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STARBASE 118 – In the wake of the Devidian incident, the Starbase 118 Operations crew settled back to throw a baby shower, meet with family, and welcome new officers. After the end of the Devidian incident, the crew of Starbase 118 settled for some well-deserved shore leave. Of special interest was a celebration for the much anticipated birth of LtCmdr. Aitas and LtCmdr. Antero Flynn’s first child. The crew gathered for a baby shower, taking the time to enjoy some much-needed R&R – and to mourn with their losses and celebrate their successes. Spirits were high as many gathered to congratulate the expectant mother. “I’m forcing myself to stay away from bartending this time. I promise,” said Lt. Commander Aitas as she welcomed the guests. Shortly after, the crew was joined by two new faces – LtCmdr. Rundstrom and Elspeth – from Kubarey, a recently contacted world participating in an outreach program aboard the starbase. Rundstrom has been assigned to the science department while Elspeth will be acting First Officer. Meanwhile Aitas and Ishani Kasun continued to look into clues to the location of Lt. Commander Taelon, who was trapped in the past just days before. The ongoing investigation of temporal disturbances and the disappearance of Lt Commander Taelon has so far proved inconclusive, even with the aid of both the station’s Security and Intel departments, as well as civilian assistance in the form of the lost Commander’s father. Starfleet still refuses to list Taelon as dead, and he is currently classified as missing. Written by Taelon The post Starbase 118 Celebrates New Life and New Officers appeared first on UFOP: StarBase 118 Star Trek RPG. View the full article

((Runabout USS Farrow)) :: For Dante Termine the adrenaline of open combat wore off soon after the final decompression fire from the robot vessel snuffed itself in the void of space. In it’s place, there was left only the anxieties of a new placement, made infinitely more unnerving by entirely singular arrival. After all, seeing your new ship in pieces wasn’t the homecoming any Ensign wished. Dante drummed his fingers, a bad habit he had never been able to quit. Dane glanced at his coms panel. It was still full with continual damage reports and all-green check-ins from the marines aboard the Atlantis, but for now there was nothing that anyone aboard the Farrow could do.:: Termine: oO Fighting… all this fighting. First on the simulator and the first thing I do on my new assignment is fire on an enemy ship? I joined Starfleet for peace, not for fighting… Could I have been wrong about enlisting? Was Starfleet just an army in disguise, like all of it’s opponents say? Oo :: Dante snapped back to his console when a hail came in. It was a request to lower shields and allow beam-in which Dante did, upon order from CommanderLydra. a few seconds later and Dante was squinting as a transporter beam glowed to in the centre of the room. It solidified into the form of a Bolian male, wearing the uniform from the Command division from Starfleet, and the rank insignia of a Commander. He proceeded to immediately clasp hands with Lyldra, join their elbows and press their heads together. A Bolian courtship customs, something Dante had seen before, but never quite like this. Dante watched as the two Bolians held each other close for just a moment, and in their eyes he saw only one thing, love. It was that very moment, that all the anxiety melted from Dante. If this was to be his CO, everything was going to be ok. Because even in that small moment Dante saw that Commander Brell, was a man knew love. He was a man Dante could follow. :: :: A few seconds later, Commander Brell turned Sotak and Termine. :: Termine: Welcome aboard captain! ::Dante, remembering himself, leapt from his chair to stand at full attention :: Brell: I thought I’d welcome you both to the crew here. :: He smiled at them both. :: Sotak: We understand your inability to greet us before sir, the Atlantis seems to be full of tasks to repair it and it of course takes precedence. Termine: With all this going on, thank you for taking the time to welcome us sir. What can we do for you sir? Brell: As you know towing the Atlantis back will take another day, and for the time being you likely to be more comfortable here. Sotak: About that, sir, I was wondering if there was something we could do to help the current situation on the ship. :: Dante nodded at his peer’s words before voicing his agreement:: Termine: Aye sir, I second that sentiment. Brell: If you’d really like to join in the repair details we can have one of the shuttle pilots transfer over. Sotak: Yes, sir. At least speaking for myself, I would like to be of some service with the ongoing repairs. As a science officer I'm not sure I can do much, but I am capable enough to handle basic repairs and be able to relieve someone from the engineering personnel so they can get some rest, as they will surely need. Brell: Response Sotak: Thank you, sir, I will arrange it. (( Two days later, Etherieal Pleasures bar, DS26 )) :: Dante held his shoulder as he rolled it in it’s joint. He had spent the last two days cleaning and repairing the corridors of the Atlantis, assisting in the repairs of