Bravo Fleet
Dear Members of Bravo Fleet,
The other day during a conversation among the Bravo Fleet Senior Staff, we were reflecting on the fact that the BFSS continues to be the most stable slate of staffers that this organization has ever had. Turn-over among the BFSS has been extremely low since the beginning of Vince’s administration in 2019. Indeed, if you look at the staff page, you can see that the majority of the BFSS measure their staff time in years, which is absolutely astonishing if you follow those records back a few years and see that BFCOs and BFXOs rarely had tenures longer than five or six months for the majority of our history. About a week ago, I passed three years as BFXO, having taken over the role when Emily stepped back in March of 2022. This three-year anniversary seemed as good a time as any to write a short report to reflect on what I’ve done over the last year. I’ll also make some brief Fleet Action reminders.
2024-2025 Year-in-Review
Being the Bravo Fleet Executive Officer can be an unusual job on some days. Along with the BFCO, the role is ex officio on every committee, so can see into every staff room on the Discord server, and every staff panel on the BFMS. Some days, that means waking up to dozens or hundreds of notifications! It means fielding questions at all levels, and, in general, helping make sure that the many trains around here are running on time. The job is made much easier thanks to the hard work of departmental and task force-level staffers who all share a common role: to make the member experience in the fleet engaging, fair, and fun. In addition to daily operations, there are always three or four conversations going on about new policies, new projects, or new ships/specifications. Other than being vice chair of the BFC and presiding over votes related to the BFCO, the BFXO doesn’t have a whole lot of officially-designated responsibility, so in practice, this means helping out everywhere, and I’ve found that very satisfying. Beyond that, the BFXO takes up projects under the direction of the BFCO. In prior years, my main project was the Academy, which I am still very proud of, and I occasionally contribute to the grading. This last year, the project was the Bravo Fleet Logistics department.
In my third year as BFXO, I worked on these projects:
- Led the writing of the BF Logistics Policy from Vince’s notes, to create a fully operational assets and prestige policy that was used by the Engineering department to create the prestige and assets system you see as the Fleet Marketplace, serving as inaugural Bravo Fleet Logistics Officer from 1st June 2024 to 11th August 2024. During that time, I made the initial staff hires for the department and established standard operating procedures.
- Served as interim Task Force 72 Commanding Officer for over four months, from 17th August 2024 to 1st January 2025, while Vince served as interim Task Force 21 Commanding Officer, so we could open a new TF and shore up an existing one while staff were trained and mentored.
- Remade all of the task force and department seals (like the one on this announcement) to take them to a higher standard of design.
- At Vince’s direction, rewrote the Bravo Fleet Creative Integrity Policy, to make it significantly more clear what uses of artificial intelligence are and are not appropriate, as well as further explaining what creative integrity even is and why we should care about it in this organization.
- Continued to serve on the Intelligence Office’s Technology Team, which added 10 new Starfleet vessels (and returned 2 more to service), 4 Federation civilian/Starfleet Auxiliary vessels, and has made great strides on expanding non-Federation offerings (mostly through Vince’s hard work there!), in addition to dozens of articles that were expanded and/or re-written to account for new information learned about canon. The first fully new vessel we ever added was the Reliant class, back in 2020, and since then we’ve expanded to 56 playable Federation starships, all with robust, story-driven articles. I’m very proud of our work here, and it’s one of our top draws in terms of web traffic. This was the first role I had in modern BF, and one that I hope to keep doing for a very long time.
There are probably things I’m forgetting, but there are other things I’m leaving out, as I’ve been a sounding board or assistant for a lot of projects, but the good work you see happening around the fleet is thanks to the dedication of your Department Heads, Deputies, and Task Force Staff. I went back and forth on writing this, as it seems self-serving, but I think it’s important to be transparent about what the staff in this organization actually do. There are plenty of organizations out there that can claim the same amount of staff longevity, but it’s very unclear what some of them accomplish on a daily basis. It’s also not always clear to members what staff are doing, because so many of these discussions happen in private areas. Also, I don’t often get the opportunity to write reports when not running a department, and I wanted to write something… 🙂
2025-2026 Goals
So, that was year three. Here’s a taste of what I’m hoping to accomplish in year four, beyond continuing to support our whole staff:
- Continue working with departments to address policies that need to be updated, to bring them up to our latest standards in formatting and organization.
- Continue to monitor the Creative Integrity Policy to make sure it is as current as it can be with our changing landscape of AI and technology.
- Support Cath and Vince in expanding our specifications offerings as much as possible through (at least) Romulan and Klingon offerings, and make sure all of our stations are supported with robust articles.
- Work with department heads with the goal of placing a deputy in every department.
Fleet Action Reminders
The Fleet Action is nearly upon us. As we get ready to explore Nightfall, here are a few reminders:
- If you have questions about the story, please make sure to check out #canon-noticeboard on the server, and read Cath’s very detailed announcement, which has links to all of the information you could possibly need.
- As a reminder, any pre-writing for the Fleet Action (any actual writing of the fiction you’re going to submit and not just planning/brainstorming) is not allowed, as this would be considered cheating.
- Once the Fleet Action kicks off, you’re encouraged to enter as many competitions as possible, for your own glory (and shot at winning the event itself) and for the glory of your task force, as the event will have rankings for each unit and final placements for the top three members. It is always better to enter a competition you may think you don’t have a shot at winning, because entering is a great way of getting points. Entering also gets you a challenge coin, which is also worth prestige beyond entering a standard competition. This is the only time that you will ever be able to earn the challenge coin for this event, so pick up as many as you can! Basically, Fleet Actions are an amazing opportunity to bank a lot of activity and prestige all at once—and that activity often is further rewarded with merit awards or promotions.
- Remember to read all of the rules for every competition you submit to. Also, remember not to discuss competitions with other members, as this would, again, be cheating. Let everyone have a chance to grapple with the competitions and don’t spoil them—if you have a functional question, reach out to the organizer of that competition.
- While there’s a story attached to it, this is not *just* a writing event, and you could even win the event without doing any writing at all. So if you’re a gamer or just like competitions, this is still a great opportunity for you!
