[TLF Phase 3]: Captain’s Log

Description

Captain’s Logs are one of the most iconic tropes in Star Trek, and they feature in many, many episodes to help set the stage for the audience. If written well, they can summarize why the story is starting, where it’s starting, and what the audience can hope to see next, all without spoiling the ending of an episode. For this competition, you should try to write the best captain’s log you possibly can. It should be succinct, interesting, and free of grammatical, mechanical, or stylistic issues. Remember in this genre that brevity is truly the soul of wit.

Criteria

  • Your captain's log may be no more than 150 words long. The submission should include a phrase like "Captain's Log" and the stardate, but no other prose details, such as where the log is being recorded.
  • You should submit your log directly to the competition. If it is also posted into one of your stories, you should also link to it.
  • You may not use a captain's log from an earlier phase in this Fleet Action.
  • Submissions will be evaluated based on clarity, interestingness, style, and cleverness.

Winners

Submissions

User ID Content Date Entry
Chris Rouse 17

Computer. Begin entry.

I have been told that fear is necessary. Doubt is inevitable. That every Starfleet officer must come to terms with their own mortality. I have accepted my own fate, but now I have the lives of others in my hands. For years, I could shirk the big decisions and heavy choices. Now, with a Jem’Hadar battlecruiser breathing down our neck, I can’t help but feel guilt for what is likely the impending death of my crew and all that are relying on me to get them to Farpoint Station safely. Thankfully, we are without an android officer who can calculate our dismal odds on the fly. The crew seem hopeful and I want to encourage the sentiment as much as possible. If they feel doomed, the clever ideas and unique approaches to our predicament may cease. No, with this crew, we will survive.

Computer. End log.

 2023-06-16 19:39:21
Azras Dex 10

Captain’s Log Stardate 2401.3,

Our mission was successful thanks to the teamwork between the three ships, though it didn’t come without a cost. The Gagarin lost its captain after he decided to place the Gagarin in the line of fire to protect the returning hazard team. We lost many good officers from the battle, many of whom were fresh out of the academy not getting a real chance to explore. Now I get to do what every commanding officer dreads doing, contacting those family members to inform them about their loved one. No matter how many battles I have faced over my years in Starfleet, it never gets any easier to think that this could be your last time to still come out at the end. I am grateful that I get to face another day, but the pain that others won’t is there and always will be there.

 2023-06-12 01:07:49
Theo Barrington 2080

Entry for [TLF PHASE 3]: CAPTAIN’S LOG]:

Captain’s log, stardate 78179.36.

We have reached Arriana Prime and now have assets on the ground. Alpha team have secured the landing site for civilian extraction, while Bravo and Charlie team’s are operating under guerilla warfare conditions to halt the Jem’Hadar advance on the capital.

We have secured non-starfleet resources to help in the evacuation and are now attempting to contact what remains of planetary forces. Infrastructure and all kinds of public services are shot to hell, which is hampering efforts to reach survivors.

We have… sustained casualties of our own, but nothing so far that will prevent us from achieving our objective. I anticipate this may change when we encounter the main bulk of the Jem’Hadar forces, who have so far kept themselves beyond our reach. I have no doubt they are planning something. What, however, remains to be seen…

Link to story: https://bravofleet.com/story/82189

 2023-06-11 15:17:50
Andreus Kohl 2374

Captain’s Log, supplemental:

After dashing across the Deneb Sector in search of clues, we have located the architect of the lost fleet’s return. Doctor Marl Trojet created the artificial wormhole that unleashed the Jem’Hadar from their captivity and they destroyed his starship in recompense. Comatose and dying, Trojet lies incapable of answering my questions about why he brought forth the lost fleet and what ties may bind him to the Dominion. My only option is to engage in a psychic rescue operation! With the assistance of Lieutenant T’Kaal, a Vulcan mind meld will enable me to communicate with Trojet before his body dies and his Trill symbiont must be recovered. In this manner, I will uncover the identity of any compatriots who can recreate his methods. Selfishly, I also seek to understand why this experiment drove him to abandon every one of the Federation’s ideals.

https://bravofleet.com/story/82136

 2023-06-11 11:13:17
Alexandra Sudari-Kravchik 2121

https://bravofleet.com/story/81831

Captain’s Log, Stardate 78221.5

Atlantis is a day out from our rendezvous with the ships Captain Hor’keth and Commander Grel have both promised to assemble at short notice. If both men keep to their word, we won’t see them until we arrive. Still no word or idea on when Captain Kaltene will make herself available, but Tholians do have a reputation for the mysterious. I’ll call it a pleasant surprise when she does show up.