the ship. Not being an engineer himself he had spent the better part of that time cutting and clearing debris from the halls and the strain on Dante’s muscles could be felt. On the stool beside him sat a PADD as well as a long-stemmed glass of Betazed wine. It was good stuff, and properly alcoholic too, just want Dante wanted to dull the throbbing in his arms. On his PADD was a crew manifest, faces and names of all his new shipmates and hopefully his new family.:: Termine: oO A new family huh? I wonder what they will be like … Oo :: Out of the corner of his eye, Dante noticed at a table a face he had only moments before scrolled past on his screen. Ensign Thayon Jann, the ship’s counselor . Looking for friends and noting that the ship’s counselor was probably a good person to get to know, he decided now was the time for introductions. Dante walked over, his drink in hand and approached Jann’s table:: Termine: Excuse me, Counselor Jann? Hi, I’m Ensign Dante Termine. I’ve just been assigned aboard the Atlantis. You know, one of the ones that arrived on the Farrow? Is this seat taken? :: Dante gestured to a chair beside the man:: Jann: response Termine: I hope I’m not interrupting anything, I just wanted to speak to you about the Atlantis and it’s crew. This is my first posting and I’m a bit nervous of running into any [...] pas. I’ve never been part of a crew before, or even worked on a ship so I’m a little nervous I may be out of my element. ::Dante chuckles:: I grew up around diplomats so regrettably I feel more comfortable in my dress uniform than my civvies. Jan: response ___________________________ Ensign Dante Termine USS Atlantis OPS Officer A239503DT0

I've just seen this! I'm glad that I could help contribute to the story right at the end! Thanks for the appreciation!!

(( Agricultural Administration Building - Ih’aesn - Sikuna )) :: Nugra was caught between feeling surprised by the fact that their situation had gone downhill to realizing that it always went downhill. Yiggtissi's suit had been compromised and the governor of this city was dead. He had two Starfleet officers to protect in case the colonists became a mob. He was not in the mood to kill anyone at present. :: :: Stepping out into the hallway while everyone followed their assignments, Nugra pulled his PADD out of his pocket to quickly get an idea what was going on with the other teams.:: :: There was a strange tickling in Kaji's mind as she neared the compound, like a familiar presence, and she slowed to pinpoint it. She frequently recognized the sounds of people's mental "voices", but not just a sense of presence. Stretching her telepathic senses, she searched for the source, but it seemed far away to the north. A mystery for later, then. :: :: Talia pushed her way through the Admin building's doors, grateful for the shelter. There were only a few military members around, most non-essential personnel having been sent home. A guard scanned her badge, as she was a civilian currently and not in any uniform. She traced her way through the corridors to the governor's office. Atlai had told her to meet the Starfleet team there. But when she turned the corner and looked down the hall, Talia stopped cold. :: :: It felt like her mind had frozen, incapable of actually processing thoughts. The figure at the end of the hall loomed over his surroundings just as he loomed over both her dreams and nightmares. The damn Gorn would just not leave her in peace! Was he to haunt her waking hours as well? Countless nights spent curled up in bed, too afraid to go back to sleep and relive his death yet again wasn't enough? Or the other nights where she wished she COULD get back to sleep to continue a different sort of dream, where they were just together? :: :: It took the mundane action of him checking his PADD to snap Talia out of her stupor. This wasn't a hallucination, it was Nugra. In the flesh. That stupid, beautiful, scaly flesh. :: :: Upon seeing a report that negotiations were not faring well, Nugra let out a grunt of irritation. Hopefully, Sevo was not going to punch a Romulan...again.:: :: The irritated grunt got through the last of Talia's disbelief. :: Kaji: :: striding towards him:: Oh gods, oh gods. Nugra! :: She threw herself at him, probably before he even knew it was her, but she didn't care. Decorum be damned, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. :: :: It was the scent at first that he detected but his brain refused to register it as being true. The PADD had his attention but it was the squeal of her voice and the arms that tried to wrap around his bulk that broke him out of the thought and into shock. He [...]ed his head to see what had gotten a hold of him and was met with a head of curly hair, black eyes, and the happiest grin he had ever seen. :: Nugra: oO Talia! Oo :: A million emotions soared through him in the half a second his mind hesitated. She was on Obsidia Colony and he had been long gone, hidden in the depths of the Gamma Quadrant on the USS Athena. How was it possible that they had met on a Republic world. His mind struggled to form words to speak to the woman he thought he had lost forever. :: :: She couldn't let go, even though her feet were dangling six inches off the floor. She just buried