Valdivia

You are captain of a Starship, and you receive a request for medical supplise. A plague has been declared in a Federation world not far from your position. The world has been quarantined, but they need those supplies as soon as possible, because the prediction is for millions dead in a couple of days unless something is done. You could beam them down. With that in mind, you approach the nearest starbase and request the supplies. You are informed that they do have the supplies. But for you to receive them, the process would need to be approved by the corresponding Admiral, who happens to be out of the base in a diplomatic mission and will not be back for a few days. You could try to contact Starfleet Command and request help, but that could also take days. Or, of course, you have full access to the base systems… you could easily beam them out and be on your way back to the affected planet within minutes. That would not be exactly legal, but Starfleet would understand in the long run, right? Would you jump over bureaucracy? Let us know! This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

When we create a new character, we put a lot of thought into the process. Some parts usually get more attention. Race, gender, department (or, in general, job)... while other, more cosmethic details, are given thought but have little effect on the simming. The fact that the character is blond gives information about them, but in most missions it won’t really matter. It is purely aesthetic. A similar thing happens with birthdates. Of course there is the age matter (and we might discuss it in a later poll). But what about the date within the year? How do players choose it? Does it have any relevance? For the player? For the character? Some ships keep track on them and celebrate (or at least make comments) on character’s birthdays. Let us know how you choose your character’s birthdate! This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

You are the captain of a starship and, while walking through the corridors, you hear a ruckus coming from the holodeck. As you apporoach, you find a couple of engineers trying to reason with a mob, varied in all shapes, species, genders, clothes and ages. And very angry. After trying to understand what was going on, you finally get an odd explanation. Apparently, these holodeck characters, even though they are not supposedly self-aware, are requesting rights to control the holodeck, who appears or disappears and what their environment is. The engineers look at you for what to do. The characters have taken control of the holodeck, but it could be forcibly deactivated from the outside. But, of course, there was a matter of rights. Did these characters have rights? Should they be listened to? That is your decision to make! What will you do? This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

All characters we can encounter, both in simming and in other kinds of fiction, are partly defined by a large number of relationships they have. Friends, lovers, coworkers… and family. If we think back to Star Trek, we can remember several characters with differing relationships with their families. Some had not talked to them in a long time, while others did regularly. Some had their families living far, possibly in their home planet, but maybe elsewhere, whereas some had their families living with them in their quarters. Some had close relationships, while others were distant, even confrontational. And these family relationships were also defining for characters, with some even having turning points in their lives that were either affected by their families, or affected the way they interacted with their family. The same happens to our characters. Some have their families close by, while others have them far away in their home planets. And some sim them regularly, while some almost never interact with them. Which are you? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

You are the captain of a starship, and you are called for an urgent diplomatic intervention. You go to the home planet of the Mantisar (fictitious species created for this exercise, do not look them up). They are not members of the Federation, but they are allies. In this case, a human couple in their sixties has called for your intervention. Once you arrive at the planet, the humans explain the situation. Their son Marcus has fallen in love with a Mantisar female. They had been together for years now. The problem is they have now decided to get married. And, in the insectoid culture of the Mantisar, they wedding night celebration ends with the male being eaten by the female. It is their tradition, and Marcus has agreed to on with the ceremony. However, Marcus’ parents hope you can use your authority to prevent it from happening and bring their son back to safety. The wedding is that same day, so there is no option to get a new diplomat and brief them on time. It is your decision. Will you try to avoid the wedding? How forcefully? Let us know! This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

