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2022 State of the Federation Address
Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the 2022 State of the Federation Address. As the world continues to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our members have kept the universe of StarBase 118 PBEM RPG vibrant with exciting stories, relationships, and worldbuilding. New Star Trek productions carry on, with this year set to see the debut of new episodes from at least five new or returning series (Prodigy season 1, Discovery season 4, Picard season 2, Strange New Worlds season 1, and Lower Decks season 3), an unprecedented amount of new Trek released in a single year.
Meanwhile, our characters have just rung in the last year of the 2300s, and 2399 will surely hold even more amazing adventures waiting to be simmed. 2021 was a monumental year for the fleet, with the promotion of our fifth and sixth commodores, a reminted rank we first awarded in 2020 to those commanding officers who have attained five years of experience in command. This means that the majority of our fleet (six of nine vessels and stations) is under the command of a commodore, representing an impressive thirty years of combined simming leadership experience!
This past year saw the creation of a new award type, commemorative coins, with the first coin being awarded to commemorate the dedication of our members through the hardships of the pandemic. A new captain was promoted, four staff members were promoted to commander, and two crews moved to new homes with the relaunch of USS Excalibur-A and the commissioning of Amity Outpost. As we look ahead to what 2022 will have in store for us as an organization, we see both familiar challenges and exciting opportunities. The fleet leadership and staff are committed to facing this frontier with the conviction it requires and the wisdom earned from our long history.
In the words of one venerated captain of the Enterprise, "Let's see what's out there."
-- Rich/Commodore Roshanara Rahman
A Look Back at 2021
The bright lights of 2021 have infused creative energy into StarBase 118 and fuelled wonderful, daring, adventurous plots throughout the fleet. We’ve come together in and out of character, on Discord and the Forums, to create a unique community experience for all to enjoy. Let's take a closer look at what happened in 2021:
- We exploded into January with an increased average sim count for the entire fleet, concluding December 2020 with 1876! Creativity boomed over the holiday season.
- At the end of January, we featured one of our founding members, Elinor of Kanist, in a special news article dedicated to a creative muse with a vision and a hope for what StarBase 118 could be. If you’d like to take a look, you can read this here.
- February saw the relaunch of the Podcast Team with new episodes of the SB118 PADDcast, delivering the smooth and sultry voices of Geoffrey Teller and Lazarus Davies into your ears.
- In March and April, we celebrated the promotion of Sal Taybrim and Roshanara Rahman to Commodore. Congratulations, captains!
- Our 2022 Donations Drive kicked off in May to reach our donations deadline of May 2022. Being in front of the drive means we can keep the lights on for our fantastic wiki housing more than 46,000 pages! We’ve now smashed that and are making progress on our donations drive to May 2023. If you want to check out where we are in the drive, have a look!
- May also saw the kick off of the annual Writing Challenge! With so many fantastic entries, including a spectacular Klingon Space Shanty, we celebrated the winner Wes Greaves with his entry “Insidious Whispers”. You can read the winning entry with links to the others here.
- Being the busy month that it is, we also launched a new branding and logo as UFOP: StarBase 118 became StarBase 118 PBEM RPG, after 27 years!
- In June, we celebrated the fleet’s 27th years of operation! We’ve come a long way since the 1994 AOL chat rooms, but that’s where this idea started to take shape.
- We also celebrated the 2021 Awards Ceremony, a yearly festival of exciting awards given to nominated members of the fleet and each crew. With a near record beating number of nominations, each crew was represented in the Fleet with congratulations and pride over their abilities! Well done, everyone! In recognition, everyone received the 25th Annual Awards Attendee Commemorative Coin!
- In commendation for the Fleet’s stalwart efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, we proudly recognised everyone who found their escape with StarBase 118 with a commemorative coin:: ‘’’Per Aspera, Ad Astra’’’. Through difficulties to the stars. You can read more about it here.
- July saw the Fleetwide Trivia Contest hosted on our dedicated Discord server, crowning Lieutenant Etan Iljor as our 2398 Trivia Master, smashing the previous score records with a whopping 40 points!
- In September, the USS Chin’toka headed away from familiar pastures and into the Par’tha Expanse to establish a new colony within the region.
- September also witnessed the promotion of Kali Nicholotti to Commodore! Congratulations, captain!
- Our 11th Annual Halloween Avatar Contest kicked off in October, garnering fantastic entries from each crew of the fleet! This year, the winning entries were split into Best Design for the USS Gorkon and Most Original for the USS Thor! Congratulations, both!
- November launched our ‘’’Year of the Commodore’’’ to celebrate six of our nine Commanding Officers reaching the rank of Commodore, enshrining five years of command service to the fleet! Commemorating this is a special collectable coin and a special fleet chat!
- We bid goodbye to the USS Veritas as the crew moved to shores anew, establishing a permanent presence in the Delta Quadrant on Amity Outpost.
- We also marked the end of the USS Resolution, and the crew have relaunched the USS Excalibur. If the Lounge isn’t called the Round Table, I will riot.
Simming
Our abilities to track the simming rate has become tremendously simple, thanks to the phenomenal efforts of Oddas Aria and the creation of ‘’’Project Aria’’’; a dedicated portal designed to track sims from every member and ship, providing stats and more. It’s a fantastic tool and really seeing the use from all corners improve and establish over 2021.
The data line below paints a picture you might have felt throughout the fleet this year, as we blew back from the record high sim rates of lockdown in 2020 to the pitfalls of returning to life as we know it in 2021. A steep decline saw a near-record low in May 2021 but swiftly returned to average and above.
