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Poll of the Week: Temporal Prime Headache

November 24, 2016by John Valdivia in Poll of the Week tagged ,

Your ship has discovered a deserted starbase. It’s old, it appears to have been abandoned for centuries, and yet the technology is very advanced, so you set out to explore it. Before you send your away teams there, however, a shuttle appears out of nowhere. It is of Starfleet design, but it’s not one you can recognize. It hails you, and the sole crew member identifies herself as a traveller from the 27th century.

She tells you to avoid that starbase altogether. Apparently you will activate the station defenses, and afterwards leave a message for Starfleet to avoid that region of space in the future. A message that her fiancé, an archaeologist, will find, and it will draw him towards the station. This chain of events will end with his premature death, along with those of his team.

She assures you nothing else will change by your action, since the changes will be confined to the station. However you find that hard to believe, knowing enough about temporal mechanics and chaos theory to know that even a minor alternation can have huge repercussions in the long run.

You know that, even if you did, you would not be violating the Temporal Prime Directive since you will be changing your future, not your past. But she is openly violating it. Would you help her? Come and tell us!

This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

Most Awesome Space Battles: DS9

November 17, 2016by Brell in Poll of the Week tagged ,

This week, we head back to our General Trek category and our ongoing “Most Awesome Battle” series.

Deep Space Nine featured many depictions of space battles due to the Dominion War story arc. They often showed us the darker side of life on the frontiers of space giving us a bit of a deeper tone than many other trek series. DS9 also introduced the Maquis, and included a short-lived conflict between the Federation and Klingon Empire. Were the epic battles of the Dominion War those you most enjoyed? Was it getting to see Starfleet versus the Klingons again, just like in the days of Kirk? Or was another battle your favorite?

Tell us in the Forums as this week we ask: What was the most awesome battle of DS9?

Poll of the Week: Relevance of the starship

November 10, 2016by John Valdivia in Poll of the Week tagged ,

Although all Star Trek series had a group of main characters, all of them had a protagonist who was not a crew member. Not a civilian, or even an officer that was not technically part of the crew. Not even a live being — it was the ship itself. The different incarnations of the Enterprise, Voyager, even Deep Space 9 (or, if you want, the Defiant) were also protagonists of their own series, and they also helped shape the stories that were told in them. A similar phenomenon happens in our simming. The stories we write are about our characters’ experiences, but our starships play an important role in those tales. Our characters learn to love their ships, or their stations, and we make them part of the story.

The fleet offers a great variety of starships, each of them different. Right now, the crew of the Darwin is embarked in launching a new expedition, and you can even help name the new medical ship that is joining it!

So it is natural to ask, how relevant is the starship in our story? And with that I mean, how does the choice of starship affect how our simming develops, what stories we play, what we do aboard? What does our choice of starship say about our simming?

This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Poll of the Week: The falling station dilemma

October 27, 2016by John Valdivia in Poll of the Week tagged , ,

As captain of an starship, you respond to a distress call coming from a station orbiting a heavily urbanized planet. The station’s engines have failed, and it is falling towards the planet as its orbit decays. You rush in and start evacuating personnel, but before you are done the station enters the planet’s dense and electrically charged atmosphere. Your transporters and tractor beams are useless.

According to your officers’ records, there are 147 life signs left aboard the station. They could get to escape pods and save themselves, landing somewhere in the planet in relative safety. However, that procedure will take so long the station will end crashing on the surface and your crew estimates the resulting life loss in at least a thousand people. You have an alternative: You can order the station fired upon. The destruction of the station will reduce the falling impact to relatively harmless debris. But there is no way the remaining crew could escape in time before you are forced to destroy it.

Of course, you could order them to use the auto-destruction system themselves, without time to get to the escape pods, but it’s a hard decision to put on their shoulders, and you have no guarantee they will comply.

Would you fire your torpedoes on the station? Come to the forums to let us know, and afterwards check the Wikipedia article on the trolley problem to know the original formulation of this classical dilemma.

This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

Poll of the Week: Life changing experiences

October 13, 2016by John Valdivia in Poll of the Week tagged , ,

Some experiences are definitely life changing. It could be argued that all of our experiences alter our lives to some degree, but some of them make changes so deep that our lives are fundamentally and forever different. Initiating a relationship, getting married, having a child — or suffering an accident and permanent injury, for example. Whether we chose to experience these life changing events, or whether they come upon us in surprise, we must all adapt and learn to live with the consequences.

When simming, we want to make our characters alike to real people, even when our characters are living out their lives on starships set in the distant future. That means some of these events will also affect our characters. We have seen characters start or end relationships, have children or receive terrible injuries. But on this, we have control — we decide what experiences our characters go through, especially those experiences that will mark them forever.

For this week’s poll, we want to know how much you exercise this control. Do you carefully plan every major change for your character, or do you let them happen and explore them as they come? Come to the forums to tell us.

