Office of the Bravo Fleet Judge Advocate General

The Defendant is a former member who threatened real-world legal action against Bravo Fleet. As a result, he was permanently banned from Bravo Fleet in perpetuity.

This was yet another example of a member threatening to sue Bravo Fleet over a perceived aggrievement between themselves and Bravo Fleet. Before this incident, Confusedfire had been a long-standing off-and-on member of Bravo Fleet dating back well over a decade. During that time, his membership had highs and lows. Most lows included being involved in nearly every split that happened during his time in Bravo Fleet (Exhibit A) and then returning back to Bravo Fleet when they didn’t work out. There was even a period to which he faked his own death (Exhibits B and C) and returned with a Totally Believable, Completely Not Made Up Story. Upon his return from death, he was an active member up until the turmoil and fracturing of the fleet that took place in early to mid-2019 prior to FAdm Teylas Ramar’s administration, leaving with one of those splits.

Shortly after the reformation in June of 2019, Bravo Fleet began picking up the pieces of the fleet and its assets. One of the projects included a new map, which when released included many historical and current placements from throughout Bravo Fleet history. One such placement was Vidal Fleet Yards, a simulation that had existed prior to June 2019, and was ran by Confusedfire.

Under Bravo Fleet’s Privacy Policy, content created by its members is outlined several times, including:

• You agree that you are solely responsible for your reuse of Content made available through the Services, including providing proper attribution.
• You retain any copyright that you may have in Your Content.
• Bravo Fleet may, but is not obligated to, review Your Content and may delete or remove Your Content (without notice) from any of the Services in its sole discretion. Removal of any of Your Content from the Services (by you or Bravo Fleet) does not impact any rights you granted in Your Content under these terms.

In simple terms for members, when you join Bravo Fleet you are free to add content. If and when you leave, you are free to use content created in Bravo Fleet by others as long as you properly attribute it to Bravo Fleet. You are free to retain any content you created without question. Bravo Fleet does not have to delete any of your content that you created while in Bravo Fleet and for use while in Bravo Fleet.

The crux of the matter has always been that Bravo Fleet is a community and when you create content you’re creating content for the community. Other people get involved, and then once they do they have just as much claim to the content as you do. It isn’t fair to them for someone to leave and then try and take all the toys when they leave. On the flip side, when you leave but have a story integrated with BF canon, Bravo Fleet simply asks that you credit Bravo Fleet because you’re essentially crediting the hundreds of authors who helped build it.

This is a policy that has been in place dating back to 2017, and as a member for at least 2 years while this policy was in place, a policy that Confusedfire was well aware of. When Vidal Fleet Yards was put on the new Bravo Fleet map, he PM’d the Bravo Fleet Executive Officer, Adm Elizabeth Wolf, on November 28, 2019 demanding that Vidal Fleet Yards be removed or else real-world legal action would be taken (Exhibit D). Bravo Fleet takes the threat of real-world legal action very seriously with only a single outcome, and as a result, Confusedfire was immediately banned from Bravo Fleet for life. This is a legal liability that Bravo Fleet Command is not willing to take on itself, not willing to let the Conservatorship take on for simply holding our assets, or allow any member of the organization to suffer. The punishment is that we separate ourselves from you indefinitely in the only way we know how to. Bravo Fleet is a Star Trek club where our members come to have fun, not be threatened with some real-world legal action against them.

Following the lifetime ban, on January 21, 2020, Confusedfire requested a dossier deletion under the Dossier Deletion Policy which was carried out the same day. For the following 6 to 8 months, under various accounts, typically the accounts “TheMessanger”, “TheProphet”, and “TheClown”, Confusedfire would post messages on various Discords, including Bravo Fleet’s own, airing out his specific complaints with the current administration (Exhibit E and F).

Additionally, on November 24, 2020, Confusedfire banned FAdm Teylas Ramar and Adm Elizabeth Wolf from his own sim (Exhibit G) again expressing the same complaints he had prior to his ban from Bravo Fleet, and during his “anonymous” complaining under fake Discord accounts.

Confusedfire remains banned to this day, and as a result of his ban the Bravo Fleet Charter was updated on June 3, 2020 under Article I, Section I: Rights of the Membership to include the following:

• Every member, administrator, and owner of Bravo Fleet’s digital infrastructure has the right to be protected from legal liability. Members who violate the Bravo Fleet Legal Policy forfeit their membership in perpetuity. Violation of the Legal Policy includes but is not limited to: threatening real world legal action, repeated copyright infractions, or failure to comply with the Bravo Fleet Intellectual Property Policy.
  • When a member is removed in this fashion, the BFCO must immediately report it to the Magistrate for review. If the Magistrate concurs, no further action is taken. If the Magistrate disagrees, the removal is overturned.

Confusedfire has shown no contrition or remorse for their actions and therefore remains banned from Bravo Fleet for life.