The fleet averaged 185 sims per month in 2021, returning the average to the yearly estimated level. Thank you to everyone who stuck with us during these difficult times.
Applications, Training and Placements
The application rate hit a ten-year low, owing to the current state of the world and the perpetual COVID-19 pandemic. The year also proved to be our lowest percentage of applicants graduating from the academy. However, applications and graduates have made a steep incline since the launch of the new website and recruitment efforts across multiple social media platforms.
The fleet saw an average of 6 applicants to the fleet per month. Of the 72 applications submitted this year, 38 cadets graduated and were placed. The fleet concluded the year with a 52% average pass rate, which is below the standard Academy goal of a 60% yearly pass rate.
Taskforces
We ask each fleet ship and taskforce to report in with an update on how they did for the year which includes questions about challenges, accomplishments, and goals for next year. Below, you’ll find the retrospective information for each taskforce in 2021. It is important to recognise just how long this list of taskforces is, and how much we’re engaging our members and helping our future staff develop skills. It’s quite an accomplishment and cements the fact that we are a community and not just a game.
This team is perhaps the most important in the fleet. All prospective members undergo a week-long training mission before they’re placed aboard a ship or installation in the fleet, so the effect that the Training Team can have on all new members, and therefore the fleet, is significant.
The Academy’s familiar challenge of encouraging all training officers to meet their volunteering requirements continued into 2021, with several trainers not taking part for long periods. For the first time in a few years, staff had to repeatedly ask for volunteers to ensure we had enough to staff a class, and we have relied heavily on a core group of enthusiastic and active trainers to keep classes running.
The team met several of its goals for 2021, which included increasing the number of statisticians to 4, and updating the statistician manual and processes. This allowed the team to pursue another of its goals, and regular audits of training participants have begun, with the aim of keeping only active trainers on the roster. In addition, we exceeded our recruitment goals for the year, adding 6 new training officers and 2 returning trainers to the team. Turnover in the training team remains relatively low, with departures typically associated with a general fleet LOA.
To the credit of our training officers, graduate feedback on the training program continues to be overwhelmingly positive:
- 100% of cadets rate their application response time as fast or good;
- 96% of cadets rate their training wait time as acceptable;
- 100% of cadets considered their training officers engaging and helpful;
- 92% of cadets considered the tutorials helpful preparation for simming, the remaining 8% were returning members who considered them a high-quality and useful refresher;
- 96% of cadets considered training fun and educational.
- 98% of cadets rated staff contact as at least one of the following: great, courteous or efficient (67% rated it as all three);
Some selected feedback comments are:
- “The training staff and the whole academy experience, in general, was fantastic. The staff seemed knowledgeable and everyone was very friendly and helpful.”
- “They were all terrific. From the mock cadets to the officers in command. Great experience.”
- “So far this community has been very warm, welcoming, encouraging, and supportive. I made first contact via the Discord channel and got lots of support there, which led me to submitting my application. From there, it has been a blast so far (and everything has happened surprisingly quickly!) A very good first impression.”
- “I really liked the training! I especially liked how we had a simulated mission to show how the game is normally played!”
- “I appreciated the feedback. I think providing tips and best practices are important/necessary to play this game. Pointing out how to auto-setup your email signature was helpful. I really enjoyed this training program.”
Special Thanks
- Genkos Adea, Jona ch'Ranni, Addison Mackenzie, and Jo Marshall: For excellence in leading classes, such that graduating cadets singled them out for thanks and praise in the debriefing surveys.
- Lael Rosek and Samira Neathler: For their work on updating and improving the statistician manual, ensuring clear guidance and the smooth operation of the statistician team.
This team handles the creation and manipulation of all images that StarBase 118 uses, from character portraits to ship banners to new badges and awards.
This year the Collective has taken on several major projects, such as the revamp of the group's corporate image, the redesign of the website, more activity in social networks (DeviantArt and Instagram, for example) apart from its usual production that has led to a creative burnout of several of the members, which has implied a drop in the production of unrequested images (spontaneous art) in the second half of the year.
This burnout has affected some of the goals we had for 2021, such as the creation of more exterior and interior images of the ships or the creation of video tutorials. Despite this, we have completely fulfilled four of the six goals we set ourselves (upload at least ten images per month to DeviantArt, educate new members and maintain a medium or higher quality of our group's work, maintain a roster of at least five active members).
There has been constant and personal training to members who have required it in discord, as well as resource sharing and tutorials and, in the last months of the year, there have been members with personal projects including more images of the ships, which means that although two of our goals have not been completed as we planned in 2021, they have not been completely abandoned either.
Our burnout seems to be dissipating, and we are slowly getting back to work, with new ideas and energy.
- Met and exceeded our expectations of image production and posting on DeviantArt, this has meant a new source of new recruits for the academy, a source of conversation on discord and new opportunities of exposure that can now be shared cross-platform to other social media networks, thus building a very powerful foundation of how we present ourselves on internet and new ways to make ourselves known.
- Revamped of the image of the group, from the logo, the signatures of the newsletters and the website itself, achieving a more modern and professional style, adapting our visual image to the standard of our group.
- Diversified the type of images that are produced in the collective, and we have illustration, photomanipulation, graphic design and 3d art, expanding significantly the image resources that can be used in the Fleet.
