We’re here with another interview with a newer member of our community. The title of this column is “Lower Decks,” harkening back to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode titled “Lower Decks,” in which junior officers aboard the Enterprise-D speculate on the reasons for recent unusual actions taken by the command crew near the Cardassian border.
This month’s interview is with the player behind Lieutenant Zenno, a male Bolian Security Officer assigned to the USS Khitomer.
Harford: Tell us a little about the writer behind the character — where in the world do you hail from? Anything you’d like to share!
Zenno: I was born and raised in New York City. I left immediately after high school and never went back except to visit. I lived all up and down the East Coast of the US in several different states. Over 20 years ago I moved to Las Vegas, and I’ve loved every minute of it since.
What was your introduction to Science Fiction in general and Star Trek specifically?
In NYC while grouping up in the 1970s, Star Trek TOS was on every day on WPIX, Channel 11, after school. I’d go to my Grandfather’s apartment which was across the hall, and he’d let me watch Star Trek over there on his black & white TV. The two earliest recollections of Star Trek I have are watching Balance of Terror and Journey to Babel in his living room.
What is your experience with roleplaying?
I played in a D&D club when I was in High School. We also played the old FASA Star Trek RPG and Starship Combat Simulator as well. I still have all those books and the deck plans for the 1701 and the D7 Cruiser they sold as part of the game.
I was one of the earliest players of the Everquest MMORPG and I did that for several years too.
What brought you to SB118?
It was completely serendipitous. I was searching online for information. I was writing some Star Trek trivia questions and was looking for something to do with Starbases and the 118 site came up. I didn’t know what a PBEM RPG was, but after a millisecond’s thought I signed up. My goal is to make my ship’s crew regret that moment every day.
Why did you choose this specific character and duty post?
I picked Security because the sign-up process said that those were needed. Engineering and Science were full at the time. If everything had been open, I probably would have picked Engineering since I have some real-world experience in that. I was in the Navy and worked in Nuclear Engineering on a Fast Attack submarine, so I thought I could bring some flavor from that into stories. But Security has been fun. So, I have no regrets on how it turned out.
I decided to play a Bolian since I was guessing that the game likely had a ton of the favorites in the game already: Vulcans, Trill, Klingons, Andorians. I wanted something that was established in the show but wasn’t too overdone. This way there was creative freedom. I have tried to take advantage of that, and I’ve been adding a lot to the Bolian pages on the wiki as a result.
Where do you see your character five years from now?
Probably living on a Sehlat Ranch with his wife in the frontier of space somewhere.
Thanks for your time, Lieutenant Zenno!
You can read more about Lieutenant Zenno on the wiki, here.
