Bravo Fleet
Hullo, Bravo Fleet! Were you all tired of my announcements as Chief of Staff? I’ve got good news and bad news, then. Good news: I’ll be making fewer of them. Bad news: You still have to sit through this one.
I am thrilled to bits to take on the role of Bravo Fleet Loremaster. The Lore Office is a fantastic resource, here to work with Task Forces in developing a universal canon for the Fleet. This means every story has the capacity to impact another, and we can all contribute to the dynamic universe of 2399, instead of only experiencing or being affected by our separate games. It means long-term narratives, stories that prevail through staff changes or unit reshuffles. It means consistency of theme, a commitment to a vision of Trek that is exciting and adventurous, occasionally dark and dangerous, but fundamentally optimistic and thoughtful.
And this is a canon you can engage with. We want you to read it and think, “Wow, what story can I tell with that?” – and for you to then do it in your games or on the forums. The Charter says that the Loremaster “is charged with maintaining, updating, and expanding the fictional lore and story line of Bravo Fleet.” This is true, and it’s why I’ll be working with Task Force staff to offer support with current projects, so every area of operations has a robust, developed launching point for storytelling. But I think my most important job is getting people to want to write within that maintained, updated, and expanded lore – and to support the best way for you all to do that.
Keep your eyes posted for updates from Task Forces as they continue to develop their canon. Within the next few months, we intend for every notable faction of every Task Force to have their own fully-developed page on the Bravo Fleet Infobase. Think of these as the sandpits in which you can play and write and tell stories. From there, the Lore Office has schemes – oh, yes – but in the meantime we’ll be bringing 2399 to life and to your screens.
And until then, some book-keeping!
New Positions
Looking to the future of the Lore Office, we have opened recruitment for some new positions. Please Apply Here for either role!
Infobase Admin
The BF Infobase’s purpose is to be our one-stop-shop for canon. This is only possible if it’s well-managed, tidy, and consistently presented. As such, the Lore Office is looking for an Administrator for the Infobase, who will be responsible for making sure articles are properly formatted, designing templates, managing categories, and assisting writers in the Lore Office and Task Force Senior Staff in getting their content up. This role requires an eye for detail and would benefit from some skills (or eagerness!) as a writing editor, but most important of all is a familiarity with MediaWiki.
Technology Team (temporary)
We’ve been rewriting many of our starship specifications over the last year. The intention has been to write articles about ship classes that don’t focus on how many torpedo launchers are at the fore and aft of the ship, but properly explain things like what a class is good at, how independently it can operate, and what life aboard is like for the crew. We want these to be guides to inspire and advise writers in their storytelling, while still providing what technical detail is necessary (apparently we care more than VOY how many shuttles are aboard).
We are almost done with our articles on Federation ships. We have keen volunteers looking to work on alien vessels. But we would welcome more assistance, particularly with the latter. This would be a temporary role; while this project has taken a long time, we’d like the manpower to not still be working on it in another year. But it’s a great chance to contribute to the Fleet with a useful resource that players will use and refer to all the time!
If you’re interested, please first take a look at some of our starship articles – and remember, we want to produce writing guides rather than technical manuals.
For all of this – lore development, applying to the office, ideas about the writing community in Bravo Fleet – my e-mail inbox or my Discord (justslide#9285) are open. Questions? Suggestions? Wanting to know if you can Do A Thing, or wanting us to Do A Thing? You all know I love how BF has expanded for gaming, competitions, expanded as a community, but our origins will always be as a writing group. I intend to only expand our writing community in future, increasing engagement with the storytelling on Relay Station Bravo or workshopping opportunities to discuss and develop our fictions. Until that all kicks off, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts, ideas, or queries.