- Demonstrated that as a group, without being a team with many members, we can carry out big projects while maintaining the normal production of avatar images for the group, like we have demonstrated with the previous projects, the participation of practically all the members of the group in events like the Halloween avatar contest or the revamp of all the Juneau crew portraits as a whole.
Special Thanks
In general, a large part of the group members has devoted a lot of time, creativity and dedication to the group, producing a huge amount of images for the use and enjoyment of all and improving in general in a very remarkable way, dedicating a considerable effort and energy to the collective without asking for anything in return, and producing images of practically professional quality. However, I would like to make special mention of three officers:
- Aine Sherlock has been a consistent and creative, self-motivated and reliable image-maker and has helped keep the group's production going at times when burn-out has hit us hardest, and this deserves a really special mention.
- Quinn Reynolds has been one of the latest additions to the group, and her progress and improvement in the quality of her imagery has been noticeable and evident very quickly. In a very short time, she has become one of the best image manipulators and each of the pieces she generates shows the remarkable progress that places her as an example for all the members of the Collective.
- Jo Marshall has, as always, given her all and more in every project she has been involved in. She has been a force of nature, a tireless worker and someone who has contributed more work, creativity and good humour than any other member of the group. Jo has been a driving force in the revamp of the website, a major participant in the revamp of our corporate image, an indispensable link to the Captain's Council and, in general, an inexhaustible source of ideas, challenges and new opportunities for the group.
The Federation News Service (FNS) continues as a successful spinoff of our community, helping to create a shared universe of stories that reflect 118 canon and may be used by simming groups around the world.
Our primary challenge in 2021 was again to create a routine posting schedule and improve efficiency in article editing for the monthly mission reports, as well as our weekly article submission. Our contributor number has bloomed in the recent year, however, regular contributions from all members are still hit and miss. This has fed into the goals we’re prepared for in 2022, including developing a manual of style and handbook.
- Posted a new article to the FNS for 40 out of 52 weeks of 2021.
- Achieved 12 months of on-time, delivered edited FNS monthly ship reports to the News site and cross-posted to the FNS site.
- Recruited another facilitator to help manage the workload.
Special Thanks
- Yogan Yalu for his devotion this year to keeping up momentum in writing articles, throwing his lot in as a facilitator finally, and going out of his way to create a handbook.
- Arturo Maxwell for his creativity in articles and the fun spin he puts on things.
- Samira Neathler and Genkos Adea for being stalwart editors every month for the monthly reports. It's tremendously appreciated.
Wiki Ops handles the ongoing maintenance and improvement of our wiki. While everyone is welcome and encouraged to edit and contribute, the Wiki Ops team curates and helps make the experience more enjoyable and streamlined for all. The Administrators of the wiki are those members who have sysop rights on the wiki. Admins are generally tasked with keeping everything in order on the wiki and ensuring that there is no vandalism or inappropriate posting.
2021 saw the continuation of the sporadic Wiki Help Desk on Discord, prompting players to ask questions about the wiki -- serious or otherwise -- to learn more about the pages within. However, due to waning interest in long-term wiki collaboration, certain projects have fallen by the way-side. Since its re-introduction in 2020, there were no nominations for 118Wiki:Featured Articles.
Thanks to every wikier's diligence, pages without categories were reduced by 500, and have remained consistently below 150. However, as of 12/28/2021, there are 5,539 uncategorised image files -- a significant increase from 2020.
Wikiers recognised significant load times on certain categories due to large image files that could use compression prior to uploading. This will have to be addressed in 2022.
- Reinforced our editing philosophy of operating on good faith edits. Permission is not required when editing pages.
- Reminded users of the importance of categorising all pages.
- Successfully categorised more than 500 pages, leaving a total of 136 uncategorised articles.
- Removed dozens of identified Star Wars articles and media.
- Created Template:Beware current year to combat potential Discovery S3+ related spoilers.
- Reorganised IC information for incoming players with the new Starfleet Officer's Handbook.
- Created the "Impressive!" wiki event achievement for impressive displays of leadership or teamwork with regards to wiki organisation or projects.
- Composed the guide to creating ILI pages, intended to help players create new pages for new species discovered in missions or to fill in empty sections of existing pages: A handy guide to the Intelligent Lifeform Index and Intelligent Lifeform Index/Wiki edit guidelines and canon. These pages were added to our FAQ and relevant templates.
- Wiki administrators began a list of species to be reviewed by Captains Council. These involved the following changes:
Special Thanks
- Kyo Seung-gi, Ceciri Ariadust, Noa T'Nessa Levinson, Rivi Vataix.
To celebrate the continued quality of the community and share with a wider audience, we have renamed the Top Sims Contest to Appreciations. As there is no team assigned to this, a general overview is provided.
- In 2021, Appreciations received 272 submissions of appreciated sims and appraisals for quotes from our game. This is 61 more than 2020. Well done, everyone!
This team compiles and publishes the weekly newsletter that all active members receive. With two active members, it’s also one of our smallest teams.
- Current Facilitator: Commodore Sal Taybrim
- Active members: 4
Starting 2021 the News Team had a large membership of mostly inactive members or members who would consistently promise to write articles but would not follow through. After they were removed from the team it left the workload on a very small core group of active players.
- Created 4 new trello templates for new News articles including the successful 'Taskforce in focus' segment.
- Finished a competent tracking spreadsheet for interviews
Special Thanks
- Alora DeVeau for tirelessly completing over thirty interviews over the past year which are featured steadily on a month basis. This is currently the lifeblood of the News team.
