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Role-playing fleet and fan fiction community proposal. (OOC discussion thread.)

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  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    ok to be honest, im a little offended at the cartoon-y thing. most of my subplot is tragedy; in fact, i'm constantly trying to make people cry, and if no one tears up during my Finale post, I quit as a writer lmfao!. there are no more Q in the story. and The Infamous' ship is NOT the size of a planet, but a small moon. and it's not like Trek doesnt have massive ships. but i get your point lol

    i think a new thread would need to be created, obviously. and yall would have to post those ground rules we talked about earlier, limiting characters and what-not. I mean, SFA and ESD are both starting places in STO, in the same vicinity. there is no reason why it cannot work, really.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    I didn't mean YOURS, Aaron! Your parts are the kind of thing I'd like to see, in fact (even though it revolves around some of the massively-overpowered stuff, it somehow manages to make it seem real and not OTT, because people with real lives are involved). I mean things like - well, what I listed in that last post, and the fact that there are ALL of those things at once! (Yeah, I was quoting The Infamous's ship from memory, and yes, things like that do happen in Trek - but not usually more than once in the same episode, no :D .)

    Thinking about it, you're right, the fact that this thread's all new characters with no hugely powerful characters would rule out all those things I listed - with the exception of Hawku's fourth-wall antics, and he's been keeping those quite low-key, in fact, compared to the stand-alone stories he writes. (I like it in those, actually - it's just that it would rather spoil the effect if it happened to that extent in an RP, but Hawku seems to have thought of that.)

    I'm just thinking that since it's the Academy, it would be a nice change to have a story about some - well, some more cadet-sized things. Not soap-opera-in-the-future, I don't mean, just things a bit more people-sized - well, it had better be, since they don't have starships to bring to bear on it! It doesn't have to be saving the entire world every single time, it wasn't that every time in the TV show either; maybe there's no more at stake than the fate of some people. One of the things I enjoy most in science fiction is seeing how it all affects people's actual lives.

    Re: species, this from Memory-Alpha.org:
    After the crisis, these four species remained together, founding the precursor to the Federation, called the Coalition of Planets, a year later. Other species soon joined: the Denobulans, the Rigelians, the Coridanites, and several others. (ENT: "Demons") Over the next several years, the ties between the members of the Coalition strengthened and became more structured, until, finally, in 2161, the Coalition became the Federation.
    So it's OK as far as canon goes, there were several other member species long before 2267, before it was even called the Federation, in fact, and we don't know exactly who they were. (Here is one of them!)
    My vague headcanon, if it gives anyone any ideas, is that Starfleet and Starfleet Academy started out as mainly a human affair and the others mostly continued to run their own fleets, hence why we get a ship of 430 people with only 1 alien, or technically, .5 of an alien. Then maybe Spock becoming famous as one of the Enterprise crew was what started a lot more aliens trying to join Starfleet. (got that from a novel, "First Frontier", good book that, got dinosaurs in it, but in a good way.) So that would leave us at this point with still a majority of Humans but quite a few aliens and they're possibly a bit of a novelty.

    Yep, good point about posting ground rules at the start.
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    one thing that DS9 nearly ruined was the "trek" part. SFA cant just be "sitting in a classroom", there has to be some "trekking" and exploration. In fact, both Nog and Wesley "trekked" on starships occasionally when they were in the Academy. So there will have to be a certain amount of Trekking, even if most of it is simulated.

    Regarding Starfleet. Let's cut to the chase: it's human. Look at the Enterprise-D. You can count the number of individuals from Federation member species on two hands and a foot, and the actual number of races on one hand. There are no Andorians or Tellarites (if I remember correctly), and those were two of the first four species in the Federation, so i think its safe to say that Starfleet is an Earth military/exploration/navy thing, and other species are allowed to join, but they do not have to, since their own planets have their own military/exploration/navy things. Vulcan, Andoria, Tellarites, and other species all seemed to have their own fleets and militaries even in Picard's day. I think starfleet was more of a NATO type of deal.

    But i do think that the movies are not a good place to get information since it takes place after our RP. we should stick with TOS and Enterprise-NX information. Sorry, y'all, since I probably wont be involved. And if i am, it will be limited.


