Reporter Issue 34

Reporter Issue 34
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Issue Number: 34 Issue Date: 237611.10 Editor: Ambassador Kren Tekra
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The UFOP Newsletter #34, Stardate 237611.10

Some of you have no doubt discovered that UFOP has been restructuring lately. Breaking into subfleets, changing ships, and what not. Well, we've also changed the hierarchy of power with it... making a smaller group that looks after the entire group, so the captains can focus on their own ships. We also have two smaller councils for the different subfleets.

Since a lot of you haven't been around long enough to meet us, we've decided to restart the Reporter with an issue based on us, and what we do. After this, we'll try to focus more on ships and the fleet - if you have any ideas on things that you'd like to see included in the Reporter, let us know.

=/\= Meet the UEC =/\=

Your first question will most likely be - what does "UEC" stand for? Well, although I like to think of it as "Upper Echelon Council", it actually stands for "Under Evil Control." No, wait, that's something else I'm thinking of ... UEC stands for "UFOP Executive Command". Boring, I know... just pretend you like it, and we'll be nice and smiley and everyone will get along. ::grins::

Starting from the bottom and working our way up... unfortunately, that means starting with me.

=/\= Command Liaison Kren Tekra =/\=

I'm Command Liaison Kren Tekra -- and I prefer to be known as Tekra online. I've been SIMming with UFOP for a little over 2 and a half years now, introduced to the group by former Captain Jolon. I live in Toronto, Ontario (Canada, for those of you who flunked geography), enjoy swimming, playing with computers, and writing. Currently I work for IBM Canada, as well as part timing for my parents business. I also have the dubious honour of having been one of the few full-time civilian characters in UFOP, and being the person who went the longest before receiving their first promotion. (one full year, ladies and gentlemen.)

I started SIMming with the infamous Dr. Hamlet of Dane and his robotic creation L-7, and as such have served with almost all the captains in the fleet, at one time or another.

After a while of SIMming for Hamlet, I created the character Kren Tekra to serve as a 'character foil' to L-7 on the Ranger. Kren was an easy going, musical counselor who wanted to be anything but that. His preferred position was helmsman -- but he was repeatedly assigned to counselor. He did an okay job at that... but his first love was still navigating the stars.

He went to the Ronin after that, back when it was still the Obertha, and ended up chasing an escaped madman across the galaxy with the aid of an elderly assassin and a Neanderthalic security guard. After which, he vanished from SIMming for a while, as I focused on some other characters -- until he finally came back as Command Liaison for UFOP.

Currently, I play L-7 and Adora Tekra on the StarWind, and have Hamlet making a guest appearance on the newest addition to UFOP's fleet, the Excalibur. I hope this gives you some idea of who I am and what I'm like...

=/\= Rear Admiral Ciara Randor - Commander of SubFleet 251 =/\=

I am Rear Admiral Ciara Randor, generally known online as Randor, or Anokin. (That's an Amazon Warrior, not Star Wars!) I have been working with UFOP for three and a half years now having joined when I discovered the website during my first few days exploring the internet. In real life, I am in Calgary Alberta where I live with my mother and a small menagerie of animals. I am a writer, and a graphic designer as well as working in a small assortment of other computer based tasks. Besides SIMming and Computers I also enjoy reading, some crafts and working with horses when I get the chance.

I started SIMming on the Centris under Fleet Captain Elinor, playing a hot-headed young security officer who was all too willing to aim her torpedoes at any ship that dared look at the Centris wrong. While I SIMmed with only a few of the ships in the Fleets, I have had at least a temporary presence on several of them and have been able to gain an appreciation for the different styles of each vessel and each captain. I currently play RAdml Randor on the StarWind and FAdm Jaris O'Conor on SB 251 when the need arises.

=/\= Rear Admiral Shaun Marlin - Commander of SubFleet 118 =/\=

I am Rear Admiral Shaun Marlin, known online somewhat unimaginatively as Shaun or Marlin, though I also answer to Andy (because that is my real name). In real life I am a fourth year Masters student in England, studying engineering at the University of Liverpool. As if it isn't enough to be a final year masters student, I also work part time at a local department store which takes another 20+ hours a week of my life. As you may be able to tell from the lack of recent site updates, I am finding it to be a very difficult to keep up at the moment as my degree and life reach particularly busy points. I hope this wont last too long though.

My birthday is December 11th, and this time around I will be 22. If anyone wants to use bribery as a means for gaining promotion I am perfectly OK with that, please make all cheques payable to Andy Perks, not Shaun Marlin. I think you will agree my charges are surprisingly low per rank promoted. ::grin::

I joined the group quite a way back four years ago. I started out, like most, in training but stayed there for several missions to help out Captain Ruach, reaching the rank of full Lieutenant for my troubles. My first proper posting was on the USS Freedom-A under then Captain Jeff Pelletier, where I served as tactical and Chief of Security as well as second officer. I stayed on the Freedom for around 2 years and reached the rank of Commander, before transferring to the Isannah as first officer under Captain Jolon. I stayed there only a few months before receiving my own command, the Indria. I kept that command until the beginning of this summer when I had to take a leave of absence from simming to work in Germany as part of my degree. By this time I had taken on the reporter for a spell, and then the UFOP website.