We are mostly used to see Star Trek in TV form (or movies), and in our particular case also in simming form. But Star Trek has taken lots of other formats in all these years since it first arrived to our screens. One of these formats are videogames. Of course, not everyone plays to videogames, but since we are convinced there is a fair amount of players among us, we wanted to give them some space in our weekly polls. Of course, it would be impossible to mention every single Star Trek based videogame and say something worthy about them. So let us simplify. We will talk about genres. What are your favorite Star Trek videogame genres? Here come some ideas, with some examples, but of course the list is way longer! Maybe you liked Real Time Strategy videogames? (Armada, New Worlds). Or maybe shooters? (Elite Force, The Fallen). Graphic adventures? ( 25th Anniversary, Justice Rites ) Ship simulators? (StarFleet Command, Bridge Commander). Did we mention your favorite? Do you want to tell us about some other videogame you loved? Come to the forums and join the discussion! This is a new poll in our category General Trek, where we ask questions about all thinks Star Trek, like scenes, characters, starships, and in this case videogames.

When we are simming, we are writing about the life of many characters. Every aspect of their life, sometimes. Their adventures, that’s true, but also what they do on their free time, what they have for lunch of how they have decorated their bedrooms. Inevitably, those characters will at some point be confronted with death. The death of others, sometimes secondary characters that have barely appeared, specific to a mission, whose death is a way to add drama (an involved civilian, maybe?), or to give closure (a villain beyond redemtion?). But sometimes, very rarely, it is our own characters who are dying. Possibly not main characters, but maybe secondary characters we have known and developed for years. Those who started as a minor NPC and evolved to have a small piece of our heart, and of everyone on the crew. Sometimes, a player can decide to give such a character a definitive ending. It is something rare, but I can think of examples. And these moments, if written properly, are sure to leave a deep mark on every player that has known them. If you had to sim the death of a character, how would you do it? Come to the forums to discuss it! This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Pirates. Bandits. A huge galaxy like the one we inhabit must have its share. And rumors say you are headed their way. You are the captain of a starship, and you are patrolling an area where several ships have disappeared in the last months. According to intelligence reports, all ships disappeared while responding to false distress calls, coming from holographically disguised pirate ships. You don’t know what happened after they approached, but they suddenly dropped out of contact. As you patrol the area, you receive a distress call. Coming from one of the ships that disappeared last week. They were effectively attacked, and left adrift. The distress call has been, apparently, on automatic since then. You are eager to help, but then a thought crosses your mind. Could this be one of the fake distress signal? Could you be about to become a new victim? What would you do? This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

As our characters go through missions, they get experience. We, as simmers, get to know them better, but they also evolve themselves, as we get to live through their missions. From the moment they step out of the academy, we have shaped them, but we have not been the only ones. We have also been a powerless witness as they lived moments that would shape them in the future. Sometimes, all those experiences and evolution are rewarded with a promotion, and as time passes, both the characters and the players get promoted into our game. However, sometimes, a player gets a new character. Maybe just as a secondary character, maybe switching main characters. Maybe it was supposed to be temporary and evolved into a PNPC they use regularly. Whatever the case, sometimes a player gets a new character. And then, sometimes, the rank of the player and the rank of the character are not equal (the character being lower ranked). When this happen, and you might choose to create a new character, you can take the same rank your previous (or maybe still active) character had. It makes sense, you are used to playing a lieutenant, for example. Ranks have some effect on our game, so changing ranks also means a change of mental frame. On the other side, if you create a new character as a higher ranked officer, you have missed a great part of his evolution. You have to imagine how his evolution to that rank, from being fresh out of the academy, has been, in whichever ship you imagine he has served. So, when you create a new character, what do you prefer? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Most of us will remember Wesley Crusher’s storyline throughout The Next Generation. A powerful alien, apparently with knowledge about the universe that far exceeded what any human had ever possessed, offered him to leave Starfleet behind and join him in a voyage of discovery like no one had ever imagined. If you don’t know what Wesley decided, I won’t spoil it. But let’s see it from captain Picard’s perspective. You are the captain of a starship, and one of your crewmembers is offered a choice, by a powerful alien. He could share his powers, learn everything the alien had, but he would have to leave everything behind. And, of course, there is no way to ascertain whether the alien’s words are true. It could as well be a trap, and this choice lead him to a painful death. The crewmember is considering it, and is convinced that the alien is, at least, trustworthy. You are not convinced, and worry about the consequences, but also the moral issues involved. Even if it was grave danger, would you be in a position to stop them? Finally, the crewmember decides to go. What will you do? This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