  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Hang on a bit, everyone, I've had an idea for who I could ask about Rllaillieu. Will let you know what happens.
    one thing that DS9 nearly ruined was the "trek" part. SFA cant just be "sitting in a classroom", there has to be some "trekking" and exploration. In fact, both Nog and Wesley "trekked" on starships occasionally when they were in the Academy. So there will have to be a certain amount of Trekking, even if most of it is simulated.

    Why does there "have to be", particularly? I mean, we're all here in the expectation that it'll be Starfleet Academy, it's not as if we're telling people it will be a trip into space just like the TV shows and then disappointing them. Not that a holodeck trip into space doesn't sound fun - we should have that!
    We're not going to be "sitting in a classroom", certainly. I think Pocketstory said before that his intention is for most of the action to be what happens outside/between classes, skating over most of the actual lessons themselves.

    Species in Starfleet: yeah, that's pretty much my take on it, too, that - at least in this era - it was a human initiative and the other Federation species were largely ignoring it, with a few exceptions. I remember that when Captain Kirk was being formal he used to announce himself as "United Earth Starship Enterprise".
    If you're taking STO as canon at all (which I suppose you have to to some extent, in an STO-based thread), then it looks as if other species did eventually start to play more of a part in Starfleet as time went on, maybe it actually had become more of a Federation joint effort by 2409. And the number of alien crew members on the ships did go up very slightly from one series to the next - which in reality, of course, was because their make-up budget was going up! But this is the 23rd century.

    So, for our RP, Starfleet Academy is Earth's space academy, not the entire Federation's, but there can be quite a few aliens studying there if several people want to play aliens. Is that what we've arrived at?
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    While we're waiting to hear back about Rllaillieu, what are the "ground rules" that we'll post at the beginning of the thread? The ones I can think of, from this discussion, are:
    1) Setting is Starfleet Academy in 2267;
    2) we each play a cadet as our main character, all cadets are new characters created from scratch, not existing characters from other RPs, post a character profile stating Name, Race/Species (whichever term you want to use) Sex, Age, some basic statistics and maybe a brief history. Something that would be appropriate for a cadet file [or instructor resume if you choose to RP as an instructor], fully developed characters not needed as the point of RP is we can work it out as we go along;
    3) We're all equally the "GM", no one player controls the story - all players can introduce new crises or plot developments, introduce background characters, describe the scenery, etc. if they want to. If a leader is needed, though (e.g. if you want to send a PM to check whether something's OK without telling everyone in the thread about it), it's Pocketstory;
    4) No massively powerful main characters please, the idea is for all the cadets to be batting at a comparable level, so no Q powers - keep it to beings that you could reasonably expect to find studying at Starfleet Academy;
    5) Possible species: AoY only allows Human, Vulcan, Tellarite or Andorian captains, but if you don't intend to make your cadet as a character in the game as well, anything that could reasonably be attending Starfleet Academy in 2267 (i.e. was or could for all we know have been a Federation member species) goes.

    Are we agreed on those things, and is there anything else that occurs to you?
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    I agree with everything you just said. However, I would add that in Enterprise, at least in the mirror universe episode, there were Orion crew members. Obviously we dont want a Starfleet ship full of Klingon or Orion or Tholian crew members, but like we found out in DS9, NON-FEDERATION people MAY join Starfleet if they receive a command level recommendation. If that same thing was going on back in Kirk's day, then (make-up budget aside), we could expect to see other races in Starfleet, as long as it's not too many...like one. Some races would have to be excluded since we already know that the first member of their species joined Starfleet later. Examples include the Ferengi Nog in DS9, the Klingon Worf in TNG, etc.

    Sorry, that's just me being picky. Feel free to ignore it lol
  • pocketstorypocketstory Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    Looks good to start with. In past RPs that I've been a part of when starting out we always had a simple way to check characters. You post a profile. That's step one, but after posting a profile you still can't do a first RP post until after someone else in the RP comments on that character that it looks fine. This can be anyone involved in the RP who has already posted a profile. If no one else has posted a profile yet then you have to post your character profile before saying another profile looks okay.

