Post by Alenis Meru on Jun 29, 2014 22:21:54 GMT
The Portland Pulse
June 29, 2391
Portland Saves Freighter, Orion Vessel Destroyed
Paddy Glynn
A mundane mission for the USS Portland turned suddenly exciting when the Portland and the USS Fox responded to a distress call from a Bolian freighter.
“We were going about our business when we received a distress call,” said Commander Alenis Meru, commanding officer of the USS Portland. “Of course, we responded immediately.”
In the ensuing battle, both the Portland and the Fox were heavily damaged, however the Orion cruiser was destroyed. The freighter’s cargo, several hundred cases of Yamok sauce, was recovered in full.
“These pirates must have really liked Yamok sauce,” added Admiral James Washington, “so much that they were willing to die for it.”
Tolic Shard Returns Home
Clark Kent
The Bajorans will be one step closer to re-assembling a lost orb next Tuesday, when the fifth Tolic shard will be returned to Bajor at a ceremony honouring the return of the shard and the close relationship between the Federation and the Bajorans.
Details of the recovery are classified, however unofficial sources indicate that it was won in a hand of Tongo.
“This Tolic shard is one of the most significant Bajoran cultural or religious artifacts to be returned in recent years,” said Dr. Ishan Tillar, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Dhakur. “This discovery is one more small step on the path to repairing the damage to Bajoran culture caused by the occupation.”
With the fifth shard recovered, only one remains. Its whereabouts are unknown.
Chief Morale Officer’s Report
Acting Ensign Ko-ko
Last month, we had approximately 35 posts – a new record. Again, many of these were Joint Posts, including a portion of the space battle, showing a higher level of in-character interaction than the raw numbers indicate.
We completed our first mission, rescuing a Bolian freighter that was under attack by Orion pirates. While the Portland and the USS Fox were heavily damaged, in a daring move, Timothy, Tyrlai and Jason took command of the USS Quebec City and attacked the Orion cruiser. Vike, the commander of the Orion pirates, escaped with a stolen cloaking device he plans to sell to the Breen.
Of course, the mission is only half the story – with romantic subplots and the return of a long-lost daughter, the USS Portland has had several interesting stories coming out of our characters’ relationships.
Currently, we’re docked at Deep Space Nine, giving everyone a chance to do some character development and socializing before the banquet, and to get into whatever mischief on DS9 that you can think of.
Finally, awards were handed out recently. Everyone who participated in Mission One received the Expeditionary Medal for participation in the first mission of a new simm. Brad Silverton was awarded the Meritorious Newcomer of the Month award for quickly jumping in and becoming a very active member of the USS Portland. Finally, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Rouse was awarded the Outstanding Volunteer Award for helping out with the website and developing the infrastructure for the USS Portland.
Better Know A Player
Interview with Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Rouse
For the first installment of our hopefully long-running series “better know a player,” we interviewed Agnes, who plays Commander Timothy Rouse, the Executive Officer of the USS Portland.
Q: Tell us a little about the player behind Timothy.
Well, Hi {waves}, My name is Agnes. I'm 26, live in the Netherlands, married and mother of a 1 year old girl. I work at home as a Bookkeeper.
Q: How did you get into Star Trek?
My husband found this movie that he thought we might both like. We like very different movies, so one we both like is seriously rare. The movie was Star Trek (2009), and right after it ended I started googling and reading about Star Trek. I had never heard of it before the movie. That was 3 years ago.
Q: And how about simming? How did you find simming, and find your way to our little corner of the simming universe?
I've always been a very visual person, and I loved reading. I see the stories play in my mind as I'm reading it. Combine that with the urge to write my own stories (but never succeeding in other genres) and soon after I started watching the series whole stories came up in my mind. So I started googling, again, and came across something called RPG. Of this I also had never heard. Eventually I found a Dutch forum, but their Sim was inactive so I asked questions about it. In the mean time I found an American Star Trek RPG site. I came to the bright idea to look for English RPG's as they probably had more people. Three months later I got offered a position as CO of the Dutch RPG, the USS Endeavour. And I was also writing Kate, on the English forum.
Q: What is your favourite part about simming?
The ability to make a character come to life. To make him/her real.
Q: You’ve participated in both English-language and Dutch-language simms. With Dutch as a first language, what sorts of challenges and advantages do you find with each?
In the Netherlands everything is subtitles, but I never watched Star Trek with subtitles, so I didn't know the Dutch names for the technothings and stuff. (I once had to look for 2 hours to find out that the other writer was referring to the Nacelles.) To me Star Trek is English. In Dutch or another language it isn't real Trek. Sterrenschip or Verenigde Federatie de Planeten don't sound as good as Starship or United Federation of Planets.
