Bravo Fleet
‘I’m sorry, Admiral. The analysis is utterly conclusive. There’s no other way.’ Accustomed to updating the highest-ranked officers in Starfleet, the most serious people so they could make the most serious decisions, Captain Styre rarely sounded apologetic. This was one of the few times Admiral Beckett thought he could detect a hint of, at least, regret.
Jaw tight, he looked over the PADDs scattered across his desk, the holographic displays hovering about his office. Evidence was his stock in trade, and he knew better than to peddle in anything so asinine as hope. Nevertheless, he allowed himself a moment of indulgence. ‘Are you certain?’
‘These reports don’t lie, sir. Mission readiness. Crew morale. Workload management. I don’t think you have a choice.’ Captain Styre straightened, chin tilting up a determined half-inch. ‘The Fourth Fleet needs shore leave.’
This year, the Intelligence Office is breaking away from the routine of building everything around two major events (including the Fleet Action) and we will be running multiple shorter, lower-stakes storytelling campaigns. The first of these is coming up in July: Shore Leave 2402! Starting in a fortnight and running for four weeks, members are invited to tell tales of their crew, well… going on vacation!
This is a very loose and open-ended event. In the past, campaigns and fleet actions have revolved around emergent crises, often with heavy burdens and whip-fast plots. This has sometimes left little time to focus on characters, their emotions, and their relationships. Shore Leave, in turn, is all about that! Of course, you could write your crew going on vacation at any point, but this event is an invitation to really focus on nothing but your characters for four weeks with the same level of determination and activity you’d face a mission about saving the galaxy.
Not to mention… the storytelling support. The BFMS mission briefing gives an outline and guidance on how you can tell a tale. We have also released a campaign table for Shore Leave, helping you add hijinks, twists, turns, and interpersonal drama to your ideas and plans.
More than that, for those interested, Shore Leave is a great opportunity for collaborative writing. Were you anxious about teaming up with someone for a big event, unsure if you could match activity levels over a sustained period? Why not pair off one or some of your characters and crews for Shore Leave? Put your ships in orbit over the same planet? Send your Chief of Security off on vacation somewhere else with someone’s XO? It’s a great chance to build bonds of collaboration with low commitment, but using the characters you’ve crafted for your own command over months or years.
And captains might get a little something else… no spoilers yet, but keep your ears to the ground in your Task Force lounges…
No vacation is complete, however, without the right location. IC, this official instruction for captains to give their crews a break coincides with many worlds who suffered under Vaadwaur occupation throwing celebrations as they emerge from the hardest days of their recovery. It’s a great chance for ships to revisit planets and people they saved in the darkest time of war, and perhaps be a little celebrated. Or… to revisit troubles and hardships they thought they’d left behind, at least emotionally. Did you leave some baggage back in Nightfall? Maybe your crew can process it a bit. On the beach!
Beyond that, members are welcome – no, encouraged – to develop the settings for their Shore Leave adventures. This can be a great project for the two weeks between now and Shore Leave’s launch. Share ideas on the Discord, browse for inspiring art, and build a wiki page for your crew’s destination. This might be an addition to a canonical planet, like an added section on the wiki for a destination city, or a linking article for a resort island. It might be a whole new article for a new member canon leisure world!
Whether you’re sending your crew back to Earth to see their families, planting your ship in orbit over Risa, or arranging an expedition of senior officers to the museums of old colonial towns of Vega, this is a great time to explore parts of the galaxy that might be familiar to your characters, but are new to you as a writer or us as an audience.
Shore Leave begins Saturday July 12th and runs until Sunday August 10th. Where are your crew going on vacation?