    The 2nd part of this screening process is the "veto" process. If something about a profile bothers someone they can post a concern. If someone okays the profile after a concern is posted the concern is ignored. But if a 2nd person posts that they share the concern (before it is okayed by someone else) the person who originally posted the character must address the concern either by defending their idea or posting a revised character profile before their character can be okayed. The defense can consist of only one post to keep it from becoming an argument. Once a defense post is posted no other posts can be made about the profile except 1 post by the original poster of the concern addressing weather or not the concern was addressed or if they are still concerned. If the origional poster says the profile is okay and that the argument convinced them then the profile passes. If they say they are still concerned then the profile has to be edited and resubmitted. The resubmitted profile can be okayed by anyone but the person who posted the concern first for the origional profile cannon post a concern about the resubmitted profile unless the profile failed to change the concerned information. However if someone else states a differnt concern the poster of the first concern on the original post can second it.

    In order to keep the character veto process from becoming a drawn out or troll process the entire RP is paused whenever there is an unapproved character profile posted and remains paused until either the profile is approved or a week goes by without a post from the original poster of the profile, at which point the profile is considered withdrawn.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Sounds a good system! I see you've done this stuff before.

    The only other thing I can think of that might go in the "rules" posting is Aaron's plan about a fixed posting order for rapid-fire sequences. If necessary we could decide about that if/when it arises and then edit it into the rules post, though - I don't know which you think is best.

    Will you post those rules, when it starts, or shall I?

    A thought that's occurred to me is that you should maybe "reserve" a posting or two at the beginning of the RP thread in which you can put character profiles as they come in, so they'll all be together. You may have thought of that already, don't know.

    I'm thinking it might be best to bite the bullet and have it in Ten Forward, since that'll give us a better chance of other people finding the thread and joining. I seem to spend all my time trying to fan dead forums back into life and I'm sick of it. Obviously post a link back here to this thread so they can see the discussion so far. I don't know what you think?
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    Para, semi, or one-liners? I've never done one-liners on forums, generally. It's up to yall though.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Maybe just have it like ESD, i.e. we all post as much or as little per post as we want to.
    Keeping it to one-liners probably not much good since we're probably not going to be making that many posts a day. Remember, I'm probably not usually going to be online at the same time that the American players are posting, so we won't usually be able to back-and-forth repeatedly at one sitting. So on that basis it'd take forever to get anywhere with just one-liners.
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    gotcha

    EDITION: regarding the cartoony thing you mentioned earlier, I have always strived to make my RP as cinematic as possible. So I think at times it comes off like an Avengers or Bourne movie, or maybe even an HBO tv show, but rarely cartoony. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I know you didnt mean me. In every RP I've ever done, I've always made it like a TV show: had seasons, episodes, scenes, Actors as Characters (models/face claims), credits, and I even make/made RP video trailers. All to make it as cinematic as possible. That's probably got a lot to do with why it doesnt feel very Star Treky at times: I'm just used to making my own original movies and TV shows lol. (I was also a scriptwriter, director, producer, actor, stuntman, movie editor, etc. so yeah.)

    And im pretty sure if you made an IC RP thread, Hawku and the others would join.
    Post edited by the0infamous on
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    That being said the Vulcan character is a much more reactive character, being a Vulcan they will rely on logic which will make them somewhat predictable and more of a supporting cast member than driving force behind the RP. (

    Ive had this discussion with a few people before. It all depends on the RPer and the character. Despite Enterprise's flaws, T'pol in the later seasons was NOT very reactionary. In fact, her character was supposed to be half Romulan. Same with Saavak, but it never made it to the show. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I do believe a Vulcan can be just as much as a plot-driver as any other species; they may be logical, but they do have emotions - they just dont show them. Which is what makes my main character in ESD so interesting: he's Vulcan/Betazoid...
    Randomly digging this up because I had a thought:
    TOS: "The Menagerie"
    That's all :D
    I see what Pocketstory means, though, a Vulcan CAN easily lend themselves to being a more "supporting cast" character if you happen to want them to be. But they definitely don't have to be. In fact, if they once do get started, try stopping them...
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    i dont remember that episode Ms I-have-only-seen-TOS lol
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    The one with Captain Pike and the forbidden planet Talos? And the greatest hijacking ever? :D
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    the pilot? i think it's the pilot. i vaguely remember it, even though i just saw it a few months ago.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Oh yes, I forgot about that - the pilot is "The Cage", "The Menagerie" is the sequel to it, incorporating large chunks of it as flashbacks - they did it that way because there was a strike, apparently, so they had to magic up an extra episode's worth from nothing! "The Menagerie" is the one where, 13 years after the events of "The Cage", Enterprise gets a message from Captain Pike saying come at once. But when they get there, they find Captain Pike has been paralysed and unable to speak for months and couldn't possibly have sent the message. From there things get out of control with such startling speed that it could only really be one person's fault...