As for challenges with writing in another language. It's very difficult for me to express emotions in my stories. Because I already have a hard time describing how my character feels in Dutch, but then I need to translate it to English. And I have a real hatred for English words that sound the same, but are written differently. Change/Chance, Personal/Personnel etc.
Q: Tell me about Timothy. What makes him tick, and how did you come up with the character?
I created Tim as a NPC brother of Judith, not with the intention to write him as a PC. But as all my characters were female I liked the challenge of writing a male character for a change. He started out as an over protective big brother, what he still is, but I deepened him in what he is now. A strong, secure male that knows what he wants.
Q: Aside from Timothy, what other characters do you play?
At this moment I have 4 PC's. My first character Kate Banninga who is now a CO of the USS Endeavour (different ship, same name) I also write Mars Solari, Chief Security/Tactical on the USS Deimos and Tharia, Assistant Chief Strategic Operations on the USS Elysium.
Q: One of the most interesting subplots on the USS Portland involves Timothy and Ellen Washington, the daughter of Admiral Washington. How did you come up with this idea, and are you excited with how it has been playing out so far?
Just wanted to try something else. And after worth it fits perfectly with all the other uncommon personal story lines on the Portland.
Q: Do you have any plans for Tim and Ellen in the future?
Yes. As you've already mentioned elsewhere, Ellen is pregnant. So I've got a great plot to develop there. Besides the being pregnant with an almost stranger, Ellen is a very protected and insecure woman, who will have serious trouble talking to her father about her family. She worked her whole life to gain his approval.
Q: Last question – we just have to know – what is your favourite Star Trek series, movie and captain?
Series: everything besides TOS and DS9.
Movie: Both the new movies and the old one where they rescue those whales.
Captain: Kirk, he's cute.
Quotes of the Month
Maria tried to be helpful, "Perhaps the captain won't need you yet and you can keep getting ready. Maybe she'll choose to use the EMH instead of you and you won't have to worry about it."
"OH NO! THAT'S IT! That's where I draw the line. Right here. Right now. I don't care if there is a Borg cube out there. Formal introductions be damned!"
–Brad Silverton
**************************************
"Well it's always good to have something to fall back on." Tyrlai shouldered her 'weapon' and reached for Jena's. "One of the chefs in the commissary is a friend of mine from San Francisco and he knows how to make an old Earth delicacy called the bacon cheeseburger, fancy a stroll or did you have some science you were waiting to do?"
"Ummm, bacon." Jena said. "Petty crime sure makes me hungry. Let's go." She added taking Tyrlai's arm.
-Tyrlai Zade and Coln Jena
***************************************
"Ms. Zade, whatever your plan is... I hope it works. Do it." -Timothy Rouse
***************************************
“Calm down, Shras. You’re scaring Ko-ko.”
“Oh, I’m scaring your stupid bird? Who cares about some dumb bird?! My weapon, my life’s work, you’ve ruined my tests, you nearly got it destroyed, you almost got me killed, which would truly be a tragedy because unlike you I possess an intellect of value…”
Panicked by the shouts of the Andorian, Ko-ko’s fight or flight reflex was engaged. This time, she chose flight, taking to the limited skies of the bridge. Though Ko-ko was more or less housetrained, one curious factoid about her species is that when frightened, they tend to release their cloaca. Flying around near the ceiling of the bridge, it was bombs away for Ko-ko.
“…and you are by far the most idiotic, incompetent, inept--” Shras’ shouts were interrupted by a plop on his head. Shaking, he touched the impact zone with his hand and examined the white residue. “AAAAAAARRGHH!” With that, he stormed off the bridge.
-Alenis Meru and Shras
************************************************
"Me too, 'Dad'." She replied, trying the word for size. Then she smiled. "Enough sadness, sit down and tell me about your brave adventures on the Quebec City."
Jason could help himself from smiling at his daughter's bravery. "So you heard about that did you?"
"Yes, one of the nurses said something about you, Tyrlai and the XO coming to the rescue."
"You've met Lieutenant Zade?"
"Yes, we did some decorating, but it's not important. Less questions, more story."
-Jason Beauvoir
****************************************
"So what? You sometimes need to put you career ahead to get somewhere." Tim paused a second. "Wait, are you uhm, rekindling that relationship? Come on, Meru. You should know better. You're the captain! You can't date a officer on this ship, someone that's below you!"
