Okay, the current UFOP year would be 2386 so we are good number of years after the conclusion of the Dominion War. What happened in the series is regarded as having occurred in our timeline. Given our position in the timeline we can obviously refer to it but are not restricted by it. The fleet as a whole is regarded to be in the same time period, this is especially helpful during inter ship missions. While joint sims are encouraged you certainly would not need to be able to write one in training. The goal of training is over all to get everyone writing in the same format. Joint sims are generally best when you have got to know who the other person you are writing with is and given the time period few training it is probably best left until you have been posted on a ship for a while. Simming a history with a fellow Cadet is ok and would make make for interesting character development. Given the training missions you will have plenty to write about without.