly keeps me focused on how malleable I can make her for the stories beyond “is strong” and “has phaser”.
Where do you draw your inspirations for writing for Carpenter? Both portraying her as an individual, and as a security/tactical officer?
As I said above, I’m a big, big time “horror hound”. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life and it’s also something I always enjoy when Star Trek brushes up against. So when I started to conceptualize what sort of new character I could come up with, I somehow struck on the idea of the “Final Girl”. And then picking at that a bit further, I started to really wonder about what the Star Trek version of a “Final Girl” would look like.
From there the ball got rolling shockingly fast. I started to come up with this image of a steely farm-girl who wanted to make something of herself, but was thrust into this singular terrible experience. But she SURVIVED it. And then I started to wonder, just what sort of officer she would have become in the aftermath of that, how this sudden reassignment into the Alpha Isles would affect her, and then, quite literally, I was off to the races. Framing her as tough, but unexpectedly vulnerable at times. Capable, but still obviously very affected by this incredibly tragic thing that marred her career. It’s given me a lot of wonderful grist for the character mill as well as opened her up to a bunch of amazing moments of comradery with her crew and the fleet at large.
Even her name is a whole roadmap of my thought process. Kirsty, for Kirsty Cotton from Hellraiser (where she also gets her Forumn quote; “I’m Into Survival”). Lee for Jaime Lee Curtis, the prototypical Scream Queen. And finally Carpenter, for John Carpenter, the progenitor of basically the entire slasher genre.
What comes next for LtCmdr Carpenter? Do you have any goals or aspirations for the character that are as yet unmet?
That’s another outstanding question. Much like her writer, Kirsty’s main thing is being useful. Trying to figure out the best possible way to protect her crew while also making herself as available as possible for anything that might take her outside of her comfort zone as an officer.
She and I are still getting the best handle we can on being a Chief and I think developing that out further with away team leader assignments and more and more “personal” connections with the crew at large as the best ways to make sure that we both grow together. Captain Niac often jokes that Kirsty gets to use the Ronin’s vast weapons arrays as “a treat” every once and awhile so, as long as that keeps happening, I think Kirsty is going to be a happy lady as we continue to explore the Isles.
Finally, what advice would you give to a new player who is facing the dual role of security/tactical officer and is looking for a bit of guidance or inspiration?
I would say give yourself a place to grow. There is absolutely value in the career soldier and the stalwart defender. But I also think there is only so much you and your crew can get from a character like that. Making your character flawed or maybe a bit unsure or conflicted in the moment or perhaps un-used to certain aspects of the posting, that offers you and your crew so, so many more opportunities for wonderful story moments. Not even mentioning the wealth of character beats and charming interactions you can glean from that in the everyday sims.
Even Worf got it wrong some of the time! That sort of stuff always leads to more interesting simming.
Thanks for your time, LtCmdr Carpenter!
You can read more about Lieutenant Commander Kirsty Lee Carpenter on the wiki.