All players here love Star Trek, but we also love other forms of science fiction. And, as the genre has evolved, so have some of our conceptions, and the fiction works have tended towards more realist elements. For example, in the first Star Trek series, hardly ever had they used an EVA suit to go into an unknown planet. Or worse, an adrift starship. We all have seen uses of Star Trek technology that would be really useful if deployed to certain points where they have not. Portable shield generators, anti gravity apparel, even using transporters during combat. We love Star Trek, and we are used to the feeling of “Trek”. Even if it would make sense that they have developed personal shields attached to your belt that made you almost immune to weapons fire, we wouldn’t want our officers charging into hand-to-hand combat wearing that. It wouldn’t feel like Star Trek. On the other hand, we also apply some realism that changes that “Trek” feeling. Our away teams almost always use EVA suits, and most of our security officers are way more heavily armed than they were in the series. So in the struggle between simming pure “Star Trek” and simming something that seems to make sense, where do you stand? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Remember that movie from the 20th century, the Matrix? About how life was just a virtual reality humanity was connected to while their bodies were used by machines, so they would not know about the real world? Well, what if that situation had had an external influence? You are the captain of a starship and, in one of your planets, you find a planet ruled by robots. After investigating, you learn that the native population of the planet, humanoids like you, have been enslaved by the robots, and they live connected to computers for their raw computing power. However, they are living in a virtual reality world where they think they are a rich and happy civilization. The machines, to prove their humanoid computers are happy, even let you connect to this world and check that they really are. Given that situation, would you let it go on? Let us know! This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

You are the captain of a starship. On one of your missions, you find an android, in his own lab. He has been trapped for some time, abandoned by his own people, who were scared of the artificial life form. He has been sending an SOS, and as you reach his orbital station he contacts you. After some talking for a bit, you discover he was a regular member of his species, but an amazing cybernetist. He found a way of introducing his consciousness into an android. Not just that, but it worked, and he is convinced that knowledge would change the galaxy. And it definitely would. If it worked on everyone as it seemed to have worked on him, everyone who wanted could become an android. Think of the possibilities, but also the risks. As proof of his words, he offers you this technology. He offers you the privilege of immortality. Would you accept? This is a new question from our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favorite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

If we ask about pets and Star Trek, most will automatically get an image of Spot in their minds. The fact our favourite characters had time or space for pets, and the fact that it was precisely Data the one who had a cat gave us an unique insight into the character. Similarly, our very own characters in Starbase 118 have their own opportunities to have pets. Not just that, they have a huge ammount of possibilities. Why limit yourelf to pets we have here? They can have alien pets. Or even animals that would not usually be considered pets. Or maybe they don’t even need to be animals at all. Or organic, or even alive, for that matter. So, do your characters have any kind of pets? Would you like them to? Even consider it? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

Although Star Trek tries to show their characters as peaceful, they can not escape conflict. And, as such, through the series we have seen a wide range and variety of weaponry. Both Starfleet and every other civilization use them.. We are used to phasers, but we have also seen lots of variety. Ships use them, and people use them. Let’s focus on people. Handheld weapons, or even rifles. Although we can not vote for absolutely every weapon that has appeared (but feel free to tell us which one is your favourite), we can discuss which kind of weapons we prefer, be it for aesthetic reasons, perceived effectivity, or even preference for their users.. Maybe the classical beam phasers Starfleet use? Or, a bit more rude, the beam disruptors, like the Romulan weapons? Maybe pulse disruptors, which fire single blasts instead of a continued beam? Maybe you prefer classics, and want to revert to projectile weapons, be it explosion-propelled guns, or modern weapons like the TR-116? Come down to the forums and tell us which are your favourite Star Trek weapons! This poll comes from Trek Technology and science category. Where were ask questions relating to the technology and science seen in Star Trek.

