It is a time for rest.

For months, the Federation has pulled together in recovering from the Vaadwaur invasion. Across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, worlds are rebuilding. Neighbours help one another. Fresh bonds of fellowship are forged as communities restore their homes. Starfleet and the Fourth Fleet have been at the vanguard of these efforts, going where needed to provide support, logistical aid, and to remind the Federation’s citizens through deed and presence that they are not alone.

Respite, now, is well-earned.

Fourth Fleet Command has directed their captains to give a period of rest and relaxation to their crews wherever possible. For some, officers will scatter, going their separate ways to visit friends and families across the galaxy. Other ships will put in at a suitable world to have no business other than giving their crew shore leave. Some may be entrenched in duties that cannot be fully abandoned, but captains are urged to make time for their crew to put ashore, or at least schedule significant leisure time in the ship’s facilities and holodecks.

Starfleet officers have carried heavy burdens for months. Now, they can rest and recover, grow friendships, visit family, attend to their interests, see sites of interest across the galaxy, and more. Relaxing is, after all, serious business if officers are to be fighting fit to face the next crisis.

For some, the business of recovery may have to do double-duty with other responsibilities. Many worlds that fell under the Vaadwaur boot have recovered to the point they will hold ceremonies and festivals celebrating their liberation, commemorating those they have lost, and recognising heroes who saved them. Starfleet ships, especially those which saved such worlds directly, will often have a role to play in these events. Rather than being responsible for all logistical organising, there may be a duty to host dignitaries, be publicly honoured in celebrations, or play ceremonial roles. It is expected such duties should fall alongside any R&R; that taking part in these festivals is, in itself, a chance for leisure.

Work hard, play hard. It’s time for shore leave.

THE CAMPAIGN

The Shore Leave campaign is a series of independent stories linked by a common theme. Unlike past campaigns where members write stories of their ships and crews rallying against a major threat, crisis, or opportunity, here they will write, quite simply, about their characters getting some downtime. The links of this story are in themes, genres, location, and OOC collaboration, rather than a broader, plot-driven narrative.

Any member is welcome to participate in Shore Leave. If you have a primary command, you can write the story of your squadron, starship, and crew enjoying their well-earned rest. You can start a Mission on BFMS under this fleet-wide Mission. If you want to write with another member, you can do so!

This campaign lasts for four weeks.

THE STORY

Shore Leave is a much simpler story than any past event: your characters go on holiday. While this could be written by anyone at any time, there are advantages to writing such a story during this event:

A Change of Pace: This event lets members dedicate weeks of writing not to a twisty or fast-paced plot, but to a less-intense period of character development and interpersonal drama. The Intelligence Office encourages you to focus on your characters, their relationships, their personal lives, and make them the point of your story – not just the crises they respond to. This is also a great chance to tackle the emotional fallout of major events like the Vaadwaur invasion.

Community Engagement: Other members of the fleet will be tackling these themes at the same time as you. That makes this a great time to enjoy each other’s work, share ideas, and talk about the stories you’re writing together!

Storytelling Support: Discussed below, the Intelligence Office is releasing various forms of storytelling support, including a Shore Leave campaign table, to help you develop your ideas.

Collaborative Writing: This event is a great time to write with other members. Other events are fast-paced, where you may be reluctant to tie your story’s progress to someone else’s activities. Not only is Shore Leave a gentler storyline, but it’s not plot-driven. Do you want to write with another member? Great, have two of your characters run into each other at the same resort, and develop that story! You can keep writing the rest of your crew at the same time at your own pace.

Revisiting the Past: This event ties off a major part of Nightfall: the main recovery work in the weeks after the Vaadwaur invasion. This is a great chance for crews to go back to worlds they saved, and alongside their R&R, see how the galaxy is rebuilding, thanks to their efforts.

There are various different forms your Shore Leave story could take (or it could involve several of these!):

• Your ship stops in orbit over a resort world, such as Risa, and the crew vacation together on the surface.
• The crew splits up, and you tell different stories of characters in different places. Do some go back to their families? Do some visit places they always wanted to see? Who vacations together? Who’s alone?
• Your ship returns to a world they liberated from the Vaadwaur, and as they take shore leave, they also participate in festivities celebrating their efforts.
• Your ship is engaged in business already, perhaps a mission of exploration, and the captain sees a chance for most of the crew to take a break – maybe on a new world, while a handful of staff conduct diplomacy, and the rest of the crew explore this friendly culture in their free time.
• While on vacation, your crew fall into some sort of unexpected adventure, competition, or rivalry.

This campaign draws inspiration from episodes such as TNG: Captain’s Holiday, DS9: Let He Who Is Without Sin, VOY: Fair Haven, and ENT: Two Days and Two Nights, but also DS9: Take Me Out to the Holosuite and VOY: Drive. While you can invoke stories that involve intrigue and peril, such as the saboteurs of Risa in DS9 or Picard’s archaeological adventures with Vash, this campaign is not intended to have stories of high, serious stakes. Think ‘adventure and hijinks’ rather than ‘True Way terrorists try to assassinate the governor.’

CAMPAIGN TABLE

Like Labyrinth and Nightfall, Shore Leave includes a Campaign Table. This is a mechanism which presents a selection of tables, sometimes branching, offering different story prompts, developments, and details. Members are invited to roll on those tables – or, if you prefer, simply choose an option! – to develop ideas for their mission.

In Shore Leave, the campaign table is there to help generate initial prompts and drive complications. Rather than the plot-driven tables of past campaigns, there are tables which make suggestions on what sort of interpersonal story you could tell, or what could cause a character-driven conflict. These may need you to interpret these results, or pick the ones you like, to find something that suits your cast of characters!

There are tables for how characters might meet, small-scale adventures they could have, and complications that could get in the way of simply having a nice time on holiday. Members can use this tool as they see fit.

LOCATION

You can tell a story about Shore Leave pretty much anywhere – including just aboard your ship, crewmembers given downtime to enjoy facilities and holodecks. While there are hooks for members to return to the worlds they depicted in the Nightfall campaign, this is far from obligatory, and should be done in service of this character-driven, interpersonal drama-focused event. A heavy narrative about post-war humanitarian aid might be best suited for another time.

You are welcome to use canon worlds like Risa. Multiple members may choose to do so, which neither denies anyone else access, nor forces people to write together. Planets are big, and two ships being in orbit of one resort world at the same time is an opportunity for a joint post – not an obligation.

If you are visiting a canon world, assume that it was only hit by the Vaadwaur if it was the focus of a member’s mission. That means that in the Area of Responsibility article on the wiki, it’s not only listed, but listed as explicitly assigned to a member. Otherwise, it is assumed to have not been hit. This means Vulcan, Alpha Centauri, and Andoria were all attacked, for instance – but Tellar Prime and Vega were not. Earth, likewise, was not struck at.

Members should feel free to develop, in their stories and on the wiki, their vacation worlds. Perhaps it’s an island on a known planet, perhaps a whole new member canon resort world. Perhaps it’s an old town in a core world full of cafés and museums, or the mountain range on a border world where a band of officers want to climb the highest peak on vacation. This event is a great chance for world-building outside of narratives of peril, tension, and intrigue, and particularly for core worlds.