Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf

Just a note: senior members only have 180 minutes before their posts become uneditable. You can either post a reply to your topic with a newer version, or just post a final draft. The final post in the thread will be considered the final draft.

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: "The Devil in the Dark" - This month we're doing something a little different. The theme comes from the title of an Original Series (TOS) episode, and was chosen by our most recent challenge winner Ethan Brice. Take the theme and create a completely original idea for a story. Work your magic. It's vague, it's a little dismal, kinda creepy... show us just how creative you can be while adhering to the topic. Keep a focus on good writing. Give us interesting and fresh images from the Star Trek universe. Length: No more than 3000 words accepted. Beginning Date: Friday, August 5th Ending Date: Wednesday, September 21st Judges: Will be announced on or by August 15th See Also: the Writing Challenge Website. Good Luck!

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

Indeed. Good work to all. I'm pretty excited about the next challenge. We're going to switch up the theme a little bit. Hopefully everyone will find it interesting. To be announced on 8/5. I look forward to seeing the submissions!

Thanks to all who entered. We had a really great round of stories this month. The judges, Idril Mar, Rocar Drawoh, and Rhys Bejain, have decided on a winner: Ethan Brice, with "Adoption". The runner-up for this month goes to Jefferson Reed with "At What Cost, Honor?" Honorable mention is also being given for this month to Anthony Creed, with "All That Has Been". Congratulations to everyone for their great stories. Ethan and Reed will be receiving their "signature badge" within the next day or two. Very good work done by everyone! We'll have some reviews of the stories out within a few days. The new challenge will be introduced by the 5th of this month. Be sure to head to the Writing Challenge Website to see the full write-up on this round's challenge.

The challenge is closed. Winners will be announced by July 31st. Good luck to everyone!

That kinda fell by the wayside. :-\ I know Idril and Rocar are judging. I'll announce the third judge in a day or two.

Yes, per the e-mail to the fleet, the database for the forums was deleted by our previous host, and had to be restored to a previous version dating from 6/18/05. Although it wasn't my fault, I still apologize to those who lost stories. I know losing a labor of love like that can be quite annoying.

You can mention canon characters. What we don't want is a story about the crew of the Enterprise, or a story where the crew of DS9 is all there. We want it to be based on your own characters, in your own story. But mentioning canon characters, locations, ships, etc. is okay.

Most definitely. Just remember that it has to be a Star Trek story, but cannot include Canon characters, like Data, Picard, etc.

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: Honor - Honor is an ephemeral thing. The word means one thing to some (Klingons) and something completely different to others (Ferengi). Show us a form of honor that we may not have seen before, or give us a fresh perspective on a form of honor we're familiar with. Try and stretch yourself by writing something you would have never tried before. Use images you wouldn't consider in SIM. Wow us! Length: No more than 3000 words accepted. Beginning Date: Tuesday, June 7th Ending Date: Sunday, July 17th Judges: Will be announced on or by June 17th. See Also: the Writing Challenge Website. Good Luck!

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

Apologies for the delay. Judges Idril Mar and Rocar Drawoh have decided on a winner: Ben Walker, with "Graduation day". Congratulations to Ben, who will be receiving his "signature badge" within the next day or two. Very good work done by everyone! We'll have some reviews of the stories out within a few days. The new challenge will be introduced by the 5th of this month.

Looks like they're coming in a later than expected... sorry folks. Should only be another day or two.

The writing challenged closed on May 15th. Winners will be announced by the 30th. Thank you to all who entered, and good luck!

Scathing, but mostly true. I didn't think it was all bad, but I can see where your grievances come in, Idril. Does seem to diminish the impact when the end of ENT is just as much about Riker/Troi as it is about the ENT crew. Overall, I thought the final episode was a little hurried, now that I think about it. I always hate it when writers do that "let's sum up the last 10 years in a few sentences..." thing like they did on screen. I didn't think the storyline was particularly strong, either. I can think of a bit more noble of a pursuit than going after Shran's daughter for the final episode. The last TNG ep was about the the crossroads of past, present, and future and seemed quite epic. VOY's final episode was of about our present choices and how they effect our future. ENT's final was a bit like the air blubbering out of a balloon. Nonetheless, I still think the final moments were good, bringing together all the captains voices. And, in a way, it made the series come full circle to "the beginning" of it all. Made me think that perhaps a new Trek series is a bit further in the future than we were led to believe, though. Anyway, I'm still bummed about it. Definitely bitter towards the Paramount producers for this whole debacle. Quite a poor end to such a wonderful series of television shows.

Good rebuttal. Hits all the high points.

Thoughts on End of ENT ... SPOILERS!!! ************************************* Well. I'm quite sad about the end of ENT. I thought I'd be the last one to miss it ending, but now I feel like this was just as Trek-y as any of the series' we've seen so far. I do think that these last few episodes benefited from the writers, as someone said, merely moshing together all the "great ideas" and putting them in a few episodes. Nonetheless, I think that it was very nice. The last scene of the TNG/ENT episode was very touching, with the captains of all the ENT giving those few words. And the ENT-D looked great as the first completely CG model! Not sure how I felt about Tucker dying. I don't know if that was really necessary or not. Overall, not a bad ending. Like I said, I wish it could have finished its run to 7 years like the rest...

Perhaps

I have DS9 seasons 6 & 7.

Seemed like there was a marked difference in what we saw in TOS and ENT. Yes, before you say it, CLEARLY the special effects are different. I'm talking about behavior. Seems to me like the TOS Gorn were a bit more primative, while the ENT Gorn were much more cunning.

Far be it for me to reject the opinion of a mediocre writer like Orson Scott Card, who's himself has surely never done anything to pander to the masses... But he goes TOO FAR! Star Trek may have been "cheesy" and the "high school" of Sci-fi, but it did one thing that he did not mention: broke barriers. Star Trek was a watershed series in the 60s that, because of its marginality, was able to portray things which more mainstream shows may not have been able to. Lest we forget the groundbreaking interracial kiss, or the black-white/white-black episodes? Yes, we have great sci-fi now, but the reason why ENT was cancelled has nothing to do with Trek being any less great of science fiction as the rest of what we see on television. The reason ENT was cancelled was because network executives make poor decisions based on skewed numbers. UPN is the absolute worst choice for a sci-fi show, and Friday is the absolute worst time for any show you're trying to garner support for. Furthermore, ENT was a risk to begin with. A good deal of the fanbase was not behind the show, and the choice of actors for this series (i.e.- our good Jonathon Archer) put a lot of people off. Nonetheless, ENT has slogged through some really poor writing, and some absolute butchering of the timeline, to finally come out with some really good storylines. There is so much to still be explored in the ENT era that we will never see. If the show had attempted to go back to the "roots" of the Federation and deal directly with the "much loved" species we all know, perhaps we would have been better off the beginning. (Why in the universe did they try and start things off w/the Suliban?) Anyway, OSC has a right to his own opinion, but it's clear that he's never really understood Trek anyway. To avoid mentioning of the cultural impact Trek had from the very beginning just shows that you are at a complete loss for a true understanding of what a phenomenon Trek is.

Whatever it is -- I hope it's good. How's that?

My understanding was that he was poisoned.

Remember, the challenge ends on the 15th of this month!