LoAmi

There seems to be this idea among Trek fans that Vulcans are predisposed to being logical, as if it were something genetic.  From my understanding of Trek history, though, it seems that Vulcans, if they are predisposed to any behavior, would be predisposed towards being just as instinctually guided as anyone else - if not more so (Pon Far, for example, the only part of their instinct left that they can't repress).  It is the *learned* Vulcan mental discipline that makes them so logical and suppressive of emotions.  That means that someone who is fully Vulcan or half Vulcan (etc., if those genes are passed on and expressed) and never had any of the Vulcan training should more resemble a primal emotional Vulcan (or a Romulan) than a 23rd or 24th century logical one.

Comments?

oh, no, not a sequel to the last STSF movie!

You would think that with the losses the production companies took on that one they'd get the hint.

Hey, Travis, you broke the boards! j/k

Interesting effect.

The trick is to sacrifice your index finger early in the game.  That way you have a wide space on both sides of your thumb and you can get 3 safe knife sticks with a single pass.

Someone has way too much time on his hands.  The finger game really isn't that hard to get a "good" score (according to the sayings afterwards).  The more fun part is to see just how low your score can be!

Good finds, Garnoopy and Lightning...

Happy Birthday, Birthday people!

:: throws Smith and Hawke some cake ::

:: throws Vex some fish ::

they are the galor and the keldon classes. the galors being puny little things, and the keldons being the bigger buggers. woohoo i just became a complete freak! give me a cookie!

We know about the existence of the classes from DS9.  (I don't have the games, so I don't know how much detail they give).  The real questions are about the details you might need to man one of them.  Even some of the starfleet ships are a bit uncertain.  There's really no certainty about how big the Defiant or Oberth classes are... and there are lots of other scaling inconsistencies (look at the Ex-Astris-Scientia site for details).  It gets worse when you get into non-Federation ships.

(Haha, I'm a bigger nerd than you, Images  :o  )

Could we actually do a Cardassian sim? Weren't they pretty much decimated after the Dominion war, and therefore the sim would be simply trying to rebuild?

Granted, I did miss alot of the last couple of seasons, so I can't make a true judgement call.

This is a good point, but the post-Dominion War atmosphere could make an interesting backdrop for a Cardassian sim.  First, the homeworld is in disrepair and lots of Cardassians have been killed by both the Federation and the Dominion.  Second, they had just come out of an alliance with the Dominion, during which time a lot of their military officers were probably involved in even more war crimes to add on to what they had done during the occupation of Bajor.  Now, take that and put a crew of simmers on one of the first ships in their rebuilt fleet.

The disadvantage is we really don't know all that much (canon material) about Cardassian culture, technology, etc. so simmers would have to make up a lot of it along the way.  We also would have to generate a post-Dominion War political scheme, etc. for the Cardassians.

In general, I think that it's best to stick a sim where you have to worry the least about getting background details right.  (That's one good reason to put sims on ships of well-established starship classes).

My 3c...

This is really funky: in Mozilla 1.3, Dac's post and Travis' post show moving text, but Jorlis' shows a flashy vertical line where the moving text should be...

Cool! A chat log from the future!  If I read it, will I find out what happens next week? (check out the stardate on the post topic, Dac)

Ahhhhh nitpicking.... :-)

count yourself as lucky, HD (read the transcript to find out why)

For reference, Jorlis' post looks like it has a flashing line on top of the 'I' in "Isn't" on Mozilla 1.3 ... (it looks ok in IE)

The A9 plan is on the right track... but definitely not enough if we want to continue past months' growth trends into the next quarter.  We could send out STSF CD's to every household in the country, offering 1000 free hours of simming.  If it doesn't work the first time, just keep sending CD's until people finally give up and start using them as hood ornaments.  All those new people, and the advertising... all for the great value of 255 million times the price of one postage stamp!

:: sings in a distinctive, loud, screechy voice ::

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy B-day, Travis.

Coconuts are multi-cultural  :o

Coconuts are tropical!

I did that at one point....  in fact, on some nights I had as many as 3 sims back to back.  lol  -- It was fun keeping characters straight, and which one was doing what.

Is this the same webby who had a life back in the TNN Starfleet challenge post?  :laugh:

=/\= Personal Log of Lt. Arphazad Lo'Ami =/\=

Personal Log, Stardate 10303.31.  The investigation into the alleged kidnapping of Federation citizens for slavery on Miren VI has been put on hold. Marine commander Lt. Col. Dana Quest, tactical officer Major Ziggy Stardust, chief engineer Lt. Marlene Zukko, and former crewmember Lt. Cmdr. Samantha Riker, now of Starfleet intelligence, are missing, presumed dead after their shuttle mysteriously exploded shortly after an unauthorized takeoff from Arcadia.  All departments are scrambling to assemble a search and rescue team, although it looks unlikely that anyone will be left to rescue.

:: brief pause ::

Federation engineering is considered among the safest in the universe... Our shuttles have multiple redundant backup systems designed to prevent random accidents.  A highly unlikely series of events would have had to occur.  Considering the circumstances, our best starting assumption is that the explosion was the result of foul play.  But whose?

Sensors continue to track a ship maintaining its distance just at the edge of our sensor range.  While its intentions are unclear, it is likely that its presence is related to ours - to watch us? to interfere with us? to kill us?  Doubtless, the ship's crew wants it to be seen by us, although without the detail of closer sensor range.  It is too early to tell whether they were responsible for the shuttle disaster.