her head in his neck and hoped he couldn’t feel the tears. :: Kaji: How...How are you even alive? :: There were no words. How could he say anything to her right now when his heart felt like it was going to explode. He wrapped his giant hands around her waist, hefted her to eye level and gave her a crushing hug of joy. Only one word got out of this lizard. :: Nugra: ::choked up:: Talia. Kaji: You freaking lizard, you couldn’t even send me a note, like “hey I’m not dead anymore, so you don’t need to keep grieving”-- not that I was grieving your ugly mug, because you’re too stupid to…killing yourself like that to “save everyone” or whatever. :: Talia felt that her points were being undermined by the sobs breaking through and garbling her words. :: Nugra: Starfleet Intelligence…. Kaji: :: freeing one hand to slap the back of his head:: That is an astoundingly terrible excuse. Nugra: I should have sent you a note once I was released but...I didn’t know what to say. Kaji: Anything. Anything would have been good. Nugra: ::sheepishly:: Hi, Talia. I am alive. Kaji: :: mumbling as she buried her face in his neck again.:: [...]. I missed you. Nugra: I missed you too. :: Another voice broke into the conversation that snapped Nugra back. :: N’Lee: ::grinning:: As sweet as this is, Captain, I need my doctor. Please put her down. :: Chagrined, Nugra put Kaji back on her feet and gave his uniform a dutiful but too long tug before straightening back to business. :: Nugra: Of course, Sub-Commander. :: To Talia:: Doctor Kaji. We seem to have an outbreak and one of my crew members may have become infected. Shall we? Kaji: :: with a lightness she hadn’t felt in over a year, she laughed,:: Yes, Sir. :: As Nugra walked past N’Lee, he heard the Romulan whisper to him. :: N’Lee: ::grinning:: Don’t worry, Nuggs. I won’t tell the Admiral you were hugging doctors in a middle of a crisis. JP By… -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Captain Nugra Taskforce Security Liaison Publicity Facilitator The Archivist '17 Simming Prize Laureate USS Gorkon, NCC-82293 V238008N10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ & --------------------- Dr Talia Kaji Civilian Medical Doctor Romulan Vessel, Mhr'Vaat E239008TK0 ---------------------

Anyway, like I was sayin', tribble is the fruit of the stars. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's uh, tribble-kabobs, tribble creole, tribble gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple tribble, lemon tribble, coconut tribble, pepper tribble, tribble soup, tribble stew, tribble salad, tribble and potatoes, tribble burger, tribble sandwich. That- that's about it.

I love this question because, to me, it really underpins the whole reason that Star Trek is utopian in the first place. It's not Starfleet that makes this vision of the future compelling, it's the economics, which influence everything else. It's hard to imagine just how different things become – even with Star Trek as a vision – when we get this kind of "proto-post scarcity" environment. I mean, just consider one tiny thing: Birth control. What if everyone on Earth, men and women, had access to a birth control pill that was free and could be procured privately from the replicator (no judgments!) at a moment's notice, and be easily used in pill form before or after "interpersonal relations" happen? How would that change every generation on down the line? Just the simple fact that more children would be born into families that wanted them, as opposed to some children being born into situations where their parents may have felt familial pressure to allow the pregnancy to come to terms – that alone would have huge implications on the psychology of much of the world's population. That doesn't even scratch the surface of talking about the data around how planned pregnancies are (at least on a large-scale, statistical basis) healthier for everyone involved, and have long-term benefits for children. And then go a step beyond that and imagine that no one is ever hungry. No one worries about rent payments. No one has to die alone because their family members can't afford to be there with them in their last moments. These are things that happen now, every day. And we have the ability to change them, but not the willpower. What would it be like for no child to ever feel hunger pains? Or to have to sleep in a car because their parent lost their job? Imagine how stopping those mental wounds from ever happening – that we know have a dramatic impact on long-term mental welfare – would drastically improve everyone's life. One of my favorite thought exercises is this question about money and work. This is part of the increasingly popular discussion around Universal Basic Income (UBI) that's become a very hot topic lately. Lots of people who work in tech are beginning to wonder, quite loudly, what happens when automation puts a massive number of people out of work. We've crossed over one threshold with automation already – computers put millions of people out of work, and reconfigured the workforce. For example: Secretarial roles were no longer needed once personal computers became ubiquitous. So many of the women who held those roles pushed into other types of office work, which in turn put pressure