Bravo Fleet
The new year beckons in the 25th century! With the end of 2024, the timeline of Bravo Fleet canon advances, and after a long, long – long – 2401, our stories finally enter the year of 2402. After slowing our timeline down to keep pace with Picard season 3, we will once again advance 1 IC year for every 1 OOC year. The setting will thus move faster, characters will have more room to progress and age, and we won’t get hideously congested IC calendars, like 2401 seeing the Lost Fleet invasion, Frontier Day, a resurgence of the Borg, Underspace opening, and a crisis in the illicit tech black market, all over 12 months!
I’d like to thank everyone who helped make 2024 a great year for the office. Particular thanks must go to Vince and David in the Tech Team; they have been kind enough to credit me as a project manager in rolling out new ship and station articles, but the truth is that they are the driving force, the real enthusiasm, the guys with the eye for detail and the vision of where it all leads. Our new ships wouldn’t be coming out were it not for David having thoughts like, “How can we include the Curiosity class?” spawning a whole new development cycle. They truly do work I cannot. I must also extend thanks to the rest of the BFSS, particularly those who contributed to the development of Labyrinth; FA stories would not get off the ground if it weren’t for everyone getting stuck in. This year has also seen McGig, my capable staffer of many years, move on from the Intelligence Office to deservedly carve out a department of his own, with the Science Office taking on many of my previous duties and responsibilities with our wiki and other record-keeping – and giving them the time and attention I could not always spare. I am thoroughly grateful to you all.
The Year to Come
Last month, I circulated a survey to gauge people’s experiences, preferences, and wishes about Intelligence Office writing event. More than 20 members replied, and I am grateful to everyone who took the time to give their feedback in this admittedly lengthy questionnaire. I promise it was worth it! The overall take-away is that we’ve largely got things working in a way people are happy with – campaigns are the right length, briefing material equips you for the challenge ahead, and you’ve enjoyed storytelling features such as unique mission briefings and the random campaign table. Which doesn’t mean everything will just stay the same! It means there’s room for polishing what we already do, and, above all, room for innovation.
Some of the polish will be small. We want to offer more engagement from the Intelligence Office in the form of stories supporting and advancing fleet canon narratives, for example. I am also prioritising providing more support for members who don’t write vast quantities during events, for whom 1 Story or less a week is a reasonable goal. I am hoping to offer more prompts, more mission briefings, and more storytelling support with two aims: make it easier for people to write more, or at least to get to the main events of their story faster, and make even a <6 Story campaign Mission satisfying for the writer, with a clear impact and pay-off.
Some of our steps will be more bold! Something the IO wants to achieve is a more consistent, but low level, development of fleet canon even outside of big events. There will be regular updates fleshing out the ‘status quo’ of the galaxy – the rising tensions with the Klingon Empire, relations with the Romulan factions, or the situation with the Cardassian Union, for example. This will take the form of Stories, but also storytelling support, such as guidance for you to design your own missions, and story prompts to get you started. Rather than emergent situations demanding the Fourth Fleet’s IC attention – and thus, by implication, yours OOC – these will be focused on more everyday situations. That means writers who want to get their hands dirty with fleet canon will always have an option, while people who want to take time between events to write their own stories shouldn’t feel pressured to be involved. Think of this as a gentler, more consistent format to 2024’s ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ event, or the TF Priority Missions.
I also want to offer more events in the year. One lesson we took from 2023 was to avoid burnout; 2 Fleet Actions and Frontier Day was far too intense a schedule OOC. As such, while we intend to offer our traditional Epic Adventure with our Fleet Action, we’ll be doing something a little different with our other two 2025 events (not counting our regular canon updates):
- Shore Leave. As per the proposal in the survey, this will be a shorter event – likely only 4 weeks – that on the surface might just be a bit of fluff: it’s time for the Fourth Fleet to take some time off. Sure, you could do that at any point, but there will be storytelling support to encourage character-driven writing or low-stakes adventures (Think TNG’s Captain’s Holiday). This will also be a great chance for cross-command writing. Doing so in these time-limited events is always a risky prospect; you want to write as much as quickly as you can, and waiting on someone else to pick up your tag can be very stifling. However, teaming up one of your characters with one of someone else’s for a shore leave story – social, political, adventure! – can let members do that as one aspect of their event. Furthermore, it’s the hope that this event can be used to encourage development of locations such as the Federation interior; where are your characters going on vacation? We’ll encourage wiki articles and fleshing out of all manner of corners of the galaxy, not just dangerous hotspots. Our hope for this event is to encourage some of the OOC social aspects of writing events and to focus an event on character development and lower stakes, with all of the bells and whistles and hype of your average campaign.
- The Frontier. This will take the form of our ‘second’ campaign of 2025. It will be set in a specific location – perhaps new, perhaps not – with an overarching plot hook to draw in the ships of the Fourth Fleet. In addition to the arching plot with usual storytelling support, this campaign will be an opportunity for more use of TF assets, some TF-specific storylines (with a chance for staff involvement in the development), more space and time for cross-command writing (taking lessons from Shore Leave), and, again, opportunities for members to produce wiki articles and develop the area in a way that excites you. No spoilers on where this will be set, but it is my hope for this region to get the same amount of love, attention, and development as the Deneb Sector Block received in The Lost Fleet. This event will run much later in the year, but either finish before Thanksgiving (lessons learnt from The Devil to Pay), or run until mid-December but be much longer overall, with more emphasis on taking time to explore the setting and collaborate rather than racing to the end and burning out.
These titles should be taken as project names only. We’ll be a bit more imaginative when the time comes.
All of this will be accompanied by these IO story updates in between events, keeping the setting dynamic in 2402, and so there’s always something in fleet canon people can involve themselves in – while leaving plenty of space for members to write their own adventures. Here’s a broad overview of our calendar:
- Q1: Introduce more fleet canon and writing support, and build up to…
- Q2: Fleet Action 2025
- Q3: Shore Leave (keep your eyes peeled for excitement from elsewhere in the fleet in this period!)
- Q4: The Frontier
The overall goal of 2025 is for us to offer content more consistently than in 2024, but without the near-constant intensity of 2023, while still making sure IO events are unique and engaging. Stories like the situation with the Klingon Empire and Cardassian Union will receive attention and support, while fleet events still remain special and different. There’ll be more space for collaborative writing between members and within Task Forces, and a hope for us to hone our skills writing stories together which aren’t only about saving the galaxy.
Don’t worry – we will be saving the galaxy. No spoilers, but… let’s just say I’ve been listening to the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack on repeat as I prepare for FA 2025 coming – that’s right – in Q2 2025.
See you in 2402!