This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Lost

March 14, 2014by Tracey Townson in Column, Poll of the Week tagged

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.

You were a mighty sailing person,
The Captain brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The minnow would be lost, the minnow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With you
A Starfleet Captain too,
The millionaire and his wife,
The movie star
The professor and Mary Ann,
Here on some deserted isle.

So. Who do you think would be the Captain that would give you the best chance to have you all rescued in short order, and why? Head on down to the polls and let us know.

Return To The Small Screen

March 7, 2014by Tracey Townson in Column, Poll of the Week tagged

There has been rumor, keyword, rumor, that a new Star Trek series may be on the horizon. No matter how far fetched it may be, it is something I am sure a lot of us would like to see. Star Trek back on the small screen!

Now I reiterate that this is all rumor because I don’t want my team of pollsters to be inundated with hate email should there not be a new Star Trek television series within your lifetime. But that being said, it is once again dream time.

Should there be a new television series for Star Trek, in what era would you like it to be placed? In which universe? In what fashion? Yes, this week will be a multiple poll in one because of all the elements involved in which a new Star Trek series could be based upon. So head on down to the polls and vote for your favorite potential Trek ideas for a new series, dictated to me by a famous local fortune teller and palm reader. And as always, don’t be afraid to add your own ideas to the mix. 🙂

These Are The Voyages!

February 14, 2014by Tracey Townson in Column, Poll of the Week tagged

The names Star Trek and Enterprise are almost synonymous and the Enterprise has been an integral part of Star Trek lore since it’s inception. Commanded by Captains from Jonathan Archer to Jean-Luc Picard we have witnessed it’s destruction and it’s return on many occasions. People have mapped out every deck of each incarnation with pinpoint accuracy right down to the location and square-footage of each Enterprise’s bathrooms. So to say the Enterprise is just back-drop to what happens in Star Trek would be somewhat remiss of what draws so many to the franchise. Over the years, the Enterprise has become as important to Star Trek as much as the actors who have portrayed the characters that serve on-board her, from the NX version all the way to Enterprise E and beyond.

This week we’ll be looking at the various Enterprises that have graced our television screens and movie theatres throughout the years, and you can now choose your favorite! Are you a fan of TOS version or the JJ verse version? Is the Sovereign class more sleek than the Galaxy class or vice versa? Is the refit Constitution your favorite or does the NX version, being the original, grab your fancy? Head on down to the polls and pick your ship, and let’s make sure history never forgets the name…Enterprise.

Heading Into 2391!

February 7, 2014by Tracey Townson in Column, Poll of the Week tagged

The State of the Federation Address for 2014 is out folks and could be found here, and your comments on the address can be added here.

That being said, we have undergone a few changes since this time last year, which is normal, for as time passes, things inevitably change. When I first came to this group back in 2000, I recall how the main site looked back then and was enthralled in both it’s simplicity and it’s ease of navigation. I went through training with wonderful and helpful personnel and have had a special place in my heart for this group ever since. I have left on a few occasions due to real life demands, but even in those days, I have always remembered fondly my days of SIMming in this group and have inevitably always found a way to return.

As we are now in the 20th year of our group, which in fact is a testament in and of itself as so many Star Trek  based PBeM groups have come and gone during this time, there have been many changes since those early days when I first joined. The main website has been overhauled, we have daily news feeds from our wonderful volunteers over at the Newsies team, a regular podcast, an automated archive system for our SIMs, a wiki, which didn’t yet exist when I first joined, and so many other additions that would take way too much space to list.

In order to expand and grow with each new year, we rely on our volunteers in each area, for these additions and changes don’t magically occur. So that brings us this week’s Poll of the Week question. As each member of our group offer a different area of expertise as we all come from different backgrounds and regions from the planet known as Earth, are there any areas of expertise you wish to assist with and are not doing so presently? Are there any areas that you think may be improved upon? If so, how so? Do you have any new ideas that can be added to the group to make it an even more enjoyable experience to be a part of  in the upcoming years?

So head on to the polls and as always,  please add your feedback and vote so that I can give the team of scientists and pollsters something to do this week. :)

Is That…!?

January 31, 2014by Tracey Townson in Forums tagged

This week we’ll be looking at cameos on Star Trek. Cameos are those who appear briefly in a work on stage or on television or in a movie and are generally unnamed characters or someone who appears as themselves. They are generally minor roles and many times non-speaking roles and generally appear, uncredited. Many times they are actors or actresses that hold a significance to the work where they are making an appearance or are popular in some other genre of work. These short appearances are quite common and Star Trek itself has had no shortage of cameo appearances throughout its running.

This week we’ll be looking at those cameo appearances of famous actors and other professions that have made cameos on Star Trek. Who did you think was the best and why? Did you even notice all of them as you watched the episodes and movies? If there are others I have missed, please let us know. So head on down to the polls and let us know who your favorite cameo appearance(s) in Star Trek were. This week I will allow multiple responses so don’t be afraid to click away 🙂

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