    Anyway, I asked some questions in a PM the other day and it's just occurred to me that they should have been posted in the thread itself instead. Here they are:

    Since one of you said Rllaillieu definitely isn't going to be allowed back on here, I suppose we'd better hold the RP in another forum. After all, Rllaillieu's been in on this much longer than I have. Anyway it's known that there's still a sizeable risk that I might have to drop out anyway, whereas there's no particular known reason to expect Rllaillieu will, so their preferences should come first.

    If there's any difficulty about where to set it up, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it'd be OK to keep it in a corner of our fleet forums, as a kind of guest thing. They're pretty friendly there, and some of them might want to join in too. (It's http://serenitystation.forumotion.com/ .) I could ask them, unless you already have a neater idea. What do you think?

    I'll join you if you're all quite sure that it's OK for me to be there even though I might have to leave, temporarily or permanently, even if it crashes the thread. Otherwise, please say, I won't be offended. We'll all be happier if any of you DO find more people who want to play, though; then there'll be room for manoeuvre, every single player won't be crucial.

    If that's understood, then when are we starting? I'd say that we're ready, apart from choosing a forum. We can begin any time you like as far as I'm concerned.
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    I'd like to point out that rllail may or may not be able to join the RP due to her own issues, but since she and i are emailing back and forth on a daily basis, i can ask her and verify.

    EDITION: Railla is down with anything but forums. She's on a Nova-based site. So am I but I hate it lol
    Post edited by the0infamous on
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    It's dying the death, is it? Well, I can't say I'm sorry; I'm kind of sick of the whole idea by now, and anyway I'm not sure I'm feeling up to keeping up with an ongoing roleplay at the moment, I've just been kidding myself I am because I liked the idea. Wish I could find someone in my own time zone (i.e. UK or Europe generally) so that it'd be possible to drop in, back-and-forth a bit with someone, and it doesn't take days of continued participation to do anything interesting. But I don't know if there's a way of doing that; all forum roleplays theoretically don't matter where you live, so they're "non-country-specific", i.e. organised around Americans. Not that I'm blaming Americans, it just works out that way automatically through sheer weight of numbers, like the Federation :D Does anyone know of any options I don't?
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    honestly, my original idea is probably still the best at this point: collab with Hawku and open a forum thread in Ten Forward. Even if rllail and you Wombat cannot join, someone else probably will. And if the SFA idea turns out to not be popular, you can always add/change things since it's an origin story by definition. Regarding the back-and-forth and time issue... yeah, also by definition, forums do not require any sort of time parameters. This is another reason why my idea is best, even if you can only post once a month, you can do that, leave for a month, and come back to post again, as long as you keep that in mind when you post each time (in other words dont put yourself in the middle of a 15-person battle in which you would have to react quickly).

    Even if every single person who has posted in this thread doesnt want to RP the SFA plot, if the thread is made in Ten Forward, more people will see it and join it. And even if they dont, oh well, at least you tried and maybe one day someone will jump-start it.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Well, I thought you were contacting Hawku about that.

    I don't know about you, but I think the most sensible thing would probably be to leave it for a couple of weeks and see if we're in better situations by then, rather than crazily keep trying to do it when we're not feeling up to it. And at the moment I just want to get away from the thing. I certainly don't want to throw it out onto the forums and then nothing happen, but then have to keep watching it nervously, wondering when it's going to splutter into life. (I wish these forums had a proper e-mail notification function. I don't ordinarily check this forum for any other reason but this thread, and I'd like to know when something was happening about this thread without it meaning I had to check it every day just in case!)

