Task Force 64 – Operational Report – July 2019

TASK FORCE 64 – OPERATIONAL REPORT – JULY 2019

Starbase 2 

Admiral Veronica Ferreira saw an incoming message. It looked like it was from the USS Republic – the signal was weak and distorted. The ship was on the Federation-Klingon border. It wasn’t surprising that the ship had been confronted by the Klingons. She pressed a button on her desk to connect the communication. 

A holographic image of Captain Joshua Berkley appeared in her office. “Admiral – this is Berkley. The Republic is under attack by two Klingon Birds of Prey. We are requesting immediate reinforcements. The Klingon’s are using a new technology – they disappear… ” The communication link cut out. She tried to re-establish it but ther was no response. It was probably a Klingon jamming signal. 

Admiral Ferreira had the position of the Republic – she dispatched three starships to their location. It would take them about twenty minutes to arrive but maybe they’d be able to find survivors and salvage what they could. Command had limited intelligence on the Klingon Empire. If they have technology that allows them to disappear, this would change everything for the Federation. 

USS Republic

Aboard the Republic.

“Get the shields up!” Captain Joshua Berkley ordered from the command chair. I’ve been the CO of the Republic for 6 months and now there’s a war? Is this Starfleet? He thought to himself as the floor of the Republic shook. Minutes before, the Republic was quietly patrolling the Federation-Klingon border. They had just received word that war was declared between the two inter-galactic nations. Joshua didn’t expect to be attacked this quickly – but this was the way of the warrior. 

“We have two Birds of Prey that keep appearing and disappearing. This must be new tech. Once they go invisible, we can’t target them.” Lieutenant Timothy Harrison said aloud from the navigator’s station. 

That comment irritated Captain Berkley. He made a mental note to speak with him about that once this was over. “Fire at will Lieutenant.” He watched the viewscreen as his Helmsman, a young 20 year old Ensign whose name escaped him, was sweating. He’d never seen war. Well, now he has. 

“Commander Hatch, send a subspace message to Command asking for reinforcements. Commander V’Lan, see if there is a way to penetrate their cloak.” From the look of the battle, the Republic had scored a few shots against the Klingons but they were far more effective. 

“Shields are down to 45%.” the navigator yelled out. 

In a normal battle, the Republic would easily defeat two Klingon Birds of Prey. But with their new cloaking technology, it had evened the score. There was no way of predicting where they would decloak. 

“YES!” Captain Berkley yelled as he saw one Bird of Prey explode. They’d been hit by a photon torpedo as they were cloaking. That’s when Commander T’Lan said, “It appears that the Klingon’s must lower their shields before they cloak. We must use this to our advantag….” 

As the Commander was saying this, the Navigator yelled, “The shockwave from the explosion has weakened our ventral shields. Combined with the Bird of Prey’s attacks our shields are about to fail.” 

Captain Berkley looked down at his command console – the shields were at 5%. Two phaser banks had been destroyed, and aft launchers were down. This didn’t look good. “Lieutenant – we can’t afford to miss any shots. Continue firing.” 

Captain Berkley heard the sound of phasers being fired and torpedoes being launched. On the screen he saw the phasers hit the Bird of Prey. He looked down at his console and saw that their shields were barely up and it looked like their cloak was down. “We’ve almost got them where we want them. Let’s shift to evasive pattern beta.” 

Starfleet Command

–OFFICIAL REPORT–

REPORT ON SEVERE DAMAGE TO THE USS REPUBLIC

SUMMARY 

The USS Republic engaged two Birds of Prey equipped with their new cloaking device. As the battle progressed, the ship defended itself using their full armament. This was battle was ultimately fought to a minor victory for the USS Republic. 

At the end of the battle, both vessels shields were down. The USS Republic launched a final volley of torpedoes that would destroy the Bird of Prey. However, just before impact, the Klingon’s launched their own volley of torpedoes towards the USS Republic. While two out of the three manually aimed torpedoes missed the Republic, one successfully struck Deck 1 – destroying the bridge and killing all bridge officers. 

With the ship severely damaged, Chief Engineer, Commander Brett Westport was able to transfer control to Engineering and navigated the ship back to Starbase.

Upon return to Starbase, Commander Westport has been promoted to First Officer of the USS Commonwealth. The remaining Bridge Crew is must be replaced. The USS Republic does require major repairs which should be completed. It is the opinion of Starfleet Operations that the USS Republic should not be decommissioned or salvaged for parts. 

[Report continues…}. 

Jarred Vittorino finished reading through the report on the last battle of the USS Republic. Up until yesterday, he had been the Commanding Officer of the USS Paris. This morning, he was summoned to command, offered a promotion to Rear Admiral, and to the Commanding Officer of the USS Republic. 