During my stay in Germany I still kept in touch with the High Council, but most people were unaware I was around at all. Upon my return to England, the UFOP group underwent changes that had been planned, and as part of the restructure I became commander of sub-fleet 118 and a member of the UEC.

Marlin as a person is relatively uncomplicated. He started out fleet-life 'proper' as a headstrong Lieutenant, notorious for playing practical jokes on his crewmate Sally Strange. Strange and Marlin used to make poor Captain Pelletier's life a misery. Shaun was renowned on the Freedom for his womanizing trend, though these rumors were generally wildly exaggerated by Strange. Shaun was career-orientated and has turned down many serious romantic opportunities for his career. Shaun eventually grew into a seasoned command officer and has now settled with an old flame Amanda Maverick, who is pregnant with his first child. I hope you will find me to be very approachable, because I like to think I am.

=/\= Admiral Tristain Wolf - Supreme Commander Extrodinaire =/\=

On me:

I'm a college student in Chicago, IL, in an undecided major. I live on campus, in a dorm with a lot of smelly guys who are often too loud for their own good. Most of my spare time is wasted socializing with friends, or surfing the internet mindlessly. Most of the time (barring network problems), my ICQ is running, and you can leave me messages there which I'll get within a few hours.

I got into SIMming about five years ago, with a group on AOL called "Star Trek SIMs." It was primarily a live SIM, in which we all got together in Star Trek chatrooms to play out our SIMs. This was the beginning of the role-playing 'movement' online, and SIMs were few and far between. (In contrast to now, where you can probably find over 2000 active ships online.) After a few months, and the introduction of e-mail SIMming into the group, I decided to leave STS and start my own group. I recruited a few people to help me out, and we amassed a small crew. We created the USS Phoenix - B, and set out to explore the stars. The first year was hard for UFOP, being that we had to recruit on AOL, which is not an easy task. Later, after our staff grew, we moved off of UFOP and onto the Internet.

Through the past five years, UFOP's gone through a lot of hard times, and a lot of great times. Our history is fraught with scandal and politics which, when I look back at it, is both angering and hilarious at the same time. (If that's possible.) We'll probably never be the largest Star Trek group on the internet, and we'll always have our fair share of woes; but even so, I like to think that I, as well as the other dedicated staff members of UFOP, have built a community that people enjoy being a part of.

On Wolf:

Wolf's a complex man. With five years behind me playing Wolf, I'm managed to build him into an intricate and powerful character who I find entertaining to play.

Wolf was once a good man. His past included the apparent murder of his parents, and his subsequent adoptions by loving parents. He was recruited into StarFleet after cracking into Federation databanks that contained top secret information about the Genesis project. Once in StarFleet, he led a relatively uneventful career. He married, and his son was born while he was on an away mission on the USS Phoenix - B. Soon after he was recruited to StarBase 118 as Admiral, and he summoned his wife and child from Earth, hoping to see his son for the first time. However, both Wolf's wife and son were killed when their transport shuttle was destroyed by a faulty anti matter containment pod.

After this tragedy in his life, Wolf soon became bitter and increasingly more secretive. Within the next few years, while commanding the StarBase, he became involved in a number of covert operations that were relatively out of the scope of StarFleet's primary mission. These actions included Wolf's involvement in the research into a Borg drone army that would serve the Federation.

He has continued to become a more evil man, who rarely has any thoughts but of harm to others, and the Federation. He is apathetic towards StarFleet's goals, and runs his StarBase and surrounding sectors the way he feels they should be run. Rarely does he directly follow the orders of the High Command. Wolf has only managed to stay in his position by keeping his actions securely under lock and key, and managing to keep a few loyal, and powerful friends around him.

=/\= What we do =/\=

To summarize briefly:

Wolf looks after the group on a fleet wide basis - Captaincy exams, publicity, politics - as well as commanding StarBase 118.

Marlin looks after the 118 subfleet, as well as Commanders exams, the website, and his own ship (The Indria)

Randor handles the 251 subfleet, along with initial training of and response to applicants... she also has her own ship, the StarWind, and co-leads one of the two associated Fantasy SIMs, Faerin.

I (Kren Tekra)... well, I look after the 'leftovers'. For instance, I seem to be looking after the reporter, keeping an eye on some of the ships, and trying to keep myself available to listen to concerns and comments. I also co-lead the aforementioned fantasy SIM, Faerin.

If you would like to help us with any of the aforementioned items, or with something else that you think might be a good idea, please contact us.

