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New Newsletter On The Scene
As you may have noticed, this is the first-ever edition of WeBBsights,
the SNN publication devoted entirely to the STF on the Web. WeBBsights
is published by CNN of STF, the "news company" that has kept STF*Prodigy
informed and entertained for over five years. Now, we hope to bring our
journalistic expertise to the WeBB, so that all STFers can know what's
happening in their club. Expect WeBBsights, along with its STF*Prodigy
counterpart SNN
UPDATE, to be published on a vaguely random schedule.
STF Autumn Elections 1997
Elections for STF's highest office, the coveted Executive Janitor,
began yesterday with Will Riker narrowly passing by Dr. Soran in the early
polls. In related news, STF President Greg
Hertzsch, an altogether likable fellow unless it's your ship
he plans to decommission next, had no opposition when the Nomination Deadline
passed on Monday, 8 September. This, of course, means (sing along with
me here), "Yes, we have no election, we have no election to-day!"
Greg will be re-inaugurated for his second term sometime later this month.
His term will end eight months later, so expect new elections in June 1998.
Two Starships Suffer Identity
Crises, Crews Panic
During the Week of 22 September, the USS Hubble, a Trafalgar-class
Fleet 3 ship, became the USS Montgomery. The ship is perhaps
best known for being the only current ship to use the General Operations
Russian-Based Interface (GORBI) Artificial Intelligence program, developed
by the Novosbirsk Technology Connection subsidiary of the Daystrom Institute.
A glitch was discover shortly after activation which caused GORBI to refer
to the captain and crew as "keptin" and "comrade," respectively.
It is unlikely that this problem will ever be fixed, as chief designer
Vladimir Turnitoff has declared it a new standard, stating that declaring
bugs "features" is a time honored computer tradition. The GORBI interface
is the standard computer system on all Trafalgar-class wessels.
Another name change occured at the same time. The USS Concorde
became the USS Ares, putting the Ares in the same motif
as the Athena and Olympic. The exact reason for
the change, however, remains unclear. Said Fleet 1 functional Adam
Kent, "It's all Greek to me.".
WeBB 1-Month Mark Passes Without
Fanfare
So what?
Tidbits
Recently overheard at the Starfleet Bureau of Unnecessary Personnel:
Ops officers have been declared unnecessary on the USS Dresden,
as the Ops officer was beamed away and the crew didn't seem to notice her
absence. The captain of the Ares has also eliminated the position
of Ops.
The USS Olympic has set the record for most number of pointless
topics. Recent topics (which were deleted in the recent memory purge)
included: "Luke I am your father," "I ca read at a fourth grade level,"
"Luke why won't Yoda just die already," "POINTLESS SUBJECT," and "I'M JUST
HERE TO TAKE UP MEMORY." WeBBmaster Bourda suggests that no other
ship try ot beat this record.
Excerpt from Ripley's Believe It Or Not, vol. MDCCI: Ensign
Clarence Brown (Med-1) of the USS Dresden, deciding that life was
too pointless to go on, resigned his commission with the help of a type
II phaser. His fellow officers had to scrape the remains off the
bulkhead with a laser scalpel.
Starfleet Command has ordered that pizza shall not be served to crew members
after 10 p.m. in response to reports from the USS Athena that OPS
manager Kung Trill did so and suffered a series of nightmares, each of
which involved him saving the ship in one blow and/or getting killed in
the process. Dr. Malcom Practice, head of Starfleet Medical, stated
that "prolonged exposure to late-night pepperoni can have a serious effect
on the mind, including halucinations, dimentia, and the belief that one
is a cocker spaniel." The Several Crewmembers United for Decadence
committee (SCUD) has circulated a petition to have this ruling repealed.
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Your Publishers
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CNN of STF
Executive Editor Mike Ballway
holds the rank of Commodore and currently is the highest-ranked STFer.
