Bravo Fleet
The Fourth Fleet has stood firm against onslaughts from Klingons and the Dominion, brought aid to the collapsing Romulan Star Empire, and investigated the mysteries of ancient Tkon technology and the passages of Underspace. Grand work fit for Starfleet, safeguarding the galaxy and expanding the limits of scientific knowledge. Now, a new challenge calls, but overcoming it will win no medals, earn no academic accolades, and anoint no heroes.
In a week’s time Bravo Fleet will launch its latest campaign, The Devil to Pay. In this six-week writing event, the Fourth Fleet is dispatched to respond to the latest threat to galactic stability: an upsurge in the black market economy for dangerous technologies that could be cataclysmic in the wrong hands, orchestrated by the nefarious Orion Syndicate.
To remind members, as this is the first stand-alone campaign of its kind since 2022(!), while the storytelling of this event is akin to a Fleet Action, it is accompanied by no competitions, no other activities are put on hold, and is not a contest between Task Forces. This campaign advances the events of fleet canon and is a chance for writers to tell a story in a shared, ongoing scenario.
The briefing for the event, laying out the storyline and giving writing guidance, can be found here. Unlike previous Fleet Actions, there will be no additional storytelling elements like unique briefings or the campaign table; everything you need to develop your own story has been provided in this briefing and on the wiki. You can begin to plan and talk as much and as soon as you like, but remember that Stories must not be posted until the event opens on November 2nd. While it’s not cheating to pre-write, as there are no competitions or ribbon races involved, the spirit of a campaign focuses on everyone coming together to write for the event’s duration.
The Intelligence Office has been hard at work in the run-up to this campaign, and has some fresh articles (and some updated!) to enhance your stories. Take a look at:
- The Orion Syndicate
- The expanded work on the Orion Colonies (including some tasty – but not spoileriffic – lore tidbits from the latest Lower Decks!)
- Some new ship articles for civilian – or pirate! – vessels, including not only the classic the Antares class, the Maquis-famed Ju’Day class, and the wildcard Fluyt class, but everyone’s favourite Star Trek: Picard celebrity, the Kaplan F17! Please give David and Vince a big hand for their work in the Tech Team in cooking these up for us.
One last, unrelated fleet canon announcement is that upon the end of 2024, the Bravo Fleet timeline will revert to advancing at a rate of 1 year IC for every 1 year OOC. That means that stories written in 2025 will be set in 2402, stories written in 2026 will be set in 2403, etc. There’s a few reasons for this – we’ve swung between the two in the last few years largely because of Picard’s somewhat unclear timeline, and don’t expect Trek canon to impact the 25th century any time soon. But 2401 was a busy year IC; almost comically so. We’d like our timeline to be less congested, and for characters and stories to have a chance to advance. Plus it keeps things simple!
That’s a 2025 matter, though. For now, let’s see out 2024 with a bang, and come together for a walk on the wrong side of the tracks of the Star Trek universe.
The Devil to Pay launches on Saturday November 2nd.