“This is a great honor, Admiral. I accept.” Jarred heard the words escape his mouth but didn’t believe them. There was a part of him that was waiting to wake up. He didn’t. Instead he gripped Admiral Ress Th’rhaolrarh’s hand and felt a new insignia being placed on his uniform. Which reminded him that he needed to get a new Yellow Command shirt. 

Admiral Ress Th’rhaolrarh then brought up a second PADD. “In addition to the Republic you have assigned to Tactical Group 64. This group will coordinate our frontline operations. All ships will report directly to you. The Federation is trusting you with its security. Don’t let us down. Report to the Republic – assemble the final members of your crew and make your way to the border. Dismissed.” 

Admiral Jarred Vittorino stood, saluted the Admiral, then turned and walked out of his office. The USS Republic would be his newest challenge but so would Tactical Group 64. Like the Admiral said, the Federation would be relying on Tactical Group 64 to ensure its existence. 

 

NEWS FROM TF64 GAMES

 

UPDATES FROM BRAVO FLEET AND TASK FORCE 64 

We have a few updates from Bravo Fleet :

First and foremost, I would like to welcome MJ to TF64 as the CO of the Challenger NX-03 and the Endeavour NX-06. This represents the reintroduction of Enterprise era games! Welcome to the Task Force!

One of the goals that I outlined in my Initial Status Report was re-organizing Task Groups so that their names are less ambiguous and more focused on the canon for each group. Games will be shifted to their appropriate Task Groups over the next day or so. Here are our new Task Groups: 

NX Division (2151-2199)

Set between 2151 and 2199, the NX Division will house games that explore Humanities first steps into deep space after Zefram Cochrane’s first warp flight, the beginning of Starfleet, the Coalition of Planets and the early history of the United Federation of Planets.

Tactical Group 64 (2256-2257)

Set during the Federation-Klingon War of Star Trek: Discovery. TG64 will explore the people and events of the war that rebooted Star Trek television.

Task Group Discovery (2257-2265)

Set after the return of the USS Discovery from the Mirror Universe. Games within Task Group Discovery explore the Alpha and Beta Quadrants before Captain Kirk’s 5 year mission aboard the USS Enterprise.

Task Group Pathfinders (2265-2363)

Set during and after the hard won peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, Games in Task Group Pathfinders will focus on Starfleet’s return to science and exploration. Games are limited to the years leading up to the launch of the USS Enterprise – D under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Task Group Kelvin (23rd Century)

Set in the alternate timeline created by the Hobus Star supernova. Games in Task Group Kelvin will explore the universe of the rebooted crew of the USS Enterprise.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

July was my first month as TFCO of 64. I’m excited to see the addition of two games to our NX Division and I look forward to developing canon across the Task Force. For the remainder of 2019, my focus will be on developing our two Discovery Task Groups and their canon. In the coming months, you will see more shared canon added to BF Infobase for all CO’s to use. Lastly, I am accepting applications for our next TF64 Executive Officer. If you are interested, please apply here.

Thanks for a great July and beginning of August! As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at tf64@bravofleet.com! 

Kyle  

RADM Jarred Vittorino

Commanding Officer, Task Force 64

Commanding Officer, USS Republic

Welcome to the Challenger and Endeavour

Today is a great day for our group! Today, we welcome MJ to our ranks as the CO of the Challenger NX-03 and Endeavour NX-06!

MJ, a former BFCO, will lead these two games through the Earth-Romulan War as Captain Lloyd Burton and Captain Oliver Campbell. The Challenger and Endeavour will give us a glimpse back into the time of Jonathan Archer.

I know I speak for all of TF64 when I say that we are excited to follow the adventures of the Challenger and the Endeavour!

Congratulations and welcome to Task Force 64!

 

Bravo Fleet & Star Trek: Picard

To all the members of Bravo Fleet, past and present:

In early 2020, we will be receiving the first new official canon in the late twenty-fourth century of the Prime universe in nearly twenty years with the debut of Star Trek: Picard. This is an exciting time for Bravo Fleet, and we intend to take full advantage of it. This is something that Bravo Fleet, and in fact the simming community at large, desperately needs. Bravo Fleet will be going in both feet first! We want to make this announcement now so that everyone can get ahead of the game and be properly and fully prepared!

Within a month of the end of the first season of Picard, we will be changing the default setting of Bravo Fleet’s fiction to 2399 to line up with Picard. Through the run of the series we will be proceeding at a 1:1 time scale, with one year passing in-universe for each that passes outside. This will allow us to keep pace with Picard in time.