He started out in STF*Prodigy in January 1993 as a Lieutenant-Commander,
Chief Engineer on the USS Constellation in Fleet Two. He has since
been (under various RPG characters) Chief of Security on F2's Arleigh
Burke, Base Commander of Starbase 93 (a position he still holds), Commanding
Officer of the Connie, Fleet Commander of Fleet Two (also one of
his current positions), the first STF clubwide Engineering Director, and,
recently, Engineering DockMaster and Chief of Security on the Victorious.
Mike began writing for CNN of STF in mid-1994, and has been publishing
STF*P's unofficial newsletter SNN UPDATE since September
of 1994.
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WeBBsights Associate Editor Larry
Garfield is a real-life friend of Mike's and joined the STF WeBB quite
recently (where he is more commonly known as the highly skilled Trill,
Murri Kep). He served aboard the USS Athena in Engineering
until he was transferred to the USS Hubble, now the USS Montgomery,
to serve as Chief Engineer. Although not formally a member of STF
until this year, Larry has been well aware of STF and its inner working
for some time, thanks to the highly descriptive and often highly excessive
updates from Mike.
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You -- yes, you! Because so much happens on the STF WeBB, Mike and
Larry can't hope to report on all the news. Any reader "tips" or full news
stories -- or even ideas for features -- are welcome; Yes, you will get
credit if you send something in. Send them to the Associate
Editor.
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STF*Prodigy News-in-Brief
Normally here we'd have tons of Fleet 1 and Fleet 2 news for you, but
seeing as how this is our first issue, here's a wee overview of the current
STF*P situation instead:
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If you want to read up on STF's history, post-1994 events are found with
ease (pretty much) in the archives of SNN
UPDATE, a club newsletter of sorts. Before then
there's Jim Midyette's No
Regrets, an historically "accurate," "nonbiased" look the Early Years.
Many, acutally most, people consider it very biased and opinionated, especially
people named Barcbutt.
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Barcbutt, or "Mike Barclay" as some call him, is an ex-Admiral of STF who
may or may not be rejoining (you can never tell with those ex-STFer types).
Barclay's main function in the club since going AWOL in 1995 has been,
primarily, to serve as comedy material in SNN UPDATE,
and secondarily to pop into Out-of-Character subjects and criticize Midyette
("Midyidiot") and former STFer Brian Misamore ("Misamoron"), both of whom
resigned a long time ago. Misamore-bashing is quite popular in STF and
SNN in particular, partly because of his on-off relationship with the club
but mostly because he, being retired, can't fight back.
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More on this subject -- including what appears to be a leadership report
-- in our next issue!
State of the Fleet
Most people find it difficult to occupy two places at one time; it
creates quantum fluctuations, annoying temporal anomalies, and severe migraine
headaches. Due to this clear oversight on the part of the Almighty
(i.e.: WeBBmaster Bourdaa), it is quite difficult to keep up with events
on other ships. So here, for your appreciation, without further ado,
is a list of the trouble the rest of the fleet has gotten into:
USS Athena, NCC-71819:
The Athena found itself faced with the daunting task of rescuing
Federation citizens held captive on an alien ship whose crew seems to be
able to beam through shields. Intruders on the ship were neutralized
on the bridge, the brig, Main Engineering, and in other key areas, thanks
in a large part to CE Paul Hank's patented "Hero Mode." That self
same CE then suggested that an away team be sent to the alien ship to rescue
the hostages and take over the ship. The entire crew then volunteered
for the apparently suicide-mission, forgetting that that's why starfleet
includes a large complement of Nameless Ensigns on every ship.
USS Dresden, NCC-1837-B:
The Dresden found itself in a quandary when a techno-babble anomaly
appeared in front of the ship, from which several unidentified ships emerged,
signaling peace messages. When Ops Manager Lt. Sara Black tried to
respond, however, the aliens beamed her to their ship. Captain Ty'rall
Brak failed to notice her disappearance, however, and permitted the aliens
to beam over, where they began to kidnap crew members and assume their
places. Aparently the aliens are multi-dimentional, bisexual, explorational,
and uninsured. Captain Brak was able to establish contact with the aliens
and discovered that they were sent on a first contact mission. The
aliens, realizing that while stealing crew members might be standard procedure
for them it wasn't the normal protocol for the Federation, returned the
missing crew members and followed the Dresden to Earth to meet with
the Federation Council.
USS Montgomery, NCC-84704:
The Monty (aka, The Starship Formerly Known As Hubble) found
itself in deep Oxygen hydride only moments after leaving space dock.
Those Rebel Scum, the Maquis, under the leadership of the infamous Filitov
and the defecting admiral of Starbase 117, seized the ship, beamed all
of the nameless ensigns on board down to the planetoid Zeta 3, and then
took the ship toward the Badlands. Quick action on the part of CO
Captain Jeff Field, CE Lt. Murri Kep (who is NOT playing favorites by giving
his ship the longest section), and Ops officer Lt. James Matthews (recently
retired) managed to stall the Maquis until they reached a Maquis base.
The crew managed to destroy the entire bridge, taking all of the Maquis
on board with it (and making the Monty the first WeBB ship to suffer severe
structural damage), and then took control from Engineering, where they
discovered that an unauthorized dust ball near the warp core was actually
a Changeling. The Changeling was captured just as two Jem'Hadar warships
arrived and demanded his return. The Jem'Hadar escorted the Monty
out of the Badlands in return for their Founder, but left the ship
stranded on the Cardassain side of the border, at the mercy of a pair of
Cardassian warships. The Monty, being the armed-to-the-teeth-and-then-some
Trafalgar-class that it is, diced the Cardies into mince meat and
warped back to Starbase 117 to have a new bridge put on, stopping at Zeta
3 on the way to pick up the crew.
USS Olympic, NCC-80000:
The Olympic found itself in a most unpleasant situation when a routine
mission to the terraforming colony on Aluxum 4 found no colony and two
black holes. A third black hole appeared outside the system and began
heading for Sigma Tristan. Daring shuttle action on the part of
CSO Christifer Blair managed to collect much data on the black holes before
the shuttle was destroyed and Blair beamed back aboard. A fourth
black hole appeared, also headed for the unpopulated system of Sigma Tristan,
and the crew decided that it would be more advantageous, and a whole lot
less dangerous for them, to watch the black holes destroy the system from
a safe distance. Unfortunately for those on board with weak hearts,
a strange, glowing blue orb appeared on the bridge and stated that the
ship was in violation of its space, and they were to leave immediately,
face a puzzle to see if they were worthy of contact, or be disassembled
into their individual quarks by the black holes which it controlled. When
the captain chose the puzzle, the orb trasnported the crew to a facsimile
of the Black Forest in Germany. If they succeed in solving the puzzle
(whatever it is), they will be allowed to live...
USS Ares, NCC-doesn't-deserve-one-yet:
The Ares's (formerly the Concorde) departure has been delayed
due to a clerical error. Not one, not two, but three different
people were slated for the position of first officer. Executive Officer
Michael Barclay failed to report for duty. XO Jack Daniels apparently
got lost while trying to find the USS Montgomery (hey, it's a big
station) and walked onto the wrong ship. (He has since managed to
find his way to his real post.) Teron Gorfiend (who survived the
attack of the Human-Elf alliance forces, for those gamers out there), therefore,
has assumed the position of FO (same as XO), and the Ares should
be beginning its first mission shortly.
Trek Trivia
Email all trivia answers to The
Editors. Be sure to sign your name, rank, ship, and fleet. Top 3 winners
get their names printed in the next issue!
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Riker's almost-captaincy in "Best of Both Worlds"?
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Complete this Michael Dorn quote: "This is __ __ Blood!"
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Name the two main gangsters on Sigma Iotia III
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Trek crewman famous for "I'll take you home again, Kathleen"?
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Miles O'Brien and Ben Maxwell served together on what ship?
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