Alenis immediately shot back. "That's rich, coming from the guy who..."
-Timothy Rouse and Alenis Meru
***************************************
"Oh." He said. Then turned to Alenis and handed back tea cup. "Thank you for the tea, but that really is a disgusting blend. I have some real Vulcan spice tea in my quarters, if you'd like to share it with me some time." He told her.
"I'd love to," replied Alenis, one not prone to turning down a good cup of tea. She gave Jason a warm smile. "My apologies for the tea. Normally, I wouldn't offer my worst enemy a glass of replicated stuff, but without a teapot handy, I didn't have much option."
Jena rolled her eyes. Jason really was incorrigible sometimes. Lying on a biobed, in a weakened state, he'd just asked the Captain out, or rather 'in'.
And even more incredulously, it seemed to be working.
-Jason Beauvoir and Alenis Meru
*********************************************
“Wait!” shouted Zuwtt, the desperation evident in his voice. “What about the antidote?”
Turning Dubois took a small object from his pocket. “Here, these should do the trick.” He said throwing the object to Zuwtt.
Zuwtt stared at the label on the packet. “Antacids? But you…” Suddenly, he realized that the poison wasn’t poison all along. “You tricked me!”
“Of course, it’s illegal to poison people, didn’t your Mama teach you anything?” Dubois said with a smile as he left the room.
-Val Dubois and Zuwtt
******************************************
With a blue fleece bathrobe draped over her shoulders and tied tightly around her waist, Alenis answered the door. "I'm so sorry, Tim." She apologized profusely. "Here, take a seat in my couch while I get changed. I'm really sorry, I slept in. This never happens to me, it must be my change in medication." As she stood in the doorway trying to explain her situation to Tim, behind her, out from her room wandered Arvel, his shirt inside-out.
Tim grinned at the flushed face of the Captain. "Yes, the new medication must be the reason." He chuckled. "At least I'm not the only one having trouble with his alarm clock."
-Alenis Meru and Timothy Rouse
*****************************************
"One more thing, Commander." Washington's face turned deadly serious as he stared into Alenis' eyes. "I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but my daughter is serving on your ship. Ellen Washington is my pride and joy, and if anything happens to her while she is under your command, I will personally make sure you spend the rest of your days flying a cargo ship full of rubber dog toys out of Bolarus IX. You hear me?"
-Admiral Washington
June 29, 2391
Portland Saves Freighter, Orion Vessel Destroyed
Paddy Glynn
A mundane mission for the USS Portland turned suddenly exciting when the Portland and the USS Fox responded to a distress call from a Bolian freighter.
“We were going about our business when we received a distress call,” said Commander Alenis Meru, commanding officer of the USS Portland. “Of course, we responded immediately.”
In the ensuing battle, both the Portland and the Fox were heavily damaged, however the Orion cruiser was destroyed. The freighter’s cargo, several hundred cases of Yamok sauce, was recovered in full.
“These pirates must have really liked Yamok sauce,” added Admiral James Washington, “so much that they were willing to die for it.”
Tolic Shard Returns Home
Clark Kent
The Bajorans will be one step closer to re-assembling a lost orb next Tuesday, when the fifth Tolic shard will be returned to Bajor at a ceremony honouring the return of the shard and the close relationship between the Federation and the Bajorans.
Details of the recovery are classified, however unofficial sources indicate that it was won in a hand of Tongo.
“This Tolic shard is one of the most significant Bajoran cultural or religious artifacts to be returned in recent years,” said Dr. Ishan Tillar, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Dhakur. “This discovery is one more small step on the path to repairing the damage to Bajoran culture caused by the occupation.”
With the fifth shard recovered, only one remains. Its whereabouts are unknown.
Chief Morale Officer’s Report
Acting Ensign Ko-ko
Last month, we had approximately 35 posts – a new record. Again, many of these were Joint Posts, including a portion of the space battle, showing a higher level of in-character interaction than the raw numbers indicate.
We completed our first mission, rescuing a Bolian freighter that was under attack by Orion pirates. While the Portland and the USS Fox were heavily damaged, in a daring move, Timothy, Tyrlai and Jason took command of the USS Quebec City and attacked the Orion cruiser. Vike, the commander of the Orion pirates, escaped with a stolen cloaking device he plans to sell to the Breen.
Of course, the mission is only half the story – with romantic subplots and the return of a long-lost daughter, the USS Portland has had several interesting stories coming out of our characters’ relationships.
Currently, we’re docked at Deep Space Nine, giving everyone a chance to do some character development and socializing before the banquet, and to get into whatever mischief on DS9 that you can think of.