on the male members of the workforce to either retire, retrain, or drop out of the workforce. The next threshold will be an even bigger reorganization. And we're seeing the first ragged edges of that right now with autonomous vehicles. Tesla autopilot in the family sedan is what gets the most press, but it's actually the commercial semi trucks which will have a much bigger effect first. Trucking is a huge industry in America, so the effects will ripple quite strongly through the economy as 75% or more of long-haul drivers are no longer needed, once commercial semis can drive between cities. (The current prediction is that semis will be driven by humans to outside city limits, where they'll switch into autonomous mode until they reach the outskirts of their destination, where a human driver will jump in the cab and take the vehicle the last few miles to the dock.) We could see that happening in the next 10 years, with drivers being phased out entirely in the next 20. That's just one tiny part of this huge change that automation will make to our economy. Check out this infographic that talks more about this: https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/ Perhaps the biggest question around UBI is how to talk about the value of labor and a full-employment economy. Is it okay if people don't work? Will people still want to work even if they have some, or all of their needs paid for? And the early data from UBI tests seem to be the bell-curve we get in so many psychological experiments. There are some people who, when they get UBI, drop out of the workforce. There are some people who work harder because now they have the resources to, say, start a business! But the vast majority of people keep doing what they're doing with a bigger safety net for themselves and their families, and in turn live more prosperous lives because of that. So now apply that to the future – perhaps we can expect to see a similar phenomenon. Some people might never work. Video games will continue to improve and some people will choose to spend their lives engaged in this kind of non-sports competition. Some people will work harder than they would now because the ability to access more resources will allow them to bring to bear personal strengths they never had access to. Most people will probably find some kind of meaningful work that allows them to spend more time with their families or engaged in creative endeavours than they would without access to either UBI or some other kind of "Federation Credits"/social welfare scheme. Despite the cynics among us who would believe that most people are lazy and want to do nothing, the fact is that most people want to find meaning in their lives. Most people get bored when they have nothing to do, and even reading an endless supply of books is not what they want to do for the rest of their lives. So they turn to work to give meaning. It might not look the same as today's office job, but people will still want to contribute to society, they'll still to leave a legacy, they'll still want to fill up their time with something. Will anyone still do menial labor? That's an open question we don't know the answer to, and even "The Economics of Star Trek" editorial doesn't have a strong hypothesis on. I think you can argue that most menial labor, as we know it today, can be whittled down to the bare bones by automation. Surely we'll be able to invent a robot that can scrub toilets within the next 50 years? All that will be left will be to manage the robot workforce. And some people will find joy in that! And what about the desire to try different things? When human priorities have shifted so incredibly by the point that we no longer need money, perhaps there's simply a societal trend toward trying new things. Maybe I want to be a waiter for a while just to understand the other side of the "server/patron" power dynamic, which in turn gives me the ability to be more empathetic in new ways. Maybe I just spent two years working on an incredible medical project that took all of my brain power and creativity, and for a while I just want to be able to get out of the house and do something with lower stakes that allows me to interact with lots of people and experience joy in bringing them incredible food. Or maybe I just realized that I don't like desk jobs, or space jobs, or even art or sports or video games and I just want a simple job at one place where I can work for the rest of my life. The point is, there are lots of motivations we can't understand from where we are right now because we're enclosed in a system that creates perverse incentives. But things are so entirely shifted by the lack of want for anything, it will totally reconfigure our outlook on what's worthwhile and what's not. The simple fact of having – let's say, for the sake of what we know of Star Trek life spans? – 120 years of healthy life to "fill up" with something will give everyone a sense that there's plenty of time to get to all the things you want to do, and there's no reason to work yourself to death early in life or spend all that time doing one single thing. Why be a doctor for 80 years when you can be a waiter, a doctor, a librarian, an artist... ? So many fun things to imagine Thanks for bringing this up!