=/\= From the Admirals Desk - Notes from Admiral Wolf =/\=

A lot of have things have happened since the last Reporter went out! Before I go into some of the fleet updates, I have a LOT of important announcements and reminders for you:

1. The Website - Our website is HUGE and has LOTS of great information on it. Be sure to go and check it out to see if there's anything new that you haven't found before. www.galaxycorp.com/ufop

ALSO: There's a small voting form on the main page of our website that is VERY important to our group. This voting form rates us with "Treksites" (www.treksites.com), which is a large Star Trek website. That voting form ranks us in two ways. First, in number of votes (how many people have voted for our site). Second, with rating (how highly people have rated us on a 10 point scale, 10 being the best). For a long time now, UFOP has held one of the top two spots in both categories, which we're very proud of! But for some reason, people have stopped voting for us! ::Gasp:: Anyway, to get to the point: You can vote once a day. So, please, help out UFOP in a big way by giving just a few moments of your time to vote for us. Thanks a bunch.

2. The Message Board - If you didn't know, UFOP has a message board which all of it's members can use to chat about UFOP, and Star Trek stuff. You can find it a link to it on the main page of our site, or you can connect to it by going to: http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb328008. If you haven't visited it yet, or you haven't been in a while, go and read the messages, reply to a thread, or start your own!

3. The Feedback Form - UFOP has a feedback form which is available for all of it's members to use. Please check it out and tell us what we need to change, if you haven't already. Like the message board, you can find a link to it on the main page of our site. (I TOLD you the website had a lot of great stuff on it! :) ) Or, you can link to it: http://www.starbase118.netfeedback.shtml

4. Chats - Our group holds two IRC chats per week. One on Saturday night, and another on Sunday afternoon. (Eastern Time) Contact your Captain for more information on the chats, if you haven't been. They're a great place to talk about OOC stuff, get to know people from other ships or fleets, or generally just have a good time!

Now on to some updates about things that have happened in UFOP:

1. The Fleet Division - As many of you know, we recently split UFOP in to two group: Fleet 118 and Fleet 251. This was done to make things easier on the UFOP Executive Council (UEC), and it won't really effect most SIMmers. You can find more information about the Fleet Division by checking out the website, especially the "Fleet Vessels" area.

2. Ship Losses - - The USS Trinidad: Captain Arvanon has taken a leave of absence for a few months. We hope that he will return rested and ready to SIM! - The USS Caledonia: Due to real life commitments, Captain Jacobs has resigned from UFOP. UFOP thanks her for all the time she put into her ship, and the Reporter. The Caledonia crew was reassigned to the USS Indria - A. - The USS Ranger: Commodore Brian Kelly has resigned due to real life commitments. His time in UFOP was long and productive, and we thank him for everything he did for us!

=/\= Current Fleet =/\=

SubFleet 251:

StarWind -- Ciara Randor

Nemesis -- Torack Demma

Excalibur -- Alex VonGrippen

Kodiak -- Lang Vedoc

Ronin -- SkyFire

SubFleet 118:

StarBase 118 -- Malcolm Lysander

Indria -- Shaun Marlin

Isannah -- Colin McHendry

Hammond -- Allen O'Malley

Total: 8 ships, 1 StarBase

=/\= Chat Information =/\=

UFOP has two chats over the weekend - Saturday and Sunday. Feel free to come and visit them sometime... you're more likely to find people there at the scheduled chat times, but the StarChat server is open 24/7 for any UFOP members that feel like stopping by, to see if someone else wants to chat. (Who knows, there might be someone at the Talkcity account, as well.)

Holodeck 7 -- Saturdays - Time: 7pm PST, 8pm MST, 9pm Central, 10pm EST, 11pm Atlantic, 3am British Time, 4am Central European Time - Location: morechat.talkcity.com, port: 7000; Channel: #Starbase_118 - Register your nicknames at: http://www.talkcity.com/irc

EuroChat -- Sundays - Time: 11am PST, 12pm MST, 1pm Central, 2pm EST, 3pm Atlantic, 7pm British Time, 8pm Central European Time - Location: irc.starchat.net, port: 6667; Channel: #Starbase_118

Current moderators: Cmdr Maddy Prior, Cmdr Adler, Kren Tekra

=/\= Spot the UFOP =/\=

Okay... some of us have had a wild and crazy theory for some time, that the writers of StarTrek are in this group, keeping an eye out for interesting plot ideas. While we have absolutely no proof of this... we'd like to hear of any matches you might have found. Any ideas that came out in StarTrek shortly after you used them in SIM.

If you find any, or have any stories of them, post them on our message board - who knows, it might turn out that we've been writing for StarTrek for a long while...

=/\= Closing Comments =/\=

Quickly running through things...

1. Thanks for being a part of UFOP. Your existence is appreciated - and even more, kudos on making it all the way to the end of the reporter.

2. Please, make use of the feedback form on the website - we'd like every member of UFOP to fill it out; or use it to let us know your thoughts and concerns. The more we hear from you, the better a group we can have.

3. Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires.

4. If you have some spare time and want to help us with our administrative work, you can email the UEC.

5. If you hear of a group named "StarFleet Intelligence" being run within our group - yes, that is authorized; it's an experimental group being run by VonGrippen of the Excalibur. We'll get you more information on that as things develop.