Dumbass

Well if Vex is gonna be a tricorder then I'm gonna be 7 of 9's bodysuit!

In addition to the missing names, if a person's name doesn't appear in my online box that person can't see what I'm typing, and vise~verse. A couple nights ago the GM (Atragon) couldn't read what OPS (myself) was doing. I had to leave the sim because it was too confusing for people. Not to mention it makes PMs impossible.

Can you please not tell Huff that? For the time being I'm the only Ensign on one of her ships and she'll make ME do it!

Uh, "Goopy", you might want to check your eyes. It's bright red-orange to me.

I live about 50 miles from Oakland. I turned the game off early out of depression. (I've seen girl scout troops with better defence.) I didn't see many of the commercials. Sorry.

To add to the excellent comments already posted, being a new Ensign today is a completely different experience than even a few months ago when Precip, Garnoopy, and myself were the very first STSF grads since moving to startrek.com. Back then most of the GMs didn't know how to graduate someone, or even that it was an option. If the experience has changed that much in a few months I don't see how a CO or XO can emphathise with a new Ensign after so many years. On the other hand, empathy is not necessarily the most important consideration. As Starfleet Officers we are expected to be professionals with a job to do, and how we "feel" about it shouldn't matter one bit. Save it for the personal logs, don't let it get in the way of the job. I can also see a mentorship program as *potentially* disrupting the chain of command. An "Assistant" reports to a "Chief" who reports to one of the command officers. Bridge officers such as TAC, HELM, OPS, etc. may not report to a "Chief" per se, but the CO and XO are a few feet away. Now you throw in a mentor who you kinda report to, but not really, and it has the potential of making a bad problem worse. The mentoring program itself would have to be "mentored" to keep this from happening. That having been said, I think it's something worth pursuing. However, it won't be an easy transition for every ship. I'll use the Reaent as an example. We now have more Ensigns (all STSF graduates) than every other rank combined. Some of us will have to be promoted or we will have to double up. *All* Ensigns would have to be doubled up or it wouldn't be fair. If we take on any more graduates or someone comes back from a leave of absence then we would have a problem doing this as we would have an odd number of Ensigns. And if we are talking about making "graduation" from a mentorship program a requirement for promotion then those of us that are already pretty close will have a last minute obstacle thrown at us. "A week ago you were good enough, now you're not" is not an answer I would accept. There would have to be some kind of grandfather clause thrown in so we don't change the rules in the middle of the game. That's probably a worst case scenerio. The best case would be something like the Qob-Lakota. We have 1 Ensign (myself), possibly 2 if Garnoopy decides to join us. Finding mentors would be no problem - they would probably fight over us. Even still, things can go wrong. Personalities can clash, and it's hard to find a good fit for a new Ensign you know nothing about. Without naming names there was one person who, although not in my chain of command, took it upon himself to mentor me on being a good CENG without my consent. I'm a corporate technical buyer for 50 research engineers in real life, 20 of them Ph.D.s, and 2 or 3 with multiple Ph.D.s, and didn't need most of his advice. I eventually had to call in the CO and XO to resolve the dispute. For me biggest change would have to do with adapting the ship cultures to be more "Ensign friendly". Many COs and XOs have a rule saying if someone asks for a promotion they get ridiculed or moved to the bottom of the list. At the same time, it's their job to provide feedback on how we're doing and to get us to a point to where promotion is an option. If we're not encouraged or even allowed to ask then how do we get that feedback? Having a mentor could be useful here, but it means the COs and XOs would have to be consistent and predictable doing promotions or the mentor's advice wouldn't be worth the PADD it's printed on. Maybe we need to think about what it would take to make this work. Let's keep this going.

Wow! Except for the starship and simming stuff you just described my pathetic excuse for a love life!

It's great to see that the training sims have taken off, but I do have a concern that those who have already graduated are hogging the rooms and using their skills to outshine the Cadets - possibly even delaying their graduation because it's harder to get noticed. I'm guilty of this as well. I've been CO for a couple Academy sims including one where I became CO after relieving Atragon of duty. (Gosh that was fun!) It is a good way to improve command abilities, and it makes sense for the CO to be an advanced simmer so the sim is productive, but other high-profile roles should go to the Cadets so they can get noticed. Right now those roles are going to Ensigns and LtJGs who don't really need them. (We're not pulling rank, it just seems to be luck of the draw.) There needs to be an outlet for Academy graduates to build their skills (other than on their permenant ships) without disrupting the training of the Cadets the Academy sims are designed for. With the new rooms on the way are there any plans for a sort of Bridge Officer's Test or Advanced Tactical Training or Engineering Extention courses that have been referred to in different episodes? We could even take our "diplomas" to our COs and say "Look, I have this training, maybe we should consider a transfer or a promotion" or something.