    That is, I'm just speaking for myself there, I don't know if Rll or others feel the same way. If it's actually just me that doesn't feel up to it, then I'll leave it for a few weeks and come back then if I'm in a better situation, and the rest of you can get started if you like - in whatever way you like, up to you.
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    Hawku is cool with collaboration but I dont think he wants to make another thread. I think pocket would have to make the thread. But also pocket would have to actually talk to Hawku about the RP in order to collaborate. i did my part lol.

    yeah i know what you mean about the notification thing. except I'm the opposite: I hate having my inbox flooded with notifications. It's bad enough everyday when I get on this forum, every single thread I've ever glanced at has in yellow "34310 new posts." And I tried getting rid of it but nothing works. I get online everyday cuz I like RP (even if im not doing it much anymore), and I like talking to y'all. But the only threads I check regularly are this one and the ESD ones, not to mention PM's.

    Whether it's a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or a few years, the only real deciding factor is how pocket feels about making the thread. I think no matter when he creates it, it's going to have more or less the same result: I won't be in it (except for maybe as the occasional guest star) and rllail wont join it cuz it's on a forum. It's ironic considering you and I and maybe rllail are the only ones interested/replying at this point, and we're the .5's XD

    .5's unite!

  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Hang on, confused when you say "on a forum". D'you mean Rll won't join anything on ANY forum? (If so, what else is there?) Or just the STO forum?
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    Pocketstory, your move.
    Anyway, it occurs to me that what that adds up to is that either way I'm leaving for a while, so I will now. I'll see whether circumstances are better in a few weeks' time, if so I'll come back, if not, not. If you want to set off without me - if the rest of you don't also need to do the same - then by all means do. But I won't be checking this thread for a while so don't expect any replies to any further messages. Been good talking to you; see you all when I see you!
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    no rllail wont do ANY forum. not even i could convince her lol
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    What - chat RP only, is it, you mean?
    Why not forums? Is it because of what happened here with the moderators? If so, you might tell her that if I can arrange for it to be on Serenity Station's forum, there wouldn't be any of that nonsense. I can speak for that because I AM one of the moderators there - everyone above fleet rank Captain is. We don't get trolls there, it's too small.
    On the other hand if it's something like having an unpredictable situation and wanting to be able to get somewhere in one sitting rather than have to come back day after day, I can entirely understand that myself! :)
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    no she likes Nova and IRC. i dont like either but i will tolerate chat if i have to. And she just doesnt like forum RP. Her main reason is its confusing and seems hard to learn. i think the same thing about Nova. Trust me, she wont do forums. to be honest, im pretty sure she only tolerated forum chit-chat cuz it was easier than PMing everyone individually.

    i think im a member of Serenity Station but i never did anything after i registered. same with 22nd Mobile Daedalus.
  • the0infamousthe0infamous Member Posts: 528 Arc User
    update: Apparently I was wrong about rllail not wanting to join forums. She told me that she is clearing up the confusion with wombat in a PM. on that note, I think it's time for me to depart from forums completely. I will still talk to you in PMs if you wish, Wombat.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    (NB, for anyone puzzled by how a banned user can send a PM: not a PM on this forum, a different kind of PM.)

    Gotcha, and yes I got Rll's message too. Thank you very much!

    It's a good thing to know when you're doing more forums or whatever than you have time for and need to cut out some rather than trying to juggle them all. I've not always been very good at it so I'm pleased to see you have the nous, and the madeupmindedness, to know when to cut something. Been good talking to you on here. I reckon you've been a big help with sorting this plan out, whether or not it ends up happening!
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I think I'd better keep to what I said before, i.e. I don't think this is really a good time for me to be doing this so I'll leave it for a bit and see if things are better then. I'm determined not to get involved in anything until after this weekend, at least. If you're not already set up somewhere by then (and whether or not I'm intending to join in myself, at least right then), I'll ask on my fleet forum whether it's OK for us to use that. I expect it will be.
  • wombat140wombat140 Member Posts: 971 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    On second thoughts, that would be rather annoying of me so I'll ask them now, even though I'm still not intending to get involved myself until after this weekend. I'll let you know the response.
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