This team is dedicated to ensuring that they preserve the long history of our community. Primarily, that work now takes place on the wiki, though they have a great wealth of sources to draw from, including old groups, past sims, the forums, defunct sites, and interviews with current and past members.
The most significant ongoing challenge for the History Team is that the archive remains offline. Without it, we have very few methods to be able to piece together ship, crew, and award/ribbon histories. We continue to suffer from stagnation - when new projects roll in, there is an uptick in excitement and everyone works to help piece things together, but this excitement is difficult to maintain when we are unable to make progress on our most important task.
Recruiting was also difficult. While I had hoped to make greater strides in recruiting more members, we gained a few new people, but those gains were offset by several of our higher-ranking members filing for long-term LOA's.
Despite the challenges above, the team has accomplished several significant achievements this year:
- Completed a fleet-wide OOC community history project. The project, which was spearheaded by Commander Genkos Adea, covered things like ship de/commissions, Captain and First Officer assignments, major awards issued, and fleet-wide campaigns and storylines.
- Established a "This Month in History" segment in conjunction with the FNS. The segment, headed by Cadfael Peters and Arturo Maxwell, provides a brief snippet of a significant event in Fleet history each month.
- Located badge recipients for things like trivia contest winners/judges, SJAS/JSCE/SFMJ author badges, etc., and added them to their ship's awards pages where those winners were stationed.
- Completed an audit of the Length of Service Awards page.
This team is responsible for putting on monthly chats, including special chats.
- Current Facilitator: Commander Serala
- Assistant Facilitators: Fleet Admiral Tristan Wolf
- Active Members: 2
In regards to our goals, one was to increase the size of the taskforce in an attempt to increase member participation and retention. This did not occur and continues to be a desired goal for the team. Along with this was the goal of finding ways to keep the team engaged. The biggest need here was to find ways to encourage the team members to provide input on ideas for topics of discussion, but again remains a challenge for the team.
Our third goal was to find a third special event to be held alongside the Trivia Challenge and Watch Along Events. For this year, we actually accomplished this goal with the Year of the Commodore event, and Serala is considering doing more of these town hall style meetings in the coming year.
Our fourth goal was to ensure that all communication bases are covered each month and this goal was met.
- Despite the challenges presented this year, the team was able to still host a monthly fleet chat each month, including two watch along events; special time events for those who reside in Australia, New Zealand and Asia; as well as the Year of the Commodore Town Hall Event which seemed to be met with enthusiasm by all participants.
Special Thanks
With so many new Commodores promoted this year, Fleet Admiral Wolf had the idea of the Year of the Commodore Chat event in which we would hold a town hall style meeting with each of our Commodores. Not only did this give the fleet a chance to highlight these achievements, but also helped provide a new style of monthly chat which was received with great enthusiam.
- Quinn Reynolds, Roshanara Rahman, Sal Taybrim, Aron Kells, Kali Nicholotti, and Jalana Rajel for participating in this year's event.
- Ikaia Wong, who despite not being a member of the Chat Team, has begun to assist the monthly chat by getting the SideTrek Thread set up, which allows for side conversations while the monthly chat is in progress.
Poll of the Week has been a source of intriguing inquiries, ponderous proposals and thought-provoking examinations. Though the team has transformed over the years, the goal has remained the same; continue to create questions that spark thought, debate, or ideas that might not have occurred otherwise. Sometimes, the polls simply ask for preference (“What was your favourite episode in season X of Star Trek and why?”).
We moved to a Poll of the Month structure, rather than of the week. This was due to only really having 4 members, one of whom was on a LOA for various parts of the year. However, we have got into a nice habit of bouncing ideas around. We transferred facilitatorship from Marshall to jointly between Adea and ch'Ranni, which was a fairly smooth transition of power. Looking at our goals; we did post regularly every month, and at the designated time. We haven't recruited six members, in fact we've effectively lost one. The move to POTM seems to have killed off the branching polls, possibly due to the lack of momentum from going from weekly to monthly. Our bank of polls has remained fairly steady, but they're more prompts than anything.
- We have increased our engagement in polls; especially when around current topics or relevant holidays (see LGBT poll, for example).
- We have transferred facilitators, who are now able to post polls on their own, without supervision from Marshall.
- We have posted regularly every month, and have moved away from a rotational work pattern to a more communal writing and proofreading schedule.
Special Thanks
- Jona ch'Ranni who has been absolutely exemplary at writing polls often at the last minute or with very little input from anyone else. Well done Jona!
This group builds a new starship creation tool/game called the Starship Designer. The ASDB also maintains and expands the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards ASDB Technical Database, which provides specifications and design histories for Starfleet starship classes and small craft.
The biggest challenges of the ASDB stemmed from group participation and delegation, which often puts the onus of generating final work product on a few key, and known, individuals.
Of the three concrete goals laid out for last year the ASDB completed 1. The final three, the writeup of a Picard era ships and the development of a method for delegating workload, was not completed. The delegation task, while not completed, was begun, but not finished.
- Completed the detailed writeup of a Cardassian Galore class vessel, reviewing and completing the detailed specs available to ship captains and others for use in missions.
- Reviewed 3 ship proposals by COs, provided feedback, and submitted for the betterment of those ships.
The Social Media Team manages each of the social media platforms and content for the group, thereby driving recruitment efforts through various mediums to reach a wider audience.
