Memory Book/Sky Blake (Deliera Jay)

I'm Deliera Jay, and I've played a handful of characters over a handful of postings in the fleet.

Characters

• Sky Blake
  • A Brekkian Betazoid hybrid addicted to her job, characterised primarily by her lawful neutral personality. She was 'rebooted' in 2016.
• Akyra Venroe
  • A joined Trill counselor who finds out being joined to a symbiont is not all it's made out to be.
• Sabor
  • A Vulcan armoury officer caught up in the politics of his lover's homeworld.
• Tristam Core
  • A Rodulan engineer trying to determine where exactly he fits in the universe.
• Kinan Venroe
  • A firey joined Trill Starfleet desk worker.

Real Life information

When I first created this memory book page, my life was certainly on a different path. I'd had many musical triumphs (I play piano, guitar, I'm a vocalist. I've been to America for the World Choir Games and came home with three silver medals). I went on to complete two trimesters of a Bachelor of Music Performance in 2017 — but I decided it wasn't for me.

The joy I've felt writing for a script-based RPG was an influence in deciding to switch gears and pursue a writing degree. And in 2019, I earned my Diploma for Professional Writing and Editing. In 2020, I'm studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing.

How you came to UFOP: SB118

I joined in 2011. It's now 2020. I genuinely don't recall how I came to Starbase 118.

History

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

I was first placed on the USS Challenger-A, under Captain Tel-ar and Commander Lawn - who was obviously the First Officer. We had a few issues of me, not getting onto the IC group, and then I was accidentally taken off the OOC. Luckily, my fantastic FO who was more than willing to help, fixed up the problem in less then an hour. I had a few issues trying to jump into the IC action at the start. It was noted by my Captain that I was putting in some dialog in my sims and answering my tags, but I wasn't really getting into the action. I wasn't putting in ideas, and my tags were kind of suffering. So Captain Tel-ar brought in a new character: Klingon Cadet Kov'In.

Yeah, that was a bunch of fun.

• What have been your greatest challenges in this group?

I think evolving communication has been a significant hurdle for me, personally. When I first joined, everything was done by email. I mean everything. You want to JP? It was just back and forth emailing between two people before deciding the sim was good enough to be sent on its own. You want to chat? Your inbox was a chat room, or you could use the really basic chat room off the main website. Eventually Google Talk(!) came onto my radar, and I was chatting with my CO about the weather. That was crazy to me. Then Google Hangouts dropped in, and now you could have more than two people in one chatroom.

I say all this because the way writers deliver critique of one another has changed. Emails are seen as a significantly more formal way of communicating now than I perceived them to be seven, eight years ago. When you're chatting in Discord about criticisms, or even just mentoring really, I've found it can become very heated versus how one can process and respond to critiques in a debate-like fashion over email.

I think if you ask a handful of people to describe me, one of the adjectives would be "blunt". My tendency to say what I think when I think it, be it over email or chat, has indeed been a problematic quality of my own.

• What have been your greatest achievements in this group?

Blake and Tristam Core are the two PCs I keep coming back to for various reasons. They are my ever evolving project — they grow as I do. If you compare my simming from 2011 to my sims in 2020, I like to think I've improved a significant amount not only in just how I write, but also in how I think about and develop my characters. And that partially comes with a lot of maturation on my part. I've come to appreciate a good slow burn. I had an entire year where I developed a time travel character that popped up every so often before he was finally dropped into a sim. TLDR; "growth" is my biggest achievement.

There have been a number of out of character ones, also. I like to think my fleet partnership with User:Rich has resulted in some cool stuff over the last six years, including but not limited to 118Wiki:Operations, USS Veritas, Player Achievements, etc. I helped kick our 2020 Address into gear along side User:Jocelyn Marshall as well. I'm very proud to have contributed to the Federation News Service — one of the pieces of which I ended up using for my writing CV.

There's been a bunch of stuff.

• What do you hope to ultimately accomplish?

I don't see myself "being in command" of anything. I see myself as a supporter. My accomplishments here aren't really goals in the long-term — but I wouldn't have published a demo memoir on video games if I wasn't part of SB:118. This community has indeed had a significant influence on me as I've grown and matured, and meeting this variety of people has improved how I work with others and how I communicate overall.

Ultimately, I'd like to see myself continuing to be a supporter for this fleet. But not to a level where you end up as this poisonous snake living in the chicken pen, if you get what I mean.

• Where do you see this group in five years?

I've been here since 2011. In 2025, this group will still be going, I'm sure of it. $5 says it outlasts Discord and Google Groups.

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

118 is evidence that a purely online community works. There are ups and downs, like any group will inevitably go through for a variety of reasons, but with a strong member base, with a list of values and morals we all have and one unifying purpose, 118 is a joyful place to be.

Before Star Trek: Picard began to air, 118 was really the only place leaning into the Star Trek timeline, post-Nemesis. The group developed the FNS, which allows us to publish fictional news story in this universe for people outside of our community to look at. Star Trek book writers have seen this thing and have commented on it, the general public have seen this thing and commented on it. FNS would not have otherwise existed without a community group like Starbase 118 to continue to sustain it. These little things can do so much to fuel a fandom, to generate interest when interest is otherwise lacking. That's incredibly important for the franchise, and I don't think enough people recognise that.