Back in my day, we had to walk 15 miles, in the snow, both ways… We’ve all heard stories like this at some point in our lives, and the Fleet at Starbase 118 is no exception. Spend a little time reading your Ship Chat, the Officer’s Club, or chatting in the Brew Continuum, and you’re bound to hear tales from some of the veteran writers about the way back times of their Lower Deck Days.
Some of these stories sparked the idea of interviewing members who have been writing with the Fleet for long enough to see trends come and go and share with us their perspective on how the times have changed. Maybe we will even get some juicy stories along the way.
This month, we’ve tracked down Lieutenant Commander Talos Dakora, who writes for the First Officer on the USS Artemis.
S. Richards: It hasn’t been too terribly long since the last time we heard from you, but let’s get a refresher about you and a little bit about yourself!
Dakora: Hello! My name is Travis, and I’m from Texas, here in the good ol’ US of A. When I’m not pretending to be a Starfleet Officer online with my friends, I enjoy playing guitar, tinkering with computers, and barbecuing as many of my meals as possible.
How long have you been a member of Starbase 118, and during those years, what has been the biggest change you’ve seen? How has that change impacted the community?
I first joined the group in November 2011, so– oh geez– that’ll be 14 years this year. That’s a long time! Granted, I had some months and/or a year or two of LOAs in there, but still. I think the biggest, most impactful change has been the move to Discord. Back in the day, we mostly interacted on the forums. It was all relatively slow-paced; you’d post a message or a reply and check back tomorrow and rinse and repeat. We did have an IRC server (ask your parents or a nerdy uncle what that is, kids!), but only the really dedicated chatterboxes were on there. Now we connect with people on our ships and across the fleet instantly and easily in a nice, friendly, and curated environment. I love it. And no one has to find out my embarrassing old Yahoo! Messenger username.
Now, Talos hasn’t been your only character in the time that you’ve been writing with the Fleet. How many different main characters have you had? Out of all of your previous characters, who would you want to bring back, even if just for a day? What made you pick them?
In all these years, I’ve only had 3 primary characters. Colt Daniels, who was a Tactical Officer (and eventually a Strategic Operations Officer) primarily on SB118 Ops, Tyler Kelly, who was mostly a Security Officer on several ships and installations, and my current PC, Talos, who is an Intel Officer-turned-XO. I’ve had the opportunity to have a couple of little cameos from both of my old characters here and there, but if I could go back in time and sim as one of them again, it would probably be Tyler. He was a fun (if a little wild) character. The kind of guy for whom explosions were the cause of– and solution to– many of his life’s problems. I’d love to have him pay the Artemis a visit someday.
Writing as long as you have, and for such a diverse cast of characters, you’ve got plenty of experience. How has your writing style changed through the years, and what do you know now that you wish you had known back at the very beginning?
I’d like to think it’s gotten better over the years! I hope!? I do think I’ve developed and grown as a person and player in the game. I think my writing style is more natural and (hopefully) more believable. I do try to show rather than tell, when I can.
Overall, I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is to just be flexible. So much of the way the game is played comes down to your ability to improvise around what the other writers come up with. Working with what you’ve got in a given scene and trying to capitalize on the little plot threads left behind by all of our excellent writing partners are the keys to successful simming, in my opinion!
When you started writing Talos, did you ever expect he would end up where he is? We may have heard he has recently gotten some life-changing news! Can you tell us more about that?
No, I really didn’t know how far I’d go with Talos. My little party-boy Intel Officer has wound up being a pretty decent guy with a lot of heart. Now he’s an XO with further Command aspirations. Who’d have known!
And yes! After pulling a Sisko during the tumultuous time after the Frontier Day disaster last year, Talos and his partner, Samantha, are expecting twins in the near future. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever written a plot like that, and it’s sure to be an interesting adjustment for both of them!
Alright, now to get down to the reason we are all here. Tell us your favorite story from back in the day.
There have certainly been a lot of them. Hmm. It would probably be the time when Tyler Kelly fired the shot that ultimately destroyed a brutal enemy, but caused the destruction of Ops’ support ship at the time, the USS Albion. It came at the climax of an epic mission, and writing for a character who knows he isn’t likely to make it out alive, but goes ahead with it anyway, was super engaging for me. He ended up getting an emergency EVA suit on moments before getting blown out into space, but that was really only the start of his trouble.
Ugh, now I really need to come up with a reason to have Tyler show up on an Artemis mission!
Thank you so much for your time!
You can read more about Lt. Commander Talos Dakora on the wiki.
