Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf

The writing challenge is over. Good luck to everyone. The winner will be announced by the 1st of May.

Goes on my time, LOL But I'll accept any entries that come in close to the deadline, so long as they're not noon tomorrow anything like that.

Please don't defeat the word-censor. It's there for a reason.

Not much time left! Remember, the challenge closes on Fri., April 21st!!

http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/startrek/ I am Jean-Luc Picard: a lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.

Add the posticon to the last post in the thread. The judges will look at the posticon, not thread-icon.

Guidelines: To participate, create a new thread. The subject of the thread must be the title of your story. If it is a Work In Progress, denote that with the heart post icon. If your work is complete, use the horizontal arrow post icon. Items not marked with an icon or marked with the WiP icon will not be considered for judging and will be moved to the "Character Cafe" forum at the end of the contest. Your work must be entirely your own. No co-authoring. You are welcome to create any character you so desire, but they must be from the Star Trek universe. No "canon" characters allowed. (i.e.- No one who has been on a show.) Challenge: "A Poison Apple" - Are we speaking metaphorically, or literally? You decide. This one's a bit more vague than what we've done before, but it's where we're going to see more creativity, as well. Show us what it means to partake in something so innocent with such cruel intentions. (Topic chosen by last winner, Kaitlyn Rowan.) Length: No more than 3000 words accepted. Beginning Date: Mon., March 6th Ending Date: Fri., April 21st Judges: Will be announced on or by March 15th. See Also: the Writing Challenge Website. Good Luck!

Please use this thread for any discussion or questions about this writing challenge.

First and foremost, congratulations to Kaitlyn Rowan for her story "I'm home, Goodbye". Runner-up position goes to David Cody for his story "This bitter aftertaste," while honorable mentions go to Nemitor Atimen for "Fear" and Julia Harden for "Home is where the heart is". We saw some really, really amazing work this past round, and compiled the largest group of stories for any round yet! To read the entries, head to the Jan./Feb. '06 Hall of Fame forum. You can also find the page on the main site has plenty of info about last round including the winner banners. Judges comments on all the entries will be posted within a few days. Next month's challenge will also begin within a few days. Please check this area for further information. By the way: Feel free to congratulate the winners/runner up/honorable mentions in this thread

Congratulations to Kaitlyn Rowan for her story "I'm home, Goodbye". Runner-up position goes to David Cody for his story "This bitter aftertaste," while honorable mentions go to Nemitor Atimen for "Fear" and Julia Harden for "Home is where the heart is". Great work all around!

The challenge is now closed. We'll have the results soon!

I made a silly error when I set up this challenge and put the last day as Feb. 28th, instead of Feb. 15th, like we normally do. The judges have agreed to allow the contest to continue until Feb. 28th, but the winner won't be announced until around Mar. 5th. Sorry for the confusion!

Judges for this round are: Rhys Bejain, Toni Turner, Solan, and Robin Phoenix.

Always good to hear!

One entry per person, please

... which is why UFOP needs to make its biggest push ever, this year, to gain new membership We need to secure our ranks and finally push ourselves into the spotlight. We are perhaps the longest running group under one leadership entity on the internet today, and every captain in our group can trace his or her "geneology" back to the first ships in UFOP over 10 years ago. Pretty amazing, if you ask me

Done.

Wow, 3 entries in the first week. Pretty impressive. Can't wait to see what else we come up w/!

Erm, yes and no. It was cancelled because Fox never gave it a chance. The show was intended to be shown with a pilot which explained the background of the characters, but Fox decided they wanted to show a regular episode instead -- so the pilot wasn't aired. Also, as Sirkit said, it was on at a bad time. Fox didn't promote it like they should have, and took it off the air before people even knew about it. The movie really only did marginal... but the DVD sales for the show itself were phenomenal

As Phoenix said: just take it as it is. Interpret it how you will The stuff from last month's is coming in a day or so, per Rocar.

Guidelines: To participate, create a new thread. The subject of the thread must be the title of your story. If it is a Work In Progress, denote that with the heart post icon. If your work is complete, use the horizontal arrow post icon. Your work must be entirely your own. No co-authoring. You are welcome to create any character you so desire, but they must be from the Star Trek universe. No "canon" characters allowed. (i.e.- No one who has been on a show.) Challenge: "Going Home" - Although it may sound easy, take a few moments to consider the emotions that returning to your home can carry -- especially if you've been gone a long time. (But, you can also write a response where the character is returning home after a short time, too! What if something dreadful has just happened? How does home look now?) Dig deep and put your characters into a situation that shows us some true depth. (Topic chosen by last winner, Toni Turner.) Length: No more than 3000 words accepted. Beginning Date: Tues., January 3rd Ending Date: Tues., February 28th Judges: Will be announced on or by January 15th See Also: the Writing Challenge Website. Good Luck!

Please use this thread for any discussion or questions about this writing challenge.

That's a good point. A pre-planned plot arc across the whole series would do wonders for Trek. As far as using Klingons or Romulans, I think you'd have a hard time selling this to the general public to watch. The main reason being that people need to connect to the primary characters to feel compelled to watch. A show like Bernie Mac is popular with the African-American community because the majority of the characters are African-American, and the show humorously touches on those social aspects. Similarly, all the captains of Trek have been human because people can identify most closely with those character's emotions and motivations. But I do believe that there would be plenty of good plot work that could be done by having the crew explore business and society in Romulan, Klingon, and Cardassian space. This gives you the "stranger in a strange land" plot angle, which can work well.

So I was thinking about what the next show should be and thought I'd enlighten you all to my idea, and warn Paramount that IF THEY WANT TO USE THIS IDEA, THEY HAVE TO PAY ME LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY! So there -- because every time I have a great idea, someone else makes it up and gets the credit. But seriously, after giving Trek a few years to rest, I think they should go in a different direction than they have in the past. They've been completely off-base with the recent rumors about a movie that goes back to Academy or whatnot. Forget the movies and forget rehashing the same things we've seen a dozen times. What we need is a regular creative show to spark people's interest again. And what have we seen become very popular in sci-fi lately? Nitty-gritty and the dark underbelly. Take a look at two popular shows: Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. The two of them share both of those characteristics. First, look at Battlestar Galactica. This series has done great, and one of the major factors is a darker view of what's going on. From BSG, a new Trek series can take this darker, yet ultimately very inspiring and motivational outlook because it shows how humanity can persevere in the face of terrible circumstances. I don't want another DS9 again, because that was just depressing, but it's still possible to show us difficult times without making it a war. Second, you have Firefly. Although it was not wildly popular, it still has a large fan following. And I'm not saying that you copy the Space Western idea (which Joss copied from Roddenberry anyway...), but instead, take from Firefly the premise that you have a crew who isn't working for "the establishment." So basically, I think that a Trek show which actually shows us how Federation society works, from the view of society, would do very well. We've always seen things from the StarFleet POV. Now show us what it's like to be a Terran who's just squeeking by on what she can get. A diverse crew from species we didn't see too much of on the shows. Less Vulcans, more Deltans -- etc. The show could focus more on going from world-to-world making a living. Shows us the bars that the TNG crew never went to. Avoid a Firefly rip off, but make it a new prospective on the Federation. It can't all be utopian fishcakes, right?

Congratulations to Toni Turner for her story "Among the Stars ." Runner-up position goes to Ben Walker for his story "Creative Impulse." Great work all around!