While I’ve instituted a communications blackout for outgoing messages, the bridge crew have been monitoring communications across the Deneb Sector while we’re in transit. No one has challenged us or Papakura, which I find somewhat suspicious. No doubt something I can thank Admiral Beckett for later. But what we’re hearing out there is just madness.

I think I’m in the same camp as Captain Sayil – I do not like this cloak-and-dagger bullshit.

 2023-06-10 14:17:13
Sky Athenos 2640

https://bravofleet.com/story/81943

 2023-06-09 14:47:24
Erill'Yun Mek 2187

Captain’s log, stardate 78437.0. Something struck me last night as I regenerated amongst the orbosh vines. I saw it in the way they moved. It was slow. Tentative. When the fibrotendrils latched onto my skin, my thoughts clouded until they were longer my own. Shapeless, twisting thunderclouds smoked and rolled across the horizon of my mind.

Twenty-six terran years. Since the end of the war, I had received nothing from the orbosh aside from its regenerative aid. Now it seeks to enter my thoughts again, to exercise this part of our symbiosis.

Rising plumes appeared to me like the smoking craters of Leonis Prime. Electric bolts sent pangs of fear chanelling through the core of my being. The Ahwahnee is far from the front. The sensor net is all but fully deployed. We must complete our orders. Yet, I know they’re coming.

2023-06-09 07:37:23
K'vagh 2671

Link to post: https://bravofleet.com/story/81903

Entry:

Commanding officers Log. Stardate: 78199.9: We have spent the past eight hours at high warp pursuing the renegade Ferengi vessel, which is currently in possession of the stolen energy device from Oppenheimer station.

My Chief Engineer has been working tirelessly to push the Thyanis’s engines to the limit so that we can keep pace with our folly.

I’m told that every safety protocol for the warp drive system had to be overridden, and all parameters have been pushed well beyond rated tolerances.

Notwithstanding, Thyanis is a tough ship and she is so far; responding well to the abuse.

In parallel, my remaining senior staff and the crew at large have selflessly gone above and beyond to prepare themselves and the ship for what might indeed be; a one-way trip. I couldn’t be more proud of their devotion to duty at this critical time, or to call myself, their Captain

 2023-06-08 21:47:40
Sazra Kobahl 2545

https://bravofleet.com/story/81130

 2023-06-08 20:00:22
Edwin Wagner 2468

“Captain’s log, March 20th, 2401. Janoor III has paid more than their share for the victory we’re holding onto today…the death toll is unthinkable. The Mack crew left a few hours ago. I worry about our crews and how they’re going to process this…experience. It was hard for me the first time..and that war went on for years. This lasted twenty days and there’s a sense of hopeful relief we’re all holding onto…that maybe we’ve been through the worst. The experience is over…but the collective recovery from watching a city of five thousand razed by hatred…that will take time. Our counselor has started getting her staff to work holding group sessions. The only way we’ll survive the emotional trauma is together. I learned the hard way on the Denver…and I don’t want my crew to have that experience. One day at time is the best we got. End log.”

Log is from Peter Crawford's perspective on the Olympic on 3.20.2401

 2023-06-08 17:44:58
2681

Captain Log, April 2401, in the Ciatar Nebula. We have been conducting scans of a strange anomaly that seems to be giving particle emissions of chronotropic particles. With our limited capacity to conduct further research, we have made note of this phenomenon and relayed it to the Starbase Bravo for further study with a more equipped ship. On an interesting note, since the battle it has been rather quiet around the nebula with no detection of communications or ship activity. I am concerned this could be a prelude to a massive increase in ship presence as this war is occurring all-around the sector, except in this location. Lastly, it is my pleasure to record that Captain Khor will be joining us shortly on our return to Starbase. He has fully recovered from his injuries and is ready for service. It will be great to defer to his experience.

https://bravofleet.com/story/81263

 2023-06-08 16:07:33
James Neidlinger 1

Admiral's Log, Stardate 78226.

We achieved victory, but it came at a steep price. Over 930 souls committed to the deep, but I would change nothing. Our sacrifices saved millions who put their faith in our Federation.

