Bravo Fleet
“Operations as Normal”
Guardian-class starbases were always a hive of activity and the home to enough functionaries, officials, and bureaucrats to organize pretty much any large-scale operation you could think of, from delivering medical supplies to a beleaguered colony to the invasion of a medium-sized interstellar power. As a fleet headquarters, Starbase Bravo was no exception to this rule, except for the fact that many of these middle-managers were quite high-ranking, and so the competition for office space even on this massive station had been fraught. An entire deck in one of the towers above the station’s northern pole had been reserved for Fourth Fleet Operations, though, without Rear Admiral Seagraves even needing to descend into the internecine politics of securing just the right view or proximity to her quarters, thanks to the need for direct access to the station’s massive communications arrays to coordinate the fleet’s task forces. Her reputation as an absolute street fighter when it came to politics didn’t hurt in this regard, either.
“Captain Marshall-Bennett has arrived on station to take command of Task Force 17, as expected, Admiral,” her Chief of Staff reported. She’d managed to snag Captain Bancroft from Rear Admiral Hayden before she’d left for the Delta Quadrant. He was young, tenacious, and incredibly efficient. “And I have the monthly reports for your inspection from Captains Dex, Bastin, and Branson for your review as well,” he added, gesturing off of his holographic PADD to send a stack of reports to her desk terminal. Having dozens of ships across four task forces in all corners of the galaxy was a logistical challenge to say the least.
“Good. I never like walking into Admiral Wolf’s office without knowing exactly what the status of our forces are,” Seagraves replied, turning away from the excellent view she had of the space lanes to glance momentarily at Bancroft. It wasn’t idle chit-chat; it was a reminder that she would never tolerate being under-informed.
“The personnel division is hard at work getting ships staffed and out into the task forces. I just assigned two new officers to that team, as well,” Bancroft noted. The starbase was a hub pulling personnel from across the Federation and processing them to their assignments in the Fourth Fleet, ranging from cadets to fresh Ensigns to young officers ready for their first command.
“Have you been able to schedule meetings with the candidates for the Sagan, Hippocrates, and Ares, yet?” she asked.
“Two are en route now to the station, three are scheduled for later this afternoon, and I have another twenty-two dossiers annotated for your selection, sir,” Bancroft said. Staffing the fleet’s forward operating forces fell directly under her aegis. These ships weren’t normally assigned to one task force in particular but shifted between them to provide the elite, specialized support that the Fourth Fleet had made a name for itself with. “I’ve also completed the initial review on the Cygnus, Avenger, and Spartan.”
“I assume my selections for those three vessels are continuing to work out well, Bancroft?”
“Yes, sir. In fact, they continue to be among the top-performers with respect to efficiency in the fleet.”
“I hope you’re not just saying that to belay my feelings, mister.”
Bancroft knew well enough not to chuckle at that. “No, Admiral. Respectfully, I wouldn’t wish to intercede between them and you, were their performance not excellent,” the younger man said, with just a hint of levity creeping into his voice.
“Good instinct. I knew I picked you for a reason.”
Summary
This update contains a few different topics related to the Operations Department, mostly related to staffing opportunities. As a sort of preamble, I wanted to start with an observation I made a few days ago as I thought about the purpose of this department, as it exists at the intersection of the majority of the other departments’ responsibilities, while also having duties of its own. In short, the Operations Department exists to help the membership navigate between the fleet’s various offerings through mentorship, ranging from the New Member team, to mentoring Task Force leadership, to coordinating the established roleplaying groups (a.k.a. games, sims, writing groups, and a whole bunch of other jargon depending on your perspective). If you’re not sure where to send your question, always feel free to approach your Task Force staff or any member of the New Member team (even if you’re not a “new” member), as that’s what we’re all here for!
Task Force Staffing
I am very pleased with the current outlook for Task Force staffing and am happy to report that in addition to our four Task Force Commanding Officers and two Task Force Executive Officers, we now have four Task Group Commanding Officers, three of which have been appointed in recent days: Woozamagoo and BriWhyte in Task Force 93, and twd777 in Task Force 17. These three are eager to get started with mentoring their fellow members and will be happy to address questions about the fleet. Congratulations to these appointees!
We have openings for four more TGCOs, one in 17, one in 86, and two in 72. The role of Task Group Commanding Officer is a great way to get started in a staff role within the fleet, as it presents an opportunity to get a feel for the kinds of discussions we have behind the scenes, including about our task force and fleet-wide events to see whether or not it’s a good fit for your interests. TGCOs are a stepping stone position to other roles such as Task Force Executive Officer or Staff Officer positions within the Operations Department. The primary qualifications for this role are having a positive attitude, a knowledge of fleet systems like ranks and awards (as these are the areas that most new folks have questions about), and a willingness to help others. No worries if you’re still new to the fleet or if managing ‘paperwork’ isn’t your thing! If you’re interested in joining this team, check out the duties, here, and consider sending in an application.
New Member Team
To complement the work of the Task Force staff, the purpose of the New Member team is to help our newest members get accustomed to the fleet’s wide array of activities, as well as the ranking and award systems. These are the folks who you’ll meet first when you join Bravo Fleet. This summer, we introduced Starbase Bravo as the home base not just for the fleet but the first stop for all new members until they’ve gone through the cadet ranks to Ensign, when they “earn their color” (I may be the only one who actually says this…) and are placed into a Task Force. We’ve gone through a few different in-character and out-of-character names for this experience, but I’ve settled on simply calling the staff assigned to work with new members the New Member Team, to maximize transparency and to avoid confusion with actual Bravo Fleet Academy modules (which members of any rank can participate in).