While the team saw much growth and expansion into a number of our goals, we faced our share of challenges. Perhaps the most notable was breaking into Instagram only to have real-life pull our attention away and leave the platform once again without our presence. The short stint offered lessons to be learned, but stable posting there remains to be seen. We've also had moments where the content was not easily come by, leading to some slight droughts. Thankfully, these did not last long. Finally, our goal to work on Reddit was not even approached, as we were still working on other aspects of the team.
Over the course of the year, the Social Media Team has attained some goals and gotten close to attaining others.
- Posting levels on Facebook and Twitter, as well as Tumblr, have all been maintained.
- We've added more than the 2 people we set out to add to the team, along with incorporating DeviantArt into the mix of platforms we regularly are posting to.
- Specialists have become more specialized and are experts at working with their chosen platforms and are gathering content as well, offering it to the others to cross-post.
- The team collaborates on fleetwide activities, such as the Halloween Avatar contest and works to present united messages across the board.
- We now have a thriving and active Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and DeviantArt page, and have dabbled in Instagram as well, setting the framework for further exploration into this platform.
- Having aged over the full year mark, the team has settled into a comfortable routine that allows for deeper looks into improvements as the new year comes along.
Special Thanks
- Genkos Adea, Blake, and Samira Neathler have been stalwart and steady in making sure posts are scheduled and set on time, and that there is always something going on in their respective wheelhouses. Things would not run without them.
- Alieth has been absolutely fundamental in making sure our DeviantArt account has been successful and adapts quickly when needed.
Special Shoutouts
Each year, we ask taskforce leaders and ship captains to nominate members for special commendations, which we’re rebranding as Shoutouts.
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- T'Lea - Thanks T'Lea for taking on the role of XO when it was needed by the ship, and doing such a bang-up job it will be hard for anyone to follow up. Also thanks to Dekas and Kettick for pitching in with some day-to-day work running the ship, including keeping the ship's wiki up to date.
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- Wes Greaves - I couldn't ask for a more supportive new XO and I so thoroughly appreciate the amazing time and energy Jacob put in this year to becoming a staff member and a member of the Thor's command team.
- Anton Richards - It hasn't always been easy to stay upbeat, but KW's positivity and humor both IC and OOC has been a wonderful refuge this year.
- Karrod Niac - I know it hasn't been an easy year for Brian, but I so appreciate all the support he gave me and the Thor. I also appreciate endlessly his self-reflection and how well he showed that taking an LOA when you need one is no big deal.
- Alora DeVeau - For helping to keep me sane no matter what!
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- Addison MacKenzie & Genkos Adea - Matt took the lead and Elliot stepped up as XO when I got a particularly bad bout of COVID at the beginning of the year and made sure that not a single thing on the ship faltered. The ship saw some of the highest sim rates of our time that month too!
- Yogan Yalu - Justin is ALWAYS on top of things and is the master of data. He might have started as a helm officer IC, but he steers the ship OOC with numbers, charts, and interesting facts that spark conversation, story, plot, and morale.
- I also want to give all three a shout out for putting together my commodore promotion ceremony and making it the best, most memorable ever.
- Aine Sherlock - Master of all digital art for the ship, there's never been a project or task I've asked Jared for that he hasn't delivered well above all expectation.
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- Serala - A wonderful writer and storyteller, I've always been able to rely on him to back me up when I need a small break, to help refine story ideas, and most importantly, to help everyone be proud of the ship they're serving on.
- Lael Rosek - Besides being a very versatile story planner and writer who has experience with nearly every duty post that the fleet has to offer, Gina has also served in the Academy for years now, helping to bring new Ensigns onto our ships. She's smart, passionate, and highly dedicated to SB118.
- Cadfael Peters - He's given many different types of characters a try over the years, and is highly experienced with most duty posts. He also plays an extra part in helping me keep everything organized by being the Chin'toka's wiki gnome, Zeph is a wonderful part of the Chin'toka's staff, and I'm not sure what I'd do without him.
- Elizabeth Snow - I've greatly enjoyed watching her write and develop over time, where she's matured into not just a great player, but someone who's willing to take on tasks for either our ship or the fleet, such as playing an MSPNPC or serving as a judge in a fleet contest. I see her as a rising star, and I can't wait to see how she continues to grow.
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- Maz Rodan - David has performed above and beyond the call of duty as Arrow's first officer, and his unfailing commitment has kept our ship strong.
- Quentin Collins - Though not the only one to face serious adversity in the past year, Justin's strength of character and dedication to the fleet in the face of that adversity cannot be ignored, and his value to the Arrow and the fleet cannot be overestimated.
- R'Ariel - Through these trying times, Kat has remained a pleasant and insightful member of the Arrow crew. Her high spirits and friendly demeanor make her a joy to write with, and I have learned much from her, and her writings.
- Maria Alvarez - Max's unfailing creativity cannot be stymied- whether it's the holiday season strain, plot confusion or real-life circumstances conspiring against him, Max remains the person to go to for irreverent, sassy, and warm-hearted writing, and it's a joy to have him aboard.
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- Alora DeVeau - for tireless behind the scenes work to continuously improve how well Ops runs and the quality of our game and player base as well as being incredibly supportive while I underwent planned surgery.
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- Jo Marshall - For her unfailing efforts behind the scenes in supporting me, mentoring the ship's simmers, and continually searching for ways to encourage a sense of community both aboard the Gorkon and in the wider fleet.
- Samira Neathler - For supporting the ship's command staff and our crew with consistently reliable and well-written sims, running the ship's Quote of the Month competition, and being someone I can always rely on to get a task done.