This is a necessary step in the long-term security and survival of Bravo Fleet. With the exception of the Hobus storyline, Bravo Fleet has largely languished in its own fanon (“fan canon”), far removed from any source material, since Nemesis premiered in 2002. And while we are all some of the most creative people on the planet, we can only do so much with so little over almost two decades without feeling stale. Another large reason for this change is because we don’t want to have to continually and constantly have to retcon our own ongoing writing as Picard is airing. It’s much more conducive for us to move to 2399 and adjust our “history” according to Picard. Rather than Picard outright changing what we’re doing in its history.

What does this mean for you? It means that our primary canon support will be focused on the new 2399 setting. Most current fleet stories will be wrapped up or see major changes as we prepare for the time skip, and new stories to tell in the new setting will be discussed. Some stories will endure a decade into our timeline’s future. In the end, the specific year doesn’t affect most individual sims, but it does affect fleet storylines which, in turn, trickles down to the sim level. For your sims, we will offer as much time as you need to tie off your current storylines and make ready for the time skip. For those who do not want to move to the 2399 setting, there will be options as well. If the number of sims staying in the 2389 setting is small, they will be moved to a new Task Group in Task Force 99; if it is large, we will open a new Task Force for the “classic” Bravo Fleet setting. Fictions outside Task Forces 99 and 64 will need to advance to the new setting – a part of the point of fictions is to help tell the fleet’s stories, and that means they need to run inside the main setting of the fleet. All non-alternate (TF99) or historical (TF64) sims opened once the time jump is made will be 2399.

This will also serve as a soft reboot of sorts for Bravo Fleet. We have two decades of our own canon, and we do not know how much of that will be contradicted by what happens in the new show. We will, as always, be following screen canon first, so this will be an opportunity to bring our stories and those being told by the creators of Star Trek more closely into line. But it will serve as a fresh start for many people and will allow us to tie nice ribbons on other storylines.

At the same time as the time skip, we will be restructuring our Task Forces! The current structure, while straightforward, has led to situations where areas of operations and breadth of storytelling, especially in 72 and 93, are overwhelming. While each task force is simply divided into the four quadrants, 38 and 9 don’t encompass the entire quadrants they represent. Asking the staff of 72 and 93 to manage the canon and sheer potential number of sims in those task forces is not fair. Additionally, we’re looking for stability in our task forces, and burnout is not the way there. We will be adding multiple Task Forces to Bravo Fleet between now and around the time skip, each with a smaller, more focused area of operations. We’re hoping this will help sims focus on the stories they want to tell a lot better, allow task force staff to have more individualized attention on specific stories and areas of operations, and help build a more cohesive story overall between the sims in a task force.

COs – look for surveys to be hitting your inboxes in the next few days so that we can get a tally count for those wanting to stay in the 2389 era and those going with Bravo Fleet to 2399. We will also be releasing more information on future task forces as we finalize what that will look like.

New Task Force Logos!

To all the members of Bravo Fleet:

As part of our fleet rebranding, the task force logos have also been at the top of our list. They have largely gone unchanged since their current inception which has been well over ten years. I will also explain some changelog thoughts with each one!

TASK FORCE 9

This one is pretty self-explanatory. 9 is keeping its iconic cyan-like blue color, but the logo in the center has changed to something more 9-centric: the Bajoran Wormhole!

TASK FORCE 38

Task Force 38 keeps its purple color! The Greek delta logo has changed, though. The lowercase Greek letter was simply too “fat” to fit into the new Bravo Fleet logo correctly. The solution was straight-forward: use the uppercase delta letter!

TASK FORCE 64

This one was probably the logo that saw the most change and was a bit tricky to work with. A few concepts were drawn up that changed the inside logo to laurels and other imagery. However, with a 64 “rebranding” of sorts coming soon (more on that once Domingo returns from STLV!) we wanted some imagery that really conveyed what 64 is all about. The logo color was also changed to red for the simple fact that the gold coloring did not work well with the gold accent of the new logo. It was very much a pain in the ole’ eyeballs.

TASK FORCE 72

Very little change here. 72 has barely changed in 20 years. Continue on with your sexy logo, 72!

TASK FORCE 93

This is the other logo that, along with 64, got quite a bit of change. The first was the color. With 9 and 72 occupying a lot of the blue spectrum, 93s “greyish blue” was hard to accommodate. To set it apart and on its own, it has been given a more emerald green. To mix with 72, you get some very Earthish colors. It’s also a reminder that those sneaky Romulans are right around 93s corner! The sextant that originally occupied the 93 logo was also changed for similar reasons to 38: it was too “fat” to sit in the current logo properly. 93 has instead been given the replacement of a compass, which is the most fitting logo 93 could have.

TASK FORCE 99

Just as with 72, 99s logo remains largely unchanged. Black, infinity, infinite possibilities. Go 99!