Finally, awards were handed out recently. Everyone who participated in Mission One received the Expeditionary Medal for participation in the first mission of a new simm. Brad Silverton was awarded the Meritorious Newcomer of the Month award for quickly jumping in and becoming a very active member of the USS Portland. Finally, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Rouse was awarded the Outstanding Volunteer Award for helping out with the website and developing the infrastructure for the USS Portland.
Better Know A Player
Interview with Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Rouse
For the first installment of our hopefully long-running series “better know a player,” we interviewed Agnes, who plays Commander Timothy Rouse, the Executive Officer of the USS Portland.
Q: Tell us a little about the player behind Timothy.
Well, Hi {waves}, My name is Agnes. I'm 26, live in the Netherlands, married and mother of a 1 year old girl. I work at home as a Bookkeeper.
Q: How did you get into Star Trek?
My husband found this movie that he thought we might both like. We like very different movies, so one we both like is seriously rare. The movie was Star Trek (2009), and right after it ended I started googling and reading about Star Trek. I had never heard of it before the movie. That was 3 years ago.
Q: And how about simming? How did you find simming, and find your way to our little corner of the simming universe?
I've always been a very visual person, and I loved reading. I see the stories play in my mind as I'm reading it. Combine that with the urge to write my own stories (but never succeeding in other genres) and soon after I started watching the series whole stories came up in my mind. So I started googling, again, and came across something called RPG. Of this I also had never heard. Eventually I found a Dutch forum, but their Sim was inactive so I asked questions about it. In the mean time I found an American Star Trek RPG site. I came to the bright idea to look for English RPG's as they probably had more people. Three months later I got offered a position as CO of the Dutch RPG, the USS Endeavour. And I was also writing Kate, on the English forum.
Q: What is your favourite part about simming?
The ability to make a character come to life. To make him/her real.
Q: You’ve participated in both English-language and Dutch-language simms. With Dutch as a first language, what sorts of challenges and advantages do you find with each?
In the Netherlands everything is subtitles, but I never watched Star Trek with subtitles, so I didn't know the Dutch names for the technothings and stuff. (I once had to look for 2 hours to find out that the other writer was referring to the Nacelles.) To me Star Trek is English. In Dutch or another language it isn't real Trek. Sterrenschip or Verenigde Federatie de Planeten don't sound as good as Starship or United Federation of Planets.
As for challenges with writing in another language. It's very difficult for me to express emotions in my stories. Because I already have a hard time describing how my character feels in Dutch, but then I need to translate it to English. And I have a real hatred for English words that sound the same, but are written differently. Change/Chance, Personal/Personnel etc.
Q: Tell me about Timothy. What makes him tick, and how did you come up with the character?
I created Tim as a NPC brother of Judith, not with the intention to write him as a PC. But as all my characters were female I liked the challenge of writing a male character for a change. He started out as an over protective big brother, what he still is, but I deepened him in what he is now. A strong, secure male that knows what he wants.
Q: Aside from Timothy, what other characters do you play?
At this moment I have 4 PC's. My first character Kate Banninga who is now a CO of the USS Endeavour (different ship, same name) I also write Mars Solari, Chief Security/Tactical on the USS Deimos and Tharia, Assistant Chief Strategic Operations on the USS Elysium.
Q: One of the most interesting subplots on the USS Portland involves Timothy and Ellen Washington, the daughter of Admiral Washington. How did you come up with this idea, and are you excited with how it has been playing out so far?
Just wanted to try something else. And after worth it fits perfectly with all the other uncommon personal story lines on the Portland.
Q: Do you have any plans for Tim and Ellen in the future?
Yes. As you've already mentioned elsewhere, Ellen is pregnant. So I've got a great plot to develop there. Besides the being pregnant with an almost stranger, Ellen is a very protected and insecure woman, who will have serious trouble talking to her father about her family. She worked her whole life to gain his approval.
Q: Last question – we just have to know – what is your favourite Star Trek series, movie and captain?
Series: everything besides TOS and DS9.
Movie: Both the new movies and the old one where they rescue those whales.
Captain: Kirk, he's cute.
Quotes of the Month
Maria tried to be helpful, "Perhaps the captain won't need you yet and you can keep getting ready. Maybe she'll choose to use the EMH instead of you and you won't have to worry about it."
"OH NO! THAT'S IT! That's where I draw the line. Right here. Right now. I don't care if there is a Borg cube out there. Formal introductions be damned!"