Either way, I intend to find out.

=/\= End Recording =/\=

I always thought the most complicated question was

"what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Would that be African or European?

For all this talk about Bush being dumb, he has an MBA from Harvard.  Not an easy degree to get, and not an easy school to get it from.

Two comments:

1. Gentleman's C

2. $$$$$George$$$$$Bush$$$$$$$Sr.$$$$$$

Doesn't the or > or something interfere with the PeoplLink chatrooms because it tries to identify it as a font type or color or something? I thought I remembered that.

 

I do know that :: :: sometimes messes up because it attaches a smiley to it. Or was that fixed?

Although this doesnt belong on the FAQ page, only certain codes interfere with the PLink chat room's minimalist interpretation of HTML

The FAQ that we got A LOT is:

How do I make my chat text show up in bold, italics, or color?

While typing in the chat rooms, before each line you type, you need a formatting code, as in these examples:

bold

italic

red

blue

(without the spaces in the , webby: is there any way to show these on the boards w/o spaces?)

You can stop typing in formatted or colored text by using another formatting code.  (again without the spaces inside the ) For example:

Player1>  My text is red.   Now it's blue!

Will look like:

Player1> My text is red.   Now it's blue!

You can also use HTML-style color codes.

(Perhaps somebody who has a link to a color-code website could provide a link here.  I don't know any good ones)

Someone was feeling very self-congratulatory...

What are the brackets ( >) and when should I use them?

Text enclosed in brackets is not part of the sim.  You might use these for:

(1) questions you have about what's going on in the sim that you think everyone needs to know (for example, a request for a GM to clarify an unclear action).  

(2) out-of-character remarks (for example, a joke about what you or another player said)

Use of out-of-sim text tends to disrupt the flow of a sim, so it should only be used when necessary.

Here's one that (although not necessarily in this form) seems to come up a lot in sims (but not on the boards):

"What are all those :: symbols, what do they mean, how do I use them, and why are they every simmer's best friend?"

Text enclosed in :: (two colons in a row) denotes an action or a thought.  Text not enclosed in :: symbols is considered speech.  For example, if Player1 were interacting with Player2:

Player1> :: hears a sound  :: Did you hear that?

Player2>  Yes, sounded like thunder.

Player1> :: looks in the direction of the sound :: Look at that!

Player2>  ::thinks: "gee that's an odd looking animal" ::

Notice that actions, thoughts and speech can be (and frequently are) included in the same line.  The :: separator tells other players what was intended.

Everything people said above is true.  If you happen to find yourself with a new simmer (especially if you're their A* and they're the C* or vice versa), send him/her a PM.  That way, more experienced simmers can help them with the details of how the procedure works (like the :: action :: convention), get them involved in the sim (instead of sitting aside and watching or just echoing what everyone else says and does), and if they're doing well enough already with the procedures, then just to welcome new simmers to STSF.  I have done this quite a few times, and I don't think it's ever been resented.

Hello, and, once again, welcome.

The name you're using on the message boards is ok - in fact you can use any name here and it is independent of the name you use to chat.  I think it is preferable not to use your rank in the message boards name because it gets a bit annoying when you get promoted.

The name you use in the chat rooms is the name you sign up with on startrek.com.  Go to www.startrek.com/community/chat.asp and click on the "Register now" link.  If you've already signed up under a different name, you'll have to log in under that name, change the email address and sign up for a new name under your real email address.  Also, be aware that as far as I know, startrek.com does not allow spaces or apostrophes in your name, but underscores are, so you'll have to use cdt_tana, cadet_t_ana, cdt_t_ana or some variant like that.  

This question is now answered in the STSF FAQs.  If you need any more help, post again on the boards.

Hope this helps,

=/\= Personal Log of Lt. Arphazad Lo'Ami =/\=

::Begin Recording::

Personal Log, Stardate 10303.26; While the remainder of the crew were on shore leave on Miren VI, I oversaw the engineering and science teams in the installation of the new Vogart dilithium crystal into our systems.  This duty gave me the opportunity to work with our newest crewmembers in the engineering department, Ensigns Reese Hawkins and Mordan Frox.  Both are extremely competent officers who will doubtless fit in well with this crew.  

During this time, I was the senior officer aboard the ship, and was thus in command of its skeleton crew.  I received a strange communication from Marine Lt. Col. Dana Quest requesting that I pass on orders to the Marines still aboard the ship to go down to the planet in an armed party.  I refused to comply with the orders on the grounds that they violated the prime directive, and to the best of my knowledge, none of our crew were in any danger.  I had followed Starfleet protocol to the letter of the law, but, nevertheless I have never before disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer, nor had I ever before received an order that warranted disobedience.  I have chosen not to inform the captain of the incident unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

I had hoped that the science and engineering teams would be granted shore leave after our tests had been completed, but such rest does not seem to be in our near futures.  Fortunately, none of the crew had been injured, but something was definitely wrong on that planet.  For now, the ship is ready for action, but restricted to warp 3 until the crystal's alignment stability can be verified.

I have been informed that Cmdr. Alces has left the crew and that I will become acting chief science officer.  Although it will be hard to fill the good Commander's chefs' hat, I hope to serve the captain and ship well in this new capacity.

=/\= End Recording =/\=