Angel, who first joined the team a few months ago, has been doing a great job as a Staff Assistant, so she has been promoted to Staff Officer: New Members, and will coordinate the efforts of our two brand-new Staff Assistants, DarthCrusader (who has also joined the Gaming Department) and Jeb Bryson. As new members enter the fleet, the three of them will take turns buddying with new joins to give them one-on-one attention as they make the journey from Cadet to Ensign. As I mentioned before, feel free to talk with any of these three staff members on Discord if you have general questions about the fleet, and they’ll either be able to answer them or point you to the person who can answer that question! This team is currently not accepting additional applications, but the sort of work they do is nearly identical to the work done by TGCOs, and you can find that application above.
Roleplaying Groups Available – Captains Wanted!
We currently have three games open for folks who would like to lead their own roleplaying group: the USS Sagan, the USS Hippocrates, and the USS Ares, as Rear Admiral Seagraves referred to in the fiction snippet above. Unlike most fleets, for open games, we provide a basic concept, website support, a Discord server, and one-on-one mentoring, which makes this experience a smooth and positive one for new group leaders (a.k.a game managers/masters) without the need for a formal command academy, which lets you hit the ground running with your group without having to go through a bunch of modules, tests, and that sort of thing, as well as not merely being cast to the wolves to figure out the ropes on your own. Any member with the rank of Lieutenant or higher is welcome to apply to run one of these games. Please contact me on Discord or at ops@bravofleet.com if you’d like to discuss this opportunity. Meanwhile, let these game concepts tempt you:
The USS Sagan is a Nova-class planetary surveyor. What does that mean, you ask? She’s a small, swift science vessel built to explore strange new worlds. When the Enterprise or the Yorktown leave orbit, the Sagan comes in to do detailed scientific analyses to find things that the big ships have missed, which they inevitably have! Based on similar technology as the Intrepid-class, this compact workhorse is capable of landing on planets to let her crews spend months investigating a single world and doing the thing that Starfleet is best at: expanding knowledge. The Sagan herself has a storied history within Bravo Fleet, serving under Captain Jonathan Knox in the late 2380s, where she participated in the stabilization of the Barzan Wormhole and discovered an intact Promelian Battlecruiser while on a survey assignment. In the intervening years, she has cataloged over five-hundred planets and other celestial bodies and has launched the careers of numerous young scientists. Recently overhauled, the Sagan is now ready for her seventh captain to lead her on a mission as the Fourth Fleet’s scientific tip of the spear, as Starfleet turns its eyes back to the wider galaxy.
While Starfleet’s exploratory and defensive arms often get the most attention, one has to remember that Starfleet is also the greatest humanitarian armada in the galaxy, with legions of purpose-built hospital ships serving alongside engineering support vessels, rapid-response crisis starships, and diplomatic couriers that are sent to put out the embers of diplomatic disputes before they turn into full-blown brush fires. The Hippocrates is one of Starfleet’s premier Olympic-class medical vessels, which are the largest mobile hospitals in the fleet. Capable of treat up to a thousand patients, while supporting deployable surface facilities to triage thousands more, she carries a medical staff of 750 in addition to 150 starship support personnel, making her as complex a command as Starfleet’s largest explorers. Her captain must not only be an experienced physician but also a commanding officer who can get her through postings on the Federation’s most distant borders with only the most basic armaments to ward off pirates, let alone major threat vessels. The Hippocrates is one of the most sought-after assignments for medical personnel in the Fourth Fleet, and Fleet Operations is ready to send her to lead the way with humanitarian operations all around the galaxy.
Finally, we come to the Ares, an Intrepid-class starship that has nearly as storied a history as Voyager herself. Like her sister ships, she’s meant to journey far past the Federation’s borders to put her finely-tuned sensor arrays and well-equipped defenses to work in seeking out the unknown. In many ways one of the successors to the Galaxy-class project, the Intrepid is swift and smart, carrying out long-range exploratory missions with a crew of just 150. The Ares has been earmarked for strategic reconnaissance missions in areas of space newly opened to Starfleet beyond Klingon and Romulan space, operating far from reinforcements to conduct missions of scientific discovery and of first contact, under a captain who understands the mandate that all Starfleet captains hold: to be an ambassador for the ideals of the Federation while operating far from real-time instructions from command.
Operations Policy Updates
As a living document, the Operations Policy has been amended to line up with the language in use for task units and roleplaying groups (games). Some clarifications have been made on the expectations for game managers, and those interested can peruse that document here. There are no substantive changes to the way in which the department functions, but I’ve made it clearer about what a game manager should do in the rare situations that still occur when a member joins a game before joining the fleet, that fleet-wide announcements need to be transmitted to each of the groups’ individual Discord servers, and that a member of fleet staff needs to be present on each Discord server. GMs who have questions about this should reach out via Discord and I’ll be happy to sit down and explain in more detail.
Operations Staff Openings
There are openings for two Staff Officer positions within the Operations Office specifically devoted to supporting game managers, one for games set in 2399 and one for games that aren’t (i.e. on the Holodeck). These two staff members will help mentor new game managers (such as the premade concepts described above), provide basic support for Nova, and help with recruitment. If you’re interested in working to help make our group offerings stronger, consider applying for this position, especially if you have former game manager experience but don’t necessarily feel like you have the time to take on one of your own right now. For more information, contact me on Discord.
Conclusion
Congratulations again to all of the new staff members; it’s a great team full of people who are really excited about helping the fleet grow, and succeed. As always, if you have questions about anything in this announcement, feel free to reach out via Discord (CrimsonTacit#0894) or email (ops@bravofleet.com).
