Each month we interview a First Officer of the fleet as part of our “First Officer in Focus” column to get to know them better, and learn more about what their positions entail. This month, we’re interviewing the First Officer of the starship USS Artemis-A. Lieutenant Commander Talos Dakora is a Betazoid Male currently serving as First Officer aboard the USS Artemis-A.
Nilsen: Travis. You’re no stranger to the Newsies desk, so why not reintroduce yourself to the folks reading? Are you still creating 3D models and music?
Dakora: Of Course! I’m Travis and I’m from Texas. I originally joined this group way back in 2011 when I used to write for Colt Daniels and later Tyler Kelly. I loved it, but due to some challenges I was facing at the time I ended up retiring for several years. I rejoined in late 2021 and I’ve been pedal to the metal ever since. I’ve found that NOTHING satisfies the creative itch like writing with this group and all its amazing players!
And yes! I still work on 3D models and music for fun as well. I’ve been (slowly) working my way through some of the ships in the fleet with the Ronin being the one I’ve done most recently!
Nilsen: How did you come into your current role? What’s the story behind your journey to first officer?
Dakora: I had been climbing up the long ladder for a while, had joined the Artemis Command Staff/Mentorship program, and had just been named Second Officer a mission prior, when I got the news:
As we’ve probably all experienced this at one point or another, our (then) First Officer had some unexpected real-world complications that arose and would need to take an LOA immediately.
My CO reached out to me and gave me a “no pressure” offer: Rise to the challenge and jump into the XO position or stay where I was and they could find a new XO elsewhere. Obviously, I opted to take the chance and I’m very glad I did!
Nilsen: How is the FO position similar or different from your previous posting?
Dakora: That’s a good question! I was the Artemis’ Chief Intelligence Officer before making the jump and I think that the role did a lot to help prepare me for a Command position.
I’ve talked about this in past articles, but in my opinion writing a realistic, well-rounded Intelligence Officer posted to a Starship is less about cloak-and-dagger spy stuff and more about gathering and analyzing Intelligence from various sources and distilling it so your crew can use it.
As a player, the position lends itself naturally to interfacing with the command staff and provides you with a variety of ways to facilitate the plot and become a strong supporting character whose role may not be the same from mission to mission.
In many ways becoming an XO is similar, just turned up a few notches. You really have to find joy in helping other people tell their stories and be willing to put in the effort to keep things ticking along. There are also several OOC responsibilities that the XO has that were new as well.
Overall, I’m loving the role and I’m very excited about our continuing adventures on the Artemis.
Nilsen: The first officer is often one who sets an example for the rest of the ship, particularly in terms of simming quality, with that in mind; What’s your process for putting together a sim and can you put into words what makes a quality sim?
Dakora: Now you’re making me nervous!
I agree that the CO/XO should be leading the pack in terms of quality simming, for sure. But also there are times when you have to make sacrifices to ensure the smooth operation of your ship. You may have to abandon/postpone some character development scenes/plots for your character in favor of helping out a writer or a group of writers who are struggling. So sometimes you might feel like you haven’t written one of those epic quality “definitely going to get posted to the appreciations forum” level sims in a while. But I think the good Command Officers find joy in helping and supporting other writers, so it all works out.
As for my process, I do all my writing in Google Docs. I find that it helps make it easier to work out all the formatting bugs that arise when you’re copying in all the bits and bobs from various sims and also puts me in more of a focused headspace than trying to write a sim in Gmail, with all of the other emails peeking around the side of my draft trying to distract me. Also, PROOFREAD!
Nilsen: What has been the greatest challenge, in character and out of character, with the command experience?
Dakora: For me, I think it’s just balancing all of the new responsibility thrust upon you and still making sure you have fun. Becoming a First Officer is usually an up-and-coming Command hopeful’s first look behind the curtain to see how things in the fleet run, behind the scenes. I think it would be easy to get too wrapped up in “how the sausage is made” and forget the real reason we’re all here: To write awesome Star Trek stories with great characters and excellent people!
Nilsen: Final question, is Talos’s evil twin still around?
Dakora: Ha! No (un)fortunately, Talos’ counterpart from an alternate war-torn universe met an untimely end after his team tried to steal the Artemis late last year. However, I have heard our Chief Medical Officer Genkos Adea’s evil double may still be roaming the galaxy causing trouble.
We’d better all keep an eye out!
Thanks for your time, Lieutenant Commander Talos Dakora
You can read more about Lieutenant Commander Talos Dakora on the wiki.