It will take weeks to repair the ships, months to rebuild the planet, and a lifetime to heal from our trauma, but we cannot stop with Nasera. The Dominion threat still lingers, and so onward we must press.

I worry about this new ship and her crew. They have experienced the ruthless realities of war, and I cannot promise them I will bring them home. All I can promise them is that we can make a difference. The survival of our Federation depends on us and crews like us across the Deneb Sector.

How did it come to this? And why does Starfleet sit silent? At least we have the Fourth Fleet.

 2023-06-08 14:28:38
Aryanna Rigras 2486

https://bravofleet.com/story/81799

Captains log:
The past 36 hours have been busy to say the least. We have deployed team obsidian to infiltrate Deptrock 6. We have decided on a hybrid plan combining elements of plan A and plan B. I am still not sure what Bravo fleet command was thinking of, sending one ship to conduct this mission, so many factors, and so many unknowns. We have successfully deployed four probes to act as an early warning system over the potential avenues used by the convoys. Morale is high amongst the crew, though many do not know what awaits us in the coming days.

 2023-06-07 20:09:09
Varen Wyll 2419

Captains Log, Supplemental.

I can feel the cycloptic eye of the Breen out there, staring blankly back at me from the empty ocean of stars; unblinking and uncaring. I could hear the crackle of their laughter through vocoders, like the snap of broken bones across the lightyears as if they stood on the bridge next to me. Smiling away behind their dog-like muzzles as they watched us pick through the remnants of the shuttle. I could see them turning to their Jem’Hadar foot soldiers, the latest ignorant tool in the Breen armoury, praise offered in gloved fists. They have wounded us, struck deep into the heart of my squad, my family. They don’t realise that they’ve poked the bear in killing T’Sal, we are now ready to strike. We will not let their new dampening weapon come to fruition. We will not let others lose their loved ones. Not again.

2023-06-06 21:20:49
Kristina Tyelin 2622

O:SS Chapter 9 - https://bravofleet.com/story/81531
Captain’s log, Stardate 78173.9, with the changeling infiltrator found and neutralized, the Pioneer continues on course to Saxue to find and destroy the ketracel-white facility. Repairs on our shields are nearly completed, Lieutenant Commander Beya estimates another thirty minutes until they are operational again, which also means we will have our refractive shielding advantage back. The crew feels the loss of two of our senior officers, Lieutenant Commander Jack Sanders and Lieutenant Broll, but have found new determination and drive to ensure this mission succeeds. Not only for the ones we lost, but for everyone else out there that’s fighting this new threat as well. The Pioneer will succeed, as it always has in its past… it has to.

2023-06-05 22:14:31
James MacLeod 653

"Captain's Log, Supplemental.

We are here at the threshold of what may become one of the most significant engagements of this conflict. After six days and nights riding the center of an ion storm across space to the Nasera system, our task force of fifteen Federation starships stands ready to engage the Dominion Supply Depot, a critical supply hub for our resurgent enemy in the Deneb Sector. Destroying it will slow the Dominion war machine and grant us a decisive edge over our resurgent enemy.

Dominion resistance is formidable. Sensors have detected two battleships and several squadrons of attack ships augmenting the depot's defenses. It is in the crucible of conflict that true character is revealed, and I have the utmost faith in the mettle of my crew. We may be outnumbered, but we are not outmatched."

 2023-06-05 20:43:53
Joshua Bryant 2586

Captain’s Log, Stardate 94641.8

Ensign Carter and I have successfully eliminated the Jem’Hadar threat within the Arcania Cluster. We still have had no contact from Commander Veva or Ensign Mear, despite our several attempts. What’s more, according to our sensors, the Array is now on high alert. I fear the away team has been sent into a far more dangerous situation than we anticipated. Given the attack by the Jem’Hadar fighter, it’s fair to presume some are present on the Array. I only hope they are as successful as Ensign Carter and I have been.

 2023-06-05 03:10:48
Aris Suin 2583

Captain's Log, Stardate 240103.5, There is an old earth phrase that says "Even the best-laid plans go to waste." and that rings true today. Automation testing proved a catastrophic failure as our test vessel opened fire on the Yadev Depot. With nerves running high and suspicion running even higher, the last thing any of us needs is a saboteur in our midst. With less than 48 hours until the fight is upon us, can we come back from this? I have faith in my crew to get things done, but it is not just my own crew I need to worry about. Can we hold the system and hope against hope?

 2023-06-04 23:09:43

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