Have you ever had to sim your characters dreams? Some players do so for fun. Others, because the plot requires them to, because the characters fall into a dreamlike state, or even just fully asleep for some time and you want to keep simming. If the plot has never forced you, do it just for fun. Your character’s dreams during shore leave. Believe me on this: it is fun. So, if you have ever simmed your character’s dreams, or read the dreams of other players, we want to ask: how were those dreams? What kind of simmed dreams do you prefer? The kind of dreams that seem reality, that are close to reality? The kind of dreams that reproduce past scenes, exactly or closely? Maybe surreal dreams where everything is unexpected? This week’s question is: What kind of simmed dreams do you prefer? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

You are the captain of a Starfleet in unexplored territory. Your crew discover a civilization, approximately equivalent to middle ages Earth, but with surprisingly advanced mining equipment. Since they are not warp capable, the Prime Directive prevents you from interacting with them, but you wait in orbit to study their culture. In a few weeks of study, you realize they have a really active polytheistic religion, and their gods seem to take a very present role. You also see how they offer sacrifices to their gods in the form of a very particular mineral uncommon in this sector. Soon enough, your suspicions are confirmed as an alien ship comes to take the mineral and interact with the species. The new species are technologically advanced, but definitely not gods. Now, you know the Prime Directive prevents you from interacting with them, but the alien species are not subject to such a code. Leaving them be would be leaving an innocent species live in slavery, but stopping the whole exchange would be paramount of playing gods yourselves. Starfleet Captains have found themselves in similar situations in the past. Now tell us, what would you do? This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

The Prime Directive. One of the most important Federation principles. The idea of non-interference, to avoid playing God. All Star Trek fans know about it, know what it means. And we have seen and enjoyed the moral debates this general order has created for our favourite characters. Now, when we sim, we bring our characters to that same world, and they are bound by the same Prime Directive. We create new worlds, new species and cultures, and sometimes they are faced with the same moral issues the characters in the series had. Therefore, we ask: do our characters keep the Prime Directive in mind? Are they faced with its consequences, are they sometimes put against the ropes in order to obey it? How often do our characters encounter situations where the Prime Directive applies? How present is it in their lives? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

As captain of a Starship, you are attending a planetary medical emergency on a small colony world. The number of affected people is in the tens of thousands, and you were the only ship capable of reaching them in time. More ships and supplies are on their way, but they will not reach you in time to prevent thousands of deaths. And your ship is definitely lacking in supplies. In particular some impossible to replicate medicine. There is little your medical department can do without them. When all seems lost, Ferengi ship approaches. They know what your struggle is, and come bringing a massive ammount of the right supplies. Free of charge. They claim they had the resources available but not the doctors to use them, but since you can help these people, they are giving them to you. Your medical team urges you to accept. Whatever ulterior motives they might have, these supplies could save thousands of lives. Your security department, however, reccomends wariness. Their appearance with exactly the right supplies is suspicious. Would you accept them? Stereotypes might not be something to base your actions on, but these Ferengi definitely fall into it. Is the stereotype affecting your decision making? Or are you too quickly to trust? Tell us what you would do! This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

In our community, we sim adventures, we sim in space, we sim science fiction. Which is what Star Trek is about. But, ultimately, Star Trek is also about people, about their beliefs, doubts and relationships. And therefore, that is also what we sim about. And, in some ocasions, these relationships mean love. We do sim about love between characters. The Embassy has recently seen a wedding between two of their characters, and we have seen such relationships in lots of ships, even shared children. We also see such relationships with PNPCs. Characters with whole families created as secondary characters, or with occasional relationships, or any options you can think of. So we ask, when your character looks for love, where do they find it? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

I do think, although I currently don't see how, that at some point we will get artificial generators. But before that, our first long space trips will be using rotational momentum for gravity. That's what I think, at least.

