Damian Porter

"Interrogation" A log by Lieutenant Damian Porter. Porter couldn't believe this was happening, not to him, not at all… ever. He was sitting at a table in a room which was clearly supposed to be an interrogation room. Two of tr'Jeth Dabi's trolls were flanking the door in all their golden glory. Only they weren't Dabi's trolls anymore as he was undoubtedly going through a similar experience as Porter was at the moment. This was ridiculous and Porter was beyond angry. He made a point of looking calm on the outside but on the inside he was fuming. SFHQ should have known better than you trust the Romulans. He had been sitting there for exactly 45 minutes when the doors opened. To him, not having a clock of any kind at his disposal, it had felt like hours. But Porter would not do them the favour of getting impatient, angry or violent while waiting. He just sat there and stared at the wall opposite him like he saw a Da Vinci masterpiece somewhere underneath the coat of Starfleet regulation grey paint. When he finally heard the soft swoosh of the doors opening he knew the game was on. He didn't look up to see who had entered; he just kept staring at the wall, seeming indifferent to any disturbances. A voice unknown to him ordered the trolls outside and a few seconds later another gold uniform invaded Porter's field of vision. The face belonging to said uniform was unknown to him, but it didn't matter, all that mattered was that he was dealing with a Starfleet officer. Not Dabi, as he was under suspicion as well in this ridiculous farce initiated by an even more ridiculous, Romulan, over achieving J-tube rat. The King of J-tube Rats. A rat indeed. The gold shirt took a deep breath and then started to speak: "Well, Mr Porter…" Porter looked the man in the eyes and interjected coldly: "Lieutenant Porter, Ensign." What the heck was the guy thinking? Goldie nodded and continued: "We shall see about that, Lieutenant." "Indeed, we shall." Porter had said all of this in as even a tone as he could muster. He very much wished he could just yell at the security troll, or even better, hurt him with a heavy, blunt object. "Lieutenant Porter, you know what you are being charged with?" Goldie was talking business now. "Actually, I'm a tad fuzzy on the details. You see, a crazy Ferengi invaded the Control Tower and dragged me, along with a few other people, I might add, from my station. At gunpoint. I've been waiting for someone to show interest in me ever since, looks like I've just become the popular kid now. But you might want to check on the Ferengi, because he seemed a bit delusional, kept taking about a mutiny. And while you're at it, you might want to check out the crazy Romulan who's running Engineering, too. Actually, doesn't it seem a mite strange to you that the highest ranking Starfleet officer, the Chief of Security and the Operations Manage have been taken into custody just because two non Starfleet individuals start throwing around big words? Now if you want to investigate a mutiny I suggest you start right there." Porter couldn't help it. He just wasn't the kind of person to keep his mouth shut. Someone had to try to whack some sense into them and his sarcasm was a powerful tool; at times. "Let's not focus on the Ambassador or anybody else. Let's focus on you and your actions." Goldie was still calm and very professional. Porter was still waiting for someone to jump out and tell him it was all just a big joke: "My wha… my actions? What on earth kinda actions would you be talking about? I did my duty, I wasn't late for my shifts, I didn't kill anybody and I sure as hell did not", at this he raised his voice as if to make sure the guards outside heard him too, "I repeat; did not stage or take part in any kind of mutiny. This is a joke, there was no mutiny. Ambassador Drankum hit his head during the attack. He was declared unfit for duty by the docs. From then on I received my orders from Commander Chirakis. The Commander did not take over the station, she did not, in no way whatsoever, act like the Ambassador would not be returning to duty." Goldie perused a PADD but Porter knew that was just show, Goldie knew what he was doing and he had practised his lines: "But Commander Chirakis' actions during the attack proved fatal for some fighter pilots, is that or is that not true, Lieutenant Porter." "We were attacked. It is not my place to judge the Commander's orders. Whether she took the right course of action or not is something you will have to discuss with her. But when Starfleet sent us out here, to the butt crack of the quadrant, without any support worth mentioning, it surely must have taken into consideration that there could be losses. I am very sorry that we have lost men. But it's a risk that comes with the job. That has nothing to do with mutiny, however. So, what is your point?" Now Goldie looked Porter straight into the eyes: "My point is that you seem to follow orders rather willingly, even if they mean people are going to die." Porter tried to calm himself by thinking of a variety of earlier mentioned heavy blunt objects and picturing himself chasing Goldie out of the interrogation room with them: "I am a member of Starfleet, a superior ordered me to do things during an attack. Of course I followed her orders. I'm not sure what they teach you in security kindergarten, but during an attack all hell breaks loose on the Control Tower. I secure the station, I deal with communications, I relay orders from the Command staff, I distribute repair and medical crews, and I keep track of damage and systems functionality. As you can see, I don't have time to question orderes at the same time, let alone starting a full fledged discussion. Commander Chirakis made a decision, and whether she made a wrong or a right decision does not matter, because at the end of the day, what does matter is that we lived through the attack." Goldie nodded: "And after the attack?" "Nothing, we patched up the station. Things were business as usual. Sure, the Ambassador wasn't well, but we heard that he wasn't seriously injured. There were no plans of anybody taking over the station and Chirakis has no secret fantasies of world domination. Everybody was doing their work just as they would have done had the Ambassador been on the Control Tower. Until we were dragged to the brig, that is. That's what happened and that's what you can tell your superiors. I have only one more thing to say: We're out here pretty much on our own. Right now we can't even contact Starfleet and reinforcements take an awful long time to get here. We can't afford to turn against each other, so you best gather up your toys and tell whoever's in charge of Security right now that they find out what's going on here. Because I'm pretty sure that if we keep going like this we'll soon all join the fate of those fighter pilots." With that Porter resumed his earlier stance, looking at the wall. They would not hear another word from him, and Goldie seemed to realise that, as he gathered up his PADD and left the room, leaving it to his thigs to take Porter back to the brig.

