Bravo Fleet
Greetings from the Intel Office (as the Lore Office of-old is now called, pay no attention to the fact our branding hasn’t caught up yet!). I know you’re all buzzing from the latest news of ‘Blood Dilithium,’ the fleet-wide campaign being brought to us by Task Force 17 at the start of November. Soon you can venture deep into the Delta Quadrant to investigate these spontaneous manifestations of dilithium, and whatever phenomenon lies at its heart.
We hope the fleet’s campaigns can continue to encourage storytelling in different pockets of the galaxy, different corners of canon. It helps writers stretch their wings, and improves our world-building. To that end, knowing BF writers will want to tell a myriad of tales set in the Delta Quadrant’s Gradin Belt, the wiki team has been hard at work creating new articles and sprucing up old ones!
I encourage you all to check articles on anything you’re thinking of writing about. If you’re not sure, start at the Gradin Belt article and get browsing! There are a few more key ones I’ll bring to your attention, though:
- The Barzan Wormhole, which makes travel to the DQ possible;
- Starbase 38, which lies at the mouth of the wormhole on the Alpha Quadrant’s end;
- The Delta Exploration Initiative, which normally oversees Starfleet operations through the wormhole;
- The Markonian Outpost, a station first visited by Voyager that now houses the only – and very small – Starfleet facilities in the quadrant;
- Underspace, that enables Starfleet ships to cover vast distances in th e Delta Quadrant quickly – as and when the Turei allow it;
- Our brand-new article on the Borg, including guidance on how to write them, and how the Collective is (as we know from Season 2 of Picard) no longer the force it once was. The Intel Office cannot recommend writing direct confrontations with a Borg vessel still connected to the Collective.
There may be many more which pique your interest, but those are the articles that have seen significant updates in support of Blood Dilithium or, like the Borg page, are just new!
Ahead of another major writing event, I’d also like to remind people how to engage with fleet canon, and what sets it apart from member canon. Fleet canon is the lore developed by the Intel Office to flesh out important details we haven’t been given by Trek on-screen – because there’s no on-screen source whatsoever giving us access to the Delta Quadrant, everything in the above is fleet canon, enabling stories to be told in a setting familiar to and loved by Voyager fans. Member canon is the facts and events from the writing of you, individual members – and because nobody can be expected to keep up with everything everyone writes (not even the Intel Office can do that!), it should both be considered non-binding to other writers, but also written in a way that isn’t binding to others.
For example: the wiki page on the Markonian Outpost tells you who the current station manager is. That’s fleet canon. It doesn’t tell you about any of the specific bars or establishments aboard, but there’s plenty of space for you to name and create one if your ship visits during Blood Dilithium. That’s member canon. But the wiki page also doesn’t say who the head of security is on the outpost. The member canon way around that would be to simply use the station manager or a security officer/shift leader. Just because member canon is non-binding and we accept that contradictions may exist, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to minimise these contradictions.
A lot of this is found in the Introduction to Bravo Fleet Writing article on the wiki, which I encourage everyone to be sure they’re familiar with. And if you read nothing else, read the ‘Common Issues’ section at the bottom. It lays out guidance on using NPC ships, on NPC admirals and senior officers, on using figures from Trek canon, on our content rules (very important) and on engaging appropriately with the tone and themes of Star Trek.
All of that management stuff done, please do enjoy the new content! Plan away for adventures in the Delta Quadrant, but remember – you’ve only had a whiff of what TF17 has in store for you. Keep your eyes peeled for another content update in the coming days.
Then we’ll see what’s out there.