- Corliss Fortune - For her boundless enthusiasm and encouragement of other simmers, and keeping us entertained with Hunger Games (counsellor, I crave violence!).
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- Saveron - Sarah has been a pillar for me this year as my FO. She jumped in ready to roll and made my life as CO a lot easier. She is engaging, loved by the crew and her character portrait is just wonderfully Saveron.
- Lazarus Davis - Josh has joined my staff and has been a great help to keep the players engaged and is always eager to learn more. His patience and input has been invaluable. Also, his balance of Work and Personal RP is a pleasure to read.
- Cade Foster - Jamie plays with us with her secondary Cade, and while she has her own station to run, she has been a huge help, having an open ear and advice when needed, and was happy to help with plots and bringing our missions along. It was much appreciated. ICly it is difficult to play a rough-around-the-edges character, but Jamie manages to portrait that in Cade, without losing his soft side, making him a wonderfully relatable character that is a pleasure to write with.
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- Wil Ukinix: For his dedication throughout Amity's launch and initiative in getting others involved in fleshing more fully our new home, all while always maintaining humor and fun in his writing.
- John Carter: For his faith in me to help guide him on his next chapter in 118 after a long and storied career with a cherished character. Since stepping up as second officer, he has shown commitment to learning about what it really means to be a commander and leader in our group.
- Ikaia Wong: For being an ever-present cheerleader and supporter of everyone else in the group, giving that word of encouragement to others just starting out in the game and keeping our Discord channel ever lively.
- Aine Sherlock: While not a member of Amity's crew, Jared spent hours of his own time to build and render our own custom CGI model of Amity Outpost and the USS Independence-B to give beautiful visuals to our wiki pages.
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Looking Ahead to 2022
From the Executive Council
To quote Fleet Admiral Vance from Star Trek: Discovery, "The past is the only light with which we can see the future." Thus, in that spirit, we begin the Executive Council's report with an assessment of what's been done to meet the goals set for last year and what still needs to be done.
Report on Last Year (2021)'s SOTFA Goals
- Track and routinely check-in on the status of our yearly goals.
- Quarterly updates of goals set by the EC and the overall status of the organization were done throughout the year.
- Continue to find ways to streamline administrative workloads to address CO and fleet staff sustainability.
- An addition to Bylaw 5 was passed to automatically deny petitions to return from former retired/AWOL/expelled members who had shown intentional deceit by not disclosing their prior status as previous members.
- Failed petitions were added to Personnel Tracking notes viewably by all fleet staff, part of an overall attempt to keep staff aware of former members who have abused the application process and attempted to reenter the group through subterfuge.
- A flowchart reference on the returning member process for COs was created to assist COs in understanding what steps applied for returning members depending on specific criteria.
- Discussions about when to implement disciplinary action and how best to introduce it as a possibility were held for both players who do not participate consistently and players with long-term issues.
- There was a proposal on the Captains Council to create a CO/command staff reference list of resources/links to the corresponding documentation (UFOP Constitution, command manuals, etc) by topic, but this is still in the early discussion phase.
- The Fleet Taskforce Coordinator, a position brought back at the end of 2020, has helped keep COs updated on the task force participation status of their players and task force facilitators aware of players on leave.
- Re-examine the role of Commanders and the commander promotion process to see how they may serve in a greater supporting role for the fleet, especially for those Commanders who wish to support the fleet but do not have interest in serving as COs themselves.
- The committee to examine the promotion process and how components of it such as the exams might be reformed or updated conducted surveys of the fleet's COs and FOs/Commanders to obtain reflections and feedback of the current process. Further discussion and movement on the effort, however, stalled later in the year, and this effort will require recommitment from leadership and its facilitator to see this goal through.
- Create a taskforce to examine the diversity within our fleet and ways we can improve the player experience for our Black members and other players of color in particular, following on our legacy of creating a safe and supportive simming community for our LGBTQ members.
- The Investigating Diversity & Inclusion Committee (IDIC) was formed and over the course of several weeks of thorough discussion among its member, the IDIC released in July 2021 a comprehensive set of recommendations for the organization to improve the player experience for Black members and other players of color.
- Implementation of these recommendations is proving challenging. A status report of where the report's 15 recommended action items stand has been pinned to the Executive Council's discussion forum to monitor progress.
- Ensure that Project Aria's maintenance can be handled by several people across the fleet and that supporting documentation is added to our library of reference materials.
- Project Aria's creator Captain Oddas Aria has continued to write more documentation about the tool.
- Additional personnel who can support the tool have yet to be recruited or trained.
- Examine how to capitalize on the success of the first season of Lower Decks, the third season of Discovery, and the excitement for Strange New Worlds.
- Avatar imagery in the Lower Decks-style has been embraced by members.
- New episode discussion is held (albeit not as an official activity) in the "spoiler room" Discord channel.
- While not directly related to the new shows, the fleet's website was updated with a modern look and will hopefully attract both "legacy" Trek fans as well as fans of the new onscreen Trek productions.
Challenges and Opportunities in 2022
The new year holds both new and familiar challenges for the fleet:
- Costs of web infrastructure for the fleet continue to rise.
- The size of the fleet and staff has remained roughly the same. We often have a dearth of volunteers, so the burden of particular administrative duties often falls to a select few among the staff.
- Training team members, ship staff members, and fleet personnel/administrative officers have increasingly been dealing with "repeat offenders" of former members who continue trying to reenter the group through subterfuge, wasting the volunteer effort of academy instructors and mock cadets, ship staff members working as mentors, and ship command staff members handling the administrative tasks of onboarding "new" members who turn out to be previous members. Even when not holding malicious intentions, previous members who hide their former membership history rather than properly use our returning member process waste the limited time and effort that training, fleet, and ship staff members have each week to devote to the game and organization, and these repeat offenders remain one of the biggest drains on fleet staff.
- While Discord is becoming a more familiar venue for fleet interaction for both staff and general members alike, isolated incidents of conflict or misunderstanding do occur (and will likely continue to occur as is the nature of any online interaction). Forum communications within councils can also have unintended tension or conflict because of the difficulty of text-based communication.
Executive Council's Fleet Goals for 2022
To tackle some of these challenges, the Executive Council has set forth the following goals:
- Examine costs of web infrastructure and consider whether any suitable alternatives exist and/or find ways to raise more funds to cover rising costs.
- Investigate ways to extend the pool of supporting personnel for administrative duties, whether from within the fleet staff or by using existing, proven models of operation like the Training Team that incorporate the efforts of non-staff members to fulfill the fleet's needs.
- Streamline active task forces, reducing those of low activity to squadron level groups or retiring them completely.
- Establish and begin operations of a new recruitment team modeled on the Training Team's structure and operations to tackle this critical role for the fleet.
- Continue implementation of the IDIC's recommendations as best as possible to follow through on the group's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
- Create a vision statement and list of values for the fleet staff to help foster greater cohesion and minimize conflict.
- Continue to explore ways to stop former members from hiding their membership history when returning to the group, including better education of our general membership on what are returning member process is and why we have these policies and protocols.
- Complete the review of the Commander's promotion process.
- Cross-train additional staff members who can support the Project Aria player management tool.
Pennants
Introducing Pennants
This year, a new kind of accolade has been made available to ships in the fleet. Not so much a competition as it is a way to display the attainment of certain goals and milestones, Fleetwide Pennants can be showcased on a ship’s sidebar to show the accolades earned for the previous year. As this is the first year, there are seven pennants that may be awarded based on the criteria outlined below.
Following each pennant description is a list of eligible ships for 2021.
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Awarded to ships whose submissions to the appreciations thread on the forums total or exceed twenty five (25) individual sims.
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Awarded to ships whose submissions to the annual awards ceremony total or exceed fifty (50) individual nominations.
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Awarded to ships wherein half the crew (50%) have participated in at least one Academy class in the last year (as commanding officer, executive officer, or mock cadet).
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Awarded to ships who provide the most tangible contributions towards competitions held by Starbase 118 RPG with tangible contributions being volunteers, content, and judging support.
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Awarded to ships whose crew has earned two or more Duty Post Awards in the previous ceremony.
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Awarded to those ships wherein all staff members are members of at least one taskforce, in addition to at least fifty percent (50%) of the non-staff crew complement.
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Awarded to ships who participated in a joint mission in which two or more ships/installations complete a mission together.
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Taskforce Goals & Recruitment
The following goals have been set for the fleet's taskforces by their facilitators:
Training Team
- Conduct an audit of training scenarios (usage, graduation rates, trainer opinions, etc) and analyse the data to see if any scenarios should be updated or retired;
- Create a fleet challenge to create new scenarios for the Academy (full class and small class), and work with CC and image team to come up with reward badges;
- Create a process to address training officers who aren’t meeting their requirements;
- Continue staffing the team by recruiting an additional 2-5 new training officers, asking COs to look over their rosters and nominate suitable crew members.
- Training Team: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Lieutenant (with CO approval) or lieutenant commander (and above)
- How to join: Hold the rank of Lt. Commander (we sometimes accept Lieutenants who sim exceptionally well and have shown strong OOC abilities);
- A prospective training officer should approach their CO, who can nominate them for the team if they feel they're ready.
- Training officers must be full time on their ship, and able to additionally sim full-time during a 7-10 day Academy class. Sims will be assessed to ensure they set a good example of simming for the cadets, demonstrating that their writing abilities are among the best in our simming group and that their written English is proficient such that spelling and grammatical mistakes in sims are uncommon or rare.
The (Image) Collective
- Aim to maintain enough production to make twelve image uploads to DeviantArt per month (at least 3 images per week).
- Maintain our group's numbers by keeping at least 5 members active throughout the year.
- Collaborate more in touch with other taskforces (like FNS, etc) so that they can use us to get images for their articles or social media posts, so that we increase the number of our own graphics in the texts and articles of our taskforces, and have a more coherent visual language as a group.
- We will be reviving the Fleetwide Graphic Contest soon, a new annual event in the first quarter of the year in which any member of the Fleet can participate.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Lieutenant JG
- How to join: Contact the team facilitators via email or Discord.
- Special Note: To join, we ask you to be Lieutenant JG or higher in rank, and have received the sign-off from your commanding officer, agreeing to your commitment to OOC work. Images created may be used for social media and our Wiki, and will be curated.
Federation News Service
- Develop and implement the FNS handbook designed by Yogan Yalu.
- Kick off story arc projects designed to give writers more direction in articles to write. Target is to run one project through the year, with an article a month dedicated to the story arc (12 articles), or two projects (6 articles each).
- Increase submitted articles by one per two months per writer, from the top down.
- Achieve an article a week on the FNS for 12 months (52 weeks), not including monthly ship reports.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Lieutenant JG
- Requirement: We do ask you submit a tester article here: https://fednewsservice.com/submit/
- Special Note: Membership is also open to non-SB118 members. If you know people from outside our membership who may be interested, please put them in contact with this team’s leadership.
Wiki Operations
- Categorise at least 1,000 uncategorised images.
- Install two new power users.
- Send at least 10 species for Captains Council review.
- Reduce the amount of stubs from 390 to 150.
- Encourage participation in 118Wiki:Featured Articles, with at least three articles nominated over the course of 2022.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Increase membership by at least one active writer
- Complete and publish at least two interviews and one special article per month
- Have at least one consistent "fun" column that is published a minimum of 6/year.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Lieutenant JG
- How to join: Players can contact the facilitator via Discord or email, or contact their ship command team.
- Special Note: Must be willing and able to use and access Trello. Should have solid writing skills and a good grasp of grammar.
- Work with administrative staff to find a meaningful solution/substitution for the ongoing archive issues.
- Increase history team membership and retention to ensure that each active ship/station has a representative on the team.
- Work with members throughout the organization to update the Fleet timeline to reflect significant IC and OOC events across our community.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Ensign
- How to join: Contact the team facilitator via email or Discord. Staff members may also recommend officers who may be a good fit, and the facilitator will initiate contact.
Chat Team
- Recruit and maintain a membership of at least 5 members.
- Find ways to help encourage members to contribute monthly topic ideas for discussion.
- Consider what another town hall style-event could focus on, and consider whether this should be an annual event, or possibly even twice a year.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Ensign
- How to join: Contact the team facilitator via email or Discord.
- Special Note: Must have an active Discord account.
Poll of the Week Team
- Increase membership by at least one member by taking advantage of the monthly polls to plug membership ("enjoy this poll, why not enjoy the taskforce")
- To have the next month's poll written at least two weeks beforehand, and to take more advantage of "events" like Black History Month and Pride, etc, through themed "extra" polls not necessarily of the month
- Encouraging voters to expound upon their votes in the comments section; we could do this through engaging ourselves more regularly, and perhaps tagging in responders.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Ensign
- How to join: Contact the team facilitators via email or Discord.
Advanced Starship Design Bureau
- By March 2022 we will consult with the CC and the EC to better integrate our efforts with the Fleet at large, dialing in our expectations to match.
- By September 2022 we will present a final, complete, write-up of a Federation class vessel from the Picard-era of ships (2390s) that has been featured on screen, solicit feedback on the forums, and incorporate it on the wiki.
- By December 2022 we will present a final, complete, write-up of a Romulan class of vessel (24th century), solicit feedback on the forums, and incorporate it on the wiki.
- By the end of December 2021, develop a more structured way of getting work completed, involving allowing members to sign up for work, take ownership of it, and present it to the group and fleet at large.
‘’’Recruitment Status’’’: OPEN' to new members
- Rank Required: Lieutenant JG
- How to join: Contact your CO to have your approval forwarded to the facilitators.
- Special Note: Love ships, be willing to pour through technical stuff, and argue about it all cordially.
Social Media Team
- Implement a strategy to get Instagram active again, recruit one member to be an Instagram specialist, and post at least 4 images per month (1 per week) there.
- Reassess the overall approach of the social media team to review how it can be leveraged to reach more people and provide more value to the Fleet by speaking with the specialists, compiling data from traffic, and devising three things that can be adjusted, tested, or changed to better meet the needs of the fleet from a publicity stance.
- Dig into the potential of using Reddit by developing a Social Media plan, in conjunction with a publicity approach, to begin posting on the site by the middle of the year.
Recruitment Status: OPEN to new members
- Rank Required: Ensign
- How to join: Contact the team facilitator via email or Discord.
- Special Note: No special requirements other than to state the areas where you are interested in working.
Fleet Stats
At present, the fleet consists of the following vessels:
- USS Arrow, Saber Class Starship: Commander Randal Shayne
- USS Chin'toka, Akira Class Starship: Captain Mei'konda
- USS Constitution-B, Galaxy Class Starship: Commodore Jalana Rajel
- USS Gorkon, Sovereign Class Starship: Vice Admiral Quinn Reynolds
- USS Juneau, Juneau Class Starship: Captain Oddas Aria
- USS Excalibur-A, Vesta Class Starship: Fleet Captain Kali Nicholotti
- USS Thor, Vesta Class Starship: Commodore Aron Kells
- Amity Outpost, Copernicus Station: Commodore Roshanara Rahman/Rivi Vataix
- StarBase 118 Ops, Trojan-II Class Starbase, and USS Narendra, Ambassador Class Starship: Commodore Sal Taybrim
The Executive Council
The Captains Council
Captains and Above
- Fleet Admiral Tristan Wolf
- Vice Admiral Quinn Reynolds, Commanding Officer of USS Gorkon & Commandant, Starbase 118 Academy
- Commodore Aron Kells, Commanding Officer of USS Thor
- Commodore Kali Nicholotti, Commanding Officer of USS Excalibur-A
- Commodore Roshanara Rahman/Rivi Vataix, Commanding Officer of Amity Outpost
- Commodore Jalana Rajel, Commanding Officer of USS Constitution-B
- Commodore Sal Taybrim, Commanding Officer of Starbase 118 Ops
- Captain Mei'konda, Commanding Officer of USS Chin'toka
- Captain Oddas Aria, Commanding Officer of the USS Juneau
- Captain Randal Shayne, Commanding Officer of the USS Arrow
- Captain Shedet
Commanders
Observers
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