[Academy] A Glimpse Beyond the Bat’leth

Whilst tensions rise on both sides of the border following Chancellor Toral’s ‘inspiring’ statements about a new future for the Empire, it’s easy to forget the billions of citizens who inhabit Klingon space. The people who turn the gears of the empire, feed and water its warriors and bring glory in their own way. Starfleet captains are encouraged to remember that there is life beyond the Bird of Prey by considering the lives of these everyday people of the Empire.

Write a short fiction between 500 & 1000 words highlighting the view of a non-warrior citizen of the Klingon Empire following Chancellor Toral’s recent declaration of a new Klingon Age. Perhaps your character is an aging official on a core world in the empire, or perhaps they are a trader who has made their life working on the Romulan border? How does the chancellor’s recent decision affect them and how does this differ from the perspective of a Federation citizen? Remember the Empire is a multi-species community and your subject may not be a Klingon themself.

At the Bravo Fleet Academy, the Fiction Writing Programme offers a plethora of tools, tips and tricks for creating characters, including cameo and supporting characters. As part of this competition, we strongly encourage exploring section 5 of the course and the characterization portion of the Bravo Fleet Fiction Rubric as you create your fiction. Entrants are also encouraged to review the materials available at the Bravo Fleet Command 2402 mission and the associated Bravo Fleet Wiki entries for ideas and canon updates.

The character you use to functionally present this submission on your command is not considered for the competition, and you are not expected to create a character on BFMS especially for this competition. Members are encouraged to consider how characters can be introduced within the sphere of your writing in cameo roles and the possabilities for single instance and vignette writing. You may find it beneficial to post these entries in a standalone mission you can use in the future for one-off writing posts. The focus of this competition is the characterisation of a standalone character within a chapter and submissions using other characters to facilitate the post are acceptable.

For examples in this method please see ‘How they Fulfill their Oaths‘ and ‘A Price too High‘.

Please remember to consider whether you would like your entry published following the judging as the hope is to share these with the community.

Criteria

• Submit a fiction between 500 & 1000 words by submitting a link to a published BFMS story, either on Starbase Bravo or your own command. Submissions can be part of your ongoing mission or a single entry.
• This story should be new writing, created after the beginning of the competition, taking the form of a single post and not an abstract of a larger chapter.
• Stories will be graded in accordance with the Bravo Fleet Fiction Rubric, which marks on the following criteria: Language, Style, & Mechanics; Adherence to Canon; Perspective; Characterization; Originality; Use of the Prompt.
• Using generative AI for this competition is forbidden as per the Bravo Fleet Policy.