Memory Book/Mal Avatar (Glenn L)

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My name is Glenn L and I am 33 years old. I started with this group in early 2002, retired in December 2006, before coming back in January 2012. My journey with the UFOP is really in two parts: my initial run as Avatar followed by my return five years later as Ra.

Characters

Real Life information

I am a 33 year old married man with two young kids. I live and work in the New York metropolitan area. For a career I do customer analytics and insights for a Fortune 100 company. I basically take lots and lots of data and use that information to answer high level business questions and drive corporate strategy. This is not a career that I ever imagined myself in. In fact I at one point wanted to be a radio broadcaster, something that I had a chance to do in college. After that I wanted to become a web designer, something that I had a chance to dabble in with this group. My greatest interest outside of the obvious is being a sports fan. I am as big of a New York sports fan as I am a Trek fan. But make no mistake I am by no means a fan of all of the New York teams. I stick to the Mets, Giants, and Islanders. The biggest change for me since my first tour of duty with this group is having a family. My kids are nearly 5 and 3. So far I have not yet exposed them to Trek. I'll probably wait until the time is right, just like my Dad did when he introduced it to me.

For someone born in 1979, I'd like to think that I jumped on the Trek bandwagon at the right time. My first exposure to Trek was actually Star Trek III when it first came to cable. It was not necessarily the best place to start, but it was enough to get hooked. My Dad was watching it on Showtime and he called me in to watch. The first scene that I saw was when Kirk and company were stealing the Enterprise from Spacedock. It was a life changing moment. Catching up was easy. Star Trek IV was coming to theaters, I rented the first two movies, and recorded old original series episodes that were shown in syndication at ungodly hours. Shortly thereafter TNG would debut which would quickly become my favorite. I recorded every episode on VHS all through season 7 and even took out the commercials. During the first season, Galoob released action figures of some of the TNG crew. Not only did I collect them, but I built playsets for them out of cardboard, oaktag, and created consoles out of magic markers. I would stay a fan through it all. I remember the summer where we had to wait it out to see if Picard would survive becoming a Borg. Later I came to truly enjoy DS9. I am always amazed how some fans outright think it was the best show while others could take it or leave it. The last ten episodes of DS9 were in my opinion the best ten hours of Trek. I still remember watching the end of the show at college with my dear friend J. Michael who I would later convince to join the UFOP as Lt. Cmdr. J. Bowden Hapgood. I liked Voyager, but did not love it. Enterprise had potential, but by the time Manny Coto figured it out in season 4 it was too late. I also loved Star Trek 2009 and eagerly awaited the movie. I was a huge Lost fan and even incorporated some of the themes of that show into one of my missions aboard the Columbia.

How you came to UFOP: SB118

It was early 2002 and I had just finished college. I was having a miserable time finding a job. I remembered back in the 90s that I played around with simming in chat rooms on AOL and was looking for something similar. Instead I found this group and decided to apply as the Andorian Mal Avatar. I wanted to play an Andorian because I loved how they were portrayed on Enterprise. Jeffrey Combs is one of my favorites and I just loved Shran. The Andorian Incident had just aired and I figured it would be fun to play one myself. The name Avatar doesn't really sound Andorian, but I figured that not all Andorian names would sound the same just as an English name sounds different from a Chinese name. The name Avatar was actually taken from the game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. The hero character strives to become the avatar which is the true embodiment of virtue. It is in my opinion the greatest video game of all time. The first name of Mal is taken from the Spanish word for bad. This was not to say that Avatar was evil, but that I had intended to play him as paradoxical. I would play as Avatar for five years before retiring as commanding officer of Starbase 118 Operations. Avatar started off as kind of a hot shot, know it all kind of guy, but would evolve into more of a Picard like figure over time. I regretted deeply my decision to retire. I felt that I let the group down, specifically my crew. During my absence I would often think about what Avatar was up to. I even wrote a Sim explaining his disappearance in character and gave it to T'Lea to pass it on to several of my old shipmates.

With life settling down and having the desire to get creative again, I returned five years after retiring Avatar. This time I am playing Ra-Uleyra, an Efrosian. I chose the Efrosians because they have not been explored much from a canon perspective which gives me some flexibility in developing the race. I thought that the Federation president in Star Trek VI was an intriguing character and in part model my character's behavior after him. From an IC perspective Avatar retired and began teaching at the Academy. Ra would have him as a professor and become a mentee. Ra is designed to be more complex than Avatar. He was once a politician but was eventually voted out of office and came to Starfleet to broaden himself. He has really strange hobbies such as quantum physics and trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. He is also very deliberate in his decision making, always making decisions based on the probabilities of outcome.

History

  • Where were you first placed? What was it like starting to sim on your vessel?

I began my career as a reserve HCO and fighter pilot aboard the Dauntless Class Kodiak under FC Hollis Calley. I was there for a single mission before I spun off with Captain Hurne and the Victory. I remember on my first mission I had a phaser pulled on me by a fellow ensign because I questioned my away team commanding officer's orders.

  • What have been your greatest challenges in this group?

I am not a naturally gifted writer, at least not a creative writer. It is a lot easier for me to write dialogue as opposed to describing a scene or even writing how my character feels.

  • What have been your greatest achievements in this group?

Initially it would be establishing the Victory. Amazingly I became first officer under Hurne in about six months of joining the group. We churned out some great Sims. Secondly it would be the work that we did on the Columbia. Simming with Tash, T'Lea, Kwame Alexander and all my old friends was so engaging and worthwhile. We had some really great adventures. Thirdly it would be coming back after five years off and still knowing how to Sim.

  • What do you hope to ultimately accomplish?

Right now I am focused on preserving the history of the group for the future generations to see. I have been compiling some of our history in articles and would like to build out more of the Wiki.

  • Where do you see this group in five years?

If we are in as good of shape in five years that we are now, I would sign for that. I would love to see Trek back on TV and if it comes back I would like to see the group work with a new Trek TV show.

  • How do you think this group has contributed to Star Trek's legacy? How has the group contributed to the internet community?

I think at times we do it better than the writers in preserving Roddenberry's vision. I wonder if he looks down from above and checks in on the Trek PBEM world from time to time and smiles. I think our group is the gold standard of simming in the Internet community.

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