Your ship has discovered an abandoned starbase. It’s old, it appears to have been abandoned for centuries, and yet the technology is very advanced, so you set out to explore it. Before you send your away teams there, however, a shuttle appears out of nowhere. It has an Starfleet look, but it’s not one you can recognize. As it hails you, the one crewmember indentifies herself as a traveler from the 27th century. She tells you he needs you to avoid that starbase altogether. The fact that you enter will put in motion a chain of events that will end with the death of her fiancé in three hundred years. Apparently you will activate the station defenses, afterwards putting a message for Starfleet to avoid that region of space in the future. A message that the future archeologist in her fiancé will find, and it will draw him towards the station. That together with the station defenses, will end with his premature death, along with his team. Also, she assures you nothing else will change by your action, since the changes are confined to the station. However you find that hard to believe, knowing enough about temporal mechanics and chaos theory to know that even a minor change can have huge repercussions in the long run. You know that, even if you did, you would not be violating the Temporal Prime Directive since you will be changing your future, not your past. But she is openly violating it. Would you help her? This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

Although all Star Trek series had a group of main characters, all of them had a protagonist that was not a crewmember. I do not mean a civilian, or some officer that was not technically part of the crew. I am not even talking about a live being. It was the ship. The Enterprise (several of them), Voyager, or even Deep Space 9 (or, if you want, the Defiant) were also protagonists of their own series, they also helped shape the stories that were told in them. A similar phenomenon happens in our simming. He write about the stories our characters live, but our starships play an important role in those stories. Our characters learn to love their ships, or their stations, and make them part of the story. Right now, the fleet offers a great variety of starships, all of them different. The crew of the Darwin is embarked in launching a whole Task Force, and they are launching a medical ship with it (note: you can help name it!). So it is natural to ask, how relevant is the starship in our story? And with that I mean, how does the choice of starship affect how our simming develops, what stories we play, what we do onboard. What does our choice of starship say about our simming? This is a new post in our category Simming Questions. Here we will be asking questions about our community, our characters and our writing, and how you interact with it all.

As captain of an starship, you respond to a distress call coming from an orbital station orbitting a heavily urbanized planet. The station engines have failed, and its orbit is rapidly decaying, falling towards the planet. You rush in and start evacuating personnel, but the atmosphere of the planet is dense and electrically charged, so before you are done, once the station enters the atmosphere, your transporters and tractor beams become useless. According to your officers’ records, there are 147 lifesigns left onboard the station. They could get to escape pods and save themselves, landing somewhere in the planet in relative safety. However, that procedure will take so long the station will end crashing on the surface. Your crew estimates the resulting life loss in at least a thousand people. You have an alternative. You can order the station fired upon. The destruction of the station will reduce the falling impact to relatively harmless debris. But there is no way the remaining crew could escape in time before you are forced to destroy it. Of course, you could order them to use the autodestruction system themselves, without time to get to the escape pods, but it’s a hard decision to put on their shoulders, and you have no guarantee they will comply. Would you fire your torpedoes on the station? Let us know, and then check the Wikipedia article on the Trolley Problem to know the original formulation of this classical dilemma. This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!

Star Trek has given us lots of things over the years, including five series, with their own ship, and their own crew. And there were many things common to all of these crews, but one particular thing was worth noticing. Each of them had a character alien to humanity, on a personal quest to either understand or become more similar to one of us. While this was their personal objective in the series, their roles for all of us were different. They allowed us, or even forced, to look at ourselves from a different perspective. To review all of those behaviours that we give for granted, as part of our own nature, and look at them from the eyes of an alien with a different way of understanding the world. For us, these characters were a mirror on which we could see our own reflection, and maybe look at ourselves with a new light. Now we ask, from all those characters, which do you feel better accomplished this job? Which gave us a better, deeper reflection on humanity? Here you go with a new General Trek question, where we discuss the series and their characters.