(Recorded on a PADD someone gave me in the makeshift decon unit) Well, here I am, going through my first decontamination procedure, following the longest away mission I've ever been on. This may be an un-Vulcan thing to write, but my uniform stinks! The medics shouldn't even worry about decontaminating it and just burn the darn thing and issue me a new one. I just want to get cleaned up, have a double bacon cheeseburger - real, not replicated - and get some sleep. I'll need it, as I'm sure everyone and their mother has had a turn at my bridge station and I'll have a long day of reconfiguring the ship's systems. After we finished bringing the station's reactor online we began to power the bases various systems. The equipment was very old, so a lot of the connections were unstable. After we gathered what data we could Kroells began wandering off, as he had been doing the entire mission, and discovered an active cryogenic unit. Against orders, he recessitated the... thing, hence our need to go through decon. Ridire became concerned that the Tyderium was still without power. As I predicted, re-charging the shuttle was a relatively simple procedure, we just hadn't had time to do it yet. One of the drawbacks of the Type IX Shuttle is the manual power transfer cable is very heavy, and cumbersome to fold back up. I'll have to speak to someone in engineering about installing a power wench in the event this functionality is needed again. Now that I think on it with all the activity the Tyderium has seen recently a complete diagnostic would be in order. The storm was still raging overhead, but I was able to punch through a weak spot in the storm and pilot to the Reaent. As we approached the ship we noticed a HUGE hull breach in what used to be Cargo Bay 1 and surrounding areas. Even I had to gasp in awe at the destruction as I realized my earlier premonitions of danger were correct. When we contacted the bridge Captain FredM acted as if this was not of concern, but we dare not go to warp in a ship of this condition. As we approached the landing bay I requested landing clearance. It took a while to receive instructions, and when we finally did the voice at the OPS station was... female! She even called me Mike. I'm guessing there have been some supplements to the crew during our long mission, and we can sure use the help. Our data needs to be analyzed, a relief crew sent back to the planet - this time with real engineers, the Tyderium needs an overhaul, and the Reaent needs to be brought functional again. Ensign Van Roy Operations Chief

AOL? Aggrivation/Amateurs On Line?

Riker? Come on, he was a complete brown-noser! At least Chakotay and Kira had some cajones.

How about a Cadet ship, Galaxy class, complete with hull breaches, exposed structural integrity fields, and held together with duct tape?

Why 2? Aren't they born pregnant? Wouldn't 1 be enough?

If Romulan Ale is supposed to be illegal, why does it seem like every Starfleet bar has it?

On a couple occasions Janeway used the EMH as an Emergency Command Hologram. What would have been the point of that? I know Starfleet doesn't like to turn over ship functions to the computer, but isn't that exactly what she did when she created the ECH subroutine? Isn't the ECH controlled by the computer as well? Why not just turn over the ship to the computer directly?

Can I change my name to $#!+head?

Actually, I've stayed alive more often than I died. I must be beating the odds. :nod: Seeing "Commander" Garnoopy get killed by his own crew was kinda fun too :laugh:

Suberance? You mean that guy who would be alone in the Holodeck and sim with himself? He might actually BE on 24 hours a day! :o

I think the truth will be somewhere between what HyperDrive and Webmaster suggest. Nothing that could take over the world, or drive you home when you're drunk, but maybe something that could help a driver get out of a spin or will sound a warning if the driver is drifting or something like that.

Hmm! Porn while driving! Why didn't I think of that? Actually, there is a lot more to the Internet than simply web sites. That is just the latest application. And our division was also working on "smart cars" for a while as well. Our concern was developing applications for enhancing driver safety by allowing the onboard computer to take control of the car in the event the driver couldn't.

I think exponentially may be an exaggeration. Nannites and Tribbles and Borg, OH MY!

I've noticed the ghost of ens_loami has been lurking in the Holodeck. Are we back to the original problem again?

Funny you should mention this. I work for Bosch, the German auto parts manufacturer, as an accountant/buyer for our US-based research division. One of the research topics we are investigating is bringing wireless internet to the car. The technology exists to do it via onboard computers and cell phones with bluetooth, (The cell phone is used as a dial-up modem.) but it is too expensive and the connection speed is too slow to be of any practical value. A company by the name of Ricochet was developing a nation-wide wireless internet network, but they recently filed Chapter 11 and had no other competitors to speak of. A national wireless network is not a small or cheap undertaking (lots of capital equipment) and no real product until it's done, and the company didn't have enough sales to continue the work. The theory behind wireless internet connections while on the highways is sound, but not commercially viable until there is a national wireless network and connection speeds can be improved. I should be an Admiral by then.

(recorded via engineering tricorder with microphone attachment) We have successfully restored power to the derelict Romulan station, and are beginning to bring specific systems on line, but with the unexpected side-effect of depleting the power reserves on the Tyderium. After some additional investigation of the station, discovering nothing of note save for the dinglh (food center), Shamor ordered me to attempt a restart of the reactor. I moved the Tyderium as close to the reactor core as structurally possible, ran a cable from the warp engine to the reactor, and plugged it in. I forgot how heavy these cables can be. They are designed for 2 Terrans to carry, although 1 part Vulcan is sufficient. At this point I required Kroells' assistance on the shuttle. There was some confusion as he had been ordered to stand by the hnhuadr (data transfer) center for when power was restored, but getting the reactor online was the first step in a long process before that could happen. As Kroells got to the shuttle I had him bring the warp core online and "rev the engines". The readout on the Romulan power flow gage read mnek'nra (satisfactory). Then the unexpected happened. The Tyderium lost power. After returning to the shuttle I confirmed the power cells had been depleted. However, enough power had been transfered to the station's matter/anti-matter conversion unit to charge the reactor and, eventually, the rest of the base by obeying the computer's prompts. The khlenai (replicator) units are online, but I regret to inform the away team we are limited to the two Romulan foods I know how to pronounce: gletten, which is a thin soup known to occasionally cause llhrei'sian (diarrhea) in Humans, and Romulan Ale. Once the reactor is fully charged our next priority is looking up station records to discover why this station was apparently abandoned so quickly. Then we will see what data they had on the storms in this area. Finally, based on the relative ease of the initial transfer, we should have no problems re-charging the Tyderium's power cells and restoring communications with the Reaent, provided the storm is willing. I think it would also be wise to investigate their tactical database. In the first place, accessing the Romulan power systems has been a little too easy. Plus I have been experiencing some... uneasiness. Perhaps it is a telepathic link with the Vulcans and partial Vulcans aboard the Reaent or perhaps it is Romulan instinct, but I sense the Reaent is in danger and something terrible has happened. Ensign Van Roy Operations Chief

Hey, if a group of Ensigns really did have Fred's credit card the first thing we would do is buy some damn LtJg pips!