Hey Cass, welcome to STSF. You know, if I were you I wouldn't worry too much about Trek knowledge. I mean, it helps to know the basics, but it's not necessary to know how the warp drive works or ever single alien race there ever was. If in doubt there's always memory Alpha and the like. The secret is called technobabble; if in doubt always make it look like you know what you're talking about. You know, our Academies are there to learn, maybe you want to drop by one of those and give it a try. I remember when I first started I also thought that I didn't know enough. But I found that I was getting along just fine. Enjoy your time on STSF. Porter

I'm not exclusively a PC gamer. Although, PC gaming is still more popular in Europe than consoles; it's slowly changing, though. I'm not sure why that is, but yah, I got my consoles, too (XBox 360, Wii and PS 2 to be precise) Dragon Age is definitely something I'll look at. I'll get Mass Effect 2 once I finish the first one... ah, so many good games so little time. I'm always a bit careful with games that get released around Christmas though, I've seen too many games that could have used another 3-6 months of developing that were released in time for Christmas. So, I tend to wait for feedback and buy them after Christmas. New Super Mario Bros Wii is also on my list, for several reasons. 2D Mario jump'n runs have always been awesome (and I've played my first one on the NES), Nintendo doesn't do much wrong in its games (Zelda, Mario Kart, Super Mario Galaxy are all awesome games for Wii, although I realise that Zelda is only a port of the GC version), and its got a multiplayer.

The strategy really depends on what kind of game you play. Although, I must admit that I don't like playing games that make a science out of everything. When it comes to RTS I want to be able to get resources and build an army. Not a big fan of having to pay attention to every detail of my economy, if I want that I do my taxes. Guess that's why I liked StarCraft. But still, in battle I actually think about strategies and such. When it comes to games like Diablo (another one I used to play obsessively) I got for the "big weapon and lots of strength" approach as well. I have no patience for becoming a sorcerer.

"Olfactory Assault" A joint log by Lieutenant Damian Porter and Chief Petty Officer Rosalind Wills CPO Rosalind Wills was not happy. This was nothing new, but it bore repeating at this particular point because now it was singularly emphasized by the smell emanating off of her. As a matter of fact the entire cargo crew, more or less, was bearing this olfactory underscoring of their discomfort, given that all of them had passed at least once (most of them more) through Cargo Bay 3, which was still playing host to a crashed semi-biologic fighter in addition to all the damaged goods that needed to be extracted from it. This would have been difficult enough without Commander Chirakis wandering into the bay earlier in the day, reaching inside of it, and dumping its extremely pungent guts out all over the deck, but she had, and now they all smelled like the inside of a sewer system in addition to everything else. She would have liked to have dismissed everyone off-shift for a shower at that point, but she didn't exactly have the people to spare for that at the moment, so they had all grinned and bore it until end of shift. Wills was now on her way back to the non-com quarters and her mood was as sour as the odor wafting off of her, and wasn't improved by the idea of going back to the cramped dormitories and probably staring at some of the same faces she had been looking at for the past eight hours. Making a sudden decision, she twisted her head around and barked a different deck number at the TL, then stepped off when it arrived and approached a door a little ways along the corridor, tapping the chime. Porter was in the shower when he heard the chime. He thought it was probably his mate Steve. They were supposed to go to Drankum's the next day, but Porter wasn't at all surprised that Steve had mixed up the days; he was a bit of a scatterbrain. This was a bit scary considering Steve worked as a med tech. With a sigh Porter got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. "Come in!" he yelled from the bathroom. The door slid open and Wills walked in, looking around, quirking an eye at the sparsely decorated and messy but (relatively speaking) quite large quarters of the commissioned officer. She whistled under her breath slightly. "Nice." Porter stood in the bathroom door half naked and quite surprised but not in the least embarrassed. "Chief Petty Officer Wills, I wasn't expecting you; how nice of you to drop by." Only when he stepped into his bed/livingroom he noticed the pungent smell emanating from Wills. "Ah, I see you put the good perfume on for me, too. What on earth is that smell Wills?" "Clearly you haven't been anywhere near Bay 3, L'tenant," Wills grunted. "That smell is the inside of our newest guest, which is now lying, in large part, all over my floor." She glanced at Porter, who was shirtless and looking somewhat surprised to see her. To tell the truth she was rather surprised to find herself here, and had no real explanation except that she had reached the point where, between seeing the cargo grunts for another minute and seeing anyone else, she'd take the latter. "Not a bad time, I hope?" she asked nonchalantly, ambling over to the window. "And what do you expect me to do about our smelly friend on your floor? Actually, hang on, make yourself at home while I get dressed. If people catch us like this they might start taliking." With that he turned around and went back to his bathroom. Wills rolled her eyes and made tracks for his replicator while he disappeared back into the bathroom, ordering herself a stiff drink and waiting a few moments in silence. When he did not immediately emerge, she continued the conversation at a slightly elevated volume, assuming he'd hear her through the door. "Don't expect you to do anything in particular," she said with a shrug. "It appears the powers that be intend for it to make its home there permanently, for all the effort that's being made to shift it." Porter put on a pair of comfortable trousers and a t-shirt and took a couple of minutes to groom in front of the mirror. "So, why the olfactory assault on my quarters then? Did you come here to flirt? If that is the case I strongly suggest you take a shower first. Take mine if you want." He grinned at himself in the mirror. "Figured I'd share the misery, I suppose," Wills said dryly, gulping down a bit of her drink and staring at the floor thoughtfully for a moment. The offer of a shower was an appealing one, but she had her own to use a few decks down. That wasn't why she was here. "It's just...annoying, you know?" she said after a few minutes. "How many science labs have we got and they want everything to grind to a halt while they examine it there and throw its intestines around." Porter finished and stepped out of the bathroom, made his way over to the replicator to get a beer and then sat down in one of his comfortable armchairs as far away from Wills as possible. "None of the labs is big enough, plus, we thought you'd like to be in the midst of things for once." Porter grinned at her. Wills gave him a dark look. Now she remembered why she had come here; Porter could be counted on to be aggravating enough that she could expect an excuse to vent at him. "It's not funny, L'tenant. I'd be happy enough to never hear a word from the level of CT operations except the occasional Christmas card. This is just...nuts..." He took a sip of his beer before answering. "Aww c'mon Chief Pity Officer, you know you wouldn't be able to live without me." "Try me." Porter laughed. "May I remind you that you came here... uninvited." He was having way too much fun teasing Wills, almost as good as going to Drankum's with Steve and chatting up girls. Wills glanced at him sideways and then grinned faintly. "Which I take as a sign of the times...when you're preferable company to my teams, things must be going downhill." "Ouch Wills, very, very ouch. But it's all good; I know you gotta pretend you don't like me." He took another sip and just looked at her. "Doing a damn good job of it, I hope," Wills said dryly, tossing back the rest of her drink and dropping it into the replicator. Porter laughed. "Suit yourself. So, anything else I can do for you?" Wills said nothing for a moment, then downed the rest of her drink and redeposited the glass in the replicator. "Just remember the Christmas card, I suppose," she said with a resigned sigh. He couldn't do anything, probably wouldn't want to even if he could, and as a matter of fact, given her current smell factor, she was probably lucky he hadn't tossed her out on her ear. "Thanks for listening, Porter," she said, shaking her head, and pushed off the wall she was leaning on and walking out of the door again, still not entirely sure why she had come.

"If Wishes Were Horses" A joint log by Lieutenant Junior Grade Damian Porter and Chief Petty Officer Rosalind Wills Porter was just back on duty again after his ordered rest. He was still a bit miffed at Chirakis because she had sent him to bed like a little boy. It wasn't like he didn't have enough work for 10 people, either. Walking down the corridor he was absent mindedly mumbling to himself, going through his to do list. First he would visit Wills. They had to go through supply assignments and he wanted to check how mad she was because her midway cargo hold was sealed off and cargo bay 3 held a fighter and thus was also sealed off. The doors of the cargo area in which he had located Wills swished open, or so he had thought. Still not paying attention to his surroundings he walked into something big. But it was decidedly too soft and too warm to be a bulkhead. Porter took a couple of steps back and looked up only to find Little standing in the door looking utterly dumbfounded as if he'd just seen a ghost. "Do you plan on spending the rest of your shift on that doorstep or will you let people work, Petty Officer?" Little stepped aside, his head a decidedly unhealthy crimson colour. The large man didn't utter a word, though, and hurried away. The space which he had occupied cleared to reveal the chaos of the cargo bay which Porter had entered. With two of the other bays shut down for normal operations, the work in the rest had nearly tripled. Blurred forms tinted in red jogged this way and that, working on the transport of salvageable goods out of the damaged bay, as well as responding to normal requisitions made even more complex by the simultaneous sudden upswing in requests for engineering equipment and medical supplies. It didn't help, too, that Cargo Ops had taken a hit to its personnel roster during the initial attack. If there was a crewman in that bay who wasn't doing the work of three men, it would be very hard to find him. As a result, CPO Rosalind Wills was in even more of a sour mood than usual. She was easy to spot -- and to hear -- where she stood in the center of the bay, a short, stocky, sonorous chief with a chip on her shoulder, a job to do, and not nearly enough time in which to do it. The sound of the doors grinding open brought her green eyes snapping around in Porter's direction with the air of a Doberman spotting an intruder. She didn't address him immediately, however, but tracked the huge bear of a man moving away from him first. "Little!" she barked. "Find Miller and tell him I need someone from maintenance up here yesterday -- we just blew a fuse in one of the transport consoles." Porter spotted Wills at once and walked over to her grinning. "Chief Petty Officer, we're quite chipper today, aren't we?" He knew he shouldn't be teasing her, but he couldn't resist temptation. Wills gave him a look that would have burned a hole through duratanium. She was exhausted, mind-numbingly busy, and trying not to think about the amount of seat-of-the-pants reorganization that was being done to her system with every passing minute. She was not in the mood for Porter's smirks. "What do you want, Lieutenant?" she asked curtly, turning away from him and all but snatching an offered PADD from the nervous-looking PO standing behind her. "Ah, what a question; shore leave and a quiet post on Earth where I'm not being held at gunpoint, so to speak, every other day is what I want. But sadly, neither Ambassador Drankum nor anybody else cares about what I want." As he said this Porter wondered whether a quiet post was really what he wanted. Certainly, he didn't like the fact that dying on the job was a lot more likely out here, but at least it didn't get boring. "Normally, Porter, I would be more than willing to sit at your feet and listen to you rhapsodize about what might have been, but frankly this is not a good time," Wills returned irritably. Porter let out a mock sigh before replying, "Oh, well. One of these days, Wills...just you and me in front of a fireplace..." He inserted a dramatic pause here for effect. "...and I'll tell you all about what I want and stuff." Inwardly he braced himself for a slap, despite the fact that Wills couldn't possibly have mistaken his joke for a serious desire. Wills looked at him sidelong and her eyes narrowed slightly. What little patience she had was slipping. "Porter...much as I'm sure you adore my company, I find it hard to believe you didn't come down here for some more specific purpose. And if you did not, perhaps you can go work on determining whether that fighter will be out of bay three before we all commit mass hara-kiri down here." At that Porter's mood deteriorated faster than a sugar cube in a glass of water. "I cannot tell you that Wills. I have nothing at all to do with what's going on in Cargo Bay 3 and from what I've been hearing I really, really don't want to. You'll have to make do with what you got. Speaking of, Commander Chirakis has ordered every crew member to get enough rest, even if that means shorter shifts. I know that difficult, especially since we're short on staff anyway after the attack and everybody pulled at least double shifts. But and order's an order, even if it causes me a major headache. How's everything else going?" Wills bit back a sarcastic retort, realizing both that she had overstepped herself in tone somewhat and that Porter was not in a much better mood than she was, grin notwithstanding. So she just shrugged. "We're holding it together. But losing two bays at once is not a fun contingency." That wasn't exactly a surprise to him, he had known before he had come down here that Wills would be fuming. "I know, but it cannot be changed. Anything else I can rely to Commander Chirakis?" Having finally had the opportunity to vent a bit, Wills' tone got a little more businesslike at the question. "Not all of the damaged cargo is salvageable and we're still working out exactly how much is lost permanent; I can have a full manifest written out for you and sent up but it will probably keep changing for a couple more days yet." Porter nodded; he had expected this, too. "I will have it replaced, we'll need a whole lot of supplies anyway, the repairs have drained our resources quite a bit." "I'd imagine so. I've had the wrench jockeys running in and out of here every five minutes since the attack...never seen them so needy in my life." Wills finally cracked a slight grin, then glanced at Porter with a somewhat curious expression. "Do we know who did this?" "Not yet it would seem. But I've been off duty for a few hours. However, I doubt that they've made much progress. It wasn't a species I have ever seen, and everybody else seemed just as puzzled." All that Porter had gathered while doing his work on the CT was that the ship was short of alive or the life form was fused with the ship, or some such thing. "Lovely. Preferred when it was the Breen...at least then we knew what we were dealing with," Wills grunted, shaking her head slightly. At this Porter grinned again. "Looks like neither of us will be getting what they wish for today, eh, Wills?" "Guess not, but I've learned to take nothing for granted around here," Wills drawled, quirking an eyebrow upwards at the younger man. "Unless there's anything else, it sounds from the Commander's orders like I've got a shift schedule to revise." "Indeed Chief Petty Officer, you may continue." With that he turned around and walked towards the door, carefully checking that Little was nowhere in the vicinity.

Actually, you don't have to come up with a character, yet. To start playing you only have to go to the chatrooms at a time when an academy is held (check out the schedule for that). There you will be assigned a post which you play for the duration of the academy. Only after you graduate you have to worry about coming up with a character. After graduation you can join one of the advanced simulations, those have a continuing plot and there you play the same character every week. So for now, all you have to do is show up, it's as easy as that. Enjoy the acads and I'll see you around, welcome to STSF.

Happy Birthday Kansas! Hope you're having a great day... do Kittehs get cake??

The problem with daylight savings time is that it doesn't start and end at the same time.

"Musings at OPS" A Log by Lieutenant Junior Grade Damian Porter With an hour and a half left until his shift Porter was doing his usual pre-shift workout on the holodeck. Today he had chosen to do his running in the woods. Having grown up in space, spending most of his time in a rather tiny freighter, he was used to doing his recreational activities on the holodeck. And this early in the day he preferred to be alone and not seek the company of other crewmembers. Alone in the woods or on the beach he was free to let his mind wander. It gave him a chance to think about the day and the tasks that lay before him. As Porter was running he hoped, as always, that it would be a quiet shift. Not that he'd had many of those, but hope was what kept him sane. It might, of course, also have been the fact that, despite the fuss he made about his busy job and the stress it caused, he got a kick out of doing what he did. He thrived on the adrenaline rushes that inadvertently came aplenty at the OPS station. Either from everybody talking to him at once, or some sort of catastrophe that threatened imminent destruction of Aegis (like the Ferengi or Breen fleets). If he had trained for any other department or been posted to any other position he would have been somebody's assistant at his age and his rank. But as OPS Manager he was usually in the midst of everything and people listened to him. So, being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere seemed a very small price to pay considering the advantages it had. Managing the OPS division of an entire deep space station definitely couldn't hurt his career. If he'd survive the job, that was. In the past couple of days a new potential catastrophe had appeared on the horizon. Some of the colonists had gotten sick, and despite there not having been any fatalities it didn't bode well for the whole project. Not that Porter cared about the project. It had only meant more work for him, because it had meant an increase in traffic, a fact that he didn't mind much, because they never got much traffic anyway, so the supply ships were a welcome distraction. What he did care about, however, was that they had contaminated, and Aegis provided the only way to get them out of there. The consequence was that they put the station at risk. Of course the medical department had taken every precaution possible, but that didn't mean much, at least not out here. But Porter supposed that was the risk that came with the job. What had bugged him much more was the fact that if something went wrong in the colony, which was almost a given considering the bunch that had been sent down there, Aegis had to come in to save the day. Granted, if the colonists would have to stay on the station it wouldn't make a big difference, but Porter was sure they'd bring with them some deadly disease or something even worse. Somehow he had the feeling that radiation poisoning was something they'd all be laughing about very soon. The only positive thing about this was that turning the dip wing into a quarantine area must bug the heck out of the diplomats, which was more than fine with him.

Being a non-native speaker of English as well here's what I think about it. Firstly, I don't think there are enough non-native speakers around to make it worth the effort, but if someone were willing to do all the work, it's not really the biggest concern. Secondly, as the simulations are all in English anyway you'll have a problem following those if you don't even understand the content of the site in English. I had only ever watched Star Trek shows and films in German when I joined, reading things in English helped me a lot with specific vocab and it's not hard to translate, really. Thirdly, if you want to translate something you have to make sure to have a near native or native command of both languages, because otherwise it'll just go horribly wrong (trust me, you wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen). Furthermore, if you only want to translate the schedule page, I'm not sure what's to translate. Lastly, if there are no Greek speaking GMs, as Jorahl said, there's really nobody who can check either the content or quality of the Greek site.

"The Start of a Good Day" A Joint log by Lieutenant jg Damian Porter and CPO Wills Today was going to be a good day. Porter had woken up feeling thoroughly refreshed after a rather long day yesterday. He had done his workout (jogging on the beach on the holodeck), taken a shower and 10 minutes ago he had started his shift. When he had arrived on the CT Drankum was nowhere to be seen, despite Porter respecting the Ferengi his grumpiness didn't exactly make it easy to deal with him in person. Hanson had been at the OPS console and reported that all systems were within nominal parameters and it had been an uneventful shift. Something Porter could not remember having since coming aboard Aegis. Now Porter was on his way to see CPO Wills. He hoped they still had some field generators somewhere, otherwise they'd be cutting it quite close to procure some for the colony before the ones in place now would blow. The doors to the cargo bay swooshed open in and he entered. Immediately he was surrounded by people bustling about to make sure that the station would run smoothly. Nobody ever thought much about this, but without these people down here unloading the cargo ships and making sure everything was distributed correctly they'd all be in a lot of trouble very soon. Porter didn't think about it right now either, instead he marched on purposefully on his quest to find CPO Wills. CPO Wills had just been starting to feel like maybe things were about to return to normal. Word was that the engineering project down in the flight bay had finally started to settle down, which hopefully meant she wouldn't have wrench jockeys trotting through pulling things off the shelves every five minutes from dawn to dawn; the requisition load had at least doubled over the past few days. When the crew got "projects," it always made her life more difficult. She was at the moment keeping tabs on an easy set of deliveries -- some medical supplies and engineering equipment; a regular load, easily tabulated and stored. She was almost in a good mood. A tap came on her shoulder and one of the PO's held out a PADD for her to sign confirming some withdrawals. "Lieutenant Porter's on the prowl," he said as she tapped the bottom of the PADD for confirmation. She shot him a glance. "What does he want?" "Don't know, Chief," the PO said with a salute. "But he's over in 212-alpha; better look him up." Wills sighed and turned, trotting away into the mass of people around her, heading for the location mentioned. Porter saw Wills approaching and smiled as he called over: "I see, Chief Petty Officer, you have your spies everywhere." He walked over to one of the consoles, because he knew they'd most likely need one to look up where exactly the generators were shelved, if, indeed, they still had some. Wills smirked. "I assure you, L'tenant, that when you enter the room you set off all sorts of alarms. What do you need?" Laughing he replied: "Yeah, I tend to have that effect on people. Now, I dunno if you've heard, but we need some field generators. Do you suppose we still have some? If not we'll have more colonists hanging around the station soon, and you know they'll need supplies." He said it jokingly, but he knew that he definitely did not want the somewhat crazy colonists on the station for any amount of time. Wills quirked an eyebrow. It wasn't a common requisition, which was good, in its way; Wills was always a fan of variety. This job could, after all, tend to load you up to your eyeballs in routine. "Scoot," she said, nudging him out of the way of the console so that she could step into position to tap it on and begin running a search. "This is for the kids planetside, then?" she asked conversationally as the computer began chewing. "Get themselves into trouble, did they?" Porter moved and raised an eyebrow. "Of course they got themselves into trouble. I don't think any of us ever doubted that they wouldn't. Fankly, I'm surprised it took them that long to manage bringing almost certain doom upon them. Shouldn't be surprised if they'll bring almost certain doom upon us, actually." Wills chuckled. "Such a generous soul, Porter. We could all learn from such a spirit." The LCARS display pinged, showing a list of the requested generators currently on hand. "Three-six-gamma-eight-two-four-delta..." she muttered under her breath to fix the alphanumeric identifiers in her mind and then shifted the display to requisitions. "Where do you want it sent?" "Of course you could all learn from me. Just get them ready, Science and Engineering are still working on a solution but I want to be prepared, just in case. Make sure they can be sent up to the docking rink within an hour. "As it seemed this was going to be a good day, indeed. They had just made sure the colonists wouldn't have to invade Aegis, at least not for another week or so, and he could leave cargo without having to yell at anybody. Wills puffed air out through her nose. That was always the fun type of request -- no, we don't need it yet, just be ready to hop at a moment's notice, ok? OK. "Alright -- got 'em on call so they stand waiting at your command as we all do," she said dryly. "Anything else?" Porter ignored the attitude and smiled: "Perfect, Wills. I knew I could count on you and your minions. And that would be all, at least for now." Wills laughed. "Of course you can count on us; nothing but the best minions for the Sky Harbor." She cocked her head, working a kink out of her neck, then turned to begin moving back into the chaos of the cargo bay. "Have a good day, L'tenant. Say hi to Drankum for me."

You may or may not remember that last fall I asked whether some of you would answer a questionnaire for one of my term papers. I thanked all of those who submitted one in email, at least I hope I didn't forget anyone, but, as I got the results today, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you again. Your participation helped me to get an A for my paper, so thank you very much. Porter

Can I please have: Da OPS Man Thanks

Hello Owen, welcome to STSF! Firstly, don't worry too much about trek knowledge. When I came on here I didn't consider myself much of a Star Trek fan or anything, sure I had liked the shows and seen the movies, but not the way I do now. So, I had all the basic knowledge and, frankly, I still don't have the in-depth knowledge I know many others around here to have. But frankly, I have played in science and on the bridge and most of the situations can be solved with solid 21st century reasonable thinking. Some of it is just making things up and then some basic Trek knowledge. I can't say I have ever been in a situation where I had absolutely no clue what to do. Well, actually, let me rephrase that... I have never been in a situation where I had no clue and nobody was around who could help me out. It'd be boring if every one of us always had easy solutions at the ready. Secondly, about the questions of promotions. Usually people play the academies and then graduate and go on to an advance simulation. At the advance simulation you come up with a character biography and everything and you start out as Ensign or Midshipman (depending on which simulation you join). This character will then be promoted. You show up to those advances sims every week, the plot is continuous and your position is always the same (an assistant position in one of the departments, Department Heads are all experienced players). After some time (I believe after 3 months, but I'm not 100% ccertain) you can choose to join another advanced simulation if you wish, most people create new characters for those. This new character can then work a completely different position than the other one (say one's medical and one's engineering). What that character will start out as depends on the GMs. So, that's why not everybody on the ship is an Ensign. It's slightly different in the Academies. Everybody is a Cadet. But everybody is also assigned a position. These positions will not be the same for every Academy session. There you can also be assigned as a Department Head or Command staff (depending on where the GMs post you). And the plots are usually not continued. But you really needn't stress out. It's not a problem if you make mistakes during the Academy sessions or get confused. The GMs will always answer questions. The Academies are there for players to learn things and even the advanced players make mistakes and get confused. Relax and have fun, that's why we're all here. Hope to see you at the Academy later. Porter