–Brad Silverton
**************************************
"Well it's always good to have something to fall back on." Tyrlai shouldered her 'weapon' and reached for Jena's. "One of the chefs in the commissary is a friend of mine from San Francisco and he knows how to make an old Earth delicacy called the bacon cheeseburger, fancy a stroll or did you have some science you were waiting to do?"
"Ummm, bacon." Jena said. "Petty crime sure makes me hungry. Let's go." She added taking Tyrlai's arm.
-Tyrlai Zade and Coln Jena
***************************************
"Ms. Zade, whatever your plan is... I hope it works. Do it." -Timothy Rouse
***************************************
“Calm down, Shras. You’re scaring Ko-ko.”
“Oh, I’m scaring your stupid bird? Who cares about some dumb bird?! My weapon, my life’s work, you’ve ruined my tests, you nearly got it destroyed, you almost got me killed, which would truly be a tragedy because unlike you I possess an intellect of value…”
Panicked by the shouts of the Andorian, Ko-ko’s fight or flight reflex was engaged. This time, she chose flight, taking to the limited skies of the bridge. Though Ko-ko was more or less housetrained, one curious factoid about her species is that when frightened, they tend to release their cloaca. Flying around near the ceiling of the bridge, it was bombs away for Ko-ko.
“…and you are by far the most idiotic, incompetent, inept--” Shras’ shouts were interrupted by a plop on his head. Shaking, he touched the impact zone with his hand and examined the white residue. “AAAAAAARRGHH!” With that, he stormed off the bridge.
-Alenis Meru and Shras
************************************************
"Me too, 'Dad'." She replied, trying the word for size. Then she smiled. "Enough sadness, sit down and tell me about your brave adventures on the Quebec City."
Jason could help himself from smiling at his daughter's bravery. "So you heard about that did you?"
"Yes, one of the nurses said something about you, Tyrlai and the XO coming to the rescue."
"You've met Lieutenant Zade?"
"Yes, we did some decorating, but it's not important. Less questions, more story."
-Jason Beauvoir
****************************************
"So what? You sometimes need to put you career ahead to get somewhere." Tim paused a second. "Wait, are you uhm, rekindling that relationship? Come on, Meru. You should know better. You're the captain! You can't date a officer on this ship, someone that's below you!"
Alenis immediately shot back. "That's rich, coming from the guy who..."
-Timothy Rouse and Alenis Meru
***************************************
"Oh." He said. Then turned to Alenis and handed back tea cup. "Thank you for the tea, but that really is a disgusting blend. I have some real Vulcan spice tea in my quarters, if you'd like to share it with me some time." He told her.
"I'd love to," replied Alenis, one not prone to turning down a good cup of tea. She gave Jason a warm smile. "My apologies for the tea. Normally, I wouldn't offer my worst enemy a glass of replicated stuff, but without a teapot handy, I didn't have much option."
Jena rolled her eyes. Jason really was incorrigible sometimes. Lying on a biobed, in a weakened state, he'd just asked the Captain out, or rather 'in'.
And even more incredulously, it seemed to be working.
-Jason Beauvoir and Alenis Meru
*********************************************
“Wait!” shouted Zuwtt, the desperation evident in his voice. “What about the antidote?”
Turning Dubois took a small object from his pocket. “Here, these should do the trick.” He said throwing the object to Zuwtt.
Zuwtt stared at the label on the packet. “Antacids? But you…” Suddenly, he realized that the poison wasn’t poison all along. “You tricked me!”
“Of course, it’s illegal to poison people, didn’t your Mama teach you anything?” Dubois said with a smile as he left the room.
-Val Dubois and Zuwtt
******************************************
With a blue fleece bathrobe draped over her shoulders and tied tightly around her waist, Alenis answered the door. "I'm so sorry, Tim." She apologized profusely. "Here, take a seat in my couch while I get changed. I'm really sorry, I slept in. This never happens to me, it must be my change in medication." As she stood in the doorway trying to explain her situation to Tim, behind her, out from her room wandered Arvel, his shirt inside-out.
Tim grinned at the flushed face of the Captain. "Yes, the new medication must be the reason." He chuckled. "At least I'm not the only one having trouble with his alarm clock."
-Alenis Meru and Timothy Rouse
*****************************************
"One more thing, Commander." Washington's face turned deadly serious as he stared into Alenis' eyes. "I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but my daughter is serving on your ship. Ellen Washington is my pride and joy, and if anything happens to her while she is under your command, I will personally make sure you spend the rest of your days flying a cargo ship full of rubber dog toys out of Bolarus IX